Pam Gets Rocked

Congratulations are in order for Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, who threw one fabulous party in St. Tropez today to celebrate their not-quite-yet-legal marriage. In keeping with Canadian tradition, the bride wore a white string bikini. According to Pam's website, "Pics will be out soon, from inside the boat we took." Uh-oh. Pam + amorous husband + boat...

All the best to the happy couple, but let's hope they left the camcorder at home.

Studs With Studs: Discuss

Question: What is the status of the earring in men's fashion these days? Has there been some kind of edict on this in the past five or six years?

Previously worn exclusively by pirates and Ziggy Stardust, the earring became a must-have male accessory around the time I was in the sixth grade (ca. 1990). Made impossibly cool by the likes of the Fresh Prince, the New Kids on the Block, Marky Mark and David Silver (OK, not such a good example), ear-piercing was all the rage among pre-teen boys, taking over where the rat-tail haircut left off (props to Jordan Knight for carrying the rat-tail torch into the 1990s). Fathers everywhere were cursing the day their sons came home with that shiny new gold hoop earring in their left ear. To my recollection, the left ear was the only acceptable ear to get pierced at this time. Getting one's right ear pierce was to risk utter and complete social alienation--that is, until it started to be cool to have both ears pierced. Then all hell broke loose (eg. Dennis Rodman).

It seems to me that the dark ages of the male earring started when AARP members like Ed Bradley and Harrison Ford starting sporting studs. That, and the freaky-freaky stage get-ups of such music artists as Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor started to make guys who wore earrings look about as bad-ass as Ward Cleaver (actually, I take that back--Ward Cleaver was pretty bad-ass on occasion).

In the three minutes I spent researching this post, I couldn't really find a clear answer on whether the male earring is still cool these days. What I did find was a 1998 Ebony article that cites examples of famous earring-wearers such as "trendsetting actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner" (aka Theo) to make the point that earrings are completely acceptable accessories for men.


The theologians among my readers (?) might be curious to learn that I found two articles that offer biblical answers to the question of whether men should wear earrings. This article makes the argument that men wearing earrings makes God angry. But this other article on the same subject is more wishy-washy. To be honest, I found both quite frightening.

So I will leave this question unanswered. Unlike bandannas, there is no clear right or wrong when it comes to earrings and men's fashion. I think the issue has to be painstakingly reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Now, the rat-tail, on the other hand--dudes need to bring that back.

You Go, Lance!

Today, former N'Sync member Lance Bass officially came out, making the following statement to the media:

“The thing is, I’m not ashamed — that’s the one thing I want to say. I don’t think it’s wrong, I’m not devastated going through this. I’m more liberated and happy than I’ve been my whole life. I’m just happy.”

You know, I never was much of an N'Sync fan, but this was one of the most heartwarming news stories I've heard all week. You go, Lance!

Running Farrell

My trip to L.A. is now officially complete--I have been to a red-carpet movie premiere. Miami Vice premiered tonight at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood and I simply could not pass up the opportunity to saunter down the street after dinner and snap some pictures of the divine Messrs. Farrell and Foxx.

Never having been to one of these gigs before, I wasn't exactly sure where the best vantage point for star-watching would be. I first stood on the street corner out in front of Stan's Donuts (where I've been three times in the past week) amidst a pack of professional autograph hounds who, quite frankly, frightened me just a bit. Some of them were kind of like the L.A. equivalent of Comic Book Store Guy from the Simpsons.

Fortunately, a security guard came along and offered to take a group of people to the red-carpet-side bleachers across the street. I opted to go along, which resulted in me gaining a clear view of the stars as they made their way down the press gauntlet.

Using my old-school 35mm point-and-shoot camera, I snapped photos of Angie Harmon and Jason Sehorn, Tyrese, Victoria Rowell, Li Gong, Regina King, Pieter Jan Brugge (the film's producer), and, of course, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. I also took a nice shot of Philip Michael Thomas. Unfortunately, Don Johnson was nowhere to be seen.

All the actors looked every bit as attractive in person as they do on film. Which, of course, did not surprise me. All in all, this is probably one of the most aesthetically-pleasing trips I've ever taken. I'm going to have to ease myself back into reality slowly this weekend.

