Sorry to the Greecies and my FB friends for posting this for the THIRD time today (though I keep my real life/FB life far from this blog, so never the twain shall meet...), but for those of you wondering what it would take to revive the blog after a brief coma, it is this HORROR. Or WHORE. Whichever. Either way, listen to the YouTube, ye followers, and despair:
Britney "performs" Alanis's "You Oughta Know" at her most recent stop on the Circus.
I've said it before, I'll say it again - here I thought admitting to having Dave Coulier's dick in her mouth on the regular would be most humilating thing Alanis would have to endure in her lifetime. Thanks, Miss Spears!
Here's the thing - why I gave up on Britney. (And I own "Circus", without shame, because man, that is one catchy-produced album) - she doesn't care. She is just going through the motions. Playing at the part. Nothing seems to penetrate her...cooterfunk? Weave?
(Apologies to Joss Whedon for using your lyrics like that.)
But she is clearly not attached to what she's singing. What she's doing. She isn't connecting with the songs. With the audience. With reality. And if she isn't connecting - if she doesn't care? Why on earth would I - or anyone in their right mind, for that matter? (yes, I know the words "right mind" and "britney post" are normally like oil and water) - pay an ungodly sum to watch this...half-assedness? Seriously, ticket prices are EXPENSIVE, YO. For anything. Given the venues she performs in (massive stadiums) and the evil evil corporations she's in bed with (Ticketmaster, Livenation, Whoever), those ticket prices be even more expensive, yo.
Here's a better idea that will save you some cash. If you're an Angeleno and like karaoke - or even if you don't like karaoke, but like cheap drinks and cool people - go to Bar 107's Karaoke Wednesdays. It is a BLAST. Word of warning: they have a GONG and will USE IT. Seriously. Miss Cooterfunk Red Bull Federline up there would have been gonged in a second. And they have 3 judges of wisdom/doom, just like on American Idol. But holy cats, I have seen some motherfracking BAD-ASS SINGERS up there. People who just get up and feel the song and OWN IT. A former Top Cheftestant? Bad-ass. Owned it. This random chick doing "Uninvited?" Owned it like she was Alanis herself.
Britney? DOESN'T OWN ANYTHING.
Before you think I'm just being mean and snarky, please note that she, legally, does not. She doesn't. The law took her children and the ability to make REALLY HARD DECISIONS like, oh, how to handle her bazillion dollars out of her hands. Legally, factually, I am correct in saying she DOESN'T OWN ANYTHING.
And that's the thing. I believe my singing in public should be confined to the car but if there's one thing I've learned from my adventures in karaoke - it's that you might not have the best voice. You might not be the best looking. But an audience will forgive you so much if you just FEEL IT. And own it.
Britney either can't feel any connection to music anymore or just doesn't. Either way, we should no longer feel any sort of obligation to connect to her. No matter how good she looked in that cheerleader's outfit a million years ago.
The sad thing is that I was feeling Alanis was in a really good place right now, culturally. I mean, I don't check in on Alanis that often - she never returns my calls. And yeah, losing your mans to ScarJo has got to blow. But I have been just loving her to death this season on Weeds. I am still not sure she can act that well or has a huge range - this, Dogma and SATC seem like minor variations on the same "type" - but she commanded the screen well enough to make me hope she continues to be a regular on next season. Which is more than I can say for half of Weeds's guest stars.
To bring it all together (yes, I know, after this ramble, that will be hard) - take one listen to Alanis tackle Sting's "King of Pain" from her Unplugged Album.
"Did you know karaoke is Japanese for 'empty orchestra'? Isn't that hauntingly beautiful?" - HIMYM
Showing posts with label the city. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the city. Show all posts
Sep 6, 2009
Nov 4, 2007
Keep picturing Clive Owen showing up with Scotch...
Well, that was odd. So, my last post mentioned both Eleven and D$M, right? Guess who has a huge banner over the club advertising her hosting their Saturday dance night? None other than Candis Cayne, the awesome transgendered actress from the show. I've yet to go, but still, seeing two random things come together in your mind and then in real life is...odd.
Which, further - as much as I hate Oprah and this "Secret" b.s. philosophy of "your thoughts control the world" sometimes it gets really weird. The latest Los Angeles magazine shows up in the mail on a Wednesday, complete with a huge coverline saying "Forget Earthquakes: You Should Be Worrying about Fires" and then an inside headline proclaiming that if fires coincided with the Santa Anas, it could be the worst disaster ever seen. Then, two days later, that's pretty much exactly what happens.
So I'm gonna try to keep thinking about awesome things. Like Clive Owen. Scotch. Shirtlessness. Then good, quick, clean & dirty, zipless fuck experience with Scotch, not the way too much and way, way too emotional one from Friday night.
