Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

Charlie Sheen has been caught with his pants down again, literally.  After complaints from a still-unidentified woman at New York’s famous Plaza Hotel, the police were let into the room by security and found Charlie passed out on the bed—exhausted from throwing furniture about and screaming for no reason—and a terrified woman who was (ahem) paid to be there cowering in the closet.  The actor may have been distraught from running into ex-wife Denise Richards and their two daughters earlier in the evening, returning to his old friend Jack Daniels for comfort.  Perhaps he had forgotten that his children were sleeping just down the hall when he began his tirade.  Clearly he had forgotten that it is considered bad etiquette to bring an escort to a family dinner, and he exercised that keen Charlie Sheen judgment by bringing the escort back to his room afterwards.  It seems that Richards and her daughters were unaware of rest of the story until it was leaked to the press the next day.

Time to kiss your career goodbye, Charlie Sheen?

As usual, Charlie is making his publicist work for his money.  What began as a story about a drunken tirade has now turned into a sad story about Sheen being brought to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation for an “allergic reaction” to medication.  As anyone from Axl Rose to your average frat boy can tell you, a similar ‘allergy’ can occur when one’s menu consists of alcohol, alcohol, and more alcohol.  But when you have a team of publicists and agents working for you to make sure that your job on a network TV show will still be there when you are released from the hospital, all things are possible.   So what might just be chalked up to Charlie Sheen finding another call girl and getting drunk turns into a psychiatric evaluation.  Clearly, the man’s got issues.  Bringing a paid date to dinner with his daughters, ages 6 and 5, is not the act of a clear-headed individual.

Fortunately, there is Denise Richards.  She has taken the high road when it comes to her divorce, but is not going to let this one slide.  She plans to stay on the high road, telling Joy Behar that, even though she knows what happened in the hotel room that night, she prefers to let Charlie tell the story himself.  When he gets out of the hospital.  Or rehab.  Or wherever he’s going next.  What she didn’t say is how she plans to handle his visitation rights with little Sam and Lola.  Those are his daughters, in case he forgot.  They were all in New York for a family vacation.  Denise probably didn’t plan on any call girls and Charlie disappearing from the dinner table with one of them for half an hour.  She probably hadn’t put “visit Charlie in Psych Ward” into her Blackberry.  But such is a vacation with Charlie Sheen.  And his allergies.

Achoo.

It seems that almost everyone wants to dress up as either Lady Gaga or one of the little disasters from Jersey Shore.  T-shirts with silk-screened abs are very popular, and Snooki wigs are hopping off of the shelves like lice out of the Smush Room.  But with Lady Gaga, there are so many choices as to which fashion disaster one can mimic.  Drag queens all over the world are finding themselves in quite a quandary.  Is it practical and financially possibly to acquire and dismember enough Kermit the Frog dolls to recreate Gaga’s infamous frog frock?  Is it safe to walk around in fishnets, a bra, and a Yankees Jersey?  Definitely not in Boston or Texas, but that’s another issue.  Is there any way to imitate the crown of diamonds from her insanely popular video for “Bad Romance”?   There are so many questions when it comes to dressing like Lady Gaga.  Even when it isn’t Halloween.

Toxoplasmosis: a small price to pay for a great Haloween costume.

A Connecticut newspaper thought itself responsible for making the public aware of certain dangers associated with dressing like the Grammy-winning singer.  The Hartford Courant felt it necessary to warn readers of the possible ramifications of wearing a dress made of raw meat, as the singer famously did at this year’s Video Music Awards.  Apparently, donning uncooked beef puts a person at a risk of getting campylobacteriosis, which can lead to dystentery, muscle aches, fever, and various other symptoms.  Another possibility, according to the article, is that your prime rib hat or meat purse can lead to toxoplasmosis, a bacterial infection that can cause brain damage or even death.  Yes, meat can not only be murder, but suicide as well.

When it comes to the Meat Dress idea, I just can’t figure out whether to use a pattern or a recipe.