Fun, Fun, Fun

I spent the weekend playing tourist at various sites around L.A. and Santa Monica, some on the beaten path, some off. I did a lot of walking, got a lot of sun and had an awesome time. And yes, I rode the bus everywhere. Although I am now going to have to take back what I wrote in my last entry about the L.A. bus system being underused. It's actually pretty hoppin'. Still too many cars on the road, but the bright spot is that I have seen a lot of Toyota Priuses around town.

Saturday I took the bus to the north end of Koreatown and hopped on the subway up to Hollywood and Vine. Having only ever heard terrible things about Hollywood, I braced myself for the worst--however, I have to say it wasn't nearly as rough as I imagined it would be. Of course, I was there on a Saturday afternoon in peak tourist season. I'm sure it's no picnic at, say, 3 am on a Tuesday night. When I was there it wasn't so bad. It pretty much is what it is. Girls! Girls! Girls!--but not the Elvis Presley version. For my Torontonian readers, Hollywood Blvd. is a shade or two worse on the urban decay spectrum than the most decrepit blocks of Yonge Street. But the Walk of Fame is pretty awesome (except that you forget to look where you're going, which can get you into trouble). And I happened upon this fantastic movie collectibles shop at which I was able to pick up some lovely Rock Hudson production stills from 1952. Now that's what I call souvenir shopping.

If the tourist action at the Hollywood & Highland shopping centre (part of the complex that houses the Kodak Theatre) is any indication, Hollywood's darkest days are behind it. The mall is squeaky clean, upscale, and jam-packed with suburban families. Disney bought the El Capitan theatre across the street and has spruced it up as well. To anyone tempted to insert anti-corporatization grumbling here, can it already. If it's between pimps and Disney, I'll take Disney (and you can quote me on that).

After chowing down at Johnny Rocket's and taking a slew of requisite tourist photos, I journey back downtown to Union Station, which is an absolutely gorgeous building--an L.A. must-see, I believe. As is the Olvera Street marketplace, a fabulous oasis in downtown L.A. packed with vendors selling traditional Mexican goods. It was my first time visiting there and it's definitely one of my favourite places I've been in L.A. so far.

On Sunday I had to make a trip to the beach, so I bused it out to Venice. A totally crazy place, but another definite must-see. I watched both surfers and grafitti artists working hard at their respective pastimes, but was disappointed to find Muscle Beach more or less deserted. I suppose it was too hot to buff one's bod yesterday.

My favourite part about Venice is the Venice Canals Walkway, the network of sidewalks that you can take in and around all the positively stunning homes built on the existing canals. I kind of want one of those houses.

When I left Venice, I headed north to Ocean Park, the groovy southern Santa Monica neighborhood that is much quieter--and hipper, in my opinion--than the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica proper. The retail is soooo Californian: surf shops, yoga studios, organic tea shops, acupuncture clinics, and raw food cafes.

I wound up finishing up my day's travels in downtown Santa Monica, at Ye Olde King's Head pub, a favourite spot from my last trip to L.A. because of its tasty British fare that reminds me of pubs back home in the old country (by which I mean Toronto).

A highly satisfying weekend of sun, surf (watching) and local colour--I think this city is working it's crazy magic on me. Good thing I'm headed back home soon.

Get On the Bus

I feel that I am now fully assimilated into Angeleno culture after making many, many trips on L.A.'s great yet sorely underused bus system today. Over the course of almost twelve hours, I got on and off buses in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood and Santa Monica today. A couple were packed. One was empty save for me for a while. I met some very friendly people and got to take in lots of the cityscape. For example, I am now extremely familiar with the corner of Wilshire Blvd. and Veteran Avenue that I sat at for about fifteen minutes or more today, watching the traffic crawl towards the 405 freeway entrance. As many times as I've sat on the DVP in rush hour, I can honestly say I've never seen traffic move that slowly before.

