Larry Craig & The Girls: Does this look gay to you?

Look at the face of this man. Is this the face of a gay?

Of course not.

It’s really sad to see the career of another decent and talented Republican crumble under the weight of an obvious political witch-hunt, with his good name dragged through the mud.

Yes, we are talking about Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho.

The Senator, as you probably know by now, was recently arrested in the Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport for “disorderly conduct”, which, by the way, doesn’t sound like a real legal term to me.

An undercover police accused the Senator of making sexual advances to him in the men’s bathroom of the terminal. He was, says the officer, waving from the adjoining stall and tapping his foot, which apparently is what some people do in airport bathrooms when they are looking to do the nasty.

Nonsense.

I’ve tapped my foot in countless airports, bus stations and public bathrooms, but that doesn't make me George Michael. For us Christians, foot tapping is not a sign of the works of the devil, but of the permanent state of happiness we feel in our conviction that the Lord is everywhere, even the stalls at Minneapolis- St. Paul International.

Call us happy feet. But please don’t call us gay.

Anyone who has ever met senator Craig will tell you the same. This is a God loving man who has always defended his strong principles in Congress. He’s a warrior for family values, the pro-life movement,, the National Rifle Association, our troops in Irak and President Bush.

And he is not anti-gay, because he understands, like we all do in the party, that even immoral, dangerous perverts can be saved through chastity, prayers, corporal mortification and isolation.

We are all sheep of the Shepherd.

Senator Craig’s heart is so open, so generous, that he had agreed to help in the presidential campaign of Mittt Romney, who is a Mormon- Is that the word I’m looking for? - And he has voted repeatedly against the “Hate Crimes” policy promoted by faithless Democrats.
A real Republican would never vote for a policy that carries the word “hate” on it. It’s not in our nature.

The battle has been long and hard for Senator Craig.
Already in the 80’s there were rumors about him, but he always faced them with a chin up and a crystal clear conscience.

He has been saying the same for years.

No, he’s not a homosexual.
No, he doesn’t snort cocaine.
No, he doesn’t’ flirt with male interns at Capitol Hill.
No, he doesn’t’ watch reruns of “The Golden Girls” neither has a photo of Zac Efron in a swimsuit hidden in the drawer of his office .
And no, he does not look for illicit sex on public places!

Does he enjoy disco dancing every now and then? Hell yes!. Is he interested in greek esculpture, gladiators movies and college wrestling? Yes, yes, yes. Aren't we all?

Can he be more clear in his defense?

The answer is YES again. This is an excerpt from an interview published in the “Idaho Statesman” in May 2007. In it, the Senator responded to allegations he had been flirting with a man in Boise back in 1994. The man, who is a homosexual, told the newspaper the Senator stared at him in a “sexually inviting way” for half an hour.

(Half an hour? Was he looking at his watch?)

"Once again, I'm not gay, and I don't cruise, and I don't hit on men.”- Said the Senator-“ I have no idea how he drew that conclusion. A smile? Here is one thing I do out in public: I make eye contact, I smile at people, they recognize me, they say, ‘Oh, hi, Senator.' Or, ‘Do I know you?’ I’ve been in this business 27 years in the public eye here. I don't go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho!”

It’s time to stop this vile campaign against the GOP.

WE ARE NOT GAY!!

My Life in Previews

Trying to write an article about fashion can, sometimes, lead you to distraction. You close one screen in your computer, open another one; you jump from Google to You Tube to Realestalker to CNN to the NYT to The Guardian to Match.com to Park Avenue Peerage to Patrick McMullen to…Until you end up in the Mac site watching previews of movies already in theatres.

That, obviously, makes you think about your own mortality.
And from there you start to think about the inevitable bio-comedy-drama that, someday, Curtis Hanson, Sophia Coppola or Taylor Hackford will film about your life.

Mine is already in the works, at least on my mind, because even If I’m long gone when it opens, I want MY movie to get a nomination to the Oscars.

You can’t bee too prepared when it comes to the celluloid version of your life. Look what happened to Cole Porter and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

My story would be a musical, of course, with classic songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David with some Mahler and Bach thrown here and there for dramatic effect in scenes like my funeral, filmed in gloomy splendor in the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London with more extras and visual effects than “300”.