Other popular costumes this year come from films, with lots of Edwards and Bellas running around hand-in-hand; characters from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, including Alice, the Queen of Hearts, and the Mad Hatter in particular; various of the creatures from Avatar; and Harry Potters and Jack Sparrows by the score.

Even more disturbing than the Meat Dress is Antoine Dodson’s attempt to cash in on his 15 minutes by creating an Antoine Dodson: Bed Intruder costume.  In his homemade advertisement, he warns people that when trick-or-treaters arrive, to “hide yo kids, hide yo wife”.  Charming, and obviously a huge moneymaker.

For anyone with less than $1000 and a willing butcher with extra flank steak, simple Barack Obama masks are wildly popular, although wearing them in Tea Party states might be more dangerous than a Meat Dress on a hot night in a yard full of angry pit bulls.

Maybe it’s wise to stay in this year with a nice ice luge and good friends.

But has she seen the cover of his new album?

Kanye West has done a few things over the past week to draw more attention to himself.  It has, after all, been so long since his soul-stirring, profanity-laced performance at the VMAs.  He appeared on Ellen making an entrance that people naturally called ‘the greatest entrance of all time’ through a trap door on the studio steps.  He appeared humble and talked about the time he took after his 2009 VMA fiasco when he went to Japan to avoid the paparazzi, and then returned to the US, moving to Hawaii instead of going back to LA right away.  But what was that blinding light from his mouth?  Certainly not words of wisdom.  He had all of his bottom teeth replaced with diamonds and white gold.  It’s not a grill, like most rap artists choose to wear and have the option to remove.  It’s not even the bonded diamonds a la Lil Wayne (although Weezy thought it wise to have those removed before he went off to prison on a gun possession charge).  Not for Kanye West.  His bottom teeth are a thing of the past, and now there are diamonds where once there were pearly whites.  He thought it was a “rock star” thing to do.  While it may seem silly, those cutting edges will probably making eating corn on the cob a snap now.  Like a rock star.

He so eloquent.

Kanye West also released a new album.  In his effort to stay under the radar and avoid controversy, he named it “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”.  The cover art features a drawing of a werewolf-like Kanye bearing his teeth while being straddled by a naked creature with the body of a woman, the wings of a dove, and the tail of a Dalmatian.  Several retailers are refusing to sell the album because of the cover.  Again, West took his outrage to Twitter, writing, “Banned in the USA!!!  They don’t want me chilling on the couch with my phoenix!”  While we have to commend Kanye for using spell-check for the first time, his grasp of mythology is predictably lacking.  Being blackballed from Wal-Mart is a good thing for his album sales, and he knows it.  His entire career has fed on controversy.  While he found that getting hammered on Hennessey and attacking a 19 year-old at an awards show was pushing it too far, he still knows that talent alone will not get him the metric tons of attention he requires for daily survival.  Controversial cover art is not a new idea, so West is not blazing any trails here.  But he does have something to tweet about, and that’s what really matters.

Kanye loves his conflict, but he needs to keep it legal.  If he ends up in jail with those teeth, there’s only one possible outcome, and it involves him becoming someone’s girlfriend.

It’s official.  Mel Gibson has been confirmed as having a cameo in the upcoming sequel Hangover 2.  Now everyone’s favorite anti-Semitic, misogynistic alcoholic can have his dreamy blue eyes appear on the big screen again.  How did this happen?  The original movie was about fun-loving guys getting into trouble in Las Vegas, but it was relatively harmless trouble, and of the kind that women’s groups didn’t have to rally against.  Not exactly the sort of thing Mel has been known for lately.  Considering his most recent fame resulted from expletive-laced rants to the mother of his child, he seems an unlikely choice for a role in anything that doesn’t involve an orange jumpsuit and a PSA.

