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April 28, 2010

Drugs and Plastic: The Hills Season Premiere.

R.I.P.

R.I.P.

Excessive plastic surgery, coke binges in Miami: last night’s season premiere of The Hills was a complete shitshow. Is it possible that, in its last season, The Hills is the most entertaining it’s ever been? It’s no secret that Lauren Conrad was emotionally checked-out during her last two seasons and it made for some pretty bland television. Krsitin Cavallari makes for a much better reality star because, unlike Lauren, she has absolutely no shame and will work for her insanely-inflated paycheck by getting wasted and talking shit freely on-camera.

This season is so intriguing because for once it actually appears to be somewhat authentic. Heidi and Kristin, in particular, can’t conceal the fact that they are becoming casualties of their own fame. Heidi’s nightmarish plastic surgery makeover is perhaps the most real thing to ever happen on the show and that’s why it’s so uncomfortable to watch. We know that the success of The Hills played a large part in creating Heidi’s body dysmorphia/appetite for superstardom and I, for one, can’t help but feel partially responsible for her Frankenstein-on-acid makeover. Meanwhile, Kristin is seriously livin’ la vida Lohan with her thinly-veiled coke problem. My favorite part of the premiere was when the girls wake Kristin up at 3:00 in the afternoon to go to the airport. Two random girls are sleeping in bed with her and when they see the cameras, they immediately split, leaving Kristin alone with buzzkills Audrina, Stephanie and Lo.

What’s even juicier and 100% real is the drama behind Spencer’s recent departure from the show. If there was ever any doubt that Spencer was truly a manipulative prick and not just some guy casted as the villain, they’re gone with the news that he threatened to kill a producer. After Spencer was deemed a threat to the producer’s safety and kicked off, Heidi retaliated (or was forced to retaliate) by slapping creator Adam Divello with a bogus sexual-harrassment lawsuit. Now, Speidi are no longer filming for the show. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you caviar.

I’m excited to see where and how it all ends. Kristin having a romance in rehab? Heidi’s new face melting off during a Los Angeles heatwave? The possibilities are infinite.

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April 27, 2010

Money Can’t Buy You Class, A Vocal Coach, A Clue: & Other Things I’ve Learned From Countess Luann’s Single

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I was going to write a lengthy entry detailing the fall of L.A. hipsters but I’ve been completely sidetracked by the premiere of  Real Housewives of NYC Countess Luann’s  single, “Money Can’t Buy You Class”.

Gay men have a notorious appreciation for  all things campy and bad but this really tests our limits. My initial reaction to the single was that of pure terror. Luann’s voice + Autotune =  the sound of a monster who is trying to kill me. For someone who’s so deathly afraid of bringing shame on their public image, I find it odd that she would choose to record a single when she must know she can’t hit a note. But I suppose in this case and that of many others, narcissism trumped logic.

The ultimate irony is that by recording this song, Luann effectively loses all authority over the subject that she sings and claims to know so much about. A gimmicky poorly-produced song about class is like rain on your wedding day. It’s like the good advice that you just didn’t take.  Although being in touch with reality has never been Luann’s forte, this foray into music takes the Dean & Delusional cake.

Kim Zolciak’s “Tardy For The Party” did it better. Why? Because I actually love dancing to it when I’m wasted. As far as I’m  concerned, that’s the only way you can judge a song that’s performed by a reality star.

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Filed under: Uncategorized — @ 12:41 am

April 19, 2010

New. You’re so new.

Lately, there seems to be a surplus of great indie films and records. Lets blog about it.

OK. I’ll get this bombshell out of the way. Nothing really happens in the critically-lauded film, The Exploding Girl. But, thankfully, most of the the time, it doesn’t really matter. The plot is admittedly paper-thin and it goes something like this: Ivy is a 20 year-old hipster babe hanging out at home in NYC while on vacay from college. She suffers from epileptic seizures that prohibit her from having the youthful lifestyle of her peers i.e. going to bed late after a night of getting stoned and drunk on Newcastle. Because of this unfortunate reality, she’s sort of a Grandma who just stares at things longingly, including her best friend, Al, who”s crashing on her couch. The film does drag a bit at times (unnecessary scenes of Ivy looking pensive wandering around NYC in vintage dresses) but the film is grounded in the palpable chemistry between Al & Ivy. Most love stories in film are about as subtle as a Lady Gaga music video. While this may be all very well and good for the fantasists, anyone who’s ever been in love knows that it’s often the littlest things that make the most indelible mark. That’s what makes The Exploding Girl so refreshing, even in its duller moments. The interactions between Ivy & Al are so earnest and tender that it can come off as almost jarringly real to the viewer. Speaking of things that are “real”, here’s to hoping that  Zoe Kazan’s presence in the movie industry makes Zooey Deschanel’s existence/career obsolete. That’s right, I’m a bitch who hates that quirky bitch from She & Him sooo much. Has anyone heard their new record? It has all the personality of a soggy rice cake.

But there’s no need to dwell on the blandness of the new She & Him record when there are so many other goodies out. The LCD Soundsystem album, This Is Happening, sounds like a nice progression from Sound of Silver. And career suicide has never sounded so good on MGMT’s latest experimental record, Congratulations. Last but certainly not least, Broken Social Scene’s recent offering of indie arena rock is nothing short of amazing!

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Filed under: Uncategorized — @ 11:01 pm

April 15, 2010

Post-Grad Sad.

If there were such a thing as Blog Jail, I would be sentenced to it on a charge of neglect. I apologize to my ten readers for the absence. As it turned out, recovering from an amazing two-month sojourn to Europe is, like, super stressful and emotionally taxing. My only hope for recovery was an abundance of California sunshine, eating copious amounts of Girl Scout Cookies and flirting with Peter Pan Syndrome by spending a lot of time on swingsets instead of this blog or my apartment  in New York City. While swimming in my sea of denial in Los Angeles, I’ve realized that although reality does in fact sometimes bite, it’s best to cancel the reservation I had for my pity party and get back to doing what I do best: writing about insane WASPs and sometimes lo-fi music and sometimes boys and sometimes drugs and always Bravo reality television shows.

Speaking of WASPs with issues, my friend Wyatt is a sometime contributor for the hilarious Twitter, White Girl Problems, or as I like to call it, Problems That Are Uncomfortably Similar To My Own And I Feel Bad About It.

Prior to reading White Girl Problems, I used Twitter solely to read Lindsay Lohan’s often-mispelled but always hilarious updates about her ongoing dyke drama with Samantha Ronson and being hard at work on a movie set…somewhere…somehow. And before she denounced and deleted her Twitter, I also loved to read Miley Cyrus’ which included frequent thought-provoking religious statements that were inevitably followed by Rob Thomas song lyrics. You give a famous 16 year-old a Twitter account, shit’s gonna get real embarrassing.

But White Girl Problems changed my perception of Twitter as only being a website for oversharing narcissists. And with that, I present to you my work-in-progess, Being Gay Is Gay, in which I poke fun at the idiocy of mainstream gay culture. At least that’s what I think I’m doing. I’m actually not sure. Whatever. Just look at the amazing profile picture!  stellar17

It’s the gayest picture hat I could find of myself. If memory serves, it was taken when I was 19 at a friends going away party. I’m pretty sure this night ended with me trying to kiss a bisexual boy that faked having cancer and Lyme disease. We didn’t end up kissing because he kept groaning in pain saying, “It hurts! It hurts!” while pointing to nowhere in particular on his body. You know what hurts worse than fake Lyme disease/cancer? Getting denied by someone who’s faking said ailments. Uh-oh, there goes that RSVP to my pity party again!

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