Bad Bad Things Twitter Has Done To Me

Or rather, stupid things I say that Twitter exposes… and then fun celebrities read and… oh, you’ll find out…
So I’m obsessed with the Twitter. To the point where I will just be on the couch watching TV and then feel the need to tweet my reaction to things on the screen. I have cut down on this on account of me finding out it’s a bit annoying when people you follow fill your screen with inane messages (I am talking about you Diddy), but I like to share.
So last night I watched My Name Is Earl. My family are obsessed with this show, and while I often watch it, and often laugh, the people around me are so fully into it that it’s like I’m missing something.

The My Name Is Earl cast

To this end I posted the following tweet:

scottkeenan I don't understand My Name Is Earl ... where is the funny?

All quite innocuous you might think, until the next morning when I find this tweet to me:

EthanSuplee @scottkeenan bummer

Noooooooooooooo!!!!

That would be Ethan Suplee, who plays Randy in MY NAME IS EARL!
So now I am mortified.
The thing is, I love Randy (he and Joy – Jamie Pressly is awesome – make the show) and – this is where I am really stupid – I actually follow Ethan on Twitter. Because I think he is cool and like to read what he’s thinking. I mean, just yesterday I was looking at his Twitpic post of him with his kiddies.
But he doesn’t follow me. So, while I didn’t even think twice about my tweet, I certainly didn’t think he would ever see it.
So then I'm wondering, how did he even find it? He must have done a search or something … I don’t know …

"Why are people so unkind?"

So what do I do? A grovelling tweet about how I actually think he is awesome and somehow I took myself out of context? Or a long blog about about what a fool I am? Write that I was tweeting with my Milo puppet? That I can't wait for him to get a spin-off that I have cleverly dubbed I Am Randy?
As it turns out I did all of the above. And then...
I looked at his page and saw this:

EthanSuplee Can you get arrested for cursing at a cop?

And realised I had replied:

scottkeenan @EthanSuplee Yes.

To which he said:

EthanSuplee @scottkeenan bummer

Ethan didn't read my awkward My Name Is Earl post at all. He was replying to me; replying to a tweet I'd sent him hours earlier and had forgotten all about.

What an idiot I am.
I have learned my lesson. You know, when I write stories I am really careful not to write anything that will prove awkward when I come face to face with the subject at a party. My blogging and tweeting should follow suit.
And I should also calmly look at situations before going into mad panic.

Scott Keenan
Oh the humanity! O’clock

Mel Gibson's girlfriend and more

The Five Most Bizarre Things That Happened In The Last 24 Hours*

*Janice Dickinson interviews and swine flu panic notwithstanding

1. Mel Gibson brings a date!
I don't get Mel Gibson anymore. I mean, what was his last actual good movie? Air America? I'm serious. Say what you will about Tom Cruise but boy knows how to make a movie (Helpful note: I don't acknowledge Mission: Impossible II or The Last Samurai and neither should you). So, these days when it comes to Mel, all I see is an anti-Semite, sexist pig who is a former big box office star that can't pick a box office winner to save his life. Then with the whole cheating thing - obviously I was as shocked as you were when that doozy came to light. No way! Not strict-Catholic Mel!

Then it just got worse. Questions arose as to which Russian chick named Oksana he was actually bedding (erm, all of them?). But today, Mel put all that scandal to rest by... rocking up to the Los Angeles premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine holding the hand of one Oksana Grigorieva. This Oksana is not to be confused with Russian nightclub lady Oksana Kolesnikova nor Russian pop tart Oksana Pochepa, who were both accused in the media of Mel shenanigans. How many Oksanas are there? One can only presume from this whole sorry fiasco that Oksana is the Russian-equivalent of being named Madison in the Western World. So hip. So now.

With Mel's long-suffering-yet-soon-to-be-wealthiest-women-in-the-universe-soon-to-be-ex-wife Robyn filing for divorce and about to take him for everything he's worth, you have to wonder if now really is the time to be publicly stepping out with his chick-on-the-side? I can only see value in this if Mel is trying to hide an even bigger story than the fact that he was cheating on his wife of 950 years. Is Oksana pregnant? Was he cheating with more than one person but he wants to make it look "better" like it was only one? Is Mel ever going to make another Mad Max? Only time will tell...

2. Natalie Portman has unexpected D-list friends!
During Lindsay Lohan's awkard appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show this week, the failed rehabber said that Natalie Portman had helped her through this really rough phase in her life. Really? Not only that, but Nat was also just spotted leaving the Tribeca Film Festival DirectTV lounge with... Hilary Duff. This is stunning to me. Natalie Portman is smart, has cred and just should generally know better. Girlfriend needs a better class of friend, right?

3. Sarah Jessica Parker is expecting twins!
Well, technically she's expecting someone else to have them for her. SJP and gay husband Matthew Broderick's twin baby girls will be delivered via a surrogate mother. The pair are said to be "overjoyed", which is code for "not divorcing for about two months."

