Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Elton John Says He’s Probably Too Old For “Outrageous” Outfits; Also Keen To Tell The News Of His Homosexuality
4:49PM Clem Bastow | We love Elton John – we love him for his music, his lovely relationship, his frequent bitch fights, and more often than not, his willingness to dress up like a total idiot and throw a crazy costume party.
More than once the Defamer Australia team has arrived at a “dress up” party as giant ants/Michelle & Ferret/drag queens, only to find everyone else in smart casual. In other words, Elton’s our people!
Well, imagine our distress to see Sir Elt’ is thinking it might be time to stop dressing up now that he’s getting on a bit. Say it ain’t so, O Lord Of Over-The-Top costuming!
He said: “As you get older, you change the way you think, the way you dress.”
Some of Elton’s most famous costumes include dressing up as Donald Duck at a Central Park, New York concert in 1980 and another huge feathered creation at a 1976 gig.
Eleven years ago, Elton dressed up as French monarch Louis XIV – a rumoured £40,000 costume – at his fancy dress 50th birthday party at the famed Hammersmith Palais.
For his 60th last year, Elton and ‘husband’ David Furnish dressed as a Russian general and a U.S. Marine captain for the 1940s-themed bash.
Elton told CNN host Larry King: “Well, I mean I couldn’t wear some of my giant chicken outfits to the Oscar party, A, because I wouldn’t fit in them anymore, and B, because, you know, I’m 61 years of age next month and I don’t dress as flamboyant as I used to.
“I always liked to dress a little differently from other people but I’m nowhere near the fashion victim that I was a long time ago.”
God, if there’s one thing we thought we could always rely on, it was Elton dressing like a tit with too much cash to splash at his lavish costume parties.
If we can’t say that’s a constant in this fickle, fickle world, what can we say? More » 
Sbs Too Sexy For This Classification? That’s Unpossible!
4:36PM Clem Bastow | It’s safe to say that “watching movies on SBS to be culturally enlightened” is more or less the “I read Playboy for the articles” of the late-20th/early-21st Century. If it’s got bonking, sucking, fingering, jizzing, faffing or rutting, so long as it’s delivered either a) in another language, b) in an arty manner, or c) all of the above, SBS want to show it to YOU!
Unfortunately, it seems the Australian Communications and Media Authority tuned in the one night when a Japanese schoolgirl wasn’t getting made an honest woman by a tentacle monster, and instead chose to check out the rather thoughtful and low-key documentary, Obscene Machines, which aired last year (with a rating of MA15+) – and they have a few things to discuss with SBS at dinner tonight, young man/lady!
The documentary focused on how technology is used to spice up sex lives, including items such as robotic sex machines and vaguely life-like dolls.
ACMA noted two segments that breached broadcasting rules and were unsuitable for screening in the MA15+ category.
One two-and-a-half-minute segment featured close-up shots of a naked woman apparently being penetrated by a mechanical dildo; the other focused on an elderly man’s use of a life-like sex doll called Emma, modelled on his 18-year-old ex-wife.
ACMA rejected SBS’s argument that a large proportion of the program dealt with the sexual activities of the old and disabled and was informational.
“ACMA considers that the treatment of the subject matter in Obscene Machines is adult in nature and is therefore unsuitable for ordinary 15-year-old audience members,” it said in its report.
We also watched Obscene Machines when it screened last year, and the only part we’d vaguely agree with the ACMA on is that the old dude with the barely-legal-looking Real Doll was a bit of a creep.
The rest of it was actually quite wonderful, particularly the stuff about the disabled employing “bot sex” (i.e., with ‘robots’, not up the back door) to rediscover their sexuality, so it’s a shame the ACMA have to get all hot under the collar about this in particular.
People who like to have sexy with Johnny 5 are people too, ACMA! More » Exploiting People’s Pain For Page-Impression Gain? Why, It’s The News.com.au Way!
4:15PM Clem Bastow | If you, like the Defamer Australia team, cruise the online news portals throughout the day, chances are you would have seen the piece that went up around lunchtime today on News.com.au about Chantal Sebire, a Frenchwoman suffering from a rare cancer, who is requesting President Sarkozy allow her a death with dignity via euthanasia, which is illegal in France.
If you have read the story, then you will have also seen the pictures of Ms Sebire’s condition, which involves tumours that have attacked her nasal passages and disfigured her eyes and face beyond, one would imagine, recognition.
And just in case you didn’t see the pictures, News.com.au has put together a handy gallery, which they have breathlessly termed “In Pictures: Chantal Sebire’s terrible suffering“.
