Famous restaurant Barney Greengrass recently celebrated its 100th birthday, and the owners and some of their celebrity friends came out to celebrate. Regular Upper West Sider Alec Baldwin was there to pose, schmooze and schmear with the owners, and agreed to talk to The Jewish Channel about his connections to the Greengrass "mishpocha" and his favorite Jewish holiday. Wait for it.
You know how awkward discussing politics with family members can be: people are passionate about their candidates, the issues divide families, sometimes right down the middle. But this election just got a whole lot more interesting to the "Us" magazine crowd. Celebrities and politicans are just like us! If we are related to the major political players, that is.
According to researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Obama is related to Brad Pitt, and Hillary Clinton is related to Angelina Jolie. Not in a "see you at the family reunion!" kind of way, but in the "I can't believe they're on the family tree" kind of way. The celebrities are waaaaay distant cousins of the candidates (9th cousins in both cases, twice removed for Clinton/Jolie), so don't look for either Pitt or Jolie to play the political family card.
But the relating doesn't end there. According to the article, HRC (of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side), is also a distant cousin of Madonna, Celine "My Family Tree Will Go On" Dion and--isn't it ironic? don't you think?--Alannis Morissette. Obama's family is the most politically-oriented: he is related to six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush. And, winning the title for the least sexy celebrity political distant relation, McCain is a sixth cousin of Laura Bush.
Which makes me wonder....who am I related to? Anna Paquin? (That would explain this appearance in Bangitout's Rave Reviews section, which assigns celebrity photos and fake quotes to "Upper West Side Celebrity look-alikes"--how many of them do you know?)
If ever there were a Hall of Celebrity Weirdness, there'd be a wing devoted to the last two years of Britney Spears's life. And in that wing, there'd be at least an alcove or corner devoted to this weird weekend, which featured a standoff with K-Fed over her two kids, rumors of alcohol, drugs and guns being involved, the paparazzi stalking Britney as she was carted off to hospital, and finally, her checking herself out of the hospital and refusing to talk to Dr. Phil, who was supposed to do a show about her which he's now canceled. Whew. I'm tired just typing that sentence. But that's probably because I already recapped this whole weekend for Beliefnet:
You could literally spend all day on the internet gathering news and pictures about the latest chapter in Britney's unfortunate meltdown. You could look at the dreadful pictures that were taken as she was strapped to a gurney to be taken to the hospital (as indeed I was doing for this post, before I was sickened by them, and decided to use an older photo to accompany this post). You could devote pages and posts and photos and newsprint and book her into every talk show on daytime. And I'm not sure any good would come of it. It's not like us posting about her every day is going to get her to get her act together.
Hopefully, this is the low point, and from here on, things will get better: the situation will calm down, and the mini-train wrecks will stop. Let's all think of all of the children--Britney, Jamie Lynn (haven't forgotten about her) and Preston and Jayden. And even Chris Crocker, who may have been right after all when he urged the world to leave Britney alone.
Read more about this weekend at the original post, here.
In the waning moments of last year, we witnessed a report by the NY Times about the new slang sayings that erupted in 2007. Among them was:
vegansexual n.
A person who eats no meat, uses no animal-derived goods and prefers not to have sex with non-vegans.
Only a few moments into the new year and we're already aware that eco-sensitivity is going to leap out at us with the frequency of bad 3-D movies in the 80s (Jaws 3-D, anyone?).
In case we thought that Natalie Portman's avowed vegetarianism was merely an attempt to get around kashrut issues when dining out, Miss P takes her devotion to live animals one step further by having created a line of $200 vegan shoes.
According to the online report, "The Natalie Portman Collection arrives February 2008 online and at the NYC boutique located at 382 West Broadway. The shoes are available for pre-order on January 15. 5% of all vegan shoe profits will be going to charity."
Now you can pamper your inner Amidala without harming any animals, and still walk a mile in Natalie's shoes. I don't know if she's a vegansexual...that's personal, and you'll have to ask her yourself.
(Hat tip to ChloeJo)
I'm torn. When there's a TV show title, you should put the whole title in quotation marks. But when you're trying to make a sarcastic comment using quotation marks -- as in describing people as "celebrities" when they're not really celebrities but are so designated by someone else -- where do you put the quotation marks?
Grammar is hard.