4. Chuck Bass is weird...
I knew Gossip Girl's resident bad boy Ed Westwick was kinda kooky, talks to much about his music and has tattoos but I didn't know until now what they were of. I also didn't know about the sheer volume of tattoos he has until his new interview with Interview magazine came out. We're talking Johnny Depp levels of ink. He says his tattoos are mostly... song titles.

"I got “Heartbreak Hotel” tattooed on my chest. And I’ve got “21 Grams,” “Love Me Two Times,” the song by The Doors. I have “I Heart Romance” on my forearm and “You Make Me Feel Like The One” across my shoulder."

Woah there, Mister! I can only assume the last one is from "Dakota" by the Stereophonics but what the hell kind of song is "I Heart Romance"? Well, it isn't.

"I saw it in a bathroom stall in a bar in Brooklyn. I thought it was cool, so I got it," he says.

O....K.... then. Is he done with all the permanent art now? "No, no. Way more—they’re addictive. Get one. You’ll never look back. Live fast, die young. Be a good-looking corpse. Leave a good-looking tattoo." As much as I hate to point it out, as I really hope I'm wrong, but no good can ever come from saying a sentence like that no matter how cool you think it sounds, Ed.

5. Paris Hilton will win an award that wasn't a Razzie!
On the eve of the socialite-with-no-discernible-skills launching her ninth fragrance, Paris Hilton will pick up the Celebrity Award by The Fragrance Foundation at the 2009 FiFi Awards. Apparently this is less like the Ponds Institute than you'd think and more like the actual perfume industry but let's just backtrack a bit - she's onto her NINTH fragrance? Do people really need nine different ways to smell cheap? Crazy!

--
Carolyn Stewart
I choose never to sleep o'clock, April 29, 2009

When did Ben Stiller turn into Michael Jackson?

Eeeh-hee!

"Has anybody seen my scissorhands?!"

(Pic: The Daily Mail)

Um, what the HELL has happened to Ben Stiller’s head?
Has he died?
Had dodgy plastic surgery?
Can we just blame bad make-up, lighting and an ill-advised haircut dye job?
Is he playing Marilyn Manson in a new biopic?
Or have his “people” just gone crazy on the old Photo Shop?
The actor/writer/director is out and about to promote his new kiddies fillum A Night In The Museum 2: Battle Of The Smithsonian (the sequel to the similarly titled movie what I never seen), but this picture is enough to scare most right-thinking kiddies away.
Just last year, as the star of Tropic Thunder, Ben looked more like this:
All buffed guns, machine guns and crazy eyes; he could have actually passed for an actual action hero.
Now he looks like he could be the star of a new Tim Burton fillum.
Despite stories that he can be a bit of a nightmare to deal with, I really like Ben. I love my The Ben Stiller Show DVDs, I love me some Zoolander (sequel please!) and I live in hope that he will save Andy Dick’s career.
But EmoBen can move along now.

Thank You For Bea-ing A Friend The legendary Bea Arthur passed away over the weekend.
I grew up watching the sharp-tongued, deep-voiced Bea in The Golden Girls and reruns of Maude.
The trailblazing Maude, in which she played the title role, was brilliant because there was no topic it wouldn’t tackle and clever because it was never scared to lampoon the lefties it was based around if they were going too far.
The Golden Girls – in which she played the put-upon divorced school teacher Dorothy – was among so many childhood sitcom staples, but unlike Diff’rent Strokes it taught me to appreciate a double entendre – and was the first time I heard the word “slut”. It still makes me laugh today and has been discovered by young 'uns on cable and DVD (Bea herself became a bit of a net sensation in recent years - who didn't recieve the "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Bea?" email?).
Here is one classic scene from a Golden Girls Christmas episode where Blanche makes the other girls a calendar featuring some of her gentleman callers. Because nothing is funny like old lady tramps!

Vale Bea Arthur.

Rachel Bilson's new job

Welcome to the OC, bitch...Rachel Bilson is a journalist!

Wanted a job working in magazines. Went to uni. Got a degree. What a fool I was! Turns out I went about my career aspirations all the wrong way. Apparently the surefire way to skyrocket yourself into my dream job on US InStyle magazine is to become an out-of-work actress from a former not-very-popular teen soap.

Yes, Rachel Bilson (who?), who played Summer Roberts (is that really a character's name?) on The OC (was that show only on for one season?), has been appointed fashion editor of InStyle magazine. She only has to write a column once a month to earn the title and it will likely be ghost-written but still.... sigh. I guess, on the plus side, it will stop her from making horrible movies for a while. But is this really the way of the future? What next? Leighton Meester knocking out copy for Forbes or Demi Lovato: editor-at-large of The New Yorker? Rachel says no.

"I am not planning on quitting my day job to be a full-time fashion editor, although I am really enjoying it and it intrigues me very much," says Rachel. "I'm actually flattered more than anything that people want to ask me questions about style. I am honored to do it."

"I can talk about fashion all day long, and I am an avid InStyle reader so the relationship seemed perfect! This column is the best homework assignment ever!" she adds.

