None of my business, really.

Not even to the point of effecting my consumer behaviour in a sort of one-woman boycott of Mel Gibson's work based on the desire to disassociate myself with misogyny or racism, since I was already a one-woman boycott of Mel Gibson's work based on its suckage. But I admit, the one about the blow jobs - that's one for the ages. The history books. People centuries into the future will listen to it in school to try to wrap their heads around how our entertainment firmament allowed insane, socially retarded throwback bogans to be given control of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Anyways, South Park called it years ago:

Running out of fantasy fodder

You know - and I this is on my mind not merely because Corey Haim died, because I don't know him from Croesus, but because another guy at work died, and yes, you may have noticed that's been a disproportionate number (three in a year, if you count M, but this one worked in a different office and my interactions with him were limited, so I'm unnerved by the unexpectedness and sad for his circle but not at all fucked up as I was/am over M) - I really am not looking forward to how I'm going to feel when celebrities who I wanted to have sex with when I was pubescent start dying. Teenagers manage this ridiculous level of passion for total strangers and I have a feeling it echoes through the years, as I still can't pass over news reports about them in utter indifference.

David Bowie having a heart attack was worrying, as were those "Jeff Goldblum died in New Zealand" rumours. Mick Jagger is totally living on borrowed time and I have no idea what years of heroin use have done to Nick Cave's physiology. Tom Selleck and Robert Smith have both been worryingly quiet lately. Paul McCartney has those billions to keep his brain alive in a jar if all else fails so I'm not too bothered on that score. But every morning part of me fears reading that David Attenborough has given up the ghost. He just doesn't trek through the jungle on camera anymore so I have no way of knowing if he's still so - you know - vital or not.

Mind you when Michael Hutchence died I dealt with it quite well, and I'm quite sure that I wanted to have sex with him when I was pubescent, although now, not having kept a detailed enough diary, I don't know if he fell into the post-15 yr old "hey wait maybe sex isn't icky" catchment area that I'm still living in, or if he fell into the "maybe we can play with My Little Ponies together" pre-15 yr old catchment area. When did Kick come out? I don't even remember. Sunrise, sunset.

Anyways. Besides youthful obsessions echoing through the years, the thing is, in sexual fantasy terms, they're just not going to be replaced en masse with new celebrities. I like to think, fondly and foolishly I know, that part of the reason I don't get many new celebrity crushes anymore is because I'm in a satisfying adult relationship, though it's apples versus oranges really, or rather all of the exciting and nourishing fruits of the forest versus a well-marketed Twinkie. But I don't think it's just that, because now all the new young heart-throbs are so young. So obviously young. Which is gentle, woman-code for 'fucking moronic looking'. Plucked and poofed like fucking prize chickens. I fucking ask you. Can you point me towards a famous putatively attractive celebrity male of my own or the younger generation who doesn't look like Magnum PI's fey little doormat?

The Red Dragon has a serious question . . .

Do you think Martin Amis ever gets tired of sucking? Or do you think he has any idea?

Jesus. At least that fucking blight on the face of the English-language 'literary' establishment is punching in his own weight class. His novels are to the contemporary canon what the words "healthful" and "orientate" are to the English language; ungainly, redundant, pretentious and lacking any excuse to exist. But to be fair, healthful and orientate's fathers weren't Kingsley Amis so it's more on their own merits I have to keep fucking seeing them in print.

The director maintained that Geimer was sexually experienced and consented

I wonder if I'd have more sympathy for that kiddy fiddling frog if I liked his shitty movies any better, but even Chinatown left me cold. I'm pretty fond of Charlie Chaplin, after all, who also ditched the States for Europe after banging teenagers. Somehow it doesn't seem like the same thing though. Call me naive but I believe Chaplin's kiddy-fiddling ways never ran to acting like he was the victim of a Lolita and a puritan conspiracy when he got into trouble for giving a thirteen year old Qualudes, stuffing his cock into all of her orifices while she told him not to, and then running off to Europe because he didn't know what the big fucking deal was after he'd told the law, yeah, sure, he'd done it, and what's more the girl hadn't been unresponsive. Damn those Yankee prudes!

But it's alright, Hollywood types are flocking to his defence, using big words like "philistine collusion" that I'm pretty sure they're not aware of the actual literal meaning of, because let's face it - actors aren't paid to not be absolute fucking morons who don't know when to shut up, which is part of what makes the US's cultural and political dialogue so fucking simple-minded. And the French government is leaping in too; why should one of their more successful citizens be thrown to the lions because of ancient history? Sadly the cinematic tastes of the French cultural elite don't outweigh the 'scary' way California doesn't have a statute of limitations on skipping the country when you've pled guilty to drugging and raping a 13-year-old. God, I hate the French political class. Fucking chinless misogynistic dysfunctional emasculated elitist losers.

