Romance for Real Women

Having blogged sexy underwear, I think it’s at least as important to blog the subject of British royalty. So, for real women everywhere, the question of the day: Is Camilla Parker-Jones really a dog?

I, like everyone I know, with the exception of real men, adored Princess Di. When I woke up on that dreadful day, my partner told me she’d broken her arm in an accident in Paris. (The first reports out of Paris suggested a less horrific accident.) Ignoring any other responsibility, I promptly hit the couch and wound up watching TV for an entire week.

I remember those darling boys; the miserable way the queen behaved; and, of course, Christopher Hitchens who wondered why people cared so much because she was “after all, just Euro trash.”

I didn’t disagree, but I watched.

The fascination with Diana continues more than a decade after her death. Tina Brown, the brilliant former editor of Vanity Fair, released a book last June called “The Diana Chronicles,” a major step up from the various degrees of merde released by the sleazy hangers on and former lovers who apparently surrounded Diana. And, didn’t the British High Court recently release yet another finding that really, really, really Prince Phillip had nothing to do with her death?

So, poor Camilla. She is rather long-faced and leathery and certainly those of us who remember the leaked love tape with Charles still cringe at his assertion he wanted to be “her tampon.” (I won’t dwell on what that might imply about the royal member.)

The problem with Camilla is that she’s just not relevant. She’s not gorgeous, mistreated or anorexic. However, she does put up with a guy who talks to plants, powers his car with wine and who is given to the kind of wacky assertions we might expect from a man waiting for his mother to die. So maybe she is a victim.

Nah.

I have to admit, I have a sneaking sort of sympathy for her. Remember Diana used to call her “The Rottweiler?” The tag, so apposite, gives lie, BTW, to Hitchens’s implication that Diana was brainless, unlike, say, Dodi Al Fayed.

So, maybe the question is “where do real women stand on the issue of Camilla Parker-Jones?”

That one I can answer.

We don’t care.

I had the best intentions of branching out today to one of the all time hottest brunettes—Beiron Andersson– but current events…okay, maybe tabloid events…could not be ignored.

Yes, I’m talking about the five story high underwear advert on the front of Macy’s in downtown San Francisco. No kidding—David Beckham in nothing but Armani briefs five stories high. And the man himself was there for the unveiling or whatever they did, although he wore a suit not briefs whilst signing autographs.

All the fuss made me think—for years lingerie shows have been broadcast on TV and the internet with young busty models making a fortune strutting their stuff in push-up bras and thongs. (Not to mention making the rest of the world’s female population feel inadequate while dreaming of wearing a million dollar corset crusted in diamonds.)  So why shouldn’t Becks cash in while he still has the body to do it? And that body!! But don’t take my word for it…once again he just has to be Friday’s Hot Guy:

What more can I say?

Alouette

Real women like and admire alpha women, but we don’t admire alpha rage, especially when the rage resulted from an apparently minor inconvenience.

You know who I’m talking about.

Naomi Campbell was sentenced to 200 hours of community service Friday after pleading guilty to six counts of assault after an “air rage” incident at Heathrow airport.

Naomi was upset because one of her bags was missing, although at her trial she claimed her rage had more to do with being called a “golliwog supermodel.” (A golliwog is a soft doll with a black face in case the term is unfamiliar to you as it was to me.) She couldn’t say exactly who called her a golliwog, but did assert that “I don’t think that’s really fair, do you?”

But there’s more. www.hollywoodscoop.com reports that Naomi has decided to have a child because “I know that with a baby I would change, I’d calm down. With a child you cannot accept compromises. You have to give your full self.”

So like so many celebrities, it’s all about them. A baby would help her with anger management. Yikes.

You have to wonder whether these people realize how much they give away when they open their mouths.
Anyway, I hope social service workers everywhere are taking notice. If she gets so angry about a missing bag she nearly got jail time, think of her reaction at being woken up at night; changing a messy diaper; or, God forbid, gaining a few pounds.

Stay tuned.

One of my friends, Alouette, distributes “Hot Guy Friday,” a delicious pictorial treat of beautiful men. Sometimes the images are ads, sometimes they’re action shots and occasionally they’re funny. But the guys are always hot.

Everyone on Alouette’s list looks forward to it and gets in touch with her if we don’t get it by mid-Friday.

She knows what is apparently news to our local newspaper. When David Beckham’s new ads for Armani underwear began appearing in local department stores, our local beacon of first amendment freedoms sent a reporter to check on female reactions to the image. (You will certainly remember it. Beckham is sprawled on a bed, his legs wide open, wearing the close fitting underwear. The ads are so hot, they reportedly stopped traffic in Milan and London where they were shown on billboards.)

