We reorganized our guest bedroom over the last few days, tweaking the western theme and moving furniture, painting touch-ups, and hanging frames. In the process, an old (read 1980s) dresser, about as tall as I am, was kicked to the curb for today’s trash men to carry away to a landfill far away from subdivisions, where people like me don’t have to give it another thought. Praise da Lort, as Madea would say.
Of course, we realized the dresser would be long gone by the time the trashmen made their mid-morning rounds; the scavengers come at sunrise to whisk away one man’s trash and make it their treasure. This is a given. Always has been, always will be. These are the same people who arrive for 10am garage sales at 7am, hepped up on Lort-knows-what and eager to haul off half your stash. Is it the same where you live?
Queen Mary visiting The Empire Exhibition at Wembley 1924
Before there was Her Majesty The Queen, there was Mary of Teck, strolling in the shade of the world’s largest tassled umbrella. Today’s umbrella-holders aren’t just reserved for royalty.
In this pre-“Happy” days pic from October 2013, Pharrell Williams is flanked by what looks to be a character from the extinct TV show JAG, along with a tipsy poor man’s Cameron Diaz. It’s all too reminiscent of bare-chested Puffy/P.Diddy’s manservant back in the day.
Per www.standard.co.uk, Fonzworth Bentley, former ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ (the Jeevesian term he favoured) to US rapper Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, was obliged to follow his master with a parasol in hot weather. On one occasion, he had to jump straight back on a flight to the States from the Côte d’Azur after neglecting to bring the rapper’s chosen ties.
If you have the funds to send your butler on a flight to retrieve a specific set of ties, you might not have your priorities in order. Just think what good those funds could do elsewhere (homeless shelters, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, etc) if only Diddy could grip his own hook. It makes one wonder if Fonzworth buttoned that one button on Diddy’s shirt for him as well.
Moving on, we see POTUS has his own minion to shelter him from dastardly precip. Not exactly doing a spot-on job.
I don’t get it. Does it make you feel powerful to pay someone to perform menial tasks? Look at me; I came from nothing and now I have a butler. Or is it more like, Daddy didn’t pay attention to me, so by golly, I’ll show him? News flash: A lot of daddies don’t pay attention. Imperfect people make for a crumbling world. But your self-worth should not be tied to the extent of excess you’re willing to indulge.
And as Snoop Dogg shows us, flaunting one’s wealth is a key part of rap culture. It may be a shift from in-your-face gold chains and gold teeth, but it’s hardly discreet, an unfortunate show of extravagance. All I see is a little boy, trying to prove his value. But value will never equal money.
This blowhard Dutchwoman is participating in an after-dinner sport called Eieren Blazen, or egg-blowing, the antidote for a meal rich in beef and potatoes. Amsterdam egg-blowers spent the evening, sitting on their hands and blowing toward the goal. Think you might fall into gluttonous sin tonight? No problem. We can burn off those calories. Simply fetch an empty eggshell, a billiard table with two goal nets, a dozen pals, and away we go.
I know it sounds farfetched, but could that be Morey Amsterdam actually IN AMSTERDAM, bug-eyed and diminutive in the cardigan?
During my many trips to India, specifically the village of Kerala, this was a familiar sight. Tanned men with enviable full heads of hair, revealing sculpted calves beneath skirts straight out of The Preppy Handbook, working the Tellicherry and Malabar peppercorns as they dried in the sun. No, wait, I’ve never been overseas; I’ve only eaten curry dishes at Royal India off the highway. In any event, their waiters would do themselves a favor to don such gay apparel.
I Don't Get It 