Salma Hayek's Brother Does an Oldham on an Ad(ler)

This Week's Official Photo of the Farrah Fawcett, Er, Matt Lorenz Drinking Game, Which Nearly Gave Us Alcohol Poisoning

Pink Navy Word of the Day: Sensorial

Possums, far be it from us to look askance at people using two-dollar words, but we have to admit that we shook our heads in confusion and fear during last night's episode as Gay Uncle Todd pronounced the word "sensorial."

First of all, in light of what happened to Jonathan Adler last week as he tried to pronounce "socio-political," we were worried that Todd, too, might suffer a mini-stroke. Gay Uncle Todd did just fine, though.

And then we thought, "Sensorial?" WTF?

At the risk of being hoist with our own petard, this seems a case of using an uncommon word for its own sake. (It's, of course, entirely possible that "sensorial" is a term of art in the design field, but we doubt it. There has to be footage of Goil admitting he doesn't know what the word means, or of Todd preempting this by telling the contestants what it means. We'd stake our nonexistent souls on it.)

"Sensorial," Merriam-Webster will have you know, is a variant of "sensory," and means "of or relating to sensation or to the senses." So, you know, why not just use "sensory"? Is this a Gunning for Timhood by Todd?

The problem is that "sensorial" and even "sensory" seem like such vague, almost non-sensical terms to use as directions for a party, along the lines of "digestive" or "adjectival." Yes, they're adjectives, but they don't really tell you much.

Perhaps the people who, in playing with their Roget's, came up with "sensorial" meant "sensuous," which Merriam-Webster defines thus:

1 a: of or relating to the senses or sensible objects b: producing or characterized by gratification of the senses : having strong sensory appeal
2: characterized by sense impressions or imagery aimed at the senses
3: highly susceptible to influence through the senses

In addition, Merriam-Webster includes a note stating that "sensuous implies gratification of the senses for the sake of aesthetic pleasure." Doesn't that seem more the idea?

Perhaps they were worried that people nowadays have a difficult time distinguishing "sensuous" and "sensual." Bravo, afraid of the sensual? Say it ain't so.

But what do we know? For a moment, when we first heard "sensorial," we thought of "censorious," which the Encarta dictionary defines as "highly critical: inclined or eager to criticize people or things."

Hmmm. Wonder why we thought of that?

She-Bangs: The Hollywood Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Oldham

As Ensign Laz pointed out, it's uncanny. Todd Oldham and Fräulein Maria have the same bangs.

Ryan, er, Marta, pink's OUR favorite color, too!

First Reaction: “Pink Pink Pink Pink,” An Opera without a Libretti

Actually, our first reaction was an overwhelming desire to take the much-maligned “Home, Sweet Home” pillow from Michael’s design and put this granny of a show out of its misery. After all, the Bravo website has a snarky “Deathwatch” feature for television shows on other networks, and perhaps, in a “Physician heal thyself” gesture, it’s time to put Top Design on there.

And pardon our French, but while we’re at it, we’d like to call “bullshit” on that whole pillow incident. It’s not that we were fans of Michael’s design, but Todd Oldham and Jonathan Adler themselves are master purveyors of kitsch, and we can easily imagine either of them including the pillow, perhaps with a few modifications, as an “ironic” or “kitschy” or “campy” gesture.

(Although, let’s not forget that Margaret Russell seems to hate pillows on principle. Indeed, it’s rather striking that the Oldham aesthetic itself seems to be in conflict with what the show’s judges are preaching. Todd notes that, pace Margaret Russell, you can design a room around a pet, since he designed his apartment around his dog, and client Amy Sedaris’ apartment around her rabbit.)

It rather seemed that what the judges hated was that the pillow was from Target. Oh, pardon us, from a department store. We can’t imagine how many retakes that must have taken: “I got it at Target—” “Cut, cut, cut! You have to say ‘department store,’ since those cheap bastards wouldn’t pay the hefty ‘promotional consideration,’ and there’s no way they’re getting their name on the air.” Alas, they forgot to pixellate the Target logo on the shopping carts.

We’d like to note that our rant is due not to testosterone injections, but to the fact that the show is unforgivably boring. You may not be able to design a room around the cat, but you can certainly design a blog around the catty, especially when the subject thereof is this dull, and we are therefore forced to entertain ourselves by letting it rip.

The episode begins with the usual panting musical theme, which the closed captioning helpfully identifies as “dance music.” As the scene opens, our merry band of plucky designers is gathered like the Waltons in a living room of sorts. We hear Michael squeal, “Get those things out of my face!” but then realize it’s nothing to be alarmed about; it’s just Ryan showing, rather than telling, Michael that he is a foot fetishist.

