Which is worse: being discriminated against for being gay by non-gays, or being outed and harassed by members of the gay community?  At least one can blame ignorance for their shameful behavior.

The National Enquirer, the tabloid magazine known for its veracity and integrity, has a forthcoming article quoting a former male model named Kerrick Ross who states he had sexual relations with Larry Birkhead.  Of course Perez Hilton, who is likely frothing at the mouth at this news has all the info. 

To summarize, the ex-model claims back in 2000 before becoming the private photographer of Anna Nicole Smith, Larry Birkhead carried on a 10-month affair with Ross.  Ross who was “out”, claims Birkhead wanted to keep the relationship private due to religious opposition from his Southern Baptist family.  Ross goes on to state that after the relationship ended he learned that Larry had been dating another man before the two began dating, and he was also dating women too.

And my feelings about this are: who cares?  So what if he’s bi, gay, or asexual.  Does this make him any less Dannielynn’s father?  No.  Does being gay or bi make him an unfit parent?  Not automatically.  Birkhead’s ability to be a good dad will become apparent in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.  So far though, he has proven to possess two essential qualities to being a great dad: patience and determination. Unless Birkhead had made a point of his swaggering heterosexual prowess, I see no issue here.  So he likes chicks and d*cks.  Good for him.  It would be really refreshing to see a great dad who is also a gay male model citizen. Something you don’t see enough in the media.

I find Perez Hilton’s overzealous need to out gays to be more harmful than the occasional hateful comment that flies out of the mouths of the ignorant.  When a person from within your own community is eager to condemn your lifestyle (and their own) through salacious innuendo and implied deception, then that speaks volumes about how they feel about themselves and fellow members of the community. Clearly Perez Hilton’s desire to find flaws in those who may or may not be gay stems from self-loathing and shame over his own lifestyle. Get over yourself.

Most Americans don’t really care who is or who isn’t gay, just so long as they conduct themselves with some dignity and respect for themselves and others.  Perez has become the ringleader of a growing population of finger-pointers who feel it necessary to humiliate and destroy public figures for their private choices in regards to sexuality. 

I am much more interested in how they conduct themselves across the board, than their private proclivities.  Ewww, who needs to know that stuff?

Picture source OK! Weekly via TMZ

Marilyn Manson, 38, doesn’t try very hard to hide his young girl fetish. Boasting about his new girlfriend, 19-year-old actress Rachel Evan Wood, the grotesquely altered shock-rocker says that the two, despite their 19-year age difference, have a lot in common. From US Magazine:

“I’ve found my double, my twin, with my new girlfriend, Evan Rachel Wood,” Manson, 38, tells France’s Le Parisien newspaper.”She’s 19 and certainly that’s very young,” he added, “but that’s not a problem for me. She likes the same things as me. She understands I like to get up when night falls and go to sleep at dawn.”

Marilyn also talked about his failed marriage to burlesque beauty Dita Von Teese:

“Our relationship ended at Halloween. I was completely destroyed psychologically. I’d rented a house and begun working on this disc, which sort of tells everything that happened to me during the past year. I was married to someone who wanted me to change. Become more adult, more responsible. I began not to like myself, not like what I do. I lost my identity. Everything began collapsing around me. The record allowed me to put an end to that. Dita left at Christmas while I was recording.”

Indulge me here, but in the year 2007, with the whole goth-rock-industrial thing squarely behind us, is Marilyn Manson still clinging to his tired shtick? Seriously, time to clean it up, expand your horizons even. You are 38, on your way to middle-age, have been married and divorced twice — have some friggin’ dignity. You can’t really think it’s ok for a man your age to dress up like a mentally-challenged Transylvania reject and hope to scare people? Give it up, act your age and stop dating women who are literally young enough to be your daughter. I hope you get arthritis of the penis Marilyn. Shame on you.

And Rachel, as the latest homewrecker on the block, I can’t wait until you wake up someday (soon I am sure) and look over and see you are shacking up with a total wanker.

