Like, Totally Gnarly!

Girls were everywhere in 80's pop music.  Bowie had his China girl, Madonna was the Material Girl, Duran Duran put their girls on film, and Motley Crue just wanted girls, girls, girls, but my favorite was, and still is, Moon Zappa's vapid Southern Californian with the obnoxious speech pattern and daddy's credit card, the valley girl, because let's face it, anyone who cares that much about her social status, personal appearance and shopping is a girl after my own heart.

Three Pounds of Orange

If you're anything like me (God help you!) you spent last weekend binge-watching Orange Is The New Black and blew through all thirteen episodes of season four even though you promised yourself you'd make the season last a little longer after going through withdrawal at the end of last season.  Well I've managed to keep my promise, and am up to episode eight because I'm not a glutton anymore.  Not for TV shows.  Not for shopping.  And not for food, as evidenced by the three pounds I lost last week thanks to exercise, a healthy diet and a stomach virus on Friday that forced me to get my nutrients, and later a bad case of the shits, from a bottle of V8 because I didn't have the energy to cook or do much of anything but watch Orange Is The New Black.  But whatever.  Three pounds is three pounds.

Fallon, Is That You?

It's not every day you get to meet one of the worst recasts in TV history.  They changed the portrait in the mansion, put her in that sexy red Nolan Miller gown and gave her love scenes with John James, but 30-some years later I still don't accept Emma Samms as Fallon Carrington on Dynasty.  And I oughta know.  As a ride or die fan who has seen every episode at least twice (including the dreadful last season when half the cast was gone and the writers gave up half way through) her teary-eyed, put upon victim was nowhere near the selfish, spoiled slut of the Pamela Sue Martin years.  That's why I told her I'd been a fan of hers since General Hospital instead.  And she couldn't have been lovelier.

Pop Stars and Pearls of Wisdom

Things I've learned from Howard Jones:

1.  You can look at the menu but you just can't eat.
2.  Don't try to live your life in one day.  Don't go speed your time away.
3.  Don't be fooled by what you see.  Don't be fooled by what you hear.
4.  No one ever is to blame.
5.  Things can only get better.

Thirty plus years after hitting the pop charts the porcupine haired synthesizer player dusted off his pearls of wisdom and took them on the road with a stop yesterday at the Today Show, where he led the audience in an acapella version of New Song during a commercial break.

"I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are...."

You know you're old when groups you listened to growing up are now celebrating milestone anniversaries.  Such is the case with 80's synthpop group Book of Love, whose '85 anthem Boy gave an anxious 15 year old who felt different, questioned his sexuality and wanted to be part of something bigger the courage to leave the small upstate New York town he grew up in and make his own way in the world.  Fast forward to 2016: the group is set to play a 30th anniversary concert at the Highline Ballroom next week and I'm too old and tired to go to any show without assigned seats.

Where does the time go?

Ze is Kate

One of the bright spots in the unwatchable mess that was I Am Cait was transgender activist, author and performance artist Kate Bornstein, who slapped Caitlyn Jenner with a healthy dose of "Bitch, sit down, shut up and pay attention" every time she spouted some elitist, uninformed, pro-Republican bullshit from the bubble of delusion she lives in.  Kate does not identify as male or female and prefers the gender neutral pronouns "ze/hir" in place of "she/her" or "he/him", which I don't really understand, but there are lots of things I don't understand, like German, kids who wear their pants below their ass, or why Kylie Minogue isn't more popular in America, so to each their own I guess.

Solid Gold! Filling Up My Life With Music!

One of the coolest things about growing up in the '80s was the incredible music. If you weren't listening to Casey Kasem's long distance dedications every Sunday you were being introduced to the newest hits from Culture Club and Madonna, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, U2, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, INXS, Eurythmics and Duran Duran on one of the greatest television shows to ever grace the airwaves, Solid Gold.  Bands would lip synch to their songs while the Solid Gold Dancers (Hey Darcel!) swished and swayed like twerking gazelles in heat in sequined headbands in the background, the whole mess presided over by a who's who of "Who?"s like Dionne Warwick, Rex Smith, Andy Gibb and the fabulous Marilyn McCoo, who never missed an opportunity to crowbar one of her own songs into an episode .  I KNOW!  Next to Battle of the Network Stars this was some great shit!

Life Isn't Fair - The Marla Maples Edition

Poor Marla Maples. Can you imagine the unenviable task of having sex with rotting jack-o-lantern Donald Trump, a six-year sentence that she served out in a gaudy pink marble palace atop the Trump Tower, giving birth to his unfortunate looking child, then getting traded in for a younger, shinier model just before the prenup jumps up to a higher bracket?  And now that younger, shinier model has a 50/50 chance of being the First Lady of the United States (dear God I hope not!) while you're packing up your dressing room after being voted off of Dancing With The Stars.  Life really isn't fair.

Vive Le Rock

Often referred to as "The Man Who Shot the Seventies", photographer Mick Rock has shot iconic images of rock and roll legends like Queen, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and The Stooges, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Joan Jett, Talking Heads, Roxy Music and Blondie. As well as being chief photographer on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, he was also David Bowie's official photographer during the Ziggy Stardust era, which means the man's got STORIES.  Unfortunately, a thick British accent and slight intoxication meant I couldn't understand a fucking word he was saying as he signed The Rise of David Bowie at TASCHEN Gallery tonight.  Rock 'n roll, dude.