Pink Navy Girl in Every Port: María Félix

This is one of those instances, possums, when we are grateful for the “other matters of taste” rubric in our blog description.

As we’ve mentioned, we’re more than a little bored by Top Design, but let us introduce you to something that has us very excited indeed. We present our first-ever Girl in Every Port, none other than Mexican actress María Félix, diva extraordinaire and one of the most fabulous women who ever lived.

She was the original barefoot contessa, an admixture of Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, and Joan Crawford. She had four husbands, and numerous lovers. Her second husband, Agustín Lara, was the Irving Berlin of Latin America. Her third husband, Jorge Negrete, was a Mexican amalgam of John Wayne and Frank Sinatra. Her fourth husband, Alex Berger, a millionaire French financier, financed the construction of the Mexico City subway, modeled after the Paris métro, in order to please her, or at least that was her version.

Her lovers included Diego Rivera, who painted her twice, once in the nude. (She was also painted by Jean Cocteau, though, of course, they didn’t become lovers). King Farouk of Egypt reportedly offered her Nefertiti’s crown in exchange for one night of love.


Her most passionate and longest-lasting relationship may well have been with Cartier, whom she famously commissioned to make necklaces based on her pet snake and pet crocodile. She reportedly walked into the Paris branch with her pet baby crocodile and asked the Cartier jewelers to make her a scale replica in gold. She was dressed by Dior and outfitted by Hermès, which also provided all the gear for her stable of race horses in Paris.

In addition to her beauty and her reputation as a femme fatale, she was also famous for her quick wit. Of jewels, she said, “Some friends have told me that pearls make people cry. The only pearls that have made me cry were the fake ones.” When an audience in Colombia protested after she cut short a musical performance, she retorted, “Others have seen less, and paid more.” To a lady reporter who dared to ask her age, she witheringly replied, “Look, young lady, I’ve been very busy living my life and haven’t had time to count.”

Other examples of her bons mots:

* “I don't count the years, I only limit myself to living them.”

* “A man has never made my life difficult, because I have never bet all my chips on only one man.”

* “Women will never be like men, although sometimes there are men with the heart of a woman. From the beginning of time, men have taken the largest piece of the pie. I have the heart of a man and that's why things have been good for me.”

* “I cannot complain about men. I have had tons of them and they have treated me fabulously well. But sometimes I had to hurt them to keep them from subjugating me.”

* “‘Diva’ is something made up, but I was not fabricated, life made me and it possibly made me very well.”

She made films for Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel, and Emilio Fernández. She was celebrated by writers Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, and Kiss of the Spider Woman author Manuel Puig, and it is said that she is the “spider woman” of the title. She titled her delicious memoirs, All My Wars. She was the first Latin American woman to be made Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

But her greatest achievement may well be this: she might just be the one who made us gay.

So we advise you NOT to watch the video below unless you are prepared for the consequences of so much fabulousness unleashed.

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.

Swiss Miss Turns Construction Girl

Our pals at Fishbowl LA have an exclusive interview with Andrea Keller, in which you'll discover that she knits (!), that she's a "construction girl," and that the Ivy League wench (go Penn!) won't say a mean word about Kelly Wearstler's fugly outfits.

Perhaps her diplomatic tact comes from her Swiss background (we can't wait to hear her break out into Schwyzerdütsch), but we remain particularly intrigued by just how much she resembles Breakfast Club Ally Sheedy with a pinch of High Art Ally Sheedy.

Pink Navy Socratic Dialogue, Wherein We Discuss Battlefield Felicia

“Well, fancy that,” we drawled indolently to Miss XaXa as we reached for another marron glacé. “It seems Felicia’s a Scientologist.”

Miss XaXa chortled. “That explains a lot. Do you think Katie Holmes will look like that in ten years?”

“Don’t you mean Kate? Well, anyway, at least Felicia’s designs won’t be glib,” we said, passing up the Recchiuti box in favor of a Pierre Hermé palet d’or.

“And if Tom Cruise ever needs another couch to jump on, she could provide a tasteful one,” added Miss XaXa. “No wonder she was paired with Matt on the first challenge. That boy needs a better beard than the stray wisps he’s got.”

We shook our head. “With a name like Bushman, no doubt she’d make a good beard, but no, possum. His bio says he’s already got a full Van Dyke at home, and a four-year-old goatee.”

“Well, she could always be Ryan’s beard.”

“He’s definitely clean-shaven,” we agreed. “By the by, what does one call a man who marries a lesbian for appearances’ sake?”

Miss XaXa shrugged. “A merkin?”

We decided not to take the bait. That we’ve been reduced to discussing merkins is an indication of just how dull the show is.

Matt Lorenz: Tales of an American Boyhood

Like contestant Michael Adams, sometimes we don't even have to lift a finger to paint. Others do it for us. From a delightful, and not at all slyly incriminating, article in the Mankato, Minnesota, Free Press:

When Matt Lorenz was in kindergarten he decided his teacher did a pretty lousy job of decorating the classroom Christmas tree, so he got his mom to donate a new one so he could decorate it to his satisfaction.