Marilyn isn’t the Dark Lord, you aren’t going to live forever and the embarrassment you feel now will eventually pass. Just keep saying “his name is Brian Warner and he’s a total nerd from Canton, Ohio.” That’s what I do when I wake up from nightmares featuring this ghoulish doofus.

 

Even your computer isn’t safe from Paris Hilton’s cooties.  A new virus, disguised as an email has been spamming computers with promises of the over-exposed heiress doing what she does best: posing naked.  According to this article, a computer security firm has discovered a malicious virus that attacks the user’s system after being opened from their email.

Security firm Sophos said a new attack is using a lure of images of celebrity heiress Paris Hilton in a state of undress in order to invade users’ systems.  Spammed email messages with subject lines such as “Hot pictures of Paris Hilton nude,” and containing images of porn star Jenna Jameson, have begun circulating this week, Sophos said.  The emails link to a website containing the Troj/Iffy-B trojan horse, which links to more malicious code exploiting the animated cursor bug patched by Microsoft this week.

I have only one question?  Is there even a single soul left who hasn’t already seen Paris naked?  I mean seriously, my kids can recognize her naughty bits from three rooms away.  I am not sure what that says about my parenting, but I know what it says about Paris Hilton and pictures of her naked. 

source

 

Sometimes I like to be surprised, I even occasionally like to be proven wrong.

I write about celebrities because they are cultural touchstones who influence us in our everyday lives.  Whether it be through passionate on-screen performances, brilliant lyrics, an otherworldly beauty emanating through their voices or sheer ethereal light shining from their core - celebrities matter because it is we who make or break them.

So with a hopeful heart, I waited patiently through last night’s mostly unfunny Saturday Night Live skits to see if musical guest Avril Lavigne could shine through her vacuous interviews and painfully self-absorbed remarks – and deliver her pop-punk sound with conviction.

Sadly, I wasn’t just disappointed with her performance - I was disgusted.  Avril’s performance, though technically accurate, was contemptuous.  She showed contempt for the audience and worst yet, her own music.  One might expect this from an artist who has been shoved into a genre or a style that doesn’t suit them.  But Avril, as she will tell you, is her own person. She writes her own lyrics, creates her own style and even helped to craft her own sub-genre of angsty pop-punker, who just so happens to also sing ballads.  In any other case, I would respect a person who was capable of that much creativity.  But Avril doesn’t deserve my respect.  She is a shell of who she claims to be, a shallow outward personification of cool, with little or no substance below.

Music of her sort needs to come from a place that bubbles up from within.  A source of energy, excitement, anger and desire.  Avril’s performance last night, and any previous interviews I have either read or watched present an entirely different person. At 22, Avril Lavigne is hollow on the inside.

The first song Avril sang was her new single “Girlfriend” a very up-tempo, frenetically-paced pop song, complete with all the infused elements of punk we are supposed to notice: anthemic chants, affected stances and in-your-face lyrics.  But Avril seemed bored, disingenuous and uncommitted.  She seemed to genuinely think her music was for sh*t and she was too good to have to sing it. 

To be honest, it is for sh*t, but most pop music is.  What makes most pop music palatable is the conviction and energy the artist puts in it.

I am NOT a music snob.  I will listen to most anything that’s done well.  Avril’s new album may have been executed with great proficiency, but it lacks the commitment of the artist to make it believable.

Ironically, the second and last song Avril performed from her new album, The Best Damn Thing (dropping April 17), last night was “I Can Do Better,” and in fact, it was not. 

If Avril wants us to ‘buy into’ her image, it would be helpful if she bought into it first. 