Oh, and, while browsing thru Amoeba the other day (I had to kill time since a horrible, horrible waitress at Pete's made me "late" for an AFI screening), I found a Gay Zombie movie. The title? "Creatures from the Pink Lagoon." H___ & I decided it was a borderline pun, but I'm still renting it for further pun research purposes.
Which, further - as much as I hate Oprah and this "Secret" b.s. philosophy of "your thoughts control the world" sometimes it gets really weird. The latest Los Angeles magazine shows up in the mail on a Wednesday, complete with a huge coverline saying "Forget Earthquakes: You Should Be Worrying about Fires" and then an inside headline proclaiming that if fires coincided with the Santa Anas, it could be the worst disaster ever seen. Then, two days later, that's pretty much exactly what happens.
So I'm gonna try to keep thinking about awesome things. Like Clive Owen. Scotch. Shirtlessness. Then good, quick, clean & dirty, zipless fuck experience with Scotch, not the way too much and way, way too emotional one from Friday night.
Oh, and, while browsing thru Amoeba the other day (I had to kill time since a horrible, horrible waitress at Pete's made me "late" for an AFI screening), I found a Gay Zombie movie. The title? "Creatures from the Pink Lagoon." H___ & I decided it was a borderline pun, but I'm still renting it for further pun research purposes.
Oct 10, 2007
Trashy, addictive TV, part 2
Back in school, in my TV class, I wrote a paper on Nip/Tuck. The main point of it was that while subtlety is all well and good, melodrama has its place. And it's a fun place. Plus, playing things at a fever pitch sometimes means you can get away with more.
If you're not chasing the cocktail of Gossip Girl's NY porn + money + beautiful pampered people doing delicious things with a shot of Dirty Sexy Money, then you don't deserve to drink the melodrama Koolaid at all.
Why bother underplaying when you can use real live lions as a punchline? Why not go all the way with the Paris Hilton caricature? ODing, naughty priests and trannies (who are definitiely *not* hookers) in the pilot? BRING IT!
Everyone here knows they're ridiculous and they seem to be loving it.
Also, Peter Krause is possibly the least appreciated TV actor around. Not even a Globe for Sports Night or Six Feet Under.
Twintuition! Is Samaire awesome at playing vapid and limited because she is so vapid and limited herself? How on earth did fugly Bryce Dallas Howard snag hottie Seth Gabel?
As cheesily fun as the show is, it sometimes veers from melodrama to actual drama. With great actors like this, it can work. Donald Sutherland walked that razor's edge last week and Baldwin is balancing this week. [Jill Clayburgh is her usual awesome self.]
"I don't need twintuition to see you googling her ass!" "Don't you mean ogling?"
Complementary Bulgari watches as party favors? God, it's such a masturbatory aspirational fantasy and I love it.
It took me forever to place Karen's hubby Freddie as the villainous frat boy from Van Wilder. He looks different without dog semen in his mouth. Insert obvious horny comment here. I do love those All-American looks -- young, dumb and...well, you know.
That's the thing about GG and DSM - I went to a private high school, but in the South. A college with beautiful, wealthy people. But I'm not a scion or a junior. I wasn't in a frat.
So it all seems familiar yet completely foreign to me. Which is why I can't stop watching. I've been near there, but not there there. Sure, I've stayed at the Palace, but never went to Le Cirque 2000. Add some music, some flashy editing and a few bon mots that I don't forget that night in a drunken haze -- and turn the volume up. Almost as enjoyable to watch as it is to (nearly) live. Which I do enjoy. I'll just have to take detailed notes and turn it all into a fabulous roman a clef or soap later.
[Seriously, GG has convinced me that if I *had* been at more of the lakehouse parties in high school doing the observational writerly thing, I'd have such sellable material by now.]
On that note: assuming their kitchen staff gets "unexcused," Eleven is becoming my lounge of choice in WeHo. A fantastic decor - it's owned by either Sid or Marty Kroft - hot waiters that can make drinks as well as they can show off their abs. Plus, insanely good onion rings. Blue cheese dressing, greasy yet light and flaky. And possibly the most perfectly sweet/sour onions this side of Vidalia. I think I went there at least 3 times the week they opened to pig out on them (and booze + boys, duh.) They're having happy hour from 4-8 with 2 for 1 drinks and a cheapo bar menu. There's also the possibility of chatting up the crowd, since it's a nice atmosphere. A lounge is just for that. Who knows, you may just meet someone with a famous last name. Not that I did or anything. Or am wanting them to call me.
If you're not chasing the cocktail of Gossip Girl's NY porn + money + beautiful pampered people doing delicious things with a shot of Dirty Sexy Money, then you don't deserve to drink the melodrama Koolaid at all.
Why bother underplaying when you can use real live lions as a punchline? Why not go all the way with the Paris Hilton caricature? ODing, naughty priests and trannies (who are definitiely *not* hookers) in the pilot? BRING IT!
