Celebrity Marriage

If I'm going to read about celebrity marriages and their woes, I'd like to read what Rebecca Traister has to say. Reading her article in Salon about Bruce Springsteen and his alleged dalliance was nice and easy and didn't make me feel like I had to go rince out my eyes with soap. For example:

"Apparently, at the height of their supposed liaison, local whispering about Springsteen and Kelly got so disruptive that Ann's father urged her to quit the gym. Hear that? Quit the gym. As opposed to quitting Ambien, random cocktail waitresses, call girls, the campaign for the American presidency, or couch sex at your office with a tattoo-covered woman who was not your wife and had a thing for the Third Reich."

It's not right, any kind of affair Springsteen may have had, and Traister doesn't say it is. But it is, like Traister says, kind of a relief

We've ALL Got Issues

For days now I've been trying to write about Judith Warner's new book We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. I can't. I've got issues! Not with the book, at least not with the whole book. I have some issues with the first forty pages but after those are done I think Warner gives us sound reporting, a good discussion of cultural biases and fears, and reasonable conclusions. Does that sound vague? I mean for it to sound vague. Warner's pretty pro-medication but she's also pro-parents trying to figure things out for their kids with the best resources available to them, and since I'm one of those parents (my son has sensory issues), I was glad to read her book.

Still, it'd be much easier for me to blog about the divorce of Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes. I was sad to read about it, but from what the tabloids have to say, they had some issues....and some friends, if you know what I mean. (And if you don't, read here and here. Thanks to Jezebel for the links and naming why I care.)

Michael Jackson

I have not much to say about Michael Jackson's death, but I can recommend this from Kate Hardin'gs Shapely Prose.

Portia on Sunday Night

Just when I was thinking I was in need of a little pick-me-up, I found this clip of Portia De Rossi on Jimmy Kimmel Live apologizing for the pain and suffering caused by her marriage to Ellen DeGeneres. It's not quite funny to me since it's truth is a little bizarr-o, but still, I;m glad for it and glad I went to Jezebel on a Sunday night, even though I almost never do.

Full Disclosure

I got a little weepy when Kate Winslet won. I know, it's so lame, and these awards make no sense, but still.....I'm such a softie that way.

The Problem with Gwyneth

Apparently, people don't really like Gwyneth Paltrow plying herself as a new-age lifestyle guru (cookbook, gym, web site called goop, TV show with Mario Batali), and this makes some people scratch their heads. Why not a Gwyneth cookbook when there's a Madonna children's book (or two). But, this doesn't surprise me. The New York Times article charting this phenomenon is all mystified, "Maybe we just like her too much as a nice to-the-manor-born Upper East Sider." Or maybe when you're born to the manor you shouldn't try to tell other people how to get there (even if there is a crystal new age interior castle built by yoga).

This is Why Oprah is Oprah

Forget about all the self-actualization. She goes there. Here, with Kate Winslet.

Someone Give the Woman a Hairbrush!

Did Drew Barrymore have sex all day before the Golden Globes? Is that why she just couldn't brush that hair? Jeez.

NB: The link didn't work, but if you saw the show or the pictures, you know what I'm talking about.

When Will It Happen

Is it possible, just maybe barely possible, that when Bush finally leaves office and the Obamas finally get to move into the White House, people (including the players themselves) will stop talking about the Brad-Jen-Angelina divorce-affair-baby-making situation? Maybe? Is it too much to hope for?

About Tom Cruise

I love this kind of quote.

"But note a curious fact about his career: It maps perfectly onto the 25-year bull market in stocks that, like Cruise, is starting to show its age. Nascent in the early '80s, emergent in 1983, dominant in the '90s, suspiciously resilient in the '00s, and, starting in 2005, increasingly prone to alarming meltdowns. For both Cruise and the Dow Jones, more and more leverage is required for less and less performance. Place Cruise next to Nicholson, Newman, and Tracy, and he is a riddle. Place him next to Reagan, and he is not so confounding at all."

The article is here.