Diamonds, Engagement Rings & Diamond Jewelry in popular culture

Miami, FL – Everyone in the country is gearing up for tonight and Super Bowl XLIV.  It’s the biggest of the biggest football games, the clash of the titans (sit down, Tennessee, we ain’t talking about you), the World Championship game.  It is about the best of the best playing against each other for the title.  New Orleans Saints vs. Indianapolis Colts.  Drew Brees against Peyton Manning.  Some are calling this the greatest matchup ever.

One of Them Is Playing in the Super Bowl Today. The Other, Everyone Will Be Watching.

But that’s not what is getting press.  Sure, some sportswriters are focusing on the actual game, the talent of the teams, the matchup overall.  But most of the headlines, blog posts, articles, and water-cooler chat are revolving around something else.

The generous tuchis of Kim Kardashian.  Yeah, it’s Super Bowl Sunday.  The beers are chilling, the potato chips and cold cut platters have been picked up, and the two best football teams in the country are getting ready to play each other.  But what we want to know is: what will Kim Kardashian be wearing?

Sadly, it wasn’t hard to find the answer to that question.  Kim is superstitious, so she won’t be wearing a Saints jersey.  Perhaps she learned her lesson watching Jessica Simpson go from ‘good luck charm’ to ‘large-chested distraction’ after wearing her cute pink “Romo” jersey to just one Cowboys game.  Kim will be wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and boots, and will go with the Saints’ black-and-gold theme, but will not have the name “Bush” across her back.  If the rumors are true, she’ll also be wearing an engagement ring if the Saints win the Super Bowl. 

Vacuous former Playboy playmate Kendra Wilkinson already married herself an NFL player, and is looking forward to running out on the field if the Colts win the game.  Of course, she probably shouldn’t move too fast, as she doesn’t want to actually beat her second-string husband into any celebration.   Her child with back-up Cornerback Hank Baskett, Hank, Jr. will be wearing a little “Baskett” jersey, and Kendra will be in a custom Colts jersey that says “Mrs. Baskett”.  Ick. 

So we can keep up with the Kardashians and watch Kendra all in one sitting.  It’s not about two athletic teams: it’s a competition of Reality Show Famous-for-No-Reason Celebrities.  That’s not even taking into consideration that Brad Pitt and little Maddox left New Orleans for Miami yesterday to root on their Saints.  This is a Super Bowl that is already star-studded, and everyone is talking about it.

With all the world craning their necks toward the skyboxes to see how tight Kim’s jeans are or to find Brad and Maddox, one wonders if anyone will be paying attention to the action on the field.  It should be a great game.  Too bad almost no one will see it.

In an interesting twist, it seems that young Jesus Luz initiated the breakup with older-than-his-mom lady love Madonna.  We all assumed that he would ride the Madonna fame train for as long as he could, and she would continue to drink from his fountain of youth at least until he turned 25.  But no.  Jesus was ready to move on.  He’s already booking modeling jobs and has made a name for himself by being attractive.  Dating Madonna got him in the door, certainly, and now that he’s there, he’s ready to troll for some fresh meat himself.

The Price of Fame.

It’s not like we ever thought they’d get married.  First, Madonna has said that she’s rather get hit by a train than wed again.  Second, she would have to buy herself a suitable engagement ring, since Jesus still isn’t making the necessary bank to appropriately adorn the ever-aging finger of Madge.

Madonna must have flipped out when she was dumped by a guy she made famous.  She has a history of liking to control things.  But it seems that she couldn’t keep her claws in some 28 years younger.  Those young ‘uns got speed.  It has been reported that Jesus split from Madonna because of their busy work schedules.  His is only busy because Madonna took him from roaming the streets of Rio to walking the catwalks of New York, Milan, and Paris.  There were also indications that he had some difficulty with the age difference.  Sources said that he couldn’t imagine a long-term relationship with her.  Small wonder.  When he’s 30, she’ll be 58.  When he’s ready to settle down and have kids, she’ll be collecting her AARP benefits and social security checks.

