Tasty Tidbits

US Tube
The Whine Bar (Valerie Goes Postal)
Women of a Certain Age Looking Great in Comme des Garcons


US TUBE

In which we appear on CBS' Insider, and Jean gets bleeped for saying one of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.

So there we were, as part of Ari Seth Cohen & Lina Plioplyte's Advanced Style video, appearing (above) on Insider, in the briefest fifteen minutes of fame you ever saw, minding our own business and trying to make a good impression, and what do Insider producers choose to show to all of America but Jean saying one of the Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.

Below, you can tell Jean's saying one of the Seven Words, as Valerie casts her eyes down in proper stunned Victorian shock. We didn't photoshop the picture. Friends as far away as Miami and Seattle reported channel surfing at just the right moment, finding our mugs on their television screens and laughing their a**es off. Trish from Seattle even congratulated Jean as her only friend who has been bleeped on nationwide TV. A dubious honor at best, but an accolade nevertheless.

For those of you who missed the opportunity the night the show aired, thank goodness for You Tube. Here's your chance to see for yourself. Check out The IFs and other fabulous dames.






THE WHINE BAR (Valerie Goes Postal)

Valerie says:

The other day I was confronted by my postal worker, who was not happy with me.

"You have to take your mail out of your box", he said. There's no more room for me to put your mail in. Why don't you take it out?", he asked.

"There's nothing in there but c*ap, anyway", I said, using a word that you CAN use on television, but which nonetheless my mother told me is not a very nice word. "Why should I take it upstairs? What am I going to do with it?"

My postal worker more or less threatened to throw it away, and I more or less quaked in my boots. "I'll see what I can do", I said, which is code for "I didn't put it there, and I'm not cleaning it up." Walking away, I realized the postal worker might be able to clear up a question I had, so I turned around again and asked him: "I've been putting "RETURN TO SENDER" labels on my junk mail, and then putting it back in the mail. Does that actually get returned to sender?" I asked, since I am old enough to remember the old Elvis Presley hit of that name.

Here's an example of the labels I've been putting on stuff I'd like to see go back where it came from:

"No", he said. "Junk mail goes by the bulk mail rate, so it doesn't get returned. It just gets thrown away."

Did you know that, IF readers?

That means that not only have I been wasting my time, but I have not been getting my name taken off of mailing lists or reducing the amount of wasted paper. Worse, it means that now I will have to open junk envelopes in order to get phone numbers so I can call the junk mailers, and many of them cleverly do not print their phone numbers. So you just waste your time if you try to beat back the deluge. Worse still, it means that silly companies with nothing better to do can send nuisance mail to their hearts' content, and there's no recourse - unless, of course, you put a full price stamp on the envelope and send it back. No bulk mail rate for you!

If that mail actually did get returned, and if the senders had to pay the return postage, they might think twice about sending c*ap. But since that avenue is at least temporarily closed to the average citizen who just wants to do what's right for the environment (and who wants to clear the junk off her desk once and for bloody all), we should declare a National Junk Mail Day, and on that day we should all take our junk mail to the post office and leave it in THEIR mail boxes. See how they like it.

With thanks and apologies to Edvard Munch for The Scream.
Bet Munch never got any junk mail.


WOACA in COMME des GARCONS

OK, enough whining. Back to the fabulous!

We got an email from Christina Viera the other day announcing that she and Suzanne Golden were in Style.com for being Comme All Ye Faithful. Above is the opening composite photo, followed by a number of Comme wearers in all their finery. Christina is first in the slide show, with several amazing outfits. Further in is Suzanne, as well as Carolyn Wade, whom we've seen out and about, but have never met. All three are, we assume, Women of a Certain Age, and it's no exaggeration to say that of everyone shown, they do the best job of showing off the Comme aesthetic. (Look for yourself and see if you don't agree!) Click here to have a look at the Style.com slide show of Comme wearers and fashions.

Till Sunday!