Not quitting your day job? And what exactly does that currently involve, unemployed Rach? Acting like you're engaged to Gayden Christensen? Actually, that *would* be a full-time job. Plus, I bet all the other fashion editors in magazine land are thrilled with the way you scored this role and also a tad insulted that you refer to their jobs as a little bit of "homework".

OK, fine, Rachel is very stylish and I am a fan of hers. I also know there were exactly four seasons of The OC. I even know her character's pet rabbit was named Pancakes. I'm just jealous. If you wish to ask Rachel a question about fashion that she may answer in her column, you can do so here: CLICK on ME!

That's when good Neighbours become good friends...

It seems my cohort SK hung out with some celebs recently. Whatever, man. Sure, at first I thought this was a personal slight but over time (ie. the weekend) I decided to view it more as a challenge. Here is my response:I could be wrong but surely a Harold Bishop trumps a Sea Patrol/Kenny combo?

Follow My Friend...

Matthew Perry joins Twitter!

I've always been a Matthew Perry follower but now it's official. In exciting news, the former Friends star and current 17 Again funny guy now has an account on Twitter. He's inadvisedly using his middle name (Langford) to identify himself but at least he's on there, right?
Check him out here: (CLICK ON ME!)

Carolyn Stewart
I've gotta stop writing during Underbelly cos I think it makes me aggressive o'clock, April 27, 2009

Taxicab confessions:

Awesome people I met at the pub:

Ian Stenlake and Shane Jacobson (starring in Guys and Dolls)

Awesome song what was playing on 96.1FM in the cab:

Kylie Minogue featuring Mims "All I See"

Awesome song I am obsessed with:

Nick Lachey "All In My Head"

Night night!

Scott Keenan

Too much ain't enough sleep o'clock

She Got Plucked!
Susan Boyle’s new look

"Nothing to see here - move along."
(pic: The Sun)

She’s done it!
Only hours after I pondered the big question – would Britain’s Got Talent break-out star Susan Boyle succumb to a make-over – the 48-year-old (evidently she had a birthday at some point) has taken it upon herself to work on her “look”.
First she found a pair of heals and a leather jacket, then she got her eyebrows done and now she’s had her wiry grey hair flat ironed and dyed “chestnut brown”.
This is despite the fact that BGT producers were apparently keen to stick with her dowdy look.

Certainly there was no posh London celebrity salon involved – Boyley popped down to the local parlour and forked out £5 for the brows and £35 for the new hairdo.

Buh-bye caterpillars

(pic: The Daily Mail)

I feel somewhat comforted that she has taken the makeover into her own hands and that it hasn’t come directly from execs, but one has to wonder how much the focus on her appearance has affected her (considering this is my second post on the subject, I am not shying away from my obvious direct link in her feeling the need to get her hair did).
But will the new look change people’s love for her? BGT judge Amanda Holden has already publicly stated Susan should stay au naturale.

“I won’t let Simon take her to his dentist,” Amanda said last week, “and I certainly won’t let her near his hairdresser. She needs to stay exactly as she is as that’s the reason we love her. She looks like anybody who could live on your street. The minute we turn her into a glamour-puss it’s spoilt.”

"These aren't the droids you're looking for."
(pic: The Daily Mail)

Taking to this showbiz lark like Lindsay to vodka, Susan got about town with her head covered in order to keep her new look under wraps. She will unveil the all-new superstar Susan at the upcoming Britain’s Got Talent semi-finals, Gretel Killeen-style (see story below).
Knowing they will have massive ratings no matter what Susan’s hair looks like, the show’s producers have defended the makeover.
“Susan’s a grown woman and can do what she likes with her hair,” pipped a spokey.
True, that.

Gretel’s Got Game

"Just wait there while I get my whip..."

Speaking of secret make-overs, this year’s Logies host Gretel Killeen is being very secretive about her new pixie haircut. So far she has only been pictured with a hat firmly covering her new crop, and Gretski has no intention of letting anyone see the new do before the big night.
“She wants to use the Logies as the big reveal of her new look after being off the radar for so long,” a “source” tells The Daily Tele.
Word is she’ll even wear a wig on her Rove appearance this weekend.
Nine publicity folk had to deal with her insisting upon wearing a hat in her Logies promo shoot. But looking at the photo – hardly the kind of pic glossies and newspapers will be thrilled with running to promote TV’s night of nights – that was the least of their worries. Completely dressed in black and wearing long leather gloves, Gretel dons a top hat and flops an unconvincing hair extension over her shoulder in a shot that leaves her looking like a dominatrix ringmaster.
This, on second thoughts, may be appropriate.
The thing about Gretel – that apparently the Logies organisers forgot – is that she does and says exactly what she pleases. Even if that means parading some of the worst outfits ever to be seen on Australian TV. But she doesn’t care, and that is why she is equally loved and hated by the public and industry types alike.

Scott Keenan

I had a make-over now I look like a clown o'clock

Johnny Depp is crazy

Shows Off His Tatt

Plus he's gonna be on SpongeBob Squarepants!

