Absence makes the heart......

Oh Possums! Please forgive our silence!

Contrary to public opinion, we have not:
1.) fallen victim to the Matt Lorenz drinking game and entered rehab
2.) joined (formerly Teflon) Don Imus in a crusade to bring civility and non-meanness to the airwaves
3.) joined the rogue gypsy bunch known as the "Travelers" to escape the wrath of Alexis Arquette

This Miss is completely covered-up (as we say in the South!) planning a permanent relocation back to California and Charlus is in the middle of an extended business trip.

We will see you all (y'all!) next week. Oh, how I love to make Charlus cringe with my abuse of the written word! Well, that's what happens when the "hourly" are in charge!

No-Members Only: Pink Navy Gives Guest Judge Alexis Arquette What She's Always Wanted

Possums, today we continue our fine tradition of showing you the judges’ naughty bits, or at least showing you Albertine’s chapeau’d coyness covering the judges’ naughty bits.

Having shown you Kelly's Playboy cabana, we now turn to guest judge Alexis Arquette, memorably described by Ryan Humphrey as “Iggy Pop in drag,” though an argument could certainly be made for “Anthony Kiedis in drag.”

Although we have agreed our entire lives with American Express that membership has its privileges and pleasures, possums, from what we know, guest judge Alexis Arquette seems to be in agreement with Groucho Marx in wanting a club with no members.

As we mentioned previously, we have been fans of Alexis since her boy days, and now you can see why. If you want to see the unexpurgated, un-Albertined, completely and totally NSFW version of the swing and the sandpit, possums, feel free to click here, but don't say you weren't warned.

(When Miss XaXa found out that, as with Kelly, Albertine would be our fig leaf, Miss XaXa turned to us. “Do you realize what we’re doing?” asked Miss XaXa, channeling the Lady Chablis (and probably a glass or two of unladylike Chablis). “It’s taking the ‘candy’ from a baby Arquette.”

“Um, actually, he’s not the youngest Arquette. David is the youngest, so, punnily enough, it’s Courteney, um, Cox who took the baby Arquette’s ‘candy.’ Hence little Coco.”)

So, possums, didya look? Well, it will make it easier to understand our next point, which is this. Although it goes without saying that we agree completely with the notion of "her body, her choice," we nonetheless can't help feeling that just as youth is wasted on the young, so is...well, never mind.

We should also mention that we were a bit unnerved when we saw this bit in Alexis' Wikipedia entry: "On February 26, 2007, Alexis was a guest on The Adam Carolla Show. Danny Bonaduce, a co-host, asked Alexis if he had a wang. The question, and Alexis' refusal to answer sparked an argument between Carolla, Bonaduce and Arquette, ending in Arquette storming out of the studio and violently pushing sound equipment at them as she was leaving."

So if you don't hear from us for a few days, look for a bloodied, size 12 Nine West pump next to our lifeless bodies.

First Reaction: It's the Pits! (Sand Pits and Snake Pits)

Yes, we’re a little late with this, possums, but hear us out.

We first watched the premiere episode of Top Design straightaway after the final episode of Top Chef, a show to which we devoted three and a half months of analysis on Amuse-Biatch. The entire experience, particularly the last several weeks, left us jaundiced, frazzled, bilious and vitriolic all at once, and we were afraid that those feelings might have spilled over into our reaction to Top Design.

We had actually been looking forward to Top Design as a return to the halcyon days of Project Runway. No mob mentality, no potentially criminal assaults, no burbling homophobic subtext. Just old-fashioned, candy-colored, Froot-Loopy creativity and bitchery.

In fact, perusing the cast profiles and previews, we said, with no small amount of glee, “It looks like it’s full of queers and bitches.”

“And that’s just the men,” agreed Miss XaXa, delighted.

And yet, we were bored the first time we watched Top Design. Normally, we like to post a first reaction in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, but we said to ourselves, “No, that might not be fair. It’s probably just the Top Chef vitriol talking. Give it a chance, give it a few days, watch it a few more times.”

But you know what? We did watch it a few more times, and we’re still bored. Tant pis.

So here goes.

Let’s start with the title, shall we? Our tongue knows things we don’t, and it kept, and keeps, wanting to say Top Designer, not Top Design. Naturally, Bravo couldn’t call it that, as it would cause confusion with Project Runway, which should have been called Top Designer all along. Still, that missing prepuce of the “er” suffix will no doubt continue to haunt us like a linguistic phantom limb.

And the theme song? Well, it sounds like a duet between a panting mongoose in heat—

“—and circa-1992 Crystal Waters vocalizing into a subwoofer,” Miss XaXa helpfully interjected. A gypsy woman like Miss XaXa always tells the truth.

The introductory montage of the contestants arriving passed relatively painlessly. We were introduced to the cheeriest of the lot, Goil, an endearing, charming, and ebullient Ivy League Gaysian, our favorite kind. He immediately began rearranging the furniture in the apartment, and we were grateful that Bravo, unlike with Top Chef, didn’t use this as a springboard for a commercial-break factoid bubble about feng shui.

