Each week Andrea Peyser will comment on the new "CELEBUTARD of the WEEK."
Joe Jackson - June 30, 2009
In the unappetizing race to scavenge the remaining flesh from the bones of Michael Jackson, turning the singer's death into an spectacle unimagined by Barnum & Bailey and loosening everything down to the spare change between the seat cushions, is Joe Jackson. The star's Daddy Dearest.
Joe, to whom his son left nothing in his will, is the architect of the star's final world tour, putting him on display like a freakish pinata at Neverland Ranch, where Jackson no longer resided when he breathed his last. Joe also disrupted a weird press conference this week to promote his record label, unable to resist waiting a millisecond to profit from what is shaping up as the biggest celeb death of the decade.
This is why Joe Jackson is my Celebutard of the Week – in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
In his life, the superstar was clearly damaged beyond repair, reconfiguring his face and sleeping with underage boys. You need to look only as far as Jackson's relationship with his father to understand where it all began. Jackson has said in interviews that his father was a tyrant, beating him mercilessly if he missed a dance step, ridiculing his dark skin, his wide nose to the point where Jackson was no longer comfortable in his own hide.
Michael Jackson's pop talent was undeniable. So was his status as a predator. One who seemed unaware that there was anything wrong with reliving one's childhood through the company of little boys.
Had Joe Jackson been even one-tenth of a better father, would the world have had a Michael Jackson? He was his creation, as well as his failure.
One thing father and son have in common: Neither seems to believe his chosen hobby is wrong.
Michelle Obama - May 11, 2009
What’s the matter, Michelle? Did the White House food taster quit?
Michelle Obama really, really likes life in the White House, what with all the toadies and underlings scampering under foot. The mystery is how did she ever manage before life as Mrs. President?
Here’s what she said about her “current life’’ in the White House: “[It is] a very blessed situation, because I have what most families don’t have — tons of support all around, not just my mother, but staff and administration. I have a chief of staff and a personal assistant, and everyone needs that.’’
She could have stopped there…or not…
“Everyone should have a chief of staff and a set of personal assistants,” Mrs. O gushed.
But wait, there is a punch line:
These lines were spoken at a conference for “Corporate Voices for Working Families” in Washington. Working families who, presumably, don’t actually know what a chief of staff does, nor how to make the taxpayers pay for one.
This is why Michelle Obama is my Celebutard of the Week, such as those in my book, “Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America.”
Perhaps chiefs of staff for the spoiled First Lady in your life will inspire a new growth industry in a time of recession. Still, I have to wonder: Who does the laundry for the chief?
Janeane Garofalo - April 21, 2009
Janeane Garofalo is an unreconstructed, unapologetic racist.
Yet the uncouth actress will never be punished, vilified or marginalized, because she openly disparaged the one ethnic group which enjoys no Hollywood protection. That would be white people. Particularly, white people from the South.
What do you think would happen should anyone turn the tables, reverse the races, change the geography, and denigrate an urban person of color? It would not be pretty.
For her bold and unbridled racism — offenses that are sure to draw deafening applause by the American left — Janeane Garofalo is my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
We learned everything we needed to know about Janeane on — where else? — last Thursday’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
Given a forum to comment on the previous day’s tea parties, in which hundreds of thousands of conservatives gathered to protest President Obama’s tax policies, she had the gall to declare,
"This is about hating a black man in the White House.’’ Huh?
"This is racism straight up.’’ She was just getting started.
"That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know, you can tell these type of right wingers anything and they’ll believe it, except the truth. You tell them the truth and they become—it’s like showing Frankenstein’s monster fire. They become confused, and angry and highly volatile. That guy, causing them feelings they don’t know, because their limbic brain, we’ve discussed this before, the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring. Is Bernie Goldberg listening?
So there it is. Anyone who believes higher taxes would be ruinous to this country is deemed dangerous. Anyone who disagrees with any policy Obama might enact is racist.
Not just racist, but a "teabagging redneck.’’ That sure shuts down the debate before it can get off the ground. Which is the entire point.
