HAPPINESS IS A SIZE 12

Trolls Trounce On Jessica For Weight Gain, But Science Suggests She’s Happier

By Elizabeth C.

AS THEY PICK AND PULL AT HER FOR ADDING A FEW POUNDS, WHAT THE BLULTURES OVERLOOK IS THE WIDENESS JESSICA SIMPSON’S SMILE.

Okay, the leopard-printed belt was a mistake, and the pants may be some kind of fashion faux pas, but Crabby wouldn’t know. In my view, high wastes are far and away a better option than letting love handles spill over lowriders.

And in these days when you have to choose between eating and being cool, Crabby always opts for the chow.

In Crabbytown, aging is not a sin for which one must perform 10 Hail Marys and 3 hour workouts out as penance, but rather an inevitable fact of life. God help all those fading stars in Hollywood’s vast firmament now subjected to the "Memba hims?" on TMZ.com.

But…do you notice how wide Jessica’s smile is? She doesn’t seem so unhappy performing her honky tonk on the road. Crabby wonders whether it’s possible that she even might be happier?

That’s what a study done by the makers of Special K suggests: that women who wear size 12s (Size 14 in the UK) are the happiest with their lives and looks.

According to the study, girls in size 12s reported the highest levels of happiness than women wearing any other dress size.

These full-figured lasses rate their general happiness higher than any other group of women, with a quarter of them reporting being extremely happy.

More than 43 percent of this group also reported being happy in their careers; a third said they couldn’t be more content with their love life, according to the Huffington Post.

The second largest group of happy females wore size 10 (or 12 in the UK), with three out of four saying reported being "completely" satisfied with their friendships.

That said, of the 3,000 women surveyed, 48% of them professed being disatisfied with their with their bodies. And no wonder, what with the scrutiny that media trolls put women under.

In case we have to remind you, Simpson’s Daisy Dukes was just a ‘character,” for which she "had to work out six days a week, two and a half hours a day. I was on a South Beach diet. I cut sugar out," she told reporters.

The full-figured model Emme points out that it’s impossible for any woman to keep up that routine long-term, and she takes offense at the brouhaha that Jessica’s weight has created.

"If you really think about how hard it is for her to keep the weight she had before, it’s unattainable," Emme said. "You would have to live in the gym."

"First of all," "Jessica Simpson in these pictures…looks beautiful. She really does. Maybe she’s not working out four hours a day in the gym… We don’t need any of this body bashing, especially with these images that are so beautiful." Jessica’s brother-in-law Pete Wentz also chimed in with, "I think the media puts too harsh of a spotlight on women in general…It’s bad for young women. I see it affecting young girls who come to our shows and that’s a bummer. Real beauty is on the inside, man."

And beau delicious reality TV star Kim Kardashian also got’s Jessica’s backend.

"Call me crazy, but when I saw the picture, I was like, ‘Oh my God, Jessica looks hot!,’" Kardashian told People.com. "I actually love the outfit. I think she looks amazing. I love high-waisted jeans, I loved that belt, and her hair looked fabulous."

We say to Jessica: Your best revenge against the trolls is to tune them out.

JUST LINKS

News Bites: Blago’s Out! Elizabeth’s Preggers! Brangelina’s "Too Busy" To Celebrate

By Elizabeth C.

IT’S RANT-FREE FRIDAY! JUST LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT.

Illinois’ sad-sacked Governor Rod Blagojevich gets the heave-ho from office. The Illinois Senate tossed him with a vote of 59-0. Have they ever agreed on anything unanimously before? It’s worth investigating.

As the sign says on the front door of The Guitar Works in Evanston, Ill., "One Down, Two To Go."

The next two names on its list? Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, King Clout in the Windy City, and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, who like all Chicago pols was appointed, in his case by his ill father who preceded him in the job.

Yo, snoop dog Patrick Fitzgerald, can you sniff these two out of office?

Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., their old chum President Barack Obama verbally spanks Wall Street for handing out $18.4 billion in bonuses last year. Like, um, he’s going to shame them into prudence? Alas, nothing but higher taxes against the wealthy will do.

The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck is pregnant with her third child. The baby’s due in August. Thank God the election was last November; can you imagine Elizabeth’s tears if she was all pumped up on baby hormones?

A 93-year-old Veteran froze to death in Bay City, Mich. home, after the local electric company limited his power due to $1,000 in unpaid bills. More evidence that America’s bungling bureaucracy has gone astray.

The volcano Mount Redoubt in south-central Alaska is ready to blow. Sounds like a metaphor for the world as we knew it. Poof! It’s all up in smoke.

And, what’s in a name? Turns out clues to criminality. Or so says researchers at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, who compared the first names of male juvenile delinquents to the first names of male juveniles in the population. Turns out that kids with unpopular names more likely engaged in criminal activity among both blacks and whites. But here’s the funny line from the story: "The findings could help officials’ identify individuals at high risk of committing or recommitting crime, leading to more effective and targeted intervention programs."

What does that mean? That cops are going to start compiling names of kids with weird names? That’s just a wee bit too Minority Report-ish to me.

Finally, news that Brangelina is (are?) just too busy to celebrate their respective Oscar nods. Hmmm. That’s funny. They’ve been to all the shows so far this award season, and Brad’s attended Newsweek’s Oscar Roundup. But so far both have gone home empty-handed. Could it be they are beginning to sense they may not be keeping Oscar company this year?

‘TIL DIVORCE DO THEM PART

Getting Tips For The Big Day From "My Big Redneck Wedding"

By Sophia Ulmer

I‘M GOING TO BE FRANK. I HATE REALITY TV.

I love to hate it because it’s shameful to love. It is a futile passion best enjoyed behind closed doors, much like an éclair.

When I got engaged almost a year ago, of course I was very excited. But I didn’t know the inevitability of wedding shows, perhaps the most humiliating sub-genre of reality TV.

To date, I think I have seen them all — Platinum Weddings, Bridezillas, Rich Bride Poor Bride, Bulging Brides, and Martha Stewart’s Weddings Show.

Each is fascinating enough, I suppose. Rich Bride Poor Bride has given me budgeting tips and Bridezillas gives me stunning examples of what not to be. Martha Stewart, in all her tempestuous glory, has sterling do-it-yourself suggestions.

But, in the midst of the cake toppers and bouquets, Country Music Television’s My Big Redneck Wedding is by far the most compellingly bizarre wedding show I’ve witnessed. I can’t get enough of it; I confess that I succumb to viewing reruns online.

The nuptials of Melissa and Bradley, from Van Wert County, Ohio (a location embarrassingly close to my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana), is especially trash-worthy TV.

There was the mud-jousting and pig-chasing, the pudding-filled diapers and the bed of a pick-up truck standing in as a wedding altar.

Bradley wore a wife beater with a bowtie and buttons drawn in black marker. His handwritten vows had desperate echoes of Snoop Dogg.

Melissa’s first draft of vows (read: demands) included sex "wherever, whenever I say" and "wiping my ass when I can’t reach it." Immediately following the ceremony, a buxom Melissa tore off her dress to reveal her own wife beater and some really, really low-riding cut-offs. Did I mention that Tom Arnold provides "comedic" narration to the show? Really, it’s sickening.

Of all the wedding shows I’ve consumed, BRNW takes the horse-shit-shaped cake. (Note: see Anna and Carl‘s wedding from Season 1, Episode 1.)

I think I’m in danger of having all this ‘klass’ rub off.

Because while I may not spend my first married night in a Winnebago with "Honeymoon Sweet" painted on it, I haven’t dismissed the possibility of a Harley-Davidson-riding preacher.

Sophia Ulmer is a creative writing major at Columbia College in Chicago. She enjoys drinking copious amounts of wine, riding her vintage bike, and snuggling with her kitty-cat, Gretta. You can check out her cooking blog at feckinfranchtoast.blogspot.com.