Ryan’s diabolical instrument of infantilization, the skateboard, is at the moment under Goil’s feet, as Mr. “Small and Spicy” tries to caper and gambol on it. Alas, he is unsuccessful, and a real man, Carisa, has to show him how to do it right. But pay attention, possums. This isn’t there just for the sake of entertainment (apparently, not much is); it’s yet another small example of Bravo Foreshadowing™, for his time on the skateboard will serve as the inspiration for Goil’s design.

A mild-mannered John brings the party to a halt by introducing the specter of mortality as he calmly announces that he is HIV-positive, and that what Carisa terms his “fiery eruptions” (which makes us think of Mount John, though as a noun rather than as an imperative), are due to a high dose of testosterone administered by his doctor. He says he is not making excuses, and not apologizing for his feelings; he is just clarifying things.

Perhaps it’s just the Bravo editing, and we all know about that, but John’s announcement seems to be met with silence and discomfort. Michael adopts the patented Sam Talbot/Molly Shannon gesture of putting his hands in his armpits. Erik looks uncomfortably into space.

Elizabeth dispenses some appropriate, perfunctory pabulum about how John is suffering, and how she hopes he will be well. We concur with the sentiments, but possum, get thee some conditioner, pronto. And then Ryan pays tribute to John in a bitchy, left-handed compliment that almost makes us like him, comparing John to “an aging prize fighter.” Meow, Ashtabula boy; you can certainly design for the catty.

The show can’t wait to get away from the discomfort of John’s announcement and into the PDC, where Todd is handing out the new challenge. They will be designing a bedroom for “a mystery client.” We roll our eyes and think of Edina Monsoon, who, as soon as her accountant began speaking, dropped her head on the desk with a cry of, “Oh God, I’m bored!” We know how you feel, sweetie darling.

The contestants pick client files at random, and Todd tells them they will be provided with a mattress (ooh!), but they will have to design the headboard. Montage of the contestants planning their design, picking out flooring, and Felicia taking the floor sample John had planned to take, which prompts him to call her a bitch good-naturedly under his breath.

Todd makes the rounds, and stops at Goil’s work station, where Goil is playing with his small and spicy maquette. That’s a scale model, possums. Todd is thrilled. “You made a maquette? Dude, that’s so impressive.” But then, just as with the first episode’s challenge, Todd tips his hand again, asking loaded questions about the scale height of the person in the maquette. When Goil tells him it’s a six-footer, Todd nods, clearly bursting to say, “Ha! Gotcha! You don’t know that your clients are actually children, and there are no six-foot-tall children.”

More montage. Yawn. They “shop” in the PDC. Michael is imperious to a shop assistant. Faced with an unaffordable piece, John says, “You’re killing me, sunshine.” More shopping. Yawn. And then it’s time for the client reveal, but not before 20 minutes’ worth of commercials.

And then, oh ma gawd, the clients are…children! All the Tinky-Winkies clap, and Todd looks and sounds more than ever like a children’s-show host.

It should come as no surprise to you, possums, that children aren’t quite our thing. For us, Village of the Damned is a documentary. However, we’re not promoters of the Albigensian heresy; we understand the necessity for the propagation of the species. After all, someone has to staff the Starbucks. But not everyone should reproduce. (And we include ourselves in this rather large class. We can’t imagine what we would have done if we’d had to marry and breed; we would likely have closed our eyes and thought of England’s rugby team.)

And perhaps Project Runway is one of those entities that should not reproduce either. Each copy gets fainter and more dull, and you end up with something like Top Design, the cross-eyed, feeble-minded offspring of a morganatic marriage gone wrong.

No doubt Top Design sounded like a good idea. We can imagine the idea being born over Cosmopolitans and appletinis. “Ohmigod, we should have an interior design show! And wouldn’t it be neat to get Todd Oldham to be the host?! And maybe we could get Jonathan Adler as a judge? Oh, and somebody from the Elle stable; they breed their fillies bitchy down there. Oh, and maybe a judge who wears really awful outfits, to drive the bloggers crazy?”

And it sounds great in theory, which is why we were so excited about it. It had the air of a recipe for the gayest, funnest (if we may be permitted a malapropism) show ever. And yet the execution, the reality, is off.

It’s evident that Margaret Russell, she of the thin-lipped hauteur, could curdle milk with one look, but she’s still developing her talents. Someone send her the DVD of The Women and fire whoever styled her hair on this episode and next week’s show. And may the Lord and Simon Doonan strike us dead, but though we find Jonathan Adler cute, adorableness only takes you so far, and the winsomeness has itself curdled.

We read about off-camera conversations that include lines about how something looks like the product of the year 1987 mating with a drag queen in a back alley, and we think to ourselves, “Why aren’t we getting to see that? That’s what we tune in for.” Jonathan mentions in an interview how a professor at RISD did him a great service by telling him he wouldn’t succeed, because it made him want to prove the professor wrong, and we think, “Why aren’t you continuing the legacy? Pay it forward, Jonny.” We think an internship with Michael Kors is in order.

