The Not So Shocking Death Of Amy Winehouse

So, Amy Winehouse died. Now, I keep reading interviews with people who knew her and I'm a little surprised by the number of times that someone has said, "I am shocked to learn of her death." Really? Shocked? Look, I might have been a lot of things when I heard that she had croaked it, but shocked was not one of them. As far as whether it is sad or not, that's a matter of opinion. I don't know that it's "sad" that someone dies when that death was totally preventable. Sure, it's sad for her family, but is the event itself "sad"? I think that it's more stupid than sad. But I'm sure that will be interpreted as my being insensitive. What else is new? Listen, watch the video of her singing in Serbia (of all places) about a month ago. If it doesn't load, click here. And after watching it, you tell me if you're "shocked" to learn that she died or if you're simply "shocked" that it didn't happen sooner.

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Montauk Monster - Part Deux

I'm confused.

Granted, not the most profound statement you'll hear all day, but it does have merit. After all, I AM confused.

About a year ago (sadly, it has not been longer) I did a post about one named Montauk Monster. Montauk, being where Phoebe's Mom lives and also being where the aptly named Montauk Monster 'washed ashore' or 'was found' or 'was planted'. Your choice. Now, I was under the impression (at the time) that most folks were like me and could spot a see-how-much-publicity-we-can-milk-this-for-stunt a mile away. Apparently, either a) most folks were not like me and/or b) they did not see this as a 'stunt', but rather as an unnamed, unknown creature that had suddenly come to the forefront of that which is unexplained and now needed 'splaining.

That's why I was rather surprised to read today over yonder there at Fox News the headline "'Montauk Monster Mystery May Have Been Solved'. Solved? Solved? There's something to solve? Look, whatever the creature is/was I can guarantee you this, it's not some sort of paranormal activity. It's not a unnatural being. Whatever it is/was, is/was perpetrated by humans. End of story. OH, wait. Enter Fox News. NOT end of story. Crap.

Fox leads with "Some speculated it was an escaped mutant from a government lab. Others thought it was an alien. A few suggested it might be a dog or raccoon." For the record, 'some', 'others' and 'a few' are morons if that's what they actually thought. Fox then continues on with the article as if life has just been discovered on Mars by explaining that some guy has come forward and told a blogger (good Lord...) that he and his buddies were responsible for the Montauk Monster. Shocking, I know!

Alleged, self-proclaimed, fake-monster, creator guy told of how he found a "...dead raccoon in the sand on nearby Shelter Island." Since he and his buddies were on vacation, they did the natural thing for guys on vacation to do which is "...put the animal on an inflatable child's swim duck...with a lot of other debris...(and then)set it on fire and pushed it out to sea." Naturally.

This account was recounted over yonder at the blog ASSME. ASSME standing for, of course, "The American Society of Shitcanned Media Elites." What? You were expecting "Aye, Saw Some Monsters Everywhere"? Not so much.

The account over at ASSME (which is a sentence that I never thought I'd write) expounds a bit on the Fox News account with a bit more detail, such as "It was the weekend before July 4th, and the trio were making a raft and putting all sorts of debris on it, just for fun: watermelons, scraps of cloth, plastic swimmie duck, etc." Just for fun? My idea of fun is a lot different than that of those who look for scraps of cloth on a raft as 'fun'. I'm just sayin', is all. I'm juuuuusstt sayin'. Somewhere along the line, 'setting the thing on fire' was added to the very short list of entertainment favors. But it is insisted that “this creature was honored with a viking funeral, not merely exploited for crass entertainment." Oh, well, thank GOD that was the case! I was beginning to get a bit concerned. Whew! No need for alarm! Nothing to see here people! No crass entertainment exploitation being had! Back to your bunkers!

It was also revealed that this wasn't the first activity of the vacation that these lads had embarked upon. No, there were some prior adventures including "...a waterboarding endurance competition, and....a clothespins-on-your-genitals challenge.” Translation: They were drunk.

Look, it doesn't look like much of a raccoon to me and it certainly doesn't look like much of a raccoon carcass that had been set aflame. It's rather smooth. Like a seal. Only not. You know what else it doesn't look like? A monster, that is correct! Whatever it is, it was created by people. The whole illusion of the mystery of the unknown creature was completely and utterly created by humans. Was it created by the drunken fellows on vacation with their flaming duck flotation devices and watermelons afire? I don't know. (But flaming duck flotation devices and watermelons afire sound remarkably similar to my 35th birthday party. From what I remember.) But kudos to those boys (or boy) for bearing his soul to a blogger and getting their drunken deeds of fun out in the open.

