Silver Spoons and Social Networks

Let's face it, being a child star is hazardous to your health.  Witness Britney Spears, under conservatorship since 2007 after an epic public meltdown.  I always hoped I'd catch her mid 5150, barefoot with a cigarette in one hand and a bag of Cheetos in the other, mumbling to herself with a fake British accent at the Starbuck's in West Hollywood, but God works in mysterious ways and that never happened.  Witness Lindsay Lohan, back in rehab for the sixth time.  She spends so much time in court that her life looks like a Law & Order: SVU k-hole.  Witness Amanda Bynes, TMZ's current dream come true, melting down as we speak, and likely to do something else crazy before you finish reading this blog entry.  And don't get me started with that pot-smoking, shit talking, monkey abandoning, speed demon lipstick lesbian Justin Bieber. 

It makes me long for the good old days when Jody Foster went to college and nothing came between Brooke and her Calvins.  Back in the days when, for every Dana Plato, Corey Haim or Macauley Culkin who rode their fame straight through the tabloids there's a Neil Patrick Harris, Ron Howard or Olson twin navigating their way safely.  Some even go full blown religious, like that homophobic, career evaporated evangelical crazy Kirk Cameron, or magic underwear-wearing super Mormon Ricky, no Rick, no Ricky Schroder, who was at Fox & Friends this morning promoting God only knows what.  I managed to catch him leaving the studio thanks to a tip from Marie, who was there getting autographs.  He posed for a picture, which would have been SO much better if he'd ridden out of the studio on that scale model freight train from Silver Spoons, which was the best part of that shit show that made him famous in the '80s. 

Jesse Eisenberg was at Good Morning America this morning, but what can I write about him except that he has no ass, and his pants hung like an Eminem-wannabe rapper, except he wasn't trying to be gangsta and just has no ass.

I was really hoping to catch Tan Mom leaving Sirius, because what a fucked up picture THAT would have been, but Howard Stern interviewed her before Katie Couric this morning for some reason, and I just couldn't get there in time.  Speaking of crazy, I wonder what Amanda Bynes is doing right now?

Hot Time Summer in the City

Ahh...Memorial Day weekend, that time of year when the city starts to smell like a mixture of piss, burnt soft pretzel and three day body odor, Chelsea empties out each weekend as the queens descend on Fire Island, and the morning shows try to outdo each other with their Friday morning summer concert series, a free half hour of live music by some of the 'hottest' names in music.  To clarify, you have to get up at the ass crack of dawn, haul yourself to Rockefeller Center or Central Park, and wait in a line that rivals Hands Across America hoping to get a front row spot when the gates open at 6AM for the 8:30 concert, weather be damned, or hope you have a great zoom if you think for a second you're going to get a clear picture with everyone bumping into you and raising their hands in the air and getting in your fucking way.  Or if it's Fox and Friends, you can show up at 8:30, grab some free BBQ and stand with about a dozen of your best friends while some no name talent show winner or has been C-lister entertains you for half an hour.

This morning, the options were Mariah Carey in Central Park on Good Morning America, fun. on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ on Today, and Michael Bolton on the corner of 48th and Sixth Avenue outside Fox and Friends.  I had a ticket for Mariah (shows are always free, but for big names where they're trying to control crowd size GMA issues tickets) but with all the rain yesterday, the fact that I've shot Mariah before and my general distaste for large crowds of obnoxious people, I chose to skip it.  Bad move.  Miss Thing was a trainwreck this morning in her Amanda Bynes weave, rambling about what time she does or doesn't wake up, popping out of her three sizes too small Ver-sayce, and then blaming poor Donatella.  I mean really!  You can't force a watermelon into a garden hose Mimi!  It would have been so great to start my summer with the emancipation of Mimi on live TV, but instead I had BBQ ribs and chicken for breakfast while listening to the soothing sounds of someone trying to pass a stone, I mean Michael Bolton. 

I've had 'When a Man Loves a Woman' stuck in my head all day, and for that I say fuck you Michael Bolton! 

Mr. Worldwide hits Times Square

Dancing with the Stars loves to whore it's cast out each season.  "Stars" do the ho stroll before the season starts in an effort to drum up viewers for a show that's clearly jumped the shark, and then do the walk of shame like my ex roommate on a Sunday morning after a night out at Salvation once they've been booted from the show, telling Jimmy Kimmel how much fun they had, and what great exercise dancing is, and how they'll be best friends forever with their dance partner whose phone number they've already deleted from their iPhone.  Good Morning America must have signed a pact with the devil, because their coverage of the show has been borderline stalker for the last two years, and if I were that Earring Magic Ken doll Derek Hough I'd watch my back when I'm out in West Hollywood because if TMZ's not there, GMA is! 

