loser of the week part five

LOSER OF THE WEEK

If writing this column has taught me anything, it is that there is no one so tragic as a minor celebrity whose dubious stardom is largely dependent on another with whom they are associated. Bobby Brown is of course a sterling example and several other Losers of the Week have side-kicks (Haylie Duff, Katie Holmes, Jackie O etc) who might well be judged the greater loser, all things considered. This week’s awardee, however, might be said to be the Patron Saint of Parasitic Celebrity. I’m talking about the least talented member of pop music’s most famous family (not counting the couple who actually have never recorded anything): La Toya Jackson.

La Toya, or ‘Toy’ as she recently rebranded herself (since DJs were unlikely to play records knowing they were by her) has many attributes that make her a classic celebrity Loser. She’s had so much surgery that awfulplasticsurgery.com can’t locate a picture of her that predates rhinoplasty, and she boasts a tan to make Donatella Versace look pale. She’s appeared in a Playboy spread (scarily enough, one of the highest selling editions ever), hosted a psychic hotline (which she now admits was phoney – surprise!) and gotten herself into severe debt after reneging on a contract with a venue that was actually foolhardy enough to want to book her for a year.

What really makes La Toya Jackson such an overwhelmingly worthy winner of Loser of the Week, however, is her blatant hypocrisy. If bitching to anyone will listen about her family will get her some attention, then La Toya has plenty of tales to tell. Her autobiography Growing Up in The Jackson Family accused her father of abuse. Later she ventured her opinion that the allegations against Michael were true.

None of this ill-feeling was anywhere to be seen during the trial, however. Indeed, a much reported image is of a member of the Jackson family rolling down a limo window to wave triumphantly at fans and press immediately after the not guilty verdict was handed down. Unsurprisingly, it was the Jackson with a new album to promote. As her official website so tastefully states: “This means that I am not the only person 'Startin' Over' - Michael is now STARTING OVER as well.”

Bet you can’t guess what her album is called…

weasel part two

Well, haven't I been slack! This column may be the last weasel, as the editor of the mag it appears in has left. A waiting to see if I get asked to keep it going by her successor, but who knows...

(again, forgive caps...)

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WEASEL: POP WITH BITE

There is something reassuring about the revival of MARIAH CAREY’S chart fortunes, even if her music is the same tiresome MOR R’n’B-Lite it always was. Perhaps it’s just that, with her career spanning from her 1989 self titled debut, her presence at the top of the charts (with ‘We Belong Together’, which has created a new record for most spins on US radio in one week and the atrociously named album ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’ which has cleared a good three million copies in the US and is a bonafide hit the world around) makes me feel somehow younger.

Apparently, though, terrorists are to blame for Mariah’s former woes. “‘Glitter’ was ahead of its time – today it's 'in' to make 80's music," Carey told mariahdaily.com, adding: "But the timing was bad - I released it around September 11, 2001. The talk shows needed something to distract from 9/11. I became a punching bag. I was so successful that they tore me down because my album was at number 2 instead of number 1." If the attacks on London didn’t have you cursing Al Qaeda, surely this miscarriage of justice will. I bet Osama Bin Laden personally intervened to make ‘Glitter’ the worst film ever made (OK, second after MADONNA’S ‘Swept Away’) and thus ensure its soundtrack tanked. Fiendish.

Closer to home, former BARDOT figurine TIFFANI WOOD is blaming a more conventional fiend for the failure of her last solo effort (’What RU Waiting For’ – which her website nonetheless refers to as “SO inspiring”). Yep, she’s breaking out the good old ‘my nasty record company tried to mould me into something I’m not’ excuse. However, unlike fellow whiner KELLY OSBOURNE (whose disturbingly titled second album ‘Sleeping In The Nothing’ was largely co-written with P!NK and CHRISTINA AGUILERA song-writer Linda Perry) she at least had the decency to emerge on an independent label with her rock-infused new single ‘Devil In Your Soul’ (which is “about what happens in the music industry when trying to be someone you're not”). Of course, a cynic might say that her new found indie status isn’t simply the influence of her flatmate, Idol star CHANEL ‘Ricki-Lee got a single out so what about me’ COLE, but a lack of other options. Still, what really matters is the music. And yes, it’s shit. Sample lyric: “Headlines appear, you’re the next big thing / Keepin' the glory for yourself cause you sucked 'em in.”

