Where Is Everyone?

Sean Penn, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Reverend Jesse Jackson participate in the protest of the war in Iraq at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. So where is everyone else? Where's Bob Dylan? Where are all the great hippies from the sixties running around screaming with head bands and guitars? I think I must be behind the times. Back then it looked groovy to protest against war. Especially if you're a celebrity. Everyone knows that Sean Penn will be in the front line. He flew to Iraq to meet with bloody Saddam Hussein for goodness sake. He sat in one of their palatial palaces and had a cup of tea. What about the rest of the gang? Everyone in Hollywood must be bored with the whole thing. What about what its costing? Surely if you have no feelings of compassion for how many people have been killed, terrorized, raped, tortured and mentally stuffed up, surely you'd have to be thinking about the money. I really must be behind the times.

Apparently Team America really hit a nerve with Sean Penn. He couldn't stand it. Apparently it's not hard to get a rise out of Penn. He is of the 'edgy' breed. When recognised, he is scornful, deliberately pissed off. He served 32 days in jail in 1987 for hitting an extra. When he married Madonna he tried to shoot the helicopters flying around the air space above.

Luckily he missed because they managed to take crappy photos like this one. Madonna apparently wore a black bolar hat with her white gown ensemble. It was a disaster, just like the marriage. The only redeeming feature of the day was that they invited the late and great Andy Warhol.

If only Andy Warhol was alive today - donning boxing gloves and resisting the war. Even if it was to rustle some Washington feathers for the sake of a party.

Looking Forward - Oscars 2007

Oscar Statuettes stand on a shelf before being polished at R.S. Owens & Company in Chicago, Illinois. R.S. Owens manufactures the Oscar statuettes which are presented at the annual Academy Awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This year's awards will be presented February 25, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. Yes well this is all well and good but has anyone asked this company why they are so stingy with the gold? Apparently the gold plate rubs off after only a few weeks creating a dilemma for some winners. Do I get it re plated or do I pretend that I don't care about this award and tell everyone I use it as a door stop - ha ha ha. I don't believe any of you. I know that you relish the glow of this golden phallus as if it were your own flesh and blood. Everyone who has ever looked into the mirror and worked out there own selfless, humble and often humorous Oscar winning speech knows this too.

Which brings me to the Golden Globes. This is ridiculous. Has everyone forgotten that it takes around 90 people from the old country to effect the box office results for most of the newly released films and what stays on the telly? Everyone is playing dumb and thinking that it's a great honor to receive this award because your producer brown nosed his or her way into taking one of the old ducks out to lunch and telling them how beautiful they are and promising that the stars of their film will hang out with them and massage their gnarly feet. I must say though that even though I haven't watched that show Ugly Betty (America Ferrera pictured below), I was sort of moved by her acceptance speech. Its great how she believes she is helping girls with how they view themselves. Beauty is only skin deep and all that. I can't see it working though. I wouldn't have the heart to tell her that all the old bags that voted for her were the only one's paying attention, gently weeping into their schnapps.

The most excruciating part of the night was when Warren Beatty was getting some sort of life time achievement award. I was getting so hot and bothered at his lousy humor and self appointed holier than thouness, that I had to wring out my hands in a pretend motion to remove the sweat. Luckily when Sascha Boran Cohen accepted his award for best leading actor in Borat it was so funny that I thought the powers that be would be on to his originality and edit it out of the presentation. You have to hand it to that clapped out lot though, they have a bit of taste.

Bob Geldof Gets Honorary Degree

Bob Geldof poses in Gateshead before receiving an honorary doctor of Civil Law degree from the University of Newcastle later in the day - a special honor for key figures in the campaign against world poverty. I've sort of had a love hate relationship with Geldof. I couldn't stand The Boomtown Rats and thought most things musical he did after that were mediocre. My love relationship is with how much he cares for things - namely that most of the world's population is poor and we should do something - anything - how dare we keep our collective knuckleheads in the sand. He stood up off course and produced Live Aid and followed with many attempts to somehow tell us to get off our trans fat arses and realize we are too well off.

I have to take a ride back with Geldof. Back when he was with that super nut - Paula Yates. They seemed to have a pretty good partnership for a while anyway until Yates interviewed Michael Hutchence from INXS. She was besotted. Astounded. Taken aback. She promptly ran home and pasted a picture of dear Michael on her kitchen fridge to be prayed to daily. This conjurer of Love's endurance finally managed to convince Michael he would be better of without Helena Christensen and come and have a nudge and a wink with her. Meanwhile back at the ranch that held that deteriorating fridge magnet, Geldof felt that his wife's antics where to be shrugged off as general folly. Little did he know that the Kama Sutra was being rewritten in a little hide away in the English country side.

Their love flourished and produced their pride and joy Tigerlily. Theirs was a dangerous liaison with talks of ecstasy and opium balls being found and their London apartment - tough of wars between Geldof and Yates over their own children's visitation etc. When you looked into their eyes you could see that these two were in for something.

Hutchence arrived back in Australia for a tour with INXS in 1997 looking bloated and wasted. He had always strutted his stuff with confidence and charisma (I wasn't much of a fan except for when I was about 17 and I saw the band at my local pub in the early days. Can I be so bold to include that Hutchence leapt off the stage and planted a kiss on my dear ape face? Go on then you name dropper Sheila!) Anyway, back to that fateful year. Hutchence decides to get all auto-erotic and hangs himself using his own belt. Erotic asphyxiation moved around the media like wild fire and then everyone started talking about it. Me, embarrassingly naive, had never really heard of it before. Before long everyone had either done it or knew someone who was doing it. Off course my friend Troy at work knew the funniest tale. It was of a man who was heavily in to it. Seriously devoted. He would tie a chain around his neck and then to a tree, jump into his VW and then let the car slowly drive around a tree. Eventually he would have his way with the whole thing. His devotion would cost him his life.

I felt so badly for Paula, everyone did. It was such a stupid way to die. No one could believe it at the time and then after a while everyone sort of believed it. The funeral was held in Sydney and everyone was there. It wasn't long before Yates followed Hutchence which seemed inevitable.

Back to Geldof. Everyone felt like he was some sort of puppet master and somehow all this was his bloody fault. He trundled along like the Irish leprechaun he is and decided to bring up Tigerlily (centre) along with her half sisters.

Happy New Year Me Hearties

Crown Princess of Japan Masako greets well wishers at The Imperial Palace on January 2, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. I look at this woman and think of Rapunzel - locked in a palace and wishing for someone to save her - anyone. The immense pressure to produce an heir rather than pursuing her career as a diplomat has put great stress on Masako. She has become a recluse of sorts rotting away in a system that has no place for a woman's will let alone freedom.

Over the break I was reading three books at once. The first is Jane Fonda's autobiography - My Life So Far. She is such a shape shifter. I mean that in the nicest possible way. Complicated child - needing love from her mother and father and receiving little. Funky hipster wowing everyone in the sixties. Political activist in the seventies. Workout queen in the eighties. Ted Turner wife and devotee in the nineties. What this century holds is someone that has a lot of wisdom and prefers her own company rather than needing any male definition. She worries me though going back to her original faith.

The next is Germaine Greer's biography - Untamed Shrew. This disappointed me. It was full of stuff and then only passed wind gently giving a whiff of who Greer really was. I was shocked about her obsession with Mike Willesee though.

Last but not least is Margaret Whitlam's bio. Now I've never really been interested in this dear ol' chook but I can't resist any reading about how a woman lives through a husband like Gough Whitlam. It is full of common sense and determination but sadly me thinks that her own identity was never a priority. The moral of the story? Make sure you have a great 2007!