A Guilty Pleasure

Do any of you girls watch the Bachelor?? Well I am not ashamed to say that I do. I don't watch a lot of TV anymore, but when I do, I thoroughly enjoy watching TV of the trashy variety. 

(some of my trashy favorites, clockwise from top left Real HW of BH, Toddlers & Tiaras, The Bachelor, Khloe & Lamar, Teen Mom, Jersey Shore)

Check out this article from the Huffington Post: 'The Bachelor': Why Smart Women Watch (and Love) It

Emma Gray

Assistant Editor, HuffPost Women & HuffPost Parents

Confession time: I watched "The Bachelor" ... and I liked it. I've been hopelessly and unfortunately trapped in the series' web of tears, overly-earnest declarations of love and tacky dresses -- and I'm far from alone.

I'm a relatively new devotee to this cultural phenomenon, which first hit the small screen in 2002, and has spanned spin-offs "The Bachelorette" (2003) and"Bachelor Pad" (2010). After avoiding the franchise successfully for nine years, I was invited to a viewing party by some women that I worked with during Ashley Hebert's season of "The Bachelorette," last May. I was officially hooked, following Ashley through her engagement to JP Rosenbaum, watching all 18 "Bachelor Pad" contestants simultaneously self-destruct and now I'm knee deep in white wine tears on "The Bachelor" -- despite the glaring fact that each of the three series is objectively horrendous. (If you look up "trash television" in the dictionary, you'll probably find former contestant Jake Pavelka's beady eyes staring back at you.)

Most of my peers have a love-hate relationship with "The Bachelor" -- specifically, we hate that we love it. The underlying messages of the show are beyond terrible. We're essentially told that all women in their twenties should be desperately searching for a man to marry (most of the 30-something bachelorettes are portrayed as a particular breed of desperate), and that women are, in general, complete and utter nutjobs (see Melissa Schreiber, Vienna Girardi and of course blogger Jenna Burke). Although, of course, this only applies to white women, as people of color rarely -- if ever -- get cast. Every single one of this season's 25 finalists is white ... or spray tan orange.

Yet even knowing all of these things, season after season, droves of intelligent, successful women come back to ABC and host Chris Harrison for more. In the words of "Brokeback Mountain's" Jack: "I just can't quit you." So why do we do it to ourselves? Is it just pure masochism, or is there something else at play?

Everyone Loves A Good Train Wreck 
I'm not proud of this, but there's just something inherently appealing about watching a human being get too drunk, burst into fake tears, and generally embody the term "hot mess." I think it's probably related to the morbid curiosity that impels people to slow down in the middle of the interstate to get a good long look. Watching the women of "The Bachelor" cry in bathroom stalls, discuss their burgeoning careers as VIP cocktail waitresses and dental consultants, and threaten to physically harm each other over a man they barely know, is alternately horrifying and captivating.

It's A Safe Outlet For Our Frustrations
Mondays are hard. Maybe you had a terrible weekend and are still feeling a little under the weather, maybe you had a crappy day at work, maybe your roommate is getting on your nerves or maybe you're just pissed off for no reason at all. Want a safe way to let out your anger without being hurtful to your loved ones? Enter "The Bachelor."

Last week I attended a "Bachelor"-viewing party (aka six women in a room drinking wine and ordering Indian food). Most of the women I've spoken with who watch the show also tend to watch with their female friends. "It's a bonding experience!" said my co-worker, Amanda. "My favorite thing about watching 'The Bachelor' is being able to talk about all the drama with friends during and after the episode." This bonding experience primarily consists of critiquing the contestants' outfits (far too many, too-tight, cut-out dresses), words (how many times in a two-hour period can key phrases "genuine," "journey," "real love" and "connection" be used?), and actions (so many tears and so much backstabbing).

Let me emphasize that most of the women I know are kind and thoughtful people who go out of their way to compliment their female friends, and are very hesitant to talk about other women behind their backs. But we all seem to have come to a tacit agreement that the fact that Ben Flajnik's prospects put themselves on national television makes them fair game. Former finalist Michelle Money, even admitted on "Ellen," "I think anyone is crazy who voluntarily goes on 'The Bachelor.'" Plus -- the women on the show are 10 times more awful to each other than we could ever be as viewers ("bitch," "slut," "clinger" and "cougar" are only a selection of names that the finalists threw at one another during the Jan. 9 episode). And lest you think that Bachelor Ben got off easy, he got his fair share of criticism as well. "He has a dumb-looking face," muttered a friend of mine as he came on-screen.

