Watch This Space For A Massive Rationalization

I've sat on this a couple of days, desperately searching for the silver bullet of logic to make what I'm about to write not appear to be a complete reversal of previously published thoughts. I'm willing to believe a great many things about myself, but no matter how much sugar I sprinkle on this turd of a rationalization, it still tastes of, you know.

Someone who looks an awful lot like I do, and who has the password to this blogger account, wrote a scathing piece about why she could give a fig that poor, sad, Amy Winehouse made the leap into the inevitable, and how we should shut up about how it's a tragedy.

And then Whitney Houston goes and dies. And that writer feels, well, something. She casts around desperately for a reason that has more substance than sheer nostalgia and that can somehow justify her emotion at Houston's death when she nearly cheered at Winehouse's because, at least, we would get to stop hearing about the latter's antics.

Here's the pathetic result of that casting about:

Whitney Houston was truly singular. Much as it was cool to stop liking her after her airplay exceeded one's tolerance, I came back to Whitney in the 90s. Part nostalgia, part realization that, though Greatest Love of All is seriously sappy, no one else could have done it. One of the things that reality talent competitions have taught me (other than the fact that a lot more of you are getting pregnant in high school than I approve of, and more of you really need to consider college) is that there is an ocean of difference between talent and Talent. While discussing the X-Factor with my father this year, I noted that it was unfair to ask any of the participants to sing a song by Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey because, while they could likely get the notes out, their versions would only highlight how short they fall of the original. Whitney Houston's Talent was effortless and it's why I gave her first grudging respect and then true admiration once the 7th grade dance memories faded.

I don't know why she couldn't keep it together. I don't know how anyone in her position wakes up one day and decides crack is a good idea. I do know that she didn't then go out and cut an album whose title track was "Crack Is Dope!" (Unlike our previous dead drug addict whose claim to fame was that she had a hit with a song about how the people who wanted her to stop doing drugs and get help were lames.) We had to watch Whitney Hosuton's Talent evaporate.

So news of her death did make me sad. She had a once in a generation voice and she totally effed it up. So I guess I was sad and angry. I don't want Houston to get lumped into the sad sack remembrances we reserve for the merely talented who bump themselves off due to drugs. I don't want retrospectives to put her photo after Winehouse's in the annals of people who recently died and also did music. I want her to remain in a class of her own (and I don't think it's unfair to say that Jennifer Hudson couldn't hold a candle to Houston - she can't, that's the point, no one can).

I'm not going to go so far as to say that Houston's death was a tragedy - I still like to reserve that for truly serious things - but it was a death worthy of reflection. We knew Houston before she knew drugs and we knew what she was capable of. That she gave it up along the way, yeah, that makes me sad, and I don't mind if that makes me a hypocrite.

I Touched Harry Potter

The last time I went to a Broadway opening, I must admit was a tragedy. The show was, without reservation, excremental. It didn't take long for the wide-eyed child who delighted in A Chorus Line and Into the Woods to become a teenager and adult who would rather watch Papillon on TV than go see a Broadway musical. It is our uniquely American art form, but it ain't my cup of tea. This is probably sad for my father who delights in the American musical. Whether sheer nostalgia or a true love, or most likely a combination of both, I am the child of a musical lover. And I do feel bad stomping on his enthusiasm every time he asks if I would like to go see such-and-such a show with him.

Every now and again, though, I've relented. I even dragged devoted partner to the crapstorm that was Dracula: The Musical.

So it was with trepidation that I agreed to accompany my father to opening night of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - a capital-M musical. It didn't help that none of my evening dresses fit. Ok, one fit. The one I wore. The one I originally wore to my brother's Bar Mitzvah and the only reason it fit me then was that I had spent the month prior suffering from a wasting disease that clipped 20 pounds off my frame and left me as naturally pale as most goths spend lifetimes trying to achieve.

My father looked dashing as ever in his tux and, this being one of his all-time favorite musicals, he was hyped up. I was cautiously pessimistic.

The show was fine. Listen, my expectations were way low. After all, normal humans do not communicate through song and since musicals are in English whereas most opera is in a language I don't understand, it's hard to ignore the overwhelming artifice. This show, however, was immediately saved by truly excellent set design. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the set, in its heavily Mad Men-ish, self-consciously retro get up set the stage, literally, for a production that I felt wasn't about to take itself too seriously. It was a period piece that didn't try to demonstrate rampant relevancy and also knew that it was a throwback. I felt winked and nodded at.

