The boss forwarded this to me, from New York City, where he is attending a conference. It is an essay, or a transcript (I'm not sure which) from Keith Olbermann, former sportscaster and only journalist in America today with the cojones to point at The Shrub and say "The emporer is buck nekkid."
"Sept. 11, 2006 | 8:32 p.m. ET

This hole in the ground

Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by
hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you."


And then there is this, from The Rude Pundit, who also went to Ground Zero to see the elephant President.

9/11/2006

Reporting From Ground Zero on the Fifth Anniversary of the Last Good Day:

Yesterday, on September 10, when he read that George W. Bush was going to lay a wreath down in the middle of the hole in the ground that was the World Trade Center twin towers, the Rude Pundit decided to head on down to Ground Zero to see his President in person. He expected massive crowds and a crazed media circus, because this was, after all, the President returning to the site of his iconic image, of the moment that cemented the nation on its present disastrous course. He had never seen Bush in the flesh and wanted to look on his actual physical form, get a measure of the man so many of us have spent so much time despising.

When he emerged from the subway through the WTC Path Station, the Rude Pundit was greeted by protesters, also expected. He saw drumming Buddhist monks and their monk-y wannabes drumming along flanked by large black balloons, behind a flag-draped coffin and signs demanding that the soldiers be brought home. Stopping a couple of young women in tight black shirts that read, in Arabic and English, "We will not be silent," the Rude Pundit asked, "Did you wear those intentionally? Because of the guy who couldn't get onto the plane?" They said they were aware of the incident, but, no, they wore the shirts because, indeed, they would not be silent.

The most protesters were from different groups calling for the "truth" about 9/11 to be revealed, the ones who, to varying degrees, believe the events of the day were supported and/or engineered by the U.S. government, the Israeli government, or some combination of them. Someone associated with the conspiracy-theorizing viral video sensation Loose Change gave the Rude Pundit a DVD of the film, which he will watch, as he told the guy, "skeptically." One 9/11 truth seeker was in a screaming fight with what can best be described as one of the "Crazed Old Coots For America," the various old guys decked out in American flag clothes and pro-Bush regalia spoiling for a fight. At least they didn't try to go toe to toe with the Grandmas For Peace, also there, also holding signs. One of the Grandmas said, "I just can't stand what Bush has done to us all, so I came down here to let him know."

Others there wanted freedom for Taiwan or pronounced the end of the world is nigh so it was time to get right with Jesus. One guy walked through the crowd screaming that homosexual soldiers rape Iraqi babies. It was hard to tell what side he was on.

Moving away from the station, looking for a place to watch the President do his wreath-laying solemnity, the Rude Pundit walked along the perimeter fence, looking around at all the security, the Secret Service with their tell-tale earpieces, the snipers on balconies and rooftops. Along the fence, people stared at mounted pictures of the day five years and a little over 12 hours ago. Every so often, there would be someone crying behind sunglasses or looking as if they had just finished or held back tears. Some wore pictures of loved ones on chains or shirts; some carried flyers that were reminiscent of the missing posters from back then. This time the flyers told short stories about the life of the dead person. One group wore name tags that said, "Surviving Family Member." It looked like two familes, one white, one Hispanic. They were being guided by an Asian woman who pointed out where each tower had stood. One of the Hispanic men posted a flyer over a "Post No Bills" sign. It was about his sister.

Walking past the lists of names that wrongly label everyone who died one of the "Heroes of 9/11" (sorry, but you don't get to be a hero just because you died at a certain place at a certain time unless you actually did something heroic), past Fire Station 10 and the soon-to-be open 9/11 Visitor's Center, the Rude Pundit was struck by how, compared to what he expected, very few people were actually there. Certainly not more than a couple of thousand. The President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the man who stood on the ruins and made such poignant promises to us, was going to be back at the ruins and, in as much as such numbers have meaning, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the attacks. Shouldn't it have been packed? Shouldn't we have all stood shoulder to shoulder to watch? As pornographically as Bush exploits the event and makes Americans into victims, shouldn't more people have wanted to mourn with him? The Rude Pundit's seen more people out here on ordinary summer days.

He looked through the barrier fence down into the footprints of the towers. The long ramp that leads to the center of the pit had been theatrically lined with the flags of, one presumes, all the states and nations that lost people in the attacks. He heard bagpipes and saw honor guard, police and fire officials, and others down there. He thought about how small George Bush was going to seem from this vantage point, as close as one could get to the event without actually being inside. He was just going to be a teeny-tiny man in a great big hole, laying a wreath for America in a temporary reflecting pool.

Then NYPD officers, politely, to be sure, told all of us who stood there wanting to watch our President, some of whom wanted to mourn with him at least distantly, that we had to move out. The area was going to be secured. In fact, most of the perimeter would be secured and no one would be allowed close enough to the fence to see the President. No, the only way to truly see him would be to watch him on television. Where he wouldn't seem so teeny-tiny, so reduced in scale to the epic destruction that surrounded him. And, indeed, when you watch video of the event, with the Bushes, Mike Bloomberg, George Pataki, and Rudy Giuliani lined up and walking down the ramp, they forcibly look out of scale to the vast construction site around them. However, from anyone who could see from above, see the actual context of the event, they were very, very small.

The Rude Pundit walked out of the secure area as they put up barricades. Now, with the fence itself off limits, the crowds thinned out even further. Maybe this was the intention, for George Bush to have a private moment of mourning, except, of course, for all the TV cameras there. After thinking about heading to an Irish pub off Fulton Street where he often hopelessly flirts with the raven-haired Jersey girl behind the bar who can yank a tap like nobody's business, he decided to head home. The train station was closed because the President was going to be near it. So the Rude Pundit walked uptown a bit, past the protesters, past the press vans, past the police, and he hailed a cab.

It was only 9/10, after all. And it looked like it might rain.

She piles all of her clothes on the bed, and jumps off.

That pile is all of the clothing owned by me or the RLA. The random carnage surrounding the pile is everything else that ever lived in our one closet.

I had a shit fit this weekend which nicely coincided with the big Elfa sale at the Container Store, and the results will be posted as soon as tomorrow, if the installation goes as well as I anticipate.

I also got to play with my Dremel this weekend, and I went around the house like a mad woman, cutting the heads off of all the protruding nails in the terrazzo. The former owners of our little Casita des Zapatos put nasty beige carpeting over all of the terrazzo floors. While I was able to rip up the carpets, even before we moved in (first thing I did when I got the keys and the RLA left me alone in the house for a couple of hours), I've never been able to remove the nails without tearing up huge gouts of terrazzo. Since it's hard enough to find someone to polish and seal the stuff, much less someone who can do repairs, I left the nails in (they're only around the edges of the rooms). But yesterday, armed with my Dremel and a stack of extra reinforced cutting disks, I got rid of the nail heads and left smooth little steel dots that are virtually invisible.

