Musical Monday: Gypsy

Yes ladies, it's time for Gypsy! The story of the Worst Mother in the World, and the daughter she whored out in a sad attempt to give her life meaning! It's like the Patsy and JonBenet story set to music! With tassles!

Our story starts here as little Louise Hovick and her little sister Baby June are hoofing it up to win a spot on Uncle Jocko's Kiddie Kapers vaudeville show. Surprisingly, Uncle Jocko (Karl Malden) is into grown women.

Believe it or not, Baby June (on the left) is played by Morgan Brittany. Louise is dressed like a lesbian.

Fearing that they're not getting the proper attention, their mother Rose, played by the divine Rosalind Russell, storms up on stage, makes a spectacle of herself and promptly gets her whole family thrown out of the theater.

Louise slowly rocks back and forth and sucks her thumb in embarrassment. Baby June is a little bitch.

Next we get a painfully expositional scene wherein we learn that Rose has been married 3 times and now she spends her time criss-crossing the country, trying to get Baby June booked. Louise is basically there for backup until Rose can figure out what to do with her. In the meantime, they're all headed towards Seattle, so they can live with Rose's father for a while to regroup.

No explanation is given as to how a clearly 55-year-old woman has two daughters under the age of ten.

She runs into Karl Malden outside some podunk theater where she's trying to get a booking. He reveals that she was such an overbearing bitch of a stage mother that he wound up quitting his job as Uncle Jocko and now sells candy bars. For some reason, this causes sparks to fly between them.

Later, at a Chinese restaurant, they talk about their dreams and Rosalind lip-synchs a song that Johnny Mathis sang better. Karl dreams of marrying her and Roz dreams of stardom for her children. They reach a compromise: Karl will drive her the rest of the way to Seattle.

Yeah, that didn't make sense to us either.

He drops the brood off in Seattle and is too polite to comment that Roz's father must have been about 11 when he fathered her.

Later, she receives a telegram from Karl informing her that he got the kids booked in a show in Chicago. She steals some shit from her father and skips town with her kids.

Did we mention that she's 55?

Baby June is still an obnoxious bitch.

Next, we get a montage sequence as the act takes on several male backup dancers, Morgan Brittany morphs into Ann Jillian (we kid you not), and the little lesbian morphs into a breast-bound Natalie Wood.

We get a glimpse at the shitty, flophouse lifestyle Roz is forcing these poor kids to live in during Natalie's birthday party.

Depressed about the whole thing, Natalie climbs out on to the fire escape and looks for Tony. Haha. No. Instead she sings to a bunch of stuffed animals (and one real lamb - don't ask) about ...geez, what WAS that song about anyway?

Karl gets them an audition with a big time New York theater muckety-muck and Roz makes Natalie dress up like a cow. Christ, this is making Mommie Dearest look like a Hallmark Family Channel movie.

The muckety-muck says he'll take June, but Natalie and Roz have got to go. Roz makes a big scene and turns him down. June hates her.

Later, June fails to show up at the rail station for the trip to their next gig, but leaves a note informing her mother that she ran off and married one of the dancers. She's 13. Roz is shocked that her mothering techniques could produce such a piece of white trash.

But nothing stops Mama Rose!

Karl and Natalie fear for their lives at this point.

She kidnaps a bunch of little girls and drags them out to the desert to practice a new routine with talentless Louise as the star.

She's clearly lost it.

Karl and Natalie try and talk her down. They reach a compromise: they'll put the backup girls in blonde wigs.

No one in this group seems to understand what a compromise is.

Karl gets the act booked in a theater in Wichita and Natalie takes on a big sister role to the starry-eyed girls.

Unfortunately, the act is in for a big shock...

Uncle Jocko is a lousy manager.

Rose flips out and wants to pack up and leave but Natalie's all "Look, bitch, we're broke. It's only two weeks and we all get to keep our clothes on." Rose finally admits defeat and decides to break up the act and send the girls home with the money they'll make on this gig. She finally agrees to marry the long-suffering Karl when it's all over.