Madonna, of course, also “leaked” a statement through a friend that she was growing weary of the relationship, that they had run out of things to talk about, that they had nothing in common but Kabbalah.  Um, duh.  Did they have anything to talk about in the beginning?  Their relationship seemed to primarily consist of:

“Hi, you’re hot and young.”

“Hi, you’re rich and famous.”

What then?  A long discussion about his ever-growing prowess at Guitar Hero?  An in-depth conversation about her painfully rigid diet and exercise regime?

They lasted a year.  So Madonna and Jesus did perform a miracle. 

Now Jesus can begin dating supermodels and Madonna can get back on her treadmill, and life will return to normal, without all the Jesus humor.  Now that’s sad.

Jim Carrey, the actor primarily known for facial contortions and odd behavior, has become “Sir Jim Carrey”.  Actually, since it’s France, the official title is ‘Chevalier’.  Nonetheless, he shares a title with other honorary knights like Sean Connery, Edward R. Murrow, Michael Gambon, Alec Guinness, Stephen Hawking, and George Mitchell.  Of course, those knights are in England.  Order of the British Empire.  Very much a big deal.  Carrey was given his title in France, the country that practically deifies Jerry Lewis.  So maybe it’s not quite the same thing.  He was knighted at the same time as Ewan McGregor, his co-star in I Love You Phillip Morris, a film about a con man who falls in love with his prison cellmate.  The pair celebrated their award with a kiss.

Chevalier Jim Carrey, The Most Honorable Knight in France.

This is not to say that Jim Carrey is now batting for the other team (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  He and Jenny McCarthy, who have been dating for almost five years but show no signs of getting married, will be hosting the fourth annual Saturday Night Spectacular, a very upscale pre-Super Bowl party, on February 6.  Maybe since Reggie Bush said he would marry Kim Kardashian if the Saints win the Super Bowl, Carrey and McCarthy will be inspired to exchange wedding rings.  Or not.  That’s not what anyone is talking about, anyway.

The fact is that Jim Carrey was knighted by someone who has the power to do that sort of thing.  It’s a big leap from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective to “Sir Carrey of Canada”.  French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand, on presenting Carrey and McGregor with their honors, was heard to say, “I love you, Jim Carrey!  I love you, Ewan McGregor!”  Evidently, the French, in general, feel the same way.  Need I remind you again of Jerry Lewis?

In a way, it is very forward-thinking and bold that France would honor the pair as they wrap filming a movie in which two men fall in love.  Based on a true story, Carrey plays Steven Jay Russell, who meets his soulmate, Phillip Morris, while in prison.  In the film, which casts Carrey as a traditional romantic lead with a few twists, Russell comes up with elaborate plans for escape so he and his love can be together, and free.  Despite the movie being about men falling in love with each other, Carrey has said that he doesn’t “think it’s a gay movie”. 

Um, yeah it is.  There doesn’t have to be leather involved for it to be a “gay movie”.

It is a love story, it is “about the lengths we go to for acceptance or love” (according to Carrey himself), but it’s about two dudes who go to those great lengths.  Own it, Jim.  It’s okay.  We don’t like you any less for it, for heaven’s sake.

PLUS, the French just knighted you.  You and Ewan join George Clooney, Jude Law, Clint Eastwood, Roger Moore, and Vanessa Paradis (no Johnny Depp??)  Enjoy it, and stop dwelling on whether or not Jenny thinks less of you.  She stuck with you through The Yes Man.  She can certainly handle you kissing a guy.

Chevalier Jim Carrey.  Do I hear the thundering sound of the Four Horsemen?

There’s not much that hasn’t already been said about Lady Gaga’s fashion choices at last night’s 52nd Annual Grammy Awards.  It isn’t that we didn’t expect it, really.  She has chosen to look odd ever since getting attention for her album “The Fame”, changing hair colors and wearing bubbles and feathers and Things That Do Not Look Like Clothes.  But her music has certainly become popular.

I think it's the mace-like hand accessory that makes the outfit.

Admittedly, my own knowledge of the music of Lady Gaga is limited to Christopher Walken’s ingenious reading of “Poker Face” on BBC 1’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross last October.  Somehow, I was able to listen to that, while I have not yet been able to make it through even one full song of hers yet.  I’m working on it.

