So, the USA won the Ryder Cup yesterday and then the Giants beat some hungry tigers in not too much of a nail-biting OT. I put my dried Indian corn and seasonal gourds on the dining room table (see Friday’s post) and even cooked fresh corn for my son and I to eat while thanking our Higher Power for all the abundance we harvest daily in our own lives and for all the wonderful magic yet to come. Great stuff immediately to come including a yearly Sunday night televised event that I wait for every 365 with ‘way too much time on my hands’ baited breath. The one television show that not only fetes and celebrates all of last year’s stand-out performances and productions on the small screen but also an event that traditionally marks the debut of the new Fall TV season; the annual EMMY awards. And this year was to be even more anticipated since it was marking 60 years since the advent of these awards. Just think of the embarrassment of riches that past clips could hold: a veritable celluloid walk down memory lane for the last of the true television generation.
Not to be though as the first ten minutes of the show told the whole disastrous story. Heidi Klum looking as awkward and tall as High School senior forced to go to the 8th grade dance with her little brother. And Howie Mandel trying to riff (failing miserably) and only getting out a half of a half-way funny line the entire evening. Jeff Probst who has apparently found some Fiji hair and eyebrow color that doesn’t wash off and Ryan Seacrest, well, there’s not even anything to say there. But it was Tom Bergeron who at least had the good taste and the good sense to look entirely embarrassed and appropriately abashed as those five stood up to helm and anchor this previously prestigious show. Anchors away!!!!!!!
The dialogue all through the show was stilted and chunky, at times not even making any sense. The actors openly berating their hosting brethren or, at times, even more openly criticizing the downfall of the direction when they couldn’t even read their stilted and chunky and stupid dialogue. Ridiculous recreations of the sets from shows past that often didn’t even include any actor from the series or even a proper sequeway to understand the thread. And, I could go on. Mary Tyler Moore looking twenty years younger than she is until you had to fixate on the skin falling off her arms. Tom Selleck looking like he wished he had a Marlboro and a horse to ride away in. And, the worst of all, The Laugh-In skit. What happened to the brilliant, genius comic Lily Tomlin?
And, if you’re still not getting the visual try this…..Lauren Conrad presenting an EMMY. Enough said. That about sums up the mentality of this year’s show.
Of course, there were two constant and consistent redeeming factors. Kathy Griffin presenting with Don Rickles. Hilarious. As always. And Tina Fey winning a basket of awards for ’30 Rock’, without question the funniest show on television today. And I do agree with Alec Baldwin when he calls Tina Fey the Elaine May of her generation. Except I am pretty positive that you would be hard pressed in this day and age, the one that puts Heidi Klum center stage as host of this past prestigious show and Lauren Conrad as a presenter, that most of the demo that these producers are trying to attract were scratching their heads asking, “Elaine Who? Ohhhh, right, that Seinfeld character.”
It’s a new day in television as we watch as the reins get handed over to the internet generation. But if last night’s debacle is any indication that content must be THIS dumbed down to appeal to those masses, well, then, I fear for our future. You know, the one that includes the SEASON PREMIERE of Dancing With The Stars tonight! Ohhhh, seriously, I really need to get my priorities in order!
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Okay, I am mostly a really positive and upbeat personality and I always (well, almost always) try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Even if that means that I need to pull myself back from a situation, give it a little breathing room while taking some deep, deep breaths and re-examining my role in whatever situation that’s bothering me. But there is NO WAY, NO HOW that I can breathe through the debacle that was called ‘American Idol’ last night unless I’m allowed to spit through clenched teeth at all three judges on the angry exhale. I can’t even begin to go into what a sham this show is.
Clearly, weeks ago, when the cutie little rasta boy was still managing to make it on stage in his naturally (??) euphoric state, it became OBVIOUS to anyone with a brain that Paula’s slip was an effect of the show being scripted. I mean, she gave the kid a critique for a song he hadn’t even sung. Even with all my psychic abilities and belief in everyone’s potential for the same, I couldn’t get over the fact that she screwed up her script. She’s an idiot. But I digress.
The fact that all major media outlets sort of shimmied past the fact that this show is scripted didn’t have me scratching my head, but did put me a bit out of it with anger at the feeling of being duped. But, still, you would have thought that the producers would have been much more careful, knowing how these judges might act.
