Back in skinny jeans

Jessica Alba ideal Girlfriend

Yahoo Entertainment News
Poll Finds Men Want Alba As Girlfriend

AskMen.com asked 2.5 million of its readers and staff, which celebrity would be their ideal type of girlfriend, wife, or mother of their children. Actress Jessica Alba of Sin City and Fantastic 4 fame came out on top, followed by Sienna Miller of Alfie fame and Jude Law's ex, and Angelina Jolie, baby momma to Brad Pitt's soon to come offspring. For the rest of the top 10, check out the article.

I'd have to say that the opinion of the readers of AskMen.com have pretty good taste as far as Alba is considered. She is pretty, talented, knows when to be a tart, and knows when to stand by her man. As a celeb, you hardly ever see her attached to any negative publicity, drunken stupors at clubs, or sex tape scandals. She has a steady boyfriend, and doesn't come off as being spoiled or superficial. She seems like a well rounded, good head on her shoulders kind of gal, with a kick ass body. I wouldn't mind having abs that looked like hers.

If I were a guy, I'd go for someone like Angelina Jolie. I like that she is worldly, not afraid to explore her dark side, loves children, helps the poor and sick around the world, loves to be glamorous yet doesn't let her Hollywood image define her, and likes to shoot bad guys from her motorcycle. An added bonus is that she'll memorialize you with a tattoo on her luscious bod. That's hot!

photo from movie Fantastic Four

E! 10 ways to Superstar Skinny

As part of my celeb gossip nutrition, I watch the E! channel. One of my absolute favorite shows is The Soup. Joel McHale, the host, is just so damn funny. What I like best is that E! produces a lot of countdown shows like the 101 Starlicious Moments, or the 101 Best Saturday Night Live moments, and now they have a series called "10 Ways" which cover different types of subjects related to celebrities.

One of the current subjects is "10 ways to Superstar Skinny", and it's all about how you can get skinny like the celebrities. The show caught my eye obviously because it had the word skinny in it. They are still running episodes, so check your local TV listing, and watch this show. It's worth TiVoing because you see all the ridiculous things that celebs do to get in shape, stay in shape, or create the illusion they are in shape. You will learn that duct tape is not only used for taping up moving boxes, but for ****. I'll keep that a secret, so you'll enjoy the show ;-)

I'm going to talk about one of the 10 things because I want to share something that I did because a celebrity did it, and I wanted to try it for myself. I even went to the actual place the celeb went to. Th original intent was pretty stupid I admit, but the experience was fabulous, and life changing. I'm glad I did it, and I'm not ashamed to say that I did it because I heard that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon did it along with Courtney Love, Gwen Stefani, and a bevy of other celebs and swimsuit models.

One of the ways to get Superstar Skinny is to get colonics to clean out your colon. If you don't know what a colonic is, Wikipedia will explain it here, but basically, a tube is inserted up your butt and water is blasted in your colon to hose it down and clean all the "crap" out. You can have stuff in your colon that has been sitting there for years and years. When I left my stressful corporate job, my first goal was to get rid of the 15 extra pounds I gained. I was doing everything from diet to exercise, and then heard about detoxing. In a detox, you are basically cleaning out all the pipes in your body. That made sense to me. We clean the pipes in our cars and house plumbing to keep them productive, so it should make sense to do that with out bodies.

I saw on TV that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck went to this place called We Care Spa in Palm Desert, CA. It is an expensive place, but since I had the money, I thought why not detox celeb style, it sounds like a pampering, fun time. So, I went, and it was the best thing I ever did....(to be continued)

A Million Little Fibs

I know I'm late to the show, but thanks to TIVO, I finally saw the Oprah interview with James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces, where she basically raked him over the goals and made him sit on the couch of humiliation. We all learned that if you try and dupe Oprah, you will pay dearly. We also learned that people will not stand for anything less than the truth. One of the things I love about blogs and blogging is that the driving force is the truth. It's about authenticity in the blogosophere.

