Brazilionairres

Brazil’s World Cup may be around the corner but the country has already been kicking lots of goals, from saving the Amazon , to slashing its crime rate (murders have halved in Sao Paulo in five years). Last week the country also reached another milestone – it (quietly) surpassed the UK as the world’s sixth-largest economy.

While the country’s economic boom has pushed the ‘real’ to parity with the US dollar and lifted millions of out of poverty, the biggest winners, as always, have been the rich. Brazil’s recent economic progress is creating 19 new millionaires each day. And with Rio Fashion Week on right now, what better time to get acquainted with the bossa nova riche?

New television series “Mulheres Ricas (rich women)” promises just that. The show started this month and has stirred up plenty of criticism for its fawning footage of incredibly wealthy gal pals (one called “Brunete”) . It is the Real Housewives of Leblon.

In this episode, one millionairess inspects a new private jet. “Is just like buying a new top,” she says.

D’s new crush

D has a raging crush on Oli Pettigrew, the Hong Kong-born male model and now cable TV host. Oli pops up frequently on Star TV, spruiking late night movies or presenting an extended advertorial called something like “Sony Wonder Land”. He also has a new series which seems to involve him driving a cab around various South East Asian cities. Despite the naffness of the job, he does have an undeniable and very British charm, that kind of cheeky twinkle-in-the-eye, plummy accent and killer cheekbones. I can definitely see the attraction.

Apparently he is huge in Indonesia.

The Interzone

One of the movies Oli Pettigrew played recently was this 1980s Italian B-movie about a medieval-style post-apocalyptic future where campy female bodybuilders do battle with buff heroes in plunging necklines, male soldiers make out and a Christ-like Asian called “Panasonic” teams up with a foxy blonde to save some kind of vague and unspecified ‘treasure’.

It was mesmerizing.

If you ever see “The Interzone” on a late night TV schedule, set your recorder!

My favourite Chinese TV commercial

Guess why.

Awful Thai pop song …

…that I had stuck in my head this week after a friend posted it on his facebook. Its by the Kingdom’s top girl group Girlyberry – or rather two members of it, the group having now split into two “subunits” to pump out more product, a trick learnt from K-pop.

The video features an interesting fashion statement (syringes in the hair), a featured rap from a member of Bangkok B-boys “Thaitanium” and a cute Hungarian male model.

It’s all very lowbrow and Gaga-lite; hard to believe one of these girls starred in Pen-ek Rataruang’s understated and supremely stylish (though not particularly scary) art-horror film “Nymph”.

K-Town: Asians get trashy

Move over tiger moms, its time for Jersey Shore. With Asians!

Few people are as neurotic about their portrayal in the media as Asian-Americans ( see this ) but hilarious, awful new “reality” show “K-Town” (based around the lives and err, loves of a group of hawt Azns in LA’s Korean district) is exposing something of a double standard: so Asians are sick of always being sexless geeks? But then they don’t want to be brainless sluts either?? A sample of some of the comments on youtube (always a goldmine)  included:

“I am an Asian myself and I am deeply horrified and offended by this show.”

“Oh America. I weep for your youth.” 

“This is why we need North Korea”

“This does not change the fact that as a group, Asians are smarter, healthier, more productive & do better than round-eye Ameritards”

“nice korean bbq and karaoke …. and then after a long night of partaying they go home and do some advance calculus …….”

The show is also a ‘star vehicle’ for narcissistic bodybuilder and “gay porn star” (well, he is not so much gay as courting the gay market and not so much a ‘star’ as a self promoter) Peter Le.  He is also a go go boy at LA gay K-pop clubs “Gameboi” and “Masturbasian” (both awesome names):

Hmmm. The show just got better.

The L Word

Welcome to my new obsession. Although the show was axed this year after a successful six-year run, I have only just been getting into it. There is something about the hyper-stylised and glamorous lives of this bunch of L.A. power-lesbians that (unlikely as it may seem) is quite addictive.

Up the top is my favorite, Shane, (played by Gwyneth Paltrow’s cousin Katherine Moennig) and below is the China Doll-pretty, always exquisitely dressed and insufferably annoying Jenny:

It’s that time of year again…

Svetlana Loboda – Be My Valentine (Anti-crisis Girl)! (Ukraine)

….Eurovision is just around the corner (well a month away). Will the Slavic dominance of recent years continue? On the basis of this clip from Ukraine’s entry: YES!

This song is extraordinary in its kitsch and decadence; snorting chocolate of mirrors like cocaine, kiwi fruits exploding, dancing girls with targets on their heads playing ukeleles…

Amazing. 12 points Ukraine!

In related news, a brand new competition (clearly modelled on Eurovision) is launching soon. The “Our Song Asia-Pacific Song Contest” is soon to announce its first host city. Australia, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines will battle it out for the Asian-version Eurovision crown. Watch this space.

America’s Next Top Model Riot

Its this year’s Edison Chen scandal; a moment of surreal once-in-a-lifetime,so-good-it-can’t be-trueness. Yes, it the news that rioting has broken out at this week’s America’s Next Top Model auditions. Exactly why is confusing, some reports name panic over a passing car believed to be on fire, while three people were arrested for robbery after trying to rip off would-be-models’ handbags.

My favorite comments from the media and the blogworld so far:

Show the terror…with your eyes!!!
That’s a lot of hungry, hungry women…
Fierce! Top Model riots

Big Brother Africa – its the best one!

Peladão angolano toma banho nu no bbb9!!!