Last night’s performances, not by the possible idols, but by the three judges, had so much railroading going on that I thought I’d see swarthy workers come on stage with ties, nails and a steam engine stuck to their asses. And Paula—she couldn’t be bothered to feign the fact she was reading a script. In fact, I half expected the camera to pull back and show one of those ‘I’m smarter than you’ fifth graders holding up handwritten index cards, one word at a time, to poke fun at her slanted and stilted (and I mean that in every sense of the word) delievery. At one point I almost wondered if she was rethinking her role as an AI puppet, and debating whether or not to take a moral stand against the show? Nah, never mind, it’s Paula.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not railing here because I am a fan of one David over another. But when the Goliath of the music industry (and all other assorted franchises) decides to take out their giant slingshot and shoot it straight at the middle of Cook’s head, somebody has to take a stand and get vocal for the little guy. And by “little guy,” I mean us—the people who are not fooled by the smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the MGM Lion, or the advertisers/outlets/companies, etc that will take outrageous advantage of and obviously make more money from Archuleta than Cook.
Because, in the end, this is obviously what it came down to; which of these two kids could make more money off a pre-pubescent, out of control spending machine? The power of the teenage girl to make marketing decisions influences more meetings in more boardrooms across the world than we could care to know. Except, of course, the spending power of baby boomers, the actual people who are putting that buying power in those little girls’ hands.
So don’t think for one second, Randy, that your premature cooing and crowing and eventual crowning of little tiny David as the next American Idol went straight over the heads of those of us who wanted to shoot a plastic dart at yours, Dawg. And, clearly you have no kids since you NEVER would have made Cook feel that way if you had put a spawn of your own in his nervous shoes. And Paula, well, I’ve already said it: you’re an idiot. And, Scarecrow, I mean Simon, it’s you I won’t miss most of all, because it’s you who should have shouldered some of the responsibility to your audience.
Simon says, “Take one giant step backward, David Cook, we’ve found a more lucrative although NOT talented winner and we’re betting on our mutual huge payday as we rip off our stupid audience a little bit more.” And, to that my vulgar British friend, Ellen says, “Shame on you.” And, oh yeah, congrats, Archuleta. Say “hi” to Hannah Montana for me.
I’m watching Brangelina walk the red carpet at Cannes and I wonder how anyone could have been surprised that Angelina’s pregnant with twins. She’s too big to be carrying only one baby and obviously carrying pretty low, too.
Actually, when I saw her, I started to get a little nervous about the possibility of a premature delivery. I don’t know, nor do I care, whether there was any medical intervention that could have contributed to her carrying twins, but, if there was, that would concern me even more—you know, if I were her.
Why?
Well, women in their thirties who are pregnant with more than one baby are several times more likely to deliver prematurely. And those odds increase exponentially if fertility procedures were involved from conception. So, you know, I would start sitting down and putting my feet up a little more—again, that is, if I were her.
She, or anyone else in her situation, should also look into a FETAL FIBRONECTIN test. It’s a fairly new test but reputable studies have shown that it is helpful in actually predicting whether a mom will go into preterm labor or not. Likewise, the test can detect problems that might have the opposite effect causing a pregnancy to continue postterm. Either way, this test would give her a heads up as to when those two little ones might be coming out. Angelina should be able get this done at her 'Palais' near Versailles. I’d go ahead and take that test...uh, if I were her.
And, in order to prevent premature delivery, I would also start—TODAY—eating a diet saturated in probiotic foods like yogurt and kefir, buttermilk and more yogurt. They have yogurt in France, right? She wants to have plenty of plant-derived polyphenols on hand—the kind you find in green tea and any dark-colored fruits or veggies, like eggplant and avocado Eating a healthy diet heavy in these foods can actually keep the kids comfortable in the belly until the time that they are due to arrive…and not before!
This is what I would do now, if I were her. But, of course, if I WERE her, I wouldn’t be writing this post right now. I’d be having sex with Brad. Keeping my feet, way, waaaay up.
After Matt proposed to Shane on the final episode of this season’s "The Bachelor" on Monday night, a bunch of my friends called me to ask if I had noticed how much silver jewelry that Shane had worn throughout the show and whether I thought this gave her any sort of energetic advantage over her competition?
