How to Gain Fame: Being a Cocksucker

Connie Hamzy is a cocksucker. Literally. And she’s proud of it. She got herself included in the lyrics of a song by Grand Funk. In their song, “We’re an American Band,” the band tells, “Out on the road for 40 days/ Last night in Little Rock put me in a haze/ Sweet, sweet Connie, doin’ her act/ She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact.”

According to “Spin” magazine, she’s 50. Imagine, being 50 and her only claim to fame is that she’s given oral sex to rock stars. In the old, days, I mean the really old days, a woman could be a courtesan or a mistress. Hamzy is a one-night or maybe just 5-minute mistress. Once women didn’t have very many ways of achieving fame and fortune. Today that has changed and yet some women feel that they are doing something worthwhile by sucking some strangers cock?

We’ve come a long way since we didn’t have the vote, but we have a long way to go. Thanks “Spin” magazine, for reminding women everywhere that there are men out there who will treat their “fans” like disposable orifices of pleasure. The question the reporter didn’t ask was did she ever contract any STDs, but I guess that would spoil the male fantasy of being a rock star. Are there more questionable ways of gaining fame? It’s hard to think of at the moment.

Farrah Fawcett: Actor and Dancer (well, sort of)

I have mixed feelings about the passing of Farrah Fawcett. She posed for Playboy and also did that naked painting video, but she also starred in the movies “The Burning Bed” and “Extremities.”

I didn’t much care for her during her “Charlie’s Angels” stint, but I wasn’t surprised to see that she got to perform an abbreviated tango (isn’t that the mark of a private eye/secret agent?).

Fawcett was a brave lady.

The Onion and Shawn Johnson

The Onion is causing a stir with a video entitled, “Gymnast Shawn Johnson Put to Sleep After Breaking a Leg.” This is brought to you by Ghostbusters the video game on ONN (the O is for Onion as in Onion News Network) on its “today NOW! show.” Is it really open season on young adults?

In the video, the male broadcaster reports that Johnson broke her knee. The female broadcast, Tracy Gill adds that the injury is “a career ender” and the parents made the “difficult decision to euthanize her.” That’s not even the creepy part.

Johnson and her parents won’t be commenting. The Onion is a web site that isn’t even intended for 17-year-olds like Johnson and her peers. There aren’t enough 18-year-old teens to target?

Crossing the Line: Young Girls, Old Men and Letterman

How far can one go and still be funny, particularly in regards to teenage girls and older men? That’s the question being asked about David Letterman. If you’ve been under a rock, David Letterman made a joke about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin attending a Yankee game with Rudy Giuliani.

On his Tuesday night show last week, Letterman said, “One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”

For more on this, go to my article at Examiner.com.

Morality Clauses and Playboy

Isn’t it every boy’s wet dream to see a cheerleader naked? Do we really want to encourage the objectification of cheerleaders, especially in this cyber age where the issue of young girls making and sending kiddie porn featuring themselves has made parents and law enforcement tear out their hair?

Playboy is not just any magazine. It’s a lifestyle magazine. What kind of lifestyle does it sell? Hugh Hefner’s dating and bedding multiple partners with little regard for family ties. Old guy, gorgeous girls. Do you think those girls would be there if there wasn’t money, big money involved? Money to be made by posing nude and money to be made by being sexually available to Hefner and his pals?

We already know that safe sex is controversial in schools to the extent that some only want to teach abstinence.

So here we have the cheerleader’s coach at Casa Roble High School being fired after the administers learned she’d been a former Playboy “Cyber Girl of the Week.” I wonder how much she got paid for that photo shoot and I wonder how much money Hefner and Playboy made off of her and are still making off of her. What do you think? Think she got taken for a ride?

There is a slight difference between modeling and pornography. Even Vanessa Williams discovered that. Beck seems to be a little coy if not disingenuous. She told the district before she was hired that she had been a model. And why did she “model” for Playboy? Was she hoping to be called up to the Playboy mansion and become a bunny? Is that the aspiration of every “model”?

Beck is just what Playboy needs now for just a little economic stimulus with flagging sales since amateurs make finding nude women easy online.

Most teachers who work with children and minors have to have a background check and there is often a morality clause in their contracts. With evolution and sex education and certain novels being controversial because of different morals, how likely would it be that any school district would find nude Playboy photos problematic?

