Bobservations

Some of you may remember the story of how we survived Hurricane Katrina in Miami—losing only the fence and part of the roof—and how that lead to our decision to move from Florida. But did you know that Carlos and I handle hurricanes differently? That Carlos falls asleep at the drop of as hat and I stay awake wondering if the house will fly away like Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz?

Well, as we waited for Helene to arrive I told a coworker about Carlos’s nonchalance regarding the storms and the day after the storm, when we were without power for over 14 hours, Carlos and I drove through Camden seeing what, if anything, was damaged or open or what. We ended up by my office and I noticed a couple of cars in the lot so we stopped to check and the guy I had talked to about Carlos’s hurricane reactions was there, and we started talking storm when the guy said to me:

“How did Carlos do during the storm? Did he stay awake?”

And before I could utter a sound, Carlos goodnaturedly shouted:

“I’m fucking blind! I couldn’t see a thing!”

So, that’s how he handled it.

This Tuxedo Memory if from April 2020 and entitled Things I Like #7:

A while back Maddie posted a series of posts about called Things I Like where the posts displayed Maddie’s home and some favorite things.

I took a look around the house and started with our sunroom and the plants Carlos has there, but then I came upon my absolute favorite thing …

Wasn’t he gorgeous?

I rarely go to Walmart but if they have cakes like that there, I may have to rethink my position on that store!

The great, and I mean The Great Maggie Smith—The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to California Suite to A Room with a View to Tea with Mussolini to the Harry Potter films to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to The Lady in The Van to Downton Abbey—passed away last week at age 89.

RIP Dame Margaret Natalie Smith and thank you for the decades of entertainment.

The Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York announced a proposed global settlement with hundreds of sex abuse survivors, who allege they were abused as children at the DRVC’s parishes, churches, and schools.

The settlement is based on DRVC’s parishes filing for bankruptcy, and it will halt a number of jury trials against the Diocese and its parishes. The law firm of Slater Slater Schulman served as a mediation party in the historic settlement, under which a trust will receive approximately $320.5 million for the benefit of survivors.

$320,000,000.00.

Oh, and then Pope Francis promised to “offer all the help we can” to aid clergy sexual abuse victims, after a group of Belgian survivors told him first-hand of the trauma that had shattered their lives and left many in poverty and mental misery.

Howsabout turning the child rapists into the authorities to have them prosecuted? Oh, but the shame on the church …

Fuck you, Francis.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s marriage may be over, but fans still love Mr. & Mrs. Smith even if La Jolie does not. 

And she does not; Jolie was photographed autographing a movie poster for the 2005 action flick and seemed quite stoic about doing so, even averting her eyes from Pitt’s picture on the poster.

Oh Angie, you picked him …

Teo Toranzo is an Italian model, based in Brazil, who doesn’t shy away from an avant-garde photo shoot but the real issue is: Would You Hit It?

I Ain;t One To Gossip But ...

Last summer Cuba Gooding Jr. was charged with ALLEGEDLY groping a woman in a nightclub. And though he turned himself in to police, he ended up pleading not guilty to the charges.

Now, there was some video evidence, but Cuba was sticking to his story. And he paid a team of lawyers to shame his accuser by challenging her metal state, but the judge was buying it; Cuba went to court to face those charges … and he was hit with different charges for a separate event.

Gooding showed up to court thinking he was there to deal with the sexual assault case against him, which he was, but it was a different sexual assault case when the Manhattan D.A. told the judge there was a different incident with Cuba and this was their basis for a new charge.

Must be hard trying to keep all those women you groped straight, so you know what charge you’re fighting when you go to court, eh Cuba?

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Rapper Cardi B probably doesn’t write her own stuff, but the girl knows how to mouth off.

Exhibit A: Cardi ranting about Access Hollywood and a story on her in which they claim that Cardi’s daughter, Kulture—is she a Kardastrophe—calls someone else “mommy” because Cardi is working so much and never around. Cardi B lost her mind at this story, saying Access Hollywood “chopped up” her actual quote:

“A lot of people expect me to be in the studio, and then I gotta do other shit, like I filmed for Rhythm + Flow, I filmed for Hustlers, I’m working on fucking Fashion Nova … I’m sorry if I take time of my day that I could be five hours in the studio, but I’m spending five hours with my kid… Yes, I could have somebody babysit my kid, but it’s like, it’s a wack feeling when your kid don’t fucking…not even trying to fuck with you and try to call somebody else mommy.”

