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I guess when you want that 90210 zip code, you’ll do whatever it takes to get it.
This home sits on a steep and narrow hillside in Beverly Hills, but, hey, it’s Beverly Hills so no expense was spared in taking the lot and building a sliver of a home that fits perfectly into the landscape. Luckily, the owners were more interested creating a feeling of intimacy and privacy, rather than capturing a hillside view.
The main structure is two levels traced along the north-south axis and houses most of the interior spaces. The garage is located at that southern end of the house, along with the more private areas of the home, bedrooms and the gym …of course.
But it’s the north end, and the long graceful walk through the house to the main living areas that opens to the pool and the trees while keeping that sense of privacy. And just beyond the pool is the second house …a second house … as an art studio and guest cottage.
It’s a sliver of a house, but, sitting in the middle of Beverly Hills, it still feels a world away.
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Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Architecture Wednesday: A Sliver of a House
Last Night Jospeh Kennedy III Stepped Up
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I didn’t see BLOTUS speak because, again, liar, hypocrite, racist, adulterer, anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-LGBTQ, but I did see the Democratic response and that is exactly what we need …. Joseph Kennedy III:
“It would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos. Partisanship. Politics. But it’s far bigger than that. This administration isn’t just targeting the laws that protect us – they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection. But today, ladies and gentlemen, today that promise is being broken but praises our worthiness and decides who makes the cut and who can be bargained away. They’re turning life into a zero-sum game for one to win, another must lose. Where we can guarantee America’s safety if we slash our safety net. Where we can extend health care in Mississippi if we gut it in Massachusetts. We can cut taxes for corporations today if we raise them on families tomorrow. Where we can take care of sick kids if we sacrifice dreamers. We are bombarded with one false choice after another. Coal miners or single moms? Rural communities or inner cities? The coast or the heartland? As if the mechanic in Pittsburgh, a teacher in Tulsa, and daycare worker in Birmingham are bitter rivals rather than mutual casualties of a system forcefully rigged towards those at the top. As if the parent who lies awake terrified that their transgendered son or daughter will be beaten and bullied at school is any more or less legitimate than a parent whose heart is shattered by a daughter in the grips of an opioid addiction. So here is the answer the Democrats offer tonight. We choose both. Bullies may land a punch. They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future.”
Bravo, sir, bravo. And now get the rest of the party to follow suit, to stop being the anti-_____ and being the pro-America party where we all matter, not just the wealthy and those who choose to sell democracy for a chair in the Oval Office.
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Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Monday, January 29, 2018
Another GOP Groper Resigns
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Oklahoma State Senator Bryce Marlatt, a Republican, because of course, has resigned his position after being accused of sexually assaulting a female Uber driver; Marlatt, a married father of four, is charged with felony sexual battery.
Marlatt was charged after an Uber driver claims he grabbed her by the head and kissed her neck after she picked him up from an Oklahoma City restaurant. She says Marlatt stumbled into her car, said, “Hey, you got nice t—,”and then, during the ride, he grabbed her and kissed her neck and shoulder. He told her that if she worked for him then he would ‘feel’ her up,” and then asked her back to his hotel to have a drink with him.
She declined, because she had a date with the police to report the pussy-groping Republican.
At first, Marlatt tried to deny the allegations but when he was asked by reporters if the story was true, he walked out of the room without saying a word.
Silence is deafening.
Sick, you know, but what about the pussy grabber in the White House who stands accused of sexual harassment by at least 16 women?
Where’s that outrage?
PS This isn't Marlatt's first time being the drunken fool. That mugshot was from when he was arrested after being discovered passed out drunk in his car in 2014.
And Oklahomans kept him in office.
Just sayin.
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Sunday, January 28, 2018
Saturday, January 27, 2018
It's Snarkurday!
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Over the years, we’ve heard talk of a Black Bond …Idris Elba … and I could get behind that, or in front of it, too. There was talk of Desperate Bond … Tom Hiddleston … but then Swifty ruined all that. There was even talk of Down Under Bond …. Hugh Jackman and his Huge Ackman. My thoughts are just to leave it on Hot Blond body Bond … Daniel Craig … for a while and, for the love of 007, stop with this Baby Bond Bull Shiz.