I am woman, armed with power tools. Rahr.

The current Rolling Stone cover story is Bob Dylan. The number one Billboard Album is (for the first time in his career) Bob Dylan's newest, Modern Times. There's a new i-pod commercial featuring The Bob. The New York Times' article. The general concensus seems to be that Bob Is Hot.


I feel cheated and dirty. I've loved this man for most of my life and been ridiculed for my obsession, and now he's hot? I mean, I've always been way ahead of the trend, the curve, the whatever, but this is just crazy. Now? Now that Bob is 65 and raggedier than ever, NOW he's hot?

How unfair is this? Now that he and I are creaking into geriatricville, shouldn't I finally have the old goat to myself? Shouldn't my imaginary boyfriend and I get peace at this stage in our lives? Shouldn't he finally have enough time to come to my house for dinner?

No. NOW he's hot. GAH. So fucking unfair. And get this quote from Rolling Stone:

When I ask Dylan what [Alicia] Keys did "to get into your pantheon," he only chuckles at my precious question. "I remember seeing her on the Grammys. I think I was on the show with her, I didn't meet her or anything. But I said to myself, 'There's nothing about that girl I don't like.'"

Oh, girlchild. Do you even know? Do you realize? If The Bob ever said that about me, I would voluntarily allow my ticket to be punched, just so I could have that engraved on my tombstone.

(Heaves a huge sigh) Well, the whole freaking interview is wonderful. He talks about everything from the current crummy state of recording technology to baseball. He's a Derek Jeter fan, and except for the fact that Jeter plays for the Yankees, who could argue? The Bob claims to be a Detroit fan, but I remember that he wrote a song about Catfish Hunter, another NY Yankee. I suspect that the Bob may be a closet Yankee fan, and that might just be the only thing he's ever said or done to make me love him a little less... well that and the whole Born-Again Christian phase. But I've always believed that he only did that to lose money during his divorce from Sarah.

And don't get me started on Sarah. I've said before and I'll say again, it wouldn't have mattered to me what the man did, if he'd written Blood on the Tracks for me, to get me back? It would have worked. I'd have taken him back in a New York minute.

Anyway. After all these years, it seems that the rest of the world has "discovered" Bob. Fine. Now go away and leave him to me.

Wow. What a rotten episode last night was, and only partly because my boy Vinny-the-Loon got sent home. Not that he didn't deserve it, of course. I mean, if couture means hand made, I don't think they mean hand-glued. And why, oh why, oh why did he listen to the voice that told him to put a beige hopsack flower in the middle of the back?

There was plenty in the margins, as it were, to keep me amused: Laura's hand-printed sign that warned "Fleur Champs [sic] making session in progress", the scene of Vincent, buried under a pile of blankets, calling Jeffrey a fuck (high point of the night, IMO), any of the footage of Paris, although why the editors felt the need to use the same bilious green and yellow filters that they use for New York City on the City of Light, I will never know, and the mystery woman on the barge who had a huge tribal tat on her forearm.

But the challenge, to make a couture dress in two days, was patently ridiculous. The footage of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo cackling wildly about being allowed, nay ordered to make a couture dress was unnecessary and insane. Equally unnecessary was all the footage of Jeffrey trash talking all the other designers and their work.

May I interupt myself at this juncture to say how much I loathe that hack, that creature, that monstrosity? And the fact that he's being given a winner's redemption arc is making me toss my Tangerine Martinis. He doesn't deserve it!

Anyway. They get the challenge and they go shopping in a Parisian fabric store. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo buys two variations of Ronald McDonald yellow and orange and black plaid. In cotton. Uli buys a dove grey/lavender solid. Kayne buys golden brown ombre, gold foil mesh, brown velvet ribbons, gold lace. Laura buys a black wool knit and a lot of white organdy. Vinny buys gold/ivory brocade and ivory satin. Michael buys blue something, I couldn't tell what kind of fabric exactly. Silk, probably, but not a charmeuse and not anything as nubbly and stiff as a dupioni.

Another aside here: color response and psychology. Yellow is cheap. Orange is cheap. The more pure the color, the simpler it is to describe, the more it appeals to the unintellectual, lower-income masses. Think about it. McDonald's and Burger King use a lot of yellow and orange and bright, pure blue. Simple colors for the kinds of things that you buy with pocket change. Kayne and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo used yellow or variations thereof.

The more complex the color, the more words it takes to describe it, the more educated and wealthy the person that color appeals to. Ralph Lauren? Deep, blood reds, dark wine-bottle greens. The only fabric that came close to that kind of complexity was Uli's greyish-lavenderish chiffon.

Black and navy blue are power colors. Authority colors. Judges wear black robes. Police wear navy blue uniforms. Laura's maid's uniform YSL... was it YSL?? It was some old respected designer or another... rip-off was black and white. Very dramatic, I thought. I also thought it looked like couture, and was striking in its simplicity. Elegant, even. Unfortunately for all concerned, it traveled back to New York about as well as Angela's outfit traveled to Paris, which is to say, not at all well.

Blue is the most popular color in the spectrum. More people list blue as their favorite color than any other. Blue is the color of the sky, it is the color of water and it is the color of the Virgin Mary. It is calming and peaceful and nobody doesn't like it. It's the color that Michael used.

And then there is the non-color of sand and nothingness that Vincent used. Let's face it. I love(d) Vincent. I GOT Vincent. I respected Vincent... don't ask me why. But this week? He deserved to go. We got some footage of him, and some interviews from the other designers revealing that Vincent did the Daniel Franco shuffle. Bad. Very, very bad. We saw him being snarky. Not so bad, considering the jerky shit Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo says or said: specifically the shit about who cares if Kayne gets sent home or hurt.

Vincent glued his dress together. 'Nuff said about that. He also had to be the smarmiest ass-kisser ever, even more so than Satan-ino licking the toes of Nicky Hilton, when he was sucking up (and is there a stronger description that I can use?) to Catherine Malandrino... and what's up with that bitch, too? I mean, she savaged Angela last week, told her she was just from another planet, and then hires her to work her (Catherine's) New York Fashion Week show? (Makes derisive French noise.) I don't get it.