If there’s a reason to watch, it’s for Kelly Wearstler’s outfits, which look even more dizzyingly disastrous than Padma Lakshmi’s. We’re positively salivating about next week’s haute skank ensemble with the aqua knee-highs and strappy sandals. We also like her sly, good-natured humor, and do we detect a trace of a drawl? (As for the two children, we’re incredulous; she looks less like the kind of woman who delivers children than the kind who has them delivered.) We’re fickle, and we are officially switching our older-woman crush from Margaret to Kelly, at least for this week.

Oh, wait, we’re supposed to be writing a recap or something, right? Sorry about that. Right, so the kid clients come in to meet with the contestants, and Ryan dries his hand on his pants before shaking his client’s hand, which we found strangely endearing. John’s client is a little girl who is “50% tomboy and 50% girl,” and we drew blood by biting our tongue so hard. Ally Sheedy, er, Andrea, amusingly tells us, “I know nothing about girls, actually.” Possum, we know how you feel.

And poor Matt. It’s like the entire series is fraught with traps for him, in this case, working with a little girl who makes him visibly uncomfortable. She apparently also has the nicknames “Hollywood” and “Fabulous,” which means that poor Matt has to say those words like shibboleths, or like Eliza Doolittle trying not to drop her aitches (oh, and then of course he also has to say the word, “glam”; poor, poor Matt). And to top it all off, he gets assigned the hottest carpenter of the lot. Poor, poor Matt. And then John asks him, incredulously (accusingly?), “Who puts silk in a kid’s bedroom?” Poor, poor Matt.

The contestants go shopping at Target, er, a department store. There, Ryan shops for a variety of pink items, including a pink boa, telling us that everything is, “Pink, pink. Pink. (beat) Pink.” And then, as if to reassure us (himself?), he says, “I definitely have a boy aesthetic.” Yeah, honey, tell that to the pink flowered jacket you’re wearing.

They construct, and we file our nails, though we are tempted to poke our eye out with the nail file from sheer boredom. John’s in trouble. His space has no floor, and he is running a campaign to become, as Jonathan Adler later terms him, “mayor of Excuses Village.” Erik is building a pirate room.

And then it’s time for the time-consuming and pointless judges’ walk-through. Our favorite part of this is right before the judging starts, when it becomes overwhelmingly clear (as if the White Room itself weren’t sufficient evidence) that someone on this show is a huge fan of Bob Fosse as channeled by Rob Marshall. In addition to the Chicago-esque black floor in the White Room, the contestants are made to stand next to their rooms, some with legs akimbo, like Amsterdam hookers in their windows, as the lights are theatrically switched on one by one for the judges to inspect the wares. We half expect the contestants to break into “Big Spender” the minute Jonathan Adler walks in the door. And at the end, the poor soul cast out of the PDC paradise walks in between the rooms as the lights are turned off one by one.

In the White Room, the judges like Goil’s design, which (here comes the Bravo Foreshadowing™ pay-off) incorporates…skateboard wheels! Goil also reveals himself a philosopher, telling Margaret, whose “we are not amused” expression is priceless, “Space doesn’t go anywhere, right? So, it would just get displaced in another space.” The judges also like Erik’s pirate room, though Kelly feels that he went “a little overboard.” See, Margaret? That’s a pun. Nonetheless, Erik is declared the winner.

The judges dislike Ryan’s pink, kitty-centric room, the catalyst for Margaret’s “You just can’t design a room around the cat” remark. They hate Michael’s room, with the “Home, Sweet Home” pillow, describing it variously as very “granny,” “an assisted living facility,” and as being the work of “a state-appointed designer.”

In the end, though, John’s unfinished room proves the kiss of death, and he is subjected to the further indignity of Jonathan Adler’s “See you later, decorator,” before making his way toward the Top Design logo. Sniff sniff. And now that John is gone, Top Design is left an opera without a Libretti.

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.

Caught in the Acting! Pink Navy In-House Paparazzo Surprises Todd Oldham During Rehearsals

Courtesy of Ensign Laz

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.

Todd Oldham Blows Chance at Iran Ambassadorship, Risks Impeachment as Gay Ambassador By Declaring He's Not One of the "Laddies Who Brunch"

Todd, Todd, Todd.

Well, you can't say we didn't work for you.

Have you any idea how much time we spent preparing our special report to President Bush on what an eligible and desirable bachelor you were for a Special Ambassadorship to Iran, especially now that the diplomatic crisis is heating up?

Well, it was a lot of time. We even sent our letter to the White House in a furry pink envelope woven from the tails of vintage 1980s My Little Ponys.

