There, I said it.

You know, this week started badly, is worsening rapidly, and at this rate I really don’t know if I’ll be able to face Friday without smelling salts. Tell me: Do they make overproof Earl Grey? I’ll have a double.

One doesn’t want to natter on about the Good Old Days before one was born (too much) because they were oppressive and hypocritical and full of ugly, synthetic garments and hostility towards the people who supply the toys for our Happy Meals and our mail order babies.

But.

One is reminded, one is, of the time Mister Walt Disney went to former Mousekateer Annette Funicello and asked her to keep her bellybutton covered during her upcoming beach movie, for the sake of the reputation of the Mickey Mouse Club. Well, she did and they gave her three sequels anyway and as far as we know she’s sitting on a beanbag full of cash, drinking whiskey sours her cabana boy mixed and emailing Perez Hilton corny jokes from the verandah of a swanky retirement villa in Santa Barbara. And good for her.

My, how things have changed. First Miley Cyrus, now this:

From Slate:

After reading of the Cyrus flap, I e-mailed my photo to Disney… How did the company square its position on the Liebowitz photo with its risqué billboard in China?…

Foster said he didn’t know which ad agency prepared the ad, how old the model was, or where the photo shoot took place. But he was sure it was the work of a Disney licensee: Shanghai Zhenxin Garments Co. Ltd… He assured me the billboard would be removed immediately…

It may be a small world, after all, but not everyone shares Burbank’s mores, and you can’t be too careful protecting your brand: You never know when a Chinese licensee, or an American glossy, will deviate from the Disney way.

So to speak.

The Munchkin and I were walking to the diamond where his Tee-ball practice was going to be held.  The “diamond” is really just a backstop on the infield of a track.  We were on that track, minding our own business, the Munchkin wandering along as five year olds are wont to do.  Then his amble turned into a sudden veer to the right as some whim overtook him to go that way.

Unfortunately, that veer took him right into the path of a nine year old on a bicycle.  Going much too fast for a track with people walking on it.

I watched it all in that famous slo-mo where your mouth opens to scream, but it all happens too quickly for you to actually do anything other than scream.  I think I scared the crap out of the kid on the bike, actually.

And before I knew it, five year old, nine year old and nine year old’s bike were in the dirt.  With the five year old on the bottom.

That bike hit him really hard, pushing him forward and down, with the wheel making impact on his right hip.

I pulled the nine and the bike off, probably a bit too roughly, but I was pissed.  I was worried.

(more…)

My dear friends, you’ve no idea how brutal this world can be to an artistic soul. One by one, it eats them alive. Raymond Chandler. Dashiell Hammett. Dorothy Parker. Damon Runyan. Anita Loos. Ernest Hemingway.Mother Goose.

Yes, for is there any soul as fragile and artistic as that of a child’s storyteller? And yet as each tender Easy Reader, picture book, or pop-up manuscript is born, it is ruthlessly wrenched from its creator’s loving embrace and cast upon the heaving black waters of the heartless book market, there to sink or swim as its now-helpless progenitor can only clutch pearls or fedora and gape, wreathed in cigarette smoke and sheer terror (and then write about it on the Oprah forums). Oh! The Humanity!

Here, thanks to Kids in the Hall, perhaps the greatest sketch comedy troupe in history, is archival footage of one such writer’s brutal struggle through the long, dark, teddy bear’s picnic of the soul.

I was going to use their Teddy Bear’s Picnic skit, but that’s too dark even for me.

Sigh. I didn’t really want to go here. I really didn’t. But…

Who exactly are we trying to kid?

All these people who are screeching in outrage at the photo above of a “naked” Miley Cyrus need to step back for a second and take a deep Zen breath. And unfortunately, it seems I must disagree with my esteemed colleague on this issue.

I happen to live in an area that is not only hot, but not too far away from the beach.

Compared to half the girls parading around the area, Miley is looking pretty freaking demure.

A year or two ago it was de rigeur  for teen girls to wear tight crop tees with micro minis, which as a combo happen to show quite a bit of flesh. I mean, go take a look at one of the dresses from Juicy Couture’s current line. Go ahead, I’ll wait for you. Now ask yourself, what is the huge difference? And then tell me, because I’d really like to know.

Is it the sheet? Is it the tousled hair? Is there an uncomfortable whiff of something post-coital about the picture?

Because I don’t remember quite this type of outcry when young Jamie Lynn Spears announced her pregnancy, and she obviously didn’t just hint around at the whole sex thing.

Why are we so surprised that young people are embracing the provocative and sexual?

I mean, we are the country of Brazilians for young girls, of plastic surgery for teens, of flaunting everything we’ve got.  The media role models of these girls are the likes of Paris “Skank” Hilton and Lindsay “Drunk” Lohan.  They see Britney flashing her hoo-ha practically every month, naked photos of Vanessa Hudgens,  and I don’t think they give it much thought.

I’m not saying that it’s a good thing, but there it is.

Frankly, I’m shocked that anyone else is shocked.

And if you truly think this picture is trash-tastic, then I advise you to never go onto MySpace.

*Hat tip to superfantastic reader Seana for alerting me to the SFGate article!

Either people are not so into the My Little Pony as we have been led to believe, or bubblegum pink is just not Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s colour.

And I think we all know which of the two it is.

In any case, it is time to announce the winner of our highly prestigious Friday caption contest. Given our voyeuristic interest in scandals, there was only one choice.

Liz Says: April 25th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

The MLB steroid scandal investigation took a new turn when baseball officials learned of the new My Little Pony/Roger Clemens connection.

Congratulations and lucky horseshoes to Liz! And also, hypothetical trophy accessories:

It’s the Juicy Couture Equestrian Princess Fluffy Hobo Bag, which is way more name than you’d think a hobo could carry, but a snazzy handbag to say the least.

And at 16″W x 9″H x 9″D, it can fit an entire (small) MLP stable at once.

Friends, it is Monday, I’m fresh out of Merlot, it’s hailing, my new DVD player needs to be returned, my CD drive keeps crashing my computer, I’ve lost ten pounds this weekend via oyster poisoning, and would someone please tell 15-year-old Miley Cyrus to HELLO! KEEP HER BLOODY CLOTHES ON!
< /rant >

Last week’s poll asking about the rising cost of inflation and how it affects your budget had two-thirds of respondents saying there was some sort negative impact. Wow, let’s hope that the Fed doesn’t cut interest rates this week, shall we?

Doing my usual “this poll has absolutely nothing to do with the last poll” type of thing, I’d like to talk about fathers for a minute. Kevin Costner recently fathered a child at age 52. Larry King was 66 when he had a son with his sixth wife, and then another a year later. Charlie Chaplain was 73, and Tony Randall was 77 when his last child was born.

Barring medical intervention, there is an age when carrying a child is no longer an option for a woman. Not so with men, who can father a child very late in life.

from EnglishFail

Think about it: even if this were properly punctuated, what would you exchange them for? A pair of albino reindeer? Shares of Apple?

And what are the odds this store is located in Sweden?