Post #407

What makes Post #407 so special? This is the post where we say:

**Happy Birthday, Official Corporate Site of Mean & Catty, Inc!**

One year ago today, MeiMei boldly blogged where no M&C staff had blogged before. Sure, we'd snarked off-line (and out of hearing range of most of our subjects) for a good three years prior to that, but it took the valiant efforts of the Vice President to get us this bold and public exposure. (Oh, and to force me to finally choose a screen name. If MeiMei is good at nothing else, she is good at the peer pressure -- but for my own good, my own good, I tell you!)

So, on this anniversary, I'd like to take a moment to remember our first year of ire:

* We've always been a couple of steps past neutral about the TomKat. You may have noticed. (The unscientific count is approximately twelve outraged posts per week.)

* Jake Gyllenhaal has always been my bedrock. (Bed-something, anyway.) I will admit to the occasional spat, and maybe my eyes lingered a little too long elsewhere, once in a while. But what we have is true, baby, and don't you forget it!

* Once the coincidences were tallied, it became clear this year that Daniel Dae Kim and MeiMei are but one soul in two bodies. And, thanks to less gracious, not-to-be-named, (but-nevertheless-to-be-linked-to) boyfriends, she really needed Daniel's generous shoulder to cry on. Seriously, that was totally why she was trying to make it past a certain network's security to be with him. No other reason.

* The catfight over Topher is still in arbitration.

* Turns out Gilmore Girls has been ticking us off for a long, long time. Yet, some of us remain strangely optimistic.

* Occasionally, it was okay to go off-topic.

* And, sometimes, absence made the heart grow fonder, while we pretended to have off-line lives. (Good times!)

* Meanwhile, science itself endorsed the M&C mission. Science was heard to comment, "Well, I've fallen into such disrepute anyway -- I thought, what do I have left to lose?"

* We even had to say good-bye this year to some dear friends. (You know, other than our pals, "hope" and "innocence.")

And, through it all, readers, you kept on showing up to join in on the rage and the cynicism. Is it possible there's eight or ten of you now?

From the bottom of our cynical little raisin-hearts, we thank you.

Happy, sad, happy, sad

The partially-plagiarized Opal Mehta is being pulled from shelves by its publisher.

Megan McCafferty, author of the works that were plagiarized, issued this fairly classy statement:

The past few weeks have been very difficult, and I am most grateful to my readers for offering continual support. . . . In my career, I am, first and foremost, a writer. So I look forward to getting back to work and moving on, and hope Ms. Viswanathan can too.

Pulling the book is the only appropriate thing to do, but there are also interesting questions being raised about what hand the book packager, Alloy Entertainment, may have had in the "internalized" passages.

And the paper that broke the story reflects on the public reaction.

You're freakin' kidding me with this

Due to lack of funds from donating countries, the United Nations is being forced to cut food aid to Darfur.

I'm putting this here, not only because Go Fug Yourself's new intern, George, is on the job on this particular issue, which gives this a slim celebrity connection, but because (thanks to Tea, I believe) M&C has a wider readership than other places where I shoot off at the mouth.

You have got to be freakin' kidding me with this.

Start here for ways to help -- it's the equivalent of sending Mr. Clooney a love letter, and really, who can't get behind that?

Haunted, eh?

Katie Holmes is haunted
Some say it's the former occupants of her rented Beverly Hills home. I say it's the ghost of her former life, wondering why she sold her soul.

Ringing out the TV season

Yahoo! News offers a handy recap of the closing ceremonies of this year's TV season.

Of note to certain M&C readers:

Gilmore Girls finale, May 9 -- This episode "marks the end of the road for executive producers Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino, and just maybe the end of the road for the Gilmore girls' respective romances, too. " What, what, what? But the preview -- it implied that Rory was -- and Lorelei and Luke were -- are you telling me that WB promos lie? Inconceivable!

Prison Break finale, May 15 -- Which means I can finally catch up on the reruns. My bad for missing the second half of the season!