This morning, GMA rolled out the red carpet for the final four couples, (translation: after dancing nonstop for thirteen weeks, culminating in last nights finale, the 'stars' took a redeye to New York to crosspromote one last time on another ABC show instead of putting icy hot on their aching muscles and pouring themselves a drink) pimping them for one final dance at 8AM after no sleep on a makeshift dancefloor in the middle of Times Square for the entertainment of Bonnie and Jim from Tuskaloosa, proudly holding up their 'We Love Zendaya' neon green sign when it's clear they never heard of Zendaya before the show.  I haven't watched the show since Pamela Anderson was voted off, so the whole spectacle was lost on me, but as I passed by on my way to work, so did Pitbull, who was also there to perform.  I don't really get the appeal of this guy, but I remember seeing his face plastered on the Y-100 billboards on NE Second Avenue every morning on my way to work when I lived in Miami, and that damn collaboration with Christina Aguilera gets stuck my head like a stutter, plus my boyfriend's cousin Athena is straight jacket nuts about him, so I pulled out my camera and got this shot.  Imagine if I'd put some effort into it.

Jewel, Zoe, Celebrity Apprentice All Stars and Betsey Johnson

Fasten your seatbelts kids, because Thursday was a hell of a day!

It all started with a trip to Good Morning America, where Jewel was performing live.  I'm not much of a Jewel fan...in fact, some of her songs are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, but she's done some amazing acoustic performances on the Howard Stern show, and her interviews are always captivating, so I figured what the hell, let me head down to Times Square and see about getting a picture.  The crowd was mostly confined to the roped off area where they could be on TV when Sam Champion comes out to do the weather because we all know how far those bragging rights go with the Friday night bowling set back in the heartland, so I had a pretty decent vantage point to get a shot of Jewel when she finally came into the studio.  She's a tiny little thing, and looked adorable in an orange Herve Leger-type bandage dress, giving sexy Tang with breakfast.  A little wave to the fans and I didn't need to stay and hear her crap song.

Arrested Development also had a frozen banana stand in Times Square as part of a promotional effort around the new episodes that are about to air on Netflix, which would be a bigger deal to me if I watched the show but I don't and I didn't and I don't understand the cultural significance of the banana stand but here's a picture of it anyway because maybe you do.

My friend Marie gave me the heads up that Zoe Saldana would be at Sirius around 10AM, so took a cigarette break even though I don't smoke and headed over, hoping to snap a shot.  Marie was there with Joe, who is always good for information if he would ever share any of it, and a couple other photographers showed up before Zoe did.  When she finally arrived, she was nice enough to pose for a few pictures and sign a few autographs.  This guy tried handing me his disposable camera asking if I'd take a picture of him with her, but the cunt in me was like 'sorry bitch, I'm getting my own picture of her' and didn't take it.  He looked at me like 'what an asshole' which yeah, I was, but I excused myself with the bullshit that I was 'too in the zone in the moment' and 'you know how it is.'  I did get a picture of him with her on my camera, so he gave me his card and later emailed it to him, which is why you see half of his head in this picture because he was standing too close to her for me to completely crop him out.  So I'm not such an asshole after all.  Yeah, right.

Marie and I got a good laugh about that, and she later told me that RJ told her that Donald Trump was doing the Celebrity Apprentice press conference at Trump Tower 'around 12ish.'  So I took my lunch hour around 11:40ish and headed over to Trump Tower, where I was one of the first few people there because, as it turns out, 12ish was really 12:30ish and I was early.  I've been watching Celebrity Apprentice the last couple seasons, and the task for the two finalists was to come up with a new ice cream flavor that could be sold at Duane Reade (because when I think of ice cream I think of Duane Reade) and the girl who was coordinating the press conference was handing out pints of the flavors.  Yeah, free pints of ice cream, courtesy of Donald Trump and Duane Reade.  I took a pint of Penn Jillette's 'Vanilla Chocolate Magic Swirtle', hoping it wouldn't melt all over Trump Tower's marble floors while we waited.  Out came Donald Trump to talk about how this season was 'the greatest season of Celebrity Apprentice ever' and he really is a giant ego inflated windbag, with skin that's not quite white, but more of a diluted urine yellow mixed with Cheeto residue orange and hair that looks like cotton candy and tumbleweeds, but thanks for the ice cream.