HYPE

Today’s Watercooler Chatter: Newsweek’s Oscar Roundtable

By Elizabeth C.

THE IRONY OF BRAD PITT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE "PUBLICITY MACHINE" as he sits down with Newsweek for an "Oscar Roundtable" seems lost on Hollywood’s favorite cover boy.

"There’s this whole other entity that you get sucked into,” he complains. "You have to go and sell your wares. It’s something I never made my peace with. Somehow you’re not supporting your film if you don’t get on a show and talk about your personal life."

This seems the ideal time for the reporters in the room to point out Brad’s savvy past media manipulation for his gain; that perhaps he’s there because he wants to win an Oscar.

But then again maybe there weren’t any reporters in the room? For even so-called august media outlets like Newsweek don’t want to bite the hands that feed it newsstand coffers, and and so we end up with a self-congratulatory Q&A with La La Land’s shiniest (and in at least one case, this means greasy) stars of the moment.

Yet perhaps because of the collegial company, the Oscar contenders Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) reveal more than they might realize.

The most obvious observation at least in my eyes is that the most flawed individuals — Mickey Rourke and Robert Downey Jr. — are the most intriquing. The scars on their spirits are palpable, with Mickey self-conscious of the punch line he’s become, Downey always the joker when confronting his past addictions.

Despite both making "comebacks," I get the sense that both men could slide back into the comfort of failure and its lack of expectation. Real pain is always a better story.

"It’s been way over 10 years since I gave everything to anybody,” Rourke said of his character in The Wrestler.. It was a good feeling at the end of the day. I’d forgotten what it felt like.”

"You might have had a slow 10 years,’ Downey says later to him. "But I basically wasn’t in my body for 25, and I have like 65 credits during that period of time. I think the work kept me grounded, and having a call sheet was the only stability in my life. I have a much more relevant question. Mickey, will you please consider being in "Iron Man 2"?"

Pitt, despite living at the top of Status Mountain, seems oblivious to the caricature of a Hollywood A-lister that he’s become.

"I have nothing to prove anymore,” Pitt says at one point in the interview. Whereas every day Rourke and Downey still need to prove something, even if not that their among the greatest performers on screen.

Yes, Pitt can act, but he has the cocksure judgment of someone for whom things have come too easily.

Perhaps his good luck and good looks have led him into thinking that life is oh so manageable, and that it’s everybody else’s fault if they weren’t born so handsome. Even with the enmity of his imploded first marriage, Pitt lacks the human quality that connects; he’s just the king at the top of the hill looking down everyone else, bragging that he doesn’t even "know how to use a computer."

Perky Anne Hathaway is this generation’s Julia Roberts — cute but no grande dame of acting. Not now, nor will she be. Langella is the granddaddy in the room (and quite a handsome grandpop too.

And Sally who? The assembled seem as if Newsweek was trying to meet EEOC regulations, except that Downey only played a black man.

What does the reader learn from this indulgent interview?

For one, sexual expletives like "fuck you" and "suck my cock" are the universal equivalent of literary smack.

For two, despite the mess that he’s become Mickey Rourke is a giant among actors. Time and again, Pitt and Downey rightfully pay homage to Rourke’s earlier work. "When I started out, trying to figure out acting, I had three gods,” said Pitt. "It was Penn, it was Oldman, it was Rourke."

And Downey, the most emotionally honest person in the room, gives a nod to Rourke’s performance in 9 1/2 Weeks with Kim Baysinger. "When [I] saw that — and I’m way too self-important to blow smoke up your ass right now,” says Downey. "That to me was the sexiest, most mysterious, complex, smart, layered man’s role I’ve seen. It kind of screwed me up, because I was like, that’s what the people who really know what they are doing do."

Newsweek also comically asks these screen idols about the very modern vanity of Googling themselves.