Yes, given the evidence, one could say Lorenz was always on the path to interior design, at least since the age of 5 growing up in Comfrey and Nicollet.

...

Lorenz, who lives in Chicago with his wife and 4-year-old daughter, hasn’t seen any of the footage yet. He’ll be watching the show for the first time Jan. 31 like everybody else, he said.

“I’ll probably be in the corner of my living room crying,” he said.

Lorenz was born in Madelia and moved to Comfrey with his mom, Marilyn Pederson of Mountain Lake, when he was 3 years old. Growing up in Nicollet, he used to decorate his farmhouse to the max around Christmas time with lights and elaborate decorations that attracted 2,000 people every year. The Free Press even did a spread on the display in 1988, he said.

“Not bad for the hicks in the sticks,” he said.

“I am SO not gay, dude. Look, I said the word ‘sheetrock.’ And the word ‘dude.’ And no, that is NOT longing and whimsy in my eyes.”

So this is only their second date, and they already look and dress alike? What are they, lesbians?

Beware the Stare: Everything We Know About Children We Learned from Diana Vreeland. (And Melanie Klein. And “Village of the Damned.”)

Possums, while we gather our thoughts in order to prepare our "first reaction" post about this episode, in which the contestants had to design a child's bedroom, we turn to what fairy godmother Diana Vreeland had to say on the subject of decorating children's rooms and child-rearing in general. (In fact, nowadays it's always our first reaction to anything: what would Diana Vreeland do?) And these suggestions are exactly what we would adopt if we were ever forced to adopt, or forced to play Mr. Belvedere.

And so, without further ado, in a special Thurday edition, why don’t you…

* rinse your blond child’s hair in dead champagne to keep its gold, as they do in France?

* have a jeune fille’s dressing table hung with a pale muslin petticoat with shaded boutonnieres of roses, violets, carnations, and cherries from Woolworth’s tacked on casually?

* paint a map of the world on all four walls of your boys’ nursery so they won’t grow up with a provincial point of view?

* turn your child into an Infanta for a fancy-dress party?

* teach your little girl to sew and have her do a modern sampler, made up of addresses of all the houses and apartments she has lived in in her stormy young life?

* build in a bunk like Shirley Temple’s in “Captain January” with drawers underneath for clothes and toys?

Kay Thompson Does Diana Vreeland on a “Why Don’t You?” Wednesday

Judges' Spouses, They're Just Like Us: Jonathan Adler Hubby Confesses He Watches the Super Bowl for the Cheerleaders and Not the Tight Ends

It's going to be a good Wednesday, possums.

How do we know? Well, irrepressibly injudicious judicial spouse Simon Doonan is back with a new installment of his column after a one-week hiatus In it, he appears to confirm that he loves Ladurée macaroons just as much as we do, no matter what Pierre Hermé may be up to, and that he, too, watches the Super Bowl, albeit not for Brian Urlacher, which is why we watched.

Here, then, the cherce bits (and did we mention that we want to write like him when we grow up?):

Sunday 5 p.m.: It was so bloody cold that I bagged any further shows and ran home to catch Super Bowl 41. After staring at all those haunted, wraith-like models, the adorable Indianapolis cheerleaders were a real picker-upper. With their 1950’s physiques, these doll-like cuties possess an optimistic joie de vivre not shared by those poor, stringy melancholics in the Bryant Park tents.

As I watched the Colts-Bears game, I thought of all the blokes across the country boozing, belching, farting and munching their way through the Super Bowl, and I had an epiphany: Why not serve food before every fashion show, à la the sports stadium? Maybe the reason that men have a more laissez-faire attitude toward food is because they are around it more often....

…

Monday p.m.: Finally, the weight-loss babble took a back seat to fashion, with a capital F. Thom Browne’s men’s show that was a jolt of insane creativity: a Visconti-esque, Pasolini-esque montage of gender-confused fascist lesbianism. Thom took his signature silhouette—a shrunken preppy jacket with a high-waisted pant—and drove it to its complete and utter lunatic conclusion. We’re talking Lacroix meets von Trapp; we’re talking Liberace meets Hitler. White mink stoles, calf-length skirts, marcelled hair, fur-trimmed capes, cashmere stockings and Swarovski-encrusted attaché cases—and that was just the men! David Furnish was kvelling. It was right up Elton’s boulevard.

…

Then she arrived.

Voluptuous, amused, exotically fleshy, Lost star Michelle Rodriguez sauntered toward her seat wearing a pale yellow strapless chiffon cocktail dress. Her only accessory: a massive police ankle bracelet!

“Shackle chic!” quipped my neighbor, Williamsburg musician Casey Spooner, as the stampede of yelling photogs recorded this fashion first.

