A look at the queries that come my way

I always get a kick of the keywords that send the googlers of the world to this, your humble abode. Here is a look at some very recent ones:

Inquiring minds want to know:

• How was the enchilada invented? Beats me. By a genius, surely.
• Hoquy berets. Very popular topic.
• Jews are nerds. Indeed, and proudly so.
• How to pronounce enchlada? Not like that.
• Mexican Piaf That must be either Chavela Vargas or Lucha Reyes.
• Phillip Gourevitch Lately, hotter than Paris Hilton.
• I hate bed and breakfasts Apparently, I'm not the only one. Right on!
• People who fidget Nu? What about them? (we hate em too)
• Mexican Japanese peanuts A topic of grave importance, to judge from the many queries
• I want to buy Chamoy in a bottle Go to Mexico City and knock yourself out.
• Yiddish words flummoxed Farblondget is Yiddish; flummoxed is not
• How is the Gallic rooster able to live in Paris? QUOI???

Call 911...

...before you call the Olsen twin, is all I can say.

Lesson learned for everybody: call 911 first, even if you are dealing with a celebrity.
They have as much a right have their lives saved as anyone else.

Bipolar Britney

I went back to the gym today, after months of not setting foot in it with all kinds of excuses (back pain, China, jet lag from China, being fat, etc).
And you know what happens when I go to the gym: I watch The Insider on TV and I read trashy magazines, even if there is a cute guy in the treadmill right next to mine, who is probably thinking, look at this trailer trash imported to Manhattan (if he only knew I've read Proust and Dostoevsky, both of which are not unlike People magazine, if you think about it).
In any case, there I am watching The Insider broadcast Danielynn's "first" steps (she seems already much more with it than her mom), while I'm reading at the same time, and this is a first, because I never read People, I only look at the pictures, the article that details Britney's descent into "mental illness".
As People informs us, doctors who have not treated Brits have nevertheless decided that she sounds bipolar. Apparently all this convoluted behavior of hers is symptomatic of bipolarity, or what used to be called manic depression, I believe. It turns out that there is a history of mental illness in the family somewhere. So there you have it, she was nuts from the get go.
I have never felt sympathy for Britney. I can't stand her vulgarity. (So sue me). But today, my friends, I do. I pity her. She has become the national punching bag, as Ayelet Waldman smartly points out here. Because she is a woman and because she is a mother and because she is talented (albeit trashy) and because she is rich, the derision and the criticism are relentless. She is also morbidly fascinating, like watching a car wreck, but it is actually rather sad. With all that money, and all those resources at her disposal to become a better person, a better artist, and she is just lost and bonkers.
Is it not possible that this "bipolarity" being proclaimed with such wild abandon, (as if this is the excuse we have not to think anymore about the nasty side effects of our celebrity culture), may be a result of her extreme circumstances? A young talent, marketed and taken advantage of to no end, too young and too ignorant to lead a more examined life, or at least to be more savvy, have more backbone, be more cabrona, can barely deal with the sinister demands of her fame and fortune. I think it must be incredibly difficult for people with working brains and a solid sense of self to deal with such issues, now imagine this poor girl. A hillbilly who can't cope with the tzuris of fame.
And this is why I'm voting for Hillary. Because women always have it tougher and I've had it with the double standards and the lesser pay and the endless derision. Bring a bitch to the White House for a change. Let her turn into Lady Macbeth for all I care.

Disturbing News

These are yesterday's news. I'm commenting on them today. Such is the Enchilada News Service: Always at the forefront of what is happening now. Except it happened yesterday.
• Another Spears gets knocked up. She is 16. One would think that with all their hard-earned entertainment money in the 21st Century, they'd have heard about contraception.
• Time Magazine chooses extra large version of Mini Me, also known as Vladimir Putin, as Person of the Year. Time Magazine seems to us totally irrelevant and uncool. Putin is a horrible choice. However, if you ask me to choose between him and runner up Al Gore (Al Bore is more like it) and J.K. Rowling (I cannot begin to tell you how far away from my radar is this woman and her books), I would choose Putin too. He gets brownie points for perversity. And I adore the fact that his wife is a Putina. It cracks me up to no end.
• I saw Celine Dion yesterday on TV (something called the World Music Awards, puke). My aversion for her is physical. I cannot understand who could possibly find her charming or attractive. She is like a tyrant of song.