And she shamed Access Hollywood for chopping it up to create a narrative:

“That’s not what the fuck I said. Don’t use my motherfucking kid for clickbait bitch. Don’t fucking cut shit off, try to make me look like I’m a fuck-ass mom ‘cause that’s not something that I’m not.”

And she goes on:

“Access Hollywood suck my whole dick. Suck a dick, I hope your fucking mom catch AIDs, bitch.”

Wow, and she really is someone’s mother. Lovely.

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Former Fox News bimbo, and conservative tool for the party of Family Values, Stacey Dash, was recently arrested for domestic battery until her victim-husband bailed her out and dropped the charges.

That should have been a sign to shut up and move on, but when you’re Stacey Dash and you live for publicity, well, talk talk talk.

Dash is claiming that her recent time in jail for domestic battery was a result of a “martial spat that escalated” and that it happens to normal couples.

Huh? Bitch please.

“Like normal married couples my husband and I had a martial dispute that escalated.”

Sorry Stacey, I’ve been with Carlos 19 years and we’ve had spats and fights, and never once has it “escalated” into physical assault.

That’s you.

PS Stacey Dash was held in the Land O’ Lakes detention facility in Florida. Seriously? A butter-churning detention center? I thought that would be just for farmers or Amish people.

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Ricardo Chavira played Eva Longoria’s TV husband on Desperate Housewives and so maybe that’s why he had some thoughts on Felicity Huffman getting a soft slap on the wrist for her involvement in the Operation Varsity Blues scandal.

He was pissed, and maybe not just because his TV wife, Eva Longoria wrote a glorious letter to the judge asking him to go easy on Felicity; what, like give her three days instead of fourteen. Bitch please. Anyway, Chavira doesn’t seem to think Felicity is all that, and took to Twitter, because, of course, to vent:

“White Privilege. And I saw Eight years’ worth of it, so I know what I’m talking about. Accountability and Responsibility don’t mean shit to these people. … I’ve seen a lifetime of it being a halfbreed, and I’ve struggled with the intricacies of it on a daily basis with all the cultural bias I’ve received on both ends. But whatever. Slap on the wrist. Sorry, but this shit.”

And it is, because Felicity, while she sort of accepted responsibility, also said she was just trying to get her daughter a break because it’s tough out there for the child of millionaire celebrities.

I’m #TeamChavira because he’s right and he’s hot and I’m shallow.

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And also because I’m shallow, I’m gonna end with Angelina Jolie at the premiere of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil looking regal radiant and fierce.

That’s all.

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It's Snarkurday!

Brad and Angie have split! Some say he was mean to the kids! Some say he cheated on La Jolie! Some say he drinks! Some say he smokes too much weed!

I say, Meh, it’s another Hollywood marriage gone belly-up. Nothing to see there.

Rabidly devout Catholic — he makes the Pope look like an atheist — Mel Gibson has gotten his new girlfriend, Rosalind Ross, who is young enough to be one of his children, pregnant with his ninth child.

He has seven children with his ex-wife, one child with an ex-girlfriend, and this soon-to-be-child with his, certainly- soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend.

He’s a fine Catholic, no?

So, remember when Mark Wahlberg, before becoming Marky Mark and then becoming Mark Wahlberg again, attacked two Vietnamese men on the same day in Boston? Well, he was 16 at the time and was charged with assault and did 45 days in jail.
  

Then two years ago, Wahlberg tried to get a pardon for his crimes and all kinds of folks were up in arms that, just because he was rich, he could have his record expunged of the crimes.

Well, that ain’t happening … a Massachusetts Parole Board spokesperson says Wahlberg never responded to a letter they sent him asking if he still wanted to keep that pardon request open and so they closed it.

And now Wahlberg is saying he doesn’t care that his pardon was dropped because, he says now, he never really wanted it in the first place … except when he was asking for it, and writing letters asking for it, and pleading to get a pardon.