So. They all make pretty unimpressive dresses. They're nice, but not great. They get their French models and they head off to a barge on the Seine for their runway/party. Somebody throws eggs at them while they are walking, and Michael's dress gets spattered. This whole thing is left unresolved. Who threw them? Why? (Oh, well, let's see: cameras, Americans, beautiful people hoofing it along the Rue? Can't imagine) Were there any repercussions?

The models walk, and walk like real models, something that Kayne proceeds to gush to the models about in another piece of footage that should have been left on the cutting room floor. Can you say obsequious?

Catherine scores the dresses, they continue their par-tay, they fly home to NYC, they re-fit the dresses for the New York models and they walk again. Richard Fucking Tyler is the guest judge, and although he is a FAB-ulous designer and all, boyfriend needs to learn how to shampoo-rinse-repeat. GAH! His hair was as greasy and stringy and nasty as the Great Satan-ino's. And how awful was this episode that I have had to invoke his name twice? Once more and he'll show up, Beetlejuice-like.

And before I do the dress-by-dress, let me say that I thought they ALL were pretty uninspired and unattractive.

Kayne's corset top has one very interesting detail: the back lacing is asymetrical. The gold mesh, with the gold lace with the beading and the brown velvet ribbon over the boning: it's all just too much. Nina Garcia invokes the dreaded "The taste level just is not there." Michael Kors loves the ombre skirt and notes that you don't even see it with all the other crap heaped on top.

You all know that I love me some excess. In fact, I think I used to have a t-shirt that said "Wretched Excess is Just About Enough". But in all honesty, Kors is right. It IS just too much of everything, except taste and restraint. There isn't a hint of either of those two things in sight.

Uli has made the Same Fucking Dress. Again. Except in one color and with beaded lace on the halter top. For some reason, this has the judges just pissing themselves over it. The oohs, the aaahs. "I don't see her wearing flip-flops with this!" coos Michael? Nina? Heidi? One of them, I don't have TIVO, and it doesn't really matter. One of them.

Vincent's dress is awful and I don't want to talk about it. Nina points out that it would have looked better backwards, and what more is there to say than that, really?

Laura's dress gets slammed for being derivative, stark, somber and looking like a French maid. The judges attacked her collar saying that it could have been more alive, and it was... in Paris. Maybe if she'd stuffed some tissue between the layers of organdy?

Michael's dress is a serious piece of architecture, and he is decidedly unhappy with the workmanship. He has (for the very first time, he confides to the camera) done ruching. A lot of ruching. An entire top worth of it, and he is not at all pleased with his own handwork. The judges point out that the sculptural lines of the top do not need the roundy parts on the top (one of them refers to these as "the bunny ears") and, in fact, when the bunny ears are folded down, the dress comes alive and probably could have won.

But it didn't. No. Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo takes back to back wins and becomes (he says) the first contestant in PR history (all both seasons of it) to win a challenge when already in possession of immunity. Thankfully, there will be no further immunity. His dress is yellow plaid on plaid. He claims that his inspiration was the Statue of Liberty. I suppose I should throw Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo a bone here, and acknowledge that he knows that France gave the Statue of Liberty to America, and that makes her a French inspiration... I suppose.

I see no relationship to the SOL at all, except that she is wearing a floor-length toga, and Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo has made a floor length gown... with a slit that goes so high we know what the models had for lunch. Say it with me, fans "Entirely too much tootie!" Maybe a pair of matching knickers would have been in order? There is some sort of folderol going on in the back. There are straps and strings and things hanging off. There is the slit that goes on forever. There is not much else, except the gloating and gloating and gloating of Jeffrey-the-Pinheaded-Shmoo.

And, oh yeah, Vincent and Laura are the bottom two, and my martini glass is at the ready for throwing at the TV if it's Laura getting the auf. But it isn't. Vinny the Loon goes away, too soon for me, and not soon enough for everyone else out in TV land.

There is also the One Big Tease. A preview which shows 1) the announcement that there will be not one, but twospecial guests next week, and 2) Laura having a nervous (pregnant, hormonal) breakdown and telling Tim that she just can't design for the Olsen twins??? WTF?

The OLSEN twins? OK, so the blonde one is a "fashion icon" (bwahahahahahah) but the dark, very very anorexic one? Puh-leeze. Since when has dumpster-diving homeless person layering been chic?

Till next week, sweetiedarlings, keep your scissors sharp.

Actually, I have a new drug. It's called a Cosmopolitan, made with Stirrings mixer, and Absolut Ruby Red Vodka.

I'm thinking about it right now, because I'm in my count down to Project Runway mode. Watching PR is a ritual, and that ritual begins with me not paying attention to what I'm doing because I'm thinking about how in just a few short hours I'll be getting my PR/Tim Gunn fix.

The ritual continues when I get home and toss together my shaker of drinkies, and a dinner to cushion the blow of them. Feed the RLA, the fish, the cat, the dogs and myself. Sip the first of many Cosmos.

Then it's on to the bedroom to take off my school clothes and put on the fuzzy bathrobe. (OOOOOH. Fuzzy Bathrobe.) Wash face. Consider doing a mud or peel-off mask. Consider accessorizing the the Fuzzy Bathrobe with the Bunny Slippers.

Hey! It's a FASHION SHOW, people.

We are into the home stretch, hurricane-seasonwise. September is the month of heaviest storm activity. So far this month, no actual storms here in Miami, just unrelenting rain. Which is actually kind of nice. Everything gets very green, and all the shrubbery gets extra-thick and the grass grows so fast you can almost watch it get taller. If it weren't raining too hard to see across the yard.

There is a newly named storm out east in the ocean. Florence. Tropical Storm Florence. There is a very dark part of me that considers this a bad omen. Florence is my mother's name. I have this uncomfortable feeling that that Florence, should it change course and become a hurricane, could take my Florence away.

I went to visit my mummy this weekend. She can usually make one coherent sentence per visit. It's sometimes a sad thing, like when she announced "I don't know where that is. I'll have to ask Max where he put it." Sometimes its a wonderful thing, like the day she looked around and said "Life is beautiful."

This weekend, though, it was a mean thing, and it made me cry. She wasn't opening her eyes. She didn't seem to know I was there. I held her hand and talked to her. Then I petted her head and she pulled away from me and snapped "Don't do that with my hair."

Great.

I'm going to make myself a cup of hot tea and consider the piles on paper on my desk and what options I have for dealing with them.

NOTE: I wrote this, and brilliantly, if I say so myownself, first thing this morning, and then closed the wrong window, erasing it all. Hopefully, version 2 will be just as pithy, scathing and entertaining.