At last year's MTV Movie awards, it was apparent that Johnny Depp had added to his 13-plus-strong tattoo arrangement by getting yet another one. This week, while filming The Rum Diary, the tatt that reads "Silence Exile Cunning" was once again clearly visible on his arm. The three words are part of an extended quote from the James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. [The full quote goes: “I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning.”]

Nice enough. But it's so large. Like, an Angelina-style large tattoo. Isn't that a weird choice, especially for someone who is meant to be a blank canvas because they totally inhabit their acting roles? It brought back memories of the cast of Charmed - Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and Rose McGowan era - who were pretty much completely covered with giant tattoos all over their bodies. Even so, the trio continued to get even more tattoos and the situation became so ridiculous that the show's makeup department outright refused to go on painstakingly covering their art every morning... so overnight their once-clean-skinned witch characters became simultaneously tattooed!

The "Silence Exile Cunning" (it's advised you don't say this too many times in a row) tattoo also reminded me of how crazy Johnny Depp secretly is. It's all a very quaint-kooky kind of crazy but crazy it is. Don't get me wrong, Johnny Depp is a lot of things. He's cool. He's good-looking. He's perfect in so many ways.

It's just that he's also a lot of other things. He was a serial engager (Sherilyn Fenn, Winona Ryder). He thinks he's a musician (remember his horrible band P?). He busted up his hotel room in New York cos he claimed he saw bugs everywhere (it must be noted that this is actually one of my favourite stories ever. It is also the best ever cover of Interview magazine complete with the most awesome coverline ever, in my humble opinion*). He's a raving lunatic, basically. Fortunately for the Deppster's agent, he doesn't give that many interviews so he's able to keep the crazy relatively under wraps - kinda like a pre-Scientology-spouting Tom Cruise. Plus, I can forgive just about anything JD does thanks to a tiny phrase that Tom Cruise will never have available as a life line: 21 Jump Street.

Still not convinced he's not all there? Par example: "My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist."

Do it yourself? With a knife? Ack!

Speaking of tattoos, Johnny always had a lot but, admittedly, some ended up turning out better than others. His "Winona Forever" one - inked for then-girlfriend Winona Ryder - obviously wasn't the best idea for sadly love can fade... but, luckily for him, tattoos can be altered! The odd part is that he still thinks it's funny - like he actually laughs out loud when he retells the story - that he got the inscription famously converted to read "Wino Forrever." Really? That's still funny? O... K...

Despite the obvious and often delightful crazy, I still wonder how long it took after the epic fail of the Winona Forever situation before he was next able to take the monumental, body-altering step of getting a tattoo again. I imagine your average person would be quite hesitant. But, given Johnny's body of work, clearly he didn't suffer any of these hang-ups as he seemingly gets a new mark about as often as Lindsay Lohan heads back into rehab. ie. A LOT. Still, while he's had no issue adding the names of his darling kids, Lily-Rose and Jack, to his tattoo collection, long-time love Vanessa Paradis has not made the cut. Maybe he's had a hard time working out what high-larious variation the name "Vanessa" could be turned into were they ever to split? "Undresser", anyone?

More importantly than all of this - and, if I were honest, the actual reason I started this post but then got, ahem, side-tracked - JD has lent his gravelly voice to the episode of SpongeBob Squarepants that airs in the US this week. He guest-stars as the voice of Jack Kahuna Laguna (hee hee), a legendary surfer who lives on an island where SpongeBob and his friends find themselves stranded after being swept away by a wave.

He's done 21 Jump Street AND SpongeBob SquarePants? I think we all now know that it is entirely possible for a hot person to earn two lifetime passes!

* This is the best excerpt from Interview magazine's Brendan Lemon interview with Johnny Depp from 1995 re: his arrest

BL: I want to ask you about your arrest last year for busting up a Manhattan hotel room. Now as one who was arrested once myself in New York, and who spent the night in a holding pen, I want to say that it was the most humiliating experience of my life. But at least I had the cover of anonymity. You did not.
JD: No, I didn't. I did to some extent, thought, because people didn't expect to see me there. (laughs) They had other things on their mind, and seeing me there was not so important. The New York cops that I experienced were pretty nice. They were just doing their job and some goofy actor decided to get into a little bit of trouble and ended up in the pokey.

BL: When you were arrested, did the police realize immediately that you were Johnny Depp? Or did it take them a while to figure it out, like it did when Hugh Grant was arrested last summer?
JD: No. They knew my name.

BL: I won't ask you to rehash the scene of you in jail, which I understood involved the other prisoners screaming your name and the cops asking you for autographs. But I would like to know: Were you taken aback by being arrested in a situation like that?
JD: I just thought, I've done much worse things and not been arrested for them. As a kid you get into stuff and you get away with it. The idea that some guy, like everybody else, gets upset, freaks out, smashes a couple of things, and goes to jail for it -- that's one thing. But for these kinds of things to turn into the media frenzy is another thing. OK, Hugh Grant got busted with a prostitute. Fine. Leave it at that. What'd I do? Broke a couple of things. I paid for it.

