Oh Jesus! Call 9-1-1!

Jermaine Jackson is being chased by a biker gang of gay Arabs, led by Pia Zadora!



We always knew it would eventually come to this, but really, with that jacket he was just encouraging them.

Team Witherspoon!

As I'm sure you've all heard by now, Hollywood cutie couple Reese Witherspoon and What's-His-Name have split, reportedly because he couldn't keep it in his pants for his Oscar-winning wife. In this election season, we at Trading Faces would like to give our most enthusiastic endorsement to Team Witherspoon in this race.

Sadly, as California is a community property state, that rat-boy is going to get half of everything, and that's a lot since she's currently the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. We are confident, however, that as he deserves he is going to get all the itching/burning sensations "down there" that he could ever want. That and a lifetime of bit parts on movies made for the Hallmark Channel. Way to blow it, horndog!

The Hotness

No joke here, only happiness that every time we see her in public these days, my daughter Whitney has a little less crack addict residue on her. Granted, I am trying to convince her to drop the honey-colored acrylic hair, but it is on straight at least, and she looked positively radiant last night out on the town at a benefit with her producer Clive Davis. Team Whitney!

P.I.M.P.: A bejeweled medical update

Remember back when this blog was mainly about the massive amounts of surgery I was having to get rid of the birth defect on my face? Yeah, I've kind of gotten sidetracked from that by celebrity trash and random musings, at least in part because the surgery didn't go quite as planned despite everything I had been told by my medical team. I've been doing a lot of trying not to think about things. It has been mostly successful though, so I thought it might be time to post a surgical update. The last surgery back at the end of June was around my mouth area, and because the stitches inside my mouth broke, I have a lot of scar tissue that will take even more months to soften and go down. So, I still have some movement limits to my mouth (not much, but some), and some swelling. Also, there was a small piece of the venous malformation left toward the back of my cheek that couldn't be removed. It is still hardened from the injections (see previous post linked above if you want to know what all that is about), so it may dissolve or at least go down a bit more. I do know at some point I want to go get at least one more surgery to take that last piece out if it doesn't dissolve, and to get some work done to stop my eyelid from drooping. At any rate, here are the results as they currently stand, with a contrasting pic from a year and a half ago:


Pretty good improvement, but also who could help looking good when he's in his finest pimp gear? That was from last night's Decedent's Ball thrown by the Student Bar Association. I was a Torts Pimp (you can't see much of the jeweled hoe I'm carrying, which is neither obviously nor intrinsically dangerous, and thus non-negligent...yeah, only law students who have read Lubitz v. Wells would find that funny).

Thanks for all the good wishes I've gotten over the past year of this journey. I appreciate them, and wanted to show you all that I am doing better. And now I'm going to go trolling for some tacky celebrities to make fun of so we won't have quite so serious of a subject as the top story on Trading Faces!

The Anderson Cooper Update

It's been a while since we've checked in with our favorite intrepid boy reporter/super secret boyfriend Anderson Cooper. Let's see what he's been up to, shall we?





Yep, that's what I thought, still trying to throw the paparazzi off our trail with his pretend boy toys. Well, that or he's still mad about that Columbus Day prank Lou Dobbs and I played. It was mean, but priceless. I tell you, I don't know who screamed more like a woman, Anderson or Nancy Grace!


Source

Separated at Birth?

OMG! It's Pete Burns from legendary 80s band Dead or Alive! Please Pete, will you sing us a few bars of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"? Pretty please?! We love you so much here at Trading Faces!

What's that? Right after just a little more work on your lips? Ummm, okay...

Yeah, so we're not really comfortable with where this is heading, so we'll just listen to you on the iPod. Loved you on "Dancing With the Stars," by the way!

Project Baby

"Project Runway" judge/Elle Magazine fashion director/Evil Disney Queen Nina Garcia is preggers! Congrats, girl!















Tim Gunn is going to be the first visitor in that nursery. And what will he say? "Don't bore Nina!" That's sage advice...nobody wants to get this look:




You know that no wire hangers will be allowed in that household.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

The PoshBot, a.k.a. Victoria Beckham, now fancies herself enough of a fashionista that she is starting her own fashion business. I'm not entirely sure how shopping a lot qualifies her as a fashion expert, but by that same token I suppose I can now call myself Princess of The Taco Bell 99-cent menu, so I'm all for it.







Posh knows her clothes, we'll give her that. We won't, however, give her this:












"It's amazing - I'm doing something I'm actually very good at," she said. "I can confidently sit in a room with Donatella Versace or anyone in the business and be respected. I know what I'm talking about." 3 a.m.






















