Thursday, January 20, 2011

Kat Von D Engaged




Sara De Boer/Startraks; Inset: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage
According to People Magazine online Kat Von D and Jesse James are engaged. Kat was seen with a four-carat-plus platinum diamond ring made by star-favorite jeweler Neil Lane.

She sported her new bling at the 16th annual L.A. Art Show Opening Premiere Party held at the L.A. Convention Center on Wednesday night.

Celebrity Rehab 4 Finale




Wednesday, January 19 at 10 p.m. EST Celebrity Rehab on VH1 came to an end. Although this is not on my list of shows to watch every week there have been a few episodes throughout the season viewed and the finale seemed to reflect on the rest of the season, boring. It just seemed uneventful.

That sounds terrible. It's rehab, but it's also reality tv. Remember when Tila Tequila was supposed to be on that show? Maybe if she was on that show it would have been more interesting; it would also have been more annoying and seem more like a joke than a real show, but still.

It's unclear whether the purpose of this show is to really help these celebrities. Dr. Drew Pinkski is an amazing man who really does want to help and who does try, but are the viewers of VH1 really watching this show to see how to go through the recovery process? Or are the viewers more interested in the drama of reality tv that includes celebrities? Is it really a process that should be recorded for VH1? I guess that's controversial.

Here are six of the cast members
It was reported during the summer that they had a hard time finding a cast (hence why they wanted Tila Tequila), but the end result cast was not that bad. There was Janice Dickinson who has been all over reality tv within the past five years (I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, America's Next Top Model), Rachel Uchitel, who is only a celebrity because she is famous for being a Tiger Wood's mistress, Jeremy London who I remember from 7th Heaven, but he was also kidnapped earlier this year and has had a lot of interesting things, Jason Davis - who is Brandon Davis' brother and Brandon is known for being with Paris Hilton and calling Lindsay Lohan a "firecrotch." Jason's an heir like Paris, because of his grandfather being part of the oil industry, Jason Wahler from The Hills and Laguna Beach was on the show, and the rest of the cast includes Eric Roberts, Leif Garrett and Frankie Lons.

Few of them agreed to go onto sober living afterwards - which basically defeats the purpose of even being in rehab, right?

If Dr. Drew wants to be taken seriously, because he is a great man, he should get a show on TLC or another channel instead of VH1 - (he has also appeared on Chelsea Lately as one of the comedians). So please, VH1, do not let their be another season of this show - I'd rather see Celebrity Fit Club make a comeback.

Celebrity Rehab Reunion show next week; maybe it would be worth watching how the stars have been since.

P.S. Jersey Shore is on tonight on MTV at 10 p.m. so expect a blog post in the morning along with a video.

Carlina White Kidnapped, Reunited With Family After 23 Years

Imagine if you were Carlina White. 23 years ago, she was a 19-day-old infant who was kidnapped from a New York City hospital after being admitted their for a fever. Now, after a frantic search by her mother, Carlina White has been reunited with her.

That's right: 23 years later.

Carlina White was at Harlem Hospital at the time of her kidnapping, according to New York Daily News. She was taken on this blogger's birthday, August 4, 1987. Ouch.

Now, in Atlanta, and named Nejdra Nance, she was spotted by a woman who thought she thought was Ms. White, and told her she knew the woman who is her mother.

Soon, all were reunited.

What's not explained in any of the reports on this story, is just what was going on at Harlem Hospital to allow a baby to be stolen?

Or who kidnapped her. One clue rests in these sentences from the NY Daily News:


A Bridgeport woman named Mary Pettway confirmed that her daughter, Cassandra, had raised Carlina. She refused to discuss the relationship further.


Cassandra Pettway lives in Georgia, and Mary Pettway said she and Carlina were with her at Christmas.


Reached by The News on her cell phone, Cassandra declined to discuss the family history.

"Are you serious?" she snapped. "What do you think my relationship is with her? Mother? No, that's why I won't talk to the media. They have it all wrong."
Clearing Decks On The Story,

The Huffington Post version of the story is wrong as of this writing.  It has Nejdra Nance as two people, rather than the new name of Carlina White.  The NY Daily News is the originator of the story.

What happened was that Carlina White started to realize her mother wasn't really her mother around her 16th birthday.  When she asked, Cassandra told her that she wasn't her mother.  It's not clear how she became Carlina's mother, and she's not talking.  In the New York Daily News story, Carlina refers to her as "the lady."

