Jessi Klein’s NotBlog

I was watching Oprah the other day.  Standard stuff.  Julia Roberts was on talking about Charlotte’s Web.  She plays the eponymous Charlotte.  Oprah plays the goose. 

Anyway, like everyone else in America, I’m kind of into Julia Roberts.  I mean I’m not into her specifically, but I like looking at her.  My theory of her face, I think, is kind of like what perfume scientists say about good perfumes – that at the base of every great perfume is one note that smells kind of off and bad, and that’s the note that hooks you.  I think she has a note in her face that’s weird.  She’s obviously very beautiful.  Calm down, stop yelling!

(Maybe I am into her.  I mean maybe there is something interesting about her.  Didn’t she leave Kiefer Sutherland at the altar?  You have to be kind of a bananapants to leave someone at the altar.  What I mean is, to do that, you have to really be shitting your pants with fear and regret and nervousness.  And it’s interesting that America’s Pretty Woman at some point was shitting her pants with nervousness and fear and regret.)

Anyhoo:

I’ll get right to the point.  Julia Roberts is supposed to be all about the megawatt smile (barf to that phrase, by the way) and the goofy laugh (vomit) and she’s lit from within and all that bullshit.  But in the last few times I’ve seen her, she seems weirdly down and out of it to me.  Kind of off.  She’s still doing the smile and all that, but it feels forced, and it’s sandwiched between a lot of coldish comments and empty stares.  And she weighs about 90 pounds.  Never an up sign.  Am I the only one observing this? 

It’s also a bad sign to me that this woman can’t find a decent pair of pants.  She was on Oprah wearig a pair of tapered black slacks.  What the fuck?   She has infinity dollars.  You can’t find some bootleg jeans for infinity dollars?

She says she’s happy with the twins and Danny Moder (too much to address on him to deal with right now) but I’m not buying it.  I HOPE she’s happy (I have to say that – I mean I do, but let’s not pretend I spend time actively thinking about it – I just have to write it when I’m writing) but I’m picking up a vibe.  My theory:  she’s really freaked out about aging.  I don’t blame her.  Aging seems to blow.  But I think Julia’s Mona Lisa smile is cracking.  There’s also the report that she had to rerecord her entire Charlotte performance because when it was in the can the producers thought it was too “down.” 

Another person who seems miserable to me:  Anne Curry. I don’t know why, I just do.  Long hair, short  hair.  Doesn’t matter.  Misery all around.  I can’t watch her do the news without needing a drink.  She bums me out.  Why so sad, Anne Curry???  On the other hand, good for you for being bummed out.  The world is a shitbox.

OK.  I don’t know anything about the Pussycat Dolls.  I’m sure that individually, they’re very nice women who have worked incredibly hard to get to where they’re at in their careers (or somewhat hard – or a little hard – maybe not that hard.)  That said, I really fucking loathe them for their hit song “Dont’cha”, ie, “Dont’cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me” in which they ask a fellow if, upon looking at their triflin’ skanky butts, he doesn’t maybe wish his girlfriend was as good looking as a leopard imprinted, mall touring, glorified stripper.  This is the most not-on-the-team bullshit ever.  There was a period when this song was impossible to escape, but then it died down.  Unfortunately it is now back as it figures prominantly in the “Norbert” (Norbit?) trailer, which is offensive for a million other reasons independent of that song (primarily, not funny – relies on making fun of obesity for hilarity.  Waka waka.)  But in any case – what the fuck?  I guess I can understand why the PCD’s went along with recording this hateful crap ($$$) but how can any chick listen to it?  How can you groove to some other chick basically lap sticking her tatas in your guy’s ears and saying you’re not as hot as she is?  I’m not denying that some guys may actually secretly wish their lady was a little more PCD-esque, but why do I need some other chick encouraging that?  Fuck you pussycat dolls.  Don’cha wish you didn’t have to write a song about undermining other women to be successful? 

I realize this comes off as a pretty strident, unfunny post, but I’ve been thinking about the song for awhile and then when I heard it today at the movies I just couldn’t take it anymore.  The thing is, I don’t need the PCD’s to make me feel bad.  I already wish I looked like one of them.  It really started with Josie and the Pussycats, when I wanted to play drums in a shitty animated girl band and wear a slutty cat costume onstage.  I wanted to look like the brunette one with the weird stripe in her hair.

When I was a little girl I dressed as a black cat for Halloween for seven straight years.  I wore the same outfit every year – black leotard, black tights, black cat ears, drawn on whiskers, and the piece de resistance, a black cat tail that my mom would sew on to the butt of the leotard.  I loved running around with that tail.  Not intending to try to feel sexy, I felt sexy anyway.  Unfortunately, as the years went by, all the stuffing in the tail slowly sunk to the bottom, so after a while the top was deflated and there was just a round little lump at the bottom.  It actually kind of looked like a long black dick.  When it finally was too dickalicious, I bailed on the black cat theme and became Groucho Marx, who was kind of my first hero.  I got the glasses and the mustache and a cigar and I wore a blazer of my dad’s, and I went trick or treating in a local high rise.  I did the Groucho stride down the hall, shoulders slumped, laciviously waggling my eyebrows and leering.  I felt like a pervert.  I liked it better than being a black cat.