The Texas Tiger Chronicles

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Meeting Sandra Bernhard + The Beautiful Ones and the Gossip Folks

Mood: I am wearing a Colgate smile today. I am peppy, happy and bright. I am wearing bright colors and walking with a little octane in my step.

Mode: VERY preppy. I am wearing Diesel jeans and an orange Ralph Lauren shirt. I have topped that off with a very lightweight cashmere sweater that is green, grey and orange. I have the collar of the short-sleeve polo sticking out of my sweater. I am wearing light brown loafers. My jacket is a chocolate brown corduroy button-up.

Music that started my day: Check on It by Beyonce f/Slim Thug. The video for this song gave me chills. I remember the first time I saw Crazy In Love I said to myself, this girl is a star. In the new joint, Beyonce takes center stage paying tribute to Diana Ross with the largest weave on TV since Diana performed at the Superbowl. The wig took over my 21-inch screen. I especially like the part where Beyonce rocks the braids and gives us the ghetto jiggle. HOT. Her choreographer must be a FLAMING queen who is living out his pseudo-female fantasies through her. In my opinion, there is no way her clothing stylist, choreographer or hair stylist are women. When I see her it screams “DRAG QUEEN.” Message to all the ladies reading this: If you want to be the best woman you can be, get a few queens on your team.


Motif/Question of the Day: Are you going to watch me on BET so you can Check up on It?

NEWSFLASH: TEXAS TIGER ON BET NEWS at 7:30PM ET
“The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” The year in 2005. Please check me out tonight on BET and let me know if you enjoy the show.

*The Day I met Sandra Bernhard *


Today I met my comedic inspiration, the incomparable Sandra Bernhard. The wit. The sarcasm. The drama. The mayhem. The madness. The insight.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Miss Sandra on television. I was about twelve years old and it was on a Wednesday night, on a hot summer evening in Texas. I was watching the David Letterman show. Actually, I was passing through the channel and I saw this woman who made me stop and ask myself “Who’s that girl?” This was back in the day when you had to walk up to the television and change the channel on the cable box. There was no remote control and since I have a short attention span, I used to sit right in front of the TV so I could rapidly change channels in-between commercial breaks. But there has always been a weird connection between me and Miss Sandra.

I never watched David Letterman, and why should I? He was no Arsenio Hall and back in those days he came on AFTER Johnny Carson and that was way past my bedtime of 9:30. But my parents let me stay up late during the summer. But what was weird was that anytime I passed through the David Letter man show on a Friday night or maybe another night during the summer, I would always see Miss Sandra. I do have it on good faith that Miss Bernhard has always been one of David’s favorite guests, but it was so funny to me that I never watch his show, BUT the few times I do tune in Miss Sandra is always a guest.

La Bernhard hit her peak in the mid to late 80s. It all began after she left Arizona and moved to LA to become a comedian. Along the way she met Paul Mooney who described her as “A cigarette come to life.” He became her mentor and she made her first TV appearance as an original cast member of the Richard Pryor show on NBC (which I blogged about during my “Pryor” tribute to the icon).

From there she created an off-Broadway show called “Without You I am Nothing” which became all the rage in New York and turned her into a celebrity. From there she toured the country, starred in some indie-films, wrote three books, had several HBO specials, hosted a TV-show on VH1 and had a highly publicized falling out with former best friend Madonna (it was very Paris/Nicole but in the 80s).

I have never been one for the average stand-up comedian. I find the list of talent-free comedians they parade in front of us on BET’s Comic View and on Comedy Central to be sad. And what makes me angry about Black comedians (despite the fact that most of them wouldn’t be funny at a backyard bar-b-q) is that most comedians come on TV and tell sexual jokes. Guess what, that doesn’t take ANY talent. It takes more talent to be witty and insightful when discussing politics or everyday life circumstances that everyone can relate to than to get on stage and simulate sex. When you go to the sex jokes, it lets me know you don’t have confidence in yourself. Especially when you are unattractive. NEWSFLASH: If you are unattractive, no one wants to see you simulate sex on stage because we do not want to imagine you screwing. I wish someone would take a memo and pass it around backstage at BET Comicview. There is not one person (male or female) I would sleep with who has been on that show. We don’t care what you do with your spouse or lover. Trust me, we don’t.