For a musical, there wasn't a lot of oversinging. As someone who can carry a tune myself, one of my biggest objections to musicals (and, frankly to the cast of Glee) is that the vocals are always always overstylized. I doubt seriously that any of the singers actually sounds like that. And since the result of their musical-theatre-voices is so deeply cloying, I have difficulty listening. Yes, this cast sounded like it was singing in a musical, but just a normal amount. And the book is funny. I laughed a couple of times. John Laroquette helped this since I find his deadpan amusing.

But I didn't catch myself, at any point, finding god simply so I could pray for the end of the show. And from me, that's a mark of distinct praise for the production. My father's client was very funny and this helped when I saw her later being able to honestly convey congratulations.

It was the after, though, that was just silly. The party, held at the Plaza, was so big as to be patently ridiculous. The production had something like 20 distinct producers, and there had to be over 1000 people at this party. When it comes to celebrity, I am the product of the massively jaded New Yorker scene that judges celebrities to be neighbors to the point of downright ignoring them wherever possible. Truth be told, there are only a handful of celebrities whose presence would deeply enthuse me: Tom Jones, Joan Collins, to name two (though I realized at the show that I would like to meet Sian Phillips, who played both Livia in I, Claudius and the Reverend Mother in Dune and who was married to Peter O'Toole, and who is generally awesome). So I guess my taste in celebrities is quirky. After all, a story I love to tell is being halfway through a conversation on the street with a very handsome man before I realized it was JFK Jr.

But I had promised my knitting group I was going to meet Daniel Radcliffe, so meet him I did (apologies to the many many many little girls who didn't get to, I think mine was one of the last hands this poor guy shook). Sadly, my heart was far more aflutter when I met Umberto Eco (Umberto, call me).

Later, at home, I remarked to devoted partner that the whole idea of the opening night party was yet another example of the self-indulgence of the performing set. I mean, when you finish a project at work, how often is there a huge catered affair to commemorate it? Yes, putting on a show is an endeavor, but it's also a job, and the idea that every successful job needs a party is, well, silly.

But I had a nice date with my dad, who still looked dashing as we sat on the stairs at Grand Central waiting for my train. It may have been 20 years since the first time he took me to an opening, but we were both wearing essentially the same thing, and I was just as pleased to be his date.

The Internet Is For, Well, You Know

This morning, devoted partner and I shared a meaningful moment. If you're a couple, then I'm sure you'll know what I mean. Those unexpected times when your love calls out to you, something funny in his or her voice, and says those six words every lover wants to hear,

"I just saw Brett Favre's (rhymes with) sock!"

Eagerly, I took the stairs quickly, the surprise and anticipation in my voice, "really?"

Apparently, there's a new tactic in wooing that the kids (who the hell am I kidding, Brett Favre is like 108) involving photographing your junk and sending it along. I know that this must work since I am forever lamenting the lack of junk photos in my inbox and encouraging devoted partner, and really anyone else, to snap and send.

For a moment, let's just get the unspoken out there so that others may be spared: don't photograph your genitals. Don't! If you absolutely must photograph your genitals, do not ever email them anywhere. Ever! Unless your genitals are being photographed by Herb Ritts, you will not be pleased by what happens after others see the picture. I myself felt no compunction mocking Brett Favre's absolutely average genitals. And this was long before I mocked his motivation for photographing them in the first place.

And let's talk about that, Brett. I'm a woman. I like the genitals of men. Under no circumstances do I ever want to receive an email from someone I'm not already sleeping with (and frankly, I'm not that into receiving one from someone I am sleeping with as, presumably, I already know what they look like) showing a disembodied meat puppet. This is an ego thing, I guess. You think women don't care about the rest of you as much as they care about your vaunted pokey toy. This is a fallacy. And the only kinds of people who send these kinds of pictures are gross people with whom, if we weren't already sleeping, we certainly wouldn't start and, had we started, might consider stopping.

