Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

By now we’ve all heard of the brutal (yet false) attack on Brody Jenner’s girlfriend, Playboy playmate Jayde Nicole (were names changed to protect the not-so-innocent, or did her mother hope to have a little porn star?).  The attacker was, allegedly, Joe Francis, who has earned his millions with the “Girls Gone Wild” videos which, despite all common sense, made him a celebrity among celebrities.  Brody Jenner was nobody but the son of a famous athlete until he managed to hook up with some chick on a reality show.

Basically, nobody in this situation has any right to be famous.  Yet there they are, taking up space on my TMZ.   And when a couple of idiots fight, it’s a train wreck we’ve gotta watch, right?

Famous-for-Being-Famous: Not Always a Walk in the Park, huh, Brody?

Brody and Jayde (seriously?) were evidently out celebrating Brody’s 26th birthday at Guy and Dolls.  Joe Francis was there and—surprise, surprise—was hitting on a woman.  Because Francis is not exactly known for his tact and class, Brody’s playmate perceived his advances on the woman to be ‘harassment’.  And if anyone knows about tact and class, it’s a Playboy playmate.

TMZ interviewed Jayde outside the club, where she accused Francis of pulling her hair, punching her in the face, pulling her to the ground, and kicking her.  Chivalrous as always, Brody jumped at Francis, punched him, and was dragged out by security.  While Francis evidently chatted with the club’s manager and scored an absolutely free Guys and Dolls t-shirt, club security tased Brody, who wouldn’t calm down. 

About 5,000 volts did the trick, however.

Now Francis has issued a statement saying that, “The only reason Brody Jenner and his girlfriend are making these claims is because they know they are in deep legal trouble for this second unprovoked attack on me.”

Brody chose a much more dignified way to make his statement, posting the following on Twitter: “Joe Francis beat up my lady this morning for no reason! Pulled her to the ground, punched & kicked her..what does that say about him  How can you call yourself a man when you beat up a girl??  Joe Francis is a piece of ****.  Joe Francis needs to be in jail!!!”  Either celebrities are given more than 140 characters, or this was over several postings.  Either way, Brody should really have used a publicist.  I mean, really, Brody?  Twitter?

Also weighing in on the subject were famewhores Heidi and Spencer Pratt who, in between waving their wedding rings around and having plastic surgery, found time to say something negative.  Spencer went to MTV to say, “I hear Brody got tased.  I don’t know if that’s what you’d call a fight.  I heard Brody sucker-punched Joe, so then Brody got tasered.  I don’t speak to Brody, as you’ll see on this season of ‘The Hills’.”

Nice plug, Spence!  We’ll all be sure to tune in now!  All five people on the planet who didn’t know you two hate each other are in shock!

When idiots fight, other idiots comment.  And we can’t resist reading about it.

It is the circle of life for the famous-for-being-famous.

Oh, Steven Tyler, how I still could watch you on stage every night of the week until the end of time. 

And I can accept you still wearing spandex or skin-tight jeans, even as you receive mail from the AARP.

And I don’t care that you wear a banana-sling bathing suit when you go to the beach.

And I can forgive your questionable taste in women, giving wedding rings to two women when I know, in my heart, that we would be a fantastic couple, especially because I have no taste for drugs or alcohol.

And I don’t care about the Hep-C, because you are, well, you, and I’m just thankful that it isn’t something worse.

And I can forgive the song “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, even though it made me cringe because it was so Top 40. 

If Hoveround Is Sending You Mail, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing THIS.

But when you’re 61 and Aerosmith is touring as the Greatest Rock Show Ever (because you just ARE) and you’ve hung your scarves on a microphone at Sturgis, the biggest, baddest Harley-Davidson rally there is, couldn’t you please just WATCH YOUR STEP?

The YouTube video of your fall was painful to watch.  Seconds ticked by, feeling like hours, as I waited for you to be picked up.  And then, proving my theory that you are somehow superhuman, you actually got up (with assistance, of course) and walked.  With a broken shoulder. 

Are you kidding me?

This tour is cursed.  The only thing that has gone right is that no one has OD’d.  How many broken bones and bursting blood vessels and surgeries have to happen in a 12-month period for you to see that the gods are telling you to relax?  Sit at a piano with Joe Perry right nearby and write songs like you wrote in the 70s, but without the crippling drug addiction. 