"Never," snaps the infailable Pitt. "No,” answers Hathaway, before confessing moments later that she just lied. Langella contributes that "it can be painful and it can be self-aggrandizing."

Only Downey gets the question’s irony and humor. "Oh, I love all that shit, personally. Sorry. I just love it. Because it’s a hoot. Some people overstate their support, like they know you. Other people are busy doing something else and just want to go on this chat site and say some despicable character assassination, which I honestly think they kind of nailed it. I do have that shortcoming. It’s really fun."

He’s the man I’d want to have a drink with, that is if he still drank.

BULL

The Year Of The Ox

By Elizabeth C.

H

APPY NEW YEAR! In case you missed the celebration, yesterday was the first day of the Chinese New Year, and 2009 is the year of the Ox.

Chinese astrology follows Jupiter’s orbit around the sun in a 12 year cycle, and is based on legend that 4,500 years ago the Emperor of Heaven invited animals to his birthday party. The lucky beasts who got to attend included a rat, an ox, a tiger, a rabbit, a dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that “the animal of our birth year is thought to define and influence us as, according to a Chinese saying, it “hides in our heart.”

According to Chiff.com, those born in the year of the Ox are “are the supremely self-assured, and as a result are noted for inspiring confidence in others. Generally patient and thoughtful, they measure their words, and will speak clearly and concisely often when it matters most.”

Oxen are also supposed to be “obstinate, pouty, truthful, motivated, friendly, apathetic, genuine, [and] quick-tempered.”

Coincidentally (or not?) the man of the moment President Barack Obama was born under the sign of the Ox. And Chinese astrologers are having their moment in the sun predicting what the new year will bring for the new President.

According to USA Today, Obama “is taking office in a particularly bad year for his Chinese astrological sign. The ox sign is in direct conflict this year with a traditional Chinese divinity called the “God of Year,” considered a bad omen.” And being the U.S.’s 44th president does not bode well for him “because “four” is pronounced the same as “death” in Chinese.”

Astrologer Alion Yeo even went so far as to say that Obama will not have “good luck this year. His honeymoon will only be short-lived.”

But like everything in life, there are two sides to the story. And Dora Nipp, who heads up the Multicultural History Society of Ontario, sees the Chief Ox “sowing the economic seeds this year so that next year, the year of the tiger will show growth.”

“Obama was born a metal ox, so he’s very confident and strong-willed and he’s not afraid to speak his mind. He’s honest, dependable and doesn’t promise more than he can deliver and sets about objectives with dogged determination,” Nipp told Canada’s Edmunton Sun.

It will be interesting to watch.

KEEPING TABS

Tabloid Trash Talk

Tell-All Threatens Brangelina, Brit Buys Into New ‘Hood, and Johnny Depp’s Fiance Trades Up

By Vegas

OH OH OH OH OHHH OOOOBAMA! Who needs Hollywood when there’s a new President to cover? We do! Let’s go to the tabloids!

In Touch Weekly

On the cover, a bland looking Brangelina might be breaking up over a tell-all book. Also, this just in: Michelle Obama is proud of her husband.

Inside, Angie’s former bodyguard is planning to publish an exposé on all of her evil deeds. The details are vague but there’s some stuff we all already knew too: Brad lied about not hooking up until after his divorce from Jen Anniston. Angie likes sex toys and may still like girls! And, you know, other boys. If it actually makes it to publication I’ll pick up a copy to see if any of it is actually salacious. But right now it sounds like regurgitated tabloid fodder.

OMG! Cam and Drew have totally broken up as besties! It’s the age old tale of one dumb girl letting her boyfriend get in the way of a friendship. OK, in this case it’s two dumb girls.

Britney Spears bought her dream home out in Calabasas, Ca. It’s huge and 20 minutes away from where K-Fed is reportedly shacking up with his new lady. Let’s hope she puts a fence around that pool.

Read more Tabloid Trash Talk here.

