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.