Last night I had the strangest dream. I was at a scientific conference about the Everglades. The lecture was being held at Gusman Hall in downtown Miami. The lecturer was someone I knew in my previous life, the one where I was politically active and married to the Antichrist. She was speaking on behalf of another scientist, and no matter what someone asked her, the answer was always the same: we aren’t comfortable releasing that information to the public at this point. And yet, she was trying to convince the audience of the validity of the research. No concrete facts, just, you have to trust us. And I stood up and said:

“You look at a beach full of lies, and you find one grain of truth. Then you come here, convinced yourself, and trying to convince us that that single grain is representative of the entire beach.”

What does this mean? Comments are open.

I love my cousins. They have rallied round. Mummy will be getting a party.

On another note, I just watched Bee Movie, and it didn’t suck. Best joke? When the cow asks the mosquito if he, too, is an attorney and the mosquito (Chris Rock) says: are you kidding? I was already a blood sucking parasite, I just needed a briefcase.

Badaboom.

A dilemma, if you will. My mummy will turn 90 on Mother’s Day. She has end stage Alzheimer’s Disease. I’ve had her in an Alzheimer’s facility near me for three years, plus a couple of months. Only a couple of my relatives have been to see her since she moved here. That was when she first came, and could still focus on people and even respond appropriately to conversation. Not always, but sometimes, and enough that you knew she was still somewhere in there.

Well, it’s been a long time since then, and she no longer seems to recognize that I’m with her when I’m there. Sometimes she’ll kiss my fingers, or tell me that I’m a “good one.” Mostly though, I go and sit with her, and talk to her, and hold her hand, and hug her and kiss her. I don’t get much of a response; sometimes she’ll pull away and say she doesn’t want.

So what’s the dilemma? Mummy will turn 90 on Mother’s Day. How can I let that pass without cake and ice cream and at least one present and, here’s the thing… at least some of her family around her? Should I invite my cousins to cake and ice cream at the home, and then have lunch at my house, where we can all have a stiff drink, and talk about her and what a horror show it is to see her now? Should I take the relatives out to lunch or dinner after? Should I invite them at all? Should I invite my brother, Biggus Dickus (he has a wife, you know)? They have made it crystal clear to me that they have no intention of ever coming to see Mummy. Ever. It’s too hard. No fucking shit. Try it every week. Do I tell the relatives that Biggus Dickus isn’t coming or that I didn’t even invite him because I couldn’t bear to hear him say no? Should I warn the relatives about what to expect? I know the answer to that is a resounding yes. But what else?

I could print out some pictures of Mummy and family, but Mummy can’t see them. I don’t think she’s blind, exactly, I just don’t think that her brain and her eyes are in sync any more. Or even close.

So, gentle readers, I ask you: do I gather the clan for the matriarch’s 90th? Or do we pretend that she’s already gone?

This is a cheap Blogging 365 Entry, but it’s an SNL skit that makes me think, for the first time in years, that I ought to be watching the show.

MAKEOVERS!!!!

This is the first show of the season where I have actually seen the new intro, and I have to admit, Trya in Disco/Cabaret drag with the whip? Scary. Those bitches better listen when Mistress TyTy talks. Yeesh.

Open on the loft and various confessionalizings, notably, Dominique-inique-inique, who is very, very clear on the concept that she is totally high-fashion glamorous, dammit. And a diva. A high-fashion diva. And very, very clearly delusional. I want what she’s smokin’ and I want the mirror that’s lying to her about being the fairest of them all.

The doorbell rings and there is infernal squealing inside the loft. Outside the loft are a slew of giant, white, quilted handbags full of Applebottom swag. The hamsters are delighted with free stuff and all but on their new jeans, making sure to fulfill the contractual obligations of ANTM by showing off the logos and explaining why the jeans are called apple bottoms by bending over and sticking their asses out at the cameras. Cha-ching! Lauren can’t figure out how to put on the spike-heeled pumps. Allison and Fatima (of course) get into it with each other over the size of their asses. Fatima tells Allison that Allison’s is bigger, and that launches Allison into a frenzy of tape measuring, self-loathing, finger-sticking and revelations of prior eating disorders. She is particularly peeved at Fatima over triggering her body image issues. Because it is a given that if you are a working model, you will have bulimia or anorexia or some other eating disorder, and Allison knows that, because she’s a working model, with extensive experience in the Far East. And Fatima should be sensitive to people’s issues. Can’t argue with that, but Fatima is only sensitive to Fatima’s issues, or haven’t you been paying attention?