Nazis are more popular than Britney

...and than Futalognkosaurus and much more than poor King Tut. At least on the internets. I know because plenty of my darling readers seem to have a keen interest on them, which I hope is fueled by antipathy and hatred. Otherwise, we are in trouble.
In any case, what's with the dictators acting up recently? Pervez basically dissolving the constitution and behaving quite perversely. I wouldn't be surprised if he was acting on the friendly advice of our very own VEEP, (aka Satan), who may want somebody to do somewhere else what he has not been able to do here, and not for lack of trying. And Hugo, who wants to change the constitution to reelect himself over and over and over. And then Fidel, who just won't die.
Isn't dictatorship really old fashioned? Doesn't it seem utterly anachronistic for our virtual, globalized times?

Blog backlog

Dahlings! I have been trying to blog this past couple of days, but since I have to make a living, I was stuck at a couple of advertising conferences, where people pay money to get the shit scared out of them and to exchange business cards with one another. But this is not a topic that interests you (it barely interests me). So yesterday was Halloween in New York City and unfortunately the weather was the balmiest in 70 years, which meant hordes of murgatroids congregating on the corner of ma maison, screaming like banshees all night. I put on the air conditioning to muffle their drunken screeching. It almost worked.
I was going to dress up like Marilyn Monroe, and not like Anna Nicole, who was a popular choice this year. But after all day listening about future trends in advertising, my head was exploding with a combo of interesting info and utter bullshit so I didn't even make it to the party. Plus, I saw a homeless woman on the subway in the morning who apparently got the Halloween memo and she was truly the scariest living thing I've seen on a New York Subway, probably ever. Why she decided to venture out pinkt yesterday is just poetic license.
I am so addled that I don't even know what to write about, y'all. I'm about to say the world is a cruel place, echoing that bard of ours, Britney, who doesn't even understand the meaning of the word "overwhelming", according to the very august New York Times, which does report on such momentous matters.

(Ryan) Seacrest (our new Edward Murrow -- parenthesis mine) apparently woke Spears up when he called her for the interview, and at times she didn't seem to understand his questions. When Seacrest asked Spears whether the intense coverage of her recent troubles has been ''overwhelming,'' she said, ''Wait, what?''

However, she then said: ''People talk and they say what they want at the end of the day, you know in the tabloids and in the magazines,'' she said. ''But you just try to keep on doing what you do, like, you know, and as long as you know what's up and you know what's true, that's all that really matters, you know?''

In a knowing flurry of articulation and eloquence.

Skanklloween

Between news that Paris Hilton's trip to Rwanda was canceled (to the great good fortune of those poor people), and the truly scary new video of Anna Nicole in really disturbing clown makeup, I think it's safe to say that this is ghoul season allright.
Paris Hilton is one of those LA Things I wish We Lost In The Fire (a movie, by the way, which I haven't seen but which I wouldn't piss on if it was on fire).
And as far as Anna Nicole is concerned, I never thought I could feel sorry for her trashy ass, but I stand corrected. She was too dumb to protect herself from a succubus like Howard K. Stern; basically, a man who is very bad for the Jews.

Poor Britney

Since MTV is the most irrelevant entertainment in the world after Miss Universe, at least we have the internets to alert us to the fact that there were MTV music video awards yesterday, in which poor Britney Spears performed. This girl needs a good consigliere fast.
Let me point out that I couldn't give a shit about Britney Spears and her troubles, except inasmuch as she brings up my pageviews today; but as I read all over my computer screen that she looked fat, I had to see for myself. She looked comatose, lobotomized, and utterly farblondget, but I'm extremely concerned by the fact that news reports said she looked fat. She may have seemed a little chunkier than her normal prancing self when she was 17 years old, but for a trailer trash woman with two babies and a steady diet of cheetos, she looked fine to me, as she was wearing only sparkly panties and a bra (and a potentially wayward wig).
Please do take a look at the growing numbers of obscenely obese people in this country (at your nearest mirror), and then tell me in all seriousness that Britney looks fat. It's not fair.

Why do people hire Sarah Silverman? She is the most unfunny, obnoxious woman in the annals of comedy, perhaps the history of the world. But her leaden, mean-spirited, witless shtick served a purpose yesterday. She made me pity poor Britney.