Then out marched the dutiful final four, Lil Jon, Lisa Rinna, Penn Jillette and Trace Adkins, to do the dog and pony show that is part of the deal they made with the devil when they signed up to do this show.  Lil Jon has been one of my favorites both seasons he was on, and he did not disappoint in person.  He's a badass, but in a fun, life of the party way, and it was cool to see him in person.

I used to see Lisa Rinna all the time when I would go to Soap Chat tapings in Los Angeles before it got cancelled (don't judge), and she seems like a really fun chick too.  She always gives great sound bites, and her interviews with Howard Stern are brutally honest, and she's actually kinda pretty in spite of those lips.

Penn Jillette and Trace Adkins are giants.  I mean, physically huge, like sequoia trees.  They should be planted in Yellowstone National Park with a roped off area around them and a plaque commemorating their hugeness so that people can buy tickets and bring a picnic basket to come and visit them or something.  Penn is just as scary looking in person as on TV, and I can't quite pinpoint what it is that makes him so freakish, because it's not just the massive height or Lurch-like posture or beady eyes or glasses or age-inappropriate ponytail or undertaker wardrobe but all of those things combined into one giant Vanilla Chocolate Magic Swirtle mess.

Trace is just a big mumbling lumberjack of a man in a ten gallon hat and the enthusiasm of a coma.  Maybe it's his southern roots and general discomfort with the big city, like when Dolly Parton sang about her 'Tennessee Homesick Blues' while stuck in a longterm contract in a sleazy urban cowboy New York City nightclub in the cinematic gem Rhinestone, but he seemed like a fish out of water standing there in Trump Tower.  A big fish, like a marlin or something.

So then I went back to work, put my ice cream in the freezer, and busted my ass for a few hours until it was time to go see Betsey Johnson at Macy's on my way to my therapist.  Betsey is the punk rock princess of fashion, and although her company went bankrupt last year, she's still going strong at 70 with a collaboration with Steve Madden and a new reality show on Style Network, which I think it what she was promoting.  There were about a billion people at Macy's waiting to meet her, and I arrived just as she was parading through the store like the gay pride parade.  She's an icon in the fashion industry, a legend in the city, and it was cool to see that many people turn out to meet her.  If only they'd been loyal customers she might still have a business.  I, of course, pushed my way through the crowd and managed to snap a few photos before heading to my therapist.

Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet

Though it sweeps the Emmy awards each year and has a cult-like following, I've never drunk the Modern Family kool-aid.  When my boyfriend and I went to see Sandra Bernhard in December Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his boyfriend were seated at the table behind us, and I probably would have geeked the fuck out if I watched the show, but instead I just sat and sipped my diet coke and took in the brilliance of Bernhard.  I remember Sofia Vergara from a number of failed television shows, her even bigger failed relationship with a Miami nightclub promoter who ended up going to jail for murder, and her name planted in every issue of Ocean Drive magazine by an overworked publicist back in the days when she was trying to differentiate herself from every other cholita on the South Beach ho stroll trying to catch a break.  And who can forget Ed O'Neill's star-making turn as Al Bundy back in the days when Married with Children and The Simpsons were the only things on Fox?  But for the life of me I've never heard of Eric Stonestreet before Modern Family.

Yesterday, Eric was at Good Morning America, and couldn't have been nicer.  He did an interview outside in Times Square, and made the effort to go down the line and speak with each person, sign autographs, and make the middle-aged ladies in their pastel embroidered sweatshirts and the obligatory bobbed haircut required in order to collect social security benefits feel special while their husbands, bursting at the seams in too tight track jackets, dutifully take pictures so they brag to their friends when they go back to middle America.  He was very nice, and I was in and out in twenty minutes, after a lady was kind enough to give me her spot at the barricade and regale me with a story about her hairdresser, Amanda Bynes, and shitty extensions.  Now THAT'S a picture!

Jimmy, Huey and the News

I used to go to the Jimmy Kimmel show all the time when I lived in LA.  The tickets were easy to get, the location was convenient, the show was a lot of fun and had good guests, and I knew where the backstage door was, which is always a plus.  Of all the late night talk show hosts, Jimmy has the sensibility I relate to the most.  Maybe it's because he's friends with Howard Stern, maybe it's because he's closer in age than Letterman or that dick Jay Leno, maybe he's just a better comedian, I don't know.  Jimmy was in town early this week for the ABC upfronts, and made a pit stop at Good Morning America on Monday morning for the 8:00 hour.  I had a much better picture than this one, except that the damn electronic billboards in Times Square were reflected on his face and I don't know enough about photoshop to fix that, so here's Jimmy Kimmel.