The estate of Bobbi Kristina Brown sued her boyfriend-adopted-brother Nick Gordon last year for ALLEGEDLY scheming to get her money and being responsible for her death. The suit claimed Nick transferred money from Bobbi Kristina’s account to his own the day she went into a coma. Nick was also accused of injecting Bobbi Kristina with a “toxic mixture” that day.  

Nick’s lawyers called the suit “meritless,” but Nick never got to explain why because he never showed up to court … twice … and that cost him the case because, this week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford declared Nick Gordon legally responsible for Bobbi Kristina Brown’s death.

Just shows, y’all, show up when the law asks you to, or else.

Nick is still being investigated by the cops, but so far no charges have been filed.

It’s hard out there for pretty people … just ask Halle Berry.

I remember a few years back when Charlize Theron started the Eye Roll Heard Round The World when she cried that none of the meaty roles in movies are written for a “gorgeous, gown-wearing eight-foot model” even though she’d won an Oscar for Monster and followed up that role with Aeon Flux.

And now it’s Halle’s turn; she told a magazine recently that she didn’t want to be typecast as the pretty girl, so she purposefully went after roles where she’d have to de-glam herself.

This from the girl who started out as a model on a TV show about models called Living Dolls. Now, to be fair, her first film role was as Vivian the crack whore in Jungle Fever and she says she had to beg Spike Lee to let her audition for it.

Yes, she begged Spike to be a “crack ho” and won him over by taking off her make-up and becoming a crack whore; she then went on to beg Lee Daniels for the role in Monster’s Ball that won her an Oscar, followed that up with Catwoman and Gothika.

So, is it hard out there for beauties or hard for beauties that make stupid film choices?

In what I like to call Celebrities Acting Like High School Mean Girls, Selena Gomez recently got a new phone number and has announced that she will not give it to ex-boy-toy Justin Bieber.

Stop.The.Presses. A source — called Melena Momez — says Selena instructed everyone that got her new number “not to give it to him.”

I guess Bieber Booty Calls are over.

There are those who think it was the best thing for Tom Hiddleston to dump Taylor Swift like the whiny teenager she is, but, well, girls who write poetry and then turn them into songs that they sing off-key, might have the edge.

Yes, Swifty is said to be planning a revenge album of songs about both Hiddleston and her beau before Hiddleston, Calvin Harris.

How come when she goes for revenge the music listening public is the victim?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her ninth Emmy — and her fifth Best Actress Emmy in a row for Veep — last weekend and brought the audience to tears when she announced that her father, William Louis-Dreyfus, died just two days before at the age of 84.

And, in a world where people do not listen, a great many social media fools, instantly began Tweeting and Instagramming and Facebooking about the loss of Julia’s dad, Richard Dreyfuss.

And so Richard Dreyfuss took to the web to instruct this slew of morons how to Google Julia Louis-Dreyfus and find out that she isn’t his daughter.

Seriously, people.

Note to pervy guys: leave Sophia Bush alone when she’s on a plane.

Bush recently posted a statement on Twitter about the creepy encounter she had with a fellow traveler and she took him, and his ilk down:

“Dear Random Dude on a Plane:

When you make a woman so visibly uncomfortable, that after you’ve ignored all visual cues to please leave her alone (one word answers, she pulls out a book, puts on a hat, she actually asks you to not speak to her with the tone and words you’re choosing to use) that she finally GETS UP and MOVES SEATS, leave her alone. Do not continue trying to make conversation.

Stop turning around and looking at her. Stop leaning out of your seat and towards her body when she has to grab something out of the overhead bin above her original seat, and sadly also above you, mid flight.

And in my case, stop believing that you are entitled to make me uncomfortable because you ‘watch my TV show’ so I owe you some magical debt. I make it, you watch it. After that, the ‘exchange’ is done. You do not get to harass me, or any woman, because you think you pay our bills.

You don’t bro, I DO.”

Suh-nap!

So, a couple of weeks back someone on a Twitter interview — a Twinterview? — asked Katy Perry if she’d ever work with Taylor Swift and Katy replied:

“Yeah, if she ever apologizes.”

That’s an allusion to the rift between the two pop tartlets over the ALLEGED embezzling by Perry of Swift backup dancers; seriously.