"Bachelor" Love Is So Fake (And Warped) That It Makes Us Grateful For The (Oft-Painful) Real Thing
Although most educated adults realize by now that "reality" television is highly constructed, that idea has never been more obvious than on a show that manufactures "true love." (My co-worker Jess even commented that "The Bachelor" was far less realistic than "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" -- and that says a lot.) In what world are we supposed to believe that 25 random girls would all fall madly in love with one dopey dude (and in a matter of hours)?

While it's fun to watch all of the uber-cheesy, romance-laden dates unfold on television, the reality of sitting in an empty theater with a practical stranger watching my old baby videos (an actual date that occurred on last week's episode) sounds more uncomfortable than anything. Watching makes us glad we date off-screen, in a world where we will never meet a man by riding in on a white horse or get dumped on a glacier.

We also get to revel in the fact that none of us would go to such lengths to impress a man. Tell another woman you'll cut her face off? Nope. Leave your PhD program to move across the country to a small town? Not even if Ryan Gosling showed up in a limo holding a boom box over his head with two dozen roses and said "You're the one." (Well, maybe for Ryan Gosling ...)

Plus, if there were ever a reason to fully let go of the Prince Charming fantasy that shows like "The Bachelor" attempt to play upon, just look at the numbers. Of all of the couples "magically" brought together on the franchise, only three are still together -- one being Ashley and JP who have yet to reach the year mark of their engagement. Most of us would rather brave the uncomfortable waters of meeting people in bars, through friends or on OKCupid than cut down other women on national television, or snag a man and then be publicly dumped -- details of the whole messy affair splashed across the tabloids.

So instead of taking "The Bachelor" franchise too seriously or using it as any kind of model for our own conduct, we take from it exactly what it can give us -- an escape from our daily lives, a reason to appreciate our real, imperfect romances, and an excuse to drink wine on a Monday night ... sans tears.

Graphic Novel Review: X-Men – With Great Power

My favorite superhero is Spider-man, it’s been that way since I was a kid, and it hasn’t changed all that much as an adult. I probably first discovered him in a combination of the Electric Company and through repeats of the ‘60s cartoon. Eventually I’d follow his exploits in Spider-man and His Amazing Friends.



I followed his exploits in comics, wherein he was married to MJ and fought the likes of Venom and was nearly killed in Kraven’s Last Hunt, though in my teens my taste moved more towards the X-Men (probably due to their outcast status and much more soap-opera stories featuring a wide cast of characters). My eventual disgust with the X-Men (jumping the shark around Onslaught) led to my fallout with coming reading in general, and even after my return I’ve struggled to find books featuring them that I enjoy, and in Spider-man’s case it’s made worse by the fact that he’s been retconned into having never been married to MJ.



 But, I was excited when a new X-Men book was introduced. It sounded like an attempt to be a self contained comic, not requiring you to know the intricacies of the various characters and all their backstories. I read the first volume, which was not without its faults (including the fact that it assumed you did know who a lot of the characters were), but I was even more intrigued by the second volume since it featured both Spider-man and my favorite of his villains – the Lizard. The X-Men are trying to do some PR for mutant-kind, by showing they can be helpful and are not to be feared.



When a menace that’s not big enough to get noticed by the likes of the Avengers comes to their attention, Cyclops sends a team led by Storm to investigate the disappearances of children in a New York City neighborhood. The team, which includes Wolverine, Gambit and Emma Frost, wind up in the sewers pursuing lizard-like creatures – running into Spider-man who has been following up on his friend/adversary Dr. Conners ever since his Lizard persona took over and drove him into hiding. In the sewers they’ll discover what happened to the Lizard, and his connection to an old foe of the X-Men, and a plot to turn these disaffected children into an army of lizard-creatures. And if that’s not difficult enough for our heroes (because who wants to fight a bunch of kids that don’t realize what they’re doing), some of the team gets affected as well – turning them against one another.



 I haven’t always loved Chris Bachalo’s art, and it’s something that a lot of people can’t stand, but I have to say I was totally into it in this comic. His comics look like comics, with dynamic poses and at times almost cartoonish character movements. Emma Frost may be the real star of this book, she’s kind of a high society gal who’s been forced to work in the sewers alongside Spider-man, whose wit is far too banal for her tastes. So of course, the two of them wind up as the only ones left who can save the day. Like other recent TPB reviews, this collection includes a random issue as well – not falling within the story-line described above. It’s much better thought of as the epilogue to the story from vol 1 of this new X-Men title. That’s not to say it’s bad, it just didn’t fit in here at all. Someone randomly picking up this book would have no idea what this issue is doing here. It belongs as part of vol 1, and if they’re rushing these TPB collections out too fast to include all the pertinent issues together than maybe Marvel ought to rethink its “waiting for trade” strategy. Nevertheless, as an X-Men/Spider-man story for this former fan of both, I felt With Great Power worked really well and I very much enjoyed the ride.