I think I’ll have a T-shirt printed. "Teabagging Redneck Against Taxes.’’
I wonder if Janeane would try to lock me up?
Ron Howard - April 14, 2009
Question - What do you get when you cross an American icon such as Academy-award-winning director and former kid actor Ron Howard with the continent of Europe — and shake with double doses of celebrity idiocy?
Answer – A baguette-eating Celebutard.
Oh, Opie! From Mayberry to Hollywood. How did you stray?
Back when he went by the name Ronny Howard, the star gained fame and adoration by playing the ultimate American rural tyke, Opie Taylor. He was a kid so obnoxiously clean, he’d agree to go to bed without supper before he’d ever denigrate his country.
But decades of Hollywood success have turned Opie into some kind of groupie for the hate-America crowd that thrives overseas. This is what he said on Friday night’s "Real Time with Bill Maher:’’
At a certain point I don't think we'll be so consumed with being the pre-eminent super-power and, you know, driven by sort of militarism and this need to export, you know, democracy."
Dang that democracy, boy!
And this is why Ron Howard is my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Opie is not the first dim-witted ‘tard to get sucked into the European view that American values — life, freedom, democracy and decent customer service — are less than desirable.
But I haven’t quite seen a guy of his age (55) come back from summer vacation changing his tune, and his nationality, so completely.
Howard, who’s promoting "Angels & Demons,’’ a sequel to "The Da Vinci Code,’’ said "I'm a very optimistic person and I don't want to feel like there isn't growth, but there needs to be an adjustment anyway." He blamed his new-found disdain for American freedoms on his time spent filming in Europe.
"I've actually spent a lot more time in Europe and working with crew members and actors and understanding how they live and how they think."
Howard said he’s "very optimistic’’ about the future of America, so long as the nation makes an "adjustment,’’ and becomes "more progressive.’’
In recent months Howard, for the first time, opened his mouth on things political, making a pro-Obama videotape.
How would Obama feel about his latest diatribe? The president is up to his neck dealing with terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. No telling how he’d react to Opie’s "progressive’’ ideas for pulling back on the export of, you know, democracy.
Madonna - April 7, 2009 (second consecutive week)
The African nation of Malawi is one of the poorest places on earth, a land in which villagers live easily live an entire year on less than Madonna’s annual budget for soy chai latte, and AIDS claims a depressing chunk of the population. It’s no garden spot. But last week it was as if this country, which holds on to its strong tradition of family values in spite of intense international disdain and patronization, defended its honor in the face of a scourge that might do as much psychic damage to its long-term future as disease, hunger and rejection of kabbalah.
When Madonna showed up, via private plane, with her personal trainer and assorted underlings, hoping to snatch yet another evidently healthy child to add to her growing, international brood – and fill a hole in her soul left vacant by the departure of a husband, and soothe her jealousy over other starlets’ ability to save the world – Malawi did something unprecedented. The country said, through a judge, ‘Take your millions and your treadmill and your vegan diet, and scram!’’
“Whaaat!’’ cried Madonna. You have no idea whom you’re up against, Malawi!
And this is why Madonna is, for the second consecutive week, my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Judge Esme Chombo of the Lilongwe High Court rejected Madge’s bid to get her hands on four-year-old Mercy James, who lives in the same orphanage from which Madonna helped herself to David Banda in 2006. The judge smacked Madonna’s hands like a errant child, saying you can’t just jet in here and take off with a child like so many trinkets. Malawi has a law that adoptive parents must live in the country 18 months to two years, and the judge was not going to look the other way.
'The issue of residence, I find, is the key upon which the question of adoption rests, and it is the very bedrock of protection that our children need; it must, therefore, not be tampered with.
“As wisely put by G. K. Chesterton: ‘Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.’ ‘’
Madonna, who doubtless believes Chesterton has something to do with the manufacture of cigarettes, planned to further strong-arm the country into giving her what she wants. She vowed to appeal. And she observed her rejection with a workout on the treadmill she’d had flown to the pricy lodge where she stayed, sipping Lafitte wines rather than closer-grown South African varietals.