Have these semi-literate fucktards actually sat through Bitter Moon? The mediocre little turd should have been locked up for that moronic waste of the time/space continuum alone. Only in a culturally impotent vaccuum like western Europe could a man who managed to make sado-masochism gloomy, stupid AND boring get any cultural traction, certainly enough for national ministers to have a little hissy fit when he gets arrested for kiddy-fiddling. Hyperbole aside, just tell me what other culture he could have managed that in. You can't because there fucking isn't one. Fucking hell.

Hommages shmommages

So last weekend Melbine and her man were visiting from Canada on their way between Paris and the 'Dam. It was lovely though all the unwholesome food made her sick. Anyways, I don't like going on about people: mentioning it because when we met up with another couple downtown, we stumbled across a Michael Jackson memorial in the Parc de Cinquentenaire. Almost everybody dressed in white, or else like Michael Jackson himself, while one of his lesser contributions to the pop music genre, Dangerous, played in the background. 800 people, I read later. While we watched they made a big circle, held hands, and started swaying gently back and forth to some music that was absolutely inappropriate for swaying gently back and forth to. Some were visibly upset, some had brought poster collages. It was all very earnest and there were tonnes of little kids running around.

Our reactions were interesting. The F-word was angry - as far as I could decipher, angry at the flagrant waste of emotion in a world where emotion could be so usefully applied elsewhere. "He's not Nelson Fucking Mandela," I believe he said at one point, which is an awfully good point when you think about it. Even if you're fucking daft enough to reckon contributions to music are as important as contributions to the relatively peaceful liberation of millions of oppressed South Africans, what has been his legacy - honestly? And I ask that as someone who likes the Jackson 5 and Off the Wall, but really - legacy-wise? Contributing to the final emasculation of soul and R&B music? Making that fucking smurf-voiced Justin Timberlake's career possible? Making our pop music scene about 20 degrees more tedious and anodyne than it was before? Putting out absolute shit in the 90's that made J-Pop look awesome when I was a teenager? Providing an all-too-often ignored cautionary tale about the consequences of abusive, megolomaniac parents flogging their talented children into fame?

And then the couple who had joined us were pre-occupied with getting an ice-cream for their daughter, despite a hell of a line. I think Melbine was a little touched. Her husband looked amused. I was creeped the fuck out. This was a man who had spent something like $30 million to make child abuse allegations go away, whatever one thinks about the upshot of his criminal trials (John Niven made a fairly unique, at the moment, critical evaluation of them in the Independent a few days ago).

I do find his life melancholy, I felt an emotion that was something like pity, but not exactly, when he died (the other week, we were discussing the paucity of emotional words in English with a Brazilian Portuguese friend - they have a word for every gradation of feeling, apparently - but that's a blog post for another time). But these recent outpourings of unmitigated grief and adulation are really starting to fuck me off. Not just because it's a waste of emotion in a world that needs emotion, though that's part of it - I just feel like in a week or two people are going to blink a few times, realize 'I've made a collage for a man who spent $30 million on civil payouts to make child abuse allegations go away, I've held hands and swayed back and forth for a man who might have managed an O.J., I've been publicly weeping for a dodgy stranger who may have caused hands-on life-long damage to several young boys", and then feel like creepy idiots. And if they don't . . . maybe they should.

There are a lot of things to love about this photograph

But one of them is certainly that Jayne Mansfield had an IQ topping out 160. Quantifiably measurable genius is what quantifiably measurable genius does and off the chart or not, based on this photograph alone I know I'd rather give Sophia Loren the keys, and I mean that with almost every permutation of significance and taste you can imagine. Still, I wish it was in colour.

Speaking of Sophia Loren, more Chaser:

Not only with respect and awe, but with love

The other night, we saw the bizarrest little movie called Colossus: The Forbin Project. The F-word found it, I think because he'd read something about Eric Braeden in the Guarniad, and we're both fascinated with Eric Braeden, aka Hans Jörg Gudegast, better known as Victor in the Young and the Restless. In university I'd watch General Hospital whilst studying - these sort of rhythmic, predictable shows helped me store information in my brain; Dukes of Hazzard repeats on TNT were another such, and the Dukes of Hazzard had John Schneider's ass in it too, which was an awesome, lovely, big Michaelangelo-type ass. But never have I watched an episode of the Young and the Restless. It should be completely off my radar. And yet I know exactly who Victor from Young and the Restless is. He's that guy, that classy guy with the moustache and the slut eyes. I think most New World Anglos know exactly who he is. And I have no idea how that's even possible. Eric Braeden is magic.