Baby Bond. Yup, Lee Smith, one of the editors on Spectre, says the next Bond should be Boy Band Bond, Harry Styles.
I see that going in One Direction … right down the loo.
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Sometimes you think the feud is over, and then an old ember sparks up and the kittens get their claws out again.
Let’s go back … before becoming a hip-hop success stories with his debut … Get Rich or Die Tryin’… Fiddy was an up-and-comer … no shade … who became known for calling rappers out by name on songs like “How to Rob” where he jabbed at Jay-Z, Ma$e, DMX and Big Pun. Now, at that time, Ja Rule was the bigger star and so naturally Fiddy began throwing shade at Ja Rule and Murder Inc. as a staff, record label and as a crew.
And that beef stew has been simmering since then, until last week when Ja Rule turned up the heat and put out a series of homophobic Tweets referring to his rap rival as, among other things, a “power bottom”:
“From now on everyone can refer to @50cent as #ticklebooty not fif not fiddy … #ticklebooty that’s his name call him it to his FACE he ain’t gonna do SH*T… and if he does sue him like he did me…”
And then, in response to a follower who thought “ticklebooty” was funny, Ja Rule Tweeted:
“Nah what’s funny is @50cent let’s women and MEN play with his butthole… that’s kinda funny.”
And clearly, Ja Rule wasn’t done with the Mean Girl stuff, because he kept it up the next day with:
“I really don’t see why people like 50 Cent aka #PowerBottom. He hates on any black man or woman having success… he hates on Diddy, on Jay, on Empire. C’mon how you beefing with Taraji???”
And then he went after Fiddy Fans:
“Haha i got you #ticklebootybandits maaad lmao that’s what I call @50cent Stan’s grown men coming on my page with another mans dick in they mouth your wives/girlfriends must be proud…”
Continuing:
“Now I know why 50 Cent named his show POWER… #PowerBottom #TickleBooty”
Fiddy, oddly, is taking the high road and has yet to respond, but, seriously, Ja Rule, this is some tween boy in the locker room shiz.
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So, the Oscar nominations came out this week and the one bright shining spot for me was that James Franco did not get a nod. Now, is it because no one likes James Franco as much as James Franco, or is it because in recent weeks stories have broken about him being one of the pervy Hollywood types, and so Oscar gave him a slap? And do I care as long as we’ll have a Franco Free Oscars™?
Good Morning America spoke to two of the five women Franco ALLEGEDLY sexually harassed, and one says Franco is not a Weinstein-level predator … oh well then who cares because on a scale of zero to Weinstein … look, if he’s a predator he’s a predator. Luckily, the other accuser says he’s still a dick … possibly with a tiny dick.
So, Franco is doing damage control which consists of I didn’t do it but if they think I did kinda bull. And some on Team Franco are trying to play him as the victim, saying things like he is “not doing well” and that they are “really worried about him.”
Five women. He’s clearly not doing well because what he ALLEGEDLY did to these five women … and there may be more … affected his chances at Oscar and that’s what has him worried.
Too bad.
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The Queen is gonna have to buy another wedding gift because a few months after Prince Hot Ginger marries That American Girl, Princess Eugenie will marry Jack Brooksbank. And Poor Princess Eugenie, the daughter of Bad Duchess Fergie, might have a time of it all, what with Jack’s grandmother throwing all kinds of shade … and not at Eugenie, but at her own grandson!
Joanna Newton, Jack’s 91-year-old grandmother, thinks her grandson scored in getting a princess because he’s a bit of a dolt:
“I never thought he would get married to a royal. He’s a charming boy and all that but not the most intelligent and I would never have thought this would happen. I think it says a lot about Eugenie that it’s him she wants and it’s lovely.”
Grandma Shade! British Grandma Shade! I wanna sit next to her at the wedding!
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I am no fan of Justin Timberlake in any way shape or form, because he just seems so try hard and full of himself and a little bit squee…take that how you will.
He’s also a bit thick … Timberlake, who recently starred in the latest Woody Allen bomb, Wonder Wheel, was trying to be sort of squee on Twitter by asking this:
“Random question: Can someone please explain the saying, ‘You just want your cake and to eat it too.’ What else am I about to do with a cake??”
