MONDAY 14
Last night Hollyweird was out in full force for the GLITZ! The GLAMOUR! And the GASTROINTESTINAL DISTRESS of the Golden Globes! Here are the highlights: Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler killed it, turning award show chicken shit into something akin to chicken salad. It was also a great night for cut-aways, especially when Globe winner Adele feigned surprise at winning her award, and the camera cut to relationship murderer Taylor Swift's amazing smirk/sneer that practically cried out, "Why do you fucking lie, you fucking lying bitch." Then there was N-word loving director Quentin Tarantino who—surprise!—used the N-word when talking to reporters backstage about his flagrant use of the N-word. Directly following Tarantino was House of Lies' actor Don Cheadle who told reporters, "Please no N-word questions—though black people questions are alright." But the most memorable moment of the night was delivered by actress Jodie Foster, who, after winning the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award went on a rambling, inspiring, bewildering rant in which she kind of came out as a lesbian (but not really), and kind of announced her retirement (again, not really). She also asked the public, and particularly entertainment reporters, to do a better job of respecting the privacy of celebrities—which we promise to do starting right now. (Not really. See how it feels, Jodie?)
TUESDAY 15
If you ever find yourself in trouble with the law, follow this simple advice: Whatever Lindsay Lohan does, do the polar opposite. As you certainly recall, her fantastic L.A.-based lawyer Shawn Holley has pulled LiLo's fat out of the legal fire so many times, she should wear oven mitts. So how do you reward such a great defender? Well, in Lindsay's case you FIRE HER. According to TMZ, Holley received a Lindsay-signed letter this morning from the troubled star's NYC lawyer Mark Heller saying that he would forthwith be representing her in all criminal matters—which might have been okay, had Lindsay not also been due in a Los Angeles court TODAY. (Naturally, instead of being in court, she's currently in ENGLAND kissing up to the parents of boy band hunk/possible boyfriend Max George—probably because she's an idiot?) Luckily for Lindsay, lawyer Holley showed up in court for her anyway, entering a plea of "not guilty" for the missing actress who was being charged with a parole violation. Now Lindsay's yelping, "Oh, I didn't fire you—my other lawyer sent that letter by mistake"... even though, as mentioned earlier, IT HAD YOUR SIGNATURE ON IT, LINDSAY!! And furthermore... POP!! (Gack! We think we just blew a blood vessel in our brain.)
WEDNESDAY 16
Speaking of things that make our head hurt, sports site Deadspin.com reported today that the dead girlfriend of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o kind of, sort of, doesn't really... you know... exist. The Fighting Irish linebacker made national news after attributing his excellent gameplay to the recent deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend Lennay Kekua—who had supposedly died of leukemia. However, after receiving an anonymous tip, Deadspin discovered that there was no record of the girlfriend ever existing, leading the university to release the following statement: "Manti had been the victim of what appears to be an [internet] hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia." This doesn't jibe with Te'o's previous statements, in which he claimed to have met his online girlfriend in person at least twice—but now he says this was a lie he told for his father's benefit, who wouldn't have accepted a purely "online" relationship. To make matters even more confusing, Te'o claims that after he learned she was supposedly dead, the supposedly dead girlfriend called him in early December saying—surprise!—she wasn't supposedly dead at all, and that she was actually super duper ALIVE... though Te'o continued to refer to imaginary girlfriend as deceased, and... POP! OUCH!! (There goes another brain vessel! C'mon!! We've only got so many of them, ya know!)
THURSDAY 17
Oh, our poor brain! We're not sure how much more of this we can take... but here we go. According to The Sun, fabulously wealthy/annoying parents Beyonce and Jay-Z spent a whopping $200,000 on daughter Blue Ivy's first birthday celebration, because... we don't know... they're insane?? Allegedly, $95,000 was spent on pink and white roses, $30,000 went to princess costumes and jewelry for the child guests, while it cost $80,000 for Blue Ivy's primary gift... a diamond encrusted Barbie doll. FOR A ONE-YEAR OLD!?!? Hold on... well, how about that? Not a single blood vessel popped that time. We must be getting... POP! (God damn it.)
FRIDAY 18
Justin Bieber... not guilty! Well, okay, fine—he's guilty of being an obnoxious little twerp, but he isn't responsible for Stacy Betts' hearing damage! Hooray? Last summer, TMZ reports, Betts filed a lawsuit against Das Biebs, "claiming she attended a concert with her daughter in 2010—and Bieber incited the crowd to such a frenzy [that] the volume of the screams gave her permanent ear damage." Betts was asking for $9 million in damages... but today she realized she couldn't find a lawyer to take her case, thus letting Bieber off the hook. Looks like all of those bribery checks Bieber's been paying the American Bar Association finally paid off.
SATURDAY 19
It's Jan. 19—otherwise known as "Gun Appreciation Day"! "Organizers encouraged gun-rights supporters to 'send a message' to President Obama two days before his second inauguration by 'lining up around the block' at gun shops, ranges and shows with a copy of the Constitution, U.S. flags and 'Hands off my Guns' signs," reported the grammatically challenged Fox News. "Only a few dozen turned out in South Dakota and a few hundred in Boise, Idaho. But some 2,000 turned out in New York and large crowds also rallied in Connecticut, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington state." After the Newtown tragedy and recent mass shootings in Colorado and Oregon, Gun Appreciation Day was designed to prove that guns aren't all bad, despite, you know... all those dead first graders. It was a rousing success—OH, WAIT. THIS JUST IN. "At least five people—three in North Carolina, one in Indiana, and one in Ohio—were injured after weapons went off at gun shows on Saturday," says CNN. In North Carolina, a man accidentally discharged his 12-gauge shotgun, injuring three; in Ohio, a man was in stable condition "after being shot by his business partner"; and in Indianapolis, "a man walking out of the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show shot himself in the hand as he was loading his .45 caliber semi-automatic firearm." Would it be insensitive to say that despite this year's disastrous showing, we really, really hope America's infantile gun nuts continue to have Gun Appreciation Day? A few more years of events like these, and we won't even need to debate Obama and Biden's sensible gun control initiatives—Darwin will have taken care of the problem for us.
SUNDAY 20
Walter Kirn—who wrote the book that the movie Up in the Air (starring George Clooney) was based on—just gave an interview to Vulture, which we mention only because Kirn is pals with Val Kilmer... and Kirn dropped this amazing factoid! "[Kilmer's] real ambition, and what he's putting all his time and money into—and this is no joke, because he's good at it—is to be this generation's preeminent Mark Twain impersonator.... He's developed a show that he puts on somewhat spottily and informally around Los Angeles, where he wears $3,000 worth of prosthetic makeup, and he's actually awesome at it. He wants to make the same kind of transformation that he did with Jim Morrison when he did The Doors. And as a friend, I think if he could just get a grip on his flakiness, he could really make a splash with this. It sounds a little eccentric [What? No! —Ann], but he's got a lot of material, because it's not just old Twain, it's the drunken, sad, regretful, pensive character that we're not used to." MEANWHILE, ON TWITTER... Kilmer promptly posted several dramatic pictures of himself in extensive and convincing Mark Twain makeup, adding phrases like "Last make up test for Twain," "Learnin' my lines," and a casual, "I was researching out greatest orators for Mark Twain...." This, dears, is the best celebrity news story of 2013, and—aside from a public Kilmer-as-Twain performance, or perhaps a 3D re-release of Top Gun with Kilmer's Twain green screened over his "Iceman" character—we'd love to see anyone try to top it. Bring it on, Hollyweird. We're your Huckleberry.