My 100th Post!!! For Michael C on Project Runway

If you're reading this, imagine balloons and streamers falling all around you. Woohoo!

I still love Project Runway and I think it's back on sure footing after it's move from Bravo and to LA. They're back in NYC where they belong and have the best judging panel on TV if you ask me. Michael Kors is a walking sound bite but also one our greatest designers. Heidi, Nina Garcia, Michael Kors and Tim Gunn all now their stuff and their critiques are always insightful and help the design contestants improve their work. The show is a super-sized 90 minutes now, which allows for more drama (something reality watchers crave) but I really enjoyed the expanded version this week because we got to see how the judges were prepping the final 4 for Fashion Week. They gave each of them suggestions for improving their chances on the runway. Loved Heidi's comment to Gretchen about putting her models in high heels to avoid the "Schlumping along" and adding to the already "Holly Hobby-ish" looking collection. More than anything, these judges make me wish I could sew!

But, I'm really writing about this because the elimination of Michael C. was so wrenchingly sad. I feel like these four finalists - Mondo, Andy, Gretchen and Michael C. have more riding on the outcome than any other contestants in the history of the show, in my opinion. Each of them has sacrificed pretty much everything for their dream and gone balls to the wall to make them come true. Each of them feels like if they don't make it to Fashion Week, it's over for them and they have nothing to go back to. Michael more so than the others in a way because he still struggles with believing in himself and allowed the slings and arrows of the less talented haters really get under his skin...Ivy, I'm looking at you bitch. He made it to the final 4 but when he was eliminated, I felt his despair like a knife. He was thinking about how his family was now going to insist on him finally "giving up and moving back home." Like the show was his last chance at his dream and now that he only made it to 4th, it's time to get a job at Home Depot and stop the fantasizing!

I've been there. More than once. The last time was a year ago. Everything came crashing down with a deafening crescendo. You can only rise from the ashes so many times and I had done so much work, put in so much passion to rebuild after the previous crash - all the while telling myself it was all or nothing. Big stakes. And at my age, to have it burn to the ground again...I did give up. I was done. I wanted out. I shut down completely. I was, frankly, planning to kill myself...Obviously, I didn't. One person stopped me. But I wasn't really living either. I denied myself everything. Stopped taking care of myself. Punished myself for "failing." Living without my dream wasn't living. It felt like I had been pushed out of heaven.

Slowly, verrry slowly, I started to recover. I've washed off the sack cloth and ashes I had forced myself to wear and try hard to not be so hard on myself. The flame that I ground out so viciously is flickering and growing bigger and warmer again. My body and mind are still pretty fatigued at the thought of pushing the boulder up that hill again but what choice do they have? Because there's no way I can walk this earth and not be going after what I came here for. So, all you fragile creative spirits that have been crushed...as desolate as it seems, you'll have no choice but to reemerge and flower once again. We are the flowers of this earth. Like nature herself, we are supplying the earth with her beauty. I see your beauty and I'm happy that you're here.

I love you.

No Wings 4 U!

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show hit it's tipping point a few years ago and became HUGE. Remember when it was only available to view on the internet and the overload of viewers caused the site and much of the internet to crash? The last few years it's been a "must see" TV event...Fun for the whole family! 2009's show aired last week and will air an encore viewing this Thursday. If you didn't catch it, don't bother. I gathered with friends on Saturday to watch. We had drinks, we had food, we had anticipation. Here's what we didn't have...

ADRIANNA LIMA, who is or was pregnant with her first child. Nobody sexes up the catwalk like Adrianna. Most of the other star supermodels made an appearance but they were interspersed with a bunch of Sunday insert quality models, who I've never seen in the Victoria's Secret catalog before. It was kind of like standing in line to see the "Glee" kids and finding only the extras appearing. Heidi did a "surprise" walk which was fun even though they had her covered up in a bit too much tulle. Still 20 lbs above her fighting weight - after just giving birth 5 weeks ago, she looked great despite the vomit-plosion of tulle.

Also lacking was the wow factor of fantasy angel costumes. Because, this is not really a "fashion" show. It's a SHOW. In the past, their winged flights of fancy was my favorite part. There were maybe 2 or 3 outfits at the most that made me go "oooooh" this year.

Don't even get me started about the lame "New Angel" competition! Don't we get enough of that on reality TV already? The Angels are supposed to be fully formed deities who fall from heaven to model underwear! Not corn fed wanna bes from Kansas or wherever the hell they bus them in from. It was beyond distracting to watch those segments because none of us cared about these aspiring models. If I wanted to care, I'd start watching America's Next Top Model again. I want supermodels who's purview is the catwalk. Who stomp like Valkyries. Who look like they could fly off on those wings! Come on!

The musical performances also fell flat... Fergie in a teal corset gown looked out of her element. Her true style is edgy! Keep it real...and, is it just me or does it seem weird to have a woman singing as the models walk? Last year, with Usher, worked and his interaction with the models was organic and seemed fun. The Peas and the models didn't really connect. They were kind of dancing "at each other" rather than with each other.

And there was no "show stopping" moment like this...

The thrill of watching Seal sing "Amazing" as his wife walked out in this eyepopping snowflake get up, caused collective "oooh-ing" and "ahhhhh-ing" from audience as well as from us at home. It was a perfectly produced show and they haven't topped it since.

I actually might not watch in 2010. Which means an angel won't get her wings.

The Slippery Slope of Hope

I want to steal a little something from Katt Williams right now and say to Barack Obama, let the haters do their thing. Get it out of your head, that fantasy where people aren't hating on you. Be grateful. We need haters. What do you think a hater's job is? That's what God put them on earth to do. Hate! In fact, if there are any haters reading this, hate me. I could use a few more.

Why must intellectual or pseudo-intellectual literati always overestimate themselves and ruin it for the rest of us? I mean, for fuck sake New Yorker magazine, what were you thinking?! Obviously, we as Americans can only hold others in admiration for so long and then our arms get tired. We just have to look at the celebrity gossip to see that no one goes unscathed. Like Heidi Klum says "You're either in or you're out!" But most of us have barely enjoyed being "in" before we're the fuck "out" again! How did we so quickly slide down the slippery slope of hope?!

I attended the democratic debate at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. John Edwards had just dropped out of the race and it was down to Hillary and Obama. I was there as a credentialed journalist (!) to interview women about their relationship with power and consequently - Hillary. But Obama was the true draw. The real revelation of the event was the energy and the vibe of the place that day. In a crowd that size, with diversity of political opinion, race, sexual orientation, degrees of sanity, there was peace. And joy. And hope. It really felt like we were on to something. The crowds were excited and reverent. Much like I'd imagine they were when Jesus was among us, or Martin Luther King, or when Chriss Angel walked across a swimming pool in Vegas!

Wake up people!! We are fucking it up. We are fucking it up and will have no one to blame but ourselves. Well...I'll have you to blame but that's beside the point. Look, if we saved Tinkerbell, we can save Obama. If you believe, clap your hands, don't let Obama die. All of you, who believe we can be better, who believe we deserve THIS president, CLAP NOW. Or, well, you know...go VOTE on November 4. Vote for Obama. Dismiss this bullshit, wherever it comes from, whatever the reason for it. Believe what you believed in your hearts when you first heard him speak. Believe your own instincts. Believe we can be better.


Oh, and P.S. New Yorker, the cover would have been funnier if you had run it AFTER Obama won.