That reminds me, I was just over at Donatella's palazzo with a bottle of Stoli and my big Oxycontin purse (you know the one, it goes with my Xanax earrings), and she was telling me how much she respects my opinion regarding fashion. And my views on Middle Eastern policy. And my tabouli recipe. That Donatella, she is one respectful lady.

The Weekly Cheese: Greatest Actress of Our Generation

Instead of finishing my reading for civil procedures for class tomorrow, I've been on YouTube researching the Greatest Actress of Our Generation. She has played a head trauma victim, a terrorist, a gay basher, and a baby thief, and that was all on one show! She once attempted to give Jack Waggoner a lobotomy, but was stopped by a meddling Priscilla Presley. She's so hot, one video just isn't enough, though I will say the second half of the first scene is possibly the greatest moment in network television history. The Weekly Cheese is brought to you by...

Marcia Cross a.k.a. Dr. Kimberly Shaw of "Melrose Place"



Tell me you aren't going to giggle from now on when you see her migraine commercials from now on!

A Saturday afternoon conversation

Christopher: "Where are you going?"

Craiggers: "To the post office to drop these packages off."

Christopher: "Don't you want to hear all about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?"

Craiggers: "Less than you can possibly imagine."

Christopher: "I could tell you all about Permissive Joinder. You never want to do anything fun."


It is little wonder the Radical Right is so opposed to gay marriage when conversations like that demonstrate just how perverse we really are.

Lowered expectations

I got a B+ on my first major classroom writing assignment in 10 years, a memo for basic legal skills. While I may have said previously that I would not be satisfied with less than an A on anything, I think it is safe to say I was doing a happy dance when I got this back today. I even got a "Good job"...I couldn't be happier if she had given me a smiley face sticker. I also indulged in a bit of schadenfreude after observing the dissatisfaction of a classmate with whom I'm a wee bit competitive, that is, until I found out my grade was lower than a classmate who is universally regarded as the most annoying person in school. That's what I get...apparently karma counts for lawyers too.


In other Christopher news, I think law school might be ruining my sense of humor. At the very least, it has ruined "Legally Blonde" for me and anyone else who might watch it with me. Everything happening in the movie I judge based on the reality of law school, and I have to say I'm even irritating myself. When Holland Taylor is lecturing, I'm commenting, "Why on earth would she begin the semester with subject matter jurisdiction? Those people don't even know how the case gets to court in the first place yet!" When Elle Woods goes to interview a witness in a murder case, I comment, "They would never let a 1L do that! She hasn't even had a class in evidence yet!" When I'm commenting, I know Craiggers is thinking, "This is a movie about a girl who takes her chihuahua to court with her in a purse...let it go!" But of course he is too nice to say it. That is the difference between the two of us...I'd never be that nice!

And finally, someone mentioned recently that I have not mentioned all the surgery I had in June in quite some time. I am healing up still...I had some complications with stitches breaking, so my mouth healed oddly and is still stiff due to the scar tissue. I didn't get rid of everything, and I'm not entirely happy with the results. It is a million times better than it was, but I don't look entirely normal as of yet. I probably need maybe one more on my cheek and some work done on my eye since they mostly skipped that. It is quite amazing how long it takes to heal after facial surgery. I suppose a facelift isn't quite the instant beauty folks think it is...I hear the healing is quite similar to what I'm experiencing. I'm giving it another month or so, and I'll post some pictures. After that, I probably won't get to finish the surgical journey until I finish school. I had been told I would be finished prior to school starting so I would still have health insurance, but that isn't happening. I'm okay with that. The journey isn't over yet.

Couples Night or Things I Swore I'd Never Do

I live in a very black and white world where people don’t change, where the rules don’t change, and where I am always right. There are certain things I have always sworn I would never do, and true to my word, I never have.

For example, I’ve never voted for a Republican, not even the one or two attractive ones. After being dragged to see “Robin Hood,” I’ve never paid to see a Kevin Costner movie, and refuse to watch one even for free unless given free reign to make wisecracks throughout. And I continue to steadfastly reject the notion that Celine Dion has anything remotely approaching talent.

Yet here I am in line at a theater waiting to see a movie with my partner and our friends Amy and Melanie. Suddenly, it strikes me. How the hell did this happen? I’ve become a “we” person!

I’m sure you know “we” people. They’re those people that always refer to themselves in the plural, as in “We don’t like chicken parmesean,” “We prefer the larger sized bath towels,” and “We think Jay Leno is a comic genius.” It is as though a personality lobotomy is the price you pay for having sex with one person on a regular basis.

“We” people never do anything alone, and more importantly, they rarely do things without other “we” people. I used to wonder if there is something in their genetic code that causes an explosion if in the company of an odd number of people for an extended period of time.