We begin with the usual: Jeffrey complaining and being ugly. Then we move on to Parson's and the new challenge. This week the designers will be making an ensemble for a jet-setter. The twist is that they must each make something for themselves, as they will be the jet-setter.

This causes much twittering, as Vincent allows as he has never, ever made menswear, and Angela allows as she has no clue who or what a jet-setter is. Angela lives, she reminds us for about the same number of times that Jeffrey has announced that he is the most brilliant and talented designer in the litter, on an organic, totally off-the-grid farm in the middle of West Bumfuck, Ohio, where she apparently has never had access to an issue of People, Harper's Bazaar or Elle Magazine.

This is stupidity on a par with Bradley, the theoretically gay fashion designer having no clue about the ubiquitous Cher. People, people, people... just keep your mouths shut. It's better to be quiet and thought an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Or something like that.

The designers are given a day and all the spare change Heidi, Michael and Nina can shake out of the couch cushions. Really. Seventy-five dollars? Come on. They are also given about five minutes to design, just long enough to bring the car around to transport them to Mood.

Back at the work room, Jeffrey begins to ride Angela like a wild stallion, going on and on and on and on about how the dress he made for her mother was the ugliest piece of crap he'd ever run through a sewing machine. How it was the worst thing to walk the Project Runway catwalk in three seasons, and yet, he, the brilliant and under-appreciated Jeffrey was still here, still flapping his frito and dew hole, and still being the most odious creature ever to waste the electronic pixels on my tv.

Oh. Maybe he didn't say the last part: the part after the flapping his pie-hole. Maybe that was just me. When Angela points out that he's talking about her mother, here, he cops to only "talking about the challenge." Yeah, right. My Aunt Ethel. You're trash talking her momma, and you well know it. And Jeffrey just won't let it go, either. He's digging it in, and digging and digging and digging. He's working the needle just like a true junkie, and denying it every step of the way.

Jeez, I depise, loathe, hate, abhor, detest, that repellent little Shmoo.

Vincent wears boxers. This is a relief, because he is working in them, trying to cut a pattern from the Dockers he had on. I love Vinny, but if I had to see him standing around in tighty-whities, I would have had to kill myself right there on the sofa.

So, they finish and send themselves down to hair and make-up and Angela takes the opportunity to get her hair ironed. It does not help. Michael skips that, to concentrate on his work, which, true to form, he has changed completely from his first design after listening to Tim Gunn and reflecting upon his own ideas. Reflecting is perhaps too strong a word, because the guy has lightening-like fashion reflexes. Tim throws out a question, and Michael has reworked the design in his head before the question mark fades from the air.

I'm Too Sexy For My Pants

The designers come out, strut their stuff, and then answer the judges' questions. Questions like "Where do you think you're jetting off to in that outfit?"


Michael knows the answer to that. He is rolling to the Hamptons with Diddy. And he totally is. His ensemble is so cool, he's shedding frost all over the runway. He's made a crisp white architectural top with a pair of white on white seersucker trousers with a little bit of cargo styling. He has a touch of bling. He has Attitude. I think that Michael Kors is going to cry he's so in love with the look. As well he should be. Seersucker is the single most wonderful fabric in the world, and every man should have a summer suit made of it. But I digress.

Uli has made the same thing she's made every week except the last. A halter top with braiding. A tiered, hippy-hippy shake skirt descending from the empire waist. Color on color and pattern on pattern. I loved the colors she used this week, a deep, pure turquoise and a coppery brown. The judges all announce that the first five times they saw it, they liked it, but y'know? It IS getting stale. And unless you are jetting off to Rio, Miami, the south of France or LA, you really aren't going to look like you belong. So. There.

Vincent has made black trousers and a v-neck black heathered top. He's wearing flip flops. He's blown his hair out. The judges, in unison, say that he's too understated, too simple and too easy. Where's the pizzazz? Vincent says that HE is the pizzazz. I'm buying it, but the judges aren't. After seven weeks, they (the professionals) haven't figured out that Vincent's signature style is minimalist, sleek, pared down to the essentials? He's being true to his style, here, even if you think he looks like a stay-prest ninja.

Laura has listened to the judges and has made something completely new and different from her usual silhouette. It is drapey, and wrappy, and jersey, and in the most unfortunate color she could have chosen for herself: ivory pink, the exact same shade as her skin. She is wearing the most magnificent pair of chandellier earrings, ever. Talk about your Harry Winston's. I think that they are rubies and diamonds. As ever, the tailoring and fit are exquisite.

Kayne has made a NikNIk shirt by way of fat Elvis. He pairs it with bell bottoms and an iced-out belt buckle that says "KAYNE". In case any of us have forgotten who he is. He says that he envisions himself climbing out of his limo at the airport, only to be swarmed by the papparazzi. Michael Kors says that he can see that, and the subsequent feature photo under the headline "What WAS He Thinking?" Oh, God, I love you Michael Kors. So much that I don't care that you are the same color as the carrots in my vegetable bin.

Kayne, Kayne, Kayne. Sweetiedarling. Let me explain something to you before you go back to flyover country. White Trash is not good. It is not cool. Let's review. In "Breakfast At Tiffany's" the divine Miss Hepburn is precisely divine because Holly Golightly started out as white trash and has been transformed into something elegant and stylish. It doesn't matter what Brittney and K-Fed have been trying to convince America, White Trash is, well, ugly, cheap, tawdry, and ultimately, trashy. Don't aspire to it, aspire beyond it.

Who Let the Fleurchons Out

That would be Angela, who in the depths of her cluelessness has made a pair of copper brown linen/silk blend shnickers, an unholy marriage of knickers and shorts. She has made bad worse by quilting concentric ovals across the ass crack and cheeks, like some sort of built in bike-short padding. Just in case we forgot who SHE was, or how ugly THEY are, she has attached ginormous Signature Angela Fleurchons on the ass. There is a double-wide set of belt loops, holding up at least two different belts. The blouse is blowsy, and held up by straps of Signature Angela Fleurchons, which may or may not be attached to actual straps. The neckline is way too low, and way too loose, and exposes way too much black padded bra.

MK gently points out that linen is probably the worst fabric in the known universe for wrinkling, and so why would you make a travel outfit from it. I hear the crickets chirp.


