As I lay here, dying from Downton Abbeywithdrawal (the clothes! the accents! the incest!), Brad and Angelina have obviously found a cure for their very own DA withdrawals. They’ve just purchased a 13 million dollar mansion in London called Whornes Place, presumably to live out their own sort of upstairs/downstairs drama while we all feverishly wait for season three of Downton Abbey (fuck you September!).
Can you imagine a Mr. Pamuk dying in the bedroom of an 18-year-old rebellious Zahara? Or Pax going off to valiantly fight the Germans? Will they have their very own Mr. Bates and Anna? Will Shiloh be the heart-on-her-sleeve modern version of Lady Sybil? Only time will tell folks, only time will tell.
All I know is Whornes Place would be the best show in the history of shows, ever. PLEEEEEEEASE BRANGELINA! They won’t do it because they’re all eloquent and shit. But maybe SNL could pick it up as a recurring skit. Or webisodes on Youtube. Someone’s gotta have enough free time. Yeah? YEAH?!
Yes that is Kim Kardashian. Blarg. Image via hollywood.com
Live TV is SO MUCH FUN. Especially when you have the best of the bests (and best pals of Tina Fey) stop by to help out. This episode is so amazing, with so many guest stars and awesome cameos that I don’t want to spoil for you. The best part is, the episode is in two versions. The east coast version and the west coast version. Both live, as the cast performed twice! Check out the east coast episode here and the west coast episode here.
Yes I watched both of them. Yes they are both awesome. 30 Rock forever. I LOVE YOU TINA FEY AND COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where’s that reality show, MTV? Let’s inspire the youth of the nation, instead of making them believe if they’re sixteen a pregz they can get a tv show and make money off being an F-list celebrity magazine star.
Check out this video of Tavi Gevinson giving a TED Talk on “figuring it all out” as a teen girl.
What a smart, cool kid. These websites, thestylerookie.com and RookieMag.com, are awesome and makes me jealous they weren’t around when I was a teen. Being a teen sucks, but having a place other than the regular psychotic teen mags (Seventeen, Cosmo, etc) to read about growing up and “figuring it out” is pretty rad.
Fiona Apple’s cover art for her new album (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) “The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw and whipping cords will serve you more than ropes will ever do” I heard it’s now the longest album name ever. In this day and age of breaking DUI records and most panty flashes in the history of the world, it’s nice to see an artist break a pretty neutral record. Way to go, Fiona.
Here’s some Fiona ear candy until the new album comes out. If it’s even half as good as Extraordinary Machine, we have nothing to worry about.
Talk about dodging a fucking bullet! If you’ve seen pictures of them recently, they both aged a little eccentrically. Carson is super thin and we all know Tara Reid had some knifey fun that went awry, which sucks because she looks like she has all the right curves and a sunny, pretty face.
Don’t do plastic surgery kids!! Unless you get Madonna’s surgeon. Fact.
Saved by the Bell has recently become available on Netflix instant. From all the mornings before school watching this show, I thought I’d give it another chance as a learned adult. Here are a couple of thoughts concerning early 90s programming gold.
Cuz I’m saved by the be-e-elllllllll
I love that in the first episode of season 3, titled “The Prom,” that Kelly’s hard-hitting decision of the day is to choose who she wants to go to prom with. Problem is, Zach AND Slater both want to take Kelly to prom. God, to be in 1990 again.
Yeah, because it’s what all the cool kids do, DUH. Image via loldrugs.com
Also, many of the episodes are not even trying to hide the fact that they have a political/social agenda. For example, during the same episode, Kelly’s father gets laid off from a job at a defense company due to “growing world peace.” PUKE!!! The next episode in season 3 also mentions growing world peace during an ROTC visit to the school, that ends with a wary Zach deciding the Army is like, totally cool. Yikesssssss. Talk about some war propaganda during breakfast. I’d hate to live in a world where ‘growing world peace’ is seen as a bad thing. I guess the threat of nuclear war and a corporate 1% dystopia (yo what up Hunger Games!) is a sunnier world than people worried about the reality of world peace. YUCK.