The judge wrote: “Ms. Madonna may not be the only international person interested in adopting the so-called poor children of Malawi. By removing the very safeguard that is supposed to protect our children, the courts by their pronouncements could actually facilitate trafficking of children by some unscrupulous individuals who would take advantage of the weakness of the law of the land.
“Anyone could come to Malawi and quickly arrange for an adoption that might have grave consequences on the very children the law seeks to protect.'
The family-oriented people of Malawi were concerned about not only Madonna’s recent divorce, which ended the idea of Guy Ritchie being the second parent in the child’s life. Eyebrows were also raised by her affair weeks ago with a 22year-old model named Jesus.
Mercy’s grandmother has already said taking the child would be akin to “stealing,’’ and human rights groups have accused her of “manipulating’’ the adoption process with money and fame.
But she has proven that she is tone deaf to the poverty and pride that embrace Malawians in equal measure. For example, as Madonna’s entourage took the three-hour drive to Mercy’s orphanage, the singer instead stayed behind to indulge in her two-hour workout with her imported personal trainer, Josh, reported London’s Daily Mail. She followed her staff to the orphanage by private plane – at a cost of about 10,000 British pounds.
Her obliviousness to the real needs of the people continues to show. She will push kabbalah down the throats of kids at a school she plans to build, something in which Malawians are not interested. But most egregious, she intends to build her school on a plot of land that is occupied by villagers who already are starting to get excited over selling their land to the superstar. (The chief was promised $4,000). But what happens when the money runs out, and there is nowhere to go, no land to farm?
Kabbalah will take care of them, I expect.
Madonna - March 30, 2009
This is an emergency Madonna update, a warning that the one-time Material Girl has turned from a bra-baring, Britney-slurping, intercourse-simulating extrovert into a greedy baby-collector, along the lines of Mia Farrow and Brangelina – folks who never saw a healthy, Third-World infant they’d prefer not to sink their bony fingers into. At mid-life, an unmarried Madonna is, as we speak, in the African nation of Malawi, choosing a matched child to go along with the tot she already purchased from the African nation like so much luggage, David Banda.
This is why Madonna is my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Madonna is as we speak asking a judge to let her adopt 4-year-old Mercy James, a child who, like David, has a biological father but no mother. Her grandmother was incensed.
“Why doesn’t the singer pick other children?’’ fumed Lucy Chekechiwa to the Sun newspaper in London.
“It is stealing. I want to go to court. I won’t let her go.’’
It seems a repeat of her earlier adoption. The granny fumed, but Madonna still plucked the child from his home and took temporary custody. On her own turf, the adoption was a done deal. She also broke Malawi’s adoption laws, which prevent prospective parents from getting their hands on children without first living in the country for 18 months. Technicalities.
One has long wondered if Madge is fit to raise a house plant, let alone a child.
Her vegetarian diet free of wicked dairy products should be enough to preclude her from raising ice-cream-deprived kids. It comes with great remorse that her ever-expanding brood, which includes Lourdes, 12; Rocco, 8; and little David, 3; will never, at least in childhood, taste the summer staple.
But in the diet-crazed Celebutard world, this is par for the course -- Gwyneth Paltrow gets to keep her little ones even after publicly cleaning out her gastro-intestinal tract. Money buys anything. Including flesh. TV is also banned in the house of Madonna, 50, which might be a blessing; the kids are protected from their mothers’ egregious sexual actings-out – at least until the babysitter breaks the rules.
But why should I complain about dairy products when, in 2003, Madonna took the stage at Radio City Music Hall in New York where, in full view of then-husband Guy Ritchie and 7-year-old daughter Lourdes, tongue-kissed Britney Spears and Christian Aguilera, giving an advanced lesson in sex education. Child service authorities looked the other way.
The environmentalist – she made the cover of Vanity Fair’s “green’’ issue – also imported 1,000 unfortunate pheasants to her British estate, Ashcombe House, so that rich friends including Brad Pitt might pay $19,000 a day to shoot the poor birds to death.
