Body after baby

Poor curvy Jessica Simpson. Come to find out, she's a normal person. Seven months after giving birth, she still looks Rubensque as she strollers around in tunics and hooker platforms. Happy, healthy, and maybe pregnant, I can't help but wonder if she got knocked up again so quickly just so she can bounce on her Weight Watchers deal.

I realize that not everyone's created equal. Gisele, Heidi, Miranda—these freaks of nature were bouncing their newborns off their taut tummies within the first two weeks. Kate Hudson's post-baby abs should get their own credit on Glee.

Bitches all.

I've never given birth but I feel for moms, or any woman for that matter. How are we supposed to explain our pooch—be it from a burrito baby or actual infant—when there are assholes out there showing off their six-pack with their six week old on their hip? Not cool. When celebrimoms grace the cover of US Weekly, claiming their speedy weight loss is due to breast feeding or a high metabolism or good genes, we know you're lying like a rug. You have Jillian Michaels, a nanny, a food delivery service, an impressive collection of Spanx, and possibly a wet nurse tucked away somewhere.

Please, give us a break and give us a chance. Step away from the Pilates Reformer, enjoy your baby, and let us have a moment in the spotlight with our Miraclesuits and jaunty scarves that draw the eye up.

Fuck you, Kristin Cavallari.

(photo: Jessica Alba, four months after giving birth; www.nydailynews.com)

Miley Cyrus's feet

Britney, bless her trashy heart, started it but Miley picked up the baton and is running with it. Barefoot. Like Zola Budd barefoot.

Over and over again, Miley and other teen sensations are scampering around Toluca Lake and Malibu in their bare feet. I love walking around bare foot as much as the next country girl-turned-city slicker, but usually I like walking on grass or sand or my hardwood floors, not on asphalt or stained gas station bathroom linoleum. There's always gonna be another mountain, and you need some proper fucking footwear to climb it.

Slip on some flip flips, dingaling, before I have a real party in the USA and go off on your ass. Don't even get me started about the side boob and dreamcatcher tat. That's a whole tumblr blog waiting to happen.

(photo: knottycelebs.com)

Celebutard authors

Nicole Richie did it. The Sisters Kardashian did too. Snooki, Lauren Conrad, and Teresa Guidice did it more than once.

I’m not talking about making a sex tape.

These dimwits all wrote books. Everyone mentioned above, save Teresa, wrote novels. And by “wrote,” I’m guessing that means they slapped their name on something a publishing intern knocked out.

Don’t you need opposable thumbs to write a book?

These celebs have all added “author” to their multi-hyphenated bios. Well, I’ve got a few choice words that might sum you up: Fame-seeker. Cooch-flasher. Grammar bungler. Low forehead.

Teresa Guidice can’t even string words together with any sort of proper syntax. She’s like Jersey’s version of Yoda. “Kidding me you are?”

And box of hair Snooki is even less believable, not because she’s mostly likely illiterate but because she would never take time out of her GTL regimen to direct her ghostwriter. I see it going something like this: “Um, yeah, let’s write a book—is nonfiction or fiction the one that’s not real?—where there’s a girl who, you know, is DTF with a juicehead she meets at a club. Wait, is that a pickle?”

Fuck yes, I'm mad bitter. Like prescription eyeglasses, let me have this. I’ve never been cool or tan or on a reality show. But I write. I have been published. You can have your reality show, oily bohunk and what will assuredly be an orange baby. Just let me and other writers have our bylines. I may not be a triple threat but I can live quite happily with my multi-hypenate of blogger-author-malcontent.

(Note that I'm talking about a select group of "famous for no reason" celebrities who parlay their celebrity into other products to extend their brand. I love loads of television personalities—Hello, Stacy London!—who bring integrity, wit, expertise, and intelligence to book projects. I'm a niche, not a broad-brushed, hater.)

(photo: celebritychatta.com)

Knighted celebrities

Hey you, with the fancy title and doodad pinned to your chest:

Did you rescue a damsel in distress? Pull a sword out of a stone? Do battle in the name of the crown?

No? What's that, you say? You played a vixen on Dynasty and bear responsibility for introducing shoulder pads to the 1980s? Showed your power by "Stayin' Alive" on the airwaves in 1977? Make expensive handbags only royalty and maybe Oprah can afford?

When Joan Collins, The Brothers Gibb (who really are Knights in White Satin), and Anya Hindmarch are getting knighted, call me a dissenter but it sort of seems like the Queen is handing out Grand Cross stars right and left. Does she pick up the medals in the bulk aisle at Costco?

