500 Words

Come to think of it, Hannah Montana is a great stripper name

You can try to justify her performance at the Teen Choice Awards all you want, but Miley Cyrus’ pole dance during Monday night’s ceremony was unacceptable. Sex sells. And societal mores have loosened quickly over the past decade. The stigma that was once attached to pole dancing has lessened dramatically. Health clubs offer pole dancing classes. Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry. Many strip clubs have a higher cover charge than high-end dance clubs do.

And I wouldn’t have a problem with her performance if not for a few major issues:

1. Miley Cyrus is 16 years old. If you’re 18 or older and getting aroused by her performance – and considering that she has a 53-year-old stalker who was recently arrested, there are plenty in that demographic who are – you’re a pedophile. In the United States, it’s illegal to be a stripper if you’re under 18. But Cyrus’ performance ostensibly makes it acceptable. Hopefully, the next time a club owner gets caught for using underage dancers, his lawyer is smart enough to whip out this tape to bolster his client’s defense.

2. Cyrus and her family are enormous hypocrites. (As if you didn’t know this when she was dating a 20-year-old with their approval; I’m certain it was a completely chaste relationship.) About a year ago, they made just short of a federal case out of photographs that Cyrus took for Vanity Fair with legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz. The family and her handlers cried that Cyrus was exploited and that they did not know that Leibovitz had taken “topless” shots of Cyrus – even though her father was on the set; “topless” shots that were about as titillating as a root canal. That was wrong. Wrong they said. But being an underage stripper is okay. Her parents don’t just belong in the Hypocrites Hall of Fame. They deserve their own wing.

Chris Rock once said:

"Sometimes I am walking with my daughter, I'm talking to my daughter, I'm looking at her, I'm pushing her in the stroller. And sometimes I pick her up and I just stare at her and I realize my only job in life is to keep her off the pole. Keep my baby off the pole! I mean they don't grade fathers but if your daughter is a stripper you f—ked up.”

When you hear about the Cyrus clan, the stories always mention how religious and god-fearing they are. Miley Cyrus has been quoted in USA Today that her faith is “the main thing.” There are the Cyrus’ – usually photographed dressed like homeless hillbillies – going to church. Clearly, they missed the sermon about asking themselves, “What Would Jesus Do?”

Now, I’m not a deeply religious person, but I don’t remember the Bible passage in which God encouraged pole dancing. (I’d probably be a more avid reader of the Bible if that was the case.) But if Miley’s church encourages pole dancing, save me a front row pew for the next 500 Sundays.

3. It’s expected that a 16-year-old girl, hormones raging, will act out; however, when you’ve cultivated your career as an innocent, Disney performer, are getting paid millions to foment that image, and, whether you like it or not, are a role model to a generation of young girls, pole dancing is not acceptable. How would you like to be the parent of a 13-year-old who says to their mother that she wants her parents to install a pole in her bedroom so that she can dance like Miley did on the awards show?

Let’s make it clear. I’m no prude. I’ve visited strip clubs and have had lapdances, but never in any of those clubs were the dancers 16 years old. I’m not disparaging the women who choose to dance. There’s great money in it for many of them. But they’re adults. And when you go to a strip club, you don’t see 13-year-old girls in the club idolizing the dancers.

To paraphrase Britney Spears, another pop tart who took full advantage of using underage sex to sell millions of records, Miley Cyrus is not a girl, but not yet a woman. Both touted their purity (though we’ve learned in Spears’ case that that was a lie also) while using sex to sell records. The difference between the two is that Cyrus is still a Disney employee (while Spears was not by the time she released her debut; admittedly a tenuous distinction.)

Regardless, it wasn’t right then and it certainly is not right now. Cyrus stepped it up a notch and in the process, became more of a joke than she already was. Miley Cyrus should be ashamed of her behavior. Then again, considering who raised her, you can’t be surprised.

People Who Need to Leave Now: Sandra Lee

I was awakened yesterday morning by about 30 pounds of art that crashed down on my head. So, for the past few days, I've been a little punchy and I've been thinking about people who piss me off. I'm speaking specifically of people in the public consciousness who do not deserve to remain in said consciousness any longer. People whose very existence diminishes the human race.