Mercy lives in same orphanage from which she plucked David. She wants the little girl to join a brood whose size has yet to be curtailed, despite Madonna’s ridding of a husband, Guy Ritchie, and discarding of Lourdes’ baby daddy, Carlos Leon. It is not known whether the new child’s health will be carefully screened in Africa, as was David’s. With millions of orphans afflicted with AIDS and other diseases, Madonna got herself a good one.
David, like Mercy, lost his breast-feeding mother as an infant, and the family, unable to afford formula for him, put him in an orphanage, expecting to take him back after he was old enough to eat solid food. But Madonna chose the bright-eyed youngster. The case against Madonna was closed when she told her adoption story to a credulous and approving Oprah Winfrey. “God bless you!’’ cried Oprah.’’ She also condescended to David’s dad, Yohane Banda, as a “simple’’ man. (Ouch!).
Reportedly, David’s father upset when he learned Madonna was divorcing. Too late.
In return for Africa’s generosity, Madonna founded Raising Malawi, a girls’ academy that preaches hefty doses of Madonna’s pet belief system, Kabbalah. She might have simply made a large donation to the Bandas’ extended family, including a grandma and aunts, so they might be reunited with their biological child. But what do I know about Hollywood?
This begs another question: What is wrong with American-born orphans? Mixed-race children, for example, badly need parents, even rich ones – and can be taken home without the need of an international plane flight.
I guess those kids don’t make such good conversations with Oprah.
Robert Redford (Barack Obama Edition) - March 23, 2009
Robert Redford likes to play the nation’s Environmentalist in Chief, making the wildly earnest claim in last week’s Huffington Post that he was “too early on solar power.’’ He boasts, like a self-absorbed prophet, that he promoted clean energy way back in his filmmaking hey day of the 1970s. He even gave a shoutout to Barack “Special Olympics’’ Obama, who in his State of the Union address “noted that although America invented solar energy technology, we have fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. He is right of course’’ Never mind that Redford, self-proclaimed savior of the earth, probably promotes the burning of more fossil fuel than virtually any other single American outside of Mobil. Or Al Gore, whose Nashville estate burned 20 times the national average in fuel. Obama, too.
This is why Robert Redford is my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book –Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Redford founded a ski resort in Park City, Utah, a particularly environmentally unfriendly venture in which rich folks routinely travel from points afar – and they’re not riding in hot air balloons. He also started the environmentally ruinous Sundance Film Festival, an SUV-choked venture that annually pulls in countless Gulfstream jets full of busy film executives to the remote and pricy environs, where hot air is expelled, unharnessed, into the atmosphere.
As contrarian former columnist John Tierney noted in the New York Times, if Redford really cared about the environment he’d move his festival to New York City, which would “spare [movie makers] a trip, enrich our economy and save energy.’’
Nonetheless, Redford urges Americans to do as he says, if not as he does. He wrote, “I remember when America was leading the pack on clean energy in the 1970s. We abdicated that leadership thanks to the influence of a fossil fuel industry with deep pockets and friends in the White House. But Obama reminded us of an important aspect of the American character: ingenuity. We are a nation of innovators, and we can harness that resourcefulness again to build a better future.’’
This, of course, came after Obama winged it out of Washington while the economy burned like so many coal stoves. He took Air Force One – the large, Boeing 747 version -- out to Long Beach, Calif., for his disastrous foray on the Tonight show that resulted in his personal apology to the head of the Special Olympics, after he compared his bowling skill to that of physically challenged athletes. Even George W. Bush, a global-warming skeptic, took the smaller, 757 version of Air Force One on his last trip to California.
Wrote Redford, “I saw that ingenuity emerge three decades ago, when the promise of renewable energy became clear to many of us. We were so eager to spread the word about solar power that we created ‘Sun Day,’ the solar equivalent of Earth Day. We had events from Maine to Chicago to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir even agreed to participate in one event. People were just starting to get excited about pollution-free power, but then Ronald Reagan became president and took the solar panels off the White House and the policies promoting renewable energy were stripped from the books.’’