Alias finale, May 22 -- I'll let MeiMei write the memorial on this one.

Still in the Should I Stay or Should I Go? category:

One Tree Hill. The article asks, "Will Chad Michael Murray be able to continue to marry his costars or will the heartthrob be forced to meet women at pottery class like a mere mortal? The answer depends on whether this three-year-old teen soap hooks the CW. "

More importantly will Pari have to find a new trashy show to watch while she's home sick on a Wednesday night? May I recommend What About Brian? (Hint: It already stars a WB refugee. Just as good, no?)

Stop the presses!

Tom ditches a press conference! To shop. But for his daughter! For his daughter.

As he stuffed layette after layette into a bag, Tom said through gritted teeth, "See! I . . . love . . . my . . . daughter. I love her! And she's mine! My daughter! I'm buying her these clothes! I . . . I . . .What does a guy have to do to get his credibility back?"

And then weeping was heard.

If not for yourself, Howie -- for MeiMei

I know what you're thinking -- you're thinking the life of a celebrity's Imaginary Girlfriend is all Kristal and bling. You think it's glamorous pretend-going to the Oscars, pretend-vacationing in the south of France, pretend-shopping for the perfect purse dog. But have you thought -- have you?!? -- about the pretend-standing by him while he for-real ricochets from mug shot to mug shot? the pretend-interventions that he ignores? the pretend-arguments when you see him on Entertainment Tonight with one arm around Lindsey Lohan, the other around Colin Ferrell?

And that's the hell that MeiMei's living through, right now, with one of her Musical Boyfriends, Howie Day. Who just got probation for mixing drinks with prescription drugs and mixing it up with a flight crew.

Howie! Clean yourself up! Can't you see what you're putting her through?

Because sometimes, it's more than just the girl jeans that needs the reprimand

Go Fug Yourself takes on the wacky behavior of Scientology's brightest light (not you, Travolta) during the Rome press conference for Mission Impossible.

Body Language

I guess Brad and Angelina communicate in other ways seeing as they don't talk about their relationship

Don't get me wrong: I'm not Team Jolie or Team Aniston. I like them both. It's Brad that I have an issue with, but that's for another post. But after I read the above article, I couldn't help snort. I mean, c'mon...they don't discuss their relationship or their family? Pretty soon, we may hear Angelina ask, "How the hell did we get pregnant?" but I guess you don't need words to figure that one out.

Will the madness ever end?!

Britney Spears preggers AGAIN?!

I could say a bunch of crass things like boy, is that Kevin packin' or Britney sure is fertile Mrytle or I guess she thought since she still had the baby weight, why not have another child or Sean is such a cute accessory, let's have another or that Kev really needs to keep his pants on.

Seriously, people. Do we really need another K-Fed spawn?

Seriously. :)

For those of you who missed it yesterday

Here's another press conference in Europe to inform you that Tom really, really wants to be with Kate and Suri. Really. Racing right back to be with them.

Also, check out the cultural sensitivity: "I'm excellent at changing nappies. I love it."

Later, he was heard to say, "Say, bobby, where's the lift? Trainers. Jumper. Bonnet. Taaah-co. Maaaah-cho. Gar'age. Cuppa tea, love? Next time I'm in town, I'll knock you up."

Upon hearing this, back in the States, Katie Holmes was said to have paled visibly and, once again, "encouraged him to continue working."

Mission Impossible: Stop Baffling Us

Tom Cruise says his "mission impossible" is to leave his wife and child right now. Only he flew to a different continent to announce it at a press conference.

And when he says, "I changed her first," it's not because he's competitive with his wife at all ("Get out of the way, Kate! I mean it! You're in my light!) or because he's trying to convince us that this fatherhood thing is real, I tell you, real.

And when he says, "I change diapers all the time. I have to tell you I love it," am I the only one who gets the sense that this avocation pre-dated the child?

And I'm sure that Defamer is already all over this, but I'll just say it anyway: I'm sure he personally changes all those diapers. Personally.