BL: You said that at the hotel that night you just sort of freaked out for a moment. Had you had too much coffee? An argument with your girlfriend (Kate Moss)? A really bad day?
JD: There's one thing I do want to clarify. It had nothing to do with an argument with Kate. It had to do with me.

BL: So no one thing set it off?
JD: OK. There was a bug in the place that I was trying to kill. This thing had tried to attack me and to suck my blood -- a big cockroach. And I tried to get it, I tried to whack it. I'd miss and I'd smash a lamp.

BL: So this was all about trying to kill a bug?
JD: One very big bug.

BL: Big-as-a-Buick bug?
JD: Yeah.

BL: Do you have a thing about bugs, generally?
JD: I like bugs, normally.

Carolyn Stewart
My heart wants pancakes for breakfast but my brain says oats o'clock, April 23, 2009

Susan Boyle: To make-over or not to make-over?

"...Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl..."

If you are on the internet right now, and all signs point to the fact that you probably are, then you have no business not knowing exactly who Susan Boyle is.

The dowdy 47-year-old Scot’s appearance (in more ways than one) on Britain’s Got Talent has become a sensation with over 100 million views of her performance on Youtube (Embedding of the video has been disabled, so you'll have to go there to see it), with even the US jumping on the bandwagon.

Susan, you see, has big unkempt hair, equally big unkempt eyebrows, wears nanna dresses and dared to gyrate her hips on stage having already announced she had never been kissed.

The tease!

It goes without saying that in normal life middle-aged ladies with bad hair can’t sing.

Just look at Madonna.

So imagine Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan’s collective horror when she started belting out “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables (perhaps they prefer “Master Of The House”?) and it sounded rather good.

Simon’s eyes lit up, realising he had just found the biggest novelty hit since Pop Idol’s Gareth “I can’t speak without stuttering but I can sing like an angel!” Gates, and you could almost see the cogs in his brain working as he imagined himself bathing in even more cash, and some time soon after wondered, “Do I pluck this woman to within an inch of her life, or leave her looking like Hagrid?”

Is her charm soley based on the fact that she can sing AND has bad eyebrows?

Simon knows that if he pushes her out now as-is he will make a killing (and you can bet he has already picked out the tracks for her new album and she will be in the studio before the BGT finale airs), but as a novelty act – which, let’s be honest, she will be in such a case – she is unlikely to go beyond a second album.

As an unemployed 47-year-old she will probably be quite happy to take her millions o’ quid back to her village and live the rest of her life with acclaim and the occasional appearance on I Love The ’00s specials.

But by sprucing her up, Simon risks having her loving public seeing her as a sell-out and turning on her, and that is far too big a risk to take, especially after Susan herself spoke out on the subject.

“Maybe I’ll consider a makeover later on,” she told The Times last week, leaving the door open to a new look for her second album. “For now I’m happy the way I am – short and plump. I would not go in for Botox or anything like that. I’m content with the way I look. What’s wrong with looking like Susan Boyle? What’s the matter with that?”

Still, Simon could always get a reality TV crew to start following her around immediately (and if he was a thinker he would) and it could all finish up with the best extreme makeover of all time!

Perhaps following her "secret" chats with Song/BMG, Susan has had a slight change of tune.

“I will need to sort out my dress sense and my weight,” she has now pipped to the Mirror. It wasn’t until I saw myself on TV that I realised how frumpy I was. It’s not a big thing – it doesn’t worry me too much – but I will be doing a bit more exercise to help me sort it out … I just want to look nice, and smart.”

Judging from their internet output a hell of a lot of Americans are desperate for her to be taken to with scalpels and tweezers (Susan Boyle: Bring On The Makeover! shouts E! Online, while USA Today pretends their beauty bias comes from readers; Debate: Should Susan Boyle get a makeover?), while the British like their new hero frumpy.

The UK tabloids are already splashing their front pages with mock-horror after Boyley dared to step out in a – shock! – leather jacket! “And you said you wouldn't change Susan Boyle” cries the Daily Mail.

"I hear this is what all the kids are wearing!"

What a load of old tosh.

Let’s be honest, at this stage nobody knows how Susan will handle the fame game, when it comes to looks or anything else. How will she deal with paps at her front door? And hangers-on offering her gak? We could very well be looking at the next Lindsay Lohan!

Stay tuned.

Scott Keenan

Do my eyebrows look big in this? o’clock

Mandy Moore new song

RETURN OF THE DEAD?

Mandy Moore: "I Can Break Your Heart Any Day Of The Week"

Gotta be honest. I love me some Mandy Moore.

I love her first hit "Candy". It's a great song.

Exhibit A:




Unfortunately for us all, it's been a musical downhill run since then.

The problem arose when Ms Moore wanted to be cool and attempted to make everyone forget about her former pop self. I mean, she's still Mandy Moore, she didn't do it in an insane "don't ask me about when people actually liked me" kind of way. She just kind of distracted us all with a clever smoke and mirrors show: she died in A Walk To Remember (sniffle!), she dated tennis pro Andy Roddick (Mandy & Andy = guffaw!), she starred on Scrubs with then-boyfriend Zach Braff (good times!) and - perhaps most shockingly - she cut off all her hair (gasp!). Then with a flick of her fairy wand, she proclaimed she was a serious music artist and went about the very self-important business of making music that nobody listens to.