And so I come, finally, to Jeffrey. The brilliant, talented (just ask him) Jeffrey, who reveals that, despite what he told Angela's mother in the last challenge: that one day is just not enough to even consider making a jacket, has made himself a dark purple (and wasn't that the color she wanted and he was unable to find anything suitable in?) faux leather jacket with a pinch back and Sergeant Pepper detailing (but in monochrome) on the sleeves. He's also made a stunningly original black t-shirt with a glitterized or bead-dazzled skull. He's finished his three pieces with a pair of black cigarette pants sporting an 8-inch crotch opening of large chrome hooks. The entire look can be summed up thusly: Gay Bondage Meets Hot Topix. The judges just oooh and ahhh and admire his very rock-star look. I puke. I also spend way too long pondering the issues Jeffrey must have about the size of his package to make an 8-inch chrome hook and eye crotch. (Where is MK's frightened exclamation now? The crotch in those pants is insane!)

But this is not the end of the challenge, they are now told. Before the winner can be announced, the travel clothes must be travelled in and they have one hour to pack and get to JFK.

Ça Plane Pour Moi

They go to Paris. Unlike America's Next Top Model, we are not shown an adorable purple plane animating it's way across the ocean, while little animated faces look out the windows. We see actual plane travel, and the always unrumpled, elegant and well-shaven Tim Gunn is there with them.

Brief montage of them driving around Paris, with Angela and Kayne going "Gol-leee" and Laura talking about how one never gets used to the beauty of the city. They tool up to Parson's Paris, where they are taken into a fabulous, high-ceilinged and large-windowed work room. There they meet somebody or another who is a fabulous female French designer of some reknown. I've never heard of her, but Angela claims to, and that makes me feel really stupid.

She will be the final judge and her scores will be added to the others from New York, and that will determine the winners. The designers must walk for her, and she'll decide how well the clothes travelled.

Uli, still rumpled, but good. Vincent, exactly the same as when he got on the plane. Ditto for pretty much everyone but Angela, who looks worse than ever, as though she travelled, not in first class, but in an overhead storage bin. The French designer makes that Parisienne noise that I only wish I could make. It's sort of a pheeew. With the lower lip pushed out in that French way. And instead of aspirating through the mouth, the whole thing kind of goes through the nose. Disdain has never been more palpable.

She announces that Uli, Vincent, and Kayne (but you can tell she wanted to Auf him, too) all get to stay. The winner is a toss up between the deliciously hip-hop Michael and the aggressively banal Jeffrey. The winner is Jeffrey. But what can I expect from a nation that idolizes the questionable genius of Jerry Lewis. Of course, the French also loved Josephine Baker. Tonight they went with Jerry Lewis.

This is killing me. Keeping Kayne around means that not only does Jeffrey-the-Shmoo win, but he gets to gloat about Angela leaving. It's a win-win for Jeffrey, and just as I predicted a few recaps ago, he is utterly obnoxious in victory. What a contemptible little turdblossom.

Angela is punished by having to wear that ugly schmata home on the next flight out. The viewing public is punished by having to watch Jeffrey gloat and preen and interview that it was about time he won a challenge, since he himself knew that there was at least one other that he should have won.

So Ernesto slogged across the straights, ran aground down in the Florida City/End of the Line/Tippy Top of the Keys, and proceded to do not much.
And, just as I tried (and failed) not to make the obvious jokes about illegal immigrants, the Florida Straights and the name Ernesto, I am not going to be able to keep my fingers off the keyboard about this: Just like all the other latino men who float across from Cuba, Ernesto was full of sound and fury, and when push came to shove, did absolutely nothing.

Eso es muy típico.

The one thing that makes this storm suck more than the usual suckiness of hurricane/tropical storm watch and waits is that Ernesto is coming on shore on the one year anniversary of the cluster fuck that was Hurricane Katrina.

So instead of giving us the skinny on what's boiling up in the straights and making it's way toward South Florida, the all the weather, all the time station is showing us historical footage of that other national nightmare and all the memorials and "celebrations" of the date. Thanks, but I think we all still remember.

Anyway, even though the poobahs at the top of the corporate food chain decided that the head office should be open and operational today, I called my boss at about 6:20 AM and told him I'd be battening down the homestead, and to press on regardless and without me.

We finished the shuttering at about 11 this morning, and I am now cooking a turkey breast, just in case the power goes out later.

But, being a native of this fair state, I have certain things in place that others, more recently moved to the lower latitudes, may not have. To wit: I have only manual can, wine and bottle openers. I have a gas stove, somewhat rare in these parts. I have a French press coffee maker, which means I can boil water on the old gas stove, and pour it into a non-electric pot and have fresh, very rich coffee. I have a treadle sewing machine in good working order, for those boring hours when the power is out. I have a collection of jigsaw puzzles.

In short, I have the means to cook and entertain myself, even when there is nothing to do but listen to the wind outside.

Later, gentle readers.

That's the projected path of Ernesto, reaming Florida a new ass-hole. Coming at us from due south, pushing water ahead of it all the way from Cuba.

I will forego the obvious jokes about the Hispanic name and the fact that it's coming from Cuba through the straights like the usual illegal immigrants. The only thing missing is the plywood raft. But that will probably wash ashore, too.

The RLA is teaching three classes this semester, and he has three "special" students. One is bi-polar, ADD, can't read, may be dyslexic, yadayadayada. I'm going to go out on my favorite politically incorrect limb here, so if you are easily annoyed (like me) or still willing to say that everybody should be able to go to college, no matter what, then stop reading now.

Because you know that I believe that college should be an opportunity for everyone...within fucking reason. I don't think that money should be the deciding factor, but an ability to read should be.

The RLA's special student has someone who comes to class with her, to take notes for her. She can't read and she can't do simple math, so she can't read a ruler or figure out what half of seven inches is. (For the record, the RLA has many, many students with the same handicap: can't read a ruler or calculate half of seven, but they aren't "special", they are just victims of the Florida school system, and the culture that promotes standardized testing at the expense of critical thinking skills.) The RLA is expected to help her to pass.

For what? Who the fuck is going to hire a bi-polar, functionally illiterate, attention-deficient person AND their keeper/handler/helper? Because it doesn't matter that she was able to get a high school diploma (and why? why should children be learning that particular lesson: that it doesn't matter how little you do, can do, try to do, are able to do, you WILL get a high school diploma... which makes it worth less than the paper it's printed on, in my opinion.)

Why should this girl be taking up space that someone else could be using? What good is her degree going to do her, if she can't actually do the work she was graded on?