Well, Dylan Farrow, who is Woody’s adoptive daughter with Mia Farrow, and who has been speaking out about Woody’s ALLEGED sexual abuse toward her, wasn’t having Justin’s squee-ness and responded:
“The saying means, for example, you can’t support #TimesUp and praise sexual predators at the same time. You can’t retain your credibility as an activist (i.e. - retain the cake) and, at the same time, praise a sexual predator (i.e. - eating the cake).”
She’s referring to Timberlake wearing a TimesUp pin at the Golden Globes and yet praising sexual predator and adopted daughter marrying Allen.
Timberlake ignored Dylan because … what can you say to that and replied to someone else’s explanation.
“THANK YOU! Day changed.#StillPieOverCake”
Still an idiot, too.
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When last we left Class With The Countess author Luann de Lesseps, countess-less and twice-divorced, she was apologizing for getting so drunk in a hotel bar that she tried to have sex with a man in someone else’s room and had to be removed by the police.
Luann played the mea culpa part and vowed to seek treatment for her drunkenness but that may not be enough, and maybe a new book, In The Slammer with Luann is coming out.
It seems that de Lesseps is facing three charged for that whole Palm Beach fiasco: felony for resisting arrest, along with trespassing and disorderly intoxication.
First off, if a Housewife could be jailed for being drunk every incarnation of those shows would have a jailbird season, but still …
Orange could be the new Luann.
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Now that Gwyneth Paltrow is fully Consciously Uncoupled from Chris Martin and Consciously Coupling with Brad Falchuk, she is talking …and when Gwynnie speaks all kinds of crazy things are said.
Paltrow was recently on The Late Show and told Stephen Colbert all kinds of stuff about GOOP, even saying that some of the idiotic stuff she promotes is meant to be idiotic … I guess, at least until you throw coins at Paltrow and buy the stupid shiz and then it’s all good because she’s got the cash.
Yes, she thinks what she’s sells is stupid, but she wants you to buy it because she thinks you’re stupid, too. But this is about what she said about ex-husband Chris Martin:
“He’s really like my brother. We’re very familial. It’s really nice. It’s great.”
Yup, her ex-husband, the man who screwed at least twice and fathered her two children is like a brother. And when Colbert brought up the whole ickiness of it all she actually said:
“Which would explain the divorce.”
Wow. I wonder how close she is to her real brother, Jake; I mean, is he like a husband to her?
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It looks like Ryan Murphy has one less Feud from which to pick from for his FX series future seasons: Patti LuPone and Andrew Lloyd Webber have made up …and not in some after-life dream sequence like Bette and Joan.
In.Real.Life.
The LuPone-Webber feud goes back decades, after Patti scored on Broadways in ALW’s Evita. So, enamored of LuPone was he, that he begged her to play Norma Desmond in the original London production of Sunset Boulevard and then bring the show to Broadway. But then ALW started an LA production of Sunset, starring Glenn Close, and suddenly Patti was out and Close was on the Great White Way as Norma Desmond.
And Patti found out not from Webber but from reading apiece in Liz Smith’s column; a feud was born. Patti threatened to sue, and they reportedly settled for $1 million, which she used to put a pool in her backyard …a pool she named the “Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool.”
For years, Patti crapped all over Andy, even dishing great dirt in her memoir about him. Patti said she was leery of taking on Evita because of how hard it was to sing, and she felt like Webber hated women and loved torturing their vocal cords.
During a 2005 interview with The Washington Post, Patti came for his looks with this:
“And didn’t he look charming last night at the Oscars? All bloated!”
Then just a year ago, she went for ALW jugular in an interview with NY1’s On Stage:
“Webber is a desperate human being. He really is. He created a toxic environment because he didn’t get what he wanted. [The firing] had nothing to do with show business and everything to do with a man that is mentally unstable. And so it infected my life.”
But now all is forgiven, apparently, because Patti has agreed to sing Don’t Cry For Me Argentina during the Grammy’s tribute to Broadway this Sunday night, and she even met with Webber to rehearse the number. And no one was injured during the rehearsal; in fact, Patti started off by saying this, as the two came onstage:
“Hello, Andrew.”
She then turned to the security guards and a phalanx of bodyguards ALW brought and announced:
“This is détente, ladies and gentlemen.”
There were big laughs, Lloyd Webber and LuPone embraced … and went to work.