The LimoCab comes and takes the hamsters to the next challenge/shoot. Somewhere in New York City or the nearby environs is a huge Wal-Mart. Miz Shoes cries for her beloved New York City. It is at this Wal-Mart that the girls (and Dominique-inique-inique) will face their next test: the Cover Girl make-up challenge. It’s the usual: elbow each other out of the way at the make up wall, create a fresh, clean look using Cover Girl products A, B and C. There is a single make-up mirror, so sharpen the elbows again for that. You have 5 minutes from GO.

Brent Poer and Molly Someoneorother from Cover Girl judge the results: Fatima has flattened her color, Lauren should use blush. Allison was great, but heavy handed (i.e.: used a trowel for applying). Claire of the bi-polar hair is the winner.

Back in the dorms, Dominique-inique-inique and Claire discuss being single mothers and how they are doing this show to make their children’s lives better. By not being with them for 14 weeks? By showing them how to gamble on their futures rather than planning and working for them? Sort of like buying lottery tickets rather than putting money into savings, or getting a college education? Dominique-inique-inique says that she’s had to be both mother and father to her kid. Miz Shoes suspects that has been perilously easy, what with the shenis and all. Then Dominique-inique-inique goes on at great length about being a role model and domestic violence and blahblahblah. Heard it for the past 9 seasons. Try a new one.



Over in the big bed, Allison is playing with Barbies. She stuffs tissue in the seat of her Black Barbies pants to approximate Fatima’s junk in the trunk. There is much racist stereotyping and trash talking and Miz Shoes refuses to legitimize it by rehashing it here. Let’s just say that Allison is still holding a grudge against Fatima’s insensitivity to her body image issues. Why are there Barbies there? Where did the Barbies come from? Did Allison bring them with her? Are they tools used in the confessional, like the dolls psychologists use to help children talk about sex abuse?  If they belong to Allison, do we think that her attachment to these unrealistic figures is the root of her body image issues? Yeah. I digress.

Tyra scrolling lights! SQUEALING!!! STFU!!!!!! Do you ever want to just curl up and dye? Yes. Now in particular, what with the squealing that never ends. Oh. This must mean makeovers. Sally Ann squeaks to a giant portrait of Tyra, begging not to have her head shaved. Nothing good will come of that, watch my words. The girls and Dominique-inique-inique are hauled away in the LimoCab to the Stephen Knoll salon. He is Cindy Crawford’s hair guy…Cindy Crawford who just had a commercial for her line of furniture at Sears. My brain hurts. In an attempt to make this season mo’ real, Tyra tells the girls that their makeovers are going to be surprises, because in the real world, there isn’t a supermodel telling you that you’ll get blonde extensions and you’ll get a mohawk. Get in the chair and wait for the magic to happen. I ain’t telling you bitches shit. I think I see the riding crop.

Anya of the weird speech impediment gets white blonde, straight hair. Big Whitney gets a big weave. She can make it in country music if this doesn’t pan out for her. Aimee gets a dark red shaggy cut with bangs. Marvita gets something that Tyra calls a Horse Mane Weave, and it is Tyra’s own creation. What it is is a long weave where Marvita’s hair was already in a fro-hawk, and short on the sides where she already had short hair. Meh. It actually kind of works, though it pains me to say that. Lauren is femmed up with a long blonde weave with some reddish highlights and curl. Miss Jay gets all the extras sewn in at random. Katarzyna gets her hair darkened. Claire goes white blonde and mostly shaved. She’s stoked. Fatima looses the icky mercurochrome shit she’s been sporting in favor of a butt-touching chestnut brown weave. The pain and agony and torture of the process leaves her weeping and crying and carrying on for the rest of the day. Allison gets a lighter weave. What is with all the freaking weaves? Dominique-inique-inique gets her hair bobbed, and she declares herself fierce and high-fashion. Good lord that woman has a huge honker. Stacy-Ann wants Naomi Campbell (sorry, Minnie Mouse, that’s going to Fatima) but gets a short-short-short spike. Amiss gets long streaks, and proceeds to speak about herself in the third person: Amiss could become a sex monster. Weelll, half right is better than nothing.