Experiment

I realized that I never got as many readers as when I mentioned the words "Paris Hilton".
Gotta thank the skank.
Somebody told me her grandpa cut her out of his will. As if that is going to leave her destitute. She is a shrewd self-marketer. Go to any third world country and you will see her unbelievably disturbing giant mug plastered all over town selling cheap perfume and handbags and who knows what else. Too late, gramps. She is probably richer than you.
So the experiment is, I want to see how many more hits I get just by inserting those two words into my blog. Also, I'll add a sprinkling of Britney Spears, Linsday Lohan and Nicole Ritchie, see if I can break any records.
Results to be posted as soon as they are available.

Is it any wonder?

Is it any wonder Paris Hilton is such a c_ _ _ t. Her father is bidding rights for an interview with her (as if she has anything to say) for six figures. ABC claims it couldn't get an interview because the $100,00o they offered was, as Hilton Pere said, "not even in the same galaxy" as other people offered.
It really is revolting how mercenary these people are. Not like they are not loaded already. They are exploiting the idiotic misfortunes of their retarded miscreant for gain, whoring out their own daughter without shame. I do not feel an ounce of sympathy for this girl, and if I ever do please kick me in the ass, but I am almost starting to. If my parents pimped me out like that it would be very sad, to say the least.
Now, every time I think of a Hilton Hotel (of which, in the interest of full disclosure, I own a Gold VIP Card), I will think brothel, skank, pimps, vulgarity, crabs and puke, in that order.
Do these people still own the Hilton brand? Because if they do, it sure is no way to build a reputation.
I venture to guess that this is going to create a bit of a stir, and that because Paris found God in jail and now they are pals, God may advise her to give every penny of that hard earned interview money to charity. At least that's what I think God should do.

Back to Obscurity

Since I haven't mentioned Paris Hilton, this modest page is back to its loyal six readers.
The pressure of such a meteoric rise to fame was becoming unbearable, I have to confess. The pressure of appealing to people in Estonia and Australia and my darling one reader in South Africa (hola Creon!) was starting to affect me. I guess I didn't help matters talking about subjects as dear to my heart as Janet Maslin and Hamas. But I only got myself to blame. I'm sure my opinion in these matters is probably unpopular. However, I could care less.
So it is a relief that the blinding spotlight of internet popularity is off this site again. Unless I mention Fushe Kruje, who knows, that may do the trick.

Very Scary Conspiracy Theory

Dear readers:
Either Albania is the most popular blog topic on the planet, or I'm afraid I have bad news. It seems that since I employed the words Paris and Hilton in this blog my readership has mushroomed exponentially. Although I should be jumping for joy, it actually makes me rather sad that I have to thank this skank for anything. But I guess that's the way the world works today. You just put the words Paris and Hilton somewhere and you watch your business grow. It's either that, or it's Fushe Kruje.
In any case, welcome one and all!

Did I tell you...

...how I freaking hate Princess Di? I'm sure I have. Several times. But since a day can't pass without somebody still bringing her up, I have been forced to remember that she was my Paris Hilton before there was a Paris Hilton. That's how much I hated her. Now I hate her even more because according to Tina Brown, we have Di to thank for the nightmare that is Paris (and Lindsay*, and Nicole "Bones" Ritchie and a veritable host of talentless anorexics whose only wish is to strut their puny, disgusting lives in front of a camera). *Lindsay is somewhat talented, but way screwed up by: celebrity!
I'm sure that the Tina book is most interesting, but this is not something we didn't know already. We saw it, beautifully in The Queen (the movie). You could tell, even in the eighties, that this woman craved the camera like I crave macaroni and cheese and Chinese food and onion rings and ice cream (and tortilla soup and tacos de carnitas from the Mercado de Medellin). Every coy smile and flutter of the eyelashes was calculated to elicit sympathy, as if she was a hungry orphan in Darfur and not a wealthy aristocrat living a fraudulent life of her own devising. I also freaking hated her hair.
Is it our fault that she married a guy who didn't love her and had huge ears? No. They had two kids. How did that happen? He closed his eyes and thought of England?
My acting teacher used to say that asking for pity or sympathy is the most boring choice for an actor. The kiss of death. Well, that's what happened to me with her. I could not tolerate her cloying goodness, her pretense of fresh scrubbed innocence. It was as sincere as a Hallmark card. But people bought it. Now, Paris Hilton has fans. Fans of what?
It is true, and sad and terrible that Diana's legacy is this: thanks to her we have to live with this celebrity frenzy that not only shows no sign of abating but that apparently knows no limits, no shame, no dignity, no curb. A freefall of vulgarity and banality and spin.
I was not around in the age of the heiresses like Doris Duke or Barbara Hutton. They were probably nuts, but I'm sure they had to have more class than what we see today. Whatever their skankiness, it probably happened safely behind closed doors, not in full view of the entire world.
I have an idea for the shortage of Army recruits: draft the p.r. people who work for these media whores. No need to thank me.