How has America, or at least Florida, reached this point? How could we have degraded the worth of our education to such an extent? If you don't have to be able to read, if you are taught that there will always be someone there to hold your hand, and do your work for you, how can a person be expected to be able to function at all? How can passing this girl along, year after year, benefit her in any way? Oh, she has self esteem? Good for her. Does she have an attention span? Can she even work the register at Mickey D's? Can she match the change shown on the register with what she holds in her hand? I don't expect a mainstream student to actually be able to make change, or count it back.

We are a nation of enablers. Not everybody is capable of a college-level education. Not everyone needs one. Why can't we just say that? You aren't capable of a college education. You can't read. (It isn't her fault) You can't sit still for three hours at a stretch . (It isn't her fault, she's got ADD) And if this girl's inability to read isn't her fault, then whose fault is it? Don't say it isn't anybody's fault because it is. Who gave up on her? At what point in this child's life did people decide that it was just to hard to work with her, and teach her to learn, that it was easier for the community to make her handicapped? At what point did they stop sitting with her and helping her sound out her letters and words, and just stick a reader next to her.

When did squirming in one's seat become an incurable disease, and not a behavior issue? Sometime after I left elementary school, that's for sure. I was told that I'd be duct-taped to my desk if I didn't stop wriggling. I was never diagnosed as being ADD because nobody had heard of it. Good thing, too, because instead of being labled, I was taught to have an attention span. I was expected to meet certain standards, and those standards weren't flexible to meet the lowest common denominator. You were either capable, or you were not. If you were not, you were encouraged to become capable, or to lower you personal expectations to match your natural abilities. Not capable of higher math? Go into construction work, and not engineering. Good with your hands, but not so much with language skills? Maybe you'd like to go to a tech school and become an auto mechanic.

We were taught that all work is good, and all work is noble, but that not all work is good for all people. Someone has to work retail, and you don't necessarily have to have a master's degree in marketing to do it.

Nowadays, we are teaching that anybody can do anything, and that is a disservice to everybody.

Robert gets aufed (finally) for being boring, and a million souls cry out as one: how in god's name can a man who has designed for Barbie be so consistently boring? How is it even humanly possible?

Vincent wins a challenge (and the fan sites blaze with the fury of a million stars, all in super-nova) with a simple, tasteful black & tan sheath dress.

Jeffrey proves himself to be the most loathesome thing ever, beating out Santino by a TKO in the second round.

The challenge was simple: design an everyday ensemble for an everyday woman. Despite the fact that most of the viewers were duped into thinking this meant Martha Stewart, the everyday women who showed up were the designers mothers or sisters. Cute. Very cute. Most of these women are large. Really large, even if they aren't tall.

They aren't allowed to break into family pairings, since that would make things way too easy. Out comes the velvet button bag, and the fun begins.

Michael chooses Robert’s sister, Teresa.

Laura chooses Jeffrey’s mother, Pam, noting that she's doing it just to annoy Jeffrey, and who could argue with that reasoning?

Vincent chooses Uli’s mother, Heidi, who speaks little to no English, but that won't shut Vincent up for a nanosecond, and they seem to bond anyway.

Angela chooses Laura’s mother, Lorraine, and I think for the same reason that Laura chose Jeffrey's mom.

Kayne chooses Michael’s mother, Pamela.

Uli chooses Kayne’s mother, Judy.

Robert chooses Vincent’s sister, Patricia.

Jeffrey is left with Angela's mother, Darlene. They both look thrilled.

I need to digress here for a moment. Tim Gunn makes a big deal in "Tim's Take" on the Bravo site that Vincent won with Heidi, who is tall and slender and model-like. He (and pretty much all the other Vincent-haters out there, which is to say 99% of the Project Runway viewing audience) just rips on this fact as making things far too easy for Vincent. He (and pretty much all the other Vincent-haters out there, which is to say 99% of the Project Runway viewing audience) totally ignores the fact that Michael's model, the boring Robert's very un-boring sister Teresa, is not only willowy, but she is also very pretty, very young and can walk the catwalk like a pro.

Nobody out here in TV land is bitching and moaning that Michael had it easy, although there is a little grousing that maybe he should have won. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, people.

Before anybody gets to work, everybody saunters off to Tavern on the Green to have a little brekkies and meet the guest judge, Michael Kors' mom. She doesn't seem to be as orange as her son, but they are wearing the same clothes, or at least the same jacket. Michael has on jeans and Mom has on something else. Black trousers? A skirt? Who cares. They also look alike. Totally.

There is champagne, and this leads to two discoveries about our contestants. Laura is pregnant with her sixth child (which prompts one of the funniest lines ever to come out of her mouth: something to the effect that nobody is EVER ready for their sixth child, but at this point, what the hell, she'll just toss it on the pile with the others) and that Jeffrey is a "recovering alcoholic".

That explains a lot about Jeffrey's atrocious behavior, but not all. That comes later, when we find out that he's also an ex-junkie and a co-dependent mama's boy. And an odious bully, cry baby and total asshat.

Anyway, after a lovely brunch where the mommies do what mommies do best: embarrass the bejeebers out of their offspring by dragging out the childhood photos, we follow the gang back to the workroom to confab and sketch and the first smell of trouble comes wafting out of Jeffrey's corner. He starts with the bitching and the moaning about having to design for a "real" woman and how he just can't fathom the plus-size woman and what is up with their proportions and wahwahwah. Note: Jeffrey's mother is another slender woman.

Sketching. Shopping. Commercials. Sewing. Back come the guest models and there is a total breakdown of civilization as we know it when Angela's mother, in response to a direct question from Tim, allows as how she's not completely thrilled with Jeffrey's choices in fabric, or maybe even his design.

This sends Jeffrey into the kind of inappropriate fury that only an alcoholic junkie can summon up. He attacks Darlene with all the snarling nastiness we have come to expect from someone who admits to being Santino's friend. He hisses, he spits, he bullies, he makes the woman cry. And then, sensing that perhaps this behavior isn't going to play so well in the heartland, he sends his own mother in to smooth things over. AND SHE GOES OFF TO DO IT.

Can you say enabler? Can you say co-dependent? Oh, Jeffrey just gets a little defensive sometimes. He doesn't mean it.

Woman, that sort of covering for his lousy ass and not making him take personal responsibility for his actions is what enabled him to become a homeless junkie in the first place. Once again, I am speaking from personal knowledge. I have the Artist Down the Street and her 18 year-old junkie son to watch and learn from, not to mention any number of friends and loved ones in my own past.