Vegas is a gambler who always loses money on craps. She spends her time in Chicago with her husband, two cats and various artistic endeavors which are beginning to take up way too much space in her house and hard drive. She blogs at jensaysanything.blogspot.com.

CHANGE WE BELIEVE IN

Obama’s First 100 Hours: A Seismic Shift In Government

By Elizabeth C.

WHIPLASH NEVER FELT SO GOOD, nor was it ever so welcomed.

Of course we’re speaking in the political sense: During President Obama’s first 100 hours in office, I could feel the Earth’s rightward tilt reverse itself with a quick jolt back in balance.

With a dance across paper, Obama has already junked Bush policies that had transformed America from human rights’ sentinel to scourge. To wit, he:

* Signed executive orders setting new ethics restrictions for political appointees and limiting “executive privilege” to only the president, and required executive staff to sign a pledge “restricting their interactions with lobbyists and their ability to rotate employment between goverment and industry.”

* Implemented a salary freeze for White House staff earning more than $100K annually, saying that “in these austere times, everyone must do more with less, and the White House is no exception.”

* Ordered the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, closed within a year. The center has become a purgatory for mostly Muslims men rounded up during America’s reaction to 9/11, with those imprisoned having no rights to criminal trials. The center became a worldwide symbol of the Bush administration’s blithe disregard for the ideals upon which America was founded.

* Signed Executive Order 13440 prohibiting government officials from relying on legal advice on interrogation (code for ‘torture’) issued between September 11, 2001 and January 20, 2009. He also forbade the CIA to operate detention facilities in the future. “This is the right thing to do morally, diplomatically, militarily and Constitutionally,” said John D. Hutson, a retired admiral and law school dean who witnessed the signing.

* Repealed limits on funding for international organizations that promote or provide abortions, reversing one of the first orders that Bush implemented when he took office. (The restriction has see-sawed in and out of favor, depending on the political party in office, dating back to Ronald Reagan’s order in 1984.) “For the past eight years, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries,” Obama said. “For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development.”

* Released a memorandum dictating more “transparency” from governmental agencies, with the first line reading, “A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunlight is said
to be the best of disinfectants.”

Among the memo’s other edicts: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure”; “Agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government”: and “Disclosure should be timely.”

And that’s not all! The icing on this party’s cupcake is Obama dissing Rush Limbaugh by telling Republicans they need to stop listening to the Hatemeister if they want to get things done.

Finally, in a study measuring blacks’ performance on a standardized test, “Researchers pinpointed that Black Americans who did not watch Obama’s nomination acceptance speech lagged behind their White peers, while those who did view the speech successfully closed the gap.”

I’m still finding my equilibrium with the plate tectonic shift in the country’s direction. But there’s been an immediate change for the better: my frown has turned upside down and is now a smile.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

Heeding The ‘Signs’ In The News

By Travis Bland

WHILE I’VE BEEN ON VACATION DURING THE LAST MONTH, I have immensely enjoyed the nihilistic splendors of sitting around in my underwear and watching Three’s Company marathons.

But my unabashed apathy also had me worried about my journalistic future.

As I perused papers, websites, blogs, nothing seemed to pique my interest. I began to have an existential crisis that not even John Ritter’s predictable pratfalls could qualm.

Then — lo and behold — a godsend in my local paper: “Missing signs—lots of them,” read the headline.

Seems a local college student had lifted about 30 metal street signs and plastered them over the walls of his apartment. The signs, described as “legitimate government, business and street signs,” were discovered by a maintenance worker cleaning up after the student moved out.

The story went on to point out that possessing such signs could constitute “felony possession,” carrying a sentence of up to three years in prison.”

This guy’s facing three years in the slammer? Yeah, we don’t fuck around in Cali; We’re pretty hardcore about the well-being of our signs. But what the fuck do I know? The crime seems more like comic mischief to me.

But I will advise that next time you’re cruising down 69th Street and get a flash of interior design inspiration, squash it. The threat of three years in prison ain’t worth it.