That’s right, Robert, blame a Republican. He fails to mention that President George W. Bush called on not just America, but China and India, two far worse polluters, to cut down emissions that folks like Redford and Co. blame for global warming. However, it’s become as fashionable as a hybrid Hummer to blame the United States for the world’s dirty air.
“I was too early in my efforts to promote solar power, but now is the time. We are getting a second chance--another American trait. If we don't seize this moment, we will be too late to get the competitive advantage in a global marketplace, too late for the economic dividends, and too late to stave off the worst of global warming,’’ he wrote, probably from a hilltop in Utah.
I wonder how he got there? But that would be impolite to ask.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (George Clooney Edition) - March 16, 2009
What's next? Brad Pitt's sweat socks on eBay? Britney's backwash at a yard sale?
The dead-serious jokesters who run Hollywood's favorite terrorist organization, PETA, whose members are known to toss red paint on women wearing perfectly good fur coats, and enforcing punishing vegan diets on healthy carnivores through a disinformation campaign (meat is cruel! It'll kill you!) unseen since the days of the Soviet Union or the Clinton administration, are back at it.
And they're even more hypocritical and weird than Madonna, who pushed a dairy-free diet (no ice-cream for Lourdes, Rocco and little David!) while importing 1,000 pheasants to her British estate for the purpose of allowing rich guests to shoot the poor birds to death.
That's why the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Last week, PETA's strange president, Ingrid Newkirk, wrote to George Clooney asking that the star allow a vial of his perspiration – essence apparently taken from a gym towel swiped by a crazed stalker during Clooney's recent visit to Washington – to be used as seasoning for the bland foodstuff tofu. It would be marketed as “CloFu.'' PETA's scientists were quick to assure all those now retching that the stuff would taste delicious. I could not make this up on a very large bet.
Wrote the Newkirk to the Clooney: "The technology actually exists to take your perspiration and make it into George Clooney-flavored tofu. We could do that and give the tofu away.
"Of course, your fans would swoon at the idea of eating CloFu, but what interests us most is that we would attract many people who don't try tofu because they worry that it would be bland or that they wouldn't know how to cook it. CloFu will help people be healthier and more environmentally friendly and will spare animals from being killed for the table."
Proving that clinical insanity is contagious, PETA spokeswoman Amanda Schinke said, "We believe CloFu would be delicious on its own or served over rice with a light soy sauce and sauteed collards, in a casserole with melted vegan cheese and olives, or perhaps pressed with vegan pesto in a panini."
Mmmkay....
Clooney's response was not terribly encouraging to PETA. The card-carrying celebutard, whose love of Darfur is trumped only by his hatred of America (see his anti-U.S. conspiracy flick Syriana) proved he nonetheless still has two brain cells to rub together when it comes to insane vegetarians.
"As a mammal, I'm offended," quoth Clooney.
Clooney's perspiration apparently was harvested during his post-inauguration trip to D.C., in which he privately bent President Obama's ear on the bleak situation in Darfur. I guess they didn't want CloFu there, either. Anne Curry, who traveled to the region with Clooney, also can't subsist on an all-Clooney diet. Pity. Osama bin Laden would lap up the stuff.
Michelle and Oprah - March 2, 2009
Jackie Kennedy did it graciously.
Hillary Clinton did it grudgingly.
First Ladies have reinvented themselves into softer, gentler, more user-friendly versions of their former ornery selves since the dawn of TV. But none has done it so radically and dramatically – and quickly – as Michelle Obama, relaxing the arches of her disturbingly angry eyebrows, covering her naked upper arms, and putting a figurative muzzle across her disapproving lips. She has emerged, butterfly-like, as vacuous and silly as any chick you’d meet in a shopping mall. And she’s performed this metamorphosis with the expert encouragement of your friendly neighborhood celebutard, Oprah Winfrey.
And that is why Michelle and Oprah take home the honors as my Celebutards of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
As he moved into the presidency, Barack Obama had a serious Michelle Problem. She said, after Obama took the Wisconsin primary: “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.’’ And, "for the first time in my life, I'm really proud of my country.'' The lefty firebrand evidently was ready to move to Canada previously. But where would she buy her sleeveless dresses?
