Hey Rob? Hey Ben? Um, Your Mid-life Crisis Called.....

...and said KNOCK IT OFF!
Ben Affleck rocks the Bieber........

Rob Lowe rocks the silver tips........

Whoever said anything about aging gracefully?

Design Star: Make A Client Happy Or Die

THE CHALLENGE
This week was the Work-With-Actual-Clients Challenge and give some rooms in their house new life. Our designtestants were split into two teams, driven to New Jersey where design is king....I kid...and dropped off on some residential street. I'd hoped they'd be forced to design their way back to Brooklyn, but alas, that wasn't this episode.
Team Callegari

Leslie, Kevin and Kellie took the Callegaris' basement to task, while Doug and Mark did battle--literally--in the living room. The Callegaris wanted a living room to suit their large family gatherings [sidenote:everybody on these design shows always talks about wanting rooms in which they can entertain, but if everybody is entertaining so much, where are my invites??] and we learned almost instantly that Doug and Mark, or as I call them, Oil and Water, or to be more current, JLo and Marc Anthony, would not be a team.

Mark and Doug's lack of teamwork and bickering was obnoxious, and Doug was especially obnoxious, mostly because he wasn't listening to my Little Hairy Hubby, Mark. And, to be fair, Mark was a little preoccupied doing one wall in the space while Doug tackled everything else.
Their lack of cohesion turned the living room into a joke. The Callegaris wanted space to dance, so Doug shoved all the furniture against the wall, because, you know, people can't move furniture once its in place. And he decided to do one of his signature feature walls and painted it the color of Pepto Bismol; I know this, because I was watching the show whilst drinking Pepto and it was exactly the same shade!

The best part of their collaboration was the rug moving incident. It should be capitalized: The Rug Moving Incident. Mark wanted it closer to wall and did so; Doug wanted it more centered do he pulled it back. Mark moved it, Doug moved it. It was a Battle Of [nit]Wits.
Sad to say, it wasn't the rug that destroyed their room. It was the hideous paint color, the ugly furniture, and the bad space design--look at me, i sound like a life-sized Vern Yip--and a total lack of team work.

On the other hand, Leslie, Kevin and Kellie’s basement was very cool, and they played well with others. Leslie told us that she has a wife, which means she is a, yes, Lesliebian, and used her Mommy skills to make the basement a very kid-friendly zone, by taking the kid's art work and making a collage for one wall. It was cutesy, and I don't like cutesy, but the Callegaris do, so that was okay.

Kevin’s take on the family office corner that was cool, not cutesy. His shelving design was very well done--and I may try it in our home office--and, though he went kitschy, as is his style, with the accessories--seriously, a grouping of little ceramic Eskimo women?--he downplayed the tackiness of kitschy and kept it cool.
Kellie took a pair of structural columns and turned it into a seating bar-storage cabinet-room-divider. It made the room into three zones: kid, office, and family, and really brought all three designers and their designs together.

Team Christina
Tyler and Meg tag-teamed the dining room, while Cathy, Bret and Karl were butting heads, and headaches, in the basement entertainment room.

Cathy, Karl and Bret were the Odd Trio. Cathy obviously doesn't think a designer should get her hands dirty, so she went out shopping while Karl and Bret did demolition derby to the space. They removed the kitchen, she bought a table. They tore down a wall, she found the perfect lamp. They built a tree fort, she had an espresso.
By Day Two, the boys weren't having it and, after a short squabble, where Cathy said she could go shopping with Karl and Bret, Bret simply said, 'We'll shop and Cathy will stay here and paint.' Cathy was not happy doing actual work. I believe she leaves manual labor to her Mexican handyman, Manuel Labore.

