It is just Fashion Week here in LA, which sounds funny and sad because there is a notion that fashion doesn’t exist here, but oh child, it does, it really does. There is the army of tiny blonde girls with tight, narrow legged bleached out expensive jeans and leather jackets that could have only come from the boy’s department at Sears in 1987, with their strawlike hair held back with pink barrettes to showcase the thin layer of fur covering their faces, one of the symptoms of late stage chronic anorexia nervosa. They are the designers, the stylists, blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band. Their pieces, tops too small for anyone to get both their shoulder blades into, pants that don’t include the option of ass, fabrics that will not, can not, do not give, terribly uncharitable fabrics as they are. The dresses almost without exception zip up the side, giving the maximum opportunity for any flesh you might have there to get caught in the metal teeth causing a kind of special pain that only a true fascist follower of fashion can understand. They have names like Playdate, Immature, Infantile, Poopoo, Doodoo, Awww, Googoo, Gaagaa and they are all about regression, the Lolita as working woman ready to conquer the world in diapers. The big department stores buy them up like the delicious hot dogs sold from carts by freeway underpasses all over downtown LA late at night, for the li’l girl look never seems to go out of style, and there is big business in the baby-fication of women.

It has been heard through the most reliable sources that my line, High Class Cho, a celebration - not denigration - of women, is not well received in the ranks of the kinderwear clothiers. One ‘celebrity stylist’ was quoted as saying that my clothes were ’soooooo baaaddd’ and pointed out the fact that I had not been renowned for my fashion sense. In their opinion, I dress ‘badly’ because beauty is something that is self defined, not defined by ‘them’ and there are times when odd and outrageous beats bland and ‘just like everyone else.’ Plus, I don’t fit the sample sizes that designers provide the stars with to wear at the splashy Hollywood events that we set the fashion barometers to every few weeks, so why bother trying? No, I cannot lay down with a hanger hooked on a zipper trying to mash my fleshy body into a dress too small for me. I have done enough of it in my life and it just doesn’t work. I have come to know that fashion hates women and so I have decided to hate fashion. Fuck the ‘celebrity stylists,’ the style council, the Emperor’s new hos. Take your little lady bows and deconstructed tops and shove them up your ass, hard, in wadded up balls, no Vaseline. Don’t forget to stick a couple of strappy sandals in there too, heel first.

I buy a lot of things on Ebay because I like dead people’s stuff and it is cheap. The style consultant for Ebay, which is a formidable resource for the truly stylish, doesn’t direct anyone to what would be really fabulous to wear, like velvet opera coats from the 20s or MC Hammer pants, but to what was on the fashion pages months before, and so he sends the erstwhile consumer on a wild goose chase for items long purchased with the “Buy It Now” option and no longer exist. He has no imagination, nor respect for a woman’s body, but what do we expect from the fashion industry? Why would we think that they would want anyone to feel good about themselves? The whole juggernaut is built on the idea that we are unable to live happily just as ourselves, that there needs to be some type of guidance, what needs to be worn this season, what we need to have our bodies conform to, what our hair needs to be, what the Hollywood stars are doing, that we must be fucked with, or at the very least fuck with ourselves in order to achieve happiness in life.

If we were to just accept how we look and dress how we want, know that we are beautiful, know that fashion is what makes you insecure enough to make you spend your money, and style is what makes you feel like you look hot, the industry would eat itself from the inside out. The Tiny Dancers will just shrivel up and die, or at best, eat something. The way I wanted to make clothes was to remember what it feels like to put something on that fits, that feels so good, that you don’t want to take it off, that in your imagination, when you see yourself happy and lovely, walking through a heavenly late morning spring mist just burning off with rays from the noon sun, armed with a picnic basket filled with runny cheeses and baguettes and chocolates, to meet your most adored lover, somewhere deep in a friendly forest, you are wearing that dress. That you will lay down in that dress, that you will be fed in that dress, that you will be kissed in that dress, that you will make love in that dress and never think once while it is happening that something might rip, you shouldn’t be sitting down, there might be a bulge here or there you have to hide, that you will be free to move, eat, love. If that is ’soooo baaaaaddd’ then let it be bad. I don’t give a shit.

