Year in review extra
On 2007, a perfect storm of emotional flashers, ruthless panoparazzi and bored voyeurs killing time in cubeland all joined forces for a nonstop carnival of trivial tabloid newzak. Herewith, a recap of the year’s most memorable moments—most of which we’ve already sort of forgotten.
JANUARY: Special gift to the universe Paula Abdul kicks off the new year in curiously choreographed style, communicating with local morning-show hosts via slurry sentence-like things that only stoned dolphins can fully understand. Had she been outrageously drunk or gonked out of her mind on Vicodin during these exchanges, they probably wouldn’t have attracted so much attention. But the fact that Paula is as sober as a statue of Carrie Nation—and still so incredibly loopy and incomprehensible—elevates the clips to must-YouTube status.
FEBRUARY: Yes, Anna Nicole Smith expires this month, but that sad story is too much like actual news to qualify here. Plus, this is the month Britney shaves her head! Psychologists say women often radically alter their hairstyles after break-ups to signify a new beginning—unless, when shorn of their locks, they bear a startling resemblance to Uncle Fester from The Addams Family. Then, it’s just a cry for better tranquilizers.
MARCH: Sanjaya Malakar reminds us that you don’t have to be a post-panty pill vacuum to capture America’s fancy. Sometimes all it takes is hair with an eight-octave range.
APRIL: This month, Alec Baldwin teaches parents everywhere a valuable lesson. If you’re going to call your 11-year-old daughter a “rude, thoughtless little pig,” do it by text-message!
MAY: On The View, spontaneously combusting dissident Rosie O’Donnell and concerned hottie for America Elisabeth Hasselbeck go to war over something about Iraq. Catfight? No, much better than that. These two tenacious culture warriors scrap like they’re pit bulls and Michael Vick is standing just off-stage with a noose in his hand.
JUNE: After her harrowing stay in a minimum-hot detention facility, Paris Hilton emerges with a new sense of purpose and a pledge to spend her freedom doing important things, like shopping, waxing, posing, boozing and hiring some blue Russian dwarves to serve drinks at her next birthday party.
JULY: In an age of rapidly diminishing attention spans, the mug shot is the new tell-all memoir. And no one gave better mug shot in 2007 than Lindsay Lohan. Staring at the camera with the kind of glazed defiance James Frey can only make up choppy, repetitive fibs about, she looks like a perfect Hollywood confection baked in the oven of affluence 10 minutes too long.
AUGUST: Critics of America say we have no interest in international news and what’s going on in all those faraway countries like Europe and the Iraq. It’s true, and it’s a shame. There’s lots of foreign celebrities who are just as crazy as our native species. Like Amy Winehouse. She makes the list for a fight with her boyfriend that leaves both of them looking like Saw extras. In the aftermath, she explains to Perez Hilton that it was all her fault: “I was cutting myself after he found me in our room about to do drugs with a call girl and rightly said I wasn’t good enough for him.” Jesus, did you read that sentence? It’s like Sylvia Plath is channeling Tony Soprano; plus, the girl can actually sing.
SEPTEMBER: Somewhere in between running over tabloid goons and losing custody of her children, Britney finds time to let a bunch of producers craft a new album for her. To promote it, she plans a triumphant return at the MTV Video Music Awards, only to discover that Pro Tools can’t hide a ratty hair-weave the way it can hide a ratty vocal. In truth, Britney’s performance is more momentarily stalled Prius than trainwreck, but America squawks about it for weeks afterward anyway. That’s how addicted we are to seeing this woman fail.
OCTOBER: It was a dog, Ellen! A dog you got sick of in less than two weeks. Life will go on.
NOVEMBER: Apparently unaware that few people actually bother to watch sitcoms and movies these days, Hollywood writers go on strike. Isn’t this sort of like starting a diet on the Titanic’s buffet line?
DECEMBER: Thomas Nelson, a publishing company that specializes in printing Bibles, loses faith in Lynne Spears’ upcoming book on Christian parenting after news breaks that her 16-year-old daughter Jamie Lynn is pregnant. A Thomas Nelson representative explains that the book isn’t technically cancelled, it’s “delayed indefinitely.” Perhaps until Mama Spears raises a child who understands that abstinence pledges are only an effective form of birth control as long as you stick to Clinton sex. In the meantime, maybe Mrs. Spears can write a book on Christian grandparenting.