Photo by Miles RobinsonWe recently got a note from our good friend Jim Bieber of Young Americans for Freedom. Apparently, his panties are still in a bunch that I thought it was funny that his friend got his ass whupped by-as the YAFers like to call them-a Stalinist. Blah, blah, “bullshit stories” . . . blah, blah, “self-righteous.” Oh, yes, here it is: “My advice is: stick to bar-hopping, and write about the lengths of skirts and high heels. Continue to be a comic about things you understand. You are a political lightweight. You don’t come across as funny-just foolish.”
Ooh, that smarts! Because it must be true: we’re more foolish and lighter-weight than a Young American for Freedom!
And so we’ve decided to take Jim’s advice and bring you an entire column devoted to deep thoughts on fashion. Tee, hee! And if there’s anything we know about . . . actually, we know next to nothing about fashion. Although stunningly beautiful, we’re not a very good dresser; we’ve just never been able to muster up any sartorial concern. The closest we get to knowing anything about clothes is that one hypothesis about the relationship between rising hemlines and the Dow Jones. Not that we meant to say we know anything about the economy! Hell, no, sir! That’s not the kind of thing we girls are good at; as Barbie used to rightly point out (before those PC feminazis muzzled her), math is hard, you know! Nope, we’ll just stick to high heels and the lengths of skirts.
Right now, for instance, we’re clothed in a blue-checked sundress with spaghetti straps and a flared skirt that we picked up at the Salvation Army for a cool $4. Its hemline is roughly 2 inches above the knees, which suggests the market is good but not great, and it is far longer than the skirts we usually wear but tight enough to be kind of slutty. (We say, if it’s good enough for Ally McBeal, it’s good enough for us!) We are not wearing high heels; we’re wearing black-rubber flip-flops (Target, $3, two summers ago). However, we did paint our toenails this week in honor of spring, so we think that counts.
On Thursday, April 15, we saw two separate fashion shows! One was at our favorite drag bar, Long Beach’s Ripples. It boasted as a judge that mean old man who does the Worst-Dressed list, Mr. Blackwell. Mr. Blackwell? Doesn’t dress so good. Shhh. This night, he had a huge diamond stud working with gravity to stretch his fleshy earlobe, Peggy Lee-like sunglasses (inside! at night!), and a leather jacket across his shoulders instead of on his arms! Blaarfff! But his biggest fashion faux pas was the bored sneer pasted across his puss. Fooey!
Next to him was the divinely chirpy Barbara Venezia, whom we recognized from her cooking show (with Newport Beach trailer-park millionaire John Crean), At Home on the Range. We didn’t feel like accosting Mr. Blackwell, no matter how many times Silvie the publicity agent pressed us to; you just know he expects sychophantic groveling. So we talked to Venezia, wanting to let her know we’d caught her speaking role in The Daughter of the Regiment at the Orange County Performing Arts Center and we absolutely loved it ‘cuz it was rad and we’re that cultured. Venezia is one of those women who looks better in person than on TV; her red hair is superzingy. But while she’s down-home on the TV, Venezia made a very upscale point of telling us that she and her escort were there as “Friends of Mr. Blackwell.” And we can just imagine Mr. Blackwell’s “friends” at dinner: they sit about a minor celebrity, waiting breathlessly for some bitchy remark about some fashion victim, who, feeling cheery, decided to wear a bright color on her too-large frame. “Oh, Mr. Blackwell!” they tinkle. And then convicted cokehound Tina Schafnitz walks in (that’s the type of thing those people live for) with her skirt vagina-high (signifying a bull market!) and kneels down next to him with her face adjacent to his lap to kiss his . . . ring.
Let’s take our lessons in gracious living from the sweet Cher impersonator, Cheri, whom we met in the women’s room:
Other random women: [flatly and really dumb] You look like Cher! Is that who you’re supposed to be?
Cheri: [far more sweetly than is warranted] Thank you! Yes.
[Other women leave]
OC Weekly: Do you get stupid comments like that a lot?
Cheri: You’ve gotta be nice. There are enough bitchy drag queens in the world.
Speaking of bitchy drag queens, the woman walking around in the Tinky-Winky costume reminded us that we haven’t yet told you that Orange County Democratic Party Chairwoman Jeanne Costales was spotted in just such an outfit at the state Democratic convention a few weeks ago! Not that we meant to start talking about politics! God knows we don’t have the experience.
The other fashion show was hosted by the OC Weekly, and it boasted our pick so far for Husband of the Year: Dennis Rodman. Fresh from being ditched by his wife and cut by the Lakers (that very day!), the Worm sequestered himself in one of the Shark Club‘s private rooms. Not that that stopped us. Our homegirl Arrissia, who was as loaded as a sorority girl, punched Rodman in the arm and gave him some pointers on playing D.
It ain’t much fun to be Rodman. The members of his boring-ass entourage sit around like a pack of Mr. Blackballs, making bitchy comments about some people and telling others to get lost. Rodman sits in one place like a Santa without the capacity to ask questions while folks stand in line to tell him boring things over and over again (“Hey, Rodman! You’re awesome, man!”).
We’re not going to let feeling sorry for Rodman spoil our most awesome memories of the bacchanal that was the OC Weekly‘s fashion show. Imagine, if you will, 700 people purring at one another, smiling saucily, and standing cozily with their arms around random pretty strangers. If everybody good-looking hadn’t left at 12:30 a.m. or so, it would have turned into a goddamn orgy-an orgy without anyone fat. Except for us, of course: watching the very beautiful models on the runway was making us feel like, oh, how do you say? A fat tub of goo? But between feeling like a fat tub of goo, we got to watch the pretty pretty-boy supermodels, like the inimitable Marcos and some guy who looked about 14 and kind of like Party of Five‘s Scott Wolf. We got to meet him after the show, but we realized we really had nothing to say to him. What were we going to talk about? Hemlines? Or the difficulties in getting a single-payer health-care system like Canada’s implemented in the U.S.? Not that we meant to say we know anything about health care. And so we made our excuses and left him there.
Oh, you want to know about the clothes? They were fine. There were, um, some bikinis and some board shorts and some dresses, maybe? There were some hotpants through which we could see the outline of the model’s vagina. There was a cute sweater that seemed to come from a place called Little Bohemia. Yes, we should stick to what we know, like fashion.
Got a fashion query for the expert? Why not e-mail it to Co**********@ho*****.com“>Co**********@ho*****.com?
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