Nice job, Fox News. Nice job keeping non-news in the news for years to come. I look forward to 2010 when you report that it was really the blogger himself who was responsible for the non-existent mayhem. Yeah, thanks for that.

By the way, all photos showing the duck floatie were shamelessly lifted with neither permission nor malice from ASSME. Just so you know.

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OctoMom is OctoNuts

Well, I wasn't expecting this one, but I'm not surprised by it either. The folks over there at Huffington Post are reporting that US Weekly is reporting (good Lord, is this high school?) that OctoMom's most recent "publicist" or whatever he was (always seemed more like a bodyguard than a guy who books you on talk shows) a one Victor Munoz, has quit. And thank you Victor for being someone who had any sort of a relationship with her since this debacle began and stating what we've all known but just needed to hear, "She's nuts."

According to the US Weekly folks,"It just got to be too much," he says. "It's pretty much a free for all over there right now. They are freaking out right now. Not to sound arrogant, but those people depended on me for everything. You have no idea what I’ve had to do for these people. Nadya got real greedy. This woman is nuts. This I can say: what ultimately destroyed the business arrangement was personal reasons." I can only imagine the running around that he had to do for her and that fourteen ring circus that goes on 24 hours a day, every day.

Now, let's just think about this for a minute. This guy is a publicist. His job? To spin the un-spinnable. To make beautiful mountains out of ugly molehills. To assist people in dealing with their own publicity (in other words, public figures). Think about how many times you have heard of a celebrity's publicist quitting. I'm sure there might be some, but I'm drawing a blank right now. Publicists have to be a certain breed of animal in order to do that job. I remember watching OctoMom's first publicist who ended up quitting. (She quit because of death threats stemming from people's outrage over a single mother, with no job and on food stamps and disability payments (for what appears to be a very non-disabling disability) paying over $100,000 for IVF treatments that ultimately resulted in the births of 14 children. You remember now, right? I thought so.) I watched her trying to put a positive spin on something that really didn't have one, and I thought that there was no way that I could ever do that job. I'm just not that way and I would suck at it. But that's why I don't do that job and other folks do.

But to be that sort of person who is in that industry, the publicity industry that is, you'd be used to what you have to endure. And dealing with a fair amount of "celebrities", I'm sure that you'd be used to some demanding and perhaps unreasonable requests from those types of clients. So to be driven to the point of resignation by OctoMom? That's some hard hittin' right there.

Does it surprise me? No, not so much. This is a woman who appears to have had plastic surgery in order to alter her appearance so that she more closely will resemble a one Angelina Jolie. She has denied that anything of the sort took place. (Yeah, well, it's not like it's the sort of thing that one can actually admit to doing, you know?) Am I supposed to believe that someone who wants to look like a major Hollywood celebrity would also not think that she is one and act the way that she perceives that they would act? I don't think I can believe that. Angelina Jolie or not, OctoMom thinks she's pretty important. She certainly thinks that she's important enough to have me, the taxpayer, support her and her lifestyle for the past 7 years. Personally, I would have liked to have been asked.

I'm kind of excited to hear Victor's take on the whole dealio. If I were him, I'd quit too, just knowing that whatever tabloids or publications had wanted to get a story from her would gladly pay to get a story from him. And his is one I actually want to hear! By the way, congratulations, Victor, for making it as long as you did. I think I would have twisted off Day One.

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Anyone Else In There That Wants To Come Out?

Well, it's going to be a little bit roomier in the closet now that two more people just stepped out of it. I know! Two in one day! And how surprised do you think you're going to be by either of them? That's right, not at all. Actually, that might not be true. Given that, when Rosie O'Donnell publicly came out (which only reaffirmed for thousands that their gaydar was working correctly all of those years), poll numbers showed that a significant percentage of those polled said that they were "surprised" that she was gay. (Yes. Someone did a poll on the surprise factor in relation to Rosie O'Donnell's gayness. Who has these jobs? And how do I get one?) Surprised? They were surprised that Rosie O'Donnell, ROSIE O'DONNELL was gay? Really? Who are you people? I mean, I know it's crowded in the closet, but it must be just packed underneath that rock you've been living under. Wow. Surprised. Huh. Go figure.