There are all kinds of opinions about what happened during this interview, and about the book itself. I read the book because I saw the show where Oprah announced it as her book of choice for her Oprah Book Club. She said that if you were to only read one book in your whole life that this should be it. She really talked up this book, and because of that I chose to read it. I was also interested in reading A Million Little Pieces because it was about addiction and recovery. This guy was addicted to drugs, and was at rock bottom. He was determined to get his life back, and the book details all the messy, harsh details of his recovery. I was intrigued because as I mentioned before, self help books don't get into the yucky specifics of the healing process which is the part I want to read about. In Mr. Frey's book, you get to touch, taste, and smell, his healing path. This is why I believe the book was so popular, and why so many people were devastated when they learned of the lies. We are sold on the story that this guy is just like the rest of us and that he has a serious addiction which he is facing up to. Many of us cannot face that kind of honesty. We get to experience his recovery, and in doing so, we get to heal ourselves through the wisdom of his pain and strength. For some people, the book gives them the inspiration to start the journey of their own recovery.

Personally, I thought the book was okay. I wasn't riveted or thought it was the best book ever. Oprah and I have different tastes. But, I did like the specific details he gave of how screwed up he was, and the process of fixing what was broken like his teeth, and spirit. Some say it was a mistake for James Frey to go on Oprah, and many say that they hate this guy because he lied. I will have to say that as much as I dislike people who lie to profit monetarily from it, I give this guy credit for taking the public punishment in front of millions of people on the Oprah show, and admitting his mistake. We never got to see any of the Enron guys or the Worldcom guys take their medicine in public and admit their mistakes, and the greed and lies of these guys caused thousands of people to lose their life savings. In comparison, James Frey only cost us the price of his book, and a let down. It is not at all pretty or a neat package, but it is human, and I hope that James Frey learns from his mistakes.

MadTV spoof: Hilary Duff "Beat of My Heart"

Last night on MadTV, the show started off with a spoof video of Hilary Duff's song "Beat of my Heart". They renamed the song, "For the Sake of my fame", and the lyrics were all about how the young starlets in Hollywood like Hilary, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan are starving themselves in order to stay famous. Here's some of the lyrics and the video from YouTube.com:

I weigh. I weigh.
I weigh every day.

I waste away
For the sake of my fame.

On one hand this video is pretty funny because it pokes fun at how absurd the obsession with weight is for these young famous girls, and on the other hand, when I got to thinking about this video's message, it made me feel really heartsick. I know it's just supposed to be light fare Saturday night TV, but something in the words of the spoof song touched me in sensitive spot. I was sad because the lyrics they chose, which were brilliant, spoke of the desperate measures young women will take in order to be famous or stay famous. Like it's not enough to be talented, smart, and beautiful. You have to be the skinniest to be the prettiest and most famous.

The line, "I waste away for the sake of my fame" is a very powerful statement. Is Hollywood and our society that demanding of beauty that women will literally waste away in order to remain an "It" girl. There is plenty of evidence that points to that belief, and that to me is incredibly heartbreaking. How do we change this?

Salma Hayek: Skinny No mas

There's nothing like a spicy Latina to get the waves moving. Salma Hayek, a very curvy and frank, actress known for her alluring roles in movies like From Dusk Til Dawn with gorgeous George Clooney, Desperado with yummy Antonio Banderas, and Breaking Up with hunky Russell Crowe insists that extreme dieting makes women "bitches" (from the blog I Don't Like You In That Way.) Said Salma,

"I find it very boring to have to be skinny all the time. It bores me and makes me bitchy. And yet in Hollywood it's okay if you're a bitch - as long as you're skinny! "A lot of these girls who spend so much time trying to be skinny - everyone is complaining about them. They don't make people feel good about themselves."

Salma contends that she will not starve herself for a role or to be popular. Yeah!! I am so happy to hear straight from the lips of an A-List star that dieting until you are a stick figure is not only unhealthy but boring. I agree with her that strict dieting makes women bitches. You get bitchy because you are just plain annoyed from being hungry all the time. Then you get on this competitive thing to be skinnier than anyone around you. If you are so consumed by these two things, how in the world can you be a joy to be around. I know for myself, when I don't eat for a long period of time, I feel my blood sugar drop, and then the witchy-bitchy feelings start to set in. Matt and I have a great understanding. When I feel the bitchiness from lack of food setting in, I warn him, and tell him that I need to eat something pronto. If not, watch out, the bitch claws will start striking.

Nicole Richie smaller than size 0

From EOnline.com
The Awful Truth by Ted Casablancas
"Shopping Wounds"

I love the gossip dish from Ted over at EOnline. According to Ted's birdies, Nicole Richie went shopping at one of those ultra chi-chi stores on Melrose in LA. It's one of those tres-chic places that most mortals like you and I would have heart failure looking at the price tags, but where the jet-set and heiresses have fun adorning their skeletons figures.