Casting is crucial, and though I haven’t talk with potential directors about this, I already have a pretty sweet line up of stars for my role.

Dakota Fanning would play me as a child, because, like I did on my time, she has that nervous sexual ambiguity of someone-will-find-out-I-did-something-wrong quality needed for the flash back scenes of my childhood.
Then I would be played, in order of appearance, by Tom Sturridge (me at 13- 18), Michael Pitt (me at 20- 25), Tom Sizemore (me at 30- 35, otherwise known as the “drinking years”), Matthew Goode (same years, on a diet), Matthew McConaghey, Jake Gylllenhall and Johnny Depp (the sexy years), George Clooney (40-50, the distinguished years) and Peter O’Toole (the funeral years).

My boyfriend, David, will be played by Chris Evans in a towel filmed in slow motion.

I would love to have Judi Dench to play my mother, but, I suspect, my mother would rather have Jessica Lange or Michelle Pfeiffer playing her.
Personally, I think having Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew McConaghey playing mother and son on the screen could create the wrong kind of chemistry. But I love my mom and whatever she decides is fine with me.

Jeremy Irons would be perfect to play my stepfather.
If audiences accepted a drunken skirt chaser Irish lad like Colin Farrell playing Alexander the Great, they can take Mr. Irons as my stepfather.

Costume Design will be a sure fire Academy Award nomination for my movie. ‘Jesus Christ, Those clothes!’- fashionistas will sigh after peeking at the 3 hour 35 minutes dolby sounded shortened version of my life. The peasant Armani clothes of the beginning, when the whole family is running to the barricades during the South American Coup-de-Etat. The fabulous vintage Halston and Fiorucci of the 70’s disco era. The amazing full-length double face cashmere mint green coat I, Michael Pitt, will be wearing when arriving to New York to start a new life. The Dies van Notens, the Ann Demeulemeesters, the Helmut Langs, the Thom Brownes…When people see my mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the mourning black, taffetta-chiffon, full skirt, chichilla trimmed Olivier Theyskens number of my funeral scene- with Peter O’Toole looking regal like me in the coffin- they will flip out. Guaranteed.

MY movie will have that indie look.
No, not that “Boys Don’t Cry” we- live-in-a-poor-factory-town- and-we-drink-Buds indie look. More like a Visconti- Zeffirelli- Merchant- Ivory indie look, where every house looks like coming out of the pages of “World of Interiors.” And, even if the story is set in Santiago and New York, everybody will talk with a slight English accent.
I love English accents and I should have them in immortality.

COMING SOON FROM...

A quick look at this season new shows on your favorite channel


WAXING OUT

If there’s a naked celebrity over the table, and a sexy, attention deficit disorder, illegal alien from Brazil with a can full of scalding hot wax on her hands near her, it must be Tuesday.

That’s right. Bravo presents “Waxing Out”, a new reality series that follows the glamorous and dangerous life of Lulu Santos de Almeida, waxer to the stars.

Facing the challenges of living in a Third World country with a severe phsyquiatric disorder, Lulu arrived in Hollywood two years ago in search of a better life.
She did not have papers, but she had a dream.

After her talent became internationally recognized in candid photographs of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears coming out of cars, Lulu found herself being crowned as the “Brazilian queen” of wax-land. But, Is she really happy?

You’ll be the judge.

Our cameras will follow Lulu from gritty immigration detention centers in east L.A. to the fabulous red carpet at the Oscars… where a star will be severely burned!.

Watch what happens.


AMERICA’S NEXT TOP PERVERT

From the producers of “Top Chef”, “Gay, Straight or Taken?” and “To Catch a Predator” comes a heart pounding, sexually explicit and socially questionable competition for the title of “America’s Next Top Pervert.”

16 contestants from all walks of life- just two of them are catholic priests- will fight for a prize of $100,000 to start their own web site, a 10-year subscription to the Abercrombie & Fitch “Back to School” catalog, and an honorary membership to the “Man to Boy” organization.

Judges Chris Hansen, Mark Foley and Cardinal Bernard F. Law will join a celebrity guest each week to judge challenges that will include speed-typing with one hand and hacking the parental controls of MySpace.