Mel Gibson: Living His Dream

After being dropped by the William Morris Agency in the wake of his legal issues involving ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, and even as the Los Angeles District Attorney debates whether or not he will be charged, he still managed to score a part in a film that was set to become one of the most popular sophomoric franchises in movie history.  People loved The Hangover.  There were questions about casting Mike Tyson in the original, but it appeared to do some good for his public image.  Gibson is undoubtedly hoping that this will do the same for him.  He will not play himself, as Tyson did, but will play an over-the-top tattoo artist in Thailand as the boys go there on a predictably wild vacation.  It seems that the wounds might be a little too fresh in Gibson’s case, especially with charges still pending, but someone at Warner Bros. seems to think that this is a great idea.  Gibson’s people have already begun their smear campaign against his ex, claiming that her request for more child support must only be for “diamond diapers”.  Perhaps the script is weak and they hope that a controversial cameo by a violent drunk will drive people to the theaters.  For many of us, they could clone Bradley Cooper hundreds of times and have him appear shirtless in every scene, and it still wouldn’t make it worth the 9 bucks for a ticket.

The most inexplicable aspect of this whole deal is the person who has chosen to speak out in defense of Mel Gibson.  And no, this time it isn’t his ex-wife, who is clearly still under some kind of binding clause from the divorce that made her trade her soul for millions and millions of dollars.  It is Jodie Foster.  And of all the places she chose to speak out in favor of the man who referred to a female police officer as “sugart**s”, it was at ELLE magazine’s 17^th Annual Women in Hollywood Tribute.  Why, Jodie, why?  She called him “an undeniably gifted actor” and “a true and loyal friend”.  The only possible reason is that he recently starred in a yet-to-be-released movie with her and maybe she wants to get it some good press.  She has a lot to lose, as she is also the film’s director.  But the name of the movie is (wish I was kidding) The Beaver.

We can only hope for Jodie Foster’s sake that Gibson didn’t use that particular word in any of the voicemails he left for his ex.

Yes, NFL players are to blame for their behavior.  But teams who hire only beautiful women to act as game hosts and sideline commentators are essentially chumming the water.  Why not let attractive female sports enthusiasts sit in a booth and act as game analysts?  Players would be less likely to toss the ball in the direction of their on-field reporters if the only payoff was to get a look up Terry Bradshaw’s skirt.

NFL Chums Water for Players, Makes Women into Meals.

When the story broke about Brett Favre sending naked pictures and provocative text messages to game host Jenn Sterger, it wasn’t surprising because of his actions.  It was surprising because the man had a squeaky-clean image, has been married for 14 years, and is a grandfather.  Other player sex scandals have come and gone with little surprise.  Were creeps like Ben Roethlisberger completely wrong, deserving to be strung up by their naughty bits?  Absolutely.  But there was no collective “oh, it can’t be” when we learned that various professional football players did bad things.  Football is a fantastic sport, but it is largely played by men we wouldn’t want to meet in dark alleys.  Whether we liked Brett Favre’s waffling over playing or not, he was still held up as a good-hearted family man with a charming southern accent and a loving wife.  Then Deadspin.com got a hold of the now-famous text messages, voicemails, and those photos, and all hell broke loose.  While Deanna Favre still stands by her husband’s side, still wearing the wedding ring he gave her, it would not be a shock to soon find that she is in an Elin Woods situation.

But another question comes up in all of this.  Why does the NFL hire unequivocally hot women to act as sideline commentators, inviting them into the locker rooms for post-game interviews and putting them into situations that are bound to blow up.  This is not—I repeat, NOT—the fault of these women.  They are not “asking for it” by wearing tight jeans and low-cut tops.  A woman should be able to wear whatever she wants.  On the other hand, a gorgeous woman surrounded by testosterone-fueled men is going to get a lot more than in-depth interviews with players.  Jenn Sterger, the woman who received Favre’s inappropriate passes, is a former model for Playboy and Maxim, and hosts games in less than conservative clothes.  It is certainly what many fans want to see, but there are repercussions.  When the New York Jets hired her, it wasn’t just for her love of the game.  If she looked more like John Madden in drag, she never would have gotten that job.