Flowers are nice. They say, "hey I'm interested in having a relatively meaningless casual affair with you based primarily on how you look in a cheerleading outfit" without, say, being disgusting. Now, I can understand if you gave her the picture so that she could supplement her income by selling it, but I think you missed out on the part of the equation that necessitated other people seeing it (I'm thinking your wife, kids, grade school teachers, etc. oh wait, Wikipedia also informs me you have a grandchild - kudos) if the young lady was to reap profits. Would it have not been easier to simply let 10 grand fall out of your pocket?

I am not the only one, Mr. Favre, who has now laughed not only at your grand scale stupidity, but also at your decidedly NOT grand scale Leaning Tower of Pisa. In fact we're laughing at you more than we did when you said you were retiring. We're laughing at you because dumb is funny and you seem to have gotten enough dumb to keep us entertained for quite some time.

Don't Worry, I Can Still Be Unpleasant

There was some concern after yesterday's post that I was going to go all Buddhist on you all and think everything was sunshine and rainbow puppies. Calm yourselves. I can be a bitch without being angry. Never more so then when watching, what this year felt interminably long, the Academy Awards.

Now there are many sites better than this one where you can go to dish about the (yawn) outfits people wore (they were really really boring this year, I felt I was at the Fire and Ice ball, just a sea of red, white, and black), but I would like to tackle a far less kind issue: age. I have a number of theories as to why Hollywood seems to do to its talent what the poor choice of grails did to the blonde nazi in Last Crusade, but it is never more apparent than during closeups on a night when the stars have, presumably gone all out. And lest you think I'm just being mean because I myself am not a Hollywood star...eh, I got nothing. Maybe I am being mean for no good reason. But still, maybe I can spin this as a warning to others about the dangers of not taking care of your skin (while you obsessively take care of your biceps - maybe they could make vials of moisturizer that weighed 15 pounds).

Example #1 - Kathy Ireland. Real age: almost 47. Neck age: crypt keeper. Remember super cute Kathy Ireland? With her gorgeous eyes and BROWN hair? Remember how she was in shape but not in a scary way (like the difference in shape between Brenda and Kelly in original 90210 and the Steve Madden heads-to-big-for-bodies girls in new 90210?). Remember this? Diagnosis: too much bronzer, too much frosted hair, too much working out, not enough sensible menu choices, abject failure in the moisturizing of neck.

Example #2 - Kate Winslet. Real age: 34. Age I thought she was: >40. Now Kate Winslet gets a lot of crap for, I don't know, being too fat but photographing thinner, being too thin but claiming to be fatter...I don't care. I do care that it looks as though she has a centimeter worth of pancake makeup on. Could her skin really be that bad? And if so, is she not wealthy enough to fix that? Also, and this is a common complaint of mine: platinum hair + pale skin + pale makeup = ugh. Bright red lipstick would have changed this a little, though my primary complaint is when actresses match their hair to their skin. See examples A (also only 34), B (age 43 terrifyingly tight unemotional years), and C (age 25, but already coloring herself like a woman twice her age). Now, I'm not a huge fan of Cameron Diaz's style, but all blondes should look to her for advice on how to be blond.

Example #3 - Miley Cyrus. Real age: 17. Osteoporosis age: older than this. Now, unlike many others, I don't have a visceral reaction to the young Miss Cyrus. I don't even really know who she is because I don't have children. I do know, however, that she has linebacker shoulders and an underfed upper ribcage which hunching just accentuates. Additionally, I am guessing she has really really nice young 17-year old skin. Which I cannot see. Because she is orange. Her face and body do not match. Also, as slender as she is on top, her dress STILL doesn't fit, making her look like those much older women who try to squeeze themselves into the dresses they wore at 17.

So while I occasionally snipe at your crow's feet, collective Hollywood ladies, I really have concern in my heart. You are all, I presume, way better looking than this, and I do not understand why you go to so much trouble and effort to look older than you are.

But lest I appear sexist, though it is a sad truth that age on men is deemed more flattering than age on women, let me draw your attention to this neck. I'll admit, it was far more terrifying on last week's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, but Sean Penn is sporting Clint Eastwood's neck, and he should be concerned about that, what with the 30 YEAR AGE DIFFERENCE.

And it is also important, though frequently mentioned, to acknowledge the women who are clearly not 25, but also clearly wearing age very very well: Meryl Streep (age 60), Sigourney Weaver (age 60), Helen Mirren (age 64). And two of those women are blondes, a group not generally on the receiving end of kind aging.