Last night’s performance with Elton John was, apparently, a mash-up of her own song “Speechless” and John’s classic “Your Song”.  It was very nice.  And a style match made in heaven.  If Elton John was a woman, he would probably dress like Lady Gaga.  Or he would have, like 20 years ago.  Maybe 30. 

Lady Gaga showed up at the Grammy Awards last night wearing yet another inexplicable dress, inexplicably designed just for her by Giorgio Armani.  It was sort of pink and glittery and very rigidly molded.  It had sort of Saturn-like rings all around it, also pink, and also glittery.  There was not a real hemline.  It was more like the bottom of a sculpture.  From the front, it revealed, well, pretty much everything.  Underneath the ‘dress’ was a bottom-of-the-platform-shoes to top-of-the-head (including hair!) bodysuit that looked as though it was encrusted with diamonds.  Fortunately, the bodysuit included bejeweled panties that covered up all of the Lady’s naughty bits.  Close-ups of Lady Gaga’s face reveal that she was not wearing a wig.  It was hair attached to a head-covering bodysuit.  It was almost medieval armor-ish.  Only with long, yellow, feathered hair attached. 

For her performance with Elton John, she changed into another glittery get-up, this time an aqua bodysuit with high-cut legs.  She was also sporting hot pink sequined triangles around her eyes.  From a distance, it looked like makeup.  But after she performed part of “Poker Face” and was ceremonially dumped into a machine marked “rejected”, she emerged covered in soot and her pink triangles were gone.  Seems like performing with Elton John would be the ideal time to don the famous pink triangle, but what do I know?  Anyway, the duet was lovely, with both of them playing piano and singing beautifully.  It was almost possible to look past the shoulders of Gaga’s bodysuit, which extended both vertically and horizontally, giving her an appearance of sequined, aquamarine wings folded at her sides.  And not in a good way.

It was when she took her seat that her red carpet gown and performance attire were both completely eclipsed, as was the view of everyone sitting behind her for at least 3 or 4 rows.  She wore what seemed to be the same bodysuit that was underneath her Armani creation, but wore a silver jacket with fiery, lightning bolt-like thingies sticking up from the shoulders and out from her elbows.  There was a hat to match.  That hat was probably what might be called ‘architectural’.  It sort of mirrored the lightning bolt motif, but was a bit more ‘Crown of the Ice Queen”.  And it was very, very tall.  Photos show a musician seated behind her looking up at it, probably wondering how he was going to see any of the show at all.  Gaga herself was watching the show through pink triangles again, but this time they were a bit more subdued.  They failed to glimmer quite the way her performance hot pink eye triangles did.

What can be said about Lady Gaga that hasn’t already been said?  Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to look past all of it and listen to her music.  People have likened Lady Gaga’s performance style to that of Freddie Mercury, but I disagree.  Lady Gaga is way gayer.

In 1993, Cindy Margolis was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Downloaded Woman on the Internet.  This was not because of her insightful commentary on world events or because of her rapier-like wit.  It’s because she looked good naked.  Or nearly naked.  And now, at age 44, after one divorce, three children, and a spread in Playboy, she finds herself single for the first time in her life, and still looking good without clothes on.   So she did what any normal former-Playmate-now-nearly-unrecognizable-because-of-cosmetic-surgery would do: create a reality show.  The contestants were chosen from the biggest fans of her website.  That was sure to bring in the winners.

This Classy Chick Is Looking For A New Life Mate. Or Something.

And boy, did it.  Ranging in age from 18 to 71, men from all over the world (okay, all Americans except for one Brit and one Mexican) responded to her web request and 24 lucky guys showed up, ready to compete.  Rather than just having the boys move into the house, Margolis planned her “dream wedding” and set it up so each man would walk down the aisle to her as she waited on the altar.  Such a Cinderella story.  A woman made famous on the internet for showing her goodies stood outside on a beautiful day, wearing a beautiful dress, surrounded by guests, waiting for the 24 men of her dreams to show up. Forgoing the tradition of receiving engagement rings from any of them as they arrived, she greeted them warmly, no matter what they looked like.