DAYUM GURL! This is some straight up early 90s softcore porn. Image via popstar.com
The kids also tell us on numerous occasions to “not smoke dope.” I mean, it’s annoying, but do you remember high school? It was chock full of “abortion kills” bumper stickers, pledges to not drink alcohol until 21 and threats that weed would murder your soul and your family, instead of just make you hungry and giggly. Then you got to college and smoked the first thing someone handed to you, and realized that high school was a tiny bubble of fascists just trying to fit in. Awwwww.
The SBTB kids listen to tapes, fight over Paula Abdul vs. Janet Jackson, and can actually afford snacks at the movies. Jerks!
There’s also a lot of diversity that isn’t stereotypical. Lisa is a fashionista black girl and Slater is a iron-pumping latino who both don’t fall into the all too often played racial or cultural stereotypes. Granted, I haven’t seen every episode of this show. But it does suck to notice that 2 decades later dumbass stereotypes haven’t been erased. Somehow, I blame Dick Cheney.
The role of Mr. Belding is also interesting to watch. After a Bush decade of education budget cuts, a terrible generation of children and general educative tomfoolery, I could NEVER see a principal act the way he does with students as Mr. Belding did. Granted, it was a TV show. But any principal on TV nowadays would probably be some portrayed as a huge asshole who’s fucking some “slut” teenager for drug money. So bleak. I wish we were bored with world peace again. In the 90s, Zach offers to wash Belding’s car to get out of detention. In this day and age, students’ parents would sue Mr. Belding for ‘abuse.’ God I hate people.
On a lighter note and shying away from apparent societal (tv) decay, the fashion is AMAZING. I want Kelly and Lisa’s wardrobe, and Jessie’s for when I wanna workout/lounge around. Screech has some pretty amazing outfits too.
Jessie is a staunch feminist. And it is fucking AWESOME.
Dream couple of the early 90s. Zach is pretty awesome though. Maybe the best while male teenaged character of all-time. Big heart, quick made-for-squeeky-clean-tv vernacular. Brilz. Image via popstar.com
All in all, I’d say put it on in the background at parties, or in the background of an afternoon on the internet. In terms of observing American television from the late 80s/early 90s, it is a fascinating look into what the world on television was like when we were babies.
Possibly my biggest relationship inspiration. They’re fun, funny and successful.
And they seem happy, which is only solidified by their penchant to stay the fuck out of the tabloids. We all know those tabloid relationships are doomed, because the people in them are famewhores. But this ain’t the case here. It’s true love. I can feel it.
Nicki Minaj. Loud, weird, split-personalitied. What’s her deal? I’m leaning off the fence with her antics and uninteresting career. Let’s give her a good look.
