literate smut: tinseltown - take 1!

And A C T I O N . . . Some people may not know this about me, but I actually possess a PhD in Celebrity Exposés. I'd like to take a moment to present a brief composite of the research I've compiled over the past several grueling years spent devoted to conditioning my psyche with single-minded scholastic scrutiny into these indispensable case studies of tinseltown ethos:

Six Degrees of Paris Hilton by Mark Ebner

The good news: If you're a true glutton for punishment, but still can't stomach the notion of reading a book about an overgrown and underfed hotel scion with plastic hair and enormous feet, you'll be happy to know this gonzo tome has practically nothing to do with Paris Hilton. The bad news: If you feel you might be uncomfortable with any aspect of the truly filthy underbelly flopping uneasily beneath the Versace belt of Hollywood's neon six-pack of depravity, you will positively squirm at the sickening sequence of events outlined in this anthology of ballsy investigative journalism penned by showbiz super-sleuth Mark Ebner. I've always been fascinated by Hollywood's wolfish appetite for psycho starlets and their inevitable extermination from pop culture, but after reading this captivating account detailing the myriad exploits of presently-incarcerated criminal mastermind Darnell Riley and his posse of crooked California comrades, I have become damn near fanatical about soaking up as much diabolical lawbreaking juice as my wet-behind-the-ears little brain can absorb.

dapqueen gives it: 4 out of 5 casting couches

The Truth About Diamonds by Nicole Richie

An actual page-turning secret pleasure by Nicole Richie that hysterically dismisses the entire Hollywood faux-fawning/dick-stroking party scene in one jewel-sparkling swish of a bony wrist. This wry and catty satire provides a meow-wow look into the life of an on the rise B-lister who harbors some steadily escalating ill will toward a certain infamous celebrity racist (see above) she's been BFF with since kittenhood, as well as the rest of the aristocratic fameball bunch she regularly humps around Hell-A with (imagine: smokin' laced cigs in drug dens with Diddy; martini-swillin' at thousand-buck-bottle V.I.P. tables that come magically equipped with mirrored tabletops, thus rendering line formation in the powder room a mere inconvenience of clichéd '80s lore; and a top secret transmission of the mysterious world of haute couture's glitziest grimesters and its carnival of neurotic survival of-the-fittest riddles reported in exhaustive detail. Again, imagine: bingin', purgin', starvin', druggin', vom-ooping. Pop a TrimSpa, baby, spew one for the team, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam. Got that? Neither do I). With fierce characterization and attention to detail, Richie illustrates the fameballs' insoluble celluloid germination and punishes them with words for their assault on the festering tabloid industry that has by now given way to a full-blown rebirth of scandal sheets and digital defamers that have encircled all of our existences for nearly a decade. The result? An overflowing squirt of many new vast and torturous celebrity empires of idiocy, such as the golden-showered skinned Kardashian clan and all the rest of those loud annoying bitches on the E! channel. Bravo, Nicole!

dapqueen sez: 5 out of 5 casting couches

Star by Pamela Anderson

It has been an utterly disheartening experience to endure the constant scoffing people project upon the high praise I award this splendid fairy tale that depicts the ultra-shiny disco dusted planet that the "fictional" Star Wood Leigh resides on. If you've read enough bleak Bastard out of Carolina-esque accounts of cheerless family laments to last you a lifetime, this breezy beachside read might be a truly welcome respite. Solid gold, Pam. I feel that heat.

dapqueen shouts it from the rooftops: 5 out of 5 makeshift casting couches/tanning beds

sTORI Telling by um, hmm... oh! by Tori Spelling

Just... no. If you've ever tried peering into the soulless, money-hungry vacuum that is Aaron Spelling's darling daughter and imagined you might feel even a microscopic frisson of stimulation, you'd be dangerously mistaken. GIRL, PLEASE! You grew up in an opulent palace, starred in the '90s teen soap du jour with Shannen Doherty at the apotheosis of her wayward infamy, lived through at least one questionably successful schnozz-job, and your mom had a frakin' present wrapping room in the Spelling manor - yet even your ghostwriter removed herself from attempting to extract one peewee scrap of luminescence from the nebulous abyss of your personality? T, I totally had your back and you totally let me down! Why you gotta do me like that, T?

Cita, you tried warning me! What can I say? When you're right, you're right!

dapqueen murmurs: 1 out of 5 breakfast nook stools (that is where she landed those roles, right?)

