Lala Brooks spoke about Phil on Court TV today. She was the lead singer of the Chrystals. Not only a great singer, but what a fantastic fro!
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Isabella Blow: She Loved To Kill Herself
Fashion iconoclast Isabella Blow has died at the age of 48, supposedly of cancer. But because of her history, those who knew her believe it was suicide.
One magazine source says: “She tried to kill herself again last week and drank bleach, then on another occasion she tried to jump out of [her husband] Detmar ‘s car.” Self-administered poison was the leading theory among the New York fashionistas who gathered for the annual Met Costume Institute’s Benefit Gala.
In 2005, Blow tried to kill herself by jumping off a London bridge. After breaking her feet and no longer being able to wear any of her 280 pairs of spiked heels, she was inundated by gifts of flat shoes from Manolo Blahnik and Christian Laboutin. Fellow style icon Victoria Beckham, on hearing of the 2005 suicide attempt, famously declared: “What genius!” (What the hell did she mean by that? If only I knew.)
Designer friend Zac Posen notes, “Thoughts of suicide were a big part of her existence and her persona.”
Isabella’s grandfather killed himself after disgracing the family in a scandal that was the center of the “White Mischief” case. When she was four, her saw her younger brother drown in an outdoor pool. Later, she and her sisters were abandoned by their mother, who shook their hands before leaving.
Headhunted by Vogue and Tatler, she was in her element. When she met aristocrat art dealer Detmar Blow at a society wedding in 1988, she seemed to have found her niche. Bohemian and colorful, Blow’s family were as acquainted with tragedy as her own, his father having killed himself by drinking weedkiller.
When Detmar had an affair with a “diminutive lesbian author,” Isabella was crushed. She got even by sleeping with a penniless gondolier in Venice.
Her robust views on models, designers and the world in general would be delivered in a very loud, cut-glass English voice, punctuated by incongruous obscenities, sexual innuendoes and flagrant namedropping. Working for Anna Wintour at Vogue magazine, she instilled fear in young women who might not live up to her standards of style.
“If you don’t wear lipstick I can’t talk to you,” she was known to declare in a booming voice.
The lipstick quote alone is enough to make me love and mourn this woman, who defined the art of being a grand eccentric. I wonder how that moron Victoria Beckham will react.
Avant Garde Fashion
While I’m waiting for the Kate Moss collection to go up on the Barneys website, I checked out the latest arrivals at a shop called Creatures of Comfort. I’ve never been to the real boutique on Melrose Ave. in L.A. but I enjoy looking at the clothes. I find most of it baffling, and uniquely awful. I’ve read that this store is known for carrying “avant garde designers.”
Obviously, I don’t get it. I think these fashions look like stuff to wear in a mental hospital. The Kate Moss stuff isn’t very interesting but at least I can imagine wearing it, even though I’m way too old. Plus, it’s much more affordable.
Posted in Fashion
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Zoo: Men Who Love Horses Too much
A new documentary called “Zoo” sounds too preposterous to be for real, but it’s not a joke. The work of someone named Robertson Devor, its subject is bestiality (whose practitioners call themselves zoophiles.)
Based on several reviews, the film sounds like a demented satire of NAMLA , but by all accounts, it is an effort to depict a taboo subculture without making judgments. It is described as visually impressionistic and arresting, with a moody score reminiscent of Philip Glass. It was inspired by an incident that took place in Seattle a few years ago: A 45 year old man died after having sex with a horse, observed and videotaped by two like-minded friends.
Call me intolerant, but guys who get together to mate with Arabian stallions are not okay, and don’t have a case, period. But this film allows their whining voices to be heard. “It’s much like you love your wife and kids,” one zoo guy explains. Uh huh.
“You’re not gonna be able to ask them about the latest Madonna album,” another one notes, describing his relationship with horses. “They’re not gonna know the difference between Tolstoy and Keats. It’s a very simple, plain kind of world, and for the moment you can kind of switch off.” Hm. This sounds like most of the guys I went out with before I got married. But they were all bipeds.
“I don’t need a high level of interaction, whether it be human or otherwise,” says another horse-lover, not unlike the guys my best friend keeps meeting in bars. It’s the “otherwise” that’s kind of, um, fucked up.
If the zoo guys seem oblivious to the animals’ feelings and dignity, one of them assures the filmmaker that the horses “are happy to participate.” “They’re hittin’ on you!” declares another.
Some reviews of this film are amazingly sympathetic. It’s classy, it’s lyrical, bla bla bla. One calls it “unexpectedly troubling.” Goodness! There’s a reviewer who needs a vacation.
I must say, I am almost tempted to go and see “Zoo” which just opened at a popular art-house theater in my city. But I’m the type who yells stuff at the TV. I don’t think I could sit through the screening without laughing hysterically, or at least shouting an impassioned “As if!”
Posted in Art, Disorders, Uncategorized
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A Prayer For Lana Clarkson
Here’s what really bothers me about the Phil Spector case. A friend of Lana Clarkson saw her shopping at Norstrom in the Grove (a trendy L.A. outdoor mall) on the day she was murdered. Lana was shopping for shoes, because she said her new job required her to be on her feet all night. She was looking for something comfortable.
What a fucking world. You go to Nordstrom for shoes and you end up with your head blown off. The defense would like to establish that Lana Clarkson was ‘depressed’, which accounts for her ‘suicide.’ Anybody anywhere could tell you that (1) if you’re suicidal, you don’t buy shoes. And (2) When you buy shoes from Nordstrom, you are not only desirous of life, but you absolutely don’t want those shoes to be splattered with your brains at the end of an evening.
