Julia Fox and Kanye West Resurrect the Art of the Publicity Stunt
Julia Fox and Kanye West Resurrect the Art of the Publicity Stunt
Julia Fox and Ye West start a fake relationship, Lady Gaga swats away insects, Euphoria returns, The Weeknd travels back in time, J.Lo can't stop drinking, and more rated Top Shelf to Low Brow!
Hello again, angels! Who else is spending this week steeped in post-holiday dread after returning to their day job, alternating listens between the ultimate winter depression albums aka Grimes’ Art Angels and Miss Anthropocene? Just me? Alright. Maybe you’re just bummed because you don’t want to go see the new, fifth installment of the Scream franchise during the opening weekend because you worry that a packed theater could result in you contracting The Illness, but then you contest that worry with the worry you’ll be spoiled about who the killer(s?) is/are before you can see it? I’m suffering from that one too! But I’m thankful we can suffer together, for what is suffering if not a call to rest our heads on each other’s proverbial bosoms? Anyway, let’s get into it!
Top Shelf, Low Brow: January 4th-January 11th
Unashamedly dating for publicity is finally back, baby!
Last week, June Diane Raphael’s tulpa Julia Fox and (Kan)Ye West were spotted together on a Tuesday night, flitting about New York’s most trendy venues. Only they weren’t “spotted,” they were joined, by an army of photographers enlisted to tag along with the would-be couple for their flashy date night. This pairing seemed to strike social media (particularly the boring Deuxmoi crowd) as surprising, but there’s nothing really surprising about it: art fags love Julia Fox, and as perhaps one of the most famous (purported) bisexuals of our time, it seems entirely in-line with destiny that Ye’s fruity ass would end up gallivanting around New York with her for the sake of nothing but mutually-assured attention.
It feels good to be ushering back in an era of publicity dating. It’s something that’s never really left us—*cough*Shawn and Camila*cough*—but it’s nice to see Julia Fox and Ye refusing to dress this up as newfound love quickly beginning to blossom and instead giving it to us for what it is: pure, absurdist celebrity publicity hounding. Who needs a fake profession of love in the form of a joint “Señorita”-style single when you can have a photographer from People brought along on your date so they can publish exclusive pictures, allowing you to stew in the press attention and rising follower count for two whole days before texting your favorite of the three white-haired, New York media gay Macbeth witches—the one that isn’t Andy Cohen or Anderson Cooper, Mel Ottenberg—to ask if you can email him a two-paragraph blog and photos to publish on Interview’s website. Of course you can, Julia Fox. “Date Night” is one of the foremost texts of our time. As rich in faux emotion and pop culture nostalgia as it is deplete of actual words and detail. And that’s just what makes it so arresting.
Blogging through an episode of pure psychosis is a lost art, first maimed by the relative dissolution of LiveJournal and Blogspot and finally stabbed through the heart by the fall of Tumblr. But by god, if Julia Fox isn’t putting in the work to bring narcissism back. And that’s not a bad thing! It’s oh so incredibly good. I crave celebrity frivolity more than ever these days, and these two seem to be the perfect pair to give it to me. Hopefully for act three, she chooses a partner who didn’t recently show his support for an artist undergoing investigation for sexual abuse allegations.
(Rating: Top Shelf, for Julia only.)
Send in…the flies
W Magazine’s annual Best Performances issue is upon us, causing its annual ruckus across the internet (one that’s a little less critical than last year’s issue which featured the Juergen Teller photos of celebrities in trees and random backyards, generally looking to be in pain). For 2022, W has brought back one of my favorite fashion photographers, Tim Walker, to shoot this year’s portfolio of Awards Season contenders. While Walker often takes a somewhat avant-garde approach, even in his portraits, this year’s collection is simple and stunning, if sometimes a little plain. But if there’s one thing Lady “She Will Certainly Lie” Gaga refuses to be during her tooth-and-nail claw to the Oscars, it’s plain. First, there were her claims that she never spoke in anything but an Italian accent before and during filming (untrue), then there was a profession that she was so in-character that she believed she had actually committed manslaughter (preposterous), and then there were reports she had a psychiatric nurse on set and that she was worried Patrizia Reggiani might show up to physically fight her (impossible! she is old!). And now? The flies.