The insanely bizarre thing about L.A. is, its residents think traffic like that is completely normal. They willingly sit through it every single day. I watched car after car creep by carrying only one person, a driver chatting animatedly on his/her cell phone and dealing pleasantly enough with the worst gridlock I've ever witnessed. C-r-a-z-y. I talked to a few Angelenos about their transportation situation today. One man had had his car totalled six months ago, decided to try out the bus for a change, and is happy with the switch. He says the subway's great too--I'm going to try that out on the weekend. Another couple of guys I talked to said they couldn't imagine taking the bus at all--they wouldn't even know which bus to take to get from where they lived to work each day. They thought I was properly nuts for even trying.

This seems to be the normal response from city natives when I tell them about my bus travels. I was told I was crazy for trying to take the bus from Westwood to Hollywood, but that worked out just fine today. Granted, I missed the stop where I had to transfer and ended up arriving at my destination about half an hour later than I'd planned, but fortunately, I'd left early. That's the thing about getting around in L.A.--if you have time to spare and can adopt a sort of Zen-like attitude towards the sometimes Herculean effort it takes to get from point A to point B, it's not so bad.

While L.A. makes me appreciate cabs, the TTC (yes, even the Queen streetcar at rush hour), and the possibility of walking anywhere, I can't say it hasn't started to grow on me in its own crazy way. No matter how frustrating the situation on the ground is, you can always look up and see a sunny, bright blue sky above, a palm tree or two, and sometimes, as was the case for me this morning, HOLLYWOOD beckoning to you in the distance. And that's pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

The Fresh Princess of Bel Air

Having recently purchased new running shoes, I was excited to have the chance to break them in on my trip to L.A. on some sightseeing runs. So I ventured out for my first run this morning. I'm staying in Westwood village, right on the edge of the UCLA campus, so I figured that Bel Air would be a nifty running destination (originally I wanted to make it up to the Playboy Mansion, but then I realized it would be a touch too far--besides, isn't it more normal for women to run away from the Playboy Mansion than towards it?). I made my way on up north through the campus at a decent clip, feeling energized by the bright sun, blue skies, and deceptively invisible smog. Sure, there were a few hills...well, actually, running north in this part of town is pretty much all hills, all the time. Like, break-ass hills. Like there's a reason everybody around here is so crazy about yoga and pilates and all that jazz--it's because it's too damn hard to run anywhere. Particularly in Bel Air, which I found out has no sidewalks. I don't think residents venture outside the gates of their homes on foot. This morning, the only people on the road were me and legions of garden workers. I wondered if I might get thrown out by a security patrol for being on the street without a leaf blower in my hand.

An hour later and I was finally in sight of where I'd started, feeling very tired and keening for level ground. But the adventure was worth it. Bel Air, like most other locations in L.A., looks just as spectacular in real life as it does in the movies. What amazed me was that within a couple hundred feet of entering Bel Air off of Sunset Blvd., the noise of the traffic seemed to die away almost instantly and became replaced by the serene chirping of birds and hissing of garden sprinklers. The place isn't just a neighbourhood--I'm convinced it's a hermetically-sealed bubble.

L.A. Stories

I have ventured once more out to the strange and marvellous world that is the west coast. I have two weeks ahead of me in Los Angeles, primarily shuttling around between Westwood, Beverly Hills, and anywhere else the Wilshire Blvd. bus can take me. Here are a few initial notes on my L.A. experiences over the past 24 hours:

You know you're on a plane to L.A. when a guy sitting in your row pulls out his screenplay for in-flight reading material. Good Lord--does it get any more L.A. than that? It was all pristine and crisp-cornered, with impressively shiny brass brads. I'm thinking, great, excellent, good for you--I mean, hey, I've got one of those kicking around myself--but it's soooo much less pretentious to just kick back with a vacuous magazine like the rest of your comrades in coach. You ain't gonna run into Jerry Bruckheimer at the back of the bus, buddy--better off snagging an FHM.

I actually saw people break into a car-fight today over entering/exiting a parking garage on La Cienega. I think that the car-fight might be an L.A.-specific phenomenon. It's like any other kind of fight, except the participants never get out of their cars; they just yell and gesture wildly as if they were within striking distance of their opponent. What happened was one car exited the parking garage at the same time another car was about to turn into it. They very nearly ran into each other--then both slammed on the brakes and started raising hell. I don't believe it had been resolved by the time I got to my bus-stop. They very well could still be out there.