But the ones who get me are Sheryl Underwood and Sandra Bernhard and Paul Mooney and Sarah Silverman. Those comedians whose jokes make you think, ala Richard Pryor. And did I mention that Sandra sings? She has a new CD out on her website called Gems of Mystery. Visit: http://www.sandrabernhard.com

And oh, so I met her today. She was wearing True religion jeans and a tight brown shirt. She didn’t have on any makeup. Her brown hair was pulled back into a brown ponytail. On her wrist was a diamond encrusted platinum watch. I watched her perform Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again” and I was mesmerized. I just love her. After her performance I went to her dressing room and I told her I forgot to bring my copy of “May I kiss you on the lips Miss Sandra” because I did not want to be late for work. She laughed and said that was cool and that she would sign a piece of paper for me. She gave me an autograph that reads, “To Terry, Keep it Real/Love&Peace Sandra Bernhard.” You may wonder why I am not posting a pic. Number one, I don’t really post pics of myself and my friends here. Number two, I don’t run up on the celebrities at work and pose for pictures. It’s tacky. The only reason I went up to Miss Bernhard is because she is a mental mentor for me. If it was just a regular celebrity I liked I would fall back. But I would never miss out on a chance to talk to Teena Marie, Nicole Richie, Ed Bradley, Oprah, Bryant Gumbel, Wayne Brady, Chaka Khan, Millie Jackson, Paul Mooney, Barbra Streisand, Kathy Griffin, Madonna, Janet, Prince, Star Jones, Cornel West, William Julius Wilson, Earl Graves Sr., Anna Wintour, or Bill/Hilary Clinton (to name a few). They are all celebrities, politicians, or academics who inspire my writing and my politics in some way. Even with people like Nicole Richie or Star Jones, I feel like I identify with them in some way and it would compel me to talk to them. I like Mariah Carey, and she will be at my job on Saturday but I won’t be running up on her cause it just ain’t like that for me and her. I wouldn’t break my neck to meet Beyonce either. But there are some people I feel I have to talk to. FYI – I will be attending Star Jones’ book signing and I will give you a full report. I hope to god that Al Reynolds is there cause I am going to corner him and give him the third degree.

The Beautiful Ones

Last night I attended a birthday party at “Light” in midtown. It was full of beautiful people. Male and Female. Mostly Black. Though you had your usual suspects (assistants, publicists, producers) this party was a fashion industry party. And with most NY parties, people are more concerned with who you are (e.g. where you work) than they are with who you are (e.g. what are your passions and inspirations).

Light is in midtown and its one of those restaurants by day/club by night kinda joints. You walk down two flights of stairs to an expansive space that is black and beige with lighting along the floors. Very swanky. It was a mix and mingle joint cause you know no one in NYC likes to dance. On the back wall was a row of “cute” girls. They were at least cute under the light with all the gobs of makeup they were wearing. But with their attitudes and last season’s fashions it made them appear a lot less attractive then they apparently “thought” they were. All the pretty girls were with me. A few of my good friends were there and they are some flawless girls who all work at top-notch magazines, we are talking Conde Nast honey! And a few are lead designers at some labels in New York. They are pretty, flirty and talented.

I have long said before unattractive women should not give attitude, but that also goes for the “cute” girls. Honey, you are cute, not pretty. If you were pretty you wouldn’t be working behind the scenes. AND If you were pretty, there would have been a bi-sexual brother buying you a drink and a gay boy dancing close to you on the dance floor. Cause that’s what happens to pretty girls in New York. Lose the attitude.

Naomi Campbell has the right to be a bitch. From you, I am going to need to see a little less Naomi and a little more of that inner-Kelly Ripa. Ok. Thanks.

And shout out to all the bruthaz who were staring at me last night (much welcomed looks of lust). Had you bought me a drink I might have let you Check Up On It.

HEADLINES you tune in for everyday. I scan the web for gossip so you don’t have to.

Tom Ford gives head to guests
TOM Ford-ophiles will surely wig out if there's any truth to a rumor making the rounds of the international fashion set. According to a well-placed spy, the designer turned sunglass-hawker recently subjected guests at a cocktail party in London to an impromptu demonstration of his "balding toupee." According to the source, famously vain Ford said he employs the partial hairpiece to cover what would otherwise be a glaringly chrome dome. But rest assured, boys - we hear the chest hair is all Tom.


SIDEBAR: I told you earlier about my artist/muse fantasy. Tom Ford is a man I know I could inspire should our paths ever cross. He is ultra-sexy. Had he met me when he was at the helm of GUCCI it would have been fierce. Together we would have designed a line that would have rocked the world’s of skinny bitches all over. Me and Calista, and Lindsay, and Nicole and Mary Kate. It would have been OVER!

K-Fed aka Britney’s Baby Daddy drops a single for dem haters
BRITNEY Spears' trashtastic hubby Kevin Federline couldn't find a label lame enough to release his rap single, so he's distributing it on his own. K-Fed is dropping the song "PopoZao" on New Year's Eve, according to a mass e-mail sent from his myspace.com page. Federline cryptically notes, "I love you all. The ones that Love and the ones that Hate. The ones that Fight and those who Bite." "PopoZao" is presumably the track in which Federline has been reported to say "Pavarotti" when he means "paparazzi." The single will be available on his Web site, kevinfederline.com, which promises, "I am coming." We can't wait.