In short, I hated “we” people. In our single party years, my friend Edwin and I determined that if we ever found the right person, we would definitely never become those people. They were terminally dull, and what’s more, they seemed to have an agenda to make us feel like lepers for not being coupled. I thought of Edwin when I had the aforementioned Amy and Melanie over for dinner along with married couple Danny and Holly.

At first glance, we looked like some bizarre commercial for Bennetton, a male couple, a female couple, and a mixed couple, having cocktails and eating summertime barbeque fare almost as though there was nothing slightly off about the whole picture. In reality, we were all too conventional. A wee dinner party had turned into a “we” dinner party.

I suppose this insidiousness began to sneak up on me a few years back when we had our first Christmas together. I have long been an avowed Christmas hater after a childhood of divorce and being shuttled between two families, trying not to hurt anyone’s feelings by spending a minute less with one person than I did with another. Craig, though, had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and for some reason I decided that he should have a real holiday full of bad decorations and crass consumerism.

That’s when after nearly a decade of living on my own, I put up my first Christmas tree. And while it was more colorful, stylish, and sparkly than the tree of your average family, it was probably the most nuclear family gesture I had ever made up to that point in my life. By the next year, I had taken up my mother’s hobby of baking breads as gifts to friends and co-workers, and we actually considered having our picture made for holiday greeting cards, in front of the tree with the gaily wrapped gifts and the cats.

After considering the nausea medication we’d have to include in that card, we nixed that idea. I suppose that deep down in the depths of what passes as my heart I knew that while being somewhat of a “we” person wasn’t necessarily the horrible crime I once thought, the card would be crossing a line that would put us in the same category as those people you see at amusement parks wearing matching t-shirts pledging their devotion in airbrush. Those people should be shot on sight, along with people who send family newsletters and who use the word soulmate.

My newfound flexibility, as best I can figure, is part of the milestone of finally feeling like an adult, even if I don’t always act like it. Just last week, I found myself willing to try sushi again instead of writing it off as smelly yuppie compost. If that isn’t flexibility, I don’t know what is. So I’ll say it…I’m a “we” person, and that’s okay. And it didn’t take me half as long to say it without cringing as it did to say that I’m th-th-thirty.

Besides, I never really made a conscious choice to become a “we” person. I don’t see my single friends as somehow deficient in some way. I don’t look at them with pity and assure them that the perfect person is out there somewhere (with the sort of friends I have, I would get punched a lot if I did that anyway).

In remembrance of my former self, I do make an effort when in the presence of single friends lamenting their singleness to point out that they don’t have to worry about someone else’s snoring. There are no struggles over the remote control. You never have to argue over who ate the last of the ice cream or who left that horrible smell in the bathroom. Aside from being true, I figure it is the least I can do for the man I used to be. I’m still not watching “Dances With Wolves”, though, not even if promised that Kevin Costner dies a painful death in the end alongside Celine Dion.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

Come out,


come out,

wherever you are!






Not so fast there, Mr. Cruise...we have quite enough crazy in our ranks without your alien-worshipping ass. Thanks anyway.

I hope all my fellow meat whistle tuners out there have had a lovely day!

Further proof that Kathleen Turner is a tough broad

She totally kicked Steven Segal's ass for this outfit on the clearance rack at Ross Dress for Less.





















Again, stealing more great photos from the style gurus at Go Fug Yourself

Dear Erykah Badu,

Oh my.





















I think you'd better call Tyrone (call 'em!). And tell him I said come on, 'cause you've lost your shit.

Psychotic photo of neo-soul songstress/nutjob courtesy of the ladies of Go Fug Yourself

The Death Rattle

Ohhhh sweet fancy Moses, I'm hungover!


Not this hungover, mind you, but hungover nonetheless.

Last night, I forgot that I'm not in my 20s anymore, and went out to celebrate our first law school exam with some schoolmates. I won't go into details other than to say there was Indian food, someone's apartment, blueberry Stoli, bourbon, dirty martinis, two bars, and a pukey cab
ride involved (no, I was not the one who lost his curry...I'm far too much of a pro for that sort of thing). Not surprisingly, I currently have a wee headache that feels somewhat like Sharon Stone giving me an icepick to the head while forcing me to watch "Basic Instinct 2."