Natalie agrees to take a gig as the straight women for one of the comics for an extra ten bucks. Rose's ethics evaporate in front of our eyes.

The strippers give Natalie a little education on how to make it in this biz. Turn your speakers down because this one's an ear-splitter.

We're not entirely sure that some of those girls are girls, if you know what we mean.

On the last day of their booking, Rose overhears that the star stripper got arrested. Hearing the word "star" and not hearing the word "arrested," she throws the last of her morals out the window and begs them to give her underage daughter the job.

Karl and Natalie react appropriately. Karl walks out, but Natalie agrees to give it her all because she's never worn a dress before and figures being paid to take one off is better than nothing.

Sing out, Louise!

Even we have to say, Natalie had one hell of a figure. Although somewhere, Marni Nixon is sadly shaking her head.

After that little strip montage, we find out that Natalie is now a star and hates her mother. Yeah, you're about 5 years late on that one, girl. They have a big fight and Natalie throws her out of her dressing room.

Now. One can certainly argue that Roz stole the role from its rightful owner, Ethel Merman, but even though Roz had to be mostly dubbed, she brought something to the role that Ethel simply couldn't: depth.

Case in point:

Say what you will, Roz is a FORCE OF NATURE here.


This being a musical, all one needs is one show-stopper of a number and all conflicts and decades of child abuse are wiped away in a tearful hug and a meeting of vagina hats.

The end.

Starting Your Week with Delicious Dish.

New York Magazine has an eye-opening article about what happens to Bravo reality show contestants after their 15 minutes are up. We were really happy to read this because it contains stuff that we'd been hearing for a while but didn't have the right to publish ourselves. Bravo doesn't come off that great here and Heidi has a real bitchquote at the end.

Some choice bits (but you really need to read the whole thing):

Jay:
“I haven’t been living anywhere for two years,” he says. “I sleep at other people’s houses. I sleep here if I’m drunk.”

“I have a fucking gazillion e-mails from all over the world from people asking, Why isn’t your stuff out there?” says Jay. “Yet financially, I have no way to get them a product because I got pushed out of a boat and into the ocean, as if, Oh, you can survive now.”

(Photo: Jessica Wynne)

Andrae:
"Today, he still sews the odd custom dress for $1,500, and he teaches too, but he makes a fair chunk of his money doing gigs that exploit his reality-show fame, like hosting events at gay bars in Pittsburgh. He knows this won’t last. “I tell everyone I’m not a star,” he says. “I’m a brown dwarf.”

Austin:
"Austin Scarlett, the young Quentin Crisp from the first season of Project Runway, says he was approached about a role on Heather Graham’s short-lived sitcom, Emily’s Reasons Why Not. Today he wonders if he should have mulled it over. “Because I don’t think you should turn down work that much,” he says. “That’s one of my continuing struggles, being considered a reality-TV, you know, star.” I ask if he’s ever done TV gigs he’s come to regret. “Yeeeeeeeees,” he says. “Battle of the Network Reality Stars.” Shortly afterward, he appeared on a reality reunion show on Bravo, too. “I felt so cheap and tawdry,” he says. “They gave me $500, and I was like, Keep the money. It was just part of my confusion, grasping for the next thing.”

Nick:
“When they asked me why I wanted to be on Project Runway,” says Nick Verreos, 40, who made the fetching Barbie dress from Season Two (it sold for $1,700 on projectrunway.com), “I said I wanted to use it as a trampoline. Because I knew I was doing fierce stuff, but nobody was noticing.”

Santino:
“No one wanted to interview Chloe,” Santino says. “I’m sure I did like 500 percent more interviews. That’s what I won.”

"I crack myself up by saying, It’s lucky that I turn things down so that Nick has stuff to do,” says Santino."

