Manolo for the Big Girl

I’m not Irish and I’m not drinking green beer for you or for anyone, but here on Manolo for the Big Girl we are all about inclusion, so in honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, I give you the Irish Rugby National Team.

“Omg this is so unfair.  Is he really not wearing the hat? The email said we HAD to wear the hat. It’s like he doesn’t even CARE it’s Esther Williams’ birthday. He is SO not getting my evite for the Million Dollar Mermaid watch party.”

“Dear God, it’s been uh, a really long time since my last, uh, confession. I’ve probably done a lot of bad stuff I can’t remember now. I forgot to wear the hat and now I’m not going to get invited to Colin’s Million Dollar Mermaid thing. But before  I die,  I really want to see James Heaslip finish his choreography for that Beyonce song. Amen.”

“Yeah kinda like this, but you know, imagine we’re in leotards and I’ve got a sort of reticulated metal glove. No trust me, It looks fierce.”

“…And then get this, HE says ‘If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it!’  I’m like DAMN, you’ve already got that scary-ass  robot glove. What more do you want?”

“NO! I don’t even UNDERSTAND that glove.  Then what happened?”

(more…)

Humphrey Bogart is my kinda guy.

First of all, he was a fellow Episcopalian which I didn’t know until about 20 seconds ago but it doesn’t surprise me. No one can have THAT much style and THAT damaged a liver and NOT be a member of the Anglican Communion.

Secondly, he liked strong, straight-talking women which isn’t really a surprise either, since his illustrator mother was a committed suffragist and the main breadwinner in his family.

So we all know he and the much-younger (and dead fabulous) Lauren Bacall after they fell in love on the set of “To Have and Have Not” in 1944, BUT did you know Our Lady of the Scotch Soaked Voice was nineteen, NINETEEN, when she taught Bogie how to blow in To Have and Have Not in 1944?

(btw, do we know who “discovered” Lauren Bacall? Louise Dahl-Wolfe and my very own heroine, Diana Vreeland)

Which isn’t to say Bogie wasn’t occasionally swayed by body parts other than a sharp tongue:

(busted)

(more…)

Oh Conan, you elongated ginger minx, I know you need comforting now in your time of need.

No, I know what you’re thinking “Wouldn’t I be better off in the arms of my awesome wife and amazing children?” Hush now. Don’t speak. Ours is a love that dare not speak its easily-freckling name.

Can you imagine how amazing our children would be? Sure you’d be able to see through their skin like those weird geckos that occasionally find their way into my bathtub and scare the hell out of me at least twice a year, but we could single-handedly breed an entire new generation of writers for The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. We could marry them off to Tina Fey’s kids and create a race of superwriters.

Come on, Coco, someone’s gotta write the lines Jimmy Fallon’s kids will eventually botch on live television.

So, uh, hi. How’s things? Good? Good.

I mean, obviously not as good as it would’ve been had I been here, because I’m totally your favorite (right? RIGHT?) but you know, I’m sure Francesca and Twistie kept you entertained, again, not as entertaining as I would’ve kept you had I not been sitting in a room coughing and shaking and hitting up friends for restorative cocktails for a week, but you know, entertained ENOUGH.

So I guess you’ll want the dish on the fire.

Well, there’s no easy way to say this so here goes:

I might have, TOTALLY ACCIDENTALLY AND WITHOUT MALICE OF FORETHOUGHT, accidentally set my church on fire.

Yeah.

See, among the many fine chapeaux I wear in my daily life is that of church thurifer. A thurifer is the person who swings a big smoking censer full of coal and incense during church services when we  like to pretend we’re Catholic but without having to give up our club membership or go back in the closet.

Basically it’s like being a majorette for the Lord, except you don’t get to wear little white cowboy boots with fringe and there aren’t any special underpants –which is lame, but there you have it.

Anyhoodle, I do that pretty much every Sunday for the last service of the night and it’s big fun because who doesn’t love a majorette? Well, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I hit the thurible –that’s the thingum that holds the incense and the coals– on the ground.

No big deal right?

I stomped out –in a totally holy and Not At All Freaked Out way– the few embers that had gotten loose and were extinguishing themselves on the carpet no one really likes anyway and go back to my business.

I go back to check to make sure everything was out (it was in the dark, so glowing embers are theoretically easier to see) it was and an hour and a half later as my bestie and I were getting ready to lock up the church and hit the divey gay bar, in accordance with the scriptures when the little “so sorry to interrupt” alarm casually mentioned I’d most likely set the church on fire.

Because I had.

Now, to be fair it wasn’t a BIG fire, total damage was about 10″ square. In fact I put out the flames myself (do you know how to use a fire extinguisher? Remember PASS: Pull the pin. Aim the nozzle. Squeeze the lever. Sweep from side to side.) but the burning coal fell THROUGH the floor.

