Godammit, I’m Mad!

Do you like looking at ridiculous menswear? Do you long to see low-rent pimps, a fat guy in a crazy Zoot Suit, or fake crocodile shoes in every color of the rainbow? Good, because this is the place.

None of us like Handbag Snobbery (unless we are the ones disparaging someone else’s choice of handbag.) I don’t even like it when a person praises my handbag, for god sake. When Susie B wrote about suffering the disdainful gaze of two awful Handbag Snobs on a train, my heart went out to her.  I should start making little badges that say “Please don’t stare at my handbag.”

It’s a difficult situation if you care about style and fashion. I love my bags for being both beautiful and expensive. I love them for being not the ones that are obvious and popular. But on some occasions, I don’t want the burden of my enormous handbag. So I pack my essentials into a bag that I selected for it’s stomach-turning ugliness.

Check out its ugly features. The flower thing made out of a zipper, the studded wristlet, the gold handcuff things dangling there for no reason, and the purple plastic that is actually transparent even though you can’t tell from the picture. It is eight X five inches of pure eyesore.  All that for $11.

And speaking of eyesore, today at the mall I walked past a shoe-store window and was assaulted by a vision from hell itself: Gladiator sandals in a rainbow of awful colors, signifying to me that gladiators have not only jumped the shark, they have eaten and regurgitated the shark. Behold the wares of Shiekh shoes.

Spidery things are on my radar today. I’m proud to say that I have no fear of spiders. I’m afraid of squirrels and rodents and midgets, but spiders are nothing. I enjoy killing them. I’ve even sprayed them with gold paint, just to make them ornamental for a moment.

Here is a spider web t-shirt from Urban Outfitters. If I were 20 years old, I would definitely want this shirt.

More problematic are these shoes by John Galliano. There are reduced from $850 to only $150, and they are available in my size, an enormous and crowd-pleasing size 40. The thing is, I would never wear them. I know from experience that I’d just add them to my Museum of Shoes I Can’t Walk In. On the other hand, wouldn’t they make a nice addition to the collection?

Isn’t it sad that I am mostly reacting to the original price? I want to save $700!

I read some thing at Time magazine online, about people who are trying to live with only 100 things. It’s a concept that I find very appealing and also terrifying. I probably have 100 hair products. Maybe I could throw some out, though. And then I could buy the shoes.

Who gives a shit if Ed McMahon can’t make his mortgage payments?!? I can’t believe he’s getting so much press out of this. I’m even reading that Ed’s money problem is “giving a face” to the nationwide mortgage crisis.

Ed and his much-younger wife were on TV, blubbering about their tragic circumstances. People actually called in with offers of help.

If that stupid old bastard can’t sell his $6 million mansion, he might lose it to foreclosure! Maybe he shouldn’t have had so many wives. Maybe he blew all his money on those flashy dentures. All he ever did in life was sit on a couch and go “Ha ha ha” when Johnny Carson told a joke. Then he bothered everyone with that Publisher’s Clearing House scam.

Fuck Ed McMahon. Let him start worrying about how I’m going to get these new Vivienne Westwood shoes.

I am sick to death of gladiator sandals and being urged to wear them. Every magazine and fashion blog is insisting that they are a Must. I hate them and I’m hating them more with each new batch I see.

But then! I saw these fake gladiator things that you can snap on over your shoes…and I actually ordered a pair. What the hell is wrong with me?

On the same website, I came across these hideous gold fingernail-rings. Now this is something I feel pretty secure about not buying. They are horrible enough to make me happy to be alive, but not something I’m nuts enough to buy. Yet.

In the Los Angeles Times this week, I read that Danielle Steele spends four to five million dollars a year on shoes for herself and her daughters. This was revealed by a longtime shoe salesman at Barneys.

Fuck! This puts a lot of things in perspective. It makes me feel better about wasting my money on shoes, and it makes me feel terrible as well. Danielle Steele is obviously a billionaire, but how can one justify this expense? It seems pretty inexcusable, but so is spending $500 for shoes when so much of the world is starving. The whole shoe thing is out of control. The LA Times tried to lay the blame on Christian Louboutin, who says it’s not his fault. The shoes pictured above sell for $1,400 at Barneys, but he’s not putting a gun to anyone’s head. Maybe they should raise the price to $20,000, since the women who keep this brand in business will still pay up.

I once had to read a book by Danielle Steele, back when I read screenplays and manuscripts for a living. I was appalled at how awful her writing was, even though I expected it to be pretty bad. I remember one line I quoted to my friends, that was something like “Peter gave his customary smirk, but then he always did.” I couldn’t get over it. She must be so important that she doesn’t need an editor! She has sold 550 million books, and yet she can’t actually write!

But now that I’ve learned more about her, I’m beginning to see why she needs all those shoes. She’s been married five times, once to a rapist and once to a heroin addict. She’s had all sorts of huge melodramatic problems to overcome, including the death of a troubled son. She’s involved in several worthy charities, and she’s said to be ’shy.’  She certainly knows the meaning of hard work.

I would like to ask Danielle Steele if those shoes make her happy. Mine don’t make me happy, except of course for the Vivienne Westwood boots I can’t walk in. I think I’m a better writer than Danielle Steele, but I could never finish a whole novel, even a crappy one. I’d like to think that some day, we’ll all realize how meaningless our shoes are. But I know it’s a long way off.