Regular readers of this column will think that they can predict the first choice, and because they are probably correct, I'll just give a passing mention to the government cabal currently running this nation as if its sole purpose is to behave like a cash machine that lines their pockets and those of their friends and business associates.

Instead, over the next few weeks, we'll focus on some of the C-list (and lower) "celebrities" infecting this planet.

The first person on the list is Sandra Lee. For those unfamiliar with this Food Network tramp, her expertise (and I use that term in its loosest sense) is "semi-homemade cooking" (otherwise known as semi-retarded cooking.) Lee is a patronizing bimbo who married richand somehow ended up with a semi-retarded cooking empire. On a network where her colleagues create incredible concoctions, a typical Sandra Lee "amazing" recipe follows.

Petits Fours: Take a store-bought cheesecake. Pour a jar of strawberry jam on top. Use a cookie cutter to slice it into small pieces. Take a tub of Cool Whip. Put a little into a large sandwich bag. Throw the rest of the tub into the sink. Cut a corner of the bag to turn it into a pastry bag. Squeeze some Cool Whip onto the cake. Throw the rest of the bag away.  Mention repeatedly how wonderful the petits fours are, using a different superlative each time. Pretend to sample your finished product by taking a small bite, making a face, and putting the rest of the plate of finished food in the sink. When camera turns off, spit food out.

Lee "cooks" while wearing the most impractical clothes -- usually white, sheer tops that showcase her breasts -- and her cooking technique (again, I hate to use words like "technique" because that only imparts a bit of legitimacy into what she is doing) can be likened to the late Phil Hartman's Anal-Retentive Chef from Saturday Night Live. Her hands never get dirty because she doesn't touch anything. In recipes where anyone with a modicum of cooking knowledge realizes that you need to use your hands to combine the ingredients, she uses some utensil to do the job more ineffectively.

When one watches Lee cook, it becomes difficult to believe that her rich husband doesn't have a cadre of chefs to prepare his food. In fact, Lee's show should be called cooking for the rich and drunk. Lee's skills are so limited that she purchases egg whites that are pre-separated from their yolks because she clearly doesn’t have the skill to separate whites from yolks (though she attempted it on a recent show in which she appeared to succeed thanks to some creative editing.)

Sandra is painfully stupid. On a recent episode, she attempted to soften ice cream by putting it in the microwave for 20 seconds. Unfortunately for the ice cream, Lee set the microwave for two minutes. The good news is that her recipe was still “amazing.”

One place where Sandra is passionate about her cooking is during what is usually the final segment of the show: Drinky, drinky time. Lee takes great care in pouring as much alcohol as possible into any drink she makes and it is clear that the reason Lee is so passionate about semi-retarded cooking is that any time she saves is spent drinking herself into a stupor. It's probably her way of coping with the fact that her soon-to-be-ex-husband -- the one who provided her enough money to rent vacation homes in Whistler and wear designer clothes – is working very closely with Martha Stewart (who is, amazingly, a rung lower than Lee on the scale of unctuousness.)

Lee's other focus is her tablescape. This is the word she uses to describe the ridiculous amount of time she spends making the table. She loves reminding everyone how everything is wonderful and it’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen. Though her show would rank very high on Bill Simmons' Unintentional Comedy Ratings (if someone had ever bothered to email Simmons), and has spawned a number of drinking games, one does not believe that this is sufficient reason to keep it on the air. The Food Network is diluting its product and ruining its credibility by keeping this worthless dolt on the air. 

It seems appropriate to close this piece with a look at Lee’s closing statement that is present at the conclusion of every show. She always implores people to “always keep it semi-homemade.” Why? Shouldn’t people aspire to meals that are edible? I realize that many people watch Semi-Retarded Cooking to get a laugh, but ratings are ratings. Lee doesn’t know that we’re hating at her and not with her. Accordingly, I implore those who watch her show to resist temptation and just turn the television off.

Until next time…