Paris Hilton Found God in Jail

Which is where He should be, the Bastard, in solitary and serving a life sentence for gross indifference to human suffering.
So now my two least favorite people, Paris Hilton and God, are BFF* (according to her; we haven't heard from Him in about 5000 years).


*That's Best Friends Forever to you.

New Photo of The Week

Gotta love this mug shot. Mug shots are the new headshots, people! And jail is the new pijama party!

The ditz was released from jail into house arrest because SHE COULDN'T SLEEP! I thought she never slept already, what with the midnight porn videos and the general partying, but what do I know.
The LA Sheriff's Department's, fittingly histrionic, Hollywood cliché: "She has paid her debt to society."
No, she hasn't. This is what would pay her debt to society: send her to a Gulag in Siberia with no return ticket. Society would be forever grateful.

Carmen Miranda Rights

I saw Paris Hilton's lawyer on TV. I had sworn to myself not to pollute this blog with a mention of her name. But after watching the lawyer, I have to comment. Apparently the sentence this hateful girl got was exaggerated. I can believe that. The lawyer kept trying to make her into some sort of celebrity martyr but I don't think anyone was buying it. He kept saying (I paraphrase lightly): "The LA Sheriff's department has been so nice to us. They have gone out of their way to be so nice to us. And Paris, though it would be better for her to be held with the general population, because time may pass by faster for her in the company of other inmates (the level of spin makes my head spin), poor little Paris was put in administrative seclusion, in a tiny little cell where she's all by herself 24/7 (no doubt because the Sheriff wants her to preserve all her teeth, since there is little else worth preserving).
I think this is very fitting punishment, not for the driving violation, but for her annoying public life that she foists upon us at the slightest provocation. Spending some time alone for the first time in her life with her puny self should be punishment enough to last her a lifetime. Maybe the tenth circle of hell is actually being Paris Hilton in the company of herself.
Don't get me wrong: it is entirely possible that in person she is delightful, wise and urbane. However, the persona she has chosen to impress upon us is highly obnoxious, vapid and dumb. And even I, who try to ignore her to the best of my abilities, I'm sick of it.
As for the LA Sheriff department being so nice, I can imagine no other inmate has ever complained about this kind of behavior from them. It is revolting that celebrities get better treatment than everybody else. Revolting.
And somebody is going to tell me, well they have to treat them nice because celebrities could be made into picadillo in the slammer. Well you know what, they should think about that before they flaunt their disregard for the law, expecting, as they do, that special treatment is always going to save their ass.

Looking for a subject

I spent most of the morning scanning the headlines, looking for a suitable subject to share with you, my darling readers. Couldn't find one. I don't want to talk about anything. Not about Lindsay Lohan's rehab redux, not about Hugo Chavez strongarming the soap opera and dreck purveyors in his country, not about the fact that American soldiers in Iraq are being killed by the same people they are training and they are starting to be very fed up (what's taking them so long?); not about that weird David Remnick assertion in the New Yorker that The Sopranos is a comedy. That really is news to me. I thought and hoped it is a tragedy. But maybe Remnick has seen the last episode, where Carmela and Tony live happily ever after, without punishment or legal persecution. It seems rather unlikely, no?
Not about the fact that Miss USA fell on her ass and was loudly booed by the Mexico City audience at the Miss Universe Pageant (another strong indication that there is no God, only Donald Trump). The reason for the booing: the appalling immigration debacle here in the States. The reason for falling on her ass: a perfectly good example of an apt metaphor. That's how we are these days. Falling on our ass, everybody in the world hurling scorn and derision at us (more than the usual, I mean).