Next on Oprah and not in a good way

Does this mean I have to disassemble the voodoo doll -- or does this mean that the voodoo worked?

Kaavya Viswanathan, Harvard sophomore, celebrated first novelist, is accused (gulp, pretty justly it appears) of plagiarism, thanks to the investigative efforts of her own school newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. Follow the link for a bit of side-by-side prose comparison.

Apparently, all that envy-slash-hatred we've all been pretending not to feel over her success? Her fellow students have been feeling it more. Note to self: Do not make Harvard undergraduates mad at me.

Better than fiction?

Amy Sherman-Pallandino couldn't have written this better herself.

(Please scroll down for the nice blurb on Rosenthal)

David Rosenthal to helm Gilmore Girls next season

Now this begs the question: did ASP know this yahoo was going to take over or did she intentionally set it up this way? Hm...I guess we'll never know.

As an effort to be optimistic, I tell myself that maybe David Rosenthal is crazy enough to help this once beloved series to stop hating itself (and for us to stop hating it, too).

By popular demand

I'd like to thank our faithful readers for their attentiveness to the significance of the naming of the TomKitten during this dark time. (I'll be neither the first nor the last to whisper the word starting with an "A" and ending with a reign of fire on earth.)

For me personally, the dark time was announced by a head cold so disastrously dire that I lay in my feverish state and thought -- Mumps? Hantavirus? Voodoo magic? Or, shudder, Thetans? When really I should just have seen it as a cunning ruse to distract at a time when M&C commentary was most needed: when the warriors of light and dark were born, on either end of the same floor of the same hospital, and all signs and portents would need to be elucidated to see how the battle between Suri, daughter of Cruise, and Grier, daughter of Shields, would rage.

Oh, and also, MeiMei and I made the mistake of having this conversation off-line, and I recreate it for you (with MeiMei's permission) here:

MeiMei: So. Suri.

Seren: Well, first off, so does not mean princess in Hebrew. An entire nation of Israelis is going, "Huh?" There is something -- stolen about it. Like, you know they're all cooing about how exotic it is. Oh, look, the baby sweats the scent of jasmine. And you know what's worse? I'm going to have to go read all L. Ron Hubbard's fiction now, because you know Suri's got to be some half-dressed herione somewhere in his oevre.

MeiMei: You know what it makes me think of. I can't help it.

Seren: What?

MeiMei: You know that song from Oklahoma?

Seren: Surrey with the Fringe on Top? Oh, that's awesome.

MeiMei: Yeah, they named their daughter after a buggy.

Son of a . . .

Isn't it great how Gilmore Girls has improved in the past few episodes? I mean, it took that dip in quality that I know we all assigned to the Palladinos getting that shot at a sitcom, but now that the CW merger has put an end to those hopes, they've acted like grownups and embraced once more the series that wooed us all, resulting in a revival that will surely carry over into next --

LIES! LIES! ALL DASTARDLY LIES!

Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel are taking their toys and going home.

Gilmore Girls to continue under Dave Rosenthal. Which -- who?!?

I should never have tried to forgive how they've turned Luke into the romantic equivalent of coal in your stocking, and Rory into, well, whiny pudding, if that's possible, and forced Lauren Graham to act week after week in her own private vacuum of charm and nuance. I should never have chanted over and over: It's worth it for Kirk. It's worth it for Michel. It's worth it for Mrs. Kim.

They were just taunting me with strangely decent episodes in this last part of the season. All the compromises I made in my heart -- all for nought!

She wasn't faking it after all?

Behold, the basketball has been born! Tom and Katie have a baby girl.

In a smug, self-righteous interview, Cruise told Diane Sawyer his priorities were "the baby, the movie, then marriage." That statement, while revealing and crazy on many levels, was probably the sanest one he made during the interview.
God help Katie Holmes.

Oh, snap!

How have I been in ignorance of this LA Times feature? A focus group of a pastor, a rapper, a teenager, a pre-teen, and a mom responds to the marketing of this week's releases.