Sure, some of the tracks on her covers album were above-average and the single "Extraordinary" off her album "Wild Hope" was a reasonable enough song but they didn't exactly set the charts on fire. Or at all.

So, with all this depressing news in mind plus her horrifying recent marriage to hissy-fit prone-country-rocker Ryan Adams (I love him but really?), I have to admit it was with complete trepidation that I hit 'play' on her new single, "I Can Break Your Heart Any Day Of The Week". It just sounds like it's going to be a boring ballad, right? And with Captain Hissy Fit calling the shots at home, I was truly worried that it was going to be even worse: a boring country ballad.

Plus, there were other signs the world was against Ms Moore (can we call her that anymore? Mrs Adams?? Bleeeeurgh) reclaiming her former musical glory. For starters, her new album is called "Amanda Leigh", which is her unabbreviated name. Groan.

She also co-wrote the song. Please noooooooooo!

Then, at first peek, she appears to be wearing a freaking trench in the video... urgh.

This is going to be bad.

So, is it that bad? Well, actually... I am so deeply thankful to report that the song is nothing like what I was fearing. I *LOVE* IT. The song is actually fun, catchy and kinda awesome. This is something I haven't been able to say about her songs for a very long time. Sure, it's no "Candy" and the video could certainly do with less boring-ness and more skater bois but.. I have to say that I've only just stopped listening to it and I already want to listen to it again right now.

Exhibit B:




What do you think? Could this be the song that brings Mandy back from her musical graveyard?

Carolyn Stewart
I've got a cold and should be in bed... but still I write o'clock, April 21, 2009

Robbie phones home

"Shhh! I seen a black triangle!"

Robbie Williams loves UFOs. He can’t get enough of them. And during his self-imposed exile in Los Angeles over the past few years he became an almost full-time UFO fancier, frequenting spooky websites and taking trips to Area 51 and the like and having several sightings of his own.

The UK tabloids loved it, painting him as a modern era Howard Hughes (admittedly the Grizzly Adams beard he grew – apparently inspired by a post-Beatle Paul McCartney – didn’t help); isolated, rich and crazy.

Sadly it’s now all over, with Sir Bob moving back to the UK and announcing, via his website, that he has decided to take a break from UFO watching so he can release a long-awaited new album. While I am delighted by the prospect of finally having some new material from him (he’s currently recording with legendary producer Trevor Horn), I am sad it has put a halt to his plan for an alien-themed TV show. (Yes, really)

The LA move came after the lukewarm reception to his last album Rudebox (which I have to say I really quite like) and he decided to disappear for a while.

“I looked for something else to do, something not to do with music,” he writes on his blog. “As you probably now know I’ve always been fascinated with the paranormal (and the people that surround it), still am, so I tried to make some in-roads and thought I’d maybe do a TV show with a paranormal theme, something like the Arthur C Clark shows that I loved as a kid (Arthur C Clark backed with Tales Of The Unexpected can really make for a terrifying Sunday when you’re eight). That's what the UFO thing was all about. But that’s been shelved for the time being on the grounds of I couldn’t really be arsed.”

Robbie proves his identity to fellow posters on UFO and conspiracy site Above Top Secret

The show would be worth seeing if only to hear Robbie tell the stories of his own close encounters.

“I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel and I was lying on my sun lounger outside at night, looking up,” he says of his first close contact. “Then, about 300 foot above me, there was this square thing which just passed over my head silently and then shot off.”

But the “square thing” wasn’t Bob’s only run-in with UFOs. Oh no. His love of the paranormal and relocation to the US had made him a veritable magnet for strange floaty things.

“The next one was the weirdest one yet. I'd just written a song called ‘Arizona’, and it's all about alien contact and I was playing that,” he pips. “I stood on the balcony and there was this big ball of gold light that turned up - we thought it was Venus or Mars or something. Then the song stops playing and it disappears. But then we put ‘Arizona’ on again and the ball turned back up. It happened four times. After that a massive electrical storm started and these two big massive balls of light started dancing in the sky. It was like a whole light show for about an hour."

It doesn’t end there kiddies! Course not. The aliens (it should be pointed out that Robbie never says they are aliens, and rather UFOs. I just felt a need to mention aliens as it seems more alarmist) love his music so much they even visited him in the recording studio in the form of a “big strip of black light”.

“It was three inches thick and it shot from one end of the room out of the window,” he chirrups. “It's absolutely bonkers. It’s something to do with LA.”

Now he’s remembered he’s a pop star it may be some time before we hear more alien (sorry, UFO) shenanigans from Sir Bob. I just hope to see some spooky flying shapes should he perform “Arizona” at his next concert.