Their room had highs and lows. Karl's broken tile mosaic backsplash was very cool, even though no one noted that in almost every season of Design Star the Work With Clients Challenge ends with a backsplash left unfinished. Until this year. That was a high point.
Bret’s  little vignette next to the kitchen was a low point. Bad furniture, badly placed does not a designer make. It could have been the perfect spot for a bistro table and a couple of chairs, and maybe some kind of wine storage. Something that made you wanna sit down instead of walk by.
And Cathy, dear sweet Emmy-award winning Cathy. Shopping is not design. Say it with me: Shopping is not design, because if it were, we'd all be designers. I didn't see her do any design work whatsoever, and her whole time was spent showing how she could shop for her Global Perspective. Design! Dammit! Or take those Emmy wings and fly your ass back home,. Oh, yeah.....do some grunt work, too. Lazy bitch.

Tyler and Meg’s dining room went all Hampton-y, beachy and fun. Tyler did a wood technique on one wall, but did anyone else notice that he walled over a sink and a niche with his wood? I mean, it may have been the fever, but I could have sworn I saw him walling up a sink! And I kept thinking he was going to cut out the spaces, but when it was all said and down, he just covered it up. If I was Christina, i would have been all, Where's my sink, gay boy?

And Meg, Bruiser Meg, Scared To Meet Her In A Dark Alley, Meg, repurposed a hutch into a buffet, which she did by taking the top off, sanding it, and repainting it. That really isn't repurposing; that's dismantling, sanding and painting. if you wnated to repurpose the hutch, you could have turned it into a sink, since Tyler lost the sink behind a wall. That would have been remarkable.
And while their room was pretty, it looked an awful lot like a vignette at a Rooms-To-Go showroom, where you can buy all the pieces for $999.00. And then you get it home and find out there's a sink hidden behind the wall.

CAMERA CHALLENGE
Once again we spent several valuable minutes on the camera challenges, only to have them disappear and never be seen again. But, oh, what we learned....
Meg showed us how to sand, while Tyler gave us nail-gun tips. Bret patched a hole while Karl showed us how to paint a crisp line using tape. Cathy sewed...badly...apparently her seamstress was off that day, while Lesliebian matted photos. Kellie created a drip hole in a paint can--though I will admit I'm gonna try this one--while Kevin covered holes, which is different than patching. Mark showed us how to cut in while painting while Doug talked about carpet removal.
Soooooo challenging.
Such helpful tips.

THE JUDGING
Kevin, Kellie, and Leslie's basement family room was called fun. The kid art collage got points for bringing some of the family into the room, and Kellie's bar wall was a hit. But the judges loved Kevin's desk area most of all, and said that this room seemed like the designers were of one mind, and that it was a good mind.

Not so was Doug and Mark's room. The judges loved the floor, and Mark's wood wall, but Doug's taste level in furniture was deemed unfortunate. Genevieve Goiter hated his paint choice, and I......a......greed. Which means I must have really been sick, or it was a really bad paint color, or both.
Both.
Tyler and Meg's dining room got wows, but also got knocked for looking too showroom. Hey! I already said that! They also got knocked because there was no family in the room. it could have been anyone's dining room; well, not mine, because I would'a looked at the wood wall, and screamed, a la Joan Crawford: Tear down that bitch of a wood wall and put a sink where a sink ought to be.
And......................................................scene.
Karl, Cathy and Bret got points for their beautifully designed, if bland, room. Vern hated Bret's "Cappuccino machine waiting area" chairs--look, Vern made a funny--and they all called Cathy's furniture selection boring, except for the Global perspective coffee table. Karl's backspalsh was a winner. Like I said.

YOUR SHOW IS CANCELLED
Sister Cathy of the Clean Hands and Boring Furnishings Order was safe, as was Showroom Meg and Tyler. The Lesliebian was also safe, probably as an homage to NY Marriage Equality.

Karl gets the Second Place finish for his backspalsh, while Divider, Not Divisive Kellie takes Third. But the winner is Kevin, for his kitschy, cool office space. And Kevin also gets the award for Subtlest Dig at the hosts for saying, only to guest judges Cortney and Bob Novogratz, "This means so much, especially coming from you."
I guess it wouldn't mean as much coming from Vern Little and Genevieve Goiter.
Bret is then awarded a safety, leaving Mark, my Hot Hairy Hubby in my Head, and Doug as the Bottom Two.