16 perverts. But only one will be “America’s Next Top Pervert”.

“The most disgusting piece of trash since ‘Shear Genius’. Simply irresistible”, says The New York Times.


PROJECT BURKA (WITH JENNA JAMESON)

Following the success of “Project Runway”, “The Swan” and “Make Me a Supermodel”, Bravo presents “Project Burka”, the first Muslim- sensitive makeover show in American television.

A group of Koran obsessed, Allah fearing, burka wearing women from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, will come to Hollywood to train international porn star, Jenna Jameson, on the secrets of their modest lifestyle.

At the end of season one, will Jenna be covered from head to toe in black and never drive her convertible Porsche again for fear to be stoned to death? Or will be the fanatic Islamic women who will turn their lives around and be seduced by the ritz and glitz of Penthouse parties and multimillion porn contracts?

“Project Burka (With Jenna Jameson)”…Watch what happens!

A Weird Bird

At 75, my aunt Gladys is still single.
That comes as a surprise to all of us in the family, because, though our dear aunt is not what you would call a classical beauty, she is, and has always been, clean and quiet.

These two qualities, however, were not enough to attract the attention of a man.

Men, vain as they are, seem to prefer style over substance. And my aunt was never the type of woman who would “show off the goods”- as she would put it- in tight dresses, silk stockings or short sleeve shirts. Her wardrobe consisted mostly of fashionable separates in modern fabrics, like polyester and rayon, in a neutral palette of browns and grays.

A fashion magazine might describe it as “Armani meets Prison cell.”

Had been Gladys spanish and with some talent for the arts, she might have ended in some Almodóvar movie. She has THAT kind of face.

The face the camera loves.

Her eyes are dark, big and round, and looking at them people always assume that something terrible has happen to her in the past or that there’s something really, really wrong with her diet.
They are very dramatic.
Her teeth are on the small side, not particularly white - no Kennedy horses on my family- and at night they are almost invisible. But though a visit to the dentist once every ten years is an idea no one should discard, her smile is still able to warm the coldest heart.

My aunt has some amazing cheek bones, a miracle of contemporary reconstructive surgery.

Years ago she was involved in an accident.
A former lover, we think, crashed her face with a BB gun when she appeared by a window of his house trying, jokingly, to surprise him and his wife with an ax during dinner.
Details are still muddy.
She lost half of her face, her favorite ax, and a chip of her dignity when the story ended up in the papers. But, after 8 hours of surgery, two weeks of rehab and a year and a half on probation, she was back being her old, happy self.

After the incident, Gladys took a new lease on life.
Salsa lessons, karate classes and a surprising new interest in the art of taxidermy filled her appetite for adventure. She became a bit of a feminist, cutting her hair in a very, very short style- think Jean Seberg with bigger earlobes- that made her look chic, sexy and, in a strange way, masculine.

But even then, men did not take the bait.

Looking at her you’d never know it, but she has always have a very optimistic outlook at life. No gloomy days for Gladys; no glasses half empty- we joke in the family.
Still convinced she’ll get married one day, she has been keeping her wedding ‘trousseau’ and honeymoon nightgown in a suitcase under the bed for years. The hand painted sheets and pillows, the porcelain plates, the hand blown crystal champagne glasses, and her 78- piece collection of Nazi memorabilia is perfectly displayed in her armoire, ready for when the wedding bells start to toll.

My little nephew, Benjamin, looking at her through the semi-open door of her bedroom one night, while she was practicing a new technique of “stuffing” with the family cat, said to me: “She looks like a weird bird.”

-Yes- I added proudly- a wonderful, exotic, beautiful and very weird bird.

Barneys New York

Years ago, when I first moved to Manhattan, I got a job as a “sales associate’ in the newly opened Barneys New York store in Madison Avenue.
It was not a job. It was a dream come true.
“You are so lucky,” a couple of journalist friends told me while looking at the huge grin in my face when I delivered the news, “You are happy in any job.”

Any job!