And they are quite a bunch.  19-year-old Jonathan Brown was proud to announce that he experienced his first, ahem, reaction to a picture of Cindywhen he was just 9.  He says that his dream would be to take her to Comic-Con.  71-year-old John, a British gentleman, likened his introduction to Margolis to “meeting the Queen of England”, and then went on the say, in his charming English accent, that the most attractive part of Cindy is…something they can’t show on Fox Reality Network.  Also included in her slew of suitors is a professional wrestler who rips his shirt off when he meets her at the altar, after which she says, “At my dream wedding, all the men rip their shirts off”.  Classy.  There is Chris, a musician with more piercings than brain cells and an inexplicable long, jet-black beard; a Tupac Shakur impersonator; an idiot longshoreman known as Timmy Z; a salmon fisherman from Alaska; a Playgirl model; and some random 18-year-old kid, among others. 

As night falls, Cindy stands in front of her wedding cake and refers to this time being her ‘wedding reception’.  The creepiness factor only increases as she slices a piece from the cake and announces that the man to whom she gives the cake will be invited to spend some private time with her in the “Love Shack”.  Last night’s winner was a 23-year-old college wrestler who had presented Cindy with a t-shirt from his alma mater for her oldest son.  That touched her heart, apparently, so she invited him for some quality time away from the 23 other guys.  Actually, it was only 22 other guys, since 71-year-old John had already bailed, saying that he was too old to deal with the “teenage garbage” that was going on at the house already.

Anyway, Margolis, who had previously said, “You can’t kiss anyone on TV” ended up with her tongue down the throat of her young escort, and all within telescope range of the tequila-shooting contestants in the house above.  Clips from later episodes reveal that she doesn’t limit herself to making out with just that one admirer. 

Her first challenge for the men on the show was to submit a sperm sample, so she could learn who is most potent.  And the 18 remaining contestants all stepped up to the plate, so to speak.  It is not surprising to learn that she got reality TV dating advice from Bret Michaels of Rock of Love, Rock of Love II, and Rock of Love: Tour Bus.  Cindy does say that she falls in love, but adds that she did so with more than one man.  At the end of the series, it will be interesting to see if any of the contestants really want to marry this woman forever, or if they just want to test-drive a famous naked chick.

Good luck with that, Cindy.

It’s bad enough that this year’s NFL All-Star Game is going to be played in Miami, rather than the traditional location in Hawaii.  Those boys deserve a nice trip to Hawaii after a long season of busting heads.  But this year, the Pro Bowl will be played the week before the Super Bowl.

I’m sorry.  What?

Yes, one week before the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints battle it out for the title and the biggest, gaudiest, most tasteless of high-quality commemorative diamond rings, the Best of the Best are supposed to play against each other.

See Peyton Manning Do THIS During the Pro Bowl This Year.

The Best of the Best.  Talking heads in the NFL have said that they are holding the Pro Bowl before the Championship game because playing it after seems “anti-climactic”.  If by ‘anti-climactic’, they mean that they believe in their hearts that viewers don’t want to see the best players on the field, then they are right.  But coaches Sean Payton of the Saints and Jim Caldwell of the Colts would have to have rocks in their heads to let any of their players risk injury one week before the Super Bowl.

There’s a reason that Major League Baseball holds their All-Star Game mid-season.  It doesn’t interfere with the World Series, which takes place three months later, and, even then, certain players sit out if they are thisclose to injury.  And the NFL knows this.  Playing the Pro Bowl after the Super Bowl allows even players from the Championship team to be involved, if they want to.  And who doesn’t?

What’s the difference, really?

Well, the NFC starting quarterback, according to rosters released in the end of December, is four-time All-Star Drew Brees of the…(wait for it)…New Orleans Saints.  Yeah, he ain’t playing.  But at least he’s done it before.  Starting Guard Jahri Evans, a first-time All-Star, also from the Saints, won’t play because an injury in a game that counts for nothing would be totally stupid when he is to start in the biggest game of the season one week later.  His first time to be an All-Star, and he won’t play.  How PO’d do you think he is about this decision?  Linebacker Jonathan Vilma would have appeared for the second time, but, alas, he will not.  He will watch and fume from the sidelines.

