on the red snark-pet

Editorial note: This was originally going to post last night (you know, after the actual Oscars), but Cirque management had an early morning at the office (!) and something had to give. We hope you enjoy your snark day-old. Also, I’m not linking to every bloody dress that was trotted out last night, because I am lazy and the good people at E! Online & Go Fug Yourself don’t need my help.

—

Thanks for joining Cirque management & friends, where we’re blogging(ish) the Oscars(ish). (Les, consider this your shout-out, darlin’!) As always, I’m shocked that they’ve let Ryan Seacrest out of the Little People Playset to host the Red Carpet for another year. Jesse, however, had other, more pressing issues in mind…

—

Jesse: You couldn’t put on a real tux? Honestly, that’s what I wore to my first [client] meeting last week.

Pocket Seacrest’s first interview is Jennifer Lawrence.

Ang: I like it!

Katie: Yeah, it’s simple, but —

Jesse: BO-ring!

Katie: She’s 20! Cut her some slack!

Jesse: I didn’t fart her at all. She’s lucky.

—

Ang: I love Kelly Osborne, but can we fart her hair?

—

Pocket Seacrest interviews Melissa Leo.

Ang: I dislike her dress.

Jesse: That is SO fart-worthy, but I’m keeping the phone down.

Ang: Are you ever going to fart something?

Jesse: It’s early.

—

Ang: I’m calling it now: nip-slip on Mila Kunis. It’s going to happen.

Pocket Seacrest: “What was the hardest part about the role?”

Mila Kunis: “Blah blah-dee blah…”

Jesse: Really? I would think her hardest role was as Jackie on That ’70s Show… Think about it. She had to kiss Fez.

—

Jesse: Katie? Remember how the first time we met each other when we were watching the Oscars?

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Ang: Remember when it was 10 years ago exactly?

Jesse: Really?

Ang: Yup. Aw… I’m getting all verklempt.

Katie: ((throwing a look of disgust)) Please.

—

Jennifer Hudson appears, conversation about Anne Hathaway’s awesome red dress halts.

Jesse: Jennifer Hudson, HELL-O!

Ang: No.

Jesse: Love it.

Katie: Not with the bow.

Ang: Hell no.

Jesse: LOVE IT!

Ang: The boobs. The hoisting. Oy. …Katie? Tie breaker? ((Katie plays Switzerland)) Wuss.

—

Jesse: There’s Ruffalo…

Katie: Mmmmmm…

Jesse: But, but, but… The wife.

Katie: Oh, dear. She has, like, a shoulder pad involved… And a tail.

Jesse: She gets the first fart! Come on and get interviewed…

Ang: Oh, here she comes!

Jesse: ((giggles in anticipation))

Ang: That truly is a god-awful dress.

Fart machine: “Squeeeeeeeaaaaaaak!”

Jesse: Heeee!

—

Camera catches Cate Blanchett arriving.

Ang: Oh. My. God. OHMYGOD.

Jesse: ((maniacal laughter))

Ang: Oh. My. God. She looks like a fucking Fabergé egg.

Jesse: She does! ((prepares fart machine))

Giuliana & Kelly Osborne tongue-bathe Cate’s dress.

Katie: They love it.

Jesse: ((pretends to throttle himself))

Katie: I’m going to go start dinner.

Jesse: If you need help, just holler…

Katie leaves the room. Jesse stretches out on couch.

Ang: Don’t you dare fall asleep.

Jesse: Are you kidding? Now I can fart with abandon.

Kelly Osborne: “Sharon Stone looks gorgeous…”

Jesse & Ang: Arrrgggh! The hair!

Fart machine: FART! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart!

Katie: ((from kitchen)) I can hear that!

Fart machine: …Fart!

Immediately afterward:

Marisa Tomei = 5 farts

Marisa Tomei’s earrings = 1 fart

Commercial break = 1 fart

—

Helena Bonham Carter & Hillary Swank escape initial fart judgment because Jesse is playing Angry Birds.

—

Enter Celene Dion

Ang: Oh, hell. Can we fart her, please?

Jesse: ((snorts)) Her dress is okay, though.

Ang: We can’t fart just her very presence?

Pocket Seacrest: “How do you maintain your figure blah-dee-blah?”

Jesse: “Well, Ryan, I eat babies. Tiny, tiny babies.”

—

Oh, Nicole Kidman…

Kelly Osborne: ((hedging)) “I don’t know what to say about this…”

Giuliana: “Be honest, Kelly.”