Blonde, startled-looking Felicia told us that her design philosophy was all-encompassing, and that she had a desire to place even the food in a client’s refrigerator. But since she doesn’t appear to eat, and may, indeed, be surviving on the stores of collagen in her lower lip, we decided we wouldn’t want her designing our kitchen or controlling our food supply. And Felicia, possum, come closer and let us whisper two words that ought to chill you to the marrow: “Jocelyn Wildenstein.”

Amphibian contestant John came in as if entering Toad Hall, and threw out little cluster-bombs about the “queeny” contestants, and “girls,” and “campy designers.” We weren’t surprised because his comments were “hateful”; we were surprised because they were self-hating. We suspect that somewhere in John’s past is a personal ad reading, “No fats or femmes,” but, really, the Lady Chablis doth protest too much. Prancing around, hands on hips, rolling your eyes, and pitching your voice high as you accuse others of being queeny is not exactly tonic to your str8acting bona fides.

As for his relationship with bespectacled enfant très, très, très terrible Michael, well, let’s say that, having spent the last several weeks writing about the relationship between Ilan Hall and Marcel Vigneron on Top Chef, we simply haven’t got the strength to tackle this just yet, other than to theorize that they’re exactly the same person, and that this is proven by just how skillfully Michael cut John to the quick by declaring in horror that some idea of John’s reminded him of the Chicago suburbs, since on his Bravo bio John says he’s “allergic to the suburbs.” As Miss XaXa observed, “The power ‘tool’ meets the power bottom.” “But which is which?” we queried, stumping Miss XaXa for once.

We found Matt to be pretty, although, like every other viewer in America, we did a double take when he mentioned his wife and daughter. But then we remembered that Cedric Gibbons was married (and to Janet Gaynor, no less). And Calvin Klein was married. And Elton John was married. And Jim McGreevey had a wife and daughter, too. Il n’y a rien d’autre à dire. We also quite liked Carisa Perez-Fuentes. She seems to be one of our peoples (hyphenated last name y todo), and is pretty, spunky, and well-spoken, a perfect prototype of Fruit Fly as produced in a factory run by Wendy Wasserstein and Edmund White.

The contestants were shuttled to the Pacific Design Center (or PDC, or the “Blue Whale”) in West Hollywood, there to meet host Todd Oldham and learn about their first design challenge.

And now a word about our host. We remember Todd Oldham from his heyday at MTV, when we were young and dewy, and he was preternaturally youthful and held découpage tea parties for Shalom Harlow and Rebecca Romijn on House of Style. And we like the man. We did, after all, try to have President Bush appoint him Special Ambassador to Iran.

We were fully prepared to make cracks about his youthful appearance and The Picture of Dorian G(r)ay, but Bravo treated us to some close-ups and we had to cry foul and ask, Is Todd Oldham turning into Hurd Hatfield? Not nice, Bravo, not nice. In the days of MGM, the camera lens would have been slathered in Vaseline before being trained on an aging star; couldn’t Bravo spring for a little KY to coat the lens?

Still, this was proof positive that winsome boyishness is a lot harder to pull off once you get long in the snaggletooth (and a lesson that 36-year-old, clown-jacket-wearing, skateboard-riding, sexually indeterminate Ryan might want to take to heart). As for the oft-mentioned oddness of Todd’s voice and speaking style, Miss XaXa reminded us authoritatively that Botox has been known to paralyze speech centers.

The challenge was to split into teams of two and create a “sanctuary” for a celebrity client on the basis of five objets. Knowing in advance that the mystery client was none other than transsexual Alexis Arquette, we were particularly irked by Todd’s incessant, quasi-smirking use of pronouns: “he…or she,” “him…or her.” Knock it off, Todd, just like she had it knocked off.

We cringed when we heard Lisa say that what she does, in design terms, is “ethnic modern.” We're a little bit ethnic ourselves, what Miss XaXa calls “a little bit out-of-the-country, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll,” and in our experience, “ethnic modern” too often translates to a Pottery Barn couch paired with (pick one) chinoiserie, Kente cloth, or plaster Aztec sun calendars.

As for the approach Lisa and Heather adopted for their room, of course you think Asian when you think of sanctuary. Never mind the reality of Tokyo, Shanghai, or Kuala Lumpur. Just take a shoji screen and a Buddha head, add hot water and cover for two minutes, and voilà, instant enlightenment and sanctuary. Paging Edward Said! Orientalism alert! That’s ethnic modern for you.

After montage and drama, it was time to meet the judges. Todd finally lost the pronoun game and introduced Alexis Arquette, but not before telling us that she “comes from Hollywood royalty.”

Now, we are quite fond of Alexis (we even liked her when she was a boy, in the days of I Think I Do), but we’re at a loss to explain this royal provenance. Queen or princess? Yes. Hollywood royalty? Not so fast.