The same can be said of Ines Sainz, a television reporter, international sports commentator, and model.  She has been an athlete her whole life and has parlayed her love of sports into a career.  Her choice of sideline wardrobe has been called into question a number of times, as she favors short skirts, tight jeans, and halter tops.  That’s all fine for a night at the club, but might not be the wisest choices for interviewing male athletes.  These are men who are paid for their excessive testosterone levels and enormous sense of entitlement.  Sainz is 100% qualified for the job, but, again, the Jets probably would have hired someone else if she didn’t look like she was pulled from the pages of Mexican Playboy.

The feminist in me says that women should be able to wear what they want, when they want, whether they’re in locker rooms or not.  But the realist in me can help but think that it wouldn’t kill these women to button up a bit.

They’ll get harassed anyway.

Call it bad performing, call it bad casting, call it the judges drinking “hater-ade”, call it the effects of steroids, but don’t call it anything but justified.  The Situation has been eliminated from Dancing with the Stars after performing, well, something that was supposed to be dance but didn’t quite pass muster.  And by “pass muster”, I mean that he didn’t dance.  His feet moved a little bit and he threw his 80-pound partner around very well, but that doesn’t make it pretty.  It was as uncomfortable to watch as is it was to be Karina Smirnoff.  She must feel cheated that she hasn’t had time to make tabloid news for another affair with a co-star.  While we are all somewhat saddened that we won’t get to see The Situation embarrass himself on this show any more, we can all rest assured that he will do just fine in upcoming seasons of Jersey Shore.

One less embarrassment for show, lower rating to ensue.

The judges were harsh on the couple, complimenting only Karina for her ability to maintain composure while her partner forgot steps, looked at his feet, and showed all the grace that Al Gore might were he to attempt the Argentinian Tango.  I am crying for you, Argentina, for having your name attached to this event.  The elimination will give ample time for our Italian-American bed-hopper to do some extra crunches before filming another season of the show that first took away his family name—something that makes Sorrentinos everywhere rest a little easier.  But what about the rest of us?  Will we ever be able to use the word “situation” in a sentence without thinking of this vacuous assclown?

Some of the negative attention was temporarily taken away when Bristol and Mark took the floor.  Yes, the young Palin was appropriately clumsy and inexplicably dressed, but when she pulled his shirt over Mark’s head halfway through their performance, it was just silly.  We get it.  Dancers have good bodies and Bristol Palin, well, not so much.  We’d rather see Mark Ballas topless than his partner.   Beyond that, they didn’t dance well.  Not that anyone really expects many of these “stars” to be great dancers, but there should be some kind of qualification process.  Something a little more discerning than “Has this person been in the National Enquirer enough?” and “Is this person considered a has-been?”  It doesn’t necessarily make for good television when we are constantly averting our eyes to avoid feeling the shame that the performers must feel.

At least The Situation and Bristol Palin have careers to return to.  One gets to return to tequila-guzzling, tanning, and grenade avoidance, while the other can return to her lucrative pro-abstinence speaking circuit.  One will make millions for embarrassing himself to the delight of MTV viewers everywhere, and the other will end up married to an Alaskan loser with a deer strapped to the hood of his F1-50.

And we’ll keep tuning in to Dancing with the Stars because Jennifer Grey has shown us that she can still cut a rug even without her real nose.  Of course, the same can be said for Audrina Patridge, except for the dancing part.

Either way, it will continue to be a hit for as long as there are former celebrities willing to embarrass themselves.  Bless their hearts.

Remember the cover for the book “Twilight”?  It’s been so deeply engrained into our minds that we cannot, no matter how hard we try, get the image of hands holding an apple out of our heads. As pop culture references go, it could be much worse.  We could, after all, be picturing The Situation trying to dance.  It was an interesting enough choice for a book cover, if we consider that author Stephenie Meyer may have actually had a semi-intellectual reference in mind, especially since the book was not even remotely intelligent or thought-provoking.  It was simple.  Almost classic.  And we managed to make it years without ever really having to think about it.  Until recently, when someone decided to cash in on having hands.