Ang: Yes, Kelly, be honest. The dress is fugs.

Fart machine: Fart! Fart! Fart! Fart-fart-fart-fart-fart-fart! Fart! Fart! Fart!

Ang: Did you just fart Heart & Soul on the piano?

Jesse: ((creepy gremlin laugh))

—

Sandra Bullock

Jesse: Ugh. Either get a pair of boobs, or don’t wear that dress. ((Fart-fart! Fart-fart! Fart-fart! ….Fart!))

—

Gwynnie

Kelly Osborne: “I am a little bit obsessed with this dress.”

Jesse: Really?? ((Fart!))

—

Montage of celebs being shown…

Celine Dion ((fart!)) Penelope Cruz ((fart, fart!)) Nicole Kidman ((fart, fart! … pause … fart!))

Jesse: That last one was for Keith Urban.

—

Natalie Portman

Jesse: That’s a terrible dress, but you can’t fart a pregnant lady. The most awkward thing is she’s going to have to do the pregnant lady stand-up thing when she wins.

Ang: Maybe they’ll get her a hydraulic lift chair to make it easier.

Natalie Portman: “…and my jewelry is Tiffany.”

Jesse: Tiffany? Purple plastic earrings are Tiffany?

Close-up on the earrings

Jesse: But really, those earrings don’t look like Tiffany — they look like two of my graduation tassels. “All that hassle for these tassel earrings.”

Ang: Seriously, Jess, I really don’t hate the dress.

Jesse: …  ((The rest of Jesse’s Portman-related rant has been redacted upon request, since he fears going to hell.))

—

This concludes the fashion portion of tonight’s entertainment. Because we belonged to the decidedly NON-‘shroom-tripping crowd last night (*cough* Franco *cough*), there wasn’t much to report from the actual awards broadcast. In fact, the rest of the evening can basically be summed up as follows:

Jesse: Harry Potter! I pick Harry Potter to win all the awards!

Ang: ((reacting to some host-related ridiculata)) What the fucking fuck? …Did you know my mother thinks I swear too much?

Katie: ((clickety clackety worky-work-work)) Oooh, look at that! I got another one right!

Jesse & Ang: ((death glare))

Fart machine: FART!

—

Thanks for playing, kids — see you in 2012!

countdown to oscar

Welcome to Scenes from the Pre-Pre-Pre-Red Carpet on E! Cirque management is spending the day surrounded by besties (and beasties) and immersed in Oscar madness — beginning with E!’s 3-5pm coverage…

—

Katie: ((watching a segment about an ostrich, which has followed a segment about a horse, and seems to precede a segment about chameleons)) Am I watching E! or Animal Planet?

—

Jesse: Holly Madison is hosting the animal red carpet? Who’s on Peep Show tonight?

—

Ang: I kind of want to punch Ross the Intern. Is that wrong?

Katie: ((emphatically)) No.

Ang: Wow. When Katie tells me it’s okay to want to punch someone, I know they must be really, really bad.

—

Backstory: Saturday afternoon involved 20 minutes of dedicated fart machine noises by Jesse’s new favorite Android app.

Ang: Jesse! I forgot to tell you, L-Bags has a fart piano app on her iPhone. Have you seen that one?

Jesse: ((lights up immediately; descends on phone, locates two apps)) Do you mean the burp-and-fart piano? Or just the fart variety?

Katie ((giving Ang the death stare)) What did you do?

Ang: I’m sorry!

Katie: …You’re not, though.

Two minutes of nonstop burping & farting noises, punctuated by Jesse laughing so hard he falls over on couch.

Katie: ((trying unsuccessfully to suppress laughter)) We’re going to be listening to this for the next. SEVEN. HOURS.

E! Pre-pre-pre-Red Carpet: “…Animal has become the new neutral.”

Katie: They’re doing lingerie now? Is Holly Madison in charge of this part?

Jesse: You know what I think about that? ((giant farting noise))

Katie: ((to Ang)) I hope you’re proud of yourself.

—

Cirque management invites you to stay tuned for our next installment: Fart-Ranking the Red Carpet.

dancing with the well-known regional news personalities

Note: Some of these anecdotal posts should really have been written earlier (*cough* last week *cough*) but have been sitting in queue during the reign of MungFest ’10 (now on Day 7!). Cirque Management sincerely hopes you’ll appreciate days-old ridiculata just as much as fresh. Thank you. Come again.