Now, what is most notable about the interview with Ms Sebire is that she does not once mention her appearance, or her face, or even the tumours themselves beyond how they have affected her senses and the pain they cause.
So what bothers us is the way News.com.au have taken it upon themselves to wheel out Ms Sebire’s case as some sort of afternoon snack break Joseph Merrick-lite tale, with a gee-whiz gallery to boot, as though she just can’t bear to go on living looking like this. Without the pictures, would News.com.au bother giving front-page banner space to the story? Posting photos of Ms Sebire with captions like “Painful cancer … Chantal Sebire just wants to die with dignity” doesn’t make this any less of a blatant attempt at generating some car-crash site traffic.
Then again, we’re not sure why we expect even a modicum of decency from the people that brought you this, this and this.
More » 
YouTube Clip Of The Day
12:49PM Jess McGuire | After our last blast of adorable toddler cuteness, our friend Sam forwarded us this clip.
Who cares if nearly 39 million people have already seen it, we never claimed to be on the cutting edge of video offerings! It is sweet as pie and a nice way to get through your Wednesday.
Truly. Epic. Lulz. More » 
11:37AM Seth | Great news for aspiring actors residing in the greater Pittsburgh area who just so happen to also be inbred: A casting notice for Julianne Moore thriller Shelter seeks background players to play the famed deformed mountain folk of West Virginia. Or, as they put it, “Extraordinarily tall or short. Unusual body shapes, even physical abnormalities as long as there is normal mobility. Unusual facial features, especially eyes… 9-12-year-old Caucasian girl with an other-worldly look to her…Could be an albino or something along those lines — she’s someone who is visually different and therefore has a closer contact to the gods and to magic. ‘Regular-looking’ children should not attend this open call.’” [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review] More »
Buffalo News Team Not Exactly On The ‘No Country’ Express
11:28AM Seth | If you’ve not yet heard the tale of the Buffalo news crew Oscar night gaffe, it goes something like this: Shortly after Best Director was announced, a technical mess-up caused the audio of a conversation between a local ABC news team to be broadcast to the general public. It’s the content of that exchange, warranting
Paris Hilton To Everyone: Pay Attention To Me!
11:09AM Mark Graham | Paris Hilton is not going to just stand by idly while the likes of Lo Conrad and her posse of entitled Hills chickettes steal all of her thunder. The lazy-eyed heiress is returning to the reality television fold in a yet-to-be-named project from Ish Entertainment, the production company recently founded by former Vh1 reality show maestro Michael Hirschorn. The show will revolve around Paris Hilton’s attempts to comb through a gaggle of camera-ready twentysomethings an attempt to find a new “best friend” (read: someone who she’ll gladly appear with for a few reunion show photo opps and then promptly never call again). But wait, that’s not all! In a move likely prompted by being repeatedly passed over by magazine editors in favor of her spawning friends, Paris is desperately trying to reignite her fading star (a la Sunshine) by, you guessed it, strutting around town with a new boytoy on her arm. More »
‘THR’ Leads All Trades In B.J. Imagery Ad-Buys
10:19AM Seth | Industry drones filing into their offices this morning were greeted with not quite your run-of-the-mill THR cover, but rather the somewhat startling, full-color image above. It all comes courtesy of the Belvedere Vodka company, as envisioned by photographer Terry Richardson. And while it took us a good ten minutes to figure out the connection between a trades publication, smooth spirits, and a Mischa Barton-esque woman reapplying lipstick shortly after having made acquaintance with an unidentified man’s crotch, it suddenly dawned on us: Now that the For Your Consideration season is over, the For Your Appreciation ads are right there to take its place. More »Ex-McLeod’s Daughters Heartthrob’s Resemblance To Wayne Carey Interrupts His Pleasant Bondi Breakfast
10:01AM Jess McGuire | It’s fair to say we chuckled heartily yesterday when we heard former McLeod’s Daughter star Aaron Jeffrey had been accosted by police in Sydney due to the fact he looks a lot like Wayne Carey.
The police claim they were not confused regarding the identity of the beefy bloke they were having a friendly chat to, but rather they’re big fans of Aaron’s (who knew the boys – and girls – in blue would be so into the horsey adventures of the McLeod clan and their chums?) but we’re not sold…
Jeffrey, who was having coffee with former TV host Laura Csortan, was surrounded by officers from the NSW riot and public order squad.
The policemen insisted they recognised the actor and were talking to him because they were fans. But onlookers swore they had seen the footballer.
Jeffrey said he was regularly mistaken for Carey.
This’ll probably come in handy when Channel 9 inevitably produce a telemovie based on Wayne Carey’s recent troubles, and are attempting to cast the lead role. More » 