None of us want more “Falling In Love”, Steven.  We want more of your “Big Ten-Inch Record”.

So sit your still-hot 61-year old behind in a stable, 5-legged chair, put your feet up, and write like it is 1975.  We’ll be waiting.

48 year-old Kathy Griffin, when considering her ‘plus one’ options for the Teen Choice Awards did what any hopeful cougar would do: she brought a teenager as her date.  But she didn’t bring just any teenager, mind you.  She made a person-to-moron phone call to Wasilla, Alaska to ask young Levi Johnston to stand by her side on the green carpet.

No, really.  She did.

You Can Only Put So Much Lipstick on A Pig.

As it turned out, Levi was already going to be in town for a Vanity Fair shoot. Evidently, Vanity Fair is working on their “Not Too Bright People We’ll All Forget In Ten Minutes” issue.  While Griffin was tastefully dressed in a belted pink satin dress and hoop diamond earrings, her main accessory was the uncomfortably-monkey-suited Bristol Palin babydaddy.  His tie matched Griffin’s dress, but they were still, somehow, mismatched. 

Is it because we’re not sure if Kathy Griffin is creating fodder for her own TV show?  Is it because of the nearly 30 year age difference?  Or is it just because Levi Johnston looked more uncomfortable than Mariah Carey at an Amish festival? 

Levi, who gallantly postponed a hunting trip to go the event, stood beside Griffin, holding her hand, and according to an interview with MTV News, “shut up and [did] what I’m told”.  Nice time to start listening to his elders. 

Ironically, when Miley Cyrus performed a dance on a stripper pole, Levi leaned over to Griffin and said, “Isn’t she 16?”  Well, Levi is 19 and he’s already the father of the grandchild of a former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate.  Careful of that glass house, there, Levi.

The next day, Griffin filled in for Larry King and interviewed Johnston.  When she asked him to read aloud a letter that someone had handed Griffin to give to Miley Cyrus (for some reason), it seemed that our young prodigy had some difficulty.  Clearly, Levi Johnston is a lover, not a reader.  So rarely does a face so perfectly reflect intelligence.  His face was more vacant than a trailer park during a Billy Ray Cyrus concert.

He did, however, astutely observe that both the Jonas Brothers and Robert Pattinson elicited louder screaming than John McCain ever did. 

We almost hope that Kathy will move into a “love igloo” with Levi Johnston, so she, too, can maybe see Russia from her house.

Tampa, FL – When hyperactive uber-pitchman Billy Mays died of a heart attack on June 28, it sent shockwaves through the world of infomercials.  We were left wondering who would convince us that nothing cleans like Orange Glo and nothing holds like Mighty Putty.  Would we be able to maintain our faith in Kaboom! or the Samurai Shark?  Sure, we can buy them still in Wal-Marts and other reputable retailers, but how can we have the faith, how can we build up the enthusiasm for the product, how can we know that we simply can’t live without the Lint-Be-Gone without Billy Mays to tell us?

And how can we get those amazing products at such drastically reduced prices, always with something free?  The mere label “As Seen on TV” in a Sam’s Club doesn’t give us the confidence that Billy’s manic fervor did.

"But That's Not All!" Sadly, This Time, It Is.

Who will take his place?  The Slap-Chop Guy?  YouTube sensation or not, he just doesn’t make me crave the Slap-Chop the way I did the Awesome Auger, even if I didn’t have any use for it whatsoever. 

And now, more than a month after the death of Billy Mays, he still touches our lives, by giving us a FREE GIFT, MONEY BACK GUARANTEED.  After already showing us the path to Mighty-Mendit, and making the path greener by using the eco-friendly green spray paint Green Now, he adds one cocaine scandal, PLUS an additional addiction to prescription drugs, ABSOLUTELY FREE.

Toxicology test at Mays’ autopsy showed cocaine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, and tramadol, as well and anti-anxiety drugs alprazolam and diazepam (Xanax and Valium to you and me). 

Mays’s wife Deborah was very upset by the release of this information.  After a story-book ceremony in which the couple exchanged wedding rings with each other and gave out Oxi-Clean to each of the 300 guests, Deborah stands by her pitchman.  She said that she might hire an independent expert to review the findings, and that she was completely unaware of any drug use by her husband, aside from painkillers for his hip problem.  She continues to believe that it was high blood pressure that took him from her.