Still, no one can quite challenge GERI HALLIWELL for the title of most tragically washed up former girl band ‘singer’. Her new album, ‘Passion’, which has inexplicably garnered a release in Australia, has proven as popular in the UK as dressing on VICTORIA BECKHAM’S salad (her anniversary meal in Singapore recently apparently consisted of steamed lobster, salad and a slice of pineapple for dessert, with a directive to staff that there be no “oil, fat or butter in my food"). ‘Passion’ sold a meagre five thousand copies in its first week in Britain and I’m guessing it’s sold at least three or four more here. She only has to clear another 140,000 to match the UK sales of the less successful of her previous albums (2002’s ‘Scream If You Wanna Go Faster’), and I’m sure the album will rebound after having dropped out of the top 100 in its second week. Just like I’m sure KEVIN FEDERLINE will get up to change nappies in the middle of the night.

Not to worry. I’m sure Geri can blame it all on a global terrorist conspiracy. Or MEL B. Whatever.

loser of the week part four

It seems that this column might actually have some sort of following. The mag it appears in told me that they had a competition which required readers to send in their favourite article and that most of the entries sent in copies of Loser of the Week. Of course, since it was the one about Kyle Sandilands, I'm thinking maybe hatred for the subject had a little bit to do with it...

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LOSER OF THE WEEK

“Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me, why won’t they just let me live?” asked Bobby Brown on his break-out hit ‘My Prerogative’. Not content with the publicity that has surrounded his decade-plus marriage to pop queen Whitney Houston, the former New Edition band member and briefly successful solo star, has become another victim of this year’s most devastating illness: the Celebrity Reality TV Show Bug. The symptoms of this illness include delusion, shaky camera-work and frantic self-justification.

Naturally, the critics are raving! The bile reserved for Being Bobby Brown seems extraordinary given the competition it has in the vying for the prize of ‘Top Thing To Shoot The Osbournes For’ from Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, Chasing Farrah and Kelly Osbourne’s second album. One critic called it “undoubtedly the most disgusting and execrable series ever to ooze its way onto television”, and another suggested it “almost makes Britney and Kevin's show look deep and revealing”.

Yes, even Britney Spears’ freeloading ‘love rat’ of a husband can look down on Bobby, who in recent years has managed arrests for child support avoidance, drunk driving, assault, and for abusing Houston, who herself cops a serve from commentators for her role in this schmozzle. “Houston seems to enjoy a love-hate relationship with the rest of the world,” notes the Boston Herald’s Mark A. Perigard, “She loves herself and hates the world.”

It is hard to understand why Brown wants to expose the world to his charming behaviour (such as asking Houston “Do you think I can impregnate you tonight?" within ear-shot of their twelve year old daughter), but besides the obvious blinding egotism (this is a man who has a son called Bobby Jnr and a daughter called Bobbi Kristina), another motivation was revealed by Brown himself, who said in an interview that the presence of cameras was helping him avoid drugs. Within a few days of that interview, members of his posse were stabbed in a fight at an Atlanta restaurant, and the following week a judge issued an arrest warrant after Brown skipped a child support hearing.

As he once said in song (‘Don’t Be Cruel’), “You just keep on actin' just like a fool / You know it ain't cool.” Bobby Brown is more than a fool, he’s Loser of the Week.

loser of the week part three (and a bit of what I thought of revenge of the sith)

Hmm, I tried to do something a little different here. Not sure it really worked, but I like the idea behind it at least.