—–

Scene: Murphy’s Fit shoe store in Evanston. Last Sunday, 4:15pm. Ang needs new gym shoes, because chunks of lining are beginning to come out of her old ones.

Jesse & Ang enter shoe store, find all three fitting chairs in tiny store occupied, take seat along windows. They are followed inside by some dude and his HS-age kid. Customer in the fitting chair closest to Jesse & Ang is about 50, with salt-n-pepper hair. He’s wearing running clothes and being fitted for running shoes by nice older gentleman. General chattery continues, then:

Customer: *in rather booming voice* “I think these are the ones!”

Nice Sales Dude: “Yep, they’re the exact kind you had before.” *pushes on Customer’s toe* “That feel okay?”

Customer: “Yep! Perfect.” *Nice Sales Dude reaches to begin unlacing shoes for repackaging* “Nah, don’t bother — I’ll wear them out.”

Customer and NSD head to counter to complete sale, then Customer leaves wearing new shoes.

Ang: *leaning over to Jesse as door closes behind Customer* “He looks really familiar. Is that weird?”

Jesse: “Not really, considering he’s Mark Suppelsa.”

Ang: “Shut up! No. . . That wasn’t him, was it?”

Jesse: “Um. Yeah?”

Ang: “Uh-uh. I mean, it definitely was someone who looked like him, I guess, but I don’t think that was him. . .”

Jesse: “Whatevs.”

Nice Sales Dude returns from register, settles down on stool in front of Ang and begins assessing her foot as she and Jesse continue debate. After learning that Ang’s shoes are almost two years old and that the preferred new shoe will be very similar, he asks Ang to walk — stocking-footed — to the far wall and back in super-slow motion. Hoping this is as close as she’ll ever come to performing a sobriety test walk, Ang complies.

NSD: *as Ang attempts an accurate walk in crazy-slow motion* “Slower — Sloooow-errrrrr. . . Okay. Come back. I’ve got it.”

Ang: *rambling while taking seat again* “I always have to be super conscious of landing with my heel, so I don’t walk on my toes. My mother has yelled at me about that since I was a kid.”

NSD: *grinning triumphantly and holding one of my discarded shoes for a demo* “You have what we call Dancer’s Foot!”

Ang: *blink blink* “Um. What?”

NSD: “[Lengthy explanation about exactly how and when Ang’s heel lands and the rest of her foot rolls inward.] You wait until the very end to roll through to your toes and go up on them, like a ballerina. We call that Dancer’s Foot.”

Jesse: *begins to giggle*

Ang: “You’re kidding. That’s hilarious. I’ve never been told I had a dancer’s. . . anything before.”

NSD: “Well, you have their feet. Ballerina feet.”

Ang: *turning to Jesse, who is still smothering giggles* “You hear that? I’m a freakin’ ballerina! Liz is going to love this. . .”

NSD: “By the way, we get all of the local media in here when they want to buy new shoes. So in case you were wondering –”

Jesse: *suddenly completely lucid* “It totally WAS Mark Suppelsa! You didn’t believe me!”

Ang: “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. . . It’s just that he didn’t look like Mark Suppelsa sitting there in running shoes.”

Jesse: “What did you expect him to wear, a suit?”

Ang: “Shut up. Wait ’til Katie hears — she still hates him from High School.”

NSD looks bewildered by this entire exchange, but continues fitting shoes on Ang as Jesse begins texting Katie.

Jesse: “. . .Katie says he’s still a jerk.”

Ang: *test-walking across the room in second pair of shoes* “Katie needs to get over it.”

NSD: *rather defensively* “We get all the local media in here, and he is the nicest and most genuine of the bunch. . .”

Assuring NSD that Mark Suppelsa certainly seemed friendly and down-to-earth, Ang chats him up about some research for an upcoming “Ask FGG” blog post. After paying for her new shoes, she and Jesse leave the store and Ang finally lets out the Sock Puppet Showgirls reference she’s been holding in for 20 minutes. . .

Ang: *in her best Sasha voice* “I’m not a whoooore! I’m a dancer!”

Jesse: “Hey, princess — every word you just said? Lies.”

‘mambo’ jumbo

Jesse returned home today from a three-week work assignment in India, and as excited as his harem was to to see him (and vice versa), you’d have thought he’d been away for closer to three years.

