Godammit, I’m Mad!

God, I hate change, and now Shopbop has ignored the maxim “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I was perfectly happy with the website and its Dysfunctional Family of glaring anorexic models.

Now, they have introduced a handy way to shop by giving you 5 style profiles.   And I’m too paralyzed with indecision to go forward.   Am I Bohemian, Edgy, Girly, Classic or Casual Chic?

I’m going to rule out Bohemian. I’m pretty sure I hate that look. I’m thinking fringe, beads, caftans, headbands, horrible prints, and stuff they sell at Anthropologie.   I even hated that shit when I was a hippie.

Casual chic? As if. Girly? I can’t even walk in heels! Classic? What do they mean by that?? Classic what? Classic Secretary or Classic Hooker? That leaves me with Edgy.

Please god, don’t say I’m Edgy. I know that’s not my category. I don’t have any harem pants or big clompy wedges. I don’t want a bracelet shaped like a chicken claw! Leave me alone, Edgy!

I have already identified my style as Geriatric Tomboy, but they didn’t list it at Shopbop. If you have a style they overlooked, now is the time to define it.

Here is a beautiful 3-pack Nail Lacquer Set called “Celebrate” by the Lippman Collection.   I’m wearing Superstar (“show-stopping copper-flecked fudge glitter”). You also get a sheer black with a subtle sparkle, and a Ruby Slipper color called Ruby Red Slippers.

It’s only available at Nordstrom for $35, but if you use your Nordstrom charge card like I did, then it’s free.

I have wasted several hours tonight by following links from blog to blog, and here’s the scoop:

There are a ton of blogs that seem dedicated to advancing a style I want to call Clueless Goth. It’s heavy on the black, with lots of chains, studs, torn shit, leather, and the enthusiasts are too young to know it’s all been done before. They will post a photo like the Tragic Fashion Boy above, evoking comments like “fucken sicc.”

Dude, this is so depressing. I don’t know why, it just is. I learned yet again that Chloe Sevigney can do no wrong. Erin Wasson is still popular. Kids who look like they’ve been molested all their lives are featured in pictorials proudly flaunting their tattoos and blabbing about their muses. Lou Doillon is a big deal, even though she looks like a horse.

I don’t want to single out any bloggers in this report, because I can’t work up a good head of hatred for any of them as individuals. They’re more like a social ill or a trend to take note of, from a distance.

After this immersion into the fashion-forward youth culture, I might have a better appreciation of pretentious grown ups.

Madonna was not put here on Earth just to annoy us, it turns out.   We can learn from her, if only we open our hearts and minds.

Look at the photo above. Really look. Are you receiving Her message? Madonna is teaching us, at her own great expense, that grueling daily workouts are a waste of time after a certain age. Your lean muscular arms will terrify, rather than please. Put down the weights and get some ice cream, She is saying. Turn on the TV, spend some time with the kids, let your body do what bodies do as they age.

Her secondary message is, of course, the more you fatten up your face, the scarier you will look. Let’s thank her for sacrificing her facial contours to drive this lesson home. Thanks, Madge!

In this photo, Madonna is leaving a hospital in Marseilles after making a special trip there to comfort the workers who were injured while building a stage for her concert.

Click on the picture to ge the full impact. Now, what is she trying to teach us?

If you answered, She’s teaching the value of a photo op, even in times of human tragedy, no, you are being too hasty and judgmental. Think harder.

Madonna is saying, Black is serious, but it can still be fun! You can pretend to be mourning, but you can still choose some avant-garde menswear vest and some fierce high heels. You can say you’re devastated, but why just throw something on to meet a grieving widow? Work it!

I for one feel a new tenderness towards Madge. She only wants to help. She even apologized to me personally when she announced during her concert in Undine, Italy: “I feel so devastated to be in any way associated with anyone’s suffering.”

Why, thank you, Madonna! I appreciate your concern, just don’t do it again.

This is what happens when you stay up too late. You start looking at shit on the Karmaloop website. Pretty soon you don’t know what to think.   Here’s their exclusive Catfight Jeans, only around   $50-something dollars.

Here’s the Exclusive Brianel l******s, which I’m sure many girls love for their irony factor. Can’t remember what they cost.

Finally, for $80, here’s a dead thing that is available only in VERY LIMITED QUANTITIES, so hurry the hell up and order yours right now!

For the last 24 hours, I have been acutely remorseful about watching Michael Jackson’s head on fire. I watched the video online, and now it’s being played on CNN, in an endless loop of mock horror and shock. Even Mark Geragos was disgusted, noting to Larry King that beheadings were available on video but weren’t appropriate for TV viewing.

It’s wrong to observe personal suffering in such a dispassionate context, and I feel debased by doing it. I’m so sorry! If only I could expunge it from the record of my sins.