That’s it, NFL.  Tick off a nice, big linebacker.

One team had six players selected for the Pro Bowl.  You guessed it: the Indianapolis Colts.  We won’t see Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Jeff Saturday, or Reggie Wayne.  Who else won’t we watch that day?  Dallas Clark and Peyton Manning.

Peyton Manning is not playing in the Pro Bowl.  Welcome to the world of Big, Stupid Decision by Failed Athletes in Front Offices.  Manning, Freeney, and Mathis were all to be starters.  Not that the AFC is short on talent, but the best players are supposed to play in an All-Star Game.  That’s where the name comes from.

So this year’s Pro Bowl will be a lovely forum in which to watch a great group of also-rans competing while members of the Saints and Colts breathe fire on the bench.  The very talent that helped their teams reach the Super Bowl is keeping them from playing in the Pro Bowl.

It is said that players from the Saints and Colts will be there for the first half of the game, but, again, they’d have to be crazy to risk getting injured with the biggest game of the year, often the most-watched sports event in the US, just one short week away.  And then there’s the addition burn of having it in Miami, the same city in which the Super Bowl is held.  “Kicking off an exciting Super Bowl week” the folks in the NFL offices say.

There are stupid decisions, and then there are STUPID decisions.  This one ranks in the second category.  If you underline it.  And then make it bold.  Then make the font larger.

I’ll watch the Super Bowl, but I’m boycotting the Pro Bowl on principle.  I mean, really.

For once, South Carolina is out of the embarrassment hotseat, and Massachusetts has settled in nicely to keep it all toasty-warm.  Yesterday, the bluest of blue states somehow elected Scott Brown as a replacement for the late Ted Kennedy.  For real.  For the first time in 30 years, an “R” was voted into a senate seat.  And what an “R” he is. 

“R” for “R-rated”, that is!

In 1982, Scott Brown posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine as “America’s Sexiest Man”.  Was JFK, Jr. busy that day, or did he just refuse to take off his clothes because of aspirations beyond making Middle-American, middle-aged housewives hot?  The fold in the magazine and a conveniently-placed arm make it so we don’t see all of his, ahem, patriotism, but he’s clearly dressed in the Emperor’s New Clothes (so to speak).

"Putcha Hands In Tha Air For The New Senator. Wait...No, Don't."

His campaign was charming.  His television ads stated that his “…name is Scott Brown, and I’m running for Massachusetts State Senate.  This is my truck”.  We are then introduced to the truck.  He loves that old truck. 

In his victory speech, he was as eloquent as expected, sounding like a proud husband, father, and pimp.  He announced that his daughters were both available, then said he was “kidding”.  And THEN he went on to say that Arianna was, in fact, not available, but that Ayla is still without an engagement ring.  She’s 21.  What is this, South Carolina?  And are the new senator and his wife aware that they named their child after the main character in Jean Auel’s “Clan of the Cave Bear”?

So how did the truck-driving, flannel-wearing conservative win in a state that is 2/3 Democrat?  We can thank his opponent, Martha Coakley, for that.  If you want to know how to make Massachusetts voters hate you, follow Coakley’s lead.  Call Curt Schilling a “Yankees fan”.  What was next on her agenda?  Going to Newton and handing out bacon cheeseburgers to the Orthodox Rabbis?

Scott Brown had spoken to Barack Obama after Coakley conceded, and even offered to drive to Washington so the President could see his truck.  He then challenged our Commander-in-Chief to a 2-on-2 basketball game.  There are so many things wrong with this paragraph that it is painful to go on.

But go on we must.  With the images of a naked senator burned forever into our collective consciousness.

Breathe, South Carolina, while you have your chance.