Well, clearly I have exquisite taste in literature. Be sure to tune in for future installments of my exploratory celebrity probings! Next time I will include a shiny new cluster of firm but fair critiques, including the scintillating works of Leguizamo, Lords, and... Superhead? Cheers!

slathered, smothered & catman crothered

Another hastily penned sunrise scoop inspired by my elderly snoring kitty cat whose reverberatory internal furnace sounds like the primordial hard drive of Jumpin' Jack Flash on the fritz, followed by one too many late night X-rated chatroom confabs with Whoopi Goldberg after some feverish digital demonstrations of that fine inflated cocoa cushion.

WOO girl. Some things to go sit in the corner and ponder:

A) What I wouldn't give for the above-mentioned image to delete itself from my own internal storage apparatus.

B) Why do I always feel the need to interpret the contents of tasteful period-piece morsels of cinematic dynamite like Jumpin' Jack Flash and form inappropriate connections between the spunky lead character and the enigmatic co-star? I did it now, I did it with Ghost, and I see no reason to stop when I get around to catching up with Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Although, if it's anything like the first Act, the movie itself will be the inappropriate connection, possessing the outrageous gumption of confusing my brains with unclear ecclesiastical messages of gyrating nuns commingling with cloak-donning capos. All the while, my own face will share the leading role with a sparkling slab of saliva as it makes its way down my chin, since I generally save that magical crown jewel of VHS antiquity for when I'm fresh out of mellow-tonin.

C) What I also wouldn't give for Pissy Galore to re-route her catnap locales to a more discreet quarter within our quantum kingdom. On second thought. . . the faint mellifluous wheezing is pretty endearing, even if I am in constant fear of mindlessly petting her angel-soft pelt only to ladle great gobs of hearty semi-digested cat stew into my paws.

Does this look like the face of a pygmy beast prepared to make accommodations?

cataleptic calisthenics

(Or, more accurately, fond memories of grades 7 thru the rest of my junior and senior high school existence in which I conveniently skipped co-ed sports bra hell and jockstrap misery on a regular basis in favor of alternate nonconformist acts of pop-&-jocularity).

Bowling night commences this upcoming Wednesday, and you better slow your roll to a screeching halt when it's my chance to twist the wrist, because my personal rulebook explicitly states that my lane is the second-born lane of triplets, meaning I can roll a tornado right over your alley any time I sees fit and neither of my congenitally fused linear kinfolk can bump their gutters about it because, well, it's THE RULES.

That being said, it has been brought to my recent attention that my athletic prowess is comically nonexistent at best, downright fictitious at worst. To which I say... the fuck? Seriously folks, I can Crip-walk on ice skates and practice Kung Fu moves in the shower like I'm David Carradine sans soap-on-a-rope. (And by practice Kung Fu I mean invoke peaceful meditation between shower spigot and clitoral floweret. Ommmm-kay... Don't judge). But that's just not hunky-dory enough for some sportylicious booty-smackers who grasp and squeeze their fellow ball-handlers' hindquarters at head-scratching moments of gesticulatory excellence that far exceed the 12th grade, an age when most awesome people appropriately ditch their benchwarming duties in favor of new experimental pastimes, like smokin', sexin', and stealin', to name a few.

To all my draconian whistle-blowing naysayers, I have the following to declare: I'll stratospherically crush ya azz on a mini-golf course and combat you in a cosmic-bowl crusade to the finish, and when I do win, I vow not to be all IN YO FACE about it. Unless, of course, copious amounts of grown-folk brewskies and unsolicited douchebaggy companionship magically presents itself (and, let's face it, it always does). In which case, the previous statement is obviously no longer applicable.

Runners-up, polish off your tenpins and squish your ten (or so) toes into those lubberly bowling shoes decomposing nicely under your kitchen sink and I'll peep ya in your lanes!

roadtrippin'

Hey Boners! I need some snax 'n jamz'spiration for my impending roadtrip tomorrow. Six hours of high-voltage deviance, high-decibel Danzig, and some dope Doug Stanhope truth-spewin'. Oh yeah, don't forget the black coffee from Kum 'n Go that curiously tastes like BEEF. I'll be sure to (someday) fill you in on my thoroughly compelling discoveries in a state-by-state recapitulation. Til then...

What she said.

my mane girl

Today I get to spend time with someone who is both lusciously foxy and endlessly entertaining. A pleasure to dish with and a dazzling babe of phenomenal virtuosity, she graciously bestows upon me the contents within her magical treasure trove: the gifts of coiffure, color, compelling conversation, and ice cold mutha-effin' 40'z. Oh, and did I mention her scissor swagger is the biz? This killer kitty somehow managed to brilliantly save me from a tragic haircut that to this day still gives me blood-curdling chills when I come across it in old photos right before ripping them to shreds. Ladies, unless you are a trained professional, don't even think about fashioning up some homemade kitchen sink Bettie bangs. You'll look unspeakably ridiculous, and I don't want to have to snag the snapshots to further illustrate why it's a bad idea.