She is a member of the Arquette family—David (whose singular accomplishment has been to impregnate, and not be divorced by, Courtney Cox), Rosanna (who went from Desperately Seeking Susan to desperately having her carpet Hoovered by Gwyneth Paltrow’s cousin on The L Word), and Patricia (whose marriage to Nicolas Cage appears to have lobotomized her and who now stars in Medium, a show Miss XaXa dismisses thus, “Medium? Please. It should be called XL, or Double D.”). Not exactly the Hustons (Oscar-winner Walter, Oscar-winner John, Oscar-winner Anjelica and Danny) or even the Barrymores (Oscar-winner Lionel, Oscar-winner Ethel, Oscar-nominee John, and former child star Drew).

The regular judges—Jonathan Adler, Margaret Russell, and Kelly Wearstler—gave some pleasure, but also some disappointment. Most pleasurable of all was Margaret, our newest older-woman crush. It was clear that Kelly, sporting medieval-looking leggings and a shiny, pleated pink gingham dress that Christian Lacroix might have designed for a revival of Oklahoma!, is “just a girl who cain’t say no” to bad fashion, and we love her for it. Not since Padma Lakshmi….

As for Jonathan, we’ve already given him grief about his “See you later, decorators” sign-off, and worried about his marriage to Simon Doonan, and now it’s time to fret about his footwear. Jonathan, possum (and this goes for you, too, Todd), those sneakers were just a no-no. Had it been a weekend in country, we wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. But this is the White Room you’re in, a K-hole of a scenic concoction Frankensteined from druggy memories of Chicago, Broadway Melody of 1940, The Snake Pit, and a Chesterfield sofa (we half expected a tapping Eleanor Powell or a singing Renee Zellweger on that black floor). You can’t get away with that, boys. If you’re old enough to get yearly check-ups for prostate cancer, you shouldn’t wear twenty-something-surfer-boy sneakers to the White Room, or anywhere in public for that matter.

In the end, Goil and Elizabeth won for a room that featured a sand pit, and Lisa and Heather (sigh) were sent home for the green Chinese restaurant they designed, and the first episode came mercifully to an end.

The Pillow Book of Margaret Russell

Sei Shonagon has nothing on this woman, possums.

In an acid disquisition on pillows that reminded us ever so slightly of Faye Dunaway channeling Joan Crawford in her injunction against wire hangers in Mommie Dearest, judge Margaret Russell told contestants Erik and Carisa exactly what was what.

It might just have been the effects of the peyote-and-pistachio macaroons from Ladurée that we were nibbling, but we could almost swear we saw Alexis Arquette and contestant Felicia Bushman shivering and making to cover their own trembling, pillowy lips in self-protection.

Not surprisingly, as Ms. Russell herself informs us,

"Jonathan [Adler] annointed her the 'pillow police' after [she] busted [Erik and Carisa] for the overabundance of cushions not only on their sofa but also propped on the chairs and floor. Design tip: Just because a new sofa comes with eight extra throw pillows doesn’t mean they actually look good. No pun intended, throw those throw pillows away!"

Ms. Russell, trust us, we know from puns, and that's not a pun. Not that we'll hold it against you, for you possess three of our favorite qualities in a woman--cleavage, disdain, and cocoa-butter legs. We especially loved the little bow on your dress. Oh, Margaret! (We may call you Margaret, mayn't we?) As if that demure little bow could disguise the eye-rolling, volcanic vixen within! You might as well put daisies on a land mine. But, possum, we wouldn't have you any other way.

Of Trannies, Prince and Leggings

Our pals at Fishbowl LA offer a peppery account of the first edition of a weekly Top Design viewing party, hosted by contestant Andrea Keller and attended by "latered" contestant Heather Ashton.

Go have a look and acquaint yourself with tidbits of behind-the-scenes information, including the fact that contestant Elizabeth Moore used to be a stylist for Prince, the hope-inducing news (now that we no longer have Padma Lakshmi's outfits to use as a scratching post) that judge Kelly Wearstler's outfits only get worse, and the shocking possibility that adults working in the media and design industries in Los Angeles may never have encountered a real trannie in what is, after all, practically the species' native environment.

Goils' Night Out: Would the Real "Goil" Please Step Forward?

Unmanned and Unmuzzled, Alexis Finally Hits the Solar Plexus

Alexis Arquette may be famous for a lot of things, but being demure is not one of them. None of this warm-and-fuzzy-Felicity-Huffman-tranny act for her.

Consequently, we were a little disappointed that last night's premiere episode had almost nothing of her trademark forked tongue. She looked becalmed, almost drugged, as did Todd Oldham and most of the judges (Miss XaXa is beginning to suspect that Bravo has its own hydroponic plantation to supply its hosts and guests judges; can Top Hydroponic Gardener be far behind?)

However, on her Bravo blog, Alexis has burst from her box, her straight jacket, as it were, and spoken what was on her mind:

During the judging, now I look back and think I could have been a little more candid, but I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. Overall, I was a little surprised with the lack of ingenuity I saw....There was another room, the first one I saw, I think, where I probably wasn’t mean enough about it. It was like an inner sanctum, but only if you’re into a sort of “Pottery Barn” mausoleum. I’ve been in warmer cemeteries.

Meow! Now that's the Alexis we know and love.