2004-11-09 - 8:34 a.m.

First of all, a warm welcome to Funwithears. Honey, first of all, the black diary is fierce. Second, if you love bitching about any and all aspects of the gay community, you have come to the right place. Trust.

Second, many thanks to Newgyptian, Narami, St. Caroline, and GreatSirG for their vote of confidence in The Notorious MOM. You are not the first to ask her to run for public office, and you won't be the last. Unfortunately for mankind, my mother decided long ago never to run for public office, as she didn't want to have any part of her life or her family dragged through the mud, which is something that every politician has to face sooner or later. So, we must be content that she has her high-falutin' position, and I hope that she gets to use it to get out the vote next time.

Now, on with the show. The following entry has been a long time coming, in that it is going to deal, at least partially, with Labyrinth. Now, Labyrinth has been a favorite film for many years, and it was one that my peeps and I watched many, many times in college. It has a special significance relating to this diary, though, in that the first ever entry of Ladeeleroy's that I read was her entry on the puberty catalyzing properties of David Bowie in this film. If you watch closely, you will note that there is almost always a tight spotlight on his crotch in any shot that includes his entire body. Coincedence? I think not.

However, I am not here to talk about David Bowie. I am not even here to talk about Jim Henson, miracle man and gift from the Goddess that he was (let's all take a brief moment to smile silently to ourselves at our favorite most sensational, muppetational memories). I am here to talk about Jennifer Connelly.

Because, let's face it, she is the most beautiful woman on the planet. She could stand to eat something, because back in the day before the waif look became big she had PERFECT breasts, but she is nevertheless phenomenally stunning. Those eyes are an impossible shade of green. You could probably spot them a mile off. "There, in the distance: are those two flawless emeralds sparkling with the light of the morning star as the sun caresses them on the first day of spring, or is that Jennifer Connelly? I can't even tell. Oooh, wait, their light is fading. Is the sun passing, or does she just have something behind her contact?" Those eyes are set in skin that falls somewhere between "creamy" and "ivory," although I am sure that Jennifer Connelly would never be cruel to an elephant in order to maintain her skin tone. She has that long dark hair that is just screaming to be described as "cascading," like, "Hey, bi-hatch, you know I'm cascading like a muthafucka over here, why you gotta pull that "flowing" bullshit on me, you wanna go? You wanna go? Bring it on!Freal!" Top it all off with wonderfully bushy eyebrows adding a frisson of wildness to her otherwise pristine looks and you get the most gorgeous woman on the plant, bar none. Don't get me wrong: I love me some Isabelle Adjani and Halle Berry and Uma Thurman and Indira Varma and Gong Li and so many others, but Jennifer Connelly takes the cake, the taco, and any and all portable food products that are available.

It all started back with Labyrinth and that scene where Sarah, Jennifer Connelly's character, takes a bite of that peach and suddenly finds herself in the middle of what would remain the most FUBAR masquerade ball ever filmed until Eyes Wide Shut came along, dressed in a silver and white gown with big puffy sleeves and a big puffy skirt and, biggest and puffiest of all, big puffy 80s hair. Waiting for her was David Bowie, all ready to get up in her 14 year old business because he's David Bowie and that's how he rolls. At the tender age of 6, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I could totally understand why any Goblin King would be willing to kidnap a HELLA ugly baby and put up with its crying ass just to get a shot at Jennifer Connelly, even if it did mean she had to have an entire can of AquaNet poured onto her head.

In retrospect, of course, I can see the attraction of the Goblin King as well. I often find myself alone on stormy nights, saying to no one in particular "I wish thw Goblins would take me away right now and take me to the castle so their King can shag me senseless" but nothing happens, and I pour myself a glass of juice and go to bed.

However, between Labyrinth and puberty came Career Opportunities. In this movie, Frank Whalley is a pathological liar who works as a janitor in a Target. Jennifer Connelly is the prettiest, richest girl in town and miserable at home, so she runs away to the local Target. In one night, they fall in love and foil two Target robbers, one of whom is played by Dermot Mulroney in what might be his weirdest, greasiest role ever, and that's saying a whole lot. In case you couldn't tell before, this movie makes no sense. However, Jennifer Connelly is at her most ludicrously beautiful in this movie. As I said, this was before the waif look was in, and Jennifer spends the entire movie in black jeans and a white tank top. You know, she has a little bit of arm fat, and looks better then than she did a few years later when she didn't have any fat. And her breasts were PERFECT. Sometimes I think that I'm gay because no woman will ever match the beauty of Jennifer Connelly in that movie.

Of course, I've seen Orlando Bloom in many movies and will still shag pretty much any guy that holds my interest for an hour or two, so maybe there's not a lot to that theory.