That’s when the lovely, lovely firemen came in.

Including –you’re going to die over this– Firefighter Wiseman.

Honestly firemen don’t set my heart aflutter the way they do some folks.  I can’t help it. Every time I see one of those pictures with some musclebound guy all covered in sweat and soot I think “Oh my God he would RUIN my white upholstery!” and there’s just no recovering from that.

BUT I’m setting aside my personal preferences and am giving it up to the wonderful, heroic, and probably good-looking (although to be honest I was so freaked out about POSSIBLY BURNING DOWN MY CHURCH to pay attention) firefighters of Austin Fire Station #1 Company.

I love you all. Thanks for not using the hose.

Y’all.  Oh. I..I am SO tired.

I don’t exactly know why –other than I don’t ever sleep and I don’t ever stop working and I maybe kind-of was SO tired that I SLEEP-SHOPPED yet another three scarves, a gold-plated snaffle bit PLUS a pair of riding boots (p.s., y’all knew that proper equestrian boots often come in wide calves up to 19″ right?) and God knows WHAT else although I seem to think I might have ordered a half-dozen pair of velvet riding trousers (time will tell whether they are all the SAME trouser or variations upon a theme) because apparently

OMG. What if I bought a horse? You can’t buy horses on the internet, right?  My credit card company would definitely call me if I tried to buy a horse on the internet.

It’s just like that time I got dumped by the One Man I’ll Ever Really Love Who Ended Up Marrying a German Amnesiac BUT I’M FINE WITH THAT NOW and I was so distressed that this lovely and legendary LA punk rock producer had to physically take away my check book because I was about to buy a 1965 Cadillac sight unseen from a guy at a club.

Yeah.

Anyway, I’m not at my best today and I feel that I am very close to Telling People Things They Need To Know About Themselves which, while entertaining, would probably get me fired from this and all other jobs and that –let’s face it– would be a bit problematic in re: paying for the three damn Hermès (Hermèses?) I just bought, so I’m just going to soothe myself with a little Lyle Lovett action.

As you might recall from last week, my lovely and delightful friends Randall and Donya Stockton –owners of many successful clubs you’re not allowed to go to because then I won’t be able to get a table and there are few things I find LESS endurable than not getting a table and it’s problematic enough what with them winning all these stupid awards– treated me to a Lyle Lovett concert at Bass Concert Hall on the University of Texas campus.

I do not like the University of Texas campus.

It’s big and scary and full of girls who don’t understand that if it’s warm enough to wear fleece booty shorts IT’S NOT COLD ENOUGH FOR FUR BOOTS.

Let me put it this way: the last person I saw at Bass Concert Hall was Victor Borge. Yeah.

SO, it takes more than a pretty face to get me onto that campus.

See? I think he’s totally cute. I mean sure, technically he looks a bit like a deflated eggplant that’s well past the first blush of youth, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a hotness.

I remember being in middle school and people being scandalized that Julia Roberts had married some goofy-haired country singer and I just didn’t get it.
I can see why she liked HIM but what’s the intrigue with America’s Sweetheart?

I decided when I was going to start dating Texans that Lyle Lovett was the sort of Texan I was going to date.

That was of course before I realized he was an Aggie. Not that I really object to Aggies and they look awfully cute in their boots (p.s. there’s a bit of hotness to be found there, too.) but I just canNOT spend the rest of my natural life in maroon.

and besides, how could you NOT love a man who knows the importance of good haberdashery?

After all, as Mr Lovett is famous for saying, “You can have my girl, but don’t touch my hat.”

Gosh Zac Posen is cute.

I mean, this kid has been on my radar since we were both in our early 20’s (he’s a year younger than I am) and I never really thought much about his hotness until recently. When you think of hot guy designers usually you think of Tom Ford or maybe Marc Jacobs –because seriously, is there an editorial he hasn’t stripped for?— but Zac Posen is relatively unassuming which is why I was all breathless when I did some googling and discovered, wow, he is  REALLY good looking.

I think I’ve got a soft spot for the 29 year-old designer because he reminds me a bit of Andre, had Andre been hit with the Marlon Brando stick instead of the Overly Sensitive French Chef Who STILL Doesn’t Understand the Concept of International Time Zones stick (he’s back in Lyon at the moment and making me insane with his ill-timed calls.. “Hi Baby! Do you meeses me? I meese you. Do you meeses me now? I am still meesing you”).

And the things I find attractive about Zac are also what make me forgive Andre for all his Gallic goofiness. Great nose, beautiful lips, lovely curls and those sort of eyes that usually end morning-after trips to church or Planned Parenthood.

I think I like him best with a little stubble, he’s so clean cut here in his Clark Kent get up.

I get the blue suit because it looks great with the yellow dress, but what’s the deal, Superman?