People magazine has little audio clip of Avril Lavigne talking about her wedding last summer to Sum 41 singer Deryck Wembley.  Avril, in her inimitable faux-rocker style, gives us some insight into her thought process for creating the wedding of her dreams: 

“A big part of me was like, I should do something cool with my wedding dress but it’s my frigging wedding day, I wanted everything to be classic.  So the ceremony was very classic and the reception was very rock ‘n’ roll goth with a big red tent, red table cloths and chairs, red roses and chandeliers hanging, the ceremony was very traditional which I like. People thought I would have done, like, some black wedding dress, and yeah, I would have. But at the same time I was thinking about our pictures. … I didn’t want to be, like, 20 years later, ‘Oh, why did I wear my hair like that? It’s not cool now.’ “

Avril also talks about other fashion choices she’s made over the years, including a unique dress she wore to the 2004 World Music Awards:

“This is the first dress I wore in my entire career.  It had skulls all over it and stripes, and it’s like totally me.”

Who says “like totally” anymore?  Lavigne, 22 has been trying exceptionally hard to promote her new album, The Best Damn Thing, which will be released April 17.  I can’t wait for that day.  I get to pay my taxes.

Avril, who is “like totally”objective and has the mature wisdom of an aged oracle, offers some deep insight about Britney Spears.  People quotes Avril on why she’s nothing like the embattled pop sensation:

“None of what’s happened to Britney will ever happen to me.What happened to Britney is all down to who she is as a person. If you want a piece of this business you have to be able to deal with it. You can’t complain about the pressures, the paparazzi, the madness. Because that is the job. I’ve always understood that’s the deal. I love to go out to clubs, get drunk and party. I drink dirty martinis, red wine, limoncellos and go to places like Hyde, get up on the tables and let totally loose. But no one really gets to know about it. It’s just me and my friends and whoever is in the clubs. My friends and I all drink like crazy but none of us do drugs because you just get into trouble. If you get drunk you have a hangover and you have to deal with it. If you do drugs it messes with your head.”

Avril feels very good about where she is right now, and who she’s become:

“I’m 22, so I’m all grown-up. It feels natural for me to be like this now. I’m very comfortable with how I look. I always have been. I think I look pretty good. There’s nothing I want to change. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got.”

Avril should be happy, she an her husband just purchased a $9.5 million dollar mansion, with 10 bathrooms.  And to add to her rock cred, the house was once owned by Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker and on-again/off-again wife Shanna Moakler. Let’s face it, Blink 182 is as hard core as they come.  It’s like owning Keith Richards house. Just Like It.  Lastly, Avril brags about the impact she’s had on her husband Whimbley, 27, and their near perfect marriage and why she never worries about him straying while on the road:

“I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him. We have a really good, strong relationship. There’s a lot of trust. He doesn’t do drugs. Clearly, he used to, because he talked about it, but I wouldn’t be with someone who did, and I made that very clear to him when we first started dating.”

Sometimes you have to dig deep to find quotes that show what really lay inside of a celebrity.  But in this case, the smugness and hubris was all right there in little quotation marks. 

Avril, you sure are a big-big girl now.

I like Gawker in theory.  They are well-edited and sometimes funny.  But what they lack is a sense of humility.  This is epitomized in the video below of Gawker editor Emily Gould being interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel for CNN.  Kimmel takes her to task on the site’s Gawker Stalker feature, wherein “citizen journalists” (as Gould called them) send in sightings of celebrities in and around New York city and the site posts a ‘close to real time’ map of where the celebrities have been sighted. 

Kimmel considers this dangerous and inviting trouble for a group of people who are already hounded by the media and the public: celebrities.  He takes it a step further and suggests that Gawker’s site doesn’t just make up stuff about celebrities, but that they are also going to someday be responsible for someone’s death when a real “stalker” uses the site’s information for nefarious purposes.  Emily Gould in turn, rolls her eyes, mugs for the camera and uses a sophomoric tone, suggesting that Kimmel is taking the whole thing way too seriously and thinks she much cuter and more articulate than she is.   See for yourself. But try to control your urge to slap your computer. Trust me when I tell you, it hurts your computer more than the goofy girl on the YouTube.