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I have lost some weight which has set off a strange wave of paranoia among people that I have either had my stomach stapled or shut off with a rubber band, or am on some freaky raw food diet or whatever.

What happened was that I was fucking sick and tired of dieting and working out. I fucking was sick and tired of buying clothes that were too small for me so I could ‘thin into them.’ I was fucking sick and tired of eating 5 to 7 small meals a day. I was sick and tired of no carbs. I was fucking sick and tired of thinking about food and not thinking about food. I was fucking sick and tired of my trainer and any type of exercise. I went to a nutritionist and I lost a lot - of money. I never left his office without dropping at least a grand on bullshit. Shakes, pills, supplements, food substitutes, exercise programs. I said “FUCKING FUCK THIS FUCK IT FUCK IT SERIOUSLY FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK FUCK FUCK IT!!!!”

I stopped going to Fred Segal and getting the one thing in the whole store that fit me. I started buying clothes that fucking fit me, like now. I put away all notions of what diets meant to me, what I was supposed to eat and not supposed to eat. I altogether lost the thought process that carried me through my life - my dieting and exercise regimen - and started thinking about the people I loved, hated, tolerated, laughed at, laughed with. There was a lot of time to read. I wanted to watch old movies. I ate a lot of shitty food. I gained some weight and it was scary. But it didn’t really make a difference. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. I stopped exercising, and started writing. I played with my dogs. I looked at shit on Ebay. I started to eat what I wanted - and kept doing it. Not a food vacation - not a respite between diets. I just was going to eat eat eat eat eat eat and fucking eat some more.

Then, I kind of started to get weirdly thinner. I get it now. Because I don’t care about food, it is there when I want it, I don’t crave it and want it and think about it. Since I can have everything, nothing is that important. I don’t need to eat a whole cake because I can eat a whole cake every day every meal if I want and I don’t care. I don’t prepare to eat because I might be hungry later and ‘they’ won’t have what I have to eat. When I am hungry, I eat. You know, that is what the weird diet is.

Here is what I usually eat every day. In the morning I have a bowl of cereal with two kinds mixed, granola and LIFE. If I am in a hotel, I have granola and yogurt, croissants, one chocolate and one regular and then a big cranberry juice. I drink a lot of water, and a lot of lemonade, regular COKE - no diet anything ever. After that, I usually eat a peanut butter cup or something like that. Then I get to work, which is writing usually, recording sometimes, interviews, etc.. I get hungry later around early afternoon, and so I eat what I think is a good thing at the moment, which could be mac and cheese, or pizza. I eat as much as I want, but it is usually too rich to eat all of it and since I am not dieting and I don’t need to cram the forbidden food in before the diet starts up again, I eat as much as I feel good eating and leave the rest. I leave a lot on the plate because I need not clean my plate. Why? I don’t have to. And the value of not having to finish all my food, probably has been the biggest contributor to my healing around food. I used to feel like I needed to eat all of it, all and then some, but actually, it doesn’t feel good to do that. It doesn’t taste good. I can have more when I am hungry again. I eat dinner late, usually with friends. I like appetizers. I will order 3-4 types, so I can have a variety of edible treats, instead of an entrée. If I order entrees, it would be more than one, because I deserve to eat what I like. I never eat leftovers. I never take anything home. I never eat anything that doesn’t taste heavenly. I never eat when I am not hungry. I never let myself get too hungry. I never deny myself a fucking thing because I have denied myself enough for 1000 lifetimes and there is no more denial for me in the way that I live. I deserve all the mozzarella sticks, all the fucking chocolate, all the fucking pizza, all the chicken a’la king, and I deserve to leave what I don’t finish on the plate.