So Eric Braeden had the lead role in Colossus, which was made in 1970, when people were more worried about nuclear disasters, I'd imagine, though personally I think we should be worrying about it more than they did back then. But I suppose back then, there was the surreal, nonsense element to nuclear doom that fixed on the imagination easily. Two massively nuclear powers aiming their thingies at each other and both incapable of aiming them away - both incapable of the initiative that would have ended the possibility of their own utter destruction - in fact, both dependant on the strategic idea of mutual assured destruction. Which, I suppose, is why Colossus is such an interesting movie.

I don't know if I can reccommend that you actually watch it. We're not talking The Conformist, a must-see movie that came out in the same year and in a very roundabout way - very roundabout way - very - covered a little of the same ground. The major difference though (besides, basically, everything - I'm stretching like a Chinese acrobat in the morning when I link the two movies at all) is that Colussus is geeky. The central character, even more than Eric Braeden, is the titular machine. I don't have the time or seemingly the will to get into it this morning, so I think I do reccommend that you watch it - it's watchable, for sure - and though it isn't Moravia or anything it is lingering on my brain and being thought-provoking, mostly in terms of provoking thoughts about the government people want or need - which is probably what's tying it, in my head, to the Conformist. Besides them coming out in the same year.

Anyhoo, Eric Braeden was so suave in this film, and it was weird to see him young and without a moustache. And still speaking with a German accent, what's more. I've always known exactly who Victor from the Young and the Restless was, but fuck me, I was suprised to hear he was German. Just like John Schneider, except more so. You see, it's all a complex tapestry.

Ralph Fiennes Day

Yesterday we went back to Brugge, which the F-word was anxious to do because of its fantastic art gallery with Flemish Primitives, and Bosch, and which I was happy to do because In Bruges had been one of about seven films I'd seen on planes in the past little while (and it was by far the best, though that's not much of a claim considering the other films were Iron Man, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, The Devil Wears Prada, two other completely forgettable ones, and the only other serious contender, Hallam Foe, which wasn't that serious a contender, despite demonstrating that little Billy Elliott has grown himself a really nice ass, because the dialogue was rubbish). And In Bruges, ridiculous though it got as soon as Ralph Fiennes started chewing up the celluloid, made Brugge in the winter (which it now is here, as the markets are selling clementines and it's impossible to venture outside without mulling over how easy a mulled wine would go down) look very, very sweet.

And indeed it is. I don't have much enthusiasm for winter - I've lived all over the place in my thirty years of life, but always all over the place in fucking cold countries, and now I really have had enough. But there's no doubt that a bit of weather is bracing if you wrap up properly, and Brugge braced me, with its fresh air and canals and twee little houses. And romanticization aside, going to an old city like that, a real time warp of a city like Venice or York as well, is such an interesting reminder of a time when people's identities were so much more wrapped up in their cities. It's a sensation that you still feel all over Europe, of course, particularly in southern France or in Italy - people really think of themselves as from a certain town, in a way that looks like patriotism or nationalism. But in a sweet old remainder like Brugge you can see how that would have worked, just a little bit. All the way from the delightful unified architecture to the network of religious sites to the guillotine.

And we went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which has got a bit of Jesus's blood apparently, which I found a little distressing for a couple of reasons. First, the night before we had watched The Baby of Macon (which featured Ralph Fiennes dying spectacularly, as did In Bruges, and In Bruges also featured Jesus's blood from the basilica - it's all a complex tapestry) which was about a Jesus-y type toddler who gets chopped up into little relics at the end. I had found it disturbing, more disturbing for Julia Ormond's ten minute rape than the dismembered toddler actually, and didn't like it in the least - seemed like the sort of film only a big asshole would make. But there's no doubt it disturbed me, and being invited to caress a flask of Jesus's blood by an automated voice in the Basilica while a priest smiled over it didn't help me stop being disturbed. Second, I'm in the middle of The First Crusade by Steven Runciman, which contains nasty historical details of all the people who murdered, cheated, schemed and died over religious relics, and here one was, a big one, and the automated voice was inviting us all to touch it and to give a little donation to the church accordingly . . .

Skinned up

So, I got some help resisting jet lag and hopefully getting my mental clock in order for Magnum's wedding by reading Rupert Everett's Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins until 3 last night. I'd never have bought it, my boss lent it to me, and I'd say that's not the sort of thing I generally enjoy, but if it reminds me of anything it reminds me of With Nails, Richard E. Grant's With Nails, which I also enjoyed. But call me crazy (I'd call myself 'glowing') - I think both With Nails and Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins are both works of, errrrrm, literature - it's hard to admit that because both of them have big sections about Madonna.