Since I'm hearing the death rattle in my head today, I thought I might steal my pal Nurse Ratched's recent morbid-but-fun post on the songs I would like played at my funeral. Not to bring down the room, but having lost an inordinate number of friends at an early age to strange tragedies, I have given a great deal of thought to my own mortality. I also live in the land of denial, so I prefer to think of it all as planning a big party in my own honor. People from my part of the country do this whole funeral ritual involving open caskets, lots of country food, and preachers. I want no part of any of that morbidity. My family can do what they like with the understanding that I will come back and haunt a bitch who lets someone conduct a sermon over my embalmed corpse. My friends, however, are going to be under instructions to rent out a large comfortable room. There will be an open bar and fantastic snacks. After everyone has had the opportunity to get good and soused, everyone will take a seat and listen as each person goes up to a microphone to tell the absolute most embarrassing story about me they know. It will be fabulous! Edwin, get that story about the "theater" seat ready. You too, Kitty Litter, with the tale of the where the bad man touched you inappropriately. And during the cocktail portion of the evening, the following music will most definitely be playing:


1. "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, because I am (or was) one.








2. "Last Dance" by Donna Summer, because I'm just that obvious.

3. "Land of the Living" by Kristine W., because I will still be alive in the land of the living...when I'm haunting your ass!

4. "I Wouldn't Change a Thing" by Kylie Minogue, because I don't believe in regrets.


5. "I Am Thin and Gorgeous" by Junior Vasquez and the AbFab ladies, because a few days after death, I'll finally get back down to the size I always wanted.









6. "Holiday" by Madonna, because I'm gay and have to have something by Madonna. It's one of the items on the contract we have to sign when we cross over.



7. "Peace Train (Holy Roller Mix)" by Dolly Parton, because I started life as one kind of holy roller and ended it as a whole other kind.









8. "I Know It's Over" by the Smiths, because it is morbid and kinda funny all at once.

9. "Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo, because it will be my party, and I can die if I want to.

10. "It's a Sin" by Pet Shop Boys, because when I look back upon my life, for everything I long to do, it's a sin.


11. "Save Up All Your Tears" by Cher, because there's no crying allowed unless it is accompanied by a smartass remark.










It's going to be a helluva a party...I hope you can all make it in about 50 years or so!

Psst! I've got a secret for you!

Don't tell anyone, but I think I made an "A" on my Basic Legal Research exam today.

HAPPY DANCE TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Hell Week is officially over. I hope to have a sense of humor once again so I can blog up to the low standard you have come to expect of Trading Faces. Now, excuse me while I pretend I'm still in my early 20s and get hammered with my classmates.

Wanda Does It

I have a lot to say about this whole Mark Foley scandal in Congress. Let me just start with how much I just looooove that all the conservative talking heads keep pointing out that he is gay, I guess because this sort of thing is expected of us (tell that to the female page who was sleeping with her Congressman from Illinois back in the 80s). There are two points you need to remember in this case.

1) Rep. Mark Foley is a sexual predator. He used his position to put himself in sexual situations with teenagers. His orientation has nothing to do with it...he's sleaze either way.
2) Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's office was informed of what this perv was doing in Fall 2005. In spring 2006, the kid's congressional sponsor told Hastert directly, as well as the Republican Campaign Committe chair and the House Majority Leader. None of them did a damn thing.

Now, I have many more comments on this whole issue, and the recent trend of people coming out who we'd like to give back to the strayt folks (Jim McGreevy and Lance Bass, I'm talking to your sorry butts!), but I would rather leave it to the brilliant Wanda Sykes, who summed up my feelings in under two minutes on what must have been the first funny episode of "The Tonight Show" in about 5 years.



And while we're getting down with Wanda, I wanted to share a sketch she did regarding former President Clinton, and how he's a big racist. I can see her point, and have decided he is a homophobe too!

The Weekly Cheese

I have an exam tomorrow, and thus Hell Week officially ends (at least until my next memo is due). Anyway, when it comes to the Basic Legal Research exam, I've got this....y'all can just hang back. That's why I feel comfortable for the first time in a week, and feel the need to post some silliness. And if it turns out that I'm overly confident, well, you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have this week's cheese.

The Weekly Cheese is brought to us by an 80s sitcom close to my heart. The first season of this show featured a large cast with a school marm sort who left Arnold, Willis, and Kimberly to the hands of someone else (and we all know how that turned out). One of the many cast members was my childhood idol, Molly Ringwald. By the second season, they pared down the cast and added a lesbian for no apparent reason. But back in the day, this show was actually rather edgy as we see in this clip where Natalie and Tootie buy a bong for Mrs. Garrett. The Weekly Cheese is brought to you by....

"The Facts of Life"



Extra special thanks to the beautiful, talented, and slightly demented Sister Mary Cliff for turning us on to this long-forgotten masterpiece. We'll be sending some thank-you bongs in her general direction.

Christopher Loves Memos!

Christopher just turned in his first major writing assignment in law school, the dreaded closed memo, by slipping two double-spaced copies of 2,698 words of sheer genius under his professor's door.

HAPPY DANCE TIME!!!!!

Now he just has to study for a legal research exam on Friday, finish his reading for Property and Torts, and then he can go to bed.






Dammit.