So, Nicole picked out a bunch of pretty things and went to the dressing room to try them all on. Nothing fit. Everything fell off her body. All the salespeople brought more clothes to Nicole in size 0's and alas Nicole walked out of the store with nothing because even the size 0 stuff was too big on her. This is quite shocking because a size 0 in Hollywood is almost literally like the circumference of a telephone pole.

I realize that there is great pressure in Hollywood for these young starlets to be thin, and for Nicole she had also been in the backlight for awhile compared to her ex-friend Paris Hilton. I remember when The Simple Life first came out, and they were calling Nicole the chubby sidekick. Today, next to Paris, Nicole almost literally disappears.

I have no doubt that Nicole's family and friends are in the midst of helping her get healthy again. When you are in your mid-20's and less than a size 0, there is a very serious issue at hand. Since Nicole is such a public figure with young consumers, I would hope that these young girls know, or have someone in their lives telling them that trying to be as thin as Nicole Richie is NOT a good idea, and is NOT something to aspire to. There is a point where skinny jeans becomes emaciated jeans, and that is not healthy at all. Skinny jeans in itself can mean different things to different people, but for the purpose of this blog, skinny jeans is the point where you feel healthy and sexy in your body. Many of us have issues with exactly where that point is. I myself go back and forth between wanting to fit in Giselle's jeans, and being okay in a size 12, the average size of the American woman.

Hurry, buy some security

Is it ever possible to be totally secure with yourself? My logical left-brain tells me that it is possible, but my heart wrenching right-brain says it doesn't think so. Sounds pessimistic I know, especially coming from someone who is such an idealist. I know other people have achieved that state. At least, on the surface it appears that way.

But, I ponder this thought for myself. I've spent my whole life not feeling secure about something. I could be feeling secure about my work abilities but insecure about my body. I finally get secure about my body, and then I start feeling insecure about my value as a person. It can go on and on. Perhaps, this is just because I am a self-centered narcissist. Perhaps, I do this so that I can continue to play the perfectionist game. Or maybe, I am a victim of consumerism that constantly tells us you need to be thinner, richer, better, and younger, so buy our products. The solution to all your insecurities is just bottles away. So hurry now, for today only, we are selling 3 bottles for the price of one. That's a $150 value for only $50. For $50, you can start feeling better today. What are you waiting for??

Still fit into Junior sizes

I think that for a hipster in her late 30's it is really cool that I can still fit into Junior sizes. Granted I'm on the far end of the scale at 11/13 but if I wanted to shop at Forever 21 or Wet Seal, I could. Of course I would look like creepy old lady still trying to desperately cling on to youth, but dangnabit, I can still get my ass into a pair of pre-adult pants. 6 months ago, I bought a pair of Levis 504 Slouch jeans in a Junior size 13. The jeans are big on me, but I like the slouchy look and feel, and the fact that they do not look like Juniors clothing. I highly recommend the 504's for slouchy days.

I think many women, as they head into their 30's, get to a point where it starts to hit you that you really shouldn't shop in the Juniors section anymore, and that you need to move into the Women's section. What is scary about this, is that the Women's section is the same section your Mom shops in, and it is a challenge to accept the fact that you are now in the same category, body wise, as Mom. Mom images are supposed to be ones that happen to you waaay in the future. There is plenty of time to be in "kid" mode. But, alas, that day has arrived and you are now getting your invitation into the adult women's club, both a celebration and a death.

If I were a clothing designer, I would design a line of clothing that still has some of the hipness and flare of the Juniors style, in sizes that are designed for adult womanly figures. In some stores, there is a big difference style wise when you move from Juniors to Womens. It's almost like they are saying through the clothes that as soon as you hit a certain age, you won't be needing the trendy styles anymore. Subconsciously, the store is saying to you, getting older means you have to get serious and practical which means your clothes do to. I say poo-poo to that. My body may be more womanly, but my spirit is still young, and I want my clothes to reflect that.

$5000 fine for having Booth Babes

From Reuters via Yahoo News
"Sexy "booth babes" face fines at video game show"

For those of you over the age of 35 who have worked in tradeshows in their job, know that the "Booth Babe" used to be a staple in almost every companies exhibit. There they stood in all their glory. The Booth Bimbos with their 20-something skin, cinched waist, flowing locks, and of course behemoth boobies, standing on the booth perimeter handing out brochures, chatchkis, or simply just standing to get the male attention. Outwardly, I just hated those gals, but secretly wanted to be one because they all have "perfect" skinny jeans bodies.