Also hard to admit is that I like Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins rather better, despite my 12 year old crush on Grant. It was funny and merciless to all concerned, the writer too. I don't know how many people stopped speaking to Grant after With Nails but I can imagine a fair number stopped speaking to Everett with his book. But that could be just the construction, the structure that he used -clear story arc, a sort of defacto character development that was none the less obvious for being approached somewhat indirectly - rabidly ambitious boy gets most of what he wants, gets annoyed by it, ages, and quits being a certain kind of celebrity. One nearly cheers for him at the end, though he makes himself sound like a dreadful asshole - of course, he does write about liking Graham Greene and marijuana so there'd be worse people to sit beside at dinner.

Aside from all that it's enjoyable as a book, like With Nails but even more so. Okay. The fact Madonna is presently ending the marriage that Everett deconstructed in the book and things like that add a voyeuristic interest. But I found the best bits weren't the name dropping bits, which were less than half the total - the best bits were really autobiographical or about important people to him in more general terms - and it all came out very well.

The Red Dragon doesn't like big dirty whores and nasty cunts

It's that Belgium time of the year that makes me want to die, and will one day be something I look back on in such a way that will make whatever sun-soaked paradise I move to in a year or two seem that much more paradisaical. Dark. Frigid. Rainy. Infectious. Like an extremely untalented dirty whore. I have my first cold of the season - made it to October this year. Fuckin' great. At least it's now, before next week's driving lessons and TRIP TO FUCKIN' CANADA! Wheeeee!

Speaking of big dirty whores, check out this story about Italy's Equal Opportunities Minister. Sometimes there are just no words. It did get me thinking about what constitutes being a big dirty whore, though. Ask me a year ago and I would have said letting people fuck you for money. Okay. But what about Craiglist handjob artists who only let you come on their tits to help them pay their university tuition? Still whores, obviously. There's an orgasm some sad sack of a man has to pay money for in there somewhere. But what about people like Mara Carfagna, who sell men's mags photographs of their tits and to help 'readers' prep for dates with non-whores through a quick 18h30 rub-a-tug? How's that qualitatively different from being a Craigslist handjob artist, besides knowing you're not going to get pinkeye from any splashback? Well, it makes it one degree less scandalous when you get your ministership by sucking off your goddamn penis of a prime minister. Fuck, what a big dirty whore.

Oh, and here are some more words. You know what I hate the most about hypocritical, filthy Italian bitches like Carfagna, besides the unhygienic way they shit on other women? That they make the male gender look like a bunch of fucking useless morons when they get involved in a nice mutual exploitation sting with nasty cunts like Berlusconi. And nasty cunts aside, I love the male gender. They have sexual organs that compliment my own, and they can open jars really well, to name just two uniquely wonderful things about them. But now there'll be a generation of Italian girls who'll look at the self-described antifeminist their penis of a prime minister has chosen as an Equal Opportunities Minister, and that'll either make them think that men are too moronic to bother with, or that men are too moronic to have any relationship with except as credit card holders. And that will continue the Circle of Life that has become gender relationships in post-modern Italy - massive mutual disrespect. And then everybody will have equal opportunities to be miserable and unfulfilled in their emotional and sexual lives. Brav-fucking-a, Carfagna.

On Holes (too many and too few)

I love when American politicians are caught with their dick in the wrong hole. Right wing, left wing, I don't care. You know why? In that country once they have any stature whatsoever, they're all part of a juggernaut of suits struggling and struggling to pretend their penises have nothing to do with anything. You know why? Because ideologically speaking, that country's political scene is a black hole whose destructive powers are controlled almost exclusively through the industrial groups that quite legally pay them off. And so to keep a country that continues to be influenced by its insanely idealistically God-dy settlers engaged in the 'political process', they have to fetishize their preternatural sexlessness, with similar disastrous consequences as with Catholic priests, who are also operating in a destructive ideological black hole and also distracting their adherents with hocus-pocus.

The focus of the hocus-pocus needs to go off the cock and on to the ideology. We need another Obama to come along, but this time, instead of turning the weed and the blow into a non-issue before the campaign even starts, he'll have to admit to fucking everything that didn't run screaming in the opposite direction before the campaign even starts. Arnold, I'm waiting for you . . .

But not to ruin another Batman franchise. Got high and saw The Dark Knight this weekend; it was the greatest superhero movie I've ever seen. I was hesitant to watch it, after liking the first Christopher Nolan a good bit and then hating the new Hulk movie so much after looking forward to it so much . . . but the new Batman surpassed all my repressed but very high expectations. My disbelief was suspended; that never happens anymore, at least not with superhero movies, no matter how much reefer I suck into my lungs. By the end, when Batman said 'set your dogs on me,' I was into it enough for the Bad Seeds' 'Ship Song', ordinarily one of my least favourite, pop into my head and play for the rest of the day without irony. Goddamn, Christian Bale is a piece of ass.