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LOSER OF THE WEEK

Revenge of the Sith, which I finally saw after therapy to erase my memories of the horror that was Attack of the Clones, was much as I expected, with FX that started to annoy more than impress, and acting that made me view group devised experimental theatre with relative sympathy. However, this is not a StarWars review, and it was not the movie in isolation that got me thinking, but reading the details of the revelations in Mark Latham’s new book when I got home.

As a friend observed, Loner becomes Loser quite easily, and as I read over the snippets of Latham’s attacks on Kim Beazley, Bob Carr, Peter Beattie and the ALP in general, I couldn’t help thinking of the scene where the newly anointed Lord Vader lies limbless and screaming next to a volcanic pit. Just as Vader supposedly betrayed the Jedis for the sake of his family, Latham supposedly quit as ALP leader because he wanted to preserve his health for the sake of his family, but Latham’s eagerness to spill his guts with a book deal as soon as possible suggests that he too was tempted by the sheer pull of the dark side.

This is not to say that none of Latham’s criticisms are valid, of course, but I do think I’d find him less repulsive if he didn’t try and hold the moral high ground about the party being “run by conservative machine men”, when he was so clearly one of them himself. For all Latham’s posturing about his intellect and new ideas, he was a Labor hack through and through and is totally deserving of the distaste, or, better still, disinterest, his book will be greeted with.

At least Darth Vader comes out of it all with a snappy outfit. Mark Latham, you couldn’t be more deserving of being Loser of the Week if you were being played on screen by Hayden Christensen.

how left wing am I?

I am: 1% Republican.

"You're a complete liberal, utterly without a trace of Republicanism. Your strength is as the strength of ten because your heart is pure. (You hope.)"

Are You A Republican?

Now you know my terrible bias...

[http://paulkienitz.net/republican.html]

batman begins

It's been quite a blockbuster movie-going week for me this week. After Star Wars came the Batman prequel, which was similarly silly in dialogue (especially if you imagined Katie Holmes' lines being directed at Tom Cruise instead of Christian Bale) but somewhat more enjoyable in general.

What I really liked was the way it neatly lined up with the first Batman film (well, of the previous cycle - there wasn't a lot in common with the campy Sixties version), both in terms of plot (I won't elaborate, since there may be those amongst you who have yet to see this who actually want to, unlike StarWars) and in terms of the very Michael Keaton esque performance Bale gives. I really enjoyed him as Batman, but I did find it hard to believe that he and Homes (who was also decent, despite that annoying half-her-face-collapsing facial tic she has when she smiles) were close in age (as they were shown as kids who were at most 2 years apart). Of course I was then surprised to find out that doe-eyed Holmes is actually 26 and Bale a mere 31 (he looks more like 35, albeit a sexy 35).

I also liked the overall darkness of the film - it was far more Tim Burton-esque than Joel Schumacher-esque, at any rate. I look forward to seeing what they actually do with the enxt installment (which we all know is coming) - a remake of the 1989 film? A fast forward to after Batman and Robin (did anyone else notice the cameo appearance of the small child who is obviously lined up to become Robin? Sorry, but its only a small spolier, I promise)?

Others have said that the 911 symbolism in the film (yes, it is there in a big way) was especially tired, but I actually thought it played on the question of whether Gotham is New York (if my memory serves me rightly, Batman was actually set in New York originally... I shall ask my Batman-obsessed English postgraduate friend for a more in depth analysis) rather well. Admittedly, the centrality of Wayne Tower and its targetting by the terrorists intent on the destruction of corrupt Western civilisation was a bit irritating, but with War of The Worlds (join the boycott!!) coming, we had better get used to it. There no longer is sucha thing as an action-adventure film which doesn't reference September Eleven. How would the filmmakers avoid it even if they wanted to?

Lastly, I'd just like to note that seeing Batman Begins right after Star Wars is all the more amusing for the fact that Yoda tells Obi-Wan that Qui-Gon, his own Jedi master, has found a form of immortality. With Liam Neeson in essentially the same role at the beginning of Batman, it seems he has found, if not immortality, then a new franchise at the very least.