">My Big World Of Crap

I really liked this photo when I first saw it a few days ago.  Lindsay Lohan did a photo shoot for New York magazine which was a re-creation of Marilyn Monroe’s last nude photo shoot.  It was even done by the same photographer who took the photos of Monroe - Bert Stern.

The images were so popular on the internet that the magazine’s website crashed after receiving around 20 million daily page views in the days after they were published. The average number of daily page views in January was 1.2 million.

While the cover photo above is really good, and some of the others (I was only looking at the magazine’s site for the articles, honest!) are too, it doesn’t alter the fact that Lindsay Lohan is a fairly mediocre actress who has gained more fame and notoriety for her out of control personal life than she’s ever likely to get for acting.

Still, I’m happy to post the photo here - (a) because I like it, (b) because I know it will be a traffic magnet.

We saw “Cloverfield” last night.   I liked it - even if I felt queasy in the stomach almost all the way through it.  And thats nothing to do with gore or violence or anything like that.  The gimmick of this movie is that its shot to look like a home movie shot on a home video camera.  The jerkiness and sudden cuts between scenes take some getting used to, and it feels like a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

Well worth seeing.

Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri is not actually his, but was conceived using Scientology founder, L Ron Hubbard’s sperm.   Thats one claim made in a new book by Andrew Morton:  “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography“.  He also claims that Scientology played a large part in the breakdown of Cruise’s marriage to Nicole Kidman, and that Kidman has not been able to speak out against the pseudo-religion because of threats of blackmail over the release of details of the couple’s sex life and also access to their two adopted children.  The pseudo-church has denied these claims of blackmail.

Another claim in the book is that Cruise has since risen to No. 2 in the church, according to Morton, and his next mission is to recruit David and Victoria Beckham …. a task which I’m sure will take convincing philosophical and intellectual argument to achieve.

Enough of that.  Next, Terri Irwin.  She claims to have had contact with dead husband Steve through American television medium John Edward.  Hours before the psychic performed for 4500 people at the Irwins’ Australia Zoo Crocoseum , Mrs Irwin and Steve’s father, Bob,had private “readings” to contact the late wildlife champion.  Mr Irwin said his daughter-in-law was overjoyed by the outcome. He said both “had contact with Steve”.

“There’s no doubt that Steve was with us,” Mr Irwin said. “It’s not black and white, it’s grey, but there was a definite, unmistakable Steve energy.”

If the rest of the crowd at the public $90-a-head show were hoping to “see” Steve Irwin yesterday, they left disappointed. He did not make his presence felt and Edward did not address any Irwin family member during his two-hour show.

Strange that?  Nothing on the big stage but success when there were only 2 others around - all equally voracious publicity whores.  Message to Terri Irwin - shut up, all this crap you are going on with recently is destroying whatever credibility you might have had.  Just run the zoo, will you?

Enough of Terri …but by the way, its rather disturbing that 4,500 people were fool enough to part with $90 to see this garbage.  Mmmm, Queensland …. probably explains why Nigerian email scams have a better than average success rate there.   Hey that reminds me, I have an uncle in Lagos who has just died and left me $5m - but I need help getting it out of the country.  Please contact me if you can help me with this ….I’m sure we can cut a deal.

Britney Spears train wreck I posted about separately the other day, so I won’t repeat it all here.

Britney Spears is in the news almost every day, and for just about everything except her music.  She is clearly a very troubled individual, and yesterday’s episode is stark evidence of that.

Police were called to Spears’ home  on Thursday  over a family custodial argument that they tried to resolve “peacefully by court order”, police officer Jason Lee said.  After nearly three hours, Spears reportedly handed over her children and was taken away on a stretcher.   It is reported that police found the singer under the influence of an unknown substance, and she was taken to hospital for medical evaluation.  Spears was not arrested, and “there was no actual crime”, a police spokeswoman said.

Sure, I bet if she was a normal member of the public, somewhere in that standoff with the police, and given she was affected by some, no doubt, illegal drug or other, the police would have found some criminal charges somewhere.

Spears “needs an enormous amount of help to find out why the erratic behavior,” said Ruth Schreibman, a marriage and family therapist who does not treat the pop star.

“Is she bipolar? Is she depressed? Is it postpartum depression? Is it drugs and alcohol?” she said. “There’s just so much attention and it’s such an accelerated speed of life that how can there be any normalcy?”

More likely too much spoilt brat unable to cope with reality.  Too many hangers on telling her how wonderful she is?

And then we have younger sister, Jamie Lynn.  My kids sometimes watch “Zoey 101” in which she appears, and we’ve often joked that we hoped she turns out better than Britney (no doubt being Britney Spears’ sister played more of a role in her getting the part than anything like actual talent).  Well, the answer to that seems to be, no, its very likely she’s heading down the same path.  16 year old Jamie Lynn is pregnant.

Spears’ mother, Lynne, added:

 “I didn’t believe it because Jamie Lynn’s always been so conscientious. She’s never late for her curfew. I was in shock. I mean, this is my 16-year-old baby.”

Not conscientious enough it seems.  Nor was Mum Spears in knowing what her daughter was up to.  But clearly she wasn’t too upset by her 16 year old’s pregnancy …. she sold the story to a magazine for a reputed $1m.  Nice one Mum - I can just picture the conversation in the family trailer (JL:  Mum, I’m pregnant.  Mum:  Oh shit, now how can we cash in on that?)