So Jen, you know I've been having a brunette moment lately, but how do you feel about this look down here? Nothing too flashy, maybe just a few of the ends severed off.

xoxo kitty cat!

i love you, jean grae

How's everything in the pimp business?

repressions of a beauty product slut: part 1

I have a confession: I'm a beauty junkie with a pretty severe habit and product is my poison. Whether I'm lurking the aisles of Rite-Aid at midnight or balling out at Sephora in broad daylight, one thing is for certain: You'd best believe imma get my fix! I'm mesmerized by glosses and glitter, powders and polishes, faux eyelashes and fancy packaging. I'm a sucker for glamour, and even though I don't layer on cosmetics everyday, I make up for it with heavy experimentation (not to be confused with a heavy hand, ladies... psych!) If you ask me, perfectly coiffed eyebrows are crucial for a compelling beauty look, and if you don't complete your routine with a trannylicious mega-arch, then why even bother? The only other accent necessary for truly completing a look is a couple inky coatings of ebony mascara. In my mind, mascara application is equal parts art and science. Of course, the resulting effect, however, is pure sex. It goes without saying that when contemplating mascaras, as with men, the choice between length and volume is not always an obvious one. You can have length, you can have volume, but 9 times out of 10, you cannot have both (unless you're me). So, choose your wands wisely, women. The soulful Leroy Sibbles of the Heptones once crooned "Purrty looks isn't all" and the Maybelline Define-A-Lash Mascara packaging proves his wisdom as fact. If you're trying to keep those purse strings on a short leash, you can still afford to coat your fringe with this delicious drugstore dime piece. Like most awesome inventions, its packaging is budget and gaudy, but I personally guarantee that it curls and twirls like a pearl. Whether it's Maybelline or M.A.C., I love all my mascaras the same, but different. Just like little tube babies. Wow. Moving on...

(Boi-oi-oiingg!!)

Now, if you're like me, you save your various loose coins and paper money in a sleazy NYC Chinatown coffee cup and hide it away until you have accumulated enough dough for this amazing purchase I plan to exchange bankroll for in the very near future: How rad is it that Too Faced has dreamed up this Mood Swing Emotionally Activated Lip Gloss featuring the très gorgeous Smurfette! Not only are they taking it all the way back to the Saturday morning cartoon freak within me, but a flash in the pan nod to the quixotic mood ring, too?! This mouth-watermelon'ing flav shimmers on your smackers in a Smurf-blue hue, then depending on your mood, activates to various shades of Smurfberry pink. Cop a color wheel, friendo, cuz my lips speak Smurf now, swak you very much.

bad bitch # 1: beyoncé

Well, Valentine's Day has come and gone and I'm in a bit of a sentimental mood. Let's gush! Anybody who knows me knows that Beyoncé is my Queen. She is radiantly electric and over the top glamorous, two qualities I can appreciate in my #1 bad beyotch. This gal is a do-it-all diva to the max: She sings hit songs in a devastatingly hypnotic mezzo soprano, designs alluring fashions, and vamps it on a regular for modeling gigs such as L'Oréal. She even emulates famous broads like Diana Ross (lol @ her performance as Deena Jones in Dreamgirls... what. the. hell.) and Etta James (or. something...) Anyway, I got some hot off the press news: If you haven't already checked out the soundtrack to Cadillac Records, then get to steppin'. It was an unexpected delight to discover this collection of gems inspired by Etta James and interpreted by Queen B, especially after the double disappointment of the double disc Sasha Fierce. You know, the record I was HIGHLY anticipating practicing my painstakingly choreographed Destiny's Child dance moves in front of the mirror to, but turned out to be an epic hardcore suckfest. As an obsessive Beyoncé stan, I cannot express how deep my hatred for If I Were A Boy and Single Ladies (Put A Cock Ring On It) goes. On the other hand, the song Hello not surprisingly does it for me, as I easily geek out to songs with a showtunes-vibe. I hope the next record Bey drops will be in the same vein as Dangerously In Love, a truly superb album filled with old-school R&B diamonds and practically zero zirconia (we won't discuss Signs, mmkay?) Top three jams off the Dangerously In Love record: Be With You, Hip-Hop Star, Baby Boy

Here is a magical treasure from the Cadillac Records release entitled All I Could Do Was Cry. Don't sleep.