Everyone of a certain age remembers watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse every Saturday and loving it, no matter how old we were.  Then a bunch of things happened and he fell out of the public consciousness.  Now the man who famously married a bowl of fruit salad in the Playhouse episode “Pajama Party”—but never officially exchanged wedding rings with an actual human—is back. 

Of course, for those of you who were not avid viewers of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, marrying a bowl of fruit salad might seem as deviant as some of the charges that were filed against Paul Reubens.  It was, in fact, innocent.  At his pajama party, he said that he loves fruit salad.  Following one of the many ongoing jokes on the show, his friends all said in unison, “Then why don’t you marry it?”  Naturally, Pee-wee said, “All right then.  I will”.  An elaborate ceremony followed.  There were tears.  Miss Yvonne cried.  It was lovely.

At Age 57, He's A Big Kid Who Is Grateful For Digital Re-Touching.

Now, 25 years after we started watching him, almost 20 years since his infamous arrest, and almost 10 years since his first major comeback in Ted Demme’s film Blow with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz, PW is ready to ready to be in the spotlight again. 

Last night marked the first night of a limited engagement at Los Angeles’ Club Nokia.  Called “The Pee –wee Herman Show”, it is an update of his 1981 production, which played for five months at West Hollywood’s Roxy.  In 1981, every show sold out.  The same is expected for this round, which runs only through February 7.  It was originally scheduled to begin in November at a smaller venue, but devout Pee-wee fans came out of the woodwork, causing the show to require not only a larger club, but more room to create a really, really big production for PW, the cast, and the slew of animatronic puppets.  Paul Reubens’ “kids’ show for adults” is already a hit.

Since its inception in 1978, Pee-wee’s Playhouse has really been meant more for adults than children.  Most of the humor of the show was lost on anyone not yet old enough to drive.  Playhouse was, in many ways, groundbreaking.  Here was this strange boy-man in an ill-fitting suit having co-ed slumber parties with farm animals and talking foliage in addition to his human friends.  S. Epatha Merkerson, now famous for her role as Lieutenant Van Buren on Law & Order, played the saucy character of Reba the Mail Lady.  There was an ongoing flirtation between the very white Miss Yvonne, played by Lynne Marie Stewart, and Cowboy Curtis, played by then-unknown Laurence Fishburne.  It was among the first interracial situations, and it was on a show “for children”.  Performing the famous wedding between Pee-wee and his beloved fruit salad was Ricardo, a Latin-American soccer player.  The show was openly multi-cultural and yet, somehow, no conservative groups rallied against it.  How Pee-wee managed to fly under right-wing radar is something that only Jambi knows.  Also on the show for the first season was another unknown actor, playing the gruff Captain Carl.  It was Phil Hartman.

Reubens has a mission for his new start.  He wants to inspire people of all ages to find their own unique voices.  He told the Chicago Tribune, “This isn’t a nurturing time.  But the message of ‘The Playhouse’ has always been: ‘Dare to be different.  Here are some of the options you might not have thought of’”.  He also intends to make a new Pee-wee Herman movie when the right offer comes along.  Reubens has already received a few offers–including one from Tim Burton to have Johnny Depp play the lead–but he’s holding out for something else.  There’s no doubt that he’ll get it.

And this time, he promises, the Foil Ball will be enormous.

What does cleavage and lingerie have to do with selling hamburgers?  The same thing that bikinis, barely-there one piece bathing suits, and transparent dresses do.  Fast food chain Carl’s Jr. has taken the concept of “sex sells” and taken it to a whole new and nausea-inducing level.  Their first brush with controversy was Paris Hilton suggestively washing a car while eating a burger far too large for her mouth.  Who decided that cleaning automobiles was sexy, and why would someone eat a hamburger while covered in suds?  Because it was Paris Hilton, mostly naked, opening her mouth.  At least the advertising department at the chain knew not to let her speak.  

Because We All Eat Hamburgers In This Position. If We Can Get Into It.

The newest ad features Kim Kardashian—still without an engagement ring from on-again boyfriend Reggie Bush.  It gives all the young men who watch Carl’s Jr. ads hope that Kim will dump her famous multi-millionaire honey and be available to date boys who frequent drive-thru windows.  Let them dream.  It’s what the company counts on. 