Here’s a lesson for all. Pose nude, especially when you get paid for it, and you can expect that bit of history to follow you around. Maybe you won’t care, but that’s a choice you make. Oh, and, it’s unlikely they will allow you to teach minor children.

When Being Good at Your Job Isn’t Enough

Just last year, I spoke with a journalist who complained that the best people from his publication were being laid off–the columnists, top investigative journalists and such. He, whose work I greatly admired, was also laid off this year.

If you think my friend’s assessment was off base, think of reporter Paul Giblin. Giblin had been working for the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, AZ. His local reporting work along with Ryan Gabrielson, helped the newspaper win a 2009 Pulitzer for local reporting.

He learned about the win for his and Gabrielson’s coverage of the Maricopa County sheriff’s immigration enforcement operations according to an AP report. Yet he was laid off three months ago.

Was he a victim of the Internet? Maybe so, but he and three other former Tribune journalists started “The Arizona Guardian,” a Web site on Arizona legislature. That’s biting back the dog that bit you.

Was he the Carl Bernstein to Gabrielson’s Woodward? It’s hard to say. Only time will tell, but it does make one question how the lay off decisions are made.

What’s wrong with excellence?

Biting the Wrong Dog

Why punish a dog over a fight with a lover? Apparently, Abby Toll never learned that one shouldn’t be cruel to defenseless animals. She used packing tape to bind a shiba inu’s legs, snout and tail and then stuck the dog to the refrigerator.

If that wasn’t enough, she put the dog upside down. Besides felony cruelty, the 20-year-old woman was charged with drug possession. I’m not clear as to why, but the boyfriend, Bryan Beck, was charged with misdemeanor cruelty.

I don’t think there is any defense for torturing animals. And one should point out that a dog has not sweat glands and can die from overheating if its mouth is taped shut.

The dog obviously needs to find a safe, drug-free home. I sort of think that neither Toll or her boyfriend deserve to have pets or kids. There ought to be a law, but there isn’t.

Got a problem with a person: Deal with the person.

Katherine Ann Olson: A Sad Reminder

The recent sentencing of Michael Anderson should act as a reminder to us all. Remember what your mother told you: Beware of strangers.

Anderson is called the Craigslist killer because he used a Craigslist ad to lure Olson to his home where he shot the Minneapolis woman. She thought she was going to a babysitting job. He was sentenced on 1 April 2009 to life without parole.

It, of course, doesn’t have to be Craigslist. It could be any time you meet someone and go some place you don’t know–for a job, for a date, for a chat.

Internet is a wild wild place and there are plenty of people who aren’t nice at all.

Remember the 19-year-old Donna Jou? That San Diego State University student was last seen getting on a motorcycle with a man she met via Craigslist. That was in June 2007.

Sometimes mothers are right.

Workers Comp Blues: And What’s Happening in California?

As I enter 2009, essentially over two years since I filed workers comp while working at Yahoo! Search Marketing, I found this interesting article in the NY Times.

You think it doesn’t happen here? It does. Clearly. I’ve seen both sides.

So basically, while executives are getting bonuses despite losses, injured workers are given the old heave-ho.

Is this really the way a country for the people, by the people should run?

If you get permanently injured at work, the last thing you need is to be denied insurance benefits for months and even years and have doctors falsifying records and reports or having reports written or re-written by non-medical people who weren’t even involved in the exam.

Snake Oil in a Bra: Brassage

Shame on Christina Erteszek, daughter of lingerie designer Olga. Shame on anyone who backs the apparel company Intimate Health. Do we really need people preying on women’s fears of breast cancer? How will they feel if women opt for a $59 “wellness bra” called the “Brassage” instead of health care and then die of cancer?

Erteszek is careful to say that she makes claims that it helps, but it doesn’t prevent. She makes no medical claims at all according to ABC News. There is that little white lie about doctor designed. Doctor not meaning an M.D. but a chiropractor. When’s the last time someone was sent to a chiropractor to prevent cancer?

There are also panties that are supposed to help cure cellulite? More snake oil. One study of only 42 women seemed to show results, but there is no way of measuring cellulite so to say it has been reduced is difficult if not impossible. There may be more to the panties, but there are no real medical research–but there are profits.

If you want to economize, your money is better spent in permanent results: diet and exercise.