Well, it all just goes on and on from there. Jeffrey responds to her unhappiness by making something that Michael Kors refers to as Comme de Garçon goes to Amish country. Frankly, I think that Michael had to work long and hard to come up with that, and it is nowhere near as brilliant as the paper brioche or the Appalachian Barefoot Barbie of last season. In point of fact, the editors could have left that particular bon mot on the cutting room floor, and it would not have been missed, nor would it have made it to the extras on next year's DVD.

Vincent refrains from making too many goofy faces, and despite the language barrier, comes up with a totally elegant day dress for the totally elegant Heidi-Uli's-Mother. Heidi-the-host asks Heidi-Uli's-Mother (in German, and boy does her face light up when she gets to use the mother tongue) how she feels about the dress, and H-U-M responds in kind (complete to the lit-up face) and H-T-H tells the rest of the judges that H-U-M loves her dress. We got it, even without the translation. I wish I spoke German, because I sort of wonder if that was really the question or if it was "So... Is he really completely insane, and was it torture to work with someone with only one foot on this plane?"

Michael Knight made a tidy little shirt dress for Robert's sister, and he made it completely reversible, because, he explained, she's a business woman who travels a lot, so the thought was to give her two dresses in one. This guy is a freaking brilliant, brilliant designer. Not to mention that he can construct that kind of garment in one day.

Laura makes one of her usual silhouettes, which, unfortunately doesn't work quite as well as could be hoped on Jeffrey's enabling mother.

Angela takes Laura's mother a woman of clean elegance and style (apple? tree? as we say in the hood: ain't no denying who that one's mama is) and turns her into a fringed piano scarf with an ugly purple shoulder bag. Lorraine gives it her best shot on the runway, and does nothing to prevent us wanting to poke our eyes out. At least there are no "signature fleurchons" (No. I am NOT going to let that go, ever.) anywhere to be seen. That doesn't mean that they aren't somewhere in there, hiding.

Robert makes two tents, one in scarlett and one in black, throws them over Vincent's sister and calls it a day.

Kayne mutilates Michael's mama by tossing her in a pair of capri pants just one or two shades lighter than her skin. This makes a short, round woman look even shorter and stumpier, and it isn't a flattering color, either. He also must have cut them a little off, because walking from the dressing room to the end of the runway has left her with wrinkles that look like she's been sitting in the center row on a cross-country flight on a budget airline. There is some sort of peach top which Kayne has unwisely accessorized with a strand of peach pearls. Nina announces "Matchy matchy" and Kayne's blood freezes, thinking this is his particular ticket to ride...into the sunset.

Uli makes a wonderful outfit for Kayne's mama. It is flowy, it is colorful, it fits and Kayne's mama struts it down the runway with the express intent of embarrassing Kayne to tears. Can I say that I like Kayne's mama?

There is a lot of debate in the fan forums about how Uli should have won, and I can see their point. But I can also see why Vincent won. It fit her body, and it fit her style. It was a timeless, very Euro-centric look from someone who normally can't get anyone to see what he sees. Maybe the fact that Heidi-Uli's-Mom couldn't understand a word Vincent said actually helped their working relationship.

In any event, despite the fact that it made Tim Gunn cry a little, Vincent won and Robert went home. In what was the most disturbing scene all night, Jeffrey sobbed like a little girl against his mother's bosom over Robert being sent home, because, he said, Robert was a nice person and these other people are not.

Knock, knock. Mr. Pot? it's Mr. Kettle here at the door for you.

Or, an Apologia for Vincent

Let me begin by saying that I like Vincent*, I understand his point of reference in most of the work he's done. I don't necessarily like everything that he's made, but I do recognize his departure point. What I don't understand is the intense loathing for him in the forums and fan groups of Project Runway.

Granted, this past week has seen that loathing come to a frenzied point, since he got to stay on when everyone's favorite little blonde unicorns and fairies girl Alison was auf'ed. But I think people would have been peeved even if it was BlahblahblahBobby who left the runway for good.
The universal dislike and disdain started the very first week, when he sent a perfectly respectable little frock out accessorized with a wicker fruit basket doing duty as a hat. It was totally awful, and made worse by the accompanying oversized sun glasses and the addition of dangling chains.



And yet...I saw echoes of the maestro Rudi Gernreich and the 2001 Space Odyssey fly girls.



In Episode 2, it was his green evening gown with the Jetsons-esque cap sleeves that had the internets twitching with distaste, but Miss USA liked the dress itself, and so did Miss Vera Wang. Except for the very couture element of the unwearable sleeve cap, the dress itself was simple, elegant and very, very wearable. Maybe if he'd let Angela stick her "signature fleurchons" on the straps instead, they would have won?



Episode 3, Doing it Doggie Style, saw Vincent doing another awful hat and a simple frock. He was derided for using knee-length leggings, but take a look at any fashion rag on the stands today, and you'll see that leggings are back. With a vengence. Also? The dog ensemble was a hoot.

OK. Here's where we need to address the real issue about Vincent. The guy is a total whack job. OK? The giggles and shits over the dog's little hat and coat were over the top, even for me, but Vincent amuses himself, and really not an anyone else's expense (AHEM, JEFFREY).

Vincent is a whack job, but not a nut case. Vincent, in his early interviews and bios acknowledged that New York and the fashion industry almost killed him. After watching six weeks of him, I can honestly tell you that it wasn't the pressure and New York that did for him, it was the 80s. It was sex and drugs and rock and roll. It was cocaine and quaaludes and way too much tequilla.

If David Crosby has said about the 60s that if you remembered them, then you weren't there, I say if you don't have some serious scars from the 80s, then you weren't THERE. I was, and let me tell you, I can recognize a fellow-traveller when I see one. You don't get Vincent's kind of crazy from smoking a little too much pot, or having a genetic propensity for mental instability. You can get Vincent's kind of crazy from too much LSD, but then, you generally spend the rest of your life puttering around in your sanitarium's garden, and producing no work whatsoever. **

Vincent's kind of crazy takes a lot of work, most of it in the form of little white lines, little white pills, way too little sleep and a lot, a fucking lot, of hard living. Been there, done that, never was indicted.

The last thing that I want to say that I like about Vincent is that he believes in his own vision. He may be batshit crazy and dead wrong, but he stands in the spotlight on the runway, looks Diane Von Furstenberg in the eye (thereby defying her attempt to turn him into stone with a single stare) and says, you don't have to like it, you don't have to see where I'm coming from, but I do. I know what I wanted to make, and I made it. Period. Love me. Hate me. Recognize.***

* Yeah, and I also just adore(d) Daniel Franco. Proceed with the proverbial salt grain.