(But, hey dud, thanks for helping me turn off Suzanne Somers.)

Travis Blandis a freelance reporter and literary delinquent living on California’s Central Coast. He currently resides in a tin shack, sustaining himself on a healthy diet of sourdough bread crust, Wild Turkey, and Jack Cafferty blog posts. You can reach him at [email protected].

THE ENEMY WITHIN

Mickey Rourke: Beating His Own Worst Enemy Back To The Ring

By Natalie Melendez

MICKEY ROURKE’S THE WRESTLER IS A DOWN-AND-OUT TALE OF A HAS-BEEN BOXER TRYING TO CLIMB his way back to the top.

The general premise is strikingly similar to the Rocky series, Rocky Balboa. But whereas Rocky lives a middle-class existence, owns a restaurant and cashes in on his residual glory, the main character in The Wrestler is a colossal mess of a man, just barely able to afford the rent on his trailer.

And who better to play The Ram than that marvel of hopelesssness and shame, Mickey Rourke.

While many reviewers have pegged The Wrestler as Rourke’s “comeback” film, Rourke has in fact been acting fairly consistently since he caught his first big break in Barry Levinson’s Diner (1982) alongside Kevin Bacon.

It was in Levinson’s film that Rourke displayed an untamed quality compelling critics to label him the next Marlon Brando.

Rourke, like Brando, exuded a calculating, sly, pensive edge hidden beneath an almost angelically beautiful and boyish exterior. He was a walking contradiction, a character whom with one glance could read your game plan and beat you at it.

After proving his acting chops in such movies as Angel Heart, and Rumble Fish, it looked like Rourke was destined for leading-man stardom, but something derailed along the way. Word circulated that Rouke was “difficult.”

Alan Parker, director of Angel Heart, said that "working with Mickey is a nightmare. He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he is going to do."

Yet offers continued to come in for lead roles in Beverly Hills Cop,The Untouchable, Rain Man and Silence of the Lambs. Rourke rejected them all, opting for more risky roles in films such as 9 ½ Weeks and Wild Orchid.

Rourke turned his back on Hollywood’s vision for him. Half resentful of his fame and half in love with it, Mickey “quit” Hollywood in 1991 to pursue boxing, a sport he claimed to have grown up doing. He was no longer a viable option for leading man status, and any chance he had for substantial roles seemed to disappear.

Still, he never disappeared entirely. Most recently he was Kiera Knightley’s mentor in Domino, and the deformed misfit-villain, Marv, in Sin City. But the The Wrestler makes even more perfect use of his battered face, now beaten and bloated, the byproduct of boxing and too many reconstructive procedures. And yet, in context of the film and its subject matter, it’s a face of pure poetry.

Read the full post on Mickey Rourke here.

Natalie Melendez is a work in progress. Currently she resides in an undisclosed mountainous California location, where she spends her time studying, writing and roasting chestnuts by the fire. You can email her here..

CHECKS AND BALANCES

Michelle’s Smirk Keeps Obama Grounded

I‘VE SEEN A LOT OF INTERVIEWS WITH MICHELLE AND BARACK OBAMA. They love each other, she’s his rock, blah, blah.

But I think I got some real insight into that relationship on Inauguration Day. It was my favorite moment of the day.

As the president was being sworn in, Chief Justice Roberts flubbed the oath, making Obama trip over the words. Meanwhile you see Michelle… smirk. She seems to swallow a chuckle.

If millions around the world weren’t watching I’m sure she would’ve let out a hearty "Ha!"

That tells me a little more about their relationship than any of the interviews they’ve given so far. It suggests equality and a true friendship. And I loved it.

Oh, some days she may feel like throwing a shoe at him, and he may deserve it. But you can see that she’s got his back, and serves as his equilibrium. And he’ll need that kind of support in the challenging years ahead.

SexyChattyCatty comments at CrabbyGolightly.com on TV, America’s favorite snack food.