I shouldn’t really joke about Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney clearly has serious mental health issues, and I’m sure being a 16/17 year old mother is more than challenging … but the family seems to be such a train wreck (not to mention being publicity whores) that they make themselves a joke already.  I actually find it rather sad that there are people who don’t see Britney in particular as a joke, but as some sort of role model.  (Same goes for Paris Hilton).

My remedy for these girls.  Attention/publicity deprivation. Ignore them until such time as they actually do something worthwhile, like make good music, or become a quality actor, and don’t reward their other antics with any publicity at all.    Starve them of attention, hopefully they’ll vanish into obscurity.

Ha, ha!  As if thats going to happen!

Update (!3/01/2008):  Jamie Lynn Spears’ boyfriend, Casey Aldridge, is denying responsibiity for impregnating her.  Rumours have swirled that Jamie Lynn is in fact pregnant by an older TV producer.  Chances are she was auditioning for a new part ….acting ability wouldn’t have got her the job.

Went to see “Enchanted” this morning.   What a delightful, fun movie it is, a fairy tale combining animated and live action.  Amy Adams is just gorgeous in it and really makes this movie.  The chipmunk is pretty good too.

Not so enchanted was I with the Boxing Day sale experience afterwards.  Got stuck in a line in Myer while the people in front of me were trying to exchange things.  It must have taken 15 minutes to sort out the transaction, and at one stage there were 5 staff involved trying to figure out what to do … all over an $80 exchange.  I wonder if it ever occurs to someone that (a) having 5 people stuffing around over an exchange wipes out whatever profit there was in the sale, and (b) rather than piss off the next 10 or so people held up waiting, they’d be better off just giving the customer what they want without trying to investigate it to the nth degree to work out what the price difference was between the old and new goods - $7 I think it was.

Flicking through the SMH site yesterday, I noticed this gig review, for The Triffids. Sounds really interesting, I thought, wow, a Triffids reunion (admittedly difficult as the key person, David McComb, died a few years ago). Actually the show is not a reunion as such but various band members do sing Triffids songs, plus a number of guests will wander on and off the Metro Theatre stage during the festival show (including Rob and Mark Snarski, who were in the Triffids-influenced band Chad’s Tree (Rob later co-founded the Blackeyed Susans with David McComb); Mick Harvey of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds; pianist Chris Abrahams; Youth Group’s Toby Martin and Steve Kilbey, singer-songwriter of Triffids contemporaries The Church).

I rediscovered The Triffids a few years ago after hearing Weddings, Parties, Anything cover “Wide Open Road”. David McComb did indeed write some wonderful songs, the title of this post refers to one of my favourites. The extent of the Triffids catalog is evident from band member Graham Lee’s comment about selecting the songs for the show:

“I went through initially and put together a list of songs that I really thought were essential. I came to 52. Then I went through and said: OK, I’ll be really brutal this time. I got it down to 33. For a two-hour show. So there are plenty of songs that are absolutely essential that we won’t get to do.”

For those not familiar with the work of The Triffids, enjoy this:

Having confidently predicted that Pamela Anderson’s latest marriage, to Rick Salomon, would be lucky to make it into 2008 -  they were married only in October, I thought my prediction was going to be right again when I read this morning that Pam had filed for divorce.

However, things can’t be quite as bad for Pam as she thought.  They seem to have gotten back together and are trying to “work things out“.

Oh well, its only a matter of time till her lawyers hit the print button and recycle those divorce papers.

To me the highlight of the ARIA awards on Sunday night was Nick Cave’s induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame, and his speech accepting the recognition of his works, and particularly the way he took it upon himself to induct some of his colleagues in his bands The Bad Seeds and The Birthday Party.

Especially good was his tribute to Rowland S Howard and the late, great Tracy Pew, of the Birthday Party. I’m old enough, and fortunate enough to have seen them perform, one night at the UNSW Roundhouse. Fantastic band, always just on the edge of chaos.

Here’s some Birthday Party goodness for those who aren’t familiar with them.

Tracy Pew is the bass player, the one in the cowboy hat. Most of my favourite Birthday Party songs are driven by big basslines, like this (”Junkyard”), also “King Ink” and “Dead Joe”. Nick Cave, of course, is the singer, with the big hair.

BTW, I love one of the comments on the Youtube page for this clip:

“This is one of my new favorite songs. It’s like Bjork, it doesn’t matter what you think of it, nothing sounds like it. I could not afford the amount of drugs it would take for me to write something like this..”

Yes, and I’m sure plenty of drugs did go into writing it.

Tarisai Vuche, who got the flick from Australian Idol last night, gave the judges a huge spray.

She clearly has an inflated view of her own importance, saying God would judge them if they believed what they said about her.

Umm, no, don’t think so.  Can’t imagine your god would give a rats arse about one mediocre performance in a sea of mediocrity.

I just love this comment in a review of Britney Spears’ new album “Blackout”.

“If a blowup sex doll could sing, this is what she’d sound like.”

Pure gold!

Also, commenting on the studio trickery used in making it:

“In terms of studio trickery, Paris Hilton’s album was practically “Unplugged” compared to this.”

And while on the subject of blow-up/rubber dolls, there’s a movie about to come out called “Lars and the Real Girl” which is about a guy and his rubber dolly.  Ha ha, hope he isn’t into love bites …. did you hear about the guy who gave his doll a love bite?  She farted and flew out the window.