And you know, the first 30 seconds Heath Ledger was on the screen, I thought 'it's such a pity that poor boy's dead, he's really great!' But then I didn't think about it again for the rest of the movie. Now I'm back to thinking it's a crying shame. I haven't enjoyed his past performances besides in 10 Things I Hate About You, which was otherwise stupid, and I thought Brokeback Mountain was also rather stupid (though I did cry when he sniffed the shirt), but he always struck me as a boy who was going to grow up into something worth watching, maybe not Spencer-Tracy-worth-watching, but probably Robert-DeNiro-worth-watching. Now I figure he would have been Spencer-Tracy-worth-watching, and was, for one glorious super-hero movie. Poor, poor boy. Boy, whatever, a year younger than me. That counts as a boy.

An aside on the poor dead boy: last week, San Francisca and my boss, in commenting on the movie, said no one would be talking about an Oscar for him if he hadn't died. How prestigious do they think the Oscars are, for fuck's sake? This is the awards ceremony that recognized Titanic as a contribution to anything besides making me want to puke. This is the awards ceremony that recognized Russell Crowe's Gladiator as anything but a marketing concept successful at being both a wank fantasy for girls into butch and boys . . . well, boys. And that's not even the most embarrassing things that have happened at that mighty industry circle jerk.

I guess that aside was more about the Oscars than the poor dead boy. Sorry. It's just that I really hate the Oscars, and I can't bring Heath Ledger back.

Already can't wait for the third Batman movie . . . it will be a bitch without the Joker character but writing-and-casting-wise those Nolan boys haven't let me down yet. Memento was awesome and I even liked The Prestige, despite Hugh Jackman not being the most convincing actor in the universe, and despite the fact that David Bowie managed to fuck up a Nicholas Tesla cameo - holy shit, how can someone suck that bad? That's like Madonna-bad. Anyways, they've never let me down with the writing, and they always cast male leads who I want to have pile on top of me like duvets on a cold winter's night. After the first Batman movie I dreamt of a Christan Bale/Mistress La Spliffe/Cillian Murphy sandwich, but throw in Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger too, and heavens, they'd all have to take turns. Even the fantasy would last for hours, and I'm a premature imaginator. But now, sadly, I must go to work instead.

The Red Dragon worries about male social health

I've got the same reluctance to commit to movies that most people seem to have to committing to reading a book - I just resent bad movies so much, as such a massive fucking waste of my time, that it takes some doing to make me actually sit through any of them. I was even a little reluctant to sit down to Hot Fuzz, and finally I told myself I owed it to Shaun of the Dead to watch something by some of the same people.

So I saw it last night and it was fuckin' adorable. Can't think of a better adjective for it than that. The absolute cutest movie I've seen since . . . well, since Shaun of the Dead. I would watch more comedies if there were more comedies like that. Though maybe there are and I'm just not watching them. Hard to tell. Timothy Dalton chewing the shit out of the celluloid and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost being so funny. There are so few movies where a scene ends and it's only then it sinks in what's happened and the helpless belly laughs start - like the 'fascist'-'hag' scene. Dear oh dear. The constant Point Break references - 'ever fired your gun in the air and yelled, 'Aaaaaaah?' - fucking hell.

And something so very sweet about the friendship of the Pegg and Frost characters. Sometimes I worry about boys, you know. In general. Some of them seem to have so many difficulties with social communication compared even to socially retarded women and sometimes it strikes me that the male gender might be, occasionally, a very lonely gender to be, especially as they age. So there's something extremely sweet in seeing such a touching - seriously! - picture of manfriends.

Speaking of friends, car update - San Francisca has volunteered to teach me herself. And she taught driving to work out some community service back in her, you know, community-service serving days, so she knows what she's doing. Her car is automatic and I'll be taking lesson-lessons on stickshift. Will that confuse me or only make me stronger? We'll see.

Your love is like false premises, false premises I don't wanna read

I'll send a nice new shiny 2 euro coin to every newspaper in Britain if they'll only stop writing about evolutionary psychology. Women don't love self-obsessed, lying psychopaths better than they love any other sort of man. Obviously, painfully obviously, self-obsessed, lying psychopaths seduce more women because they devote more time than normal men to seducing women, in an effort to re-enforce their insecure or unclear sense of self. And they'll lie about their circumstances and their intentions in aid of said seduction, over and over again with an indefinite series of patsy ladies because, as psychopaths, they feel no guilt about any hearts broken in this desperate quest to re-enforce their insecure, unclear sense of self.

