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.
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