I was a journalist also, but since I came to New York on vacation for the first time, in the mid-80’s, my only ambition was to be like one of those guys at “Rue du Reves”, “Parachute” or “Comme des Garcons”- the super chic stores in SoHo- all tall and skinny, magnificent creatures flying among racks and racks of black, beautiful, serious clothes with Japanese or European labels, living in an air conditioned world of sophisticated perfection.

Now, I thought, I was one of them.

The new Barneys store was a cathedral of fashion created by Gene Pressman, the golden heir of Barneys, and Peter Marino, his architect. From the marble floors to the fish tanks on the “Co-Op” department, the store looked like the perfect set for the Centurion card nineties, the shopping playground for the Miller sisters and Julia Roberts’ crowd.

New York Magazine and The New York Times dedicated long stories to the opening.

I was assigned to the fourth floor, also known as “Avant Garde Designers”, and our task was to convince our customers that $800 for a Dolce skirt or $1,600 for an Alaia dress was, basically, a good investment.

My first client was Farrah Fawcett.

Now, let me tell you a bit about myself.
I grew up in a middle class family in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. We did not have freedom, but we had “Charlie’s Angels.”

Back to Farrah.

So, she came with the expected “Where I am?” look in her face. She was wearing the kind of clothes Chilean women wear when they are taking care of their children at home, a huge sweatshirt over a huge gypsy skirt accessorized with simple, sensible sneakers. No jewels.
Her hair- oh, her hair- was the recognizable multi layered- multi bleached strawberry blonde I had seen so many times in the “What was she thinking?” stories in the tabloids.

-I need some clothes- she said -Can you help me?

Boy, could I help her- I thought, savoring already my commission check.

Though she was not in her best day, Farrah turned out to be a very discerning customer. Nothing would be up to her standards. Issey Miyake top? Too skimpy. Donna Karan skirt? Too tight. Vivianne Westwood jacket?...Are you crazy?
She tried everything in my department. She also tried everything I could find for her in the third, fifth and sixth floors. But it didn’t matter if it was a perfect Jil Sander suit or a Diesel Jean, nothing lit up the fashion bulb of Farrah.

Finally, after 3 hours of “hmm, it’s not really me”, she came to the conclusion she needed to consult her mother.

Yep, her mother.

“I’ll be back in two hours. My mom need to see these, “ she said, handling me a ton of tried- but- unpaid- clothes, “Please hold them for me’.

I’m sure they are still hanging in the “hold” celebrity closet at Barneys.

I worked there for three years. I sold a Vivienne Westwood suit to Madonna and a Martin Margiela leather coat to Diane Keaton. I held and ashtray for Farah Dibah- the only person I ever saw smoking there- and I strapped a bra for Eva Herzigova.
Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant came over for a dose of Aläia and, while Liz was trying some very sexy numbers, Hugh fell asleep in a chair with his beisbol cap over his eyes.

Gwyneth and Brad, Tom and Nicole, and even O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown came to Barneys kissing and holding hands. And if you could’ve seen them together discussing the arch of a Manolo heel or the advantages of a double breasted Armani jacket, you would’ve thought real love did, indeed, exist.

“Don’t make a fuzz about celebrities in the store,” our supervisors told us during the recruitment process, “Treat them well, just like any other customer.”

Try to do that when you are helping Meg Ryan slip into a Yoshi Yamamoto jumper.

Meg, in all her “You’ve Got Mail” glory days, was one of those celebrities who wanted to be left alone. She would come hiding under her shaggy hairdo and tiny dark sunglasses, pick up a few items, try them, pay for them, and leave without saying one word. Not one.

“Us Weekly” is right: celebrities are like us! They buy a $2,500 Vera Wang dress, wear it to a party or premiere, get photographed in it, and then return it the next day still smelling of champagne and perfume.
They also complain about how boring their lives are. “I love this dress”, said Daryl Hannah once admiring a long, black, Aläia knitted dress, “But where I’m gonna wear it?”
And yes, they hate paying retail prices. “How much is that Hermès bracelet? $12,000? I would never spend that kind of money…” , complained the divine Miss M.

The whole scenario was very “Upstairs, Downstairs”. You would go to the basement, have your lunch in the dark, windowless room known as the cafeteria- how jealous we were of Bergdorf’s employee lounge overlooking Central Park!-, have a smoke, bitch a bit about your raising rent, and go back upstairs to sell a $750 Dries Van Noten silk scarf.