Twilight Hand Model, With Apple (of course)

There is an entire industry that revolves around something called “parts modeling”.  Every time you see a pair of legs in an ad for razors or a belly advertising the latest fat-burning pills, there is someone who was paid to be photographed, but only partially.  It’s far less costly than paying for an entire model’s body.  Now those hands, belonging to Kimbra Hickey, a New York-based parts model, are looking for an extra payday.  After all, with a multi-million dollar movie franchise in full swing, she couldn’t help but hear opportunity knocking—and probably with a well-manicured fist.  The 40 year-old part-time model and cashier at Barnes & Noble has been walking around with an apple in her purse, offering to prove to anyone who might ask that she is, indeed, the owner of the well-published hands.  She’s been attending Twilight-related conventions and, for only $20, you, too, can have your picture taken with some woman holding an apple the same way she did on a book six years ago.  Granted, anyone can pose with an apple, but it only Hickey who has the true claim to fame.  She is always willing to recount the physically demanding process of creating the iconic photo.

Evidently, she was chosen above other hand models because she had so few visible veins on her arms.  Not easy for someone who also lists ‘massage therapist’ among her many trades.  On a Twilight fan site called Twilight Lexicon, she explained that the photographer, “wanted my hands to look soft, sweet, and death-like all at the same time.  It was also important,” she added, “that the inner part of my arms form a perfect ‘v’, for ‘vampire’, of course!”  She is so proud of her grueling work that she tells anyone she sees reading the book that she is “the hands of Twilight”.  At the conventions, she not only offers to pose, but also tries to sell fans an apple-scented lotion.  It is well known that Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson, has a nearly rabid following of teenage girls.  If Bella had the same kind of following of teenaged boys, the lotion might be a much bigger seller.

Now Ms. Hickey is trying to use her famous hands to boost her acting career.  She’s hoping for a small role in the second installment in the last of the Twilight films.  She said she would be content with a cameo, “even if they only wanted my hands in it”.  I guess the $320 she was paid for the original picture didn’t carry her quite as far as she had hoped.  Perhaps if her skin ‘twinkled like diamonds’ like Edward, she wouldn’t be concerned about cash.

It’s difficult to parlay a picture of a body part into millions, as Hickey has discovered.  Unless you’re Paris Hilton.  Or Tommy Lee.   Or Pamela Anderson.

She just had the wrong bits put on film.

But we still don’t like him.

And the world begins a game of “Where’s Eduardo?”  Eduardo Saverin originally bankrolled Facebook with $1000, when it was still being run from a Harvard dorm room.  Later, everyone’s favorite megalomaniac Mark Zuckerberg just decided to removed Saverin from the company.  A lawsuit resulted in Saverin receiving 5% of the company, worth about a billion dollars now.  Zuckerberg fumed.  It is said that Saverin was the primary source of information for the book “The Accidental Billionaire”, on which the movie The Social Network was based, but, wherever he is, he’s not talking.  That was, evidently, part of the settlement.  Whether it’s his Brazilian-ness or his billions, searches for him online shot up about 600% after the movie was released Friday.  As the only marginally good-looking co-founder of Facebook, he is suddenly more popular than Brad Pitt and chicks are lining up to get a suitably-sized engagement ring from the elusive chess-playing recluse–if they can find him.  Even Mark Zuckerberg, who was portrayed in the film as just-this-side-of Darth Vader on the cruelty scale, has become a hot ticket.

One of these brought "SexyBack". The other, not so much.

Zuckerberg has been portrayed as greedy, rude, and dishonest.  He is said to think of himself as a hacker, and, at one point, was rumored to use Facebook to read personal information and emails of anyone using the site.  In an effort to repair public opinion of him, he appeared as himself on an episode of The Simpsons.  He also donated $100 million to the Newark, New Jersey school system, although he claims that it has nothing to do with the movie.  He says he had been planning to become a philanthropist all along, but the timing of his gift came at the same time that press for the movie increased.  After all of the lawsuits filed against him by former business associates, it seems somehow unlikely that his desire to make the world a better place came from the heart.