 

Joe Francis, Current Inmate, With Future Inmate Paris Hilton

As I reported last week, Joe Francis had a warrant out for his arrest in the state of Florida for being in contempt of court.  He threw a fit during a hearing to determine the settlement details for a 2003 lawsuit brought against him by seven underage girls who were “victimized” by Francis and his Girl’s Gone Wild filming company. 

Francis, after the fact, changed the settlement details and Judge Smoak who was presiding over the case reissued the contempt warrant he had issued during the proceedings.

People magazine is now reporting that Francis was picked up at the Panama City Airport this morning at 6:30 am. From the People article:

Francis was ordered by U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak to surrender to authorities in Panama City by noon Thursday to begin serving jail time for contempt of court, the city’s News Herald reported. But sources told PEOPLE that Francis missed the deadline. According to the News Herald, Francis told Rivera on Monday: “I’m not trying to hide at all. I’m on my way to Florida right now to turn myself in and comply with the judge’s order. I would never run from justice.”

This the greatest day EVER!!  Joe, may I offer some advice: Pick up the soap.  Bend over pick it up. Often.

 

Jenna The Porn Star - Good        Jenna The MethHead - Bad

Since when did porn stars think sporting a “wasting disease” was a good look? That picture with her and boyfriend, Tito Ortiz, was taken in Vegas, and you know what they say: “What happens in Vegas, makes you look like hell.”

Also, if I see that Posh haircut on another person I will quit being a judge on American Idol.  Don’t push me, I’m on the edge. 

Now someone send Jenna a cheesecake and some ho-hos, ‘cuz I’m all out.

 

There are many times when I am sure we are at the end of days. 

Like when Britney declared she was the Anti-Christ, or when Angelina Jolie became a saint, and when a song of Avril Lavigne’s hit #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.  These are things that humanity, in a decent and acceptable world, should not have to face. 

But alas, even these aforementioned societal crises are nothing compared to this news:  Babyshamble’s leadsinger and the world’s-most famous-crackhead Pete Doherty, and his toothead and guttermouthed-former-supermodel-girlfriend Kate Moss, are considering throwing their hat into the baby-making ring.

The prolific Starpulse is reporting that Petey’s uncle Phil Michels has the low-down on the couple’s plans to populate the earth:

“Pete and Kate are so in love - they’re talking about starting a family together. Pete is already a doting stepfather to (Moss’ daughter) Lila Grace, and loves spending time with her. They’re setting up home together at the moment, and once that’s sorted they’ll have a massive showbiz wedding.”

Pete, who’s already a father (who knew) has a son named Astile with his former girlfriend Lisa Moorish. And the fact that I didn’t even know he had a son says it all right there about what kind of dad he will make.

So there you have it. If you’ve been putting off buying that life insurance policy or taking that once-in-a-life-time vacation, wait no more.  Because I assure that if there were a G*d who cared about this world, it has abandoned us out of complete disgust – and we are on our own.

Avril Lavigne isn’t fooling anyone with her half-hearted attempt to take potshots a Britney Spears. 

Avril, barely a footnote in the pop music annals, has recently been using Britney Spears’ rehab troubles to make a name for herself and her flagging record sales (her new single “Girlfriend” can’t even be found on the Billboard charts).  In an interview for Sun (UK) Magazine, Avril had these nasty things to say about fellow pop-singer and hugely popular celebrity Britney Spears:

“What’s happened to Britney is all down to who she is as a person. If you want a piece of this business, you have to be able to deal with it. You can’t complain about the pressures, the paparazzi, the madness, because that’s the job.”

That’s a rich piece of tapestry coming from a young lass who was recently dealt a PR blow by spitting in the face of photographers and signing “F*ck You” to autograph-seeking fans.  Avril was later forced to give a half-assed apology - ostensibly to her fans - for the spitting, as it became evident that no one was buying her “tough chick” angst anymore.  Even more ironic, she had the nerve to imply that Britney couldn’t handle her liquor, unlike Avril who states that while she also drinks “no one really gets to know” [about it] - ‘cuz you know, Avril’s so damn discreet.
But wait, there’s more…