Somebody dug up Huey Lewis and the News, and they were at GMA too, which would have been really cool in 1983 but was much more nostalgia now.  I know, right?  I guess that makes them old news?  Ha ha ha! 

And then this happened

I'd like to think I have my finger on the pulse of pop culture.  I get my news from TMZ, Dlisted and Perez Hilton as much as I get it from CNN, and twitter keeps me up to the minute whenever Lindsay fucks up again or there's another Nicki-Mariah blowup, but there are some things that even I don't understand.  Apparently there's a thing called Duck Dynasty.  Imagine my disappointment when I went to Good Morning America on Tuesday hoping to see Baz Luhrmann and instead found the mutant spawn of Larry, his brother Darryl, and his other brother Darryl if they lived in a toxic waste dump.  I don't think of camouflage or mud when I think of Dynasty, and I'm not going to start now.

Disappointed, I headed over to the Today Show, hoping to catch Zachary Quinto promoting the new Star Trek movie, but he pulled a diva move and went through the garage, so instead I got a shot of Miranda Lambert promoting something on Access Hollywood.  For some reason I thought she was fatter.

Reese Witherspoon 'apologizes'

Reese Witherspoon was doing the ho stroll to promote her new film Mud, and more importantly, spin herself out of the arrest mess a few weeks ago.  Her mea culpa to Good Morning America seemed very well rehearsed: "Just one of those nights....too many glasses of wine....thought we were okay to drive...completely unacceptable...we know better...so sorry...embarrassed...poor judgement....made a mistake....never happen again...blah blah blah."  Her publicist was working OVERTIME scripting this mess and Reese delivered an Oscar winning performance, unless you're a jaded bitch like me and saw right through it.  Of mouthing off to the police came this word vomit: "I think I played a lawyer in a movie so many times I think I am a lawyer, and clearly I'm not a lawyer."  Girl, you are clearly blonde and confused...you're not channeling a lawyer, you're channeling Vanessa Lutz from Freeway, the best role of your career.  (Seriously, check this movie out and thank me later.)  And if you really wanted to bounce back from this 'mistake' you could have signed a few autographs on your way out instead of the head down, pursed lips, fart smelling expression, straight to the SUV walk of shame after the interview.  But no worries, you lost me when you quit bouncing on Ryan Phillippe's peen.

Oh, and Ben Kingsley was there too, promoting Iron Man 3, which is probably as far away from Ghandi as one can get.

What would Brian Boitano do?

Tonight was one of those nights where I had multiple events that I wanted to attend in different parts of the city all around the same time.  Brian Boitano, Olympic gold medalist and the object of my teenage lust after a shirtless picture appeared in People magazine at the height of his career, was promoting his new cookbook at Barnes & Noble in Chelsea at 6PM, Bookmarc in the West Village was celebrating punk rock with 'Just Chaos' a celebration of Roberta Bayley's photo exhibit from 6-8PM, and the fabulous Isabella Rossellini was speaking at the Apple Store in Soho at 7:30PM.  Decisions, decisions, de-fucking-cisions.

My initial thought was that Brian would be an easy get.  The store is set up so that you see the celebrity signing area right when you walk in, so I figured I'd get in, snap the shot and get out quickly, which would have happened if they'd started on time, but noo....Brian finally came out at 6:20 after I'd rushed from work to get there by 6, which just goes to show you that I should calm the hell down.  Anyway, he's no longer sexy, the voice just screams GAY, and I couldn't get the song from South Park out of my head.

Feeling pressed for time and unsure how large a crowd Isabella Rossellini would command, I decided to forgo the punk party and head straight to the Apple store, ignoring the little voice in my head that kept telling me that maybe Debbie Harry would be there, and that I should have brought my vintage Rolling Stone with Blondie on the cover for her to sign like I'd wanted to this morning when I was getting ready for work.  And damned if that little voice wasn't right.  Full disclosure: I didn't take this photo, but the folks at Bookmarc were kind enough to rub salt in my wound and tweet it as I was sitting at the Apple store waiting for Isabella.  One way or another, Debbie Harry will sign my Rolling Stone. 

Thankfully, Isabella made it all worthwhile, speaking in that delicious velvet Italian accent of hers about the transition from modeling to acting, her parents Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, even sharing a few of the short films she's working on. To be in the presence of Hollywood royalty, especially a once in a lifetime opportunity like this one, was pretty damn cool.  Thanks to my friend Rick for letting me know about this event!

I want my MTV!