In 2007, she famously told 60 Minutes, “…The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know…’’
I wondered if Michelle was suggesting that gangs of racist whites might go after Obama – or whether his supposed attacker was a more statistically significant African-American man. She never said.
Enter Oprah.
Oprah had a little foot-in-mouth disease on her resume. She called herself the victim of racism – suffering a “Crash Moment’’ – after she was denied the right to shop at the outrageously expensive Hermes boutique in Paris the night she arrived after closing time.
But Oprah had moved millions of votes into the Obama column, and she was all about rehabilitating Michelle, too. By inauguration day, the incoming First Lady had softened the arches of her infamous eyebrows. The sleeveless dress that showed off her gym-toned arms that appeared, to snorts of derision, in her official White House portrait, suddenly went the way of the hoop skirt.
More dramatically, the woman bred at Princeton and Harvard Law gleefully engaged in vigorous chick chat with Oprah in her magazine, O, which she was given the honor of being the very first celeb, after Oprah, to appear on the cover. Living in the White House was one thing. But appearing in O - her life was made..
They talked interior decorating.
The White House “will reflect our family,’’ quoth Michelle. “I want comfortable sofas, I want art that reflects contemporary and traditional, I want to bring in new American artisans. And you’ve got to be able to make a fort with the sofa pillows! Everything must be fort-worthy.”
Michelle said the inauguration reminded her of getting married. No mention of taking pride in America here.
“It was almost like a wedding,” she said. “A huge, very complicated wedding. The last visitors didn’t leave until Sunday [after the inauguration]. And then the first Monday was kind of weird. You know: Now we live here, and Barack is getting up and going to work, and it’s just us. This is our home now.”
Now, the only “danger’’ she sees for her family now is in the White House kitchen.
“The pie in the White House is dangerously good.”
I never thought I’d say this. But the old, unpredictable Michelle was way more fun than the Stepford model.
Gwyneth Paltrow - March 2, 2009
After winning the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, Gwyneth Paltrow has been shamefully idle (Shallow Hal, anyone?) Even her latest film, Two Lovers, co-starring Joaquin Phoenix, premiered, depressingly unnoticed, at the Sunshine Cinema on New York’s Lower East Side.
But Gwyneth, who moved to London after declaring, “We’re all going to die when George Bush has his way,’’ is far from allergic to taking home our money. Nor is the lady bred in an exclusive Manhattan private school opposed to reinventing herself in a curiously American kind of career: lifestyle guru.
Gwyneth has developed a website that is equal parts new age philosophy, serious commerce and whatever ramblings enter the star’s golden head. She is e-mailing related newsletters that recommend exorbitantly priced American restaurants – chef Mario Batali is a fave – push pricy products and plug hotels in which a standard room begins at $695 a night. She’s also shilling for a yoga gym she’s planning to open.
The site is called Goop.com – a name based on Gwyneth’s initials, GP. It is heavy on Kabbalah musing with its mantra, “Nourish the inner aspect,’’ whatever than means. It even – hold onto your lunch – describes the very icky effects of Gwyneth’s personal detoxifying diet. That is why I’m naming her my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Gwyneth, who blames her age — 36 – for the dearth of recent roles (Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep might differ), has developed a site aimed appallingly at women who have the time, money and will to give up essential caffeine and shop all day – or rather, hire someone out to shop for them. The Toronto Globe and Mail wrote, “Why is it called ‘Goop’? Perhaps ‘Any Old Load of Rubbish’ and “Learn From Me, Ungrateful Peasant,’ were both taken.’’ Even the ordinarily fatuous New York Times called the site “fatuous and a bit puzzling’’ in a recent piece, which sent Gwyneth into orbit. She said in response, “I think the people who are criticizing it or criticizing the idea of it don’t really get it, because if they did, they would like it. I think that people like to stay in their box. They like people to stay how they are comfortable seeing them.’’