And a feud died.
Sigh.
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Friday, January 26, 2018
PR All-St★rs 6 Ep 4: Balls Deep in Drama
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It seems like we just booted Ari and Melissa and we’re back on the runway with no sleep and no extra jabbering about this and that.
Enter Alyssa Milano to tell the designtestants that they deserve some fresh air … it’s a trick … and that she’s sending them to a castle … it’s a trap … to be inspired into creating a ball gown … beware … out of whatever they can ransack from the castle. She leaves them with … Have a ball … and off they go … to a … bouncy castle filled with balls.
Yes, they will be making balls gowns out of balls after jumping into the balls and grabbing as many balls as they can … basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs, tennis balls ….
“How many times are we going to say ‘balls’ today?”—Fabio
Balls. And unconventional.What could go wrong? Let’s rip …
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THE SAFES
Clockwise
ANTHONY Bitch stole Candice’s look because this is what Candice was trying to do!
CHAR I love that it doesn’t look like anyone else’s, but the length seems off and the tattered edges would have been betters served neat and clean.
EDMOND He called it “liquid gold melting on the model’s body” and that fits it to a T.
JOSH The Peek-a-Boo bits at the hips are kinda slutty and don’t work with the severe neckline. Josh is all about the sleaze aspect. He needs to shave his eyebrows and go.
KEN It’s pretty. Safe. Pretty safe.
MERLINE I can’t with a mullet dress that short in the front and long in the back, so what makes Merline think long in the front and short in the back would work?
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THE BOTTOMS
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CANDICE
Candice is usually dark in her designs so why she opted for rainbows was a mystery to me. I will say, though, that her initial idea of taking the beach balls and cutting them into giant flower petals might have been good. However, sewing beach balls doesn’t work well, and the petals were scrapped in favor of … this.
WHAT SHE SAID
I’m not gonna lie, it’s not an attractive look.
WHAT I SAID
Sad lonely beach ball left out in the sand.
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ says she’s “disappointed” with the unflattering look and the sagging ass; or, as she says, “Sogging oss.” She calls it a disaster and she was being kind. Isaac thought Candice was consumed by the fabrics; he says he’s not mad at Candice, he’s mad at the dress. Alyssa Milano said she struggled to find anything good to say about it which was why she was mostly silent. Guest judge Kasey Musgraves dubbed it outdated.
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HELEN
As Helen tells us about a nanosecond into the show, she won Season 12’s Unconventional Challenge because it’s the fashion element that matters, not the gluing of balls to muslin. She will create her own textile and even Anne wonders if she can do all that in one day.
Helen should’a listened to Anne. And kept her mouth shut; she alienates the other designtestants by telling them that using glue guns to finish their unconventional looks “is a cop-out” and she is not about that.
She ain’t about making friends, either.
WHAT SHE SAID
It’s a lot of work, a lot of strategy.
WHAT I SAID
It looks like a shower curtain from one of those near-empty motels far off the interstate with an owner who lives there with his Mother. Norman!
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ loved the textile but called the dress “basic.” And Isaac agrees, saying the look is “not enough.” Alyssa did like the color, and the fabrication of the bodice, but thought it was boring, and Kasey Musgraves said all she got was Best Buy.
Helen, knowing she was sinking, then threw shade at everyone else on the runway saying she was going to glue a clown dress but rather create create create! The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ was miffed that Helen was annoyed at being judged so harshly, and Isaac wants her gone, for the shade and that fact that she seems lost.
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AMANDA
She took the lazy man’s way, or the smart man’s way, out at the bouncy house because while everyone else was inside playing with their balls, she sits outside and collected whatever fell to the ground.
Trouble was, she was outside collecting whatever landed in the grass.
Still, Anne liked that she wasn’t playing safe and was going full-on balls to the wall, er, balls to the gown in what she called a “psychedelic” princess dress.
WHAT SHE SAID
I love the column nature of the dress. It’s so me, this whimsical nature.
WHAT I SAID
All “It” needed was a red balloon, a kid in a rain slicker, and a sewer grate.