Scoop Doonan charged over to Ms. Rodriguez, notepad in hand. I toyed with congratulating Hollywood’s current bad girl on not having adopted the prevailing super-skinny look, but decided that I wanted to keep my front teeth, at least for the time being.

“Why Don’t You?” Wednesday

Well, possums, the earth has completed seven revolutions on its axis, and once again, Hump Day is upon us. Yes, sirree, it’s Wednesday, and you all know what that means—time for more gracious-living tips from Pink Navy’s resident muse and fag-hag godmother extraordinaire, Diana Vreeland. And so, without further ado, Why don’t you…

* reconsider the hopeless of a room without a mantel, and put in a fake fireplace draped in flowered chintz and holding an urn of carnations? The mantelpiece is white and gold.

* have an ivory satin bedquilt embroidered with a sentimental poem in colored spangles and pearls, as did the Vicomtesse Charles de Noailles in Paris?

* have the gayest possible slipper chair done up in white broderie anglaise—ruffles like a petticoat, threaded through with pink satin ribbons?

* revive the old-fashioned hat tree—this time a white lacquer pole topped with ostrich feathers of carved wood, or a black and gold palm tree—most useful in a bathroom to hold your clothes?

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.

“But We CAN’T Be Gay! One of Us Skateboards and the Other One is Married”

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

Courtesy of Ensign Laz

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.

Pink Navy Super Bowl Report: God Is Gay, Punishes Chicago for John Gray's Comments

If yesterday is anything to go by, the Good Lord is trampling out the vintage where the champagne grapes of wrath are stored, and honestly, possums, we can't say we blame Her.

The 29-17 win by the Indianapolis Colts over the Chicago Bears in a Biblical downpour that was the first to fall on the Super Bowl--as Colts coach Tony Dungy put it, "Has it ever rained? Has it ever been this bad?"--ought to tell you everything. Of course, it could have been much worse, and, indeed, we've been expecting something awful since we saw the premiere episode of Top Design last week.

The moment Chicago-based contestant John "Huge Paint Chip on My Shoulder" Gray appeared on the screen, doing the lemon-sour grimace of Froggy Gone A-Courtin' and going on about how "queeny" the other male contestants were, how they were just a bunch of "girls," and how he is "not a campy designer," we cowered behind the settee. We were expecting the voice of James Earl Jones to come from the heavens, saying unto John, "Mary, puh-leeze," and sending a huge pink thunderbolt to smite him dead as the entire Pacific Design Center went up in a glittering fuchsia ball of flame.

"He's not actually pretending to be straight, is he?" asked Miss XaXa, genuinely puzzled, since every time he spoke to announce how queeny and campy everyone was, hairpins and sequins and bits of marabou dropped from his mouth. "Perhaps it's some sort of post-modern joke," we posited. "Surely no one would go on the gayest show on the gayest network about the gayest profession and say things like that unless they were gayer than Liberace's rhinestone jockstrap?"

Miss XaXa's voice became compassionate and understanding. "It can't have been easy for him, being gay and having a mug like that. You gay boys are terribly unforgiving about that sort of thing. No wonder he took to going to the gym. It's probably just 'roid rage and rejection from those uppity Halsted queens."

Alas, no pink thunderbolts were forthcoming. "Well, the Good Lord bideth Her time," we assured Miss XaXa.

That She did. After creating the Super Bowl with the gayest nomenclature in recent memory (Colts vs. Bears being essentially a battle between a gay porn production house and a burly, hirsute subspecies of the gay male to which one could colorably argue that John Gray himself belongs, and with Prince singing "Purple Rain" during the halftime show), the Good Lord finally struck back at John and his hometown team. We wonder whether John--no doubt sitting at home in a backwards baseball cap and with his legs open, watching the game with his buds and Buds--had any idea that after his team had missed going to the Super Bowl for umpteen years, it was he who was responsible for their loss. We sure hope you learn your lesson, John, or else next time the Good Lord, harking back to Lot's wife, might turn you into a pillar of crystal meth at a circuit party.

Pink Navy Pledge Drive: Donate a Dollar to Michael Adams

Courtesy of Ensign Laz.

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?

Product-Placement Whore Bravo Continues Cross-Promotional Relationship with Marvel Comics

First, it was Top Chef, with contestant Marcel Vigneron and X-Men character Wolverine.

And now, with Top Design, Bravo continues its partnership with Marvel Comics by casting another contestant who is a dead ringer for an X-Men character. This time, it's Lisa, who looks like the character Storm as played by Halle Berry.









Unlike Marcel, however, Lisa did not make it to the finals. Though she designed up a storm, the final results were more of a drizzle, and she became one half of the first pair to be ousted from the Pacific Design Center paradise not by an angel wielding a flaming sword, but by Jonathan Adler wielding a humiliating catchphrase, "See you later, decorators." (If you're going to rhyme and respect the profession, may we suggest, 'Go back to the Minors, interior designers'?).

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.