Mark gets nailed--and not in a good way--for not speaking up and not being a team player, and focusing on one aspect of the room. But it's Doug whose Show Is Cancelled, Doug who Packs His Swatches And Goes, Doug who is Auf'd, Doug who is voted Out Of The Condo.
And he should have been. Even he noted that he had done 98% of that room,. Though he also noted that meant he shouldn't have gone home. But, um, Doug, if ninety-eight percent of the room is ugly, should you stay?
Doug?
Doug?
Dougie boy?
Oh, that's right. You're gone.
You are out of this picture.

Feeling Peachy

Whoosh. That was rough. It was sleep and run to the bathroom. Drink and run to the bathroom. Use the bathroom, then.......run to the bathroom.
But I'm feeling all peachy now....just no more trunk peachy, you know?
Thanks for all the well-wishes. While Carlos was at work, a team of nurses tended to me. tuxedo slept on one side, Max Goldberg on the other, while Consuelo Roca Jones chewed on my toes--Thanks for giving her the idea DD! Tallulah, however, was that drunk nurse, the kind that passes out on a gurney all day, and Ozzo wouldn't come near the cats!
But.....all better now, so let's get this Blogger started!

Dear Blog-o-Sphere.....

Please excuse Bob's absence today as he is not feeling well. It's some kind of stomach virus....or food poisoning. I.don't.know.which.but.he.did.eat.
a.peach.Carlos.bought.from.the.trunk.of.some.guy's.car.
He's feeling queasy and poopy and puky and feverish and altogether not well.
Hopefully he will be able to return tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Tuxedo

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New Crushes [And Some Old Ones]

So, it might be time to update my Crushes du Jour--and, to be fair, i stole that title from Mark at Tales Of The Sissy--from some new shows, and old shows, that I've been perusing of late. 
Let's dig in and tell me what you think...


John Barrowman.
I had never seen Torchwood until this year,
though I've long been a fan of Barrowman-on-man love.

As a Gleek, I am almost required by law to watch The Glee Project.
And now I feel almost legally bound to stare at one Mister Zach Woodlee.

 

Mehcad Brooks.
I first saw him on one of the awful seasons of Desperate Housewives,
and he was that season's lone saving grace. Now, he plays a football player
on Unnecessary Roughness, and his hotness is magnified ten-fold.

Matt Bomer.
An old favorite from White Collar.
He always hot, always sexy, and, this season, often shirtless.
I call that a win-win.



Rufus Sewell, plays Detective Zen on Masterpiece Theater's Zen series.
So rugged. So manly. And with a smoldering British accent.

Marc Blucas is the love interest, and, um, "personal" trainer
on Unnecessary Roughness,
and that smile, well, that smile is so hot.

Mekhi Phifer stars opposite John Barrowman, though unfortunately,
not as his love interest.
Still, double the eye candy on one show.
Set my DVR!

Defying The Church In The Name Of Equality

So, it was only yesterday that everyone in New York State became equal; all New Yorkers, even the gay ones, are allowed to marry the person they love, legally, and rightfully. That's a good day, dontcha think?

Of course, part of the equality bill is that churches will not be forced to perform same-sex marriages, nor can they be sued for refusing to do so. And, I like that idea, too. If we don't want the Church affecting the State, we should not allow the State to affect the Church. It's that whole Separation thing.

But at one church, the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Cove, Reverend Elizabeth Simpson sees several same-sex couples in her congregation, and she sees how much they love one another, and she's going to do something about it, even if it gets her defrocked.

Next March, Reverend Simpson will perform the marriage ceremony for one of those gay couples, and she'll do it in the church, saying, “I will make myself vulnerable to accusations or indictments, so to speak, from within the Presbytery, [but my] feeling is since just recently the church changed its mind about ordaining gays and lesbian people that I think eventually that [they will] change their sense about what marriage is.”