** Example: Syd Barrett

*** He's a sistah soljah, from the belly of the beast, recognize! But even Vincent isn't as delusional and batshit crazy as Jade from last season's ANTM. See also the entry below, where I put a side by side of his "work of art" and a Miro.

I'm sitting at the dining room table, where I have my morning coffee and crossword puzzle. I also have a wireless connection, so I'm checking e-mail and updating my blog. That's efficient use of time and multi-tasking, you tasteless hos who put your make-up on during the train ride to work. So you may ask, what does Miz Shoes do on her train ride, other than take pictures of said hos?

Miz Shoes has read all several million words (in translation, please, I only wish my French was that good) of Proust's "Remembrances of Things Past." I have also read any number of other books, done any number of New York Times crosswords (in ink, thankyewverymuch), written hundreds upon hundreds of pages in my real journals, knitted several sweaters and handbags, and done miles and miles of hand applique. Miz Shoes has also listened to her i-pod, with ear phones that do not leak her questionable choices in music to the surrounding train car. She has been known, however, to snap her fingers and tap her feet. The horror!

Again I say to you: That is an efficient use of time. Also very civilized.

Miz Shoes would like to thank all of you who sent your good thoughts to the most excellent David Lee Cohen, he is doing much better and should be home by next week. No. I will not discuss with you all what and why he is in the hospital. It was not bariatric surgery, hair transplants, or any other form of self enhancements. That is all I'll say.

"It's a fine line between innovation and insanity."

Yes, Heidi, and I, personally, have been treading that line since birth. Maybe that's why I have no problem with Vincent. Even though I wasn't in love with what he made, he stated his intention: "I'm going to make art...like a painting." and he did it. It was stark, and very much in the spirit of Miro.



Ignore the color in the Miro, and just look at the lines and shapes, and then look at Vincent's ornamentation on his sheath and tell me that you can't see the influence/inspiration.
This week's challenge was to make something, anything wearable from recycled materials, hence the field trip to New Jersey. I loved Laura's comment about it was an ugly morning and New Jersey looked as ugly as it always does. You know, for a native of N'awlins, she has a totally New York attitude.


And while I am very, very sorry to see Alison go, I think the clip of Heidi saying would you rather look long and lean or lumpy was the kiss of death for Alison and her paper brioche (Oh. My. God. We have soooooooooo missed you, Michael Kors. The man has a way with the bon mot, n'est ce pas?).

The rest of the show can be summed up as follows: Laura is being given the Wendy Pepper snide bitch edit, Kayne is being portrayed (or is portraying himself) as Prissy McPrissyQueen and Jeffrey is just a whining, ugly, Shmoo-like, no-talent hack who, if he ever won a challenge, would prove to live the motto "Obnoxious in victory, bitter in defeat." He surely is bitter in defeat. He goes into every challenge with the attitude that he is clearly going to come out the victor due to his style, his vision, his talent, his genius, his glory that is Jeffrey, and comes out of every challenge dissing the winner and complaining that he should have won, and what the FUCK is wrong with the judges that they can't see to give him first prize.

Robert, bless his heart, made a charming dress out of silver mylar. It was not boring, and thankfully it was not as trashy-ho as he thought. It was enough to get him on to the next challenge, and nobody gave him shit from the judging chairs.



Uli made yet another dress without sleeves or a real neckline, which begs the question, does she even know how to set in a sleeve? It was yet another small bodice, full skirt and yes, of course, it had woven/braided elements. Even so, it was pretty.



Laura made another of her signature pieces, which is to say, witty, clean, elegant and with a plunging neckline. I loved the joke on the back of the skirt "For Nuts Only." I've always felt that I had an invisible tattoo on the center of my forehead that reads "Fucked up? Talk to me." and that anyone who can see it, is, and will. Which means that Vincent and I would probably be chatting to each other within moments of him seeing me across a crowded room. But I digress.

I'm sure that hearing the judges compliment Laura on her mylar strapping flower just made Angela's head spin, and not in a dizzy sort of way, but in an Exorcist sort of way. Angela herself did not indulge in her "signature" fleurchons (somebody please slap the pretentiousness out of her), but went back to her self-proclaimed roots and made some ugly-ass patchwork/overalls/mini-skirt thing. Woof. Can you say "dog" in French, Angela? Derriere de chien laid.*

Kayne (below on the left) made an atrocity that the magnificent Tim Gunn referred to as a high-school craft project, but he was only being kind to Kayne because he likes him so much. Kayne then got rid of the glued-on medicine bottle caps and giant paper cone pretending to be a skirt, and made a tin foil fairy dress. No, I am not making a double entendre. Even he was ashamed to send it down the runway. Which suddenly makes me wonder what Bradley could have done with trash. I think that he might have rocked the garbage.



Jeffrey's dress (above, right) didn't suck. In fact, it was very nice, and, like the judges I loved the trompe l'oeil** belt. Having said that, and finding that my tongue has not shriveled up, I would also like to point out that we have seen this same silhouette from both Jeffrey and his asshat friend Satan-ino in the past. Snore. Making it out of comic strips and tempera paint rather than dip-dyed muslin makes it no hotter.

The winner (and still champion) was Michael, who utterly blew the competition away with this:



He understood the concept of the challenge, which was about transformation. He took recyclables (plastic wrap, gold mylar and plastic burlap) and seemingly without effort made them look like organza, satin and linen. He is brilliant. For Jeffrey to bitch about Michael winning this is just mean-spirited. But then, we are speaking about Jeffrey, non?

*Which, as best as I can speak French, translates to dog-butt ugly.

** For reasons I cannot explain, today seems to be French day here at the house of shoes.

This is entry infinity in the roll call of things you should not be doing in public.

Within moments of uncorking her nail shellac, everyone in a 6-seat radius started coughing, hacking, sneezing, rolling eyes and generally being uncomfortable.

Do you think this selfish ho noticed? Of course not. Needless to say, but I will anyway, this application was the end of her morning beauty regimen, all of which was conducted on the train. I didn't bother with the make-up application photo, because really, how many of them do I need to take.

Unless...I decide to do an ironic (remember after 9/11 when everyone predicted the end of irony?) photo installation somewhere, of images of nothing but women putting on their make up in public. Which, now that I think about it, might be good gallery fodder. I'll put that on my list of art to make.

Anyway, I was sitting practically in her lap, and when I pulled out my camera, stuck it in her face and took not one, but two photos, complete with flash, she didn't even glance up. She was totally in her own world. The rest of us were merely inconvenient intruders in her personal space.