This woman is truly deranged. And I love every second of it. I just know her publicist and manager were on that Zoom call with W mad as fuck that she implied she stunk so bad from her wigs and caked-on makeup in that hot ass, glaring Italian sun that flies just started following her wherever she went like she’s Pigpen from fucking Charlie Brown. Patrizia Reggiani, whose dealings with magic and the occult only go as far as hiring a television psychic to help her plot the assassination of her husband, sent flies to follow her around. Okay, Stef. Whatever you say.
At this point, it’s actually imperative that we do everything in our power to stop her from coming even close to touching that second Oscar. House of Gucci deserves to be the horribly-aging blip on her acting resume. She cannot be allowed to talk about this film for the rest of her career, constantly making up new shit about her experience and spouting it off to reporters. We’ve known for some time that Lady Gaga does not see things the way we all do, she does not know how to not embellish. Most of the time it’s her gift, but right now it’s her curse—albeit one that lights up the faces of the staff here at the TSLB offices with joy more and more with each new pull quote. To think, we’re still more than two months out from this year’s Oscars telecast, and she’s sure to be nominated. There’s so much more that she can say between now and then. And that fear will be following me for weeks, buzzing in my ear like a fly in the hot Barthelona thun.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
Gays and Lesbians Put Their Differences Aside ❤️
A grand rejoice heard throughout the land last week! From Angelika Film Center to The Abbey WeHo.
Tall Australian Lesbian (in my head) — 1, Short British Twunk (in my dreams) — 0
The girls are back…and they’re FUCKED up!
Euphoria returned with the premiere of its second season on Sunday, and I stand by the fact that I really do think it’s the funniest comedy on television. Like, I know it’s a “drama,” but come on, it’s a comedy. This shit is so funny! Every single week it’s like they ask, “Just how bad and despicable can we make these high schoolers be?” Not since Gossip Girl has every high schooler on a drama looked so clearly in their 20s and 30s. But here, it works, because everyone’s fucking busted all the damn time. Doing rails and throwing back shots and being fucking crazy and slutacious! And what more can we ask of prestige television programming?
And one of the funniest things about it is that no matter how much I’m cracking up at an episode, thinking “Here they go again, these crazy teens! Oh look, this one’s snortin’ something, uh oh!”, it’s still genuinely compelling and completely visually arresting. I won’t deny that I just love taking this spectacle in! It’s so completely devoid of any attempt to be realistic that it actually becomes even more convincing. Plus, you’re really just not getting top quality memes like this anywhere else:
Plus…um…HELLO? Everyone’s hot!!!!!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
And Just Like That… continues its reign of terror, Week 6
This was a bad week for our girls. Not because anything bad really happened to them, but rather to us, forced to watch what may have been the reboot’s dullest episode yet. It was directed by Cynthia Nixon, which is just another painful reminder I wish that she was my governor right now and not doing this televised nightmare. What could’ve been. Brace for the dispatches from horrorland, led by our homicidal tour guide Che Diaz.
You guys ever hotbox the shit out of a backseat with the windows rolled up?
(Rating: Low Brow)
An image of the utmost importance to me
Whoever photoshops me in Martha’s place can have a free TSLB tee. I’ve never wanted to the third in a thruple quite so badly. The amount of chaotic, crazy energy emanating from Antoni Porowski and Pete Davidson alone is enough to rip through me like a nine-inch axe to a log.
Stoners and Cuocheads unite, and not just on Euphoria!