Scott Keenan
I seen a UFO but nobody believes me o'clock

Gwyneth Paltrow not-so-secretly hates Winona Ryder

FRENEMY WARS!
GWYNETH vs WINONA

I subscribe to Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop email thingo and I kinda love it. Hey, don't judge me, we all have dirty little secrets. Anyway, I absolutely forgot how BFF Gwyneth and Winona Ryder were (back when they were dating other BFFs Ben Affleck and Matt Damon respectively) until I got her latest newsletter where she talks about a "frenemy". And, while this frenemy could feasably be anyone, surely signs point to it being Ol' Five-Fingers Ryder?

"Back in the day, I had a “frenemy” who, as it turned out, was pretty hell-bent on taking me down. This person really did what they could to hurt me. I was deeply upset, I was angry, I was all of those things you feel when you find out that someone you thought you liked was venomous and dangerous. I restrained myself from fighting back. I tried to take the high road. But one day I heard that something unfortunate and humiliating had happened to this person. And my reaction was deep relief and…happiness. There went the high road. So, why does it feel so good to hear something bad about someone you don’t like? Or someone you DO like? Or someone you don’t KNOW? I once asked the editor of a tabloid newspaper why all of the stories about a famous British couple had a negative bent. He said that when the headline was positive, the paper didn’t sell. Why is that? What’s wrong with us? I asked the sages to shed a little light.
Here’s to washing our mouths out with soap...
Love, Gwyneth"
For more GOOP: [CLICK ON ME!]

Just in case you're still unsure of the identity of the frenemy, maybe a refresher on their history is in order. You see, former BFFs Gwynnie and Winnie were always rumoured to have had a massive falling out because Winnie accused Gwynnie of stealing Shakespeare in Love from her (oh, to have been a fly on the wall of that blow up!). It's worth noting that the pair were inseperable prior to this and then, when that rumour spread, they were never seen hanging out in public again. Also, sure, the rumour sounded suitably ridiculous and Winona-kinda-crazy at the time but now I totally believe Gwynnie did. I love her but she's calculating and just that kind of person.

So, while GP doesn't spell out the name W-i-n-o-n-a in her newsletter, it allegedly - ahem - has to be! The "something unfortunate and humiliating" happening to her frenemy surely refers to Winnie being done for shoplifting from Sak's Fifth Avenue in 2001. I now can't help but picture G turning on the news on the day of W's arrest and guffawing like a mad person. Love it!

The weird thing is that, despite her Ice Queen reputation, Gwyneth always wants to come off as nice-as-pie in public so I can't imagine what she is thinking by starting this likely war of words. While I do give her kudos for admitting to the whole principle of feeling glee at a frenemy's fall from grace, it still has me worried for her. Sure, your average person might be able to let this slide but this is Winona freaking Ryder we're talking about. Surely she'll see through this thinly-veiled attack and unleash the crazy. There's no way she's not going to fight back. It's going to be dirty. Game on!

Carolyn Stewart
I should be eating breakfast o'clock, April 17, 2009

The Bitch Is Back

The classic Melrose Place cast including Heather Locklear (top left), Laura Leighton (centre) and Thomas Colabro (top right)

After the success of The CW's Beverly Hills 90210 relaunch (in the US that is – only a handful of episodes were ever screened in Australia, where it had the humiliation of being axed twice), it was only a matter of time before they did the same with the BH 90210 spin-off Melrose Place, which followed the (sex) lives of the 20-something inhabitants of an apartment building on LA’s Melrose Avenue.
This week filming has begun on the pilot for the new version, which stars Ashlee Simpson-Wentz (horrifying message board nerds and delighting me) and one-time Home and Away star Stephanie “formerly Stephanie Chaves-Jacobsen” Jacobsen. Both appear to be playing prostitutes. So at least that’s in-keeping with the spirit of the original show.
Original cast members Thomas Colabro (the awesome Dr. Michael Mancini) and Laura Leighton (Sydney Andrews) are back on board, despite the fact that Sydney died at the end of season five in the arms of her new husband “Crag” (spelled “Craig” and played by the awful David Charvet).
Sydney has clearly been revived to take the place of Heather Locklear’s Amanda Woodward, as Heather, who clearly hasn’t heard about the financial crisis, wanted too much money. If the show is a hit she may yet change her mind.

It seems poor, desperate, hilarious Lisa Rinna who played a pair of lips named Taylor McBride has been overlooked for the new cast. Lisa has made no secret of wanting to return to the show, even taking to the streets of Hollywood wearing a sandwich board reading “Honk 4 Lisa Rinna on the new Melrose Place” with Ross The Intern from The Tonight Show. This may actually be the best thing to happen this year.

"Will over-act for publicity!"