In their after shots, wrapped in the white bandages that signify plastic surgery, we see that there is some seriously bad skin on these faces. Good lord. Maybe Noxema should consider a sponsorship for next cycle.

We are taken back to the loft, and subjected to more squealing as the Scrolling Tyra Lights announce that having worked the make up and worked the hair, they will now have to work “the body”. “The Body” is in quotes, which anyone who has ever paid any attention to models knows is Elle McPherson’s nickname. Sure enough, they are taken to a boat in the river where they will shoot lingerie with the Brooklyn Bridge as their backdrop. Special photographer is George Holz, who shot Cycle Two’s underwater high concept shot.

Big Whitney is dressed from chap to nave in corseting and a long skirt, and can barely move to pose. Katarzyna is doing cheesecake poses. Lauren is conflicted and has a hard time with the high heels. Allison is practicing in the mirror right up until she’s called to set and promptly earns the wrath of Mr. Jay for being too pose-y. He hates on her and she claims that he doesn’t know shit, because she totally nailed the shoot. Amiss can’t take, or can’t understand direction and flounders around on the set, whereas Aimee gets praise. Dominique-inique-inique just keeps yapping and yapping and yapping about how she is fierce and high fashion and the shit and Mr. Jay don’t know from shit, calling her catalog and commercial. Cut to Mr. Jay saying that he feels bad for her, because she came out and tried her hardest and had NOTHING.

Allison confessionalizes that she nailed the shot, that she totally kicked ass and that she is NOT. GOING. HOME. Want to lay money on that, sweetie? After 9 seasons, I can confidently say that you will. Oh, hubris! Oh, irony! Oh, why don’t we have script writers, again?

Panel, where we see the (smarter) girls rocking the Applebottom swag. The guest judge is George Holz. Miss Jay is wearing sequins on his eyebrows. I do not know why. The girls are called out thusly:

Amiss, you’re a mess. Your body needs work. Lauren, you need to stand up straight. Put out your hip. Point out your toes. Stand up straight. Marvita, you looked amazing. (And amazingly, she did. Her position in front of the bridge? The cropping? Amazing.) Claire had a weird shot. Fatima looks like Iman, for real, not just a Tyra hallucination. Unfortunately, she only looks like Iman from the waist up. From the waist down, she’s stiff and can’t move her body. Oh, lord, that isn’t going to be bringing up the female circumcision shit again is it? Is she going to use that as an excuse for lower body immobility? Eeeww. Katarzyna looks like a mail-order bride. That was so last cycle people. That was Natasha. Even George acknowledges that he was shooting from the groin and not the brain. Stacy Ann has Paulina’s jawline and no neck. Extend, extend. Dominique-inique-inique looks like the Sunday paper insert for the local big-box clothing store sale. They cruelly focus on her cottage cheese thigh action and both Tyra and Paulina explain how you gotta shove that shit under and back so it doesn’t show up on film. Aimee is too stiff. Allison is told that her make over looks great and she says that she knows it does. The judges don’t like that. Especially Nigel, and they try a second time to get her to say “thank you”. The second time’s a failure, too. George says that during the shoot the lights were on, but nobody was home. And finally, Big Whitney gets a pass because the stylist sucked.

Dominique-inique-inique gets some savage critiquing by the panel. Holz says that he thought she was someone’s mother on the set, until she came out in her lingerie. Paulina calls her finished. They all loathe Allison and comment on her being conceited. Anya’s new hair is much loved, but it only makes what they call her accent and I call her speech impediment more apparent. Katarzyna is slammed again for the mail order bride, cheesecake pose. Finally, the girls are called back in.