Perhaps the most perplexing of all casting was Justin Timberlake as Napster co-founder and former Facebook president Sean Parker.  Not because Timberlake is a bad actor; he is, in fact, quite good.  But Sean Parker, who was forced to leave Facebook after being arrested for cocaine possession, is not exactly what anyone would call “good looking”.  Justin Timberlake, on the other hand, is. Timberlake portrayed a cocaine-addicted backstabber who was instrumental in ousting Eduardo Saverin from Facebook, Inc., and some talk shows and entertainment reporters have even mentioned him as a possibility for an Oscar nomination.  Although the depiction of Parker was so negative, it is said that he was very pleased with the choice of Timberlake to play him.  Who wouldn’t be?  A borderline-average-looking uber-geek gets to have a hot superstar pretending to be him.  How lucky for Sean Parker that Hollywood wanted at least one big name to be associated with the film.

But people would have gone to see the movie anyway.  And then they would have quickly changed their Facebook status updates to read: “Saw ‘Social Network’.  Justin Timberlake is so hot!”

Negative depictions or not, these nerdy guys are now household names, and will undoubtedly begin dating models and actresses.  So it goes.  Still haven’t seen the movie.  Maybe I’ll illegally download it.

It isn’t unusual for athletes and celebrities to branch out and use their popularity to sell merchandise.  It begins with endorses other people’s products, but then they begin hiring people to develop their own products.  Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, among countless others, have their own perfumes.  Paris Hilton also has energy drinks bearing her name.  50 Cent has his own Vitamin Water.  JWoww from Jersey Shore is developing a new line of hair extensions to match her classy club-wear.  In the breakfast cereal biz, it started with Wheaties putting famous athletes on the front of the box.  At the height of their popularity, Bill & Ted had their own semi-nutritious way to start your day.  And then Chad Ochocinco, receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals had his people create Ochocincos, which is basically Honey Nut Cheerios under a new name.  It was a good idea in theory, but he probably would have been better off being known as the guy who bought his Dancing with the Stars partner an extravagant diamond necklace and matching ring.  Not because his breakfast cereal is any worse than the many others, but because of an unfortunate typo on the box bearing his burly frame holding up the Os on either end of his name.

Offering more than just a healthy breakfast.

He deserves some credit for using his fame to promote a good cause, which is, in this case, Feed the Children.  In an effort to raise money for the charity, the toll-free number to donate was supposed to be printed on the box.  That number is (888) HELP-FTC.  Unfortunately, due to a typographical error, (800) HELP-FTC was put there instead.  Evidently, the letters associated with 435-7382 must also spell something pretty disgusting.  When a 9 year-old girl dialed the number, instead of hearing a prompt for donations to Feed the Children, she heard a sexy voice offering to “do anything you want”.  We can assume that pressing “1” would not direct her to the nearest donation center.  We can also guess that the 9 year-old was not interested in hearing “whatever it takes to pleasure you”.  Just a guess.  Prior to the discovery, Ochocinco took to Twitter to tell his followers that they should “order my cereal OCHOCINCOS.  Start your day with a lil suga!!”  This was clearly not the “suga” he planned on hawking to the masses.

Fortunately, a few helpful citizens, after reading of the mistake, called the number to see what it was about.  It did not, evidently, disappoint.  A few other upstanding members of the community took to the internet to see what those numbers can possibly spell besides “HELP-FTC”.  The answers were disturbing.  The only lingering question is how a phone-sex line could be a toll-free number.  I thought those were all 900 numbers which would charge outrageous fees to find out what this young lady and her “ultra-hot girlfriends” were capable of doing.  It takes a great deal of self-restraint to not find out the answer to that.  The easy way out was to check Ochocinco’s Twitter page, which was full of apologies.  He is, after all, known to be a good guy, and he was trying to do a good thing.  And he’s an athlete, not a copywriter.  Someone else dropped the ball (no pun intended) on this one.  It was small type on the back of the box.

But can someone, anyone, please tell me how he could let it slide that the giant name of the cereal reads “Ochocinco’s”? That is so wrong.