I kept following Jennifer Connelly's career, which was a challenge because for many years she was not in ANY movies worth seeing. I mean NOT ONE. Then Liv Tyler came along and suddenly there was another pale brunette actress with light eyes and I just assumed that I would never see Jennifer Connelly again. I wasn't terribly upset, either, because, as I put it, I had yet to see her act. It wasn't so much that I thought she was a bad actress as that I'd never seen her do anything that really stretched her.

Then came Requiem for a Dream and A Beautiful Mind. Now, I know there are many fans of the former and many fans of the latter. I also know that these two groups don't tend to overlap that much. Well, here's the truth: I don't like either of those movies. I saw each one once and don't care to see them ever again. I WILL say, though, that both are cases of movies that I didn't like that are full of AMAZING performances. I remember how pissed off I was that Julia Roberts had won the Oscar over Ellen Burstyn that year, because she was absolutely amazing in Requiem, as was Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans (I KNOW! Marlon Wayans was actually GREAT in a movie), and, of course, Jennifer Connelly. Likewise, A Beautiful Mind made me physically ill (I actually think it was the popcorn--I only started being able to eat movie popcorn last month after the long night in the bathroom after A Beautiful Mind). I think it took what could have been an interesting, complex story and made it saccharine and simplistic, but I also think that both Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly were brilliant.

The problem is, though, that Jennifer Connelly was no longer my special crush. In many ways I pride myself on obscure celebrity crushes. A lot of people don't know who Isabelle Adjani is in the US (she is one of the most respected actresses in France, has won the Cesar for Best Actress four times, and has twice been nominated for Best Actress Oscars), or, for that matter, Gong Li and Indira Varma. Likewise, few people instantly recognize Vincent Perez (who, in addition to being French and stunning, is hung like a gorilla) or Nathan Bexton and Johnny Whitworth (they are neither of them good actors, and neither has been in a movie in a good couple of years, but their faces in Nowhere and Empire Records, respectively, still have a place in my heart). There was even a time when Russell Crowe was this random Australian actor whom I had seen mostly in Australian films. The cool thing was that I got to have the crush to myself. I hate competing for such things, even in entirely hypothetical situations.

Now, Jennifer Connelly was common property. She was being lauded by various magazines as a phenomenal young actress and a stunning beauty. Sure, I could now talk about her with more people, but plenty of people now suddenly had opinions on her, particularly on how she behaved when she won the Oscar (for the record, her boyfriend, the father of her first child, broke up with her the night before, so I think she should be forgiven even if she had said "Fuck you all!" and walked off). It got old. I didn't even see The House of Sand and Fog.

However, on Sunday night, Jennifer Connelly was on Inside the Actor's Studio. And she? Was Awesome. I know Inside the Actor's Studio has been going downhill fast (the only truly great actor they've had on this season was William H. Macy--Jennifer has had great moment, but is yet to be great). They actually had Jennifer Lopez on this year, and if that isn't scraping the bottom of the barrel, I don't know what is. But Jennifer managed to perfectly combine taking things seriously and taking things with a grain of salt. She never pulled any pretentious actor moves, but she didn't do the Robin Williams thing and turn everything into a joke. The best was when she got to The Questionnaire.

Here's the deal: everyone who has ever watched the show and had any artistic aspirations wants to answer The Questionnaire. Don't believe their lies when they say they never think about it. No matter how stupid anyone thinks it is, they want to answer it. I can look at people's eyes when they talk about this and say to myself, "This dude already has his answers picked out."

Jennifer Connelly was great during that section. Her favorite word was "duck." Her least favorite word was "giblets" because she hates giblets, and the job she would least want to try would be the person who pulls the giblets out of the chicken, puts them in a bag, and then puts them back in. After a long pause after being asked about turn-ons, she said, "Oh! My husband!" The best moment came, though, when James Lipton asked, "What turns you off?"

Jennifer Connely responds, "I'm going to get myself in trouble . . . I don't know, maybe starts with 'George,' ends with 'Bush.'"

George Bush turns off Jennifer Connelly. That has to be an act of terrorism, right there.

This entry goes out to Ladeeleroy, for that Labyrinth entry, and also to Kidrin, because for the longest time she reminded me of Jennifer Connelly, and I wondered if it was just a long-dark-hair-light-eyes-pale-skin-gorgeous-thing. Actually, after watching that interview, I realized that they are actually soul sisters. However, I think I'm happy that, of the two of them, I know Kidrin. It will be a few years before she's famous enough for any crushes to be public domain.

ADDENDUM: For all y'all who might be mopin' and cryin' about red states and blue states, all y'all who might look at the electoral map and think about splitting the country in two or three or whatever, go here:

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/election/

It will show you better ways of looking at the breakdown of the country that will remind people that, among other things, there are millions of Democrats in the red states and Republicans in the blue states. Check out Travis County (where Austin is) and the Rio Grande Valley (where Notorious MOM is) and see that it's not just bluebonnets that make parts of Texas blue.

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