I have a lot of goofball ideas, but I think this one's got something.
I don't know if it's just me, but Seth Rogen seems insanely familiar, and I mean that in a way pertaining to his sense of humor and the projects he's been lucky enough to have hooked into. But I also mean in a Jewish way. I feel like he looks like eight people I know and possibly went to camp with. He grew up in Canada and is a few years younger than I am, so it's not likely. But that doesn't stop it from seeming true.
And there was that "Munich" scene within "Knocked Up," that I wrote about before (more than once, actually), which landed a discussion of Jewish identity and pride in Israel's reaction to terrorists in the middle of a movie about a one-night stand. And now there's this throwaway line in a New York Times interview with Rogen and co-writer of Superbad Evan Goldberg:
"They say going to Israel is crazy because everyone has a machine gun. It’s really not that different from here when every security guard has a large weapon in the parking lot of the grocery store."
Seth Rogen is 25. That means there's one more year for him to go on birthright israel. Come on...the guy is totally begging for it. Maybe it's time for a young Hollywood trip to the Holy Land. Most of them can already afford to pay their way, but might not be inclined to plan the trip. That's where birthright comes in...
Can you imagine? Everyone from that "Munich" scene should be on that tour bus, going to meet with former Mossad members, visiting the Knesset, climbing Masada, and putting notes in the Kotel.
Sure, Zach Braff is way too old. (Sorry, Zach...me too.) Natalie Portman was born there and is likely ineligible (if not because of her experiences there then because she's almost too old), but I've got a solution. Natalie can be a madrichah (counselor). And Zach can go along as designated videographer--he'll direct "Hollywood birthright: the Movie", and be the musical supervisor for the soundtrack.
Tell me this is not the best idea ever.
What? You want me to go along, so I can blog the whole thing? Oh man, if I have to...
So, Paris was sentenced to jail, and the judge who sentenced her got a standing ovation in church. This happened to me once. I wrote a column skewering the Jewish establishment and got a standing O in shul. (OK, so it didn't. But it could. If I were to ever be brave enough to actually write that column.)
Questions:
What will Paris wear in jail?
What kind of tattoo will she get?
Will she trade her Manolos for a pack of cigarettes?
Will she next go to camp? Or to Washington?
Rose McGowan is sitting there at the table with The View ladies. They watch a clip of her in Grindhouse, where she plays a stripper who gets a prosthetic leg made out of a machine gun. The studio audience applauds. And then Joy Behar says:
"If Heather Mills could have done that with her leg, she would have gotten all of Paul McCartney's money."
The studio audience is silent. Dead silent. No gasps, no applause, no boos. Nothing.
Rosie uses that moment to segue to a discussion on bigotry in general and the Imus/Rutgers basketball scandal, which of course gives Rosie the motivation to talk about how the current administration uses fear to scare its own citizens and is illegally occupying Iraq, while Elizabeth Hasselbeck disagrees and Joy rolls her eyes at the fact that she can't get in a word edgewise.
I don't watch The View, today was a fluke. Maybe if Shannen Doherty joined the cast...
According to this new feature on BangItOut, my celebrity lookalike is the lovely and talented Anna Paquin (Rogue from X-Men, an Oscar-winner for The Piano, and screen veteran).
I think this is pretty funny. Check it out and see which other Upper West Side "celebrities" made the list...
Last year, I was in my "Letters to Celebrities" phase--when I saw a celebrity doing something odd or noteworthy or puzzling or interesting, I'd pen a letter to them. I never sent these letters--they were for writing exercise and for entertainment only. I sometimes explored an issue for myself or because someone else had asked me to, but for the most part, it was just for entertainment's sake.
But then there's this post, this letter to Zach Braff, that just won't die. People keep writing in, calling me "stupid," "racist," "tribal," and -- in my personal favorite -- a "fucking lunatic," all because I expressed a wish to see him with a nice Jewish girl.
I wasn't saying that you should cut little Chavaleh off from the family just because she ran away with Fyedka the Russian. (Hey, wasn't that the plot of the sixth season of Sex and the Shtetl?) Nor was it a statement calling for the alienation and ostracization of intermarried couples or interfaith relationships--I don't think anyone wins that way. All I was saying was that it would be nice to see a Jewish celebrity who married for both love and faith, and would serve as a symbol to those who are single and seeking.
Change is good