Don’t hold your breath, Katy, because a source — Kaylor Kwift, I’m thinking — has said that Taylor let out a snotty girl laugh at the idea of working with non-award winner Perry:

“Why would Taylor want to collaborate with someone whose latest single (“Rise“) didn’t even break the Top 10? Taylor is a ten time Grammy winner. Katy has zero Grammys.”

And Taylor has zero talent, except for being a whiny self-indulgent, self-entitled, tuneless brat.

But that describes Katy, too, right?

It's Snarkurday!

Y’all remember The Sony Hack? The crime that unleashed The Interview on us all? Well, a lot of the story was about the emails between then-Sony-head-and-now-fired Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin and their Mean Girl attacks on Angelina Jolie. Well, Wikipedia has posted some of the emails and La Jolie comes off as smart and professional and kind, while Rudin and Pascal come across as bitches who hate.

Any time Jolie emails one or both of them about a proposed Cleopatra film, Pascal and Rudin snipe about her, as when Rudin writes:

“I’m not remotely interested in presiding over a $180m ego bath … the last thing anybody needs is to make a giant bomb with her that any fool could see coming… I have no need to keep her happy. There is NO relationship with any movie star — ANY one — that requires our willingness to prostrate ourselves this way in the face of childish, irresponsible, willful and un-partnerly behavior.”

When Pascal forwards her email bitchfest with Rudin to Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Lynton writes: “You guys are nuts to put this in an email.” 

Sound advice; not taken.

Oh, and the best is when Scott Rudin asked La Jolie if she was interested in starring as Ma Ingalls … seriously … in his film adaptation of Little House on the Prairie alongside … wait for it … Tom Cruise as Pa Ingalls. Seriously? Tom Cruise as Pa Ingalls? Everyone knows he's Half-Pint!

Still, Angelina liked the script, but said no to him because:

“I love Little House but don’t think I am the best person to do it. You have a very special project and a brilliant script and I am beyond grateful you would give me a chance to consider it.” 

This was at the same time Rudin was screeching about Angelina being a “spoiled brat.”

Meanwhile, Jolie just goes along with her life; oh, and her job — unlike Pascal — and her dignity — unlike Scott Rudin.

I’ve always loved how Madonna gets on her high horse when people disrespect her, um, “art,” and yet she has no problem being disrespectful herself. I mean, remember the time she attended a screening of Twelve Years A Slave and texted throughout the film? And when someone in the audience told her to put it away that time, she yelled, “It’s for business … ENSLAVER!” Well, she’s done it again, this time at a Broadway show and this time she was called out by the star of the show.

Madonna went to see Lin-Manuel Miranda in the Broadway musical Hamilton. Miranda wrote, directed and stars in the life story — told through hip-hop — of Alexander Hamilton and he is now Broadway’s newest darling.

So, Madge was sitting in the audience, being Madge, and ALLEGEDLY texted all the way through Act 2 and Miranda was not having it and he Tweeted:

“Tonight was the first time I asked stage management NOT to allow a celebrity — who was texting all through Act 2 — backstage #noselfieforyou.”

The Tweet was later deleted, but a source in the audience — perhaps it was Lohan looking for another theater gig … as an usher — says Madonna was texting throughout the night:

“It was definitely her. She was texting, I believe, although at one point she also pulled out a Blackberry. She was also 20 minutes late and caused quite a stir getting to her seat.”

Eventually Madge put down her phone after someone in the audience — and it might have been Patti LuPone who hates phones in theaters — hissed, “Shut it off!”

Still, Madge may have had good reason; perhaps her new boyfriend was getting out of middle school and needed a ride back to the manse?

HBO’s Going Clear documentary — which I have on the DVR, but still haven’t seen — brought plenty of damaging information about Scientology to the public. A small part of the film discussed the incredibly close friendship between Tom Cruise and CoS leader David Miscavige; Cruise is considered by many to be #2 in command of the ALLEGED church, though it’s clear he would never officially take over the helm because he’s also their biggest financial supporter.

See, for the past several years, Scientology has experienced money troubles — despite its tax-free status — and while they still have $1.5 billion in assets, most of that is in real estate and overhead, and those kinds of “liquid” assets are a problem because, thanks to the internet and the documentary and all that bad press from people who’ve escaped the “church,” people are no longer signing up for their nonsense.

