The Fagulous Blog!

Learning the Fags of Life!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Anti-Fagulous, or Why was this such unwatchable dreck?!


Bravo TV (Motto: Gayer than Logo) made me forget for a while that I am a complete snob when it comes to reality TV by putting Project Runway on the air. I was late to the festivities – jumping on the bandwagon during Season Three – but it goes without saying that Project Runway is decidedly fagulous, and yes…I watch a reality show now…
PR was followed immediately by Top Chef. Whilst all of the contestants wearing white – after Labor Day – for the entire season was much less glamourous, the show had good-looking men (nerdy/cute Ilan, hunky/handsome Sam), forced dramatic tension (the constant vilification of pixie-haired Marcel), some fabulous women (Ilia’s accent, Josie’s sheer dyke-itude, Padma’s face having been Botoxed™ into the next solar system, etc.), and competitors who had to execute tasks requiring skill and artistry. I felt, though not as visually stimulating, that it was certainly a worthy space filler for the PR-shaped-vacuum.

But So Then…

When I started seeing bus adverts for Top Design, I thought that one of two things was going to happen: (A) Bravo was going to have yet another watchable (and, clearly, at least faggy) time killer before Season Four or, (B) Bravo had squeezed the last drop of ambrosia from the udder of the HomoShow Cow, and Top Design was going to be the equivalent of a titty dry-heaving. Within moments of the first episode, I realized that the answer was a RESOUNDING (B).

Top Design dares you to look at it. Not in a cool, ballsy way, like The Shield. And not in a weird, arty way, like Carnivale. It dares you to look at it in the way that an open vat of medical waste dares you to look at it.

Look deep into the bloody mess…


Let’s begin at the beginning. Todd Oldham is a lovely man. I know this because you can tell from his unscripted moments, the fact that people I know have met him and said so, and that he hangs out with Amy Sedaris a lot. So, like, he must be cool. The producers apparently thought that the best thing to do with an all-‘round excellent person was to pump him full of Botox™ and make him read cuecards splattered with text that could not have sounded more strained were it emerging from a prolapsed rectum. Having given Todd a complete Nelly-ectomy, the producers then rounded up the most unlikable, whiny, spoiled, incompetent and totally unprofessional stable of “designers” to “compete” in this “whatever-it-is." All of them seemed to be lacking in at least three of the following areas:
• social skills
• collaborative abilities of any kind
• the capacity to tailor a room to a client’s needs
• dress sense
• personal hygiene
• an ego consistent with their talent
• artistic aptitude (one of them didn’t know how to paint(!))
• any sort of design capability
…and the list goes on. You think you’d need these things to…I dunno… BE AN INTERIOR DESIGNER?!?!!? Who the fuck cares about any of these obnoxious fucking people? Goil was the only one who seemed to have any sort of clear vision, and the means to actually execute that vision, and he got sent home three weeks before the end.
What’s the fucking point?!

And then there are the judges. I want to know how in the hell Kelly Wearstler can wear what she wears and judge ANYONE?! On one episode, she was wearing what can only be described as the unholy collision of a Dickensian mourning dress, Snow White’s puffy-sleeved corset-thing, and a tube top. Other times she has worn clothing that looked as though Vincent from Project Runway puked, and that puke designed her clothing (Thank you, Mr. Mamet!). Jonathan Adler doesn’t fare much better with his shockingly wide, day-glo ties (is that a quintuple Windsor?) and his constant refusal to match (colour/pattern/anything). These people are famous for their TASTE?!?!! It beggars the imagination! And I don’t even have time for Margaret’s shrill, pinched, librarian-in-a-wind-tunnel affectations. How can anyone take the opinions of these people seriously? It’s just an abortion. A giant star-child-from-2001-sized abortion.

So Now Then…

What should have been an exercise in some serious fagulosity winds up being nothing more than a bunch of tasteless judges appraising the work of obnoxious designers. I wouldn’t hire any of these people to design my worst enemy’s doghouse. The one person I cared about was poor, personality-neutered Todd, and that’s only because I was busy planning his escape routes.
What a fucking train wreck!
(Todd: A leather-clad extraction team, outfitted with emergency doses of fetish porn and amyl nitrate, is coming for you at the Pacific Design Center next week. We want you to live!)

UPDATE:
Bravo’s next reality show: Shear Genius – a hair-stylist competition hosted by motherfucking Jaclyn Smith, is on right now. All I can do is shake my head and sigh. The tombstone of Top Design casts its shadow over everything.

Tim and Heidi cannot arrive too soon!

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Donna's Birthday


Happy Brithday Tori Spelling! One of the most talented actresses of our time. The lady is celebrating her 34th. My favorite quote from Miss Thang.

"Doesn't anybody here get it?
I'm not a lesbian, I don't
want to move to New Jersey...
and where's the cheese
where's the cheese on these goddamn fucking fries?" - Trick