“Between Heidi and Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, the judges were like a three-headed monster,” he says. “They all basically have the same point of view. I mean, have one avant-garde person who has an art-as-fashion approach, rather than fashion-as-commerce approach.” Then, of course, he made an almost perversely beautiful collection for Fashion Week, and the judges said there wasn’t enough of him in it. “And it’s like, Really?” he asks. “Gee, that’s funny, because I made this shit!”

Laura:
"When Laura, hugely popular with fans, failed to notify the network she’d signed a contract to host a style show on MSN.com, they called and demanded an explanation. “And I said, ‘So what do you have to offer me?’ ” she says. (She’s now in talks with Bravo about doing something for its Website and iVillage.)"

UPDATE: "Is Jay McCarroll Homeless? He Sure Said So (and So Did His Publicist)." Read it here.

Laura Bennett, working for Peanuts.

You better love us, bitches. Because we bring you the scoop!


"Good grief" turns into fashion relief as MetLife presents a group designer fashion show featuring exclusively designed fashions for Snoopy on September 7 at 6 p.m. as part of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week at Bryant Park. Many of fashion’s most renowned designers have confirmed their participation, including Heatherette, Isaac Mizrahi, Betsey Johnson, Pamella Roland, and Project Runway alum Laura Bennett. Each designer has taken inspiration from their favorite Peanuts character to create a couture runway outfit, making a bold leap from initial black-and-white sketch to vibrant, colorful ensemble.

Following the MetLife Snoopy in Fashion show, Peanuts fans and fashionistas alike will share the opportunity to bid on the unique designer runway creations in an eBay auction. Proceeds from the MetLife Snoopy in Fashion auction will benefit Dress for Success, a non-profit organization which promotes the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support, and the career development tools to help them thrive in work and in life."

And because we're so fabulously glamorous, we broke into Laura's loft and stole her sketches! We do it all for you, kittens!




How frigging GORGEOUS are those dresses?

The Girls of Season 2 (Cont.)

Number two in a series.

The FABULOUS Grace:






Allison:




Cara (who looks better in photographs than she does on video):




Claudia:




Danyelle - gorgeous and chameleon-like:




Eden - DAMN girl, those are some LONG legs!:




Heather:




Rachael - she ain't no marshmallow:




Rebecca:




Shannon:




Tarah - still gorgeous:




UPDATE - Maria Lucia:




Unfortunately, we could only find one picture of each of the following girls. Anyone know if they're still modeling?

Alyssa:


Eliza:


Lesley Ann:


Melissa:

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The Girls of Season 2

Number two in a series.

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BLIND ITEM!!!!!

SOURCES TELL US that a CERTAIN Project Runway alum will be playing the "Tim Gunn" role for at least one episode of the Canadian version of the show. Nothing is confirmed yet kittens, but if it is, you heard it here first!

We Interrupt This Bitchery for a Minor Self-Indulgence.

Darlings, somehow, in the whirlwind that is our life, we let a very important day pass by without mention.

You see, on July 22nd, Project RunGay turned one year old.


On the one hand, we can't believe a year has gone by. On the other hand, we can't believe that it's ONLY been a year. So much has happened in that time! Who knew that we'd go from this (our first post) to this in less than a year? Who knew we'd get a little over THREE MILLION visitors in that time? Who knew that it would launch two other blogs? Not us, that's for sure. We were shocked that anyone read it at all, to be honest.

It was Lorenzo's idea to start this little endeavor, and as with so many things, Tom had to be talked into it. He initially said "no" about a dozen times - until the day Lorenzo stormed in from the gym, threw his gym bag down on Tom's desk and said "We are DOING this!" And once again, as with so many things, Tom sighed and said "Fine."

Anyway, before we get too weepy and maudlin, we'd just like to blow a giant airkiss to all of you and say thank you for supporting us and we hope we can continue to give you the fun, fabulosity and bitchery you've come to expect from us. We love you all.

BONUS: Our old banners! That first one looks like something the yearbook committee put together - and rejected.