Anyway, I actually want Lisa back in the cast; she was both crazy and amusing.
She even has plans for her character!
“I left the show pregnant, but I can't remember if it was Michael's or Peter's baby,” Lisa says (It was Michael's). “But you could age that baby up and add five years, and you have a teenager. Or maybe I come back to run the apartment complex. Or maybe I open my own ballroom dance studio.”
Be quiet now Lisa.
Also set to pop up on the show is Ryan Eggold, the “cool teacher” Ryan Matthews on 90210, who is set the cross between the two. While the shows are supposed to live in the same world, Jessica Lucas, who played Ryan’s girlfriend Kimberly MacIntyre on 90210, is playing Riley Richmond on Melrose, and 90210 regular Rob Estes (West Beverly principal Harry Wilson) was on the original Melrose as Kyle McBride (after a guest role years earlier as Sam Towler). Confused?
It will be interesting to see how the new version plays out. 90210 came back after the success of teen soaps like Dawson’s Creek and Gossip Girl, but there hasn’t been a successful adult soap since MP 1.0. And while the original series started as a straight-down-the line episodic spin-off of Beverly Hills 90210, it was only after producers turned up the crazy that anybody watched. Soon people were blowing things up and returning from the dead and everyone was having an affair with someone else. Which was excellent.
Let's hope they just cut straight to trash this time around. The trick for the producers will be walking a fine line between so-bad-it’s-good and, well, bad.
I for one hope the show is awesome and that Ten will air it for longer than two weeks.

Scott Keenan
So late it's almost tomorrow o'clock

Shia LaBeouf was always a geek

SHIA LABEOUF'S

HIGH-LARIOUS YEARBOOK PHOTO

"And you thought the funniest thing about me was my name..."

I know it's hard to believe but it's quite possible that Indiana Jones 4 star Shia LaBeouf was once even nerdier than he is today. GASP! Thanks to the unearthing of his 1999 yearbook photo, it's hard see past his then-13-year-old self's unabashed enthusiasm and boundless glee. Well, that's unless you actually do look past that crap... and then it's pretty clear that he would have been not only teased mercilessly at school, but also beaten within an inch of his life. Sniffle. Poor The LaBeouf! With that in mind, I felt the need to find the precise words that perfectly describe the hilarity while also trying to encompass how the other little 7th Graders at Shia Elementary would have reacted to him at the time this doozy of a photo was taken. Ready?

It's a quote. From The Simpsons. It's Nelson.
You need to have his sing-songy voice in mind.
Are you ready? OK, here goes: HA HA!

It's... VINTAGE VIDEO!

"Twist My Arm" - Kylie and Dannii Minogue

Vintage is so now. So happening. So, with that in mind, I had to share the trip back to 1986 that one of my pop-lovin' friends Colleen sent me. It's of Kylie Minogue and then-famouser sister Dannii singing The Pointer Sisters, erm, hit "Twist My Arm" live (well, technically they recorded it live in a studio beforehand and then came on stage to mime to, well, themselves) at a Young Talent Time concert. It's not only worth watching to see Kylie arrive via motorcycle, the out-of-control '80s jazz moves and Dannii rocking a half side-pony but it's also worth checking out the pre-Kath & Kim way-ocker accents at the beginning. While these days Kylie has gone all cosmopolitan (ie. icky) with her voice, I'm proud to advise that Dannii has kept her inner-bogan alive and well with a thick Aussie accent. Enjoy the video, mate...



Carolyn Stewart
I must confess in tiny type that Dannii Minogue was my style icon in the '80s and early on I loved her more than Kylie o'clock, April 15, 2009

Stop The Lies!
Heather Mills (remember her?) has announced that she has started a one-woman campaign to rid the internet of lies about her, so that her daughter Beatrice won't think badly of her when she's old enough to get online.

"Recently I've been going through the internet, clearing up [rumours]," says Sir Paul McCartney's ex. "I've got five apologies so far from British media and I've got many thousands to go. I plan to clear the internet so my daughter doesn't read all the lies when she's 12."

With the lies out of the way, Bea just has tales of her mother's porn past, crazy talk show rants and throwing water at her dad's divorce lawyer to look forward to.

But Heather's mission has had me wondering why other celebrities aren't online, e-mailing media outlets and bloggers alike to do away with net misconceptions.

Being a kind and helpful soul, I thought I'd give a few of them a head start:

Nicole Kidman does not use botox: she took the briefest glimpse of Medusa and only her forehead turned to stone.

Pamela Anderson is not addicted to marriage: she just loves getting divorced.

Pammy with hubbies number one and two; Tommy Lee

Mel Gibson is not anti-Semitic: he hates everyone equally.

Victoria Beckham is not too thin: her children are morbidly obese.

John Travolta does not wear a wig: it's actually a "hair hat".

Matthew McConaughey is not vain: his nipples are allergic to cotton.

Denise Richards is not a fame whore: cameras help with her debilitating agoraphobia.

Lindsay Lohan is not a lesbian: Sam Ronson actually "Samuel".

Kevin Federline is not fat: he's hiding his new love children under his top.

Miley Cyrus is not obnoxious: she's a teenaged girl.

Angelina Jolie is not addicted to collecting babies: she just loves the new baby smell.

Paris Hilton hates parties: but loves free booze.

Tom Cruise is not crazy: he's actually retarded.*

Scott Keenan
Tell Me Sweet Little Lies O'Clock
*Watch Rainman now. Changes the whole movie once you know. For the better!