The lesson to learn from this crime is simple: Never go home with a pint-sized psychotic drunk, even if he lives in a castle.
Poor Lana. I will think of her whenever I go to Nordstrom. Maybe there’s a good one in Heaven, like the New Nordstrom in Topanga Plaza, which has its own Chanel Boutique.
Rest in Peace, Lana. One day I hope to meet you, in the cosmetics department.
Posted in Horrible Stuff, News
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Trapped in a Body
I’ve been fascinated by the news that L.A. Times sportswriter Mike Penner has announced his plans to become the woman he was always meant to be. She will be called Christine Daniels, and she will continue to write the column after a brief hiatus.
Mr. Penner told his story in a graceful column addressed to his readers, who must have been astonished. He explained that ‘tests’ have confirmed he is ‘wired’ as a woman. I searched for a photo of Penner, just curious to see what he looks like , but I couldn’t find one. As we know, he could be a burly 6’7″ and still be a woman trapped in a man’s body.
Personally, I am trapped in a body, but I’m not sure how to express my situation. I used to feel like a brain trapped in an extraneous body that was just a source of annoyance or misery. The body was lousy at sports and kind of awkward in general. On occasion, I still hit myself in the face with my handbag when I try to throw it in the back seat. In my teens, the body seemed too fleshy, so I got anorexia and starved it. It still took up too much space, in my unbalanced thinking, but eventually I snapped out of it.
Now that I’m, ahem, over forty, my body is a model of entropy. It is crapping out at an alarming rate. This week it’s my lower back, last week my fucking bladder. The migraines are much better but the hot flashes are no bargain, and my chiseled abs are a faint memory, like the name of that Kurt Vonnegut book I was trying to recommend to my kid the other day.
Suddenly, I’ve come upon a new theory of my entrapment. Maybe I’m a gay man trapped in a woman’s body! It makes a lot of sense. I love the company of gay men, who are witty, playful, bitchy, culturally literate and obsessed with fashion. I hear that some gay men don’t have these qualities, but that’s their problem. Anyway, my husband once told me that I had a gay sense of humor, and this was supposed to be an insult. On top of that, I love the Wizard of Oz , Prince, Six Feet Under, Paul Smith, biker boots, David Beckham, leather, and kitsch art.
I might really be on to something here. I do like to wear sexy lingerie, but that doesn’t contradict my theory, right? The only stumbling block is that according to tests I’ve taken, my brain is wired as female in the extreme. Very high in empathy, very low in systemizing. I’ve called this syndrome “Girlie Brain.”
Girlie Brain sounds kind of gay though! Oh well. Stand by for more research.
Posted in Disorders
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Limbo!
How come no one is making a bigger deal about the Catholic church taking away limbo?!
Now that they’ve decided it isn’t really fair to send unbaptized babies to limbo, what happens to the babies who were sent there before? I am really concerned. Have they thought this one through?
I wonder if all the babies in limbo will fly up to heaven en masse. A huge surge of babies, like the kind Bush wants to send to Iraq, only not. I picture millions of babies, dressed in those little white nighties, zooming up to heaven like little torpedos. Or maybe they will just be released in small groups.
Either way, the Church has a lot of fucking nerve to create limbo in the first place and then take it away. I guess that’s how they roll. Fuckers.
Posted in News, Religion
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Phil Spector: A Hairdo Extravaganza!
The Phil Spector murder trial begins tomorrow, and not a moment too soon! I’m not happy with his new pageboy ‘do. but I’m looking for a variety of hairstyles as the trial progresses.
Rumors are out that Keith Richard and Yoko Ono may be called as character witnesses for Spector. I think they’ll be able to testify truthfully that he never once shot either of them in the face.
Posted in Celebrities, News
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Sorry!
I know it’s upsetting, but since I’m on the mailing list of Saudi Arabia’s conjoined twins website, I have to report that the Cameroonian conjoined twins (Shevoboh and Pheinbom) have been successfully separated. Don’t ask me how.
Posted in Horrible Stuff, News
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Massacre Shmassacre
I don’t know about anyone else, but I just can’t get into the Virginia Tech Massacre. I know it’s a big deal, but I’m just not feeling it. There’s something really banal about the killings and the media reactions, like we’ve seen it before, only done better.
The Colombine thing was much more compelling, in my opinion. Was it the trench coats or maybe that high school lunatics are more poignant than college lunatics? It was a better story all around, and the current shooter guy can’t eclipse it with mere numbers.
Or maybe it’s the numbers that dull the impact. I read a study that examined how one’s tendency to feel empathy for a victim starts to plummet when the number of victims reaches 5. Shocking but true, isn’t it? Stalin‘s quote was, “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.”
My best friend told me that the people in her office are going around saying “Amercia has to begin to heal,” as though we’re all in shock about the shootings. I doubt that any of those office people feels anything beyond a vague curiosity, and a strong desire to not get caught calling the Cho guy an “Asian” or “Korean,” since we’re not supposed to notice his ethnicity.
I just want to get back to last week and Don Imus! I wasn’t through with the whole nappy-headed ho uproar, not by a long shot. Actually, I wasn’t even through with Larry Burkhead and Virgie.
Things happen too fast these days, and there’s no public attention span unless OJ is involved. If OJ would only shoot three or four kids in Darfur, I think we’d see a real burst of interest, from Larry King at least.
Meanwhile, I’m even more not interested in the new evidence in the Skakel murder case. Move on, godammit, that guy is guilty as charged, and America has already healed over that one.
Posted in Horrible Stuff, News, Rants
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