“Given the hectic nature and pace of Billy’s life, especially during the 10 months of his exhaustive travel across the country, it was not surprising to hear that hypertension was the cause of his death,” she said in a statement released post-autopsy. 

Perhaps it was that schedule that made the lovable salesman in his blue work shirt, brown beard, and distinctive, honest voice turn to stronger drugs to keep him going.  Everyone knows that celebrities are offered drugs all the time.  It’s a slippery slope.  One minute, you’re in the limelight, selling “What Odor?” on the Home Shopping Channel, and the next minute, you’re sharing the High Rollers Suite at Promises with Robert Downey Jr. and Scott Weiland. 

Who will take his place?  For Deborah, there is only one.  The rest of the nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Vince Shlomi, Master of the ShamWow and Slap-Chop.  Hopefully, that incident with you beating up a prostitute won’t interrupt your career as the Great White Hope of pitchmen. 

4 a.m. won’t be the same without you, Billy Mays.  We know that during our sleepless nights, you were always there for us, telling us the product we needed for only $19.95. 

But were we there for you, Billy, when you needed us?

This next cycle of America’s Next Top Model is adding a few new twists.  First, all of the contestants will be 5’7” and under, when the industry standard is a 5’7” MINIMUM.  This will make it far easier for contestants to justify not working as models, even if they win. 

So far, the only contestant to achieve any real success as a model was Season One’s Elyse Sewell, who came in third.  The winner, Adrienne Curry, achieved success by appearing on The Surreal Life and hooking up with Peter Brady—ahem, Christopher Knight—and then having a reality show with him in which she strong-armed the diminutive former child star into giving her an engagement ring.  Sewell, who planned to return to medical school if she didn’t win in an industry that she believed relied solely on certain genetic traits developed by an abundance of estrogen, continues to model and published a book about modeling.  So there you go.  Elyse and her biology have made her a pile of money after all.

Tyra Banks: Even Larger Than Larger-Than-Life Among These Munchkins.

Second, after last season’s rather ugly firing of judge Paulina Porizkova, Cycle 13 of ANTM will bring us the usual trio of Tyra Banks, Nigel Barker, and J. Alexander…and a never-ending parade of guest judges.  Some of the judges will be current or former models, so they’ll at least have some experience and might have something valuable to say to the next winner to not work as a model. 

The other guest judges might as well have had their names picked out of a hat marked “People Famous for Being Famous”.  These include Lauren Conrad and Kim Kardashian, who are famous for being on reality TV shows.  Lauren took her reality television fame and parlayed it into, well, another reality television show.  Kim Kardashian became famous from the reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, a name no one would have recognized if OJ Simpson hadn’t had Robert Kardashian as one of his attorneys.  Had it not been for the OJ case, it would have been Keeping Up With Some Vacuous Rich People, which viewers probably would have tuned in to anyway.  Kim also became famous for posing in Playboy, and, of course, having a sex tape. 

I guess Paris Hilton is too busy picking her new BFF to be a celebrity judge on America’s Next Top Model. 

Cycle 13 of America’s Next Top Model premieres on September 9 on the CW.  Tyra Banks will undoubtedly continue to put the teeny tiny girls through ridiculous, pointless challenges, and will make them all cry when she forces them to get makeovers.  At least, at their size, Tyra won’t have to work hard to intimidate them.  In the meantime, Tyra has crossed over to another CW show, Gossip Girl, to play an impossible-to-manage diva. 

What an actress!

Tune in to see the latest crop of wannabe models who will soon be asking you: “Do you want fries with that?”

Sadly, Dustin Diamond is in the news again.  It isn’t sad because he’s having some problems.  It’s sad because we are forced to read about them.  With a “Saved by the Bell” reunion show now in the works, he is in the news because he hasn’t been invited to be in it, even though he played the ultra-nerdy sidekick to Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s teen heartthrob Zack Morris.

I Will Never Forgive Him For The Things I Had To Google To Understand This.

And why?  In case you haven’t been reading the tabloid or watching reality TV over the past few years, let’s just say that little, scrawny, goofy Screech turned into…Sam Kinison, without the charm and class.  Or humor.  Or Success.