And while she may not yet have the backing of the church hierarchy, she has the complete backing of her own church. In fact, she says it isn't even an issue among her congregation. The feeling is Of course they can get married. Why not?

Why not indeed.  It isn't a big deal, really, except to the two people involved, who've made a commitment to spend their lives together, become a family, and maybe raise a family, and to have the whole world, or maybe just the stat of New York, or maybe just their congregation, share in that feeling.

source

Outstanding Guest Comment Of The Week

Another week down, and yet another winner for the coveted...coveted?....ISBL Outstanding Guest Comment Of the Week Award. Once again, there was a veritable cornucopia, a plethora, if you will, of great funny, and true, comments from all of you.
I especially enjoyed the responses to Friendship.
So, let's get on with it......

Designing Wally, on I Ain't One To Gossip, But......[specifically regarding the Lady gaga in the wheelchair-bound mermaid kerfuffle]:
On the bright side... We all got to see a picture of The Divine Miss M in this post!

Prince Toddy English, mourning, as we all were, the loss of someone who could have been a legend, on Amy Winehouse RIP
This angers me. We all saw that she was in trouble for years. But nobody did anything but make her a punchline.

Robyn on I Ain't One To Gossip, But.... about eighty-five-year-0old, oops, twenty-five-year-old, Lindsay Lohan:
That's a picture of Lindsay Lohan? I thought you posted a stock image of a crack whore from Corbis Images for a minute there.

Todd Carr on I Ain't One To Gossip, But....on Gaga/Midler, but most tellingly about Lohan:
gotta love a fish quarrel, scales are flying over this wheelchair bit. Lohan better heed the legend of Winehouse, a real life foreshadow, it doesn't get more clear than this.

Mistress Maddie on I Ain't One To Gossip, But....
Lady Gaga, our poor Lindsay and Jlo. I can't even get started. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel!

Mitch Block on I Ain't One To Gossip, But....
Ah, Bob, you are my guilty pleasure.

the island guy on I Ain't One To Gossip, But....
wow, makes you glad that you're not a celebrity

Stan in NH on Rigali Retires: Protecting Child Rapists Is Hard
Unfortunately, the Church always thinks that they can "pray away" those urges. If they slap a priest's hands and move him (notice how here, the "/her" isn't even necessary to be equitable, which is another joke for another day!) to another parish where he'll be able to resist Satan's grasp until the next deliciously young boy knocks on the door! And then, it's back on the merry-go-round, and off to another unsuspecting parish. I wonder if that's why the Church is against abortion. They want to keep the supply of young boys available for their priests! I shouldn't have said that. That was nasty! Sorry, I had my "Ms Thang" in high gear and just cot carried away.

Designing Wally on Rigali Retires: Protecting Child Rapists Is Hard
That's just Piety in the Sky, To think that these men actually care about the people that they are supposedly serving.

Froggy on Oh Newt, Dear Moronic, Homophobic, Adultering Unelelectable Newt:
He could sell some of latest wife's Tiffany trinkets and finance a few more plane rides free of actual unwashed voters.

Kyle on This Should Make Sally Kern Turn Over In Her Crypt:
They are fighting one of our community's hardest fights. You can't look at that picture and not smile. They really look so happy. I'm glad they found the kids and the kids found them. sometimes things do work out pretty good. Now if we could get hem all equally/universally protected and connected. Some day we will get there.

Kyle on Friendship:
Mutual respect, compassion , and empathy are a must. Intelligence, worldliness, and a sense of humor are pretty important too. I guess you can tell we don't have too many friends Bob. That's okay, in a real pinch, the few we do have would risk their lives for us and we would do the same for them. Quality, not quantity is important.

