ultranow

barbie make music and money and scare people forever

the new barbie mp3 player (made to technologically bond with the frightening barbiegirls.com) plays what do you think?  here's where i would normally upload the japanese version of aqua's barbie girl, but i don't want to make your ears bleed, especially when other parts of you will already be bleeding from the consumerist rotten value frenzy that is the barbiegirls.com experience.  no offense mattel.  i mean to insult barbie as an individual, certainly not her corporate rulers.  all hail mattel.

america's next top model week 8 1/2 rundown

in an effort to build suspense, or really to maximize the overlap into may sweeps, this past episode was a clip show.  still there were a few previously unaired bits, in which we learned:

• during the acting challenge, natasha did a ridiculously accurate impression of tyra in judging panel mode.  after asking a model why she wanted to win and hearing something to the effect of "as a beautiful black woman, i want to positively represent my black sisters and be a positive role model of positivity in a positive manner", natasha tyraed her response: "your believing you are a beautiful black woman makes me as a black woman feel even more beautiful in my black womanhood."  yes i just used tyra as a verb, and while it can have many meanings in this case it indicates "say slowly in a deadpan, overly serious and self-aware manner."
• renee and natasha spent three hours cleaning the pigsty of a bathroom during which jael walked past and said "what are you doing?"  um, they're cleaning.  have you heard of it?
• cassandra got actual frostbite from holding ice cream too long and not complaining after her fingers went numb.  this (as ms. jay says) "no neck monster" pic was her swan song anyway, so it was hardly worth it.  great gams though.

tonight was the longest 15 minutes of my life

going to a bar isn't fun when you don't drink, don't smoke, don't want casual sex, don't know anyone, don't like superloud music no matter how good it is, don't yearn to spy peepees in the terlet, don't seek male prost companionship, don't play pool and most of all are not into a constantly on the move and therefore unavoidable objectively ugly man in a yellow and blue wrestling singlet, hiking sneakershoes, black socks and a fannypack slung across his shoulder as if a purse, drinking a bottomless margarita while manually self-fluffing.  i said one word tonight at that pit, or rather mouthed it to the bartender:  water.  if only i'd said it wa-wa-water, then i'd have bonded with someone (i.e. dead annie sullivan - helen keller's teacher of wa-wa-water fame).

a yoga class is looking pretty good about now.  i am officially not a barfella, though i never was but could still manage a decent enough time to justify it.  i'm actually just seeking conversation and potential new friendships.  admittedly, a bar may not be the best tack.  but then again, maybe a yoga class wouldn't either.  i genuinely don't know what to do.  yes i do.  time for sprouted grain bread and cultured butter and carob soy milk.

extreme hood ornament to the supermax

so after the jump, because you know why.

my tombstone would like totally say...

i've uttered this so many times at checkout counters, it needs to be my epitaph:  "i don't need a bag."

my goal is to preempt the whole paper or plastic question so as to reduce the labor of the clerk.  in addition, i enjoy not needing something.  i do so much self-deprivation but with things i shouldn't deprive myself of (sleep, water, the sexlove combo) that it's a nice change to deprive myself of something (such as a hurtful to the environment bag) that i should deprive myself of.

alternately i do need a bag to be buried in (i should live to 120), in which case i'd prefer the one after the jump.

america's next top model week 8 rundown

the biggest slap in the face to the antm empire (greater even than the dual appearance of cycle 2 and cycle 4 winners yoanna house and naima mora in sheer cover infomercial before and after shots) just hit newsstands.  the may cover of vogue, while realizing tyra's dream of finally putting damn models back on the cover of a fashion magazine instead of jennifer aniston for example, not so subtly slammed the hell out of antm with the tagline "the world's next top models..."  second slap to tyra and powermodels of color in general is the placement of chanel iman (yes that's her real name) on the inside flap.  still as the cover asks "is the hpv vaccine right for all women?" so maybe the cycle 8 winner can model in an hpv vaccine ad, unless jaslene's cervix reads too draggy for the room.

this week the dollbots flew to australia, the location revealed by a plushie dream come true tyra in a kangaroo costume, or maybe her everyday look is a costume and tyra is genuinely a kangaroo.  she took the head part off, like marlene deitrich in that gorilla suit in blonde venus was it?  except unlike marlene tyra's reveal was not preceded by a massively racist 1930s musical number.  after jetting to sydney (during which there unfortunately was no graphic shown where their oversized heads were superimposed on the airplane windows like producers have done the last two cycles) the ladies immediately had to interview locals about fashion don'ts while incorporating as much aussie slang as possible.  the winner would make multiple appearances as a tyra show correspondent.  shockingly, natasha worked it out and won.  unshockingly, jael failed horrendously.

the main effort was a commercial for, of course, cover girl!  i must yell cover girl!  as everyone always does on antm.  jael's body language upon arrival at the shoot is prescient.  as she said about 70 times during the shoot, she does not feel comfortable with a cover girl! commercial because it's not a match for her personality.  i can't fully recreate her every word/action, except with one word - meltdown.  while on the ranch set girl talked to a chicken, for real.

did i mention they had to speak in australian accents?  quite the challenge for jaslene and natasha, and as it turned out, everybody.