Ricco, the flirty Angolan winner of “African Big Brother 3” showers naked as a guest on the current Brazilian BB9. Interesting that the same flashy narcissism Reality TV thrives on has now spread to every continent!

Season 2 of “Big Brother Africa” seems especially action-packed. According to wikipedia:

Tanzania‘s Richard Bezuidenhout won the series along with the prize of $100,000, beatingNigerian Ofunneka Malokwu to second place.

Controversy came up after Ofunneka (a woman) was sexually assaulted by Richard when all the housemates were drunk. The producers of the show deny this, stating it was with Ofunneka’s consent, but fellow housemate Maureen screamed for Big Brother’s help after she tried to get Richard off Ofunneka. Richard was taken into the diary room while paramedics came in to help the girls. No further comment has been made about the issue, especially as Ofunneka had passed out and remembered nothing of what happened. (In the Australian version of the show, the male housemate who sexually assaulted a female housemate was evicted).

Newly-wed Richard carried out an affair with Angolan housemate Tatiana during their stay in the house. This angered Richard’s Canadian wife, who threatened him with divorce. Another housemate, Malawian radio DJ Code, managed to seduce all his female housemates (!!!!!)  Unknown to him, his Dutch girlfriend was pregnant with his child, and she surprised him by showing up at his eviction. Richard and Code were eventually forgiven by their respective partners (!!!!).

Season 2 of Big Brother Africa caused a lot of controversy as the producers could not deal with a lot of issues that came up in the house, including bullying by South African Lerato Sengadi. Indecent sexual acts by Namibian housemate Meryl and Ghanian Kweku were another talking point. There was also a spat of violence when Kenyan housemate Jeff Anthony hit Ofunneka in the face.

The show was criticized for not showing any positive values to young people all over the continent.

And then Big Brother 3 started with Ricco’s trademark naked showers…

…and more Australian pop

Rose Chong is Melbourne’s best costume hire shop. Every year they have  a huge sale and sell off old stock; I bought an Arabian-style shirt there one year made of paper. Its an Aladdin’s Cave packed to the rafters with Centurion outfits, spacesuits, 1920s flapper dresses and Napoleon wigs.

And they do amazing window displays. Currently their windows are a tribute to the wedding of (awful) Australian pop star with Peter Andre and (even more awful) UK “glamor model” Jordan. They have pasted up a magazine story on the couple, highlighted the most obnoxious quotes and then dressed up a couple of gorillas in the same clothes they are wearing in the pictures! Genius.

Peter in white suit

..and Jordan

I miss Japan sometimes…

Starfish hitler 01 (Kamen Rider X)

Just discovered this via Pinktentacle; a 1974 episode of the iconic kids show “Kamen Rider” . Our masked hero battles the arch-villain “Starfish Hitler”!

Pricks and stingers

Two of the highlights of Vietnamese New year for me were the display of pirated DVDs on offer on the crowded, hot pavements (just like the real Vietnam!),and the bizarre sight of foolhardy people getting real tattoos in the middle of the hustle and bustle, right on the street.

There is a security guard right behind the tattooist to stop anyone trying to elbow him out of the way, thereby permanently fucking up that chick’s ass antlers.

Transsexual celebrity beaten almost to death; media disinterested

I recently came across a shocking piece of news. The famous transgender TV star “Miriam” was brutally attacked and almost killed in 2007. Mexican-born Miriam starred in the British reality show “Theres something about Miriam” in which a group of heterosexual men competed to “win” the beauty’s attentions, unaware that she had been born a man. When the twist was revealed, several of the men tried to sue the production company for “defaming” them , as they had been broadcast saying they found her(“him”)  sexually attractive.

She then went on to be a guest star in one season of Australia’s “Big Brother”.

Strange then, in  these-celebrity hungry times, that when she was beaten with  a hammer, had both arms broken and was thrown out of a 4th storey window in Feb 2007, the media barely reported it. This, in a day and age where Britney Spears sister having a child is front page material.

Its hard to see this as anything else but the media’s continued silence (and tacit collusion?) in anti-gay hate crime. One of my friend’s boyfriends once wrote a book about it, filled with startling examples like guys who were beaten to death with spanners or literally beheaded in homophobic attacks, which then didn’t even make evening news. Then some straight person steps on a nail and its “hold the front page”. The crimes, often startling in their level of unnecessary violence, are  under-reported not only to the police, but in the newspapers too.

More to the point, why have  gay newspapers and magazines virtually ignored the story? Trans-phobia? If she was a famous(ish) gay man, it would have been “Miriam is our Martin Luther King” on the cover of the Advocate.

A poster on one one blog I saw commented that he had read an article on Miriam that spent all of two sentences on the attack, in a 2 page spread concentrating on the “controversy”.

Poor Miriam survived, but has apparently been suicidal ever since.

This is it

For someone who knows who they are!
The ultimate in 80s kitsch – Dannii Minogue (Kylie’s sister) in one of her cringe-worthy moments. Fun fact: Her ex-husband Julian McMahon (who later starred in “Charmed” and “Nip ‘n’ Tuck” and appears prominently in this) is the son of a former Australian Prime Minister.

Intro Jap Cat’s Eyes 2eme saison

80s cartoon Battle of the Planets G-Force

Kimba

“Kimba the White Lion” was a big hit in Oz when I was very young. Many fans claim Disney ripped it off shamelessly for “the Lion King”.

Australian TV commercial

Dunlop Volleys ad

Its in Khmer. I love the bit where he is riding on the cows!

Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit!

Franco Cozzo original ad