Sir Bono sounds like a fancy cut of bone-in meat at a steakhouse. Damn—ahem, Dame—Kylie Minogue apparently nabbed the Order of the British Empire for her "services to music." David Beckham, OBE? More like OMG. I think Henry Winkler is the bomb, but I don't see how the "thumbs up" merits a knighthood for the Fonz.

Your Majesty: I know it's fun to have some hip playmates who will show up at state functions wearing inappropriate clothing and serenade you with a rousing rendition of "Can't Get You Outta My Head," but you don't have to buy your way into the cool-kid crowd. Unless one of these celebrities figures out how to slay a dragon—and I'm not talking about kicking a mean drug habit or getting a full sleeve tattoo of Grendel—put down the medals and pick up the phone. I'm sure they'd come for the night.

(photo: blogs.sfweekly.com)

Auto-Tune

I can’t sing. I learned this a long time ago, when folks used to turn around and stare at me during mass when I was trying to rock “Amazing Grace” or “Ave Maria.” My tone-deafness was driven home during high school. Whenever the spring musical rolled around, I was relegated to the chorus or the comic relief cameo—both decidedly non-singing roles—and asked to mouth along to the group numbers.

I had my “come to Jesus” moment about my vocal chords long ago. God blessed me with so many other talents that it’d just be greedy to wish for the voice of Aretha Franklin. And we all know that greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

I accept my shortcomings. So too should singalings like Rebecca Black (who I think may be signaling the end of the world as she reaches new heights of insipidity), Kim Zolciak, and Ke$ha who can’t carry a tune. And shame on folks like Usher, Cher, and wil.i.am, who actually can sing. Back away from the audio processor or I might have to auto-turn my fist toward your voicebox.

Prolific dead people

I see dead people…everywhere.

As if I didn’t already have enough self-loathing, dead people are churning out more stuff than I am. Tupac seems to have a new album of unreleased tracks dropping every other year. Michael Jackson had barely settled into his cryogenic chamber before the posthumous output kicked in. Jeff Buckley and Stieg Larsson didn’t cash in until they checked out. Like another day at the office, the late David Foster Wallace has yet another new book coming out that none of us will be smart enough to understand. In a creepy turn of events, Nat King Cole duetted with his daughter Natalie from beyond the grave, even managing to join her during a live performance. They may have flatlined, but the status quo seems curiously unchanged.

I think I’m a pretty useful member of society. I knock out words, articles, blogs, books. I create. But I’m a sad-ass somnambulant snail compared with these pulseless workaholics. Why do I even try when I’m getting lapped by corpses? Please folks, give it a rest.

Celebrity fragrance

Britney, Jessica, and Mariah keep churning out stinkers, and I’m not talking about their singles. Divas keep littering cosmetic counters with hiddy scents that are not “reminscent of classic Hollywood allure,” like Forever Mariah Carey promises, but rather, call to mind “poorly dressed skank” or “botched boob job.” When we whiff “Fantasy,” are we supposed to forget about Britney’s barefoot excursions to gas station bathrooms, let alone her cooch flashing, head-shaving, paparazzi-attacking antics? Are we supposed to experience a flight of “Fancy” when sniffing the treacly trifle that arbiter of style Jessica Simpson approved between shopping at Fred Segal and getting a French mani? I can smell the marketing bullshit from here, which I guarantee is celebrifree airspace. Even if a scent doesn't induce the gag reflex, do you really want a bottle of Fergie's Outspoken embarrassing your dressing table? Stop putting money in Paris’s low-rise jeans and Jessica's ginormous Louis Vuitton bag and just say no to eau de ho.

(photo: bittenandbound.com)

Regional stereotypes

I once had a friend—a bright guy with a phD—who tried to school me on Middle America. The problem was that he was also an East Coast snot who had never been to the Midwest and maybe not even a red state, unless you want to count a connecting flight through ATL.

I’m from the Midwest and those were my people about whom he was pontificating and, let’s be honest, judging. He needed to put a cork in it, stop thinking he knows it all because he reads the fivethirtyeight blog, and actually book at flight to somewhere that doesn’t come with a coastline.

If I bought into the gross regional stereotypes that abound, I’d believe that:

• San Francisco is only populated with sex-crazed homosexuals in leather chaps and hippies who smell like 1969.
• New Jersey residents are tanning-bed orange goombahs with mob ties.
• The blindingly Caucasian Pac Northwest hugs trees while drinking coffee and wearing Birkenstocks.
• Midwesterners love Jesus, potlucks, and red meat, not necessarily in that order.
• New Englanders are frosty, repressed folks who never met a Polo shirt they didn’t like.
• And, oh yeah, everyone from Texas is a gay-bashing redneck in an F150.