Designing Wally on Friendship:
People often remember what they do for you, and seldom remember what you do for them... A friend is someone that mostly remembers how their life has been made better for having you & can't imagine what they have ever done for you. I'm quite sure for a long time now that JPB is a good friend.

Todd Carr on Friendship:
hypochristians are the worst, I don't even understand the concept of 'moral superiority' they are leading empty lives in some ways, glad my life is filled w/ dramatic friends who fight but also love another for differences and similarities.

Cubby on Friendship:
Here are a couple of analogies I think of to define friendships: Friendships are like leaves floating along in a stream. Sometimes they travel along together. Sometimes one will get side-tracked or caught up in something while another will continue downstream. And sometimes the leaves come back together as if they were never separated. It's not easy to define a friendship between two people. To use an algebra analogy, a friendship is like an equation with two variables. You can define only one of the variables, while the other one is out of your control, and it is up to the other person to define. Sometimes the equation works perfectly. Sometimes you have to tweak it a little or a lot to make it work, and sometimes it's just plain unsolvable no matter how much effort you put into it.


And the winner [again] is the delightful.......

Froggy, for her concise, yet cogent remark on This Should Make Sally Kern Turn Over In Her Crypt:
The more the merrier!

Simple. Direct. To the point. Spot on. And true!
Congrats Froggy!

And thanks to all for your delightful, and thoughtful, comments.

New York.....New York! Welcome To Equality!

Amy Winehouse RIP

Rip Amy

....your talent will be sorely missed.......

I Ain't One To Gossip, But....

Lady Gaga gets accused of a lot of things. She been accused to using the LGBT community, and our struggles, to sell records. She's been accused of being too controversial to sell records. She's been accused of stealing Madonna's career, as well as some of Madonna's music.
Now, she's got The Divine Miss M, Bette Midler, on her tail. Her fish tail, that is.
Apparently, on the Sydney leg of her Australian tour, Gaga caused more controversy by rolling onto the stage in a wheelchair, dressed as a mermaid.
Naturally, differently-abled activists were upset by Gaga's antics, and demanded an apology; and they are ALLEGEDLY behind the egg-throwing attack on Gaga as she left a gay bar over the weekend.
But Bette Midler has a different fish bone to pick. She took to Twitter to remind Lady Gaga that she, yes, Bette Midler, originated the Mermaid wheelchair bit over three decades ago: "I’m not sure @ladygaga knows that I’ve performed my mermaid in a wheelchair for millions of people--and many of them are still alive...."Dear @ladygaga if you think a mermaid in a wheelchair seems familiar--it's because it is! You can see it on youtube 24/7-with ME performing it"

She also remarked, "I've been doing singing mermaid in a wheelchair since 1980-You can keep the meat dress and the firecracker tits - mermaid's mine."
Don't piss off a diva, Gaga. Bette Midler created the character of Dolores del Lago, a wheelchair-bound mermaid, years ago.
Years.Ago.
Gaga, who was born in 1986, claims she had no idea: "I had no idea she did that and I'm a huge Bette Midler fan. Maybe we're just cut from the same cloth. I couldn't hop around in that tail so I just stuck myself in a wheelchair."
Oh, Gaga, how, HOW, can you claim to be a huge Midler fan and not know about Dolores del Lago?
Something smells fishy......and I think it's Gaga,


When Lindsay Lohan isn't in court, she's doing a photoshoot. And when she sin't doing a photshoot, she's doing interviews, talking about her desire to get her career back. or making up cray-zay stories.
Because her film career, such as it was, is not exactly laser hot these days.