Rodeo Drive actually sparkles. I think they use Crest Street Whitener (TM).

My cab driver yesterday told me he once gave Ashton Kutcher a lift before he was famous. Except the cabbie wasn't sure of Ashton Kutcher's name. He just said "You know--the guy who's with Demi Moore." Ooooh....SNAP!

More instalments are forthcoming (I'm hoping to write enough L.A. blogs that they can go into blog syndication).

Like Riding a Bicycle...Or Something

Since I haven't contributed to my blog in quite some time, I figured I should take some baby blog steps toward making a comeback. So I will devote this entry to mentioning one small recollection that made me laugh really hard today. I was thinking for a brief spell about cats and cars, and I suddenly remembered how, about fifteen years ago or so, you couldn't drive anywhere without seeing at least two or three cars with one of those crazy-ass stuffed Garfield cat-butts hanging out of the window/trunk. C'mon--you know you remember those things (maybe you owned one?). I'm not really sure why it was considered hilarious to have half a stuffed cat protruding from your car and those things got natty after being exposed to the elements for a couple of months. But people loved them! And now the very thought of them makes me laugh.

Studies in Skid Culture #3

So I've been kinda sorta neglecting my blog lately. To my tight-knit cadre of devoted readers, I apologize. Other writing projects, a testy dial-up internet connection, and the new season of Canadian Idol have all conspired to derail my once-regular ranting schedule. That, and I've been busy catching up on the local culture in my hometown, an entertaining, oftentimes scintillating, yet time-consuming task.

Just in case you thought I was indulging in a bit of poetic license in my first entry on skid culture a couple months back, I have recently gathered much empirical evidence that the skid community is still indeed alive and well around these parts. For example, when I was walking out of Swiss Chalet last night after dinner, I witnessed a truckload of skids drive into the local Tim Horton's (conveniently located across the street from Swiss Chalet). True to form, the boys had a rusted-out Skidoo in the back of their pickup truck. In the middle of June. I kid you not. They were hollering unintelligbly but gleefully out the windows as they drove past, perhaps in anticipation of picking up a few limited-time-only strawberry tarts from Timmie's along with their double-doubles.

Sometimes this place is just too Canadian to be true. I have to say, it's great to be home.

Deja Retro

So I'm back home in Ontario for a couple of weeks--loving the new season of Canadian Idol, Seamus O'Reagan in the mornings, and easy access to Tim Horton's maple swirl doughnuts, but not so much the dial-up internet access that goes with my old rural stomping grounds. But I don't mind being patient with my connection tonight because I am enjoying a favourite Sunday night ritual of mine, 102.1 The Edge's Sunday night retro show. Back in the day, the broadcast was from Whiskey Saigon (a club which always sounded way more fun on the radio than it actually was), but has since switched venues to a favourite undergrad haunt of mine, The Velvet Underground. I have no idea what the Velvet is like these days, as it's been many moons since I hauled my black fishnet tights/Doc Martens-clad feet onto its dance floor. But it used to be a pretty good time (even though it never quite matched the Dance Cave).

For the record (and this should surprise no one who's read this blog before), I was into retro way before retro was cool. As a teenager in the mid-1990s, I made a serious effort to become a self-educated New Wave aficianado. While many of my peers were digging Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette or (insert Sideshow Bob shudder), Hootie and the Blowfish, I was stocking my music library with ABC, Human League, Bowie, the Cure, Duran Duran, General Public, Howard Jones, Joy Division, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, the Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, the Smiths, Split Enz, the Talking Heads, Talk Talk, and the Violent Femmes. At the time, the Edge's Sunday night retro show was the only place you could hear any of this stuff on the radio. Now of course any adult contemporary/pop station worth its salt has some kind of cheeseball 80s request hour on its daily programming schedule. But the Edge is still the best place to hear consistently good 80s music in a retro show. I highly recommend tuning in--you won't be disappointed. Unless 80s New Wave/ska/punk music is just totally not up your alley. But how can that be possible?