Oprah, of course, is agog at Gwyneth’s post-pregnancy workout, which the faded star displayed on the O’s television program. In the meantime, Gwyneth has signed on to write a cookbook (can you say, organic?)
Food is much on Gwyneth’s mind these days, a year after she underwent a “Master Cleanse’’ (lots of lemon water and little else) and was promptly taken overnight by her husband, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. (She blamed a mysterious “gastrointestinal’’ ailment for the hospitalization.)
Her post-holiday cleanse this year was far less punishing, including chicken and smoothies, but no dairy or cappuccinos.
I never thought I’d read these words coming from the aristocratic Gwyn’s hand. But here is it is:
“If your bowel movements get sluggish, you can accelerate things by drinking half a cup of castor oil or using a mild herbal laxative. Bowel elimination is paramount for correct detoxification.’’
Sluggish bowel movements aside, Gwyneth, who once declared America too dangerous for her kids, Apple and Moses, seems to be tiring of London. She whined to Marie Claire magazine that the city is too dirty, the weather atrocious, and the service not up to her standards.
“My husband thinks I’m way too obsessed with cleanliness and germs. I’m just like, ‘The street is filthy, could we take off our shoes before we come into the house?’ He used to imitate me and say, “Ewwww, oh my Gold!’ Also, the customer service is just rubbish in England. People are much more relaxed there, and things take forever to get done. They’ll tell you it’ll take two weeks for your Internet service to be fixed! It drives me mad. And I miss being able to get anything at any time of day. You can’t do that there.’’
I suppose it’s time for Gwyneth to move back to America. But does America really need a Gwyneth Paltrow?
Bill Maher - February 24, 2009
You’d think they’d learn.
The Oscars have always been a place where celebs bash presidents, governments and endorse leftist candidates. But this year the Oscars hit a low even for Hollywood – using Bill Maher to bitterly bash religion, which earns him the title of Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my new book: Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America. (Kensington).
Maher, who became infamous for applauding the suicide bombers after 9/11, took the stage at the Kodak Theater on Oscar night to present an award for Best Documentary, and bitterly noted that his movie, “Religulous,’’ was not nominated for a gold statuette.
Because the film stunk? No, Herr Maher said. Because it was too controversial.
"Now as a producer and a star of my own documentary this year, the one about religion that didn't get nominated. I know, it's a touchy subject. But someday, we all have to confront the notion that our silly gods cost the world too greatly. But there I go, ruining the ending."
This is a man who previously called organized religion a form of mass insanity, and praised Michael Jackson for servicing little boys. “But, you know, I remember when I was a kid. I was savagely beaten once by bullies in the schoolyard. Savagely beaten,’’ Maher told Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show in 2005.
“If I had a choice between being savagely beaten and being gently masturbated by a pop star… It’s just me. ‘’ Ferguson, thankfully, abruptly ended the interview.
If by some miracle Maher’s film were nominated for an Oscar, however, you know he’d thank God.
Another Celebutard of the Week February 24, 2009: Britain (and much of Western Europe.)
Can a country get so caught up in lunatic political correctness that it ceases to respect human values and dignity? Can an entire land drink the Kool-Aid of enforced Islamofascism, to the point where every man, woman and child within its borders earns the cursed title "Celebutard?''
How about a continent?
With the exception of a tiny Vermont town that tried to indict President Bush, plus the lefty institution that is The New York Times, idiot individuals earned the C-title in my new book, "Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who are Destroying America.'' (Kensington). That is, until Britain, our friendly neighbor across the pond, defied all reason and self-interest to advance the goal of sucking up to people who would kill Britons as soon as say, "'ello.''
Earlier this month, Britain detained a Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, at Heathrow Airport, and quickly shipped him back to the Netherlands. Wilders, claimed the Brits, constituted "a threat to public policy.''
What had he done? Condoned child sacrifice? Drank American beer? Ê Nope. Wilders is set to be prosecuted in his native Holland for "inciting hatred and discrimination'' and "insulting Muslim worshippers,'' in his 2008 short film, Fitna, as well as in public statements.