jaslene was the only one to make it through the full script without the need for cue cards.  still she was a bit stiff.  did i say last time it wasn't fair to label her too draggy?  i take it halfway back.  she is draggy, but just draggy enough, not too draggy.  while she didn't pull off the accent, she did manage to not sound like herself, which was quite an achievement.  still love her, but her chances of winning are looking poor.  her presence is a bit too slight.

could anyone look more cg than this?  she has a megawatt smile and can pull off semi-high fashion and commercial.  natasha had the best energy, and actually slightly presented an australian accent which impressed the judges to no end.  i think she's pulled a borat and thrived off the judges and fellow contestants' stereotypes of, in this case, russian people as backward in some way, so when she demonstrates average or slightly above average smarts, she comes off as brilliant.  plus she really does follow the judges advice, which they love to see especially when it turns out they are right.  by the way, i don't have any of those stereotypes, because my heritage is part ukranian, not that i know shit about the ukraine.  but really i think i'm loving her because she's the female alexei nemov, except she's not a gymnast and i don't want to fuck her like i do him.  make that muscle alexei.  you can leave your wife alone for one night.

brittany had some huge car accident/head injury a few years ago, so her short term memory is shot, not that there is any proof how good it was before the accident.  but i believe her because even nerves wouldn't result in how many takes she needed, even with cue cards.  she'd forget her lines the moment she read them before she had time to get them out of her mouth.  still she worked the occasional aussie lilt into it and looked very cover girl!  i can't stop shouting that.  i don't hate her anymore.  i just think she'd be better if she were living in the '50s modeling in a department store window.  anything so i don't have to look at her.  ok, i admit it, i do hate her but i don't completely know why, unless it's that i perceive her as a threat to jaslene making the final runway show.

i don't have a pic of dionne on set, just in makeup, getting ready to disappoint.  mr. jay loves saying that "on set" part, as if the antm models are important - "we have modelicia on set..." whatevs.  she looked great, but as a commercial spokesmodelperson was so horrible.  she does not know how to sell makeup.  and i don't feel she wants it the most.  natasha, renee and jaslene have her beat on that front, at least in terms of the judges' perceptions.  and you got to want it to get it.

jael wasn't kidding when she griped about not being able to perk it up for camera.  she wanted an anarchist type makeup commercial, which at least in this spontaneous shot with brittany, she proves well suited. while she was doomed from the start, and 105% crazy throughout, she did bring out one of my main points which is the whole cg sponsorship partially sucks out the high fashion element meaning the winner won't really ever be the type that could land the cover of vogue for real.  bye, jael.  i severely won't miss you.  i suggest beauty school so you can become a beauty school dropout.  or hell, make your own makeup line - face stencils that spell out words like "revolt", "anger" and "chaos" all in the appropriately rattled, distressed font.

all i have to say about renee, besides how loud and manly (in a bad way) her croc hunter accent was, is "katherine helmond called.  she wants her scene from brazil back."

five left.  and two of those i picked as among the top four based solely on their first published shots (before the show even aired) are still in it - jaslene and natasha - which, statistically, means...nothing.

pikachusexual

update: i did my best to match stuffed animal with fictional identity, but i messed it up.  see comment.  p.s. is that a desk in his closet?

body yes

as if a beacon of light to rescue me from my self-imposed by life experience workout pity party, so appeared in my life the naked body of seattle mayor greg nickels.  he was working out at my gym this morning, or more precisely, since he's a bigwig, his gym.  he is stout/husky/purposeful/imprecise in his workout style, a real plus size role model for humanity, a near hairless bear.  since he's a democrat, i am not about to disparage him in any way, except that later in the locker room his swimsuit was revealed to be so incredibly tacky i threw up on it and it didn't affect the look.  it is taking all my strength to not describe his genitals, which i swear i was not attempting to see.  i was simply in the shower area when he got back from the pool and well, i looked.

i write stories on my body, almost all of which have been told to me.  that i am weak.  that i am unlovable.  untouchable.  that i am dirty.  fucked up.  damaged.  they are stories.  and i repeat them and i am in them.  until today when i am not.  today i write no story.  i simply am aware of being.  i am aware of stories.  i stop telling.  i stop listening.  i am simply awareness.  changing.  moving.  a body historically accurate yet undefined.  a body impermanent.

i saw the mayor's face and knew it was him.  i never thought of his body before.  he was just a head and a suit.  maybe shoes.  i had no story about his body.  no history.  no assumed reality.  my body can be the same.  nothing predetermined.  nothing assumed.  my body exists.  moves through space.  has moved through space.  has felt.  can touch and be touched.  can love and be loved.  can see and be seen.

the ultimate wallflower song

i can't stop listening to rosie thomas - pretty dress [expired].  "all the pretty princes will see you someday."  yes.

from if songs could be held

body not body hot

i'm supposed to go to the gym more.  i'm supposed to like it but i don't.  i'm too damn numb most of the time and working out is not numb.  i don't do drugs except tv.  not even sugar or caffeine.  just tv.  and computer i guess.  i like exercising while i'm doing it or at least can stand it or really i don't like it all all.