First photo goes to Lauren, who’s so wrong it’s right. Awkward and gangly. Marvita, for some bogus and random reason, gets the second photo and the rest go down in order. Aimee, Claire, Stacy Ann, Fatima, Anya, Big Whitney, Katrazyna, Amiss. If you were keeping track, that leaves Dominique-inique-inique and Allison in the bottom two. Who goes home? The busted, antique, DragWreck that is Dominique-inique-inique or the snotty, know it all, ungrateful, “I’m not going home tonight” Allison? If you said Allison, you’ve been watching this show as long as I have.

Next week? Bitch fights!

Open, interior apartment morning.

Jillian is wearing her best Rosie-the-Riveter mini rompers. Christian is doing his hair. Rami is blissed out. Enough of that, we’re off to Parson’s work room.

There is much eyeball rolling and darting glances as our final three try to see what the others have. Rami allows as how Christian is surprised by the scope of Rami’s collection. Jillian shows Tim a striped, u-neck sweater with sleeves that look like she took the pelt off a Komondor. Or micro-fiber dust mop. Rami has toned down the garish baby-shit yellow of the collection he showed Tim. There’s some glamorous antique lace that is a two-piece evening dress. Christian offers up a caveat to Tim that not all the pieces in his collection are wearable. It is, however, all black, ivory and brown. He’s nervous, and not the odious little queen we’ve grown to love.

Christian interviews that Jillian’s collection is soooo innovative, and Rami is soooo good, that he just doesn’t know how he can compete with them. With the snarky wit and wicked fast sewing skills you’ve shown all season? We see the designers playing with each other’s designs, and Christian is wearing the most fabulous black felt cloche with a crest of black feathers. It’s very helmet-like, and at the same time evocative of Dior’s bubble hats from the 60s, and flappers’ cloches from the 20s. Miz Shoes would like to order one in several colors. Jillian is nervous about casting, because she’s never done it and Christian says it’s her own fault and too damned bad. There’s some amusing footage of the three designers all trying to hire the same girls. Christian says that he needs fierce tallness and walks for days. Tall and dark.

T MINUS 2 and counting

Collier Strong comes to do the hair and make-up. Rami is looking for chiseled faces and deep shadows. Christian is going for pale eyes and strong brows and mouths. Jillian wants natural but dramatic.

Rami interviews that everything Christian does is over the top. Can Christian design for real women, and not just models? Rami wonders. The models come in for their fittings and Christian is cramming his girls’ feet into 7 inch heels. They cannot walk in them, and Christian scorns them for their inability, saying that he wore them around his apartment for days and he was fine in them. This is not as funny as you would think. He is calling the models bitches and telling them to not be late, and not to eat; he wants them skinny. This isn’t as funny as one might hope, either. In fact, even Miz Shoes, the old fag hag that she is, is finding this a bit over much and a maybe more than a little rude.

Jillian is now in a dither, second guessing her model choices and calling the casting agency to switch up girls. She’s warned it might not happen, but this is the cycle of bunnies and rainbows and love, and so she gets her wish. Tim calls the designers together for a last “Gather round.” There are group hugs and everyone tells everyone else how much they love them and how talented they are and Tim Gunn sheds a perfectly formed tear.

SHOW TIME!

We approach Bryant Park in the dark, and Rami tells us that Bryant Park during Fashion Week is the heart that pumps the blood of the fashion industry in America. Dude. Word dat. We have another group hug.

Christian’s bitches are late, with the last girl wandering in with only 30 minutes to runway. Passive aggressive? Or just stupid, unprofessional and lame? We see Christian doing his hair ONE MORE TIME and he interviews that he kinda hopes he wins? Because there is nothing in the pipeline and he’s kinda out of options? Fierce.

As the entire world knows by now, the fabulous celebrity judge is no lesser a star than Posh. Mis Shoes considers stabbing herself in the eye with the little plastic cocktail sword which is holding her olives. She opts for just eating the olive.

