rivercityvibe   “Puerile, smutty, schoolboy nonsense” – My Mom

You’ll recall I recently offered a prize to anyone who could send me a picture of America’s Next Top Model aspirant Babyann Hernandez, interviewed by the NY Daily News after the recent riot at the audition? My intent was to further mock the lowering of the 5’7″ height requirements.

Babyann, it turns out, is 5’5″ but makes up for it in other ways. How do I know this? Because she entered the competition herself by sending a dozen pictures and we have had quite a nice chat on email. More importantly, she is a babe and has something of a genuine axe to grind about the way the auditions turned out.

Tidy

You see it turns out that the models were not the only ones panicking. Tyra Banks and her team were doing their nuts, inside, frightened for their own safety. Aware that wholesale cancellation of the audition would likely result in them being chased naked through the streets of NY by a baying crowd of stilletto wearing wannabes, they came up with a half-assed plan to assuage the auditioners, and enable them to get out of Dodge as quickly as possible. Babyann describes it like this:

…….they went outside to try and calm them down they said everyone would be seen…only what they meant was you’d go into a room fill out a form then the camera would would go to each person and you were to state your name age height and weight…No hi’s or  my name is…you couldnt show any personality …and you had to do it quickly…then from that the casting director would pick whoever and those would get to audition the right way.

Needless to say, this technique, which makes the electoral college system seem fair by comparison, meant our girl did not get picked. And there’s only one application per cycle according THE RULES.

nice

Then I remembered that this is a TV show. A reality TV show. The rules mean nothing! So I have already contacted Tyra’s people protesting the treatment of Babyann and the others. I have already expressed outrage (Bones Rule # 3 – but I’m faking, for comic effect) and I advise you to do the same.

I mean, seriously, this is the worst thing to happen since part of Janet Jackson’s boob got shown on TV, right? We need ACTION!

Tyra Banks Manager: Benny Medina, Handprint Entertainment Tel: 310 481 4400

Tyra’s Banks Agent: Nancy Josephson, Endeavor Agency Tel: 310 248 4000

Man the phones, team! We’ve got a wrong to right!

Like most people, I don’t like bullies. I am also something of an intellectual snob (my bad), which means I don’t like idiots either. On top of this,  I can’t stand loudmouths. So give me a bullying idiot with a big mouth and chances are I’ll want to punish him in some way.

Bill O’Reilly is one of these, but actually manages to take it a stage further. Bullying is one thing. But bullying women in pursuit of sexual favors? That’s another, and  O’Reilly is the sex-bullying, bigmouth champion of the world.

(You see, I really don’t like him. Rush? Rush is just greedy. This fucker O’Reilly is a bad, bad person. That’s the long and short of it).

So it is awesome when somebody takes it upon themselves to take him down a peg-or-two.

smug

The back story is that O’Reilly inadvertently exposed his seedy sexual side in his shit novel Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder (for chrissakes….), in which he graphically describes a sexual encounter. (I say he exposes his seedy sexual side, but I guess I mean FURTHER exposes it. The sexual harrassment case he settled out of court was probably more of a pointer).

Anyway, he has now, foolishly, recorded an audio-book version of the novel. The good people at Gawker have taken it upon themsleves to interperse audio-excerpts from the book with his TV appearances. Study his seediness, ladies. Dwell on it. Then arm yourselves to the teeth.

Click on the picture for the Gawker footage.

I guess I’m still a little cross about the gold market. Nice to take it out on an asshole like O’Reilly, though. Right?

I am in need of mellowness, this morning. It appears someone has been shorting the Chechen gold market. I am backed up in Russian nukes and Cambodian strippers, but it’s still annoying. Someone will pay for this outrage etc etc

So, I need some non-narcotic calming and it’s about time we had a little more trip hop. It’s part of the vibe. The rivercityvibe.

Here’s  Bitter:Sweet live. Ignore the guy with the undies on his head. And the children (who’d better make sure they never step into my beaten zone…….):

I feel better now. I am going to build on this by devoting the rest of the day to mocking the afflicted.

Stupid afflicted.

Who knew that Pole Dancing was a sport? I knew about lap dancing – I mean, that’s obvious. But pole dancing? It seems so unlikely. Sports Illustrated tells us:

The US Pole Dance Federation, better known to acronym lovers as the USPDF, was hosting the first annual US Pole Dance Championship. Twelve female contestants, chosen from more than 50 applicants, would be competing for the honor of representing the United States at Miss Pole Dance Australia 2009 and for a spot on the cover of next month’s Pole2Pole Magazine.

They also get 10,000 dollars, paid in singles. Here are some pictures. They are SFW (it’s SPORT, dummy):

The one in the first pic is going for the patriot vote. Always a good idea.  The eventual winner was Las Vegas-based “aerialist” Jenyne Butterfly (made-up name). Here she is doing her thing. Impressive, but to my mind, misses the point:

God, how I yearn for The French Maid in Calgary. Or the old Gold Club in Atlanta…….

“aerialist”. Ha!

We like Lindsay, around here. We like that she is hot. And we like that she is naughty. Not so keen on her being a lesbian, but hey! We can see the upside to that, too!

Not sure what is going on lips-wise. But I'm fine with it.