After “Saved by the Bell”, “Saved by the Bell: The College Years”, and “Saved by the Bell: The New Class”, it seemed that Diamond had been officially typecast.  He could never be anything but Screech.  He attempted a career as a standup comic, but was unable to prosper in this area because he is simply not funny.  Then he took up litigation, going after websites that parodied him—and there are many.  He did not win even one of the suits he filed.

Fortunately, there is always room in reality television for has-beens.  FOX’s “Celebrity Boxing” had become a success as we watched Vanilla Ice fight Todd Bridges and Joey Buttafuoco fight Joanie “Chyna” Laurer (former WWE wrestler).  And we got to see the Battle of the Network Nerds: Dustin “Screech” Diamond versus Ron “Arnold Horshack” Palillo.  Since Palillo found his fame playing a nerd in the 70s sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter”, he was already about 50 when the fight happened, and he ended up losing the bout.  Diamond was not only younger, but several inches taller and about a ton and a half heavier.

On November 5, 2003, Diamond and manager Jennifer Misner exchanged wedding rings.  Or did they?  In 2006, while appearing on the Howard Stern Show, Diamond referred to Misner as his ‘fiancee”.  A few months later, when the couple showed up on the Tyra Banks Show, Diamond called Misner his ‘girlfriend’.  Are they or aren’t they?  Well, honestly, who really cares?

Misner might have, for one, when the now-infamous sex tape was released in late 2006.   Despite his initial claims of innocence (in the distribution, not the video) it came to light that it was, in fact, distributed by Diamond himself and some low-grade porn peddlers called “Red Light District”.  The name of the video?  “Screeched”, of course.  Gotta keep capitalizing on those golden years as America’s favorite little nerdling.

And then, in 2007, Diamond agreed to appear on “Celebrity Fit Club”, as he had let his scrawny geekness turn into fat geekness.  He was so awful and rude on the show that Kimberley Locke, Tiffany, Maureen McCormick, and Warren G—that season’s has-beens—stormed off of the set. 

To ease his financial woes, he now plans to write a tell-all book about “Saved by the Bell”, promising stories of “sexual escapades among cast members, drug use, and hardcore partying”.  One publisher has already dropped the book as allegations about his former cast-mates are “unverifiable”.  Those same cast-mates, however, don’t seem worried about the book.  They are going about their reunion without him.  It is no mystery why.

They realize what the world has for several years now.  Screech is not a particularly reliable source of information.

Good luck with that comeback.

Pope Benedict XVI is preparing to release his maiden album, “Alma Mater”, on November 30, just in time for Christmas.  The collection will feature Lauretan litanies and prayers with musical accompaniment, and will be released by Geffen Records.  His Holiness will not be stepping into a studio, however.  The Pontiff’s musical stylings, spoken and sung in five different languages, are a collection of recordings made at official services and speeches.  The Vatican is supplying the material. 

Can A Country & Western Album Be Far Behind?

This project was presented to the Holy Father after the famous label—founded by Jewish musical entrepreneur David Geffen in 1980—got wind that the Pontifex Maximus was working on an album with the Choir of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome. Colin Barlow, president of Geffen UK, said, “We travelled to Rome, heard some of the music and realized it was…beautiful…and something that actually could be an incredible record for us to work on.”  Another source from label revealed that listeners would be “shocked” by the Pope’s “incredible voice”. 

It is really no surprise that the label to sign the Pope has been home to Aerosmith, Nirvana, Guns ‘N Roses, Snoop Dogg and The Game.  The Holy See has provided Pope Benedict with some of the finest in papal accessories.  He often punches up his robes with either a gold cross or a cross encrusted with diamonds and sapphires.  Many of the silk damask copes he wears have gold clasps set with rubies or other precious gems.  He has shown that bling knows no religious borders. 

Barlow says that the Vatican is very pleased with the recording so far.  The album will contain eight different tracks.  One features His Holiness singing and the others include musical accompaniment to past recitals of prayers and Bible passages.  “It’s very much about delivering a really brilliant piece of music and making sure we treat it with the respect it deserves,” Barlow said.  The choir recorded their parts in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra recorded their parts at London’s Abbey Road Studios.

Proceeds from album sales will go to programs that provide musical education to underprivileged children around the world.  Geffen has come a long way, from its first signing of Donna Summer to its recent agreement with the Holy See.

Although Geffen’s first number one album was John Lennon’s “Double Fantasy”, one can assume that a recording by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will find quite an audience, undoubtedly making Mr. Geffen very, very proud.