And it was all for naught, because you just had to go and talk to New York magazine and, in answer to their question, "Who should be the next president?", say, "Anyone that tells the truth and isn’t hateful would be welcome at this point."

Oh, how we groaned when we read that. We had been hearing from senior administration officials that your ambassadorship was in the bag, and just like that, they've stopped calling.

Muchas gracias, Todd. That's just the kind of thanks we get. And all those little plastic Barbaros? They died in vain. Well done, Todd.

Of course, you didn't just stop there.

We're also hearing from the highest gay authorities that articles of impeachment could be drawn up at any moment and that you could be removed from your position as Gay Ambassador for the comment, made in the same interview, that you are opposed to brunch because "so often it's like Sunday-morning prison with a big bill at the end."

Oh, Todd, we can't bear to see you self-destruct in public like this, and on the day Top Design is premiering, too. We have Isaiah Washington's crisis-management team at the ready; they say we can even get you a spot at the same gayhab clinic. Think about it. Call us.

Pink Navy Political Plea, Wherein We Ask the President to Mullah It Over and Change His Tune—to “M-, M-, M-, My Chadora”

Dear Mr. President,

You may not know this about us, but we have done extensive reading of the great political writers, everyone from John Stuart Mill (On Liberty) to Sly and the Family Stone ("We Are Family"), and in that spirit, knowing that you worry greatly about "the axis of evil," we have a modest proposal for you.

Take a look at this photograph of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and tell us truly, Is this really the way to conduct diplomatic overtures? Don't get us wrong; the boots, the coat, all fabulous. Very East Berlin after dark; very "hard diplomacy." But Carine Roitfeld and the Kreuzberg S&M swingers can't be your only audience; you must also think of the people.

This is where we come in. Our proposal? Top Design host Todd Oldham for Special Ambassador to Iran.

Hear us out. Todd--a fellow Texan (well, as much a Texan as you, Mr. President) who is variously described as the "reincarnation of a 1940s housewife," "a hybrid of Peewee Herman, Howdy-Doody [ed.- Hmmmm]steeped in the broth of Schiaparelli," and "a self-taught Texas boy who's maintained his manners in the midst of big money and bigger egos"--would be the perfect person to resolve the diplomatic crisis with Iran.

For one thing, Todd has actually lived in Iran. As he recounts, "One day we were playing in the creek and my dad said, 'Do you want to go live in Iran?' And after we figured out what that was and where it was, we said, 'Sure.' And off we went." Todd lived there for "[f]our years as a kid. When the Shah was still around, and it was a very lovely, beautiful, inspiring experience, I still hold dear today. It's very much in my heart."

Now, it is our belief, Mr. President, that if Todd Oldham could be set loose on the Iranians, decorating black chadors with his trademark colorful geometric compositions (which, being non-representational, also have the virtue of being Koranically correct), the entire diplomatic crisis with Iran would be over. We include a photograph for your visualization needs.















To our way of thinking, when the Iranians feel like they're da bomb, they will no longer want the bomb. We think even Andrew Sullivan would agree with us.

Thank you for your attention to our proposal, Mr. President.

Very truly yours,

Pink Navy

As Jonathan Adler Reveals State Secret, "Top Design" Gets in Trouble with the Gays

We shuddered a little when we turned to pinky-lifting website After Elton for their review of Top Design. Could it be? Is it really possible? Is Top Design in trouble with the Gays?

It certainly seems that way from what we read in the article, headlined "Bravo's Top Design off to a Shaky Start" (to which we say, Puh-leeze, is that the best a gay website can do in terms of a headline? For shame!):

Bravo's latest addition to the genre, Top Design, hosted by openly gay designer Todd Oldham, falls a bit short at first....In addition to Top Design's formulaic first episode, in which the show is bogged down by having to introduce the concept as well as its 12 contestants, the host and three judges, the show faces a dramatic challenge. Shows such as American Idol and Project Runway have a built-in theatricality that is difficult to replicate in a show like Top Design. The Project Runway model strutting her designer's stuff down a catwalk serves as a dramatic climax to each episode, and Top Design's before-and-after shots of the design space just don't have the same emotional kick.

Meeeow! "Falls a bit short"? "Formulaic"? Those kinds of cat-scratches can't be good for the Scalamandré cushions.

However, our favorite part of the article is the mini-interview with Jonathan Adler, who blows the lid off a state secret so huge that it threatens the very foundations of Gaymerica. The Pentagon Papers were nothing compared to this. We scurry for cover behind the pleather-covered shield of New York Times v. U.S. as we repeat Judge Adler's words, "Certainly, in the design world there are lots and lots of the gays."

Oh, Jonathan, just remember that loose lips sink pink navies (and won't get you asked on a second date).