So there you go. Big secret diet. Love. Love and the audacity to actually waste food.

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Tom Ford is walking away from Gucci. I am beside myself with grief. Ford and some other dude Domenico De Sole who nobody cares about but is the money side of the famous fashion house are leaving because the shareholders, the Louis Vuitton mafia and the dynamic duo cannot come to an agreement about some shareholder bullshit. This is a real tragedy. Tom Ford is a genius. I hate fashion, I hate the fashion industry, I hate the fashionistas, I hate fashion shows, I hate most of the couture culture, but goddamnit - I love clothes. Therefore, I must love Tom Ford.

Keep in mind, this is not just about Gucci. This split affects not only Tom Ford, but his entire dream team posse, which includes Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen, the only designers today that matter (besides Ava Stander, designer for High Class Cho), as well as Yves Saint Laurent, which is just blasphemous. Don’t fuck with Yves. That is just not cool. Yves did Catherine Deneuve’s wardrobe for “Belle du Jour.” Never has a woman been dressed more beautifully, never has anyone looked so buttoned up and ready to get down at the same time. I will kick the shit out of anyone that says shit about YSL. Say whatever you like about Dior, but you step up to me and dis YSL, you will be leaving in a Murakami body bag.

Tom! Don’t go! What shall we do without you? Actually this might be the best thing he has ever done. He will hopefully go on to create another majestic empire that will smash all his rivals and become the be all end all of all y’all. I love Tom Ford’s eye, he is a visionary and a business marvel. He revitalized the nearly pronounced dead Gucci, once only known for the icky fragrance that induced carsickness and the red-green-red stripe logo. Gucci is now the most successful label around. He is kind of like the doctor that Robin Williams played in “Awakenings.” Tom Ford rolled the rock away from the tomb of Gucci and brought ruching back to life. Perhaps he will come back someday, the Prodigal Designer, and they will kill the fatted supermodel to celebrate his return.

Tom’s clothes are about the woman who is unabashedly sexual, rich, in control, sits with her legs really far apart and has a job where all these behaviors are totally appropriate. They are Expensive Black, in that in the unwritten laws of fashion, if you wear something simple and black, it has to cost as much as a car. They are pretty unwearable if you have titties at all. I have quite a lot of Tom Ford, and I can’t wear it yet. I am waiting for my double mastectomy. I don’t know exactly how to catch breast cancer, as I know it isn’t contagious, but a girl can dream. Tom does a lot of the tops that have no back and no front and no point except that it costs $5000. You know those weird dresses that have a v- neckline that goes down to the waist and you don’t know what to do with your breasts at all except perhaps Krazy Glue them under your armpits and hope for the best. I have done it too, and sorry to report that the glue might be able to keep that construction worker from falling to his death by attaching his helmet to that beam, from that old commercial, but my tits are heavier than any construction worker, and will not be told what to do.

Still, I pay for the shit, because it is pretty. It makes me feel bad about myself, and that is what high end clothes are all about, isn’t it? Isn’t that what fashion is about..to make us all feel inadequate? Unattractive? Unappealing? Poor? Stupid? Ugly? So shitty that we have to go buy things we will never wear because the fact is that maybe someday we might be transformed and become like the beautiful birds of paradise on the covers of the magazines if we just buy enough, if we believe them enough, if we just keep trying, keep dying, keep lying. Thank you for everything and nothing Tom Ford. Your clothes are beautiful, but only for a very select few. For the rest of us, we can wear your fragrances, with names like “ENVY” and “RUSH.” How appropriate. Especially “ENVY,” The joke is on us, and we get it. Go off and prosper wildly Tom Ford. Live lavishly off the blood money you make by inspiring anorectic girls who kill themselves to look like the women you have given us to admire and aspire to being. Thanks for making us think that we could purchase beauty, freedom, love, happiness. Thanks for the disappointing reality that after we had spent all we had, we couldn’t fit into it, much less buy it, own it, ever hope to have it. May you create a fashion house that destroys the industry and swallows it whole.