Assholelandia

I don't know what to write about today. Sundry assholes come to mind:

1. John McCain. Now he is saying that Rumsfeld was the worst Secretary of Defense ever. Now. Why didn't you say something when the guy was still in office, you stupid putz?
2. The Anna Nicole judge. One would have thought that the only dignified human being in close proximity to that silicone trash bag would be a judge, but I guess that Miss Smith's greatest talent, even in death, was to surround herself with the absolute bottom of the barrel, way down in the gutter, and so this judge Seidlin is no exception.
And speaking of assholes, what kind of family allows a person to decompose for two weeks before burying her WHEREVER?
This late show host Craig Ferguson gets in the news because he decides to defend Britney Spears from the jeering malevolence of the public. That's very nice of him, but why is this news exactly? I saw it on CNN and on ABC, as if it was some kind of incredible pronouncement. And I can't help but thinking he only said that because no one ever watches his show, so it helps with the ratings. Maybe I'm too jaded. But there seems to be far more interest in the fates of two trailer trash hos than in the fate of American soldiers in Iraq. Man, if I was a soldier in Iraq I would be seething. I don't know how I would feel when I came home to utter indifference and callous disregard for what I was doing over there. I'd feel murderous rage.

Saint Anna Nicole

It's the Death of Nixon syndrome. An utterly unsavory character dies and the press just melts and starts spinning them into sainthood. Yahoo News! has a headline that says "Why we cared about Anna."
We? Speak for yourselves, you purveyors of cheesy dreck. I don't care.
Let me rephrase that. I care. I care that an utterly talentless, ignorant slut was able to hold our collective attentions for more than 10 seconds. And on account of what? Her Barbie on steroids looks? Her unabashed, vulgar hogging of the spotlight? The fact that she was happy to make herself into a walking freakshow for celebrity? That she was proud of her ignorance?

Her strange life seemed to veer from one outsized struggle to another. She struggled famously with her weight and with her family. She sometimes even struggled to speak without slurring. She had a TV show that could be so embarrassing you'd want to watch it with dark sunglasses on. Much more tragically, she lost her 20-year-old son. Five months ago she had a baby daughter and now two men claim to be the father.

In other words, she was a perfect pop culture icon. By contrast, another famous creature of Internet celebrity, the chic-er, more sophisticated and chillier Paris Hilton has much less to fascinate us, grainy sex video notwithstanding. It's hard to feel sorry for her.

Of course, compared to Anna Nicole Smith, La Hilton looks like Audrey Hepburn and Madame Curie rolled into one. But that is the problem with vulgarity. There is no sense of proportion.
There is no compassion for Hilton because she happens to be rich, while Smith "overcame" the classic self-pitying stuff that makes this country go gaga: a bad home life, teen pregnancy, poverty.
Well, there are a lot of people born under those circumstances that overcome them with far more dignity and unfortunately far more anonymity as well. Now, should she get a medal because she was craven enough to shake her humongous fake tits in front of an aging billionaire, or of salivating TV executives or Trimspa hucksters? Because she was, like our President, incapable of speaking English? There is absolutely nothing to admire in her, except her idiotic ambition, if you think that ambition without self-improvement is admirable.
I would think that a perfect pop culture icon would have something to give us in the way of culture. Once upon a time, our pop culture icons used to have talent (think Elvis, Jacko, Marilyn, Audrey, James Dean, Jim Morrison, Janis, etc). This oversized trash can had the gall to compare herself to Marilyn Monroe. Some professor had to come out in Monroe's defense and set the record straight:

The compelling mix of beauty and vulnerability is just one quality that has led to comparisons with Marilyn Monroe, another sexy, tragic blonde who Smith liked to compare herself to. The comparison is tempting, but the difference is monumental.

"Marilyn Monroe was an artist, a real performer, able to evoke in audiences a real empathy and a passion," said Richard Walter, a film professor at UCLA. "There is NO comparison." And yet he sees one strong point in common: the simple beginnings, the climb from total obscurity to fame.

And why is a life without fame one of "total obscurity"? Most people aren't famous and we don't live in the dark. We have meaningful, productive, human lives.
If Smith is an icon of anything, it is of what is wrong with this country: the immature, cartoonish sexuality, the willful, arrogant ignorance, the hunger for fame without merit.

She dead

Bizarre. Grotesque. And as American as apple pie.
That thing, Anna Nicole Smith, is dead at the age of 39.
Of grief? Of drugs? Of diet pills? Of too much undeserved fame? Who knows.
Maybe that poor baby is lucky she won't have to grow up in the shadow of her trailer trash tits.

I woke up on the mean side of the bed today, kids.