SCENE: The drive home from dinner together (Katie and I take our role of “Jet Lag Snooze Prevention Committee” very seriously):

ANG: “Katie! I forgot to tell you — A few days after we heard that god-awful ‘Mambo No. 5’ in the pool and I put it in the article? We went to Pub Quiz and that asshat Lou Bega was totally in the picture round. And then P-Dubs and I argued over how to spell his name. . . L-Bags had to talk me off a ledge.”

JESSE: “It’s B-E-G-A. And, oh my god, I love that song!”

ANG: *eye daggers into the back of the front seat headrest*

JESSE: “No, really — it’s a great song!”

ANG: “Nails on a fucking chalkboard. NAILS. ON. A CHALKBOARD!”

JESSE: *creepy “ha ha, I’m evil!” gremlin laugh*

KATIE: “Oh good grief.”

JESSE: “So, let’s imagine you’re duct taped to a chair and can’t move –”

ANG: “Why am I duct taped to a chair?”

JESSE: “Because I said so, bitch. You’re taped to the chair and you have to choose one option: Listen to the entire soundtrack of ‘Mama Mia’ for 24 hours. . . or ‘Mambo No. 5’ once?”

ANG: “That’s easy. I can sing ‘I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am’ loudly enough to drown out one ‘Mambo’ iteration.”

KATIE: “You took a puss pass, Jess. Should have picked something way worse. . . Rachel Ray or Paula Deen or –”

JESSE: *lights up like a Christmas tree* “Oo-o-oh! 12 hours of Paula Deen cooking shows or listening to ‘Mambo No. 5’ once?”

ANG: “Dude. Duh.”

KATIE: *exasperated* “Make it harder!”

JESSE: *suddenly smug* “Okay. I’ve got it. 12 hours of ‘Mambo No. 5’. . . or 12 hours of Sidney Crosby highlight reel footage?”

ANG: “At that point, I have to resort to gouging out my own eyes.”

JESSE: “You can’t! You’re duct taped to the chair!”

ANG: “Then I tip myself over in the chair, gouging my eye on the corner of a desk.”

KATIE: *snorts* “You’re NOT Jennifer Garner.”

JESSE: “Besides, there’s no way you could tip a chair over.”

ANG: “Whatever! They do it on TV all the time. You just rock your weight from side to side ’til you tip.”

JESSE: “BUT –”

KATIE: “Jesse. Don’t worry. If she’s sitting in a chair, her feet can’t touch the ground anyway.”

JESSE: *creepy gremlin laugh*

ANG: “We are so not friends right now.”

yo gabby gabby

I should probably say up front that I haven’t seen Precious yet. It’s not that I don’t *want* to see it or that I think I won’t like it. And I can name at least two friends who’ve probably rolled their eyes more than once at my hesitation. (Hi, guys!) It’s just hard to prepare for that deep a dive into such a painful onscreen portrayal. I’ll get to it eventually, when my mood and mindset are just right to appreciate the film without being overwhelmed by the story.

In the meantime, my movie-going laziness hasn’t kept me from falling crazy in lurve with the delightful Gabourey Sidibe.

It’s hard to miss Gabby in the media these days — whether the discussion involves her out-of-nowhere catapult to stardom, the award nominations and wins she’s racked up for Precious, or (*sigh*) the subject of her weight, people can’t seem to stop talking about her. Ordinarily, the pop culture saturation might mean she and I were destined not to click. Anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that I often get turned off to media darlings or current “It” movies/people/books/trends on account of the overexposure (or, occasionally, just out of sheer stubbornness). But I haven’t been able to summon any backlash against Gabby. She’s too vibrant, too inspiring and too damn fun to dismiss.

And when she jumped right into cursing on Craig Ferguson’s show during a February interview? I knew it was love.

Honestly, I dare you to listen an interview, a candid question on the red carpet, or even a sound byte of this woman ordering a latte and not want to immediately take the Fug Girls’ lead by adjourning to the wine and industry gossip.The fact that, in addition to being bright, witty, hilarious and down-to-earth, she’s also a full-figured woman who doesn’t give a shit if you think her arms should be covered up? Just icing on the cake.

So it was a pleasure to get a little gushy about the Gabster in my latest FGG column, which notes the multiple plus-sized actresses featured on Oscar night and asks about the state of normal-to-big girl representation in fashion and the media. [Props due to L-Bags (L-Wass?) for getting me noodling on the Christina Hendricks item a few weeks back.] It’s a lot of subject to tackle in just over 800 words (especially when you’re supposed to clock in closer to 400) but I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

And hm… I wonder if Gabourey needs a shopping buddy these days?