Maybe Steve Connor, the writer, was trying to be jokey, which goes to show English people shouldn't try to be funny when they're sober. But what it comes off as is Steve Connor being one of those shitheads who think they're really, really nice, and don't understand why women reject them in favour of men who aren't really, really nice, when actually the problem is that Steve Connor is probably not really, really nice at all, and is in fact the sort of cunt who hates women for being more attracted to other men than to him. I've known a lot of really, really nice men, and they've had no problem getting chicks, often including me. I've written about this before and before and my feelings have not changed. God, I'm tired of unattractive men blaming their unattractiveness on women. Why can't they just blame themselves, like unattractive women do?

Speaking of unattractive women, what the fuck's the matter with French feminists? Do the indignantes protesting the outcome of a court case that was satisfactory to both parties really think that French women have it so good in terms of domestic non-violence (they don't), pay equity (they don't), political and professional glass ceilings (they don't), and the social right to leave their homes without spending a retarded amount of time and money dolling themselves up (they don't) that now the country's feminist class can relax and concentrate on informing private citizens what is and isn't an 'essential quality' in their now-undesirable marital contract? Motherfuck, those people piss me off. 'Fatwa against women's liberty' indeed. Go to my old working-class neighborhood and see if all the white women with white husbands and black eyes were the target of a fucking fatwa. Go get a fucking job, punks, and then tell me if the people paying you less and promoting you less than your male colleagues are Muslim. Holy fuck.

Excuse the pottymouth but my Mum is coming to visit for a few days, which is fantastic. But until Tuesday morning, I cannot pop a nasty word unless I accidentally hurt myself. I may explode. It may also mean no post Monday. To tide you over, here's an excerpt from Rudolf Nureyev's appearance on the Muppet Show which I first saw, in reruns I suppose, when I was a young, young thing and which may have impacted my sexual persona more than I'm wholly comfortable with:



I remember how curious I was about the consequence of that towel slipping. If only I'd had Google Image search then - no, actually, I'm very pleased I didn't. Best to let the surprise build up awhile longer, until I could get my hands on one. Man, cock is awesome.

The Red Dragon is educated by the internets

Thank you, BBC, for being good for more than keeping Dr. Who alive and trying to convince Britain and the World that the crappy ruling party isn't absolute crap. Their 'On This Day' feature yesterday informed me that on June 17 1961, Rudolf Nureyev made his break for the strong arms of capitalism, crying 'I want to be free!' Yes. Come to us, Rudolf. It also informed me that Rudolf Nureyev and Anthony Perkins had a thing, and what can I say except fuckin' A, Anthony - atta give hope to normal looking people everywhere. I mean, look at this:

And then this (and if you image google Rudolf Nureyev, by the way, even nakeder portraits from the 60's come up, and he was packing just the right amount of heat, I'd say):

Learning that Rudolf Nureyev and Anthony Perkins had a thing led me to learning that Victoria Principal was the one who turned Anthony Perkins on to women, and that Victoria Principal is sort of cool, and that Principal Victoria from South Park is named after her. Huh. And speaking of turn-on women: Cyd Charisse died, which is sad, though she had good long innings. She's one of the first women I can remember who made me think it might be nice to get intimate with a woman. She and Marlene Dietrich. To this day I understand, not merely as a sexual preference but as a fact, that women have incomparably better legs than men, both on average and in terms of the créme de la créme. Charisse, like Dietrich, was the créme. Look at those suckers:

You've got them as a point of comparison with Rudolf's, just above. And while Rudolf Nureyev may well have had the best legs a human male has ever had, honestly the only way you could pretend his legs were better than Cyd Charisse's legs is by pointing out that Rudolf's led to a fine package of heat at their junction, whilst Cyd's led up to something which I find about as entertaining and easy to solve as a Rubix cube, which isn't very, in case you were wondering.

The Red Dragon and Kylie Minogue

Fuck, I'm depresseder than yesterday. Thank god Nick Cave made having a crush on Kylie Minogue socially acceptable, because I just can't fight it anymore. She gets to be the replacement for Nicolas Sarkozy as my retarded celebrity crush; I can't maintain now that he's crapped out so bad. And just like him, Kylie is so small - so perfectly wee - brings out the Reducto in me.

Also, her 'In My Arms' single makes me think of kinky sex every time I hear it, and it's huge in Belgium right now, so I'm thinking about kinky sex all the time, which is alright with me. There's something about the resignation of the lyrics, combined with all those whiplash sounds, and the narration of a sexual encounter in such an innocent, composed popgirl voice that makes me reflect on why I enjoyed and excelled at doing what I used to do for most of the time that I was doing it. And that can only be healthy manouevre on the road to arriving at my Integrated Self. Right? Right.