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ liked the back better than the front; she hated the neckline, the cutouts, and the fact that it made the body look pregnant. Alyssa pint out that the dress was so stiff it didn’t seem to even touch the model’s body …Down here we all float … yes, another It reference! Isaac liked it but said it wasn’t a ball gown, though nothing on the runway was … while Kasey Musgraves liked what she called the punky rudeness of the look.
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THE TOPS
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STANLEY
He’s trying to create a kaleidoscope gown, and it seems like a good idea until Anne tells him that when you later all those transparent colors over one another, you get brown.
She’s telling Stanley that brown isn’t good? Who is she, Donald _____?
But he agrees and skips a lot of the colors for a still-bright design of paillettes-inspired in sunny hues.
WHAT HE SAID
It’s just floating. It has so much movement and is catching all the light.
WHAT I SAID
It looks like melting butterscotch, but in a good way.
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ loved the jacket and says she sees Stanley’s Audrey Hepburn inspiration in the dress Alyssa loved that the dress had movement on the runway, while Isaac loved the shape and the refined princess nature of the look. Kasey Musgraves loved the back of the dress and called it a smart design and “almost” editorial.
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FABIO
He was going for the gold, with golden volleyballs, in a way that was similar to Edmond's, though he also some of the linings to the balls to differentiate their two looks. For some reason, Anne warned him not to get too comfortable, even though she liked his ideas.
Sometimes I don’t get her critiques and wonder if they edit out her ramblings …
WHAT HE SAID
It’s a beautiful dress. I’m loving the overall look and the fringe at the edges.
WHAT I SAID
I liked it and then he pointed out the fringe and I thought it looked like teeth … like the vagina had teeth!
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
Isaac says that “for a short dress,” it felt elegant and mysterious and warrior princess, while The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ thought it looked like sculpted armor. Alyssa was getting theatrical gladiator realness and Kasey Musgraves called it rich.
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KIMBERLY
For some reason there were cotton balls in the bouncy house—and Josh thought they were a trick—and so Kimberly began making a cotton ball neckpiece until Anne said it looked a little My Little Pony. But then she told her to go with her vision and so Kimberly scratched the balls, er, cotton balls.
WHAT SHE SAID
I am feeling my look. It’s very flirty and young.
WHAT I SAID
It’s so short you can almost see the fine china. Thanks Peach.
WHAT THE JUDGES SAID
Alyssa loved it because of the movement, but The Beautiful Georgina Chapman™ felt that once the movement stopped it really wasn’t a good dress. Isaac called it super young and very bare. Kasey Musgraves thought it was fun and young.
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So, before we get to the In and Out of it, backstage the designers got onto Helen for throwing shade about glue guns and those colors…
“Thank you, but there’s no way there’s like purple or orange going into this, looking like a clown dress. Again, I was more concerned with executing and fit. I just felt like it would be a cop-out to just, like, hot glue to muslin.”
And begins to cry and runs from the room. All that was missing was a set of stairs, a princess bedroom for Helen to throw herself on, and soft fluffy pillow for her to ugly cry into as she felt sorry for herself.
Then, when the judges call the designers back to the runway, Helen is a no-show and I was so hoping she’d caught to busy back to Self-Pity-Ville, but she came back out, shrugging, like, “What.”
“Seriously.” Isaac says, to which Alyssa replies:
“I’m just the host.”
And then she declares Stanley the winner and Candice the loser.
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Anthony shrieked again, and I almost torched my TV, but then he redeemed himself with his reaction to Helen’s glue gun comments in the workroom:
“I appreciate what Helen does, but I don’t appreciate Helen.”
And then says:
“Girl, lady, listen, shut up.”
Sadly, Helen does not shut up.
I find Anne Fulenwider boring; she tries to be tough but comes off mean. I miss Tim, of course, but also, I miss Zanna Roberts Rassi; she was fun.
I lovelovelove that when Stanley won, he said to the judges:
“Thank you! My glue gun thanks you also.”
Suh-nap.
Now, The Tents: Fabio, please. Stanley is rising, but who else? Helen? Only if they want Drama Ratings. With Candice gone, I can’t see the other women getting to show. Char and Kimberly are just so-so; Merline is always a hot mess and Amanda is so stuck in her hippie-dippie-ness that she is a long shot. So, Ken? Anthony? Edmond? Josh? Please, god no. I mean, he thinks a tennis ball dress is fashion?
What did YOU think?
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