Of course, the reason they were asking was that for years now I have been telling my girls how many different traditions hold to the belief that while you are looking for a perfect partner or mate you should wear only silver jewelry. I found this sort of odd since we always go for the gold or the platinum when picking our commitment rings here in the West. Really, think about it, almost every woman I know who is married has a gold or platinum band on her ring finger. But, I wondered, what did they wear before they were engaged? You know, while they were still single? Did they wear a lot of silver?
So, when I learned that you’re supposed to wear silver when trying to find real romance and love, I wanted someone to test it for me to see if it worked and I asked my friends to do exactly that. All for the sake of my research (and the fact that it made it really easy to get them gifts back in the day).
Anyway, three of them wore predominantly silver for two years (at least that’s what they told me) and, now, all three are happily married. But, when pressed they won’t cop to the fact that finding their own precious gem had anything to do with wearing heavy metal. I, however, believe it did.
Intrigued with these early test results I started to explore a bit more. And it was only then that I learned a deeply-held Feng Shui secret that said if you are a single woman who’s actively looking for the love of your life then you should wear a silver ring on your right index finger in order to GUARANTEE that you will meet THAT man within three month's time. I actually went public with that tip in January and the positively promising results have been trickling in for the last forty days or so. And, although I haven’t heard from every woman who tried this loving little tip, the ones I did hear from have all reported some sweet success on the dating front. So, who knows? Maybe Shane knew about the silver thing and, well, whether she did or not, maybe just wearing that silver ankle bracelet did give her a leg up on that house full of competition. And, even though it wasn’t a silver band sporting that five carat rock Matt proposed with, I think we should just all be glad it wasn’t a big banana. Seriously, if he called her ‘Monkey’ even one more time...
I got up and checked my email early this morning only to find one that had dropped in late last night from a client who I hadn’t heard from in a while. Apparently she was spurred to share an update after watching an Access Hollywood clip commenting on Brit’s continued car traveling troubles.
This was a client who initially called me when her own daughter was soon to test for her driver’s license. She wanted to make sure that she had done every conceivable thing possible to make sure that her most precious cargo, her beloved daughter, would travel safely and well whenever she was behind the wheel of her first new used car.
Her brief mail to me suggested that I might want to reach out to Lynn Spears and tell her some of the secrets that she believes have kept her own daughter safe and secure for these last two years. No tickets and not one little fender bender.
The standard stuff I initially told my client:
• Make sure the car stays fairly clutter free as this can contribute to taking attention away from the road;
• advise your daughter to stick with mellow music (while driving) to keep the environment inside the space the same way (calm and easy..no road rage, please!);
• and, finally, leave a little cotton ball that had been soaked in pure lemon essential oil somewhere in the frontseat of the car so that any/all odors would be quickly eliminated.
This last little trick also ensures an alert attitude as well serving to stave off the occasional drowsy drive. Of course the lemon cotton needs to be periodically refreshed every couple of weeks.
But, when first I told my client all of this she seemed to think I was holding something back. In fact, if I remember correctly, she said something like: “C’mon Ellen, what’s the secret stuff? I know there’s other ways to keep her REALLY protected; what are they?” She was right. I was holding back on what I call the “woo woo” stuff since it just sometimes seems so far out there. But, she asked, so….
Something simple that any driver can do to promote safe driving is tie a 9-inch length of red ribbon anywhere on the steering wheel. This secret “cure” is said to drive you to truly great places in your life as well as keep you trouble free while on the road.
Then there’s the hanging of a small crystal from the rearview mirror. The crystal should be suspended by nine inches of red thread. This will ensure an accident free ride any time.
I don’t know, I’ve tried this myself and the swinging crystal annoys the crap out of me so I just stick to the steering wheel string in my own car and, so far, haven’t had any driving concerns.
For the truly driving impaired (Brit, are you listening?), who want to stop racking up the tickets, not to mention the insurance payments: Take any small mirror—something similar to the ones you attach to your car’s side view (to add extra peripheral vision)—and attach it to the middle of the front bumper. Then, attach another one to the middle of the back bumper. This is said to make your car impervious to accident and invisible to police. If anyone out there knows Lynn Spears, feel free to pass the info along.
As for Britney—as long as her son can drive better than she can (hey, we’ve all seen the pictures), she should take these tips, suspend disbelief just a bit, and go along for the ride. My client will attest that these techniques work wonderfully well! Woo woo as they may seem…
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