The Evidence
She made a name for herself by doing feature spots on lots of successful songs, namely “Monster” by Kanye West. Her part in that song is so fucking rad. She was getting “50k for a verse” when she had “no album out.” That’s pretty awesome. +5
Embarrassing and tired. Image via obama.net
Her Grammys performance was tired. The Catholic church thing has been done by Madonna, Gaga, Sinead O’Connor, etc. Not to say that only ladies growing up under Catholicism can perform using Catholic imagery and metaphors, but it’s just a tired concept. It’s boring. It’s no longer shocking or edgy to dance suggestively while criticizing Catholicism. It’s been done. A BILLION TIMES. Next! -2
The split personality thing is exhausting and a little mentally frightening. It seems like a cheap marketing ploy and a creatively busy subject. Sure, Madonna reinvents herself. But that floats along with an album. Is it too much to deal with multiple personalities on one album? Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce was way cool, but Garth Brooks’ split personality Chris Gaines pretty much ended his career. Nicki’s personalities are hard to keep up with, especially this early on in her career. Is one personality not enough to keep Nicki Minaj’s career afloat? -3
Her style always looks as if she’s trying to out-gaga Gaga, and also like she’s just putting on crazy shit for the sake of putting on crazy shit. Musicians tend to dress a little cray though, so it’s nothing really new or specific to Nicki Minaj. Her style is just annoying. 0
Ahh, the hip hop feud. Yes. You’re coming right along, Nicki Minaj! Granted, Lil Kim probably started this one to garner press for her non-existent career. The “hip hop” feud is kind of a right of passage into the world of hip hop and beyond. If you’ve ever been to rap battles or simply listened to hip hop or rap, it’s a sort of art form lyrically speaking within the genre. Biggie and Tupac did it, 50 Cent and Ja Rule, Jay-Z and Nas, etc. So what’s wrong with the ladies getting into it? Besides, who knows how deep many of these feuds run. After what happened to Biggie and Tupac, many of these “beefs” may be mostly for publicity. Red meat kills! 0
Plastic surgery? Ugh. It’s so passé. Gaga’s got a nose and she fucking rocks. The nose job, the alleged butt implant?! WTF is that anyways? It’s hard to take people seriously and to see them as “real” when their bodies are created in a surgical room? Embrace yourself, don’t break and remake yourself. Aight? -2
Her new song with David Guetta is a definite departure from hip hop into electronic pop. But can she actually sing, or is this a bunch of auto-tune baloney? Because she sounds exactly like Rihanna in the chorus. You wouldn’t know this was Nicki Minaj until she started rapping in the short bridge. Exploring different genres is cool, but this song is kind of a bland and easy foray into pop music money. 0
Speaking of POP, Nicki just signed a deal with Pepsi to be the spokeswoman for their new product, creatively called Pop. Amazing marketing, as it’s apparent from her David Guetta collab that she will indeed be dipping a toe into the money mountain that is pop music and pop music’s endorsement deals. I foresee a lot of four-chord song variations with edgy yet radio-friendly rap spurts and an obligatory Kanye/Drake/whoever the industry tells us is “hot” collab. It’s not like this isn’t what happens on every pop music album, but as a probable genre switcher from hip hop to pop, I’d expect a little more creativity. 0
Honey, no. Image via mojosteve.blogspot.com
The Score
-2
A lot of my scoring comes from my honest inability to find anything that Nicki Minaj does interesting. Her weird outfits are nothing new, fashion forward or exciting. Her features on other people’s songs are awesome, but her album Pink Friday was only OK. And her split personalities are lame. She’s exhausting and confusing. I will be surprised if she is still around in 5 years.
You'll be okay, Kelly Taylor. Image via mymissus.tumblr.com
For the first time ever, I didn’t feel ultimately crushed by another celebrity divorce. I actually sighed a sigh of relief for Jennie, and I have no idea why because I don’t necessarily like or dislike Jennie or Peter. It was more because two people were married, had children, were happy and then separated. After a really long separation, they decided to divorce.
Normally, I feel sad about yet another Hollywood breakup. But this one was different. Peter and Jennie weren’t all over the tabloids for their entire weak ass relationship like Katy Perry and Russell Brand, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, etc.
Image via exposay.com
P and J had kids, were quietly being human beings somewhere in California and were married for 11 years. Marriage years in Hollywood are like dog years. So they were technically together for 77 years. And then they figured out that they couldn’t be together anymore. It happens. And at least this time there was a lot of thought and consideration involved instead of an 18 million dollar paycheck, Kim.
I’m happy for Peter and Jennie. Starting anew. Good for them. I mean, after so much thought put into their divorce, one can only assume this decision will make them both happier people. To say that love is a mystery is an understatement. We go in and out of lives, love, lust and loss. and that’s life. It’s beautiful, beautifully hard but its ours and we gotta get through it.
So, Jennie and Peter, I dedicate Daniel Bedingfield’s “Gotta Get Through This” to both of you. You can do it.
2PF 