Doggy Fizzle Publishizzle

According to an article published last month on The Book Standard, Snoop Dogg will be making his literary debut this October with his first novel, titled Love Don't Live Here No More. Not to be confused with the 1978 Rose Royce hit, "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," Snoop's novel will tell the story of "a young man living the hard life in Southern California while struggling to make it in the world of hip-hop."

The article goes on to note that the novel will be the first in a "street-lit" series headed by Snoop for Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. Kathleen Schmidt, v.p. and director of publicity for Atria told The Book Standard that “Snoop, by nature of what he does, is a storyteller." Furthermore, Ms. Schmidt explains, “Books speak more to a female audience than does [Snoop's] music, so these novels give him an opportunity to show, particularly his female fans, another side.”

Rrrrriiiigghht. I assume she means the side of Snoop other than the one responsible for rapping such tunes as "Bitches Ain't Shit But Hoes and Tricks," "Break a Bitch 'Til I Die," and "Can You Control Yo Hoe?" (featuring the memorable lyric, "You've got to put that bitch in her place/Even if it's slapping her in the face"). We've apparently now entered a new era of Barnes & Noble-friendly Snoop (personally, I think changing the book's title to Love Don't Live Here No More, Bitch would help ensure a smoother trans-media crossover).

I wish Snoop the best of luck with his new endeavour. If nothing else, it's gonna make Book-TV a hell of a lot more exciting this fall. As far as winning over the female audience goes, I guess I should keep an open mind. Even old Doggz learn new tricks.

Analyze This

The other day, I was thinking about movie costumes. From a rather young age, two movie costumes in particular have been my very favourites:

1. The skin-tight, black leather (or is it pleather?) outfit that Sandy wears to impress Danny at the end of Grease, for the "You're the One That I Want" number. I'm still looking for a pair of black Candies sandals like the ones she has on in that scene (the shoes responsible for the sexiest cigarette stomp-out in cinema history).

2. The crazy one-piece halter top/mini-skirt outfit and (most importantly) thigh-high, spiked heel boots that Julia Roberts walks her Hollywood strip in at the beginning of Pretty Woman. I've had a weakness for stiletto-heel boots ever since (and now own two pairs--neither, regrettably, are thigh-high, however). Oddly, her outfit is different colours on the movie's poster (hot pink and black) than it is in the film (white and turquoise). But it's all about the boots, really.

What should we make of this? One might conjecture that repeated exposure to such vampy star costumes in my pre-teen years permanently corrupted my fashion sense. But these outfits are so...great. Like, doesn't everyone wish they could wear stuff like this every day? No? Oh. Never mind, then. I guess it's just me.

Shoe Decorated My Life

In recent "Where are they now?" news:

My favourite Madison television personality, former WKOW meteorologist Alan Shoemaker (affectionately known on air and among fans as "Shoe"), is apparently now thriving in his post as the weekend weatherman on Newschannel 5 in Weslaco, Texas.

Shoe--we miss you, big guy. You lit up my life on Wake Up Wisconsin for three unforgettable years. But you've got bigger storms to chase now. That's just the way life goes in the rough-and-tumble weatherman trade, I guess. Well, best of luck to you, Shoe--and thanks for the memories.

Summer Reading Adventure Vol. 1

While summer won't officially arrive for another month or so, it's never too early to start thinking about what guilty yet exquisite reading pleasures you will include on your summer reading list. For bibliophiles, summer reading is kind of like a trip to Las Vegas: cheap, flashy, sex-filled and easily hidden from bosses and spouses. Best of all, there are no consequences. What happens during the summer reading season stays in the summer reading season. It is perfectly acceptable to burn through 15 Danielle Steel novels over a two-week period in August, then turn back to Thomas Pynchon after Labour Day. You will never be held intellectually responsible for your summer reading choices. It's one of the cardinal rules of bibliophile culture.