None of the ads in the Carl’s Jr. ‘porn series’ inspires me to eat a hamburger.  Of course, I’m not a 17-year-old boy begging for the keys to Mom’s station wagon, hoping that Kim Kardashian will be at the Ventura location, picking up her delicious Cranberry Apple Walnut Chicken Salad for the night.  Then she’ll change into her lowest-cut nightgown to spill dressing on herself (close your eyes and try to hear the smooth jazz) only to wipe it off and suggestively lick her finger.

This is parody, right?  Like the “I Like Square Butts” campaign that sold patty melts in kids meals that included a SpongeBob SquarePants toy.  SpongeBob should be hanging his head in shame.  You know, if he had a head. 

Kimmy finishes the ad by—what else—taking a bath.  With her salad.  Always good to have a snack there.  And a video camera. 

What is completely vexing is that it is so hard to tell if Carl’s Jr. is making fun of itself, thereby somehow justifying these ridiculous displays of flesh and incessant sucking on apples, or bacon, or burgers the size of an Oldsmobile.  Or are they seriously using the ancient “sex sells” mantra?  No one does that anymore.

They ARE getting plenty of attention for it, that’s for sure.  Maybe that’s the goal.  Still, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a hamburger or salad the same way again. 

Now I’ll need a soundtrack for it.

The story sounded familiar from the beginning.  With the urging of Simon Cowell, his “X Factor” winner Joe McElderry was well on his way to having the Number One Christmas track in the UK.  A Facebook group spearheaded a campaign to have political hard-rockers Rage Against The Machine’s 1992 single “Killing in the Name” beat out the television talent show winner.  A statement for the group wrote, “Fed up of [sic] Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No. 1?  Me too…So who’s up for a massive purchase of the track “Killing in the Name” as a protest to the X Factor monotony?”

Cowell has never been afraid to put up money to have his acts go big.  Look at Susan Boyle.  He also arranged for final contestant Stacey Solomon to get decked out in over $160,000 worth of diamonds for the show, and she didn’t even win.  So politico-rockers commonly known simply as “Rage” staged a coup.

"Wait, we did WHAT?"

Did they realize that the same thing was done in the Ultimate Chick Flick, 2003’s “Love, Actually”?  In that movie, aging rocker Billy Mack (played by Bill Nighy) recorded a Christmas variation on The Troggs’ hit “Love Is All Around”, renaming it “Christmas Is All Around”.  He vowed to do anything to have it beat fictional boy-band Blue out of the top spot, even though he referred to his own recording as a “festering turd of a record”.  He promised that, if he won, he would perform in the nude—live—on television.  His unusual campaign to win the number one spot succeeded, and he kept his word, performing only in cowboy boots and a well-placed guitar.

Rage Against THe Machine Followed THIS GUY'S Lead.

This is a story that every straight woman and gay man knows.  Some of us can recite the movie from start to finish.

But this is probably not what Rage’s Tom Morello had in mind when he began his war with the UK’s version (which came first, by the way) of “American Idol”.  He’d probably be horrified by the comparison.  Rage Against the Machine is not exactly known for sappy love ballads and weepy stories—unless they bring attention to some kind of worldwide injustice.

And so, without a Christmas album coming out, Rage raged on.  Cowell referred to the whole thing as “stupid” and “cynical”.  Fans called it sabotage.  Cowell’s money couldn’t buy him out of this.  It was war!

Tom Morello gave a last-ditch attempt to overtake McElderry by (naturally) tweeting.  He wrote, “Rage’s Killing in the Name & the X-Factor’s goofy Christmas single are neck and neck for the num one spot on the UK chart.  England!  Now is your time.”

And it worked.  “Killing in the Name” was downloaded over 500,000 times in the past week, while McElderry’s Miley Cyrus cover sold 450,000.  And the winner is…

(drumroll, please)

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!

They must be so proud to have succeeded where only an aging fictitious rocker and his ridiculous cover song had prevailed before.

No word yet on whether or not Rage intends to perform “Killing in the Name” nude on Christmas Eve.