The Booth Babe, symbolically, is simply the last mark of gaudy male dominance in the business world. It's so old school now, that to have scantily clad booth bimbos in your exhibit is now considered purely tacky and classless. The car industry was notorious for having scantily clad bodacious beauties hawking cars at the big auto shows. Now, since women buy more than 60% of new cars, the bimbos have been replaced with respectable Calvin Klein suited spokespeople, female and male.

In an effort to get yet another male dominated industry to mature and do away with the Booth Babe, the huge and popular gaming tradeshow E3, Electronics Entertainment Expo, will now be handing out on the spot, after a verbal warning, a $5000 fine for any exhibitor who has a scantily clad female in their booth. If you have never been to the E3 show, it is loud, colossal, and full of life-like versions of game characters which include many half naked women in combat boots or bikinis. Okay, they are not that naked, many in addition wear hats or maybe a scarf. The show can get outrageous and tacky. One year in the early 2000's, there was an exhibitor who hired about a dozen midgets dressed in costume from slutty Catholic school girls, the band KISS, to Fidel Castro. The slutty midget school girls was just so beyond even my own flexible level of tolerance.  However, the E3 tradeshow is merely a reflection of the games being sold, so you can almost say that the booth babies are not simply in the booth for gawking purposes, but they are the living representation of cast members of the game being sold.

I worked in the game industry for 3 years, and honestly, I can say that I got out because I hated the overall portrayal of women in video games. Yes, there are more female game characters that kick ass, and beat the hell out of the bad guys, but every single one of these game heroines has D-cup boobs, and is wearing something skin tight, and revealing. And, let's not forget the shower scenes. After a hard day of fighting aliens and criminals, there is always a gratuitous shower scene with our lady hero. How about seeing her male counterparts take a shower. I might play more games if I could some digital male eye candy. How about more depictions of guys like in the Volleyball scene in the movie Top Gun. EVERY woman loves that scene. I get tingles simply thinking about all that sweaty man meat on the beach being all athletic and what-not.

Anyway, back to eliminating Booth Babes, I'm all for using sex to sell. It is provocative, it is stimulating, entertaining, and it is part of human nature. However, there is a huge difference between sexy, and Bimbo. Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft was sexy. Lara Croft in a string bikini and combat boots is Bimbo. Farewell E3 Booth Babes, the adolescent 30-year olds will miss you, but I won't.

The ultimate skinny jeans comeback-not so good

Do you remember back in 1988, Oprah came on stage in her talk show in a pair of size 10 Calvin Klein jeans. It was amazing because she had lost 67 pounds in 4 months on a liquid diet over her show's summer break. The best part of this story, for this blog's perspective, was that those jeans she was wearing was a pair of jeans she used to wear back in her media days in Baltimore. Her goal was to get back into those jeans, and she succeeded. In that show, she wheeled out a red kid's wagon filled with the equivalent of 67 pounds of animal fat. The fat was a way to add dramatic visual effect to the magnitude of her weight loss. I remember just looking at that wagon full of fat, and thinking how gross it was. I was just trying to imagine 20 pounds of that fat stuck to my body.

Oprah looked smashing, and boy did she have that glare in her eye. You know that glimmer that says,"Look people, I am now a skinny ass bitch in my Calvins just like the rest of yous TV bitches. Step off." I was real happy for her for losing all that weight. I mean if you think about it, 67 pounds is about the weight of a 2nd grade child. But, I was worried because she didn't lose that weight the healthy way. All she did was take in liquids and no food. In essence, she starved herself to get skinny.

Recently, Oprah released a DVD collection that celebrates the last 20 years of her show. What an amazing accomplishment. In promoting the DVD collection Oprah talks about that 67 pound loss on the liquid diet, and calls it her  "biggest, fattest" mistake. She started eating real food after that episode and a year later she gained back 17 of the 67 pounds. Oprah's example shows us that no matter how successful you may be the dream to be in skinny jeans can be all consuming. Making tons of money, having power, and having fame still cannot curb that powerful dream. As we get older, and make mistakes, the means to get into the skinny jeans may become wiser and more realistic, but the dream still lingers.

Even though, she said it was a bug, fat mistake, I would bet cash that Oprah still has that pair of jeans she wore on that particular show in her closet. It's probably buried deep somewhere in a warehouse she calls her closet, but I bet it's in there somewhere. If you are in the know, please share with the rest of us.

Photo from Oprah.com Top 20 Moments