What's the fuss? Well, in the past, Wilders has called for a ban on the Koran, which he compared to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. ÊHis film Fitna contains footage from recent atrocities committed by Muslims, plus it presents the passages from the Koran that appear to have called for the bloody killings. The blasphemous film has been screened in Rome (go Italians!) but is having trouble seeing daylight in Britain or Holland.
According to the New Republic, the prosecution of Wilders resulted from extreme pressure put on Europe by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which includes 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. The OIC's goal is plain: to make the world safe for sharia. Ê And whether out of fear of its Muslim immigrant horde, or out of a deep-seated dedication to suicide, Britain is duly falling in line. This is a land whose union of university professors has tried long and hard to isolate Israeli academics and ban them from participating in research, evoking comparisons to Nazi Germany.
But the right to free speech pales against what the OIC calls forbidden "Islamophobia'' that is practiced in modern European countries. Islamophobic activity, incidentally, can include opposition to illegal immigration, and any and all efforts to combat terrorism.
So when in Europe, be careful what you say and what you think. The speech police are out to get you. The thought police are coming next. Wait a minute - they're already here.
Sean Penn - February 17, 2009
He’s the gift who just keeps on giving.
This week’s featured Celebutard already figures like an incurable disease in my new book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who Are Destroying America (Kensington). He is Sean Penn – the A-list actor who brazenly broke bread with America-hating Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. He also traveled to Iran where he heard 10,000 people shouting in unison, “Death to America’’ and “Death to Israel’’ – and decided they didn’t really mean it. Let’s give ‘em all a hug.
Proving he knows how to perform comedy, too, he and his enormous entourage traveled to New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, where they had to be saved after their boat sprang a leak. Penn was trying to prove that idiot actors can rescue people better than the US government. But who will rescue Penn?
Now comes word that Penn plans to play the bushy-headed Larry character in a biopic of the Three Stooges. Seriously.
Is Penn really that stupid? Or does he no longer care that he’s become a human laughing stock? Penn already is the very definition of a stooge. He’s been stooging for the likes of Chavez and nut case Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (say that five times fast, Sean) of Iran, traveling to their countries and championing regimes in which ordinary people regularly lose their freedom, livelihoods, and perhaps their lives, by speaking the kind of traitorous drivel Sean spews on a daily basis.
Of course, the role of Larry may be more challenging that Sean predicted. Larry Fine, who immortalized the Stooge, is a much better actor. He also played the violin.
But I would pay $50 to see a flick in which Penn gets slapped, eye-gouged, nose-tweaked and kicked by his fellow stooges. I’d pay $100 if these actions were all real. Nyuk nyuk.
As part of the tour to promote the movie, I suggest there be a national “Smack Sean Penn Day.’’ Maybe a frozen pie in the face?
Another rumor: Chavez is up for the role of Moe. Michael Moore is Curly.
Sean Penn. He’s the poster boy for a new take on an old expression: “Being a moron is easy. Comedy is hard.’’
Cher - February 10, 2009
The inaugural ‘tard is none other than Cher - the one time pop singer, actress and infomercial queen who’s turned into a full-time ninny. Cher recently said Republican rule almost "killed'' her. What? She continued:
"I just don’t understand how anyone would want to be a Republican. I just can’t figure it. I don’t understand. If you’re poor, if you’re any kind of minority - gay, black, Latino, anything. If you’re not a rich - I don’t know. If you’re not a rich born-again-Christian, I don’t get it."
Understand this, Cher - there are decent Republicans. There are amoral Democrats. Some Republicans even are black, Latino and gay. Some are all three. Some were even your former husbands. Maybe that explains why Cher is so openly hostile to the right.
In Hollywood, where, frankly, Cher has not been seen much lately, at least not in daylight, Cher is preaching to the narrow-minded choir. So keep spouting, baby. If you make eyes roll, at least they’re looking at you!
©2007-2024
Andrea Peyser and andreapeyser.com; No Reuse without permission.
•Contact Us •Site Map •Biography •Appearances •Book Excerpt