Is Online Piracy About Theft-- or Inertia?

It's funny how life offers up little bits of synchronicity every now and then. I had been musing on a topic for the blog that centered on the idea of playing it safe when I can across the trailer for Jason Statham's upcoming movie Safe. Sometimes these things write themselves.



The obvious reason that Statham's new movie would play into my blog topic is because he is, once again, cast as the lead in an action flick. I don't object to that; I think Statham is a great action star. But according to Hollywood (I use the town as a generic term to refer to the mainstream entertainment industry) that's mostly all Statham is. They've put him in a box that he may never get out of-- though I'd gladly take the paycheck that comes with that particular box.



However, I shouldn't single out Statham. Hollywood is littered with actors that are known for playing a specific type, be it Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise or Will Smith. Sometimes you'll see attempts to break out against type in what I think of as Oscar bait films with varying levels of success but mostly the industry keeps everyone in their safe little boxes and that's that.



So what's the point of all this musing?



I may be stretching here but I think the staleness of the entertainment industry has created an environment that is preventing it from adapting to a new era-- hence the rise of SOPA and PIPA.



If you've been paying any attention you've heard a lot about the bills that have been put forward, and rejected, regarding the pirating of content on the web. This has been a HUGE topic and I think you'd have to live under a rock to not be aware of it. It's a favorite topic on sites like this because it impacts writers as heavily as movie makers and musicians-- maybe more so since authors are not known to bring in the big bucks unless they've reached a pretty significant level of success. I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty as far as the legislation behind SOPA or PIPA goes other than to say that I am against what I view as extremely broad-based regulation that is guaranteed to lead to abuse and censorship.



What interests me about this topic is the reactions I've seen to it across the net. I follow a lot of authors on sites like Twitter and Facebook and have yet to see anyone that supports either bill. But I have read articles online that indicate there is still widespread support for PIPA and SOPA in Hollywood-- at least among the various guilds.



And I get it-- to a point. I understand the desire to protect intellectual property rights. There is a lot of hard work that goes into making a product like a book, a movie or a song. We all know that it isn't just a matter of coming up with an idea and voilà-- instant success. This holds true for any industry. But the question I have is whether the driving force behind the now-shelved (but sure to be resurrected) bills is really about intellectual property?



I'm not, nor have I ever been, a Hollywood insider. But I did work as an associate producer on a television show, a long time ago, and it did give me glimpse into how Hollywood thinks-- and I'm pretty sure that protecting the creative rights of the artist has very little to do with the recent crackdowns of online file-sharing. The television industry is, like any business, all about generating money. Nothing wrong with that. But what does that really mean?



The show I worked on was one of the early reality-television shows (the same kind of show I now abhor) and our show was based on taking real-life video, what you see YouTube nowadays, and we'd do interviews with the people in the video and patch it all together into segments. My job was to interview people for the segments-- a job I loved-- and I became very protective of the people I interviewed. Often these people would be filmed in very tragic circumstances and I felt a duty to protect them from overexposure-- you'd be amazed at the things people will reveal to complete strangers in an interview. I learned early on to never, ever put information into the files that could be too embarrassing or revealing because it almost always ended up on air. I also learned that "tweaking" the story to create an elevated sense of excitement was not off limits: the lawyers were always nearby to advise producers on the legality of using certain content and no small amount of mental gymnastics was regularly involved in the process. I also had some first hand experience with a producer who went on to work on "Big Brother" and her "coaching" techniques for contestants on that show-- but that's another story.



The reason I tell you these anecdotes (and they barely scratch the surface) is to demonstrate the callousness I saw toward the people who provided the raw content for our show. They were essentially a product to be exploited. And, from my point of view, that's an attitude that permeates the industry on all levels. The "talent" we used on the show, the host and reporters, weren't really treated any better than the people I interviewed. They were paid well, but seen as disposable. Heck, that was true of all of us. So when I come across the intellectual rights argument all I see is a semi-factual discussion that is really designed to keep the money flowing to the top.