Now let me look at Kylie Minogue pretend to sing and dance. It's better than kittens.

Anything Sarkozy can do Putin can do better, he can do anything better than him

You know how I thought that the marriage of my eeeeurgh-I'm-gross-crush Nicholas Sarkozy, to the aging professional-slut Terminator was the joke of the year? Well, it just got a little funnier. The Russian press is reporting that Vladimir Putin, an evil, evil man who's got more sex appeal than the entire French cabinet in his index finger (which, by-the-by, can be used to push a much better nuclear button than Sarkozy's - eat your heart out, Carla), has been divorced from his wife from some time, and that when he leaves the presidential office in June he will marry this woman.

That's right. A young, unethical, world champion gymnast. She can put her feet behind her head and then walk to the fridge to fetch you a beer like that. Anytime I need to enter an empathetic mental state to help myself understand the heterosexual men in my life, I will ponder her. And she looks like this:






It's too good. The morning just got a little better as I imagined Sarkozy crying himself to sleep. Every. Night. "Why did you settle, Nicholas? Why did you settle?" All I'm waiting for now is for Silvio Berlusconi to hook up with Paris Hilton, and Angela Merkel to dump that out-of-the-spotlight scientist for Nancy's hot dead husband from Weeds, or possibly Viggo Mortensen, and the circle will finally be squared.

Small mercies

Bit of a funk today. In lieu of whining, I'll post a video from Bulgaria's hottest export since Vladislav the Grammarian. You've all seen it, no? Most popular video on the web, et cetera?



Well, I've never been a fan of Mariah Carey, and I figure the above version makes about as much sense as the original, but watch the classy way she shuts down this wizened French bitch who wants help making fun of the contestant:



Even at my lowest moments - and I am not over Silvio Berlusconi's victory - I can still thank heaven I'm not French.

Tabula rasa

I've figured out one of the reasons I like Weeds so much - I have a bit of a jones for the actor who plays Nancy's dead husband. Possibly because his more extended appearances on the series to date are two emotionally affecting nooky scenes. Emotionally affecting nooky rocks.

Massively disliking medical drama for reasons I've never fully analyzed, Grey's Anatomy seems like everything I hate about television, but I have seen that actor appear on that show. Absolutely fucked if I can remember where or when. Possibly at the house of a friend who liked Grey's Anatomy, possibly just when flipping channels during a television binge whilst housesitting or visiting North Bay . . . who knows . . . but I remember seeing him, realizing from the Sandra Oh (who is Canadian and respectable because of that movie she did ages ago with Callum Keith Rennie that I liked) that I was watching Grey's Anatomy, and nonetheless forebearing to look away from the television because of how compelling this man was.

I didn't know his character's background, but it got clear fast that he was dying whilst striking up a love connection with the skinny blonde doctor. Puke. And yet I couldn't look away; I believe I watched until the end of the episode. This man is perfect for a certain kind of romantic pathos, which came home to me when I realized he also plays Nancy's dead husband. I think it's because he looks really good, but doesn't look so remarkable that you, or rather me, or rather one, can't transpose one's own emotional sympathies onto him by wondering exactly how shitty it would be if one fell in love with someone who was going to die in a few weeks, or what one would do if your hot husband suddenly expired whilst jogging, leaving you with a huge mortgage, no insurance, not enough batteries for the vibrator, and neighbours who liked weed.

And this sets me to wondering: is this the formula for Hollywood hotness? Looking really good, but not so remarkable, so that they can serve as a blank slate, in a sense, for all the ladies' fantasies and fears and whatnot, so that they can suspend their disbelief as you tell an emotionally devastating tale? Because if I think of the most remarkably gorgeous men who have ever seared my corneas, they have usually been men who I've seen in the flesh or else whose show business careers never quite translate from their stardom in their own country to stardom in the Anglophone world. Easily the most beautiful man I've ever borne witness to was Reinaldo de Souza, a Brazilian dancer I used to teach, who I've struggled to describe here. I haven't been to Brazil but in my dreams it's a place where one in fifty men looks almost that good - I mean, all indications do point to it being a country bursting at the seams with remarkable hotness. And I suppose the most remarkably beautiful man who I've ever seen on film that I can think of this morning is Olivier Martinez, who is only famous for Anglophones now because Kylie Minogue had the aesthetic good sense to date him.