Or maybe he really IS a superhero and he’s just going UNDERCOVER as a brilliant young designer so he can infiltrate their world. But no, that’s crazy. It’s not like the fashion world is being preyed upon by some evil genius with a weird costume and some sort of crazy German accen…

oh. Never mind.

Until last year the best show I’d seen was hands down the 2001 Austin Music Awards in 2001 when John Cale of the Velvet Underground did a duet with Alejandro Escovedo of Leonard Cohen’s  Hallelujah which is my favorite song of all time and if ANY of you say that Jeff Buckley’s whiny-ass version was superior to the original even though the original had those awful cheesy synths,  I will BAN YOU FOREVER SO DON’T TEST ME ON THIS OKAY.

Today’s Monday Hotness is responsible for the single best live performance I’ve ever seen (including theater, ballet AND that Vietnamese lady who did a trick I totally thought was an urban legend and which I can never, EVER unsee). He put on a three hour show and then came out for SEVEN encores of two or three songs each.

The man, the legend, the only guy I’d leave the Archbishop for: Leonard Cohen.

He was a  successful Canadian poet for a decade before he recorded his first album, “Songs of Leonard Cohen” in 1967.

Cohen didn’t fit in with the naivete of the folk movement and his next releases including “Songs from a Room” and “Songs of Love and Hate” (two sentimental favorites) grew increasingly dark and introspective.

“New Skin for the Old Ceremony” released in 1974 is probably his babymakin-est album and in the song Chelsea Hotel #2 he sings a song recalling an unnamed woman “you were famous, your heart was a legend” who had provided him an Intimate Service in the famous hotel.

In a rare moment of indiscretion (at least of that variety) Cohen revealed the mystery woman was Janis Joplin who, having died four years before the album’s release, never got the chance to defend herself. Cohen said revealing her name was the one great regret of his career.

I first heard Leonard Cohen when I was in fifth grade or so in the movie Pump Up The Volume, where Christian Slater’s character opens his radio show with LC’s deeply sardonic Everybody Knows.

The in my early 20’s I explored his catalog (I’d like to put a knowing “If you know what I mean” but sadly it was not to be) and fell in love with pretty much everything he ever did because if there’s one thing I love it’s a mystic with a dirty mind.

and let’s make no mistake, for all his sainted melancholy, Mister Cohen is a dirty, dirty bird as I suspect all great spiritual men are (what, you think I like the Archbishop because I’ve got an eyebrow fetish?)

I mean RIGHT?

The one misstep in his discographical career is the production of Various Positions where the Evil Synthesizers of 80’s Death do their best to ruin several of the best songs in the English language including Hallelujah (and again, do NOT test me) and If it Be Your Will.

As he aged his wavering tenor mellowed into a warm silt-bottomed bass. Click to listen to him read his song/poem A Thousand Kisses Deep, which inspired a niche perfume of all things)

I’ve had several religious experiences in my life –including the weekend Andre proposed and took me to the top floor shoe salon at Saks Fifth Avenue ON Fifth Avenue and told me I could have everything I wanted– but only two have ever come close to sitting in Row A for Leonard Cohen’s first concert in the United States in 16 years, and all spiritual matters aside, when you’re a 75 year old Buddhist folk singer and sweet young things are still throwing their bras at you? That’s some serious Hotness. Amen.

GOSH I’m so glad I don’t have to do another dumb lug. I heart you guys so much.

In the Land of Cake-Believe (i.e., my head) Anderson Cooper is totally my big brother.

Of course I’m perfectly happy with the brother I’ve got in real life, despite the fact he’s insisted on being both younger than I am (selfish!) and not having cancer anymore thereby making it just a matter of time before his stupid eyelashes grow back and I’m no longer the most doe-eyed of the Plumcake clan (selfish SQUARED) but don’t you think Anderson would be the best grown-up brother a girl could have?

Coop is a Confirmed Bachelor –much in the same way Bitsy the First was a Virgin Queen– so odds are low he’ll be chasing your hot girlfriends BUT he WILL be surrounded by good-looking gentlemen’s gentlemen who will love you and buy you drinks, if only to get you drunk enough to “borrow” your size 42 tigerstripe sequined Manolos (DON’T THINK I’M NOT ONTO YOU, TODD. -ed)

He’s smart, adorable, funny and a Vanderbilt which, if you HAVE to be a Yankee, is not a bad sort of Yankee to be.

Incidentally Coop’s great great granddaddy is at least partially responsible for my existence since my beloved grandparents fell in love at Vandy in 1952 –which according to my grandmother’s personal mathematics would’ve made her three at the time– so it’s like we’re related already.

(Coop tries spray tanning. Adorable.)

Another great thing is the Silver Fox and I wouldn’t have to worry about going after the same guys since I don’t go in for musclemen and he probably doesn’t have the hots for the Archbishop of My Pants Canterbury, which is good, because like my Nana always said; “No one’s too pretty to stab.”