As I look back on that time I can't help but apply what I experienced then to all of the industries affected by the anti-piracy bills and why we ended up here. First, and foremost, I don't think it can be overstated how much impact changing technology has had. When I worked in Hollywood no one could have envisioned the role the internet now has in the entertainment industry-- and it's clear that the big-money machinery already in place is very slow to adapt. Whether it's web-streaming (legal and otherwise) of popular shows and movies or original content offered as online-only content, there's a lot of competition for market share. Add to that an audience that has seen their paychecks shrink at an alarming rate and the ability to create a pretty awesome home-theater experience and you've got a real uphill battle to get people to the theater.



And what's Hollywood's answer?



As far as I can tell the only thing they've come up with is to fight progress every step of the way. Whether it's stale content in the form of endless sequels and remakes or the attempt to stifle forward the forward progress of streaming providers like Netflix, Hollywood seems determined to keep things exactly the same. Same studios, same actors, same salaries, same scripts etc. etc... Of course I'm simplifying things but I think the premise is basically sound.



What's amazing to me is that Hollywood doesn't seem to understand that the audience is responding to multiple factors when they decide how they're going to consume a certain product. I know that cost is a biggie-- is it worth $25 or more to buy a blu-ray of any modern film? And how often do you take the whole family to the theater these days? If you're like me you probably don't mind waiting three months and spending $1 on a Redbox rental. All I know is that when I see a $20-million-a-film celebrity telling me that I should be worrying about intellectual property rights, I can't help but think that their salary has helped make my movie-going experience really expensive. And if I do decide to spend the money I'm back to questioning whether it's worth it to see another sequel or remake.



But Hollywood is only one industry experiencing growing pains-- as we all know. The publishing industry is fighting their own battle with online piracy and yet they are also excruciatingly slow in addressing complaints over the cost of digital books, citing the costs of editing and promotion as the reason digital copies aren't cheaper. The interesting thing about this is that it has really spurred on the self-publishing industry and after the success I've seen on that front (I personally know one self-published author who made a healthy six-figure paycheck last year) I don't know that the big publishing houses can compete indefinitely. If I can find good quality books at $2.99 or less (and I can) why would I pay $9.99 for a new release?



Another thing the entertainment industry, of all forms, needs to take into account is the audience's ability to rationalize. Most people I know have a healthy code of ethics that prevents them from downloading, but it's obvious from the success of file sharing sites, there are a lot of people who don't feel too bad about taking whatever they can get. Does this mean they're all bad people? Well, maybe. Or maybe they find it really easy to look at the way the various industries are doing business, and who is making the money, and decide that a little larceny isn't a big deal. After all-- it's not our fault that the industry insists on staying in the dark ages...



I know I'm getting long winded here-- and I do apologize. But I think there needs to be a broad-based conversation about online piracy before we even think about passing anything like SOPA or PIPA. A lot of people in the creative community are quick to grasp the possible consequences of such bills-- especially since they're generally not the biggest beneficiaries of the profits anyway. We've already seen incredible innovation on the net and I think we've only begun to explore its potential. We've also seen that there are tons of people out there who will do outrageous things for free on camera for their fifteen minutes of fame-- and before long we're going to see a lot of genuine talent break out on the net and continue to eat into the profits Hollywood is already losing. Self-published authors are already reaping the benefits of distributing their own product and I don't see that trend slowing down anytime soon. Hollywood may think they're playing it safe by trying to protect what they already have-- but I think they're being incredibly short-sighted when it comes to realizing what they could have by investing in innovation instead of wasting their energy on shutting down websites. Fighting progress is nothing but a losing proposition-- I just hope we don't up the biggest losers of all.

25 January 12

Hey Sporty Girls!

Here are some great coupons for Footlocker and Lady Footlocker!


Just sharing the love.....


Foot Locker
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Expires: 2/25/2012
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Lady Foot Locker - Free Shipping off $75
Expires: 2/25/2012
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XOX,

24 January 12

Jeff, driving.

Off to the Drag Show

I belieeeeeeve I have mentioned my obsession with drag queens in the past? Well, my favorite drag show, RuPaul's Drag Race is back on air and my friends and I went to West Hollywood to celebrate. 

Every Monday Micky's Bar premiers the newest episode and then follows it up with an amazing drag show featuring girls from Drag Race past.

I wore my new skirt from Zara. Its like a mullet skirt. Slutty in the front, demure in back. 

You know I love my monster shoes. These are high high high!

(shoes- Jeffrey Campbell, rings- LowLove, David Yurman)

(top- Urban Outfitters, necklace- vintage) 

 My woman, Leah <3 Hi bebe!

And the lovely girls...

So fun!! If you're in the area I highly suggest you make a night of it. And if there are any fabulous queens reading... let's hang out!

XOX-