New tome psychoanalyzes the rise, fall and demise of Michael Jackson
(this story courtesy of Liz Smith)
December 29, 2005 -- 'MICHAEL JACKSON speaks to and for the monstrous child in us all." So goes the summation by Pulitzer Prize winner Margo Jefferson in her new, relatively short but effective treatise about the pop star. This slim volume titled "On Michael Jackson" comes from Pantheon and runs 138 pages. Jefferson, in quick, cut-to-the-bone strokes, examines Michael's bizarre, brutal working childhood and adolescence, and how that formed and deformed his own and the public's image of him. Nobody comes off well, certainly not Michael's parents, Joe the brutal taskmaster and Katherine the religious "pacifier."

Jefferson, an African-American and an admirer of Jackson's work - certainly the first 10 years - pinpoints many essential career moments, the fabulous original style, his slow, then warp-speed transformations, his hubris, childishness, arrogance and bewilderment - all of which led to his child molestation trial of this year. He got off - got away with it, as his bete noirs Diane Dimond and Nancy Grace insist - but the cost was everything that meant anything: his career and his reputation.

Jefferson also bravely writes of the reality of some children: that at ages 12, 13, 14, 15 they are not necessarily "innocent." They are curious. She writes: "They have sexual desires, impulses and they want to act on them. I am not trying to turn Michael's accuser, Gavin Arvizo, into a youthful seducer. I am simply trying to say there was almost no public acknowledgment of these everyday facts, known to anyone who has had a child, spent time with children, or remembers being a child."

Former rocker buys off girls he alledgedly “molested”
HANOI - Pervy former glam rocker Gary Glitter has paid $2,000 each to two Vietnamese families of girls he is accused of sexually abusing to get them to ask cops to drop the case against him.
"If we pay the money for the two families, when this case goes to court, maybe Mr. Gary will receive a lighter penalty," said his lawyer, Le Thanh Kinh.
Rape charges involving the two girls, ages 11 and 12, were recently dropped but Glitter, whose real is name Paul Gadd, still is under suspicion of committing lewd acts with children.
The 61-year-old faces up to 12 years in jail if found guilty.

Will Smith ID thief will hum few more (cell) bars
PITTSBURGH - A man on parole for stealing actor/rapper Will Smith's identity to run up a $33,000 credit card debt is going back to prison for two years for violating probation.Judge Alan Bloch found that Carlos Lomax, 45, formerly of Duquesne, Pa., was "not amenable" to probation.
Lomax failed to rehabilitate himself and make restitution to his victims while on supervised release, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said.
He was previously sentenced to 37 months in prison after pleading guilty to opening 14 bogus credit accounts at Pittsburgh-area stores using the identity of Willard C. Smith, the legal name of the superstar rapper-turned-actor.

Lohan crasher gets off
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The photographer whose collision with actress Lindsay Lohan helped prompt California to adopt an anti-paparazzi law won't be charged with a crime, the district attorney's office said.
"Based upon the damage sustained to both the victim's and the suspect's cars it appears that, although the suspect was most likely driving carelessly when he collided with the victim's car, it was not an intentional assault," said Deputy District Attorney William Hodgman.

Barbra Streisand takes the Kirstie Alley Challenge
Barbra Streisand is trying to take inches off her waist — but not off her wallet.Despite her obese bank account, we hear the diva and her increasingly tubby hubby, James Brolin, have turned to Jenny Craig to shed pounds. "Oprah hired a personal nutritionist," sniffs a source. "But Barbra wants to save money, so they're getting their meals from a Jenny Craig center."

Eminem to re-wed ex-wife he threatened to kill and stuff in car
After years of writing scathing lyrics about her in his rap songs, Eminem finally has something nice to say about his once and future wife, Kim Mathers.
"This day I will marry my best friend, the one I laugh with, live for, love," reads the invitation to their Jan. 14 wedding in Michigan obtained by Star magazine. The simple invite shows two children sitting side by side, perhaps a symbol for the pair, who met when Kim was 12 and Eminem was 15.

Nicole and DJ AM to ring in 2006 together
Management at Pure in Vegas got so excited about DJ AM moving his residency there from Body English in 2006, they touted him in the booth for their New Year's Eve bash. Guess they didn't know he has been very publicly booked to spin at Mansion's Sapporo party in Miami for months. Despite his split with Nicole Richie, both are confirmed to attend the Miami bash, along with Wilmer Valderrama, Mischa Barton, Val Kilmer and Molly Simms. Wonder where everyone will be looking at midnight?

Posted by Texas Tiger in NYC :: 6:00 AM :: 0 Comments:

Post / Read Comments

---------------oOo---------------