But you take Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Fucking Damon, for heaven's sake . . . if you saw them walking down the street and there were clothes covering those expensive, gym-sculpted bodies, would you look twice? Honestly? Unless you were ovulating and looking at everything twice? Or . . . unless they were 'acting' in a movie with a storyline that played to your most sensitive, archetypes, let's call them? Is this why I'm so into Nancy's dead husband? Or is it his laughing yet sad spaniel eyes? Don't know. Either way:

Puke. Internet television has drawn me in again.

In which I give vent to a mean spirit

So the 'Nicholas Sarkoy-"come back"-SMS-to-ex-Cécila Albéniz-eight-days-before-his-marriage-to-Carla Bruni' story hasn't gone away yet - not because anything new has happened in terms of the president's criminal case against the journalist who broke the story, but because Carla Bruni gave her first First Lady interview and said that such tabloid-y press would have denounced Jews if it had existed during the Second World War. It provoked the appropriate storm of complaints, with the editor of the Nouvel Observateur (the SMS-breaking paper and website) describing the complaint as 'perfectly imbecilic'.

Awesome. Too awesome. Easily the stupidest statement I've heard all week, both in its timing and substance. Belgians? Fucking geniuses. What a monumental victim complex in someone so rich and privileged. I love that shit. So much more adorable than hypocrisy because you can tell she really believes it. Obviously tabloids, if they'd existed the same way then that they do now, would have done the same thing then that they do now - for example, report on a president's (attempted) infidelities. And maybe if there'd been that popular element aggressively presenting the public with the weakness of its leaders, the totalitarian regimes that oversaw some of the worst genocides in history might not have been able to get the support of the masses that they did, indeed, get.

But I suppose if a massive insecurity is making you wedge your head firmly up your own ass, being internationally humiliated through the revelation that your husband is still trying to get his ex-wife back and might even have used your quickie marriage as some sort of attempted emotional blackmail against her could feel like you were a Jew being packed off to the death camps . . . nah, actually, I just don't see it. All I see is a pretty lady whose fame is based principally on having been The Other Woman and who has lost all fucking sense of proportion when faced with the possiblity that the public now sees her as, at best, a consolation prize.

Whoa, that is quite a mean-spirited entry. Rien de grave must have made more of an impression on me than I'd thought.

In which the French continue to make it easy for me to laugh at them instead of at Belgians

Sorry if this entry seems a little crabby but I am in one shit mood this morning. This weekend was just so good and now work is an unwelcoming prospect. And I just got an email with a picture of my impending bridesmaid dress. 3 C-notes, destined to be traded in for a sack of empire-waist polyester I won't even be able to use as a cleaning rag afterwards. I have a good mind to propose to the F-word so I'll never have to do this again. And clothe my bridesmaids in linen.

On a happier note, Nicholas Sarkozy is pressing criminal libel charges against the Nouvel Observateur, the French newspaper/website that broke the news of his 'if you come back, I'll call everything off' SMS to the wife who'd dumped him last autumn, which he's purported to have sent eight days before marrying Carla Bruni. This is the first time either ever or else in yonks a French president has initiated criminal proceedings against a media outlet so it's very exciting, especially as the Nouvel Observateur is not backing down; indeed, the reporter concerned has elaborated that Sarkozy has been continuing to message his ex constantly.

The question for many people is why he would have done something as drastic as criminal proceedings (the reporter is looking at a possible three year prison sentence) instead of a civil suit, and the answers that come up again and again are, first, that in a criminal suit of this sort, you can force a journalist to reveal his sources (Cécilia?), and second, that Sarkozy is counting on the case being dismissed before it can progress too far but after everybody has forgotten everything about it besides the fact that he pressed charges; criminal cases advance much more slowly and require much more evidence than civil ones in France.

Can you tell how awesome I think all of this is? It's fucking awesome. All he had to do was ignore the story, which didn't even show up in the print version of the newspaper and was couched in conditional language; or have his press office deny it and say, oh, I don't know, that he was too busy being the fucking president of a G-7 country to bother pursuing such a shitty little falsehood in court. But no - he had to turn it into a face-off between the national media and the presidency, to the degree that now all the papers have a great excuse to turn on him just as his popularity is plummeting in all their polls (he's had no balls with the reforms he'd promised, alienating his supporters, and he's a proto-fascist, alienating everyone else). Now he's got Reporters Without Borders bitching him out.

Fucking awesome. Awesome! Because of course there's a third reason he'd have initiated such a drastic action, and such a stupid one in a climate of his crashing popularity ratings, and that's that the man who the French have chosen to lead their country, the man whose finger is on the nuclear button, is so pussywhipped by an aging Italian supermodel who's jealous of his ex-wife that he's lost his fucking mind. Fucking awesome!