“Now it’s our turn (to look),” said a “giggling” local female the reporter located in a department store. He apparently found her insight so newsworthy, he quoted her in the third paragraph of the story.

Well, it may have been news to him, but not to us. Real women like to look. It’s one of the reasons we go to movies, buy magazines and surf the net. It’s also one of the reasons some of us might feel compelled to weigh in on whether or not we really believe Beckham is also packing a tennis ball in the ads, something many bloggers appeared to believe.

The story went on to compare the “assets” of Beckham and Djimon Hounsou, also an Armani model.

I am not going to get into that discussion although I will point out that Mark Wahlberg, who did some of the early sexy underwear ads for Calvin Klein, looked pretty good to this real woman back then.

However potent the tennis ball issue, the truth is we do like to look. So in the interests of sharing the eye candy, Alouette has agreed to post Hot Guy Friday on this blog beginning tomorrow.

Enjoy. In the meantime, here is one of the Armani ads.

In the dog days of this never ending campaign season, real women will be delighted with this little snippet of campaign candy.

Yesterday, The New York Times ran a long profile on the aptly named Reggie Love, Barack Obama’s personal assistant.

Reggie is Barack’s shadow, anticipating his every need which apparently includes ball point pins, Sharpies, stationery, protein bars, throat lozenges, water, tea Advil, Tylenol, Purell and emergency Nicorette. (Yes, ladies, it turns out, Barrack is a smoker. However, we have to assume that Reggie spoke to the Times with his boss’s approval, unlike another recent staffer on the other side of the aisle.)

He’s tall. At 6’5”, he’s three inches taller than Barack. He’s fit. He benchpresses 350 pounds. And, according to the Times, he’s cool, although the newspaper didn’t provide any examples.
He’s also cute. The Times didn’t point this out either although the reporter is clearly in a swoon. Check it out at in the New York Times.

OK. Some real women might consider this carping. But it’s legitimate carping, that is to say, carping with a point of view.

Today, I visited People Magazine’s site for 2007’s Sexiest Men Alive. Apparently, the 2008 list will appear this fall.

I confess I was prompted by nothing more than idle curiosity and a fortuitously timed coffee break. But once there, I went through all the photos and accompanying bios which are laced with quotes from the sexiest men alive.

At first, I was chagrined by the number of sexiest men alive I don’t regard as sexy. Worse, by the number of sexiest men alive I didn’t recognize. I mean, Dave Annable is cute, but am I the only real woman in the universe who doesn’t know who he is? My daughter, who is a real woman in training, might know him, but I don’t.

But after I’d been through the entire list, looking at the gorgeous pictures and reading the scant copy accompanying them, I was struck more by what they said than how they looked.

Will Smith says “Either I’m going to be with [wife] Jada,or I’m going to be dead.” Real women will be interested to know that Will Smith is still proclaiming his love for Jada in an article in this week’s edition of People, a full six months after publication of The Sexiest Men Alive. This is evidently a popular topic for People’s editors.

Shemar Moore who stars on Criminal Minds, a show I like, says of being sexy: “A fresh haircut is so important. I wear my hair so low. Freshly faded. A nice tan in my back yard so I can get that bronze, brown-sugar glow, a vintage pair of jeans and white button down shirt with a couple of buttons open. A chrome chain. Pair of sneakers.”

I’m speechless.

Ben Affleck, who in addition to being one of the sexiest men alive is a writer and should know better, says of his daughter: “All I want to do is go home, just to be around her again.”

Nonsense. Real women and real men love their children, but there are occasions when we have to be dragged home, kicking and screaming. We are not sentimental about changing diapers, giving baths and coaxing unruly children to bed. In fact, Affleck’s quote suggests to me that he doesn’t do it often.

Adrian Greiner, another actor I didn’t recognize, said in response to what was obviously a direct question: “My sexiest night was a night spent with a beautiful woman I loved in a Super 8 motel after a wedding.” he says.

Huh? A Super 8 Motel?

Brad Pitt didn’t comment while Patrick Dempsey says the reason he’s stayed with his wife Jillian for eight years is because of her eyes. “They’re warm, sparkly eyes,” he says.

These guys have access to publicists and script writers. They know newspaper reporters, bloggers and paparazzi. In Affleck’s case, he is a writer. All of them have read movie and television scripts.
Surely, surely, they could have tapped into one of these resources for a quote that would rise above the level of total drivel. It can’t be any harder than say, finding the right chrome chain.

Maybe not. Maybe the best advice for real women is look, but don’t listen.