Jillian’s collection is first. Jillian herself is wearing an adorable winter white, cable-knit, strapless, full skirted little dress. Her collection is coats, leggings, Apocalyptic Trench Coats, short anorak style coats with inside elbow cut-outs for emergency blood transfusions, a variation of her little gold final challenge dress, another coat, the Komondor-sleeved sweater, pleated little skirts and leggings. And maybe some other stuff that I didn’t see because JoJo, the dog of very little brain, jumped on the couch and did something to the remote control which turned off the teevee and made it almost impossible to get it back on and hooked up with the cable.

Rami comes out to introduce his collection and claims that it celebrates women. The blue coat with the weird-ass armored sleeved is sent out first. It’s an awful shade of blue, honestly. Then there is a suit with a tulip skirt and it’s boring and blue. An ugly baby doll. Then the dress that won the walk-off, the two-toned white on grey and grey on white polka-dotted heavily sculpted/draped dress. A blouse of the same dotted fabric, with puffy sleeves, and a leather bustier that looks sort of like the shape that Daniel V showed in season 2. Black and red, red and black. Jodhpurs with outlandishly large hip balloons. A dress with a quilted neck panel, and another gown in olive and bronze with a woven bodice. The two evening dresses, ivory with a fish tail, and the black with the hip pads that we saw him show Tim. The overall look is nice. I’m not crazy about his color usage. The RLA loved the colors, though. Of course, he’s a man and he acknowledged that the colors were traditional camouflage colors.

Christian bounces out and is (I sort of hate myself for saying this: adorable). He looks around at the tent and tells the audience that they all look fierce. Let the games begin. Tight black pants and an over the top cropped jacket with puffy sleeves. And another one. And another one. And a ginormous Breakfast at Tiffany’s hat with the foofy, organza petal, neck thing that Tim thought was a skirt. Peach skinny pants. A brown/beige/ivory sort of vertical version of the Avant Garde challenge dress. Pretty amazing. The last look, which is feathers and ivory and gold and chiffons and what’s another word for over the top? Crazy fabulous. Posh keeps poking Michael Kors and stage whispering that she loves this. Ya think?

Back at the Parsons runway room, the designers face off with the judges. Michael Kors tells Jillian that she made knitwear exciting. I guess. I still want the dress she was wearing. I’m not sure that anyone with arms larger than toothpicks could wear that Komondor sweater. NinaGarcia thinks that she had too many looks. Posh doesn’t say anything worth noting.

Christian, on the other hand, gets told that he’s MAJAH. Oh, hoho. Is that her trademark phrase? Who fucking cares? Fucking POSH SPICE was the best they could do? Why couldn’t we have had Roberto Cavalli for our final judge? I’d rather have seen Gwen Stephani up there. Anyway, Posh loves him and he loves her and offers to dress her anytime and she says OK, and you know she just wanted to stuff him in her pocket and take him home right then and there. NinaGarcia brings us back to earth by saying it was a tad repetitive and there was too much black.

Rami gets the love from NinaGarcia, but Michael Kors tells him that the colors he used sucked. And they did. I cast a triumphant eye over at the RLA when Michael made his declaration. NinaGarcia mangles the English language one last time by telling Rami that the area where he “really shined” was eveningwear.

With the designers back in the green room, the judges decide that Jillian’s show was accessible and feminine, but that she hasn’t really found her voice yet. Christian opened strong and kept going. NinaGarcia thinks that his work is overwrought and needs to look effortless, but the all agree he walks what he talks. Rami is given the brainy, cerebral tag, and NinaGarcia understates that maybe Rami has a challenge with color.

The winner is Christian, and I get the feeling that he, for all his fierceness and bravado, didn’t expect to. I suddenly love him to pieces. He cries. I love him more. Rami is a gracious loser. Jillian. not quite so much. Heidi kisses our little Christian and tells him he is “uber fierce.” And he is. We end with Christian telling us that he’s off for a breakybreak, cause gurl needs a vaycay. I miss him already.

Next week? Only ANTM, which is trash to this treasure.