Everyone here knows they're ridiculous and they seem to be loving it.
Also, Peter Krause is possibly the least appreciated TV actor around. Not even a Globe for Sports Night or Six Feet Under.
Twintuition! Is Samaire awesome at playing vapid and limited because she is so vapid and limited herself? How on earth did fugly Bryce Dallas Howard snag hottie Seth Gabel?
As cheesily fun as the show is, it sometimes veers from melodrama to actual drama. With great actors like this, it can work. Donald Sutherland walked that razor's edge last week and Baldwin is balancing this week. [Jill Clayburgh is her usual awesome self.]
"I don't need twintuition to see you googling her ass!" "Don't you mean ogling?"
Complementary Bulgari watches as party favors? God, it's such a masturbatory aspirational fantasy and I love it.
It took me forever to place Karen's hubby Freddie as the villainous frat boy from Van Wilder. He looks different without dog semen in his mouth. Insert obvious horny comment here. I do love those All-American looks -- young, dumb and...well, you know.
That's the thing about GG and DSM - I went to a private high school, but in the South. A college with beautiful, wealthy people. But I'm not a scion or a junior. I wasn't in a frat.
So it all seems familiar yet completely foreign to me. Which is why I can't stop watching. I've been near there, but not there there. Sure, I've stayed at the Palace, but never went to Le Cirque 2000. Add some music, some flashy editing and a few bon mots that I don't forget that night in a drunken haze -- and turn the volume up. Almost as enjoyable to watch as it is to (nearly) live. Which I do enjoy. I'll just have to take detailed notes and turn it all into a fabulous roman a clef or soap later.
[Seriously, GG has convinced me that if I *had* been at more of the lakehouse parties in high school doing the observational writerly thing, I'd have such sellable material by now.]
On that note: assuming their kitchen staff gets "unexcused," Eleven is becoming my lounge of choice in WeHo. A fantastic decor - it's owned by either Sid or Marty Kroft - hot waiters that can make drinks as well as they can show off their abs. Plus, insanely good onion rings. Blue cheese dressing, greasy yet light and flaky. And possibly the most perfectly sweet/sour onions this side of Vidalia. I think I went there at least 3 times the week they opened to pig out on them (and booze + boys, duh.) They're having happy hour from 4-8 with 2 for 1 drinks and a cheapo bar menu. There's also the possibility of chatting up the crowd, since it's a nice atmosphere. A lounge is just for that. Who knows, you may just meet someone with a famous last name. Not that I did or anything. Or am wanting them to call me.
Aug 16, 2007
black velvet margarita
Something I just learned today -- Madonna born/Elvis died. Same day, different years.
There's a fantastic place on Cahuenga (ish?) called Velvet Margarita. You can stop in for a drink in the middle of the day and it feels like 1 a.m. when you walk through the door. Bring sunglasses, because when you walk back out, you'll be reacting like Spike on the Summer Solstice. Point being -- they *always* have some kitschy old Elvis movie playing on the gigantic plasmas over the bar. Always. Kick back, enjoy a frosty pina colada (they have many, many variations of the margarita, most of which are great) and have some laughs.
Meanwhile, Alannah Myles's purr tells us what it was all about.
[One of my favorite songs ever and I had to look her name up. One-hit wonder much?]
When I was clicking through the rest of the NY Post, I found that Bob Marley is now the number one object of black velvet paintings. Make of it what you will.
The odd thing is that his music doesn't have much emotional resonance to/for me. So I'm kinda befuddled as to the massive lines around Graceland and candlelight vigils to memorialize someone these people didn't even *know*. It seems so silly somehow and yet...doesn't.
But I suppose that's true of so many things in life.
There's a fantastic place on Cahuenga (ish?) called Velvet Margarita. You can stop in for a drink in the middle of the day and it feels like 1 a.m. when you walk through the door. Bring sunglasses, because when you walk back out, you'll be reacting like Spike on the Summer Solstice. Point being -- they *always* have some kitschy old Elvis movie playing on the gigantic plasmas over the bar. Always. Kick back, enjoy a frosty pina colada (they have many, many variations of the margarita, most of which are great) and have some laughs.
Meanwhile, Alannah Myles's purr tells us what it was all about.
[One of my favorite songs ever and I had to look her name up. One-hit wonder much?]
When I was clicking through the rest of the NY Post, I found that Bob Marley is now the number one object of black velvet paintings. Make of it what you will.
The odd thing is that his music doesn't have much emotional resonance to/for me. So I'm kinda befuddled as to the massive lines around Graceland and candlelight vigils to memorialize someone these people didn't even *know*. It seems so silly somehow and yet...doesn't.
But I suppose that's true of so many things in life.
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