Happy New Year, everyone!

To everyone in the GV’sGH family, Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know that’s the same fireworks snapshot we use to celebrate our monthly anniversaries, but we’re feeling the recession here, too.

Let’s do a bunch of amazing shit in 2009!

This year’s final “Stars With Shopping Carts”!

Welcome to the final “Stars With Shopping Carts” of 2008! Let’s make it epic. This week’s theme: people with problems.

Ready?

Here’s closet smoker and criminal lover Anne Hathaway laughing uproariously, hopefully with the woman next to the shopping cart. If Anne’s alone, she has more burdens than we know:

A new shot of America’s Sweetheart, Shannen Doherty:

Britney’s papa, Jamie Spears, being remarkably frugal with his daughter’s dough:

A career-less Nick Lachey (with soon-to-be-ex gal pal Vanessa Minnillo):

Unstable reality television personality (and former supermodel) Janice Dickinson:

Former knife-wielding-bisexual-turned-compulsive-mother Angelina Jolie:

“Sad” rehabber Kirsten Dunst:

Here’s to 2009 and another year of “Stars With Shopping Carts”!

More Grace Jones: “I’m Not Perfect” (1986)

Pretty much everything Grace Jones has done has been innovative or outrageous or both. (See previous post). One pivotal moment in Grace’s career — and my personal favorite as an enthusiast of modern art — was the 1986 video for the song “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect For You”) in which Grace is wearing a costume created on the spot by the late painter Keith Haring.

Here’s the video. Look for cameo “testimonials” from several of Grace’s New York art and music pals including Andy Warhol and Nile Rogers, as well as an appearance by the late fashion designer Tina Chow (as Grace’s “esthetician”):

I wonder what Keith and Tina, who both died of complications from AIDS in the 1990s, would be doing today. Keith was only 32 when he died; Tina only 42.

Miss Grace Jones – in chocolate!

This is weeks old news, but I’ve found not everyone has seen these awesome pics or heard about the new album:

Back in college, I used to live with an adorable gay boy who was obsessed with avant garde R&B chanteuse Grace Jones. I heard Miss Grace’s music day and night and I grew to love it as well. The famously androgynous Grace broke both race and gender barriers.

Well, Grace, who’s now 60, is back, in hot chocolate, no less!

These chocolate busts were made to promote Grace’s new album, Hurricane, her first in 19 years.

Grace actually made casts of all her body parts:

But it looks like just her top half made it to the album’s cover:

So glad to have you back, Grace!

Ernest Hemingway wore girls clothes

Mental Floss recently published a brief, provocative piece about American literary giant and macho man Ernest Hemingway’s being forced by his loony mother as a child to wear little girls’ clothes.

Hemingway referred to his mother Grace as “an all-time, all-American bitch” and went to great lengths to keep the details of his childhood a secret. He would have succeeded had not his sister Marcelline published a tell-all memoir.

The author writes:

Grace, who was perhaps not the most balanced woman of all times, had always wanted twins. Instead, she got Marcelline and then, 18 months later, Ernest. Submitting to her twin fantasies, she started dressing Ernest up in Marcelline’s old clothes, despite the fact that they were little girl’s clothes—lacey white dresses with pink bows and the like. Soon his mom was buying two of everything and dressing her children in identical pink gowns and flowered hats. She would refer to the kids as her “sweet Dutch dollies” and actually tell strangers that they were her twin girls

No wonder Hemingway spent his entire bravado-filled life trying to prove how masculine he was!

Village Voice cans Nat Hentoff

Village Voice editors have been walking through their newsroom with a machete cutting jobs for the past several months and those cuts have included some pretty big names. Yesterday, the axe fell on Nat Hentoff, the legendary columnist who has been with the paper for 50 years.

Initially a jazz writer, Hentoff is probably best known for his columns about civil liberties in which he famously declared himself pro-life and supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The newest, best reason to love Tim Gunn

How can sartorial superstar Tim Gunn get any more awesome, you ask? Well, here’s the newest and best reason to love the wonderfully understated Project Runway guru and host of his own Tim Gunn’s Guide To Style program: he’s appearing in a PETA-produced video in which he discusses the inhumane treatment animals endure in the name of fashion.

To watch Tim’s video go here.

Tim and PETA have a long history that dates back to his days as a chair of the Department of Fashion Design at Parsons School of Design. Back then, Tim invited PETA reps to come to the school and discuss the atrocious treatment of animals in the fashion industry including showing footage of animals being killed for their fur.

Later, as a chief creative officer for Liz Clairborne, Tim had PETA reps come in and show footage to the company.

Thank you so much, Tim. I’m an even bigger fan now.

Hi, I’m back! Let’s catch up.

I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful holiday season. I didn’t hear “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” once and that was enough reason to celebrate. I went to Florida to spend the season (or a week of it) with my dad, who turned 67- –Yay! Tommy V!—and my brother and his wife.

I got to see all of my friends, too, and a snotty new bumper sticker on some mini-vans that reads “We say Merry Christmas.” I guess some people are retaliating! Yeah! Fightin’ back at the damned terrorist anti-Christians who dare to celebrate a different holiday.

Also, GV’s GH reader Cheese Food Product was savvy enough to send me the following quote (from 2005) from Christian right-wing nut Ann Coulter, knowing it would get under my skin:

“Oh, It was so much fun this year, because saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is like saying ‘Fuck You.’ I’ve said it to everyone. You know, cab drivers, passing people on the street, whatever.”

Bravo, Ann. You are truly doing the Lord’s work. I’m sure Jesus (and his pop) want all Christians to celebrate his b-day with a “Fuck You” sentiment. (If Ann said something as asinine this season, will somebody please forward it to me? GVivinetto@gmail.com).

I saw a few things in the news while I was away from you that I wanted to share, but I only managed to save one item that made me chuckle. Here is an ad for a Chicago furniture store as it appeared in the Chicago Tribune:

That’s awesome, isn’t it? I haven’t talked about Gov. Blagojevich yet on the blog because I was afraid he would come after me with his magic hair brush.

Doesn’t he look like a gayer John Travolta?

I’m very excited about New Year’s Eve for the first time in nearly a decade. I can’t believe our country has something to look forward to. 2009 is gonna rock. We’re gonna end this idiotic, unjust war and we are gonna get the economy crawling back onto its feet. I’m psyched! I’m ready! I hope you are as enthusiastic as I am.

Big news: Santa’s reindeer are female

Scientific masterminds have deduced that Santa’s reindeers, if they exist (which they so do– duh!), are female.

Something about the boy reindeers not having antlers for very long.

What is Diana Ross wearing?

The legendary Diana Ross looks like she’s been engulfed by cotton candy. Set her free, why don’t you, babe?