For every yahoo who fits neatly into a stereotype box, there’s another person standing by to debunk the myth. As much as Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives would have us believe that people are cardboard cartoon cutouts, most of us are a lot more interesting and multi-layered than that. I like potlucks AND I hug trees AND I’m curiously drawn to pickup trucks and anything Lacoste. I don’t have leather chaps, but I sure wish I did. The next time you want to judge someone because of where they’re from, just remember: Snookis are people, too (at least I think they are). Don’t hate The Situation for being from Jersey. Hate him for his atrocious performance on Dancing with the Stars, or because he's banking $5 million this year.

What misconceptions do people make about you?

(photo: blogstodiefor.com)

Kristen Stewart’s posture

You’re gorgeous, young, and rich. You’re part of the biggest movie franchise around, save maybe Harry Potter. You have a vampire AND a werewolf fighting over you, for chrissakes. Life, unlike the Volturi, doesn’t suck.

Own it.

Stand up straight.

Every time I see you at an schmancy event, hunched over and rocking back and forth like a rhesus monkey who misses its mom, all I think is “Gollum in lipgloss.”

You’re all moody and shit, equating paparazzi photos of you to images of someone being raped. Newsflash, Bella, you don’t get to be emo in Proenza Schouler. You shouldn’t be pissy while getting oxygen facials, being adored by the world's 15 year olds, and macking on R-Patz.

Take some calcium, hit a Pilates Reformer class, and stop looking like you’re itching to ring the bells of Notre Dame at twilight.

(photo: celebrity-mania.com)

Victoria's Secret

Body by Victoria? Gimme a break. Body by mom, dad, and my trainer. The last time when I was in Vikki’s—someone gave me a gift certificate—every fucking bra was padded. Every. Single. One.

In the black and pink world of Victoria’s Secret, everyone wants bigger boobs. Call it crazy, but some of us don’t. In fact, some of us even have resorted to surgery to knock our knockers down a size or two. Get called Dolly Parton Jr. once in fifth grade and you won’t be wishing for a Body by Dupont anytime soon, Alessandra Ambrosia.

And what happens when the secret is revealed? A hand goes in for the grope as the player gets to second base, only to discover a thick molded barrier and a squishy chicken cutlet. Mmm, appetizing.

Giselle, I’d punch you in the boob but I know it wouldn’t hurt because of your lacy shield so I guess I’m just going to have swap out the cutlets for some rocks and whip you with a real over-the-shoulder boulder holder.

(photo: victoriassecret.com)

THIS…is ah-MER-a-kin idol!

This…drives me BATshit crazy. When Ryan Seacrest announces each Idol episode in the same portentous way, I cringe. A low-rent Dick Clark, Peecrest tries to give AI added import. As if he needs to. We get it. It’s a TV phenom, no question. But it’s not the fight of the century. With four words, this box of hair makes it sound like we are about to watch Jesse Owens take on the entire Third Reich or Oprah cage fight Bill Gates.

We’re not.

We’re about to watch nervous teenagers sing.

Ryan, spend a little more time buying your soul back from the devil and a little less time dragging out the cheesy lead-in to Idol. It’s already full-up on cheese, both tasty and stinky.

Punch in the Face out.

(photo: blog.placesaroundflorida.com)

Ed Hardy clothing

Doode, I already know you’re sporting tats on your arms…and abs…and shoulders (not to mention a spray tan) under that tattooed tee. You don’t need to add another layer of ink blots.

Jon Gosselin used to be the company’s poster douche but his position is being seriously threatened by The Situation and Jersey Shore’s other resident goombahs. When they pull on a studded Christian Audigier abomination to go out creeping, it flat-out creeps me out. It’s as if a dye pack of lameness exploded all over them as they left the surf shop.

Attention, oily bohunks! Wearing Ed Hardy doesn’t wipe out a paste-eating past. Pulling on a tattooed trucker cap is a low-forehead’s sad attempt to be cool. It’s more “tattoo ewwww!” than Tattoo You.

On the bright side, there’s an upshot to all this crap; the garments act as makeshift cotton billboards announcing a tool has just entered the workshop. And they provide lots of targets for my fists.

(photo: herestheproblem.wordpress.com)