Inspired by the careless spending of their customers- and taking advantage of a very convenient employee discount-, the sales people at Barneys would dress everyday like they were on their way to a front row in fashion week.
Most of the money you would make at Barneys would be spent at Barneys, and it was not rare to find some fabulously looking girls in the shoe or lingerie departments, Michael Kors head-to-toe, scrapping their wallets to pay for the subway fare.

But, what the hell, You can always walk home.

People say salespeople at Barneys are nasty, cold and snob. And, sometimes, they are.
But working there you quickly realize this is not some high fashion syndrome, but pure, simple, clear boredom.
If you had to spend eight hours on your feet in a 90 degrees July day in Madison Avenue, surrounded by second mark down merchandise and no customers –or, even worst, with “sale” customers- on sight, you would also bark.

You would.

On the other hand, the relationship with customers would turn sometimes too friendly. Like when the Donna Karan “specialist” received flowers and a date invitation from a well known lesbian singer (the flowers were accepted, the invitation declined), or when an enthusiastic sales associate of the men’s department decided to extend the “customer service” policy to the romantic intimacy of the dressing room. He got huge sales, but was fired anyway.

After three years, the magic and fantasy of Madison Avenue had worn me down and I resigned. My manager offered a part time- two days a week position on the Hermès boutique, on the third floor.

I accepted.

If “Avant Garde Designers” was a strange world, the Hermès boutique was a free for all, $50,000 a day mad house.

The old lady in charge- who I’d replace on her days off- was a sweet, soft spoken, church going shark that protected her territory with the shrewdness of a border patrol.
She would hide the most expensive items- the $17,000 croco Birkin bags, the hard to find “butterfly” scarves- in the most unexpected places, hoping interested customers would come back when she was around.
My first job in the morning was to check behind the curtains or under the trash can for available merchandise.

Hermèsholics would call from Hong Kong or Amman looking for the 13 centimeter pig skin Kelly bag in baby blue, and- desperate for a sale in a place were sales were scarce- I would promise to call back as soon as I could find a tape measure.
These people knew their stuff and it was hard to keep up with them.

One day, I was talking on the phone with a friend- that’s what I did most of the time; long, leisured conversations on the phone with friends- when I saw Faye Dunaway come out of the elevator and walk decidedly on my direction.

“Gotta go. Faye Dunaway is coming,”- I said to my friend.

Faye was, obviously, on her day off.
She had some sort of pajama pants on. And a T-Shirt. And the scarf on her head was not enough to hide the curlers on her hair.

-I don’t have much time- she informed- I need the Circus scarf on yellow and brown.

Now, one thing you need to know if you ever find yourself behind an Hermès counter is that, give or take, there are approximately 300 scarves at any time in your hand polished cherry wood scarf tray.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

I opened the tray and started to pull out scarves. There was the “Music” scarf, the “Vintage Car” scarf, the “ Greek Mythology” scarf, the “Exotic Birds” scarf, and each of them came in different colors.

Faye started to tap her fingers over the tray.

-Well?

The thought that I was wasting the time of the Oscar winner actress who made incest a million dollar commodity in Hollywood was too much to handle.

-I can’t find it- I said.

-Are you or are you NOT in charge of this place?- she asked, impatient.

-Give me one more minute.

The “Explorers of the World” scarf appeared, the “Legends of Hollywood”, the “Paris Belle Epoque”, the “Tigers and Lions”, but nothing like even resembled the Circus in question.

By the time I finished checking the scarves, Faye was long gone. Probably on her way to judge the contestants of “The Starlet”, the reality show where I saw her next.

Barneys is still my favorite store in New York.
I go there and sometimes I recognize an old face. We nod our heads in complicity, a knowing signal of the old times we shared.
But mostly, the place is full of new people. Beautiful, young, skinny, black outfitted people, with tattoos and piercings. People who spend $300 in a hair cut and $10 in dinner, who share an apartment in Bushwick, who hand-wash their $150 T-shirts and who help to create the New York dream that, whatever the circumstances, nothing would make your life better than a day at Barneys.