Lohan ALLEGEDLY feels that she deserved to portray a deranged ballerina in "Black Swan," the dark Darren Aronofsky drama for which Natalie Portman won her first Oscar. 
We all know that all Lohan wants out of life is an Oscar...and by Oscar, i don't mean the guy on La Cienega who deals in illegal prescription meds.
Lohan ALLEGEDLY angered Plum Miami writer, Jacquelynn Powers, who says Lohan tells anyone and everyone that she "took ballet until she was 19 and was indignant that she was not considered for the movie 'Black Swan.'"
Of course, Powers also writes that Lohan is addicted to other things besides prescription meds and alcohol; namely drama. Powers says Lohan was "constantly looking for drama, whether it was picking a fight with her younger sister ... or freaking out over a lost pair of Zanotti heels."
Why is Powers pissy about Lohan? 
Well, Linsanity was being photographed for some cheeseball magazine, I mean, Plum Miami, and promised an interview with Powers, but then she flaked. Apparently, she was asked to get back in front of the camera, a movie camera, and scurried off as fast as her little rat legs could carry her.
Of course, it's not a feature film, or a direct-to-video release, or even a Lifetime movie. No, Lindsay's return to the screen will be in a music video playing herself, for the Florida based band, The Miggs. 
Her "people"--and by people, I mean her fame-addicted stage monster, Dina, are saying Lindsay took the part in the video because she wants to ease back into making films.
Which is Dina-speak for "No one wants to hire my mentally ill, alcohol addicted, drug taking jewel thief of a daughter and put her in a multi-million dollar movie and watch her walk off, er, drunkenly stumble off, with the wardrobe in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other.
Still, Lindsay Lohan in the Black Swan.
It's funny, cuz it's insane.


Poor Chris Brown.
He beats women. He gets mad when asked about beating women and he throws furniture.
He ALLEGEDLY tosses about homophobic slurs on the basketball court.

Now, he is ALLEGEDLY at war with his fellow West Hollywood condo owners, who claim the singer is the "neighbor from hell." they say he parks in the in handicapped spaces, he blasts his music, his music, at all hours, and races his dogs in the hallways.
In fact, pictures of Chris Brown's cars, clearly parked illegally have surfaced, and even the building manager is speaking up about the Bad Little Girlfriend Beater's antics.
Of course, Chris' lawyer, media shark Mark Geragos, says Chris is the one getting screwed, as the deed clearly shows the two spaces belong to Chris. And he says the developer never disclosed that they were handicapped spots.
Um, Chris, you dickhead? That little sign, above the spaces, and probably pained ON the spaces, of the wheelchair, means they are handicapped spaces. I think even a dickhead like you can understand that, once you pull your giant head out of your ass.
Chris has only lived in the building a few months and already everyone feels lie Rihanna.


Hmmm, why oh why did they split? Those two cray-zay kids seemed to have it all.

But, as soon as Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony announced they were separating, came rumors that she was having an affair with hot Latino hunk, William Levy, who starred as JLo's lover in her video for “I’m Into You”.
Levy conveniently divorced his wife right after the shoot, but is denying any affair with Lopez. Which may be true, as Levy has other things on his plate: namely charges that he raped a young girl and gave her a venereal disease.
He is being sued for that, and court documents state that on July 19, 2010: “Through deception and trickery Levy, with the aid of several members of his entourage, lured Plaintiff back to the Hilton Hotel in Glendale. Plaintiff, who was infatuated with Levy--a rising star of international renown for his work on Spanish language telenovelas--wanted his autograph. During the course of their conversation at a Hilton restaurant, Levy invited Plaintiff to a private room for discussion. Defendant then maneuvered himself so that Plaintiff could not walk in any direction without passing Defendant.”
The complaint goes on to state that Levy “forced Plaintiff to perform [sex act] on him, strangling her in the process. He ejaculated in her mouth, on her person, through which he transmitted a sexual disease to plaintiff. Plaintiff was subsequently taken to urgent care at Concentra Medical Center by a friend.”
Wow......wow.
Um, I hate to think that this is true, I mean, the JLo part of it is all rumor. And the last thing she needs is a venereal disease. Again.
ALLEGEDLY.

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I love that.
And I love her.
So, to start the weekend, here's a little Rosanne Cash, singing a song written by her father Johnny Cash, at a tribute to Johnny Cash.