Tonight I was treated to a delicious flashback to my childhood, in Brooklyn of all places (the flashback, not my childhood), thanks to Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn, the four original MTV VJs.  Ahh, MTV.  Who can forget the halcyon days of music television, when Madonna was still like a virgin, when Michael Jackson was still black, and when gender benders like Annie Lennox and Boy George resonated in the mind of a young gay boy in a small town who knew he didn't fit in but couldn't figure out why?  I remember going to my friend Sandy Lehr's house to watch hours of videos because my parents were too cheap to get cable at the time.  Pat Benatar, all voice and leotard hotness, Duran Duran taking me on exotic trips to far off lands, Billy Idol....ah Billy Idol!  We watched those videos like they were religion, and in Fredonia, New York in the early 80's they were.  And who can forget Live Aid, the 17 hour concert to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia?  MTV broadcast all 17 hours, and I would have been glued to the television set for every minute if I didn't have to go to my cousin Ruthie's high school graduation party in Cheektowaga.  I mean really?  Who schedules their graduation party on the same day as Live Aid?  MTV was my childhood, and I am thankful to Martha, Nina, Mark, Alan and Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn for giving me a chance to reminisce with them in their new book VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave. 

Arrests and Surprises

Celebrity comes in many shapes and sizes these days.  Thanks to reality television and social media, anyone can be a star.  Justin Bieber would be an unknown lipstick lesbian looking Canadian teenager if it wasn't for YouTube.  Without reality TV, Honey Boo Boo would be a hopped up hillbilly JonBenet Ramsey, and there'd be no such thing as a Kardashian.  Even (alleged-ahem) criminals like Jodi Arias and Casey Anthony land on the cover of People magazine, that arbiter of all things famous, and that's why we know about Amanda Knox, the American girl who's conviction for murdering her roommate was overturned by an Italian court.
Dubbed Foxy Knoxy by the press, she looked more like BLAHmanda Knox to me on Wednesday May 1st when she appeared on Good Morning America to pimp out a book telling her side of the story.  Because isn't it all about the book deal in the end?

That same day, Carey Mulligan showed up to promote The Great Gatsby, which opens this Friday in a theatre near you.  She was originally scheduled for Friday, so it was a pleasant surprise for everyone when she arrived.  I, of course, missed it, and had to be content with this shot of her leaving.  GMA is getting hardcore with their security, and the photographer/autographer pen is much further back than it used to be.  I guess they're trying to limit the interaction with the celebrities and discourage the autographers, and it's making it a real pain in the ass.

Gary Busey - Crazier than a mechanical dog

For the last three seasons, one of my guilty pleasures in life has been The Celebrity Apprentice.  Famous people lying, cheating and backstabbing each other in the name of charity for Donald Trump's amusement...what's not to love?  And the best part of this season has been weirdo force-of-nature Gary Busey, who's brand of bat shit crazy includes voicing random acronyms ("FART: feeling a rectal transmission") and questionably brilliant but mostly insane Buseyisms such as "Your imagination is the hood ornament on the car of creativity" while generally scaring the shit out of his teammates with his unrestrained enthusiasm.  So I had mixed feelings when he was fired from the show on Sunday and had to leave the comfort of the stained La-Z-Boy in his TV room to do press for the show.

First stop, Sirius studios.  I'm not sure what show, or shows, he was on, but it felt like we waited for eoooooons. I should have thought to bring a few granola bars for sustenance, a sleeping bag, a copy of War & Peace, a catheter and a shot of adrenaline to wake me up for the last couple of minutes.  When he finally came out, disheveled and slightly bemused by the world, the publicist tried to rush him to the car before he could share his sparkly lunatic dust with the crowd, and I managed to snap a quick shot.

The weekly Celebrity Apprentice press conference at Trump Tower the next day, which I only just found out about dammit, was a little more controlled.  A step and repeat was set up, and Extra was there as Donald Trump gushed about what a terrific guy Gary is and what a great job he did on the show and how he raised a lot of money for his charity, which is the same fill in the blank monologue he uses every week when all he really cares about is how the show does in the ratings, while Gary stood by looking slightly sedated and barely able to keep from drooling on himself.  The camera turned to Gary, who flashed a smile so big he nearly blinded the lady next to me with those jumbo chiclet teeth and let forth with a trail mix of poetry so beautiful it should be knitted on your meemaw's pillows.

Observations:  Donald Trump's cotton candy hair and Cheeto complexion are unnerving in person and the Celebrity Apprentice ratings will probably drop this week now that Gary Busey is getting a hug from a straight jacket.  But thanks for the pictures kids!