The highlight: GLC (the rapper) snarks, regarding this week's animated flick The Wild:

Hmm…so this is like a mark-ass "Lion King"? Oh man, I'm not sure if I want to see the mark-ass "Lion King." I haven't seen a mark-ass lion since the "Wiz. "

Priceless.

And breathe. And breathe.

I'll let you imagine the moment of sheer panic when I saw this headline: Gyllenhaal, Sarsgaard Engaged.

While a roar filled my ears and the moon rose blood red and the earth reversed on its axis and wild dogs brayed, I frantically fingered through the Rolodex of Insignificant Starlets in my mind to see if I could remember which coke-snorting anorexic had the last name Sarsgaard who could possibly be marrying MY Jake.

Am I, I whispered, being Minnie-Drivered here?

But then the fog cleared. There is no starlet named Saarsgard, not unless Peter's been dressing up on the weekends, which, if he has, more power to him and could he or could he not knock it out of the park as the next Bond girl?

Jake's sister, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and actor Peter Sarsgaard are engaged. Everybody go, Awwww, now, and wish them the serious luck, because nobody wants to see them on the next Fox special When Actors Marry.

Also, I'd just like to put in a personal request that she please hyphenate, because -- Gyllenhaal-Sarsgaard. And now keep a straight face.

Okay, everybody, go back to hating him now

Michael Douglas takes back the only sensible things he's ever said. (See earlier Apocalypse Alert! for backstory.)

Apparently, Mr. Douglas has apologized to "good friends" Brangelina. Wait, I'm sorry -- do you have to apologize for being misquoted?

Regarding the quotes, Andy Ward, executive editor of GQ, from whence the quotes originally came, says:

We stand behind them 100 percent. For him to suggest we made them up is laughable. Still, we like the guy and hope all this attention will help his movie.

Now that, my friends, is some seriously professional insinuation of ulterior motives. Study its grace and artlessness, how it employs a casual tone and faux sincerity.

As a gourmet of the fine retort, I say, Four out of five scalpels, Mr. Ward. No, four and a half. Well-played.

An M&C Theatre Moment: Brought to You by Bitterness

Forgive us while we take a break from our regularly scheduled celebrity bashing to give you a taste of real-world snark. What you need to know: The subject of the conversation is currently working, as they say, for the Man.

MeiMei: [This person's] new car is very cute. It has [racing stripes] and everything.

Seren: Wow, that's great. I am so glad to hear he's getting a good price on his soul.

(Milk comes out of MeiMei's nose.)

And scene.

*Names have been changed to protect, um, us.

And yet, still not the worst of the Hollywood names

The Paltrow-Martins name their latest offspring: Moses.

There is definitely a Huh? factor, but overall, it could have been worse for the poor boy. And, though you know it pains me to say this, Apple really wasn't that bad either.

Did I just say that? Clearly, I am off my game this morning.

Should we trust the WGA?

Okay, so the Writers Guild of America has voted Casablanca as the greatest screenplay of all time. I admit it's a good movie, but how good can it be if I fell asleep before Bogart utters his famous line, "Play it again, Sam" (I've heard rumors that he doesn't really say that, but I wouldn't know since I fell asleep) and how can we truly trust the WGA's opinion when they didn't award my show best daytime serial?

Me, bitter? Never!

More crazy talk

More sound bites from our favorite crazy midget freak:

I didn't understand what normal is. It still doesn't make sense

Marriage or house arrest? You decide.

Tom says, about TomKat's future: "I won't let this woman get away."

He did not just say that. He did not just say that.

All good things must come to an end

I really can't get mean and catty about this because I genuinely feel bad for Matt LeBlanc. He gets married, has a kid, and signs onto his own TV show. Now it's all unraveling: divorce, his daughter has neurological problems and I'm pretty sure his show is getting canceled. As my husband said (without a trace of mockery) "I guess LeBlanc's deal with the devil has been rescinded." No kidding.

New Headline: Joey moves into Monica and Chandler's house