At that point, Carlina started a search for her Mom, and found the 1987 missing persons report online. She then contacted authorities, who helped her track down her Mom.


Sad, wild, and it's over.

Greta Gerwig On David Letterman Talks Of Harassing Laurence Fishburne

This is one segment I didn't like: Actress Greta Gerwig was just on David Letterman and talking about not just the movie she's in No Strings Attached, but what odd jobs she had in college.

Like bothering Actor Laurence Fishburne.

The jobs were about what you'd expect, until she got to the one where she said she was paid to go to bars and start trouble. Greta Gerwig says she was playing a lesbian in these situations. Letterman asked her if any famous people were involved in this, and she said her co-worker and she got into a fight with Laurence Fishburne.

Uncomfortable laughs from the audience.

Gerwig went on to explain that her co-worker sat down at Fishburne's table and drank right from his bottle, then looked at him as if to say "Yeah, I did that. What are you going to do?"

I'm watching this and thinking "Why did they pick on him?" I also thought that it's a safe bet Laurence Fishburne was one of the few black men in this establishment in Manhattan. Would they have bothered a white actor, someone they were attracted to?

I'd bet not.

Yeah, they're supposed to be Lesbian, but that's an insult to Lesbians. You know? In fact, it's an insult. It's saying that only someone Lesbian would do something like what Greta Gerwig and her co-worker did.

By the time she finished, I was waiting for the interview to end. Thankfully, it did.

Greta Gerwig owes Laurence Fishburne an appology.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Natalie Portman In Your Highness: Jen Friel Says It's #Amazeballs

According to Jen Friel, Natalie Portman was on Conan tonight talking about her latest project, called Your Highness. Jen being Jen, she was just totally not excited about it:


OOOHHH MYYY!! I'm watching Ms. Portman on Conan, and dude, she described her next project as a mix between The Princess Bride and Pineapple Express. I shit you not. Enjoy!


With that, this blogger actually looked at the trailer, and Jen's right, it is #Amazeballs. (More on that below.)



The movie stars Portman, Danny McBride, James Franco and Justin Theroux, and is a "play" on fantasy films like Conan the Barbarian and Krull. Some of the scenes are totally funny, like when Natalie Portman beats the crap out of Danny McBride, who's assigned to protect her.

Yeah, right.

The humor is really R-rated. There's one scene where James Franco suffers a poisonous cut on the high end of his inner thigh. McBride says someone has to suck the poison out of it, and of course, it's hard to get any takers. So he says "I need someone to suck it!"

You get the idea.

Your Highness opens April 8th.

Who's Jen Friel?

I met Jen via my friend Marla Shulmann at the press lounge at CES 2011 in Las Vegas. She's a delightful video blogger who lives in LA, and has a new TV show to be announced in the fall but could not talk to much about. Still, she was kind enough to do this vlog interview:




As for the whole #Amazeballs deal, according to The Urban Dictionary, #Amazeballs is a term and Twitter hashtag that Blogger Perez Hilton started using and has tried to get others to use as well. It appears he's succeeded.

#Amazeballs

China State Dinner President Obama White House



This is the historic dinner that Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee attended this evening. As well as The President and First Lady, and China's President Hu Jintao, the dinner featured President Carter, President Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and many, many other dignitaries.

The group toasted the people of China and The United States of America.

Steve Tyler Will Personally Work That Into Something Good

Wow. Steve Tyler's first "Go" as a judge on American Idol is making waves and causing him to be a Twitter Trend as this blog post is written. He's the counterpoint to the softy that is Jennifer Lopez; a guy who can say "no" to most New Jersey Idol contestants.

But one contestant had him saying more than "yes," and exclaiming "I will personally work that into something good!"

The "that" is a woman who's musical approach didn't hit with Randy Jackson, Idol's 10 year veteran, but she so wanted to go to Hollywood, and was so energetic and enthusiastic she willed her way into getting the votes she needed and from Tyler and Lopez.

That was when Tyler made the exclamation that made this blogger howl.

But that Steve Tyler's got to watch his comments there, I think.

About 16-year old Victoria, who's Southern accent, pink dress, and pixy way dazzled the judges, Tyler points and says said "Yeah. Just showing the right amount of leg." To which I'm thinking and Randy Jackson's thinking "Dude, what's up with that."

Wow.

Let's hope Tyler's not trying to "work that into something good."

Stay tuned.