May you get what you deserve. All that you deserve.

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Have you ever seen an ugly person with a beautiful person? I mean really really really ugly and really really really beautiful. We can let go, for the moment, of the political hot button qualifications of beauty - such as thinness, blondeness, whiteness, youth, as we can ignore the usual ’seemingly synonymous’ with ugly, like fatness, darkness, oldness, baldness, etc. When we get to that bitter first impression, the reaction reality where internally we register that person as ugly or beautiful (this assuming we can even get there at all, since society has had such tremendous impact on how we define these two qualities that we no longer know what our opinion is compared to what is said by the advertising firms) so much that the person bulldozes us with their looks, in the either/or - they are beautiful to the point of painful gaze, or they are incurably ugly in the hope to die fashion. Both extremes are actually fairly rare, as most of us to one degree or another have aspects of either depending on the hour and the situation, and so we happen upon such individuals once in a blue moon. But when encountered together, it is kind of a revelation, a myth unfolding in real time. Talk about beauty and the beast - you see those two and it’s almost like “Where the dancing candle at?”

It is somewhat more likely in Los Angeles, where the extraordinarily beautiful flock to make their fortune from their face co-mingling with the population of folks who make one understand why they might choose to work behind the camera. I see these couples and I am glad for them, if it is likely that there is love there, and not a manifestation of a torrid mid-life crisis, or a gold-digger in the process of panning. Therein lies communion, and usually a lifelong one, because they are freaks, and whatever kind of freak you are, freak is freak. We don’t like beautiful/beautiful couples. They are routinely shunned and admired, but with more of an emphasis on the former.

Look at the near orgiastic delight with which the media reported on the delayed nuptials of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. It was as if they were saying - “See - even beauty and money and fame will never save you from heartbreak!” almost laughingly, as if there was to be some vengeance to savor for the people who ‘have not’ over those who seem to ‘have it all.’ Truthfully, no one can ‘have it all.’ Just as no one is a ‘have not.’ I cannot imagine the ‘Bennifer,’ so cleverly coined by the press, the beloved hydra, with two heads, numerous handlers, other stars and family and one bad movie between them, “Gigli” which no one saw or bothered to learn how to pronounce, have a fulfilled and happy life. They are stalked 24 hours a day, every blink and breath recorded and reported on everything everywhere. Then combine that with the overwhelming jealousy and anger they endure, not from any action of their own specifically, but from all the once/currently/consistently brokenhearted, who look at the Bennifer as a symbol of what is given to a chosen few and while others are left to starve. I am sorry for the Bennifer, and wish that I could hide them in my hands, but they are too big, and their publicists would never allow it.

The ugly ones don’t have it great, as is known. There is a famous story by Dorothy Parker, called “Horsie.” It is a fable that has always haunted me, much like Parker does, a drunken ghost tripping over headstones in the cemetery of my mind. It is about a spinster who is so unsightly her name is Horsie, known to all but her, who works as a maid for another “Bennifer” back in the day. The hydra spawn and produce an equally lovely child, and gifts are bestowed upon them, so many in fact that it has become a burden. The male portion of the Bennifer gives a few flowers to Horsie out of pity, and the Bennifer laugh uproariously at the inside joke masquerading as the act of kindness. The irony of the story is the Rashomon-like conclusion, in which Horsie looks at the flowers, the unexpected gift, retelling the giving as an incredibly glorious and ecstatic event, as she basks in the enjoyment of the sweet prettiness of the blooms, she experiences what seems like an unprecedented happiness. I guess the tale resonates hard because I am Horsie, at least more than I am Bennifer, and it makes me question the authenticity of joyful surprises in my own life. It also makes me weep because the innocence and gratitude of Horsie cuts like a knife, as its purity is a virtue that goes beyond the physical and is more beautiful than beauty itself. So I guess we are all Horsie/ugly, just as we are all Bennifer/beautiful. I guess that is what I mean to say.

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