That said, I'd like to suggest some summer reading that will give you a powerful hit of nostalgic pleasure faster than a Kool Aid Jammer on a July afternoon. Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? You know, those fantastically easy-to-read, participatory paperbacks that zipped off your school library shelves faster than the latest installation in the Babysitters' Club series? Teachers never used to allow Choose Your Own Adventure books to count for "official" assignments like novel studies or even silent reading time. But we loved them just the same, especially since they only took about twenty minutes to read. They took longer if you didn't catch on to what page number the "page of instant and horrible death" was in the particular book you were reading. You remember what I'm talking about: you'd proceed through three or four choices, your character's situation gradually becoming more dire, when suddenly you'd come to a page that said something like: "Turn to page 72 if you choose to run away from the lion. Turn to page 36 if you choose to confront the lion." If you chose to turn to page 36 you would read that you had suffered a terrible demise. After reading that, if you were a smart cookie, you knew that any time the book offered you the choice of turning to page 36, it would be wisest not to do so. Then it was never much longer before you successfully completed your character's mission.

If you have fond memories of Choose Your Own Adventure books like I do, you'll be happy to find out that the series' publisher (the creatively titled Chooseco corporation) rereleased many of the series classic titles this spring, including Abominable Snowman, Secret of the Ninja, Lost Jewels of the Nabooti and many more.

If you are one of the few and the proud who can say that you've read all 184 Choose Your Own Adventure books published between 1979 and 1998, then you can check out the new A Date with Destiny Adventure series, which are Choose Your Own Adventure-inspired books written for adults and include such titles as Night of a Thousand Boyfriends and Escape from Fire Island!

I'll have more summer reading suggestions in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, try pulling out one of these books on the bus on your next commute to work. It's not summer yet, but who cares? Have fun. Just beware of page 36.

Pour Some Sugar on Me

It recently came to my attention that my most favourite 1980s hair-metal band, Def Leppard, has formed an unholy alliance with Journey for their upcoming tour this summer. No way! Way! Pretty friggin' sweet, if you ask me. I can't imagine a concert tour more jam-packed with power chords, guitar kicks, and earnest, bare-chested, bandanna-ed balladeering than this one. Sadly, they will not be making a stop in Toronto--for once, Buffalo has one-upped us on something. Talk about bringin' on the heartbreak.

Anyway...I'm not too devastated about it because I've been to see Def Leppard in concert in Toronto twice. Go ahead, mock me. I'm cool with it. I earned my serious concert cred as a teenager, delirious from sunstroke or caught up in a bone-crushing mosh pit at Molson Park, taking in then-unheard of Canadian bands like the Tea Party, Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and Big Sugar. I've since dropped all pretense of being a hip concertgoer. Now, it's all about listening to my inner cheeseball. Life's too short to deny my retro-pop instincts. Besides, to their credit, Def Leppard puts on a truly kick-ass show. And it's kind of nice to be among the youngest members of a concert audience for a change.

I'll finish off this post with a link to the band's offical site (where, under Vivian's Diary, you can read his latest entry titled "My Pet Monkey") as well as a sampling of some of Def Leppard's more surreal lyrics. These guys know how to wail.

"Love is like a bomb, baby, c'mon get it on/Livin' like a lover with a radar phone..."

"I'm runnin' with the wind, a shadow in the dust/And like the drivin' rain, yeah/Like the restless rust/I never sleep..."

"It's such a magical mysteria when you get that feelin'/Better start believin'..."

"I'll be your satellite of love"

"Take it, take it, take it from me/I got an itchy finger following me..."

"C'mon Steve..."

W.W.T.Y.D.? (What Would Tina Yothers Do?)

The latest addition to my Amazon wishlist: Being Your Best: Tina Yothers' Guide for Girls.
I can only speculate on the valuable knowledge contained in this volume, but one would hope that there would at least be chapters devoted to eye-rolling, bang-curling and how to cope with your crush on Michael J. Fox (I'm still working on that one). Now that I know this book exists, I'll always wonder how my life would have been different had I possessed the wisdom of Tina Yothers in convenient paperback form during my adolescent years. Back to the future, indeed.

Why Does PE Suck?

On a brief surf through the blogosphere this evening, I came across this post, authored by one britbrat, that succinctly summarises the reasons why PE (or phys. ed., as Canadians are more likely to call it) sucks. All I've got to say is, I hear that, sister. Nice to know some things never change.

