The Bane of Our Time

Justin Bieber hair.

It must be stopped.

Darkness

When mrpeenee was just a mere scamp, trapped in the white trash swamps of the Gulf Coast, my how I adored Dark Shadows.  I would scurry home from school every day to be completely absorbed by it.  I was oblivious to its cheesy production values and clumsy acting gaffes (although I do remember the actors staring blankly at each other when one of them would blow his/her lines, which happened so often I think I assumed it was intentional.)  The glacial plot was fine with me, I was 12 years old and had plenty of time to kill.  I even convinced myself I had a crush on Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid.)  I think I must have been suffering some kind of vampire related temporary insanity.

Imagine my thrill when I heard Johnny Depp and Tim Burton (a collaboration I think is always inspired) had taken on the project of reviving the old hag.  Super Agent Fred shares my delight and, in fact, is streaming the original as preparation and has taken to orating the overly florid opening ("My name is VictOHHHRia Wintahrs...."  We're planning an a afternoon at the movies, but that might include She Male Sperm Whores 2.  You never know.

The Many Faces of Diva

Here we have Miss Ross in a 3:50 retrospective of her entire career of fabulosity, albeit with those bothersome Supremes edited out.  From a very authentic looking Hullabaloo vintage show (with the world's coolest boots showing off a snappy mashed potatoes/pony choreography thang,) through the Mahogany era fashion shoot (replete with Avedon-ish hair styling,) a disco whirl of red sequins (if you look carefully, you can see the pole she was presumably lashed to to insure she didn't fall into the fireworks,) and finally an MTV homage with white mink, yet more sequins (natch) and safety gays bursting out of the smoke machine.  One can assume without even looking for them that torn jeans are in there somewhere.

The wigs alone create a sort of hairpiece timeline.  I have to say, though, the Vidal Sassoon bob and leather miniskirt, while rather flattering, are almost an insult to those of us cherishing memories of the glam contrast between her bouffant and her rhinestone crusted sheaths.

I think it a song of great charm, vaguely Motown-ish, very much playing to her vocal strengths and conscious of her weaknesses.  Does the background vocals sound familiar?  They should, they are our old friends the Bee-Gees, who also wrote this gem.  Someday, this will be required viewing in seminars on 20th Century History.

Gaultier on File

Darlings, being, as I am, of the Glamorous Life I felt I had to go take in the exhibit at the dreadful de Young Museum here titled The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk.  I hoped to be interested, but not much more since the de Young has mounted shows that would have embarrassed the AV club at a small high school.  In fact, it was astonishing and thrilling.  There were several mannequins with their faces projected onto them that were eerily lifelike, including the one who seemed to actually be making eye contact with you.

And the dresses!  Girleene!  What fabulous creations, with astonishing details like lace made from sharkskin and a metal bustiere or a leopard skin created from thousands of tiny, tiny beads.  Gorgeously  beautiful, feminine, gauzy gowns with slyly witty references about fetish wear tucked in.  Mermaid dresses.  Lace bell bottoms for particular men.  A lovely linen man's suit printed on the back with a life size photo of naked male muscles and appliqued with the butt of a pair of cutoff levis and a red hanky in the pocket.  We called it the Mullet Suit, business in the front and party in the back.

My only cavil was that it would have been even more wonderful to actually see some of the more trailing, swishy gowns paraded down the catwalk by a woman with hips narrower than her cheekbones, the way the were meant to be.  You could tell what gorgeous motion they were built to display.

And, of course, Madonna.

Sunday Plans

A dear friend is going through a rough time, another and I haven't connected in far too long, and Super Agent Fred is always up for a good time, so the obvious answer is Sunday Brunch and then possibly shopping at Gump's.  Gay?  Why do you ask?

We're headed off for a swank little boite in an odd part of downtown.  Since making the reservation on Tuesday, they have called me twice and sent me two emails less about confirming our party and more like badgering me.   I suspect that were we to not turn up they would track us down with bloodhounds.  Still, it sounds like a sweet  place and one of the drinks they feature on their brunch menu is the Mary Pickford: white rum, pineapple gum, lime, grenadine and maraska.  I have no idea what maraska might be and I'm fervently hoping "pineapple gum" is a typo, but I'm planning on swilling it down and will report later, if the vicodin holds out.  I figure it it's good enough for America's Sweetheart to knock back, how bad can it be?

Also, speaking of The Gay Life, here:

A Day of Beauty

What a lovely, San Francisco kind of day. It rained all night, but today is crisp and fresh washed, the perfect day for an elderly poof, such as I, to go down to the Castro to get my hair did and a mani-pedi. Loved it.

Castro Street was at its most charming.

Some guy was sprawled on the side walk so I asked "Are you all right?" He replied indiginanatly "Of course I am." Of course he was, and all was right with the world.

Is there anything better than gossip to go with your hair-do? My beautician, Jeff, was in rare form because a big muscley thing was in one of the chairs on the other side of the very small shop and Jeff had to practically whisper the dirt to me, which just improved it, n'est-ce pas? Seems Miss Muscle Thang has recently divorced his wife the better to pursue his sideline of snagging rich old men. He looked sort of like this, but more or less in clothes.

On behalf of old men everywhere, I say if you look like a gold digger, if you gots the gold digging equipment, go dig the mother fucking gold and make some old man happy. Plus, for some reason, Jeff does a better job cutting my hair when he's distracted with gossip, so yay.

Then, on to Hand Job for my nails. Although I never specify who I want, I almost always wind up with Malwani. I have the impression she is not the most popular girl there, possibly because she is one of the homeliest trannies I've ever seen. But really, I'm not there for a date, so what do I care?

She does have spectacular nails, which is encouraging.

There used to be a kind of nice looking guy here who has vanished and my dragdar tells me he may have grown his hair out, rooted through his mawmaw's jewelery box and emerged as Malwani. There are some Ladies who go through the change and give it their all, attempting to be the most feminine creature possible. Others make no effort to hide their more masculine voice and profile, who decide that they are all the girl they need to be and they are the ones I applaud and that seems to be Our Girl Malwani.

Also, Malawani understand my cuticles.

At the other end of the Hand Job spectrum, their receptionist/esthetician is this terribly cute boy named Frank.

I think a little eye candy improves any beauty regimen, don't you? One of the services Hand Job offers is a Boyzilian Wax, the very idea of which makes my nuts retract into my body cavity and which I think Frank may be modeling here:

He's also a model, you can see his site at Nakkid youth

I have no idea if his facials include a happy ending; I'm simply happy to live in San Francisco, where the guy booking your pedicure is possibly an up-and-coming porn star, or should be anyway.

Blahblahblog

the mrpeenee Anger Management Squad on Alert Level High

so the almost charming MJ and Thombeau shamed me into digging into Bloggers innards in order to get back to the old blogger interface, the absence of which I so shrilly have been decrying here.

After successfully following MJ's patient directions (couched specifically for me in very small words,) I was greeted with this message from Blogger:

The old Blogger interface will be removed in the coming month.

So brace yourselves, Karen Black is at the controls.