HBO Max continues to shine a bright, life-saving light down a dark, and endless void. This time, it’s the announcement that Sharon Stone is joining the cast of quarantine-favorite The Flight Attendant for season two. Everyone’s favorite Kaley Cuoco dramedy will be returning for its next installment sometime this year. Sure, I was a little (read: devastatingly) disappointed upon clicking the article to realize she won’t be playing Kaley Cuoco’s trusted cohort in the skies, but instead has been cast as her estranged mother. Which…is fine! But we all know Sharon Stone was one of the first to harness and master the art of modern camp. This is the perfect show for Sharon to flex her dishy acting muscles that haven’t been used since Catwoman (no, I’m not counting her multi-episode arc in last year’s Ratched, which I never bothered to finish as I don’t believe in giving Ryan Murphy anything he wants). She belongs at 30,000 feet, trapped in a metal can with a paranoid alcoholic recovering from being embroiled in an international murder scandal! Time will tell whether her character is allowed to have a little fun, but I have no doubt that her presence will make the questionable decision to continue this show for a second season a sound one.
(Rating: Top Shelf)
The Music Section
Never have I been much interested in The Weeknd, as I am always skeptical of the intentions of men. I like the singles and a few of the deep cuts, but haven’t had much inclination to dive into the full albums more than once. But with the release of Dawn FM, his second album in two years and first with little fanfare around its release, I was intrigued enough by the art direction and 80s-tinged, electro first single “Take My Breath” to give it a listen. And uhhh…perhaps call me a Little Saturday or whatever fans are called. TGIFsters, perhaps?
Dawn FM is a captivating, synth-driven ride through a depressive psyche—it sounds more Daft Punk-adjacent than Starboy, his album that was actually worked on by Daft Punk. Designed as a radio DJ-led ride through the long tunnel of purgatory, Dawn FM managed to thrill and twist without ever feeling overly theatrical. It’s finally giving me the taste of everything I was promised but never wholly received on Daft Punk’s “final” album Random Access Memories, particularly on “Gasoline” and “How Do I Make You Love Me?” I even really love the Jim Carrey-voiced outro, “Phantom Regret by Jim.” It’s giving what the Giorgio Moroder interludes on Random Access Memories could not! I get it now! I’m here for the future if we ever make it through our own perpetual cultural purgatory.
Next up, my dainty færie, similarly gap-toothed, depressed sister FKA twigs will be releasing a new mixtape this Friday entitled CAPRISONGS, and I’m simply obsessed with the moodboard she laid out for the mixtape’s announcement:
Disappointed but not surprised to see that her collaboration with Dua Lipa isn’t on this tracklist, meaning that it’s officially Dua’s track to release, and I can’t seem to figure out why she’s just sitting on this masterpiece…
Dua Lipa has all the gall to single-handedly propel this pandemic forward with her incessant traveling (fine fine I’ll stop, I’ll stop) but she can’t release this as even a one-off single? The streams from gays alone will fund her little newsletter for years. Where is that, by the way? I’ve seen no noise for it since it was announced. She’s afraid to compete where she can’t compare, I’m afraid!
(Rating: Top Shelf)
J.LO COLD CUP WATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
J.Lo’s bedazzled cold-drink tumblers are a favorite here at the TSLB offices, and I almost dropped my phone in a subway grate upon seeing she had posted a new one directly to main (they’re usually reserved for stories):
As a reminder for the uninitiated, J.Lo gets a customized bedazzled cold cup to drink out of with every new project she takes on. I assume her array of assistants keep a drawer of crystals and hot glue guns on hand to make them for her whenever she signs on the dotted line. This time, she’s got a cold cup to celebrate her contractual obligation to hock a shitty “healthy” energy drink that comes in a plastic bottle you can buy at a gas station for $2. She’s all about clean living! You’re better off buying Gatorade, at least it tastes like childhood and not sugar-free fruit punch pain. Let’s raise our bedazzled cold cups in a toast to the skies and drink this one for J.Lo as we celebrate a check clearing in her account while her two-song-a-year music career remains stalled…but not for long, as I’m sure the next single from Marry Me will be out any day now.
(Rating: Low Brow…and low temp!)
That’s all for this week! I hope you’ve enjoyed another romp through the chaos of this world together. I love you dearly, and I’ll see you again on Friday. And don’t forget, the newsletter has an Instagram page where you can get updates on shirtless hotties the moment their pics hit JustJared…and other stuff too, I guess.
New York media gay Macbeth witches is sending me!!! 😆