My MTV: Tiara Girls

As should be evident from previous posts dedicated to MADE and 8th and Ocean, when it comes to MTV, I'm an easy customer to please. I'll lap up pretty much any reality show they toss my way. So this week I gave the new MTV series, Tiara Girls a test run. Sadly, I think my favourite network has let the rhinestone-encrusted crown slip a little on this one. This show falls so much short of MTV's usual sassy standards that I doubt I'll be able to eke out a two paragraph blog about it. But, this being a slow night, I'll give it a try.

I think Tiara Girls was doomed from the start for the reason that beauty pageants make too easy targets for the kind of pseudo-satirical/pseudo-documentary teen reality shows we've come to expect from MTV with shows like MADE and Super Sweet Sixteen. We know that pageants are weird. We can conjecture that the surreal sub-cultures in which they flourish are disturbingly bizarre. We expect that teenage girls competing in pageants are going be spouting off the kind of anti-feminist remarks that would earn them a lot of furrowed brows and angry headshakes if they were appearing on Oprah. So when we see all these easily-anticipated elements come together on an episode of Tiara Girls, the result is just...yawn.

Maybe it's just that I personally find pageants unexciting. Growing up in Canada, it seemed pretty clear that pageants were a foreign phenomenon, and they didn't really hold all that much fascination for me (I was too busy idolizing Elizabeth Manley). These days, I find them to be one of the most tired feminist bad objects out there. Whether the world keeps turning with or without pageants doesn't really matter--either way, 99.9% of its problems are still going to go on unsolved.

Despite my negative review, I'm not really saddened by the lack-lustre appeal of Tiara Girls. This just means I'll have more time to keep up with my other MTV favourites. Really, my TV viewing schedule was getting packed as it was, especially having to fit various play-off games in. If you get a chance to check the show out, give it a try and tell me what I'm missing. Or not. It's really not as fun as MTV should be.

The DL on the DQ

You'd think that living in the greatest dairy state in the U.S.A. for almost five years would have made me something of an ice cream connoisseur. I have indeed sampled some impressive ice creams and frozen custards in Wisconsin, including Michael's, Culver's, Schoep's, Chocolate Shoppe and, the pride of UW-Madison, Babcock Hall Dairy. The shocking truth is, however, that despite living in this land of plenty, my very favourite ice cream is still Dairy Queen soft serve. It's just such a classic, from its dependable vanilla flavour to its easy-to-eat consistency. You can dress it up with hot fudge sauce or dip it in a candy shell (with respect to dipped cones, I always went for the butterscotch, until I discovered the glorious new horizon of cherry--the shell is red and fantastically tasty, however there is nothing remotely cherry-like about it). Or you can go the purist route and just eat it plain. No matter how you order it, the DQ soft serve never fails to please.

I'm not sure how DQ soft serve ice cream is made, but I will hypothesize that involves vast quantities of prepackaged mixes of one kind or another. Then, of course, there's the machine that produces it, a marvel of mid-twentieth century mechanics if ever there was one. There is always a bit of excitement involved with the "pouring" of the ice cream onto the cone. Sometimes an inexperienced soft serve artisan will pour the cone at a dangerous angle, or panic the moment they have to perform that virtuouso twist of the wrist that finishes it off. It probably takes a little practice to get that wrist twist right. But it's worth doing well, and of course it's so much more sophisticated than just scooping ice cream out of a tub.

Despite my research efforts, I was unable to find out who the original Dairy Queen was or where she hailed from. I did learn that DQ has been around since 1940, that there are now DQs in 21 countries on 6 continents, that DQ and Orange Julius belong to the same parent company, and that ordering a large chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard will run you about 1320 calories.

I can't be the only person out there who is staunchly devoted to DQ soft serve. It's not just a cool treat, but the coolest treat around. Actually, I just like using the word "treat." Anyway, for another testament to the greatness of this ice cream institution, check out Parker Posey's brilliant performance as Libby Mae Brown in Waiting for Guffman: "I'll always have a place at the DQ."