The furor all over the weekend about a warrant for her arrest, turned out to be the flawless bureaucracy of California in action, once more. Jeez, those people are unbelievable. My buddies at TMZ tell us:

The warrant issued for Lindsay Lohan‘s arrest was just recalled.

Lohan’s lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, made quick work of it in a hearing that lasted minutes. S.C.H. showed proof of compliance and that was that. Lindsay didn’t show.

Lohan will enroll in a new alcohol education program — apparently she had “personality conflicts” with her old one — and will be back in court to prove it on April 3.

So much for those bogus stories that the hearing was about a driver’s license…

So there you have it. What is technically known as a storm-in-a teacup.

Yawn.

In these grim economic times, people are unbearably glum.  One of my reasons for living is to put this situation right. I think of myself as a tour-guide of sorts, leading the miserable to broad sunlit uplands where they can be happy once more.

A technique I embrace in pursuit of this, is to introduce people to the rather nasty little German concept of schadenfreude. The usual source defines schadenfreude as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another.” It’s German. It’s unpleasant. But it works like a dream.

So if you’re feeling out-of-sorts and can’t seem to shake the black dog of depression, have a laugh at this poor fucker:

Good material, nein?

The fools have changed the rules for the next season of America’s Next Top Model, allowing ladies under 5’7″ in height to enter.

Speaking as someone who has NEVER dated anyone under 5’9″, I have to say this was a schoolboy error. All manner of womanhood, from raggedy ol’ strippers to chubby little office workers, are swarming out of the suburbs and mountain villages, CVS-bought tooth polish on their remaining teeth, all hoping that Tyra Banks will give them their big break. This, inevitably, resulted in immediate disaster. At the audition:

Apparently there was some bullshit about a car overheating and potentially exploding going on in these peoples’ minds, and while we cannot blame New Yorkers for worrying about the terror threat, the absence of grace, poise and tranquility (surely traits of a top model?) were rather telling. Apparently six people were taken to ER and the only three that saw the situation’s comedy potential were arrested for “inciting a riot”. The audition was called off.

But there’s more. Remember Bones Rule #3 ? The one that states that everybody is outraged about everything, all the time? You do? Good, because it applies here too. A number of the fatties who were standing in line have called upon Tyra Banks to reschedule the audition, threatening legal action if she does not. The NY Daily News, has this to say:

Do right by us, Tyra!

If you don’t, you’ll be America‘s next top villain.

That’s what scores of berserk beauties said Sunday as they sent pleas to Tyra Banks, urging her to give them another chance to become America’s Next Top Model after a Saturday cattle call turned into a stampede.

“I want Tyra to realize that we were cheated, and it wasn’t fair,” cried Babyann Hernandez, 20.

“I’m tired, angry, hurt, confused, and I didn’t even get to try out,” she told the Daily News.

Does anyone ever feel that we live in the land of Oz, or Toytown, or that place from that one movie with Jessica Rabbit in it?

There is a prize for anyone who can send me a picture of Babyann Hernandez, the America’s Top Model hopeful. Seriously. A good prize. Worth having.

It’s Frau Klum again (sounds like a Bond villain). This girl never puts a foot wrong. Prost!

In her undies.

blah…blah… her poor son…blah…blah…so vulnerable….blah…blah…like Greek tragedy….blah…blah…candle in the wind……blah…blah…let down by those she loved…blah…blah… etc. etc.

This is what the stories about the arrest, Friday, of Howard K. Stern, the former boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith, read like, to me.

Credit where credit is due. That is not un-hot.

Granted, she was a mess when she died (her reality show was once referred to as a “suicide note in weekly installments”), but we should remember that she was one of the most popular Playboy Playmates of all time. With the arrest of this Stern character, it seems justice might be about to be done. Stern is charged with enabling (read, “strongly encouraging) the drug abuse that led to her death.

The full story is in that shining beacon of first-amendment abuse, the People.

[ I’m going to level with you. Notwithstanding the undoubted tragic elements, this whole post was just an excuse to use the picture above. Please disregard any opinion it may have in it. Besides, Stern’s people say he “didn’t do it”]

Nowhere near here, though. Despite the fan base I have built with my own hands for them in Florida. Family-ties, see?

They are in Los Angeles currently, playing the Viper Room tomorrow (@8.45 pm), then they have a couple of dates in Austin, Texas (?!), one in NY (Joes Pub in East Village), then a final LA gig before flying back to New Zealand, the legends.

Midnight Youth. Double-plus Awesome.

It promises to be seminal, in nature. The tour in which they set the US music industry on its ear. Readers in NY and LA should make a point of seeing them. I dearly hope I have no readers in Austin, but if there are a few, more information can be found on Facebook (search Midnight Youth), or if you prefer to slum-it (and we all feel that itch, occasionally), they are also on something called myspace, with which I have barely a nodding acquaintance.

Sorry the video of their debut track, The Letter, is disabled on the last post about Midnight Youth. Presumably some record label Nazi took exception.

(Seriously, for new bands, looking to break into American Markets, some kind of liberal blogger policy might be in order. I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s the 21st Century.)

All their music, available on itunes. Go their now. You won’t regret it.