Less sensationally, Dash Snow died this week, nearly a year after making me angry by his mere existence, and I’m sorry about that, too. I still think he was a pretentious, attention-seeking hipster, but I mourn his death all the same.

Dash Snow was 27, and probably knew it was the magic number for those who think “Live Fast, Die Young” is actually good advice.   His downtown hipster friends are shocked, even though he was a heroin addict. No Diprivan here, just the usual method of going out.

Why do people have to become drug addicts and create such misery for their loved ones and such devastation for those they leave behind? Why can’t anyone save them? Why do people enable them? Why do they want to escape their lives when it’s the only one they’ve got? Why stick that first needle in your arm, you motherfuckers?

It’s a terrible mystery to me but I still want everyone who knows a drug addict to do whatever they can to lead them to safety. Rat out your friends and co-workers and children and spouses and sisters and brothers.   They’ll be mad, but that’s okay. Make them mad.

A real artist and a fake artist, both dead now, dead as a doornail, no matter how the news media recycle their stories. I wish they’d let me rest in peace.

“Predatory and provocative, these leather shorts feature vertical zipper details. Hidden zipper and hook-and-eye closure at side. Lined.”    By McQ – Alexander McQueen. $755

Maybe with an insanely shredded tshirt and ___________________.

Fill in the rest.

Winner gets an exciting   collection of St. Joseph Picture Books for children!

How timely! Here, you can watch Viv urge people to make clothes out of tablecloths if they find a nice one. How lovely to hear the ultimate arbiter of great style chime in on our tablecloth plans for fall/winter!   It’s always good to know Vivienne Westwood approves, isn’t it?

Also, note the deep red lipstick. Beautiful! Try NARS Velvet-Matte lip pencil in Dragon Girl or Cruella. If you have any red lipstick suggestions, please share with the class.

One of a Kind Designer Distressed Jeans [by Madewell].   $225

“Lovingly demolished, these dirty-wash skinny jeans feature paint splatter and shredded holes. 5-pocket styling and single-button closure. Wrinkling at front. Worn spots and heavy distressing throughout. 10″ leg opening.”

The Oxford Twisted Outseam Boyfriend Jean from Radcliffe. $210

“Radcliffe combines everyday wearability and an understated luxury in every garment with a deep understanding of how women want their clothes to fit and complement their shape.”

This is a tough call. The Madewell jeans are lovingly demolished. When was the last time you lovingly demolished something? The other nght, I stepped on a huge cockroach. I wasn’t feeling the love, I have to admit. Hm.   The splattered paint might give this pair the edge, in that it’s pretentious. You’re not only pretending that you keep your battered old jeans, but also that you’re an Artist.

However, the Radcliffe Boyfriend Jean is such an oxymoron! You’ll never have a boyfriend if you go out wearing these. And I like the Radcliffe mission statement: a deep understanding of how women like their clothes to fit?! Hahaha!

I do realise that I have a perverse fetish, deriving pleasure from ugly jeans. What’s that called again? Being a cunt? Or is there a more specific term for it?

Here is Mrs. Palin, just days after her resignation, preparing a baby for human sacrifice.   Mrs. P is marking the spot where the giddy mother will cut the heart out for the Unholy Offering.

Oh fine.   Maybe I’m just hallucinating. Maybe it’s perfectly normal to autograph a baby while its head hangs upside down and someone digs their nails into its arm to hold it still.

But after refreshing my memory with some blogs that still hope to uncover the truth about Trig’s birth, I have to wonder if I’m the only one with this theory: Mrs. Palin was hoping to lose her baby, but despite her best efforts, he survived.

Wait! Hear me out!

Le’s say you were a bible-spouting “pro-life” Christian who was genuinely opposed to abortion under any circumstances. Then, you find yourself pregnant at 43, carrying a baby with Down Syndrome. You already have 4 kids, two who are clearly on the road to big trouble. You are pursuing a political career and it’s really taking off.

What can you do? You could hide your pregnancy, even from your children and your staff. Maybe somehow God will step in and let you have a miscarriage.

When God doesn’t jump in, you stay busy, jogging and acting like you’re not pregnant. You don’t tell your kids or your staff. Maybe you can still miscarry your unexpected and unwanted baby.

Finally, as luck would have it, your water breaks while you’re giving a speech in Texas. Great! You decide to fly back to Alaska, where someone can help you out, like your discreet private doctor. When your plane lands, shit, the baby still seems okay. So you drive to Wasilla, taking 5 more hours, still hoping to lose the baby.

In the end, your baby is born healthy, even though he is premature. What can you do except send everybody a funny letter about your very special baby, and sign it: “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”