Enter Cruise, chief CoS moneymaker. CoS desperately needs Mission: Impossible 5 to be a success because Tom’s backend deals ... tee hee, backend deals ... with studios are sweet and his money is about all they have coming in. I mean, that’s what a private 
investigator ALLEGEDLY  working for Miscavige told Wisconsin police when they brought him in for questioning in July 2013.

“Where do you think the funding comes from?” an investigator asked private investigator Daniel Powell in audio recordings.

“Probably Tom Cruise,” Powell says, to audible laughter. “I’m being serious, that’s probably where it comes from. [He] funds the church with anything they need. So he’s pretty much funding all of this. We make jokes all the time — when Tom Cruise’s last movie came out — it was a terrible movie, we were going around telling everybody how awesome the movie was. Go see the movie so Tom Cruise can get paid and we can get paid.”

I know it sounds crazy, but it also sounds true. I mean, no wonder he divorces his wives before the ten year end of pre-nup clause comes into effect. And he’s selling off real estate like there’s no tomorrow: his Hollywood Hills home can be yours for $13 million, while his Telluride manse is on the market for $59 million.

He needs the cash. Xenu spaceships don’t come cheap. ALLEGEDLY.

I love this one …

Tom Hardy is in a new film called Child 44 which, for some reason, is expected to bomb, so he’s not doing a lot of press for it. But when he does press, and when he’s asked about the Russian accent he use in the film, well, he says this:

“I watched Sesame Street. The Count speaks just like it.” 

Loving it!

Remember last week when Gwyneth Paltrow wrote in her GOOP-letter that she would be taking part in the Food Stamp Challenge? And remember how she posted the $29 worth of food items she bought to feast on for the entire week? And then remember how she went to lunch at a trendy, expensive, Brentwood restaurant, basically giving the challenge a big F-U?

Well, she wants you to know more …

“Last week, chef (and great man) Mario Batali challenged me to raise awareness and money for the NYC Food Bank by trying to live on $29 dollars for the week (what low income families on SNAP are trying to survive on). Dubious that I could complete the week, I donated to the Food Bank at the outset, and all of us at the goop office began the challenge.

As I suspected, we only made it through about four days, when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice). My perspective has been forever altered by how difficult it was to eat wholesome, nutritious food on that budget, even for just a few days—a challenge that 47 million Americans face every day, week, and year. A few takeaways from the week were that vegetarian staples liked dried beans and rice go a long way—and we were able to come up with a few recipes on a super tight budget.

After trying to complete this challenge I would give myself a C- …”

And she goes on to talk about how hard people have it, unless you’re GOOP, but seriously? A C-?

Gwyneth, honey? You delusional f**kwad? You.Failed. While many in this country eat for far less than $29 a week, you couldn’t handle four days without breaking, so stop trying to act like you understand.

You deserve an F, as in Shut.The.F.Up.

While on the red carpet for the Time 100 gala and concert, the highlarious — no, she’s seriously funny — Amy Schumer pretended to fall down right in front of Kim and Kanye Kardastrophe.

And what did Kimye do?

He didn’t budge, didn’t crack a smile, didn’t even acknowledge Schumer. Kash Kow appeared to smile, though with as much Botox as she has in her face it’s hard to tell, but … she and Kanye then moved further down the carpet for more photos while Amy picked herself up off the ground.

Man, do those two take themselves so seriously.

Remember when Sherri Shepherd married Lamar Sally and told the world about their spectacular Christian love? And remember when Sherri and Lamar used a surrogate to have the baby that would be a symbol of their spectacular Christian love? And then remember when they separated and Sherri said the baby wasn’t hears? Her story was that the child – only made so that Lamar The Gold-digger could get his hands on Sherri’s money … except she really has none because she was fired from The View before this whole mess started and girl ain’t got no real job — wasn’t hers because it was Lamar’s junk and a surrogate’s egg.

Anyway … now a Pennsylvania judge has ruled that Sherri is legally the mother of their surrogate baby, Lamar Sally Jr., and Lamar Sr. wants Sherri to go on TV and apologize to him.

Might have been a good idea, if they’d done the reveal of Sherri’s maternity on Maury. Lamar could have danced across the stage singing, ‘You’re the mother! You’re the mother!”

Christians. They’re funny.