Anyway, today not one, but two, yes two, TWO celebrities officially confirmed what those of us not under the rock (and subjected to listening to or reading about the speculation of both for way too long) what we already knew. Yep, they're gay. Well, gay enough, in one instance. Let's start with that one, shall we? I'll try to build the suspense, but it'll be hard. It's not very suspenseful.

• She's a she.
  
  
• She wasn't really rumored to be gay until recently.


• The rumors heated up after she was seen everywhere with her openly gay "friend".
  
  
• Oh, and when I say "seen everywhere" I mean "seen kissing". Same thing, right?


• She was a bit of a tart and a troublemaker before the "girlfriend" came along, but since then she's totally calmed down and hasn't been arrested once. (Just the other day I was told that sometimes the right relationship can make all the difference. Apparently that person knew what they were talking about. Good to know. Thanks for that, H.)


• Her name rhymes with Flindsay Flohan.

Stumped? I thought you might be. But the clues! So many signs! Who am I kidding? OK, so Lindsay Lohan basically admitted/confirmed/stopped lying that she was seeing DJ Samantha Ronson (who reminds me of the Superman nemesis Mr. Mxyzptlk, but only in appearance. She seems like a very nice individual.) and has been for "a very long time.". The worst kept secret in Celebrity Land came out during an episode of the radio show Loveline, that according to the gossipy folks over there at The Defamer. Loveline is hosted by a guy named Dr. Drew and his co-host Stryker. Now, I'm not sure why Stryker is hosting a radio show instead of out defending truth and justice against the forces of evil like any other superhero with a name like Stryker would be doing, but he did get Lindsay to spill it when no one else has been able to, but I guess that's superhero-y enough to have a name like Stryker, so it's all good.

Apparently, Samantha Ronson had called in to talk about her friend DJ AM, who was in a plane crash a couple of days ago that killed four out of the six people that were on the plane. (And surprisingly enough, someone named DJ AM managed to save himself.) When she was done talking with Stryker, she just passed the phone over to Lindsay and Super Stryker went to work by just casually asking, "You and Samantha have been going out for how long now? Like two years? One year? Five months? Two months?" Now, it wasn't as relentless as it might sound there, as there were moments that he paused to allow Lindsay to giggle like a teenage girl (which she is not all that far removed from. That's worth remembering when the Lindsay topic is up for discussion.) Maybe it was his secret super powers, but something about Stryker's approach prompted Lindsay to answer with, "A very long time." Woo-hoo! Nice job! Don't let that closet door hit you on the ass on the way out!

Next up for outage, a male celebrity. This one, equally as tricky as the one above. Here we go.

• He's a he.


• He's been rumored to be gay since the first day that the public became aware of his existence. (Never underestimate the power of the gaydar.
  
  
• He can sing. For real. Not just one of those who think that they can sing when they really sound like a banshee in a blender. No, this one can really sing.
  
  
• He just became a father (after his "best friend" gave birth to his offspring via artificial insemination, ie. turkey baster).

• His name rhymes with Gay Gayken.

Yep, Clay Aiken! Again, nice job! Shocking, I know. People Magazine has confirmed that Clay will be on the cover of their magazine Wednesday (today), but People would not release the article before then. I don't know if they think that they're being sly or secretive or what, but it's not like they're hiding any big secrets. After all, the cover that they've confirmed is below. (Somehow, Perez Hilton managed to get a peek at it. Nice job, Perez. I wonder what the article could be about?

So there is the big gay cover of People with Clay Aiken proclaiming "Yes, I'm Gay". Funny thing is that underneath that it does not say, "Yes, we're aware." That would be the most fitting caption to have there, no? (I mean, seriously, the only thing that would be slightly less shocking would be if I reminded everyone that Liberace was, in fact, gay.) But instead it reads "The Idol star opens up about his emotional decision to come out: "I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things." Yeah, well, children learn how to lie and hide things on their own, whether they're raised that way or not. But I'm glad you're out, Clay. Nice job. Breathe deep. Enjoy it. Trust me, everything after you've come out will be exactly the same as it was before you came out and you thought that you were fooling everyone. See, I like to think of "news" as something that I'm being told that I don't already know. When you already know it, it's not so much "news" as it is "noise".

So the only thing that's different now, Clay, is that you know that we know. And we know that you know that we know. And believe me, if people were going to not like you because you're gay, they would have not liked you whether you had announced it or not. (That's right. Because everyone already knew. Good, I see you're catching on.) You'll be fine. I swear. And now everyone can stop talking about it and find some other closeted celebrity to speculate about.

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