Fugbours

Aussie actress/singer Natalie Bassingthwaighte (which, PS: how much do I love that name? There are so many consonants in it. It's fantastic) proves to us all that What Works on the runway is often hard to pull off in Real(ish) Life, even if you are in totally great shape:

When I first saw photos of this particular outfit in [Insert Glossy Fashion Mag Here], I assumed that it would be made available in longer lengths, as well -- which I think would actually be quite fabulous -- and as far as I know, it may well be (clearly, I need to zip over to Prada to research that point. Also, to try on turbans. And then cry, because I can not buy a Prada turban unless I plan to LIVE IN IT. Also because I would look insane in a turban.).  Because what is stellar on a model whose legs are longer than my entire body tends looks REALLY REALLY SHORT when someone who is not a model wearing it out and about. And then that person just sort of looks out of proportion and awkward. I do enjoy the expressions on the faces of the people in the background. The ones who are looking at The Consonanted One seem to be thinking, "Wow. How is sister sitting down in that thing?" And, indeed, so am I. It reminds me of that AbFab episode where Patsy announces that she has the power to raise hemlines so high that "the whole world is your gynecologist."  Apparently, she's finally done it.

Fugitch

I love animal print, but I am pretty sure that the undulating print on this little number is going to give someone a seizure:

It's actually very sexy....if you are:

a) appearing in No One Takes Me To The Cleaners And To Bed On The Same Night, Darling: The Life And Times of Joan Collins

b) an octogenarian

c) stranded on a wildlife preserve and forced to camouflage yourself with George Hamilton's bedspread. (Don't ask why George Hamilton is involved. HE JUST IS.)

I just want to sneak up behind her with some pinking shears and hem the entire thing to about knee-level. Then we'd be cooking with propane.

Fuggie Cornish

Abbie Cornish seems to have exited the "I am dressing as sweetly as possible so that you'll believe that Ryan Phillippe's wang did not pass this way" stage of her life and plowed straight into the, "God, I'm depressed -- now NOBODY is talking about me; I kind of wish I'd run around naked that week with a RYAN 4EVA tattoo on my ass" phase.

She looks so sad, like she's worn that skirt for three days while moping around the house and hasn't even really been washing her hair. I think I preferred the other phase.

Although, I heard they're remaking Fame, which feels like sacrilege, by the way, because seriously, it's RIGHT THERE in the song; they're going to live FOREVER, not be shoved aside by a peppy, gritty remake. Anyway, maybe Abbie's dressing like an off-duty ballet dancer -- carefully sloppy with lots of layers, just like they did it in Center Stage -- because she wants a job that doesn't involve being The Girl Who Allegedly Maybe Kinda Drove Reese Witherspoon Into A Long Public-Relations Bender That Led Her Straight Into The Arms Of Jake Gyllenhaal. For one thing, that's a bit long to put on your resume.

Well Played/Fugged: Bjork

I got a text this weekend from a friend at Coachella, and it said:

Bjork is dressed like a Zulu warrior priestess at a luau.

My response was, "This is why Bjork is an international treasure."

I mean, seriously, would anyone else decide to look like she's presiding over a muppet sacrifice just because it's where her performing mojo inspired her to go? No. Only Bjork. You can't fug that kind of genius. She's quite possibly a modern Wonder of the World. I feel like it would be amazing to live inside her mind for a few minutes. It wouldn't be any of that boring day-to-day "I wonder where my Corn Flakes are" stuff. Instead she'd be all, "Whither the space elves with their Newt King? I need their milk, and man, why hasn't Katie Holmes left that guy yet?" Forget everyone paying millions for a ride into space. Let's book a head trip on the S.S. Bjork.

Spider-Fug 3 World-Domination Press Junket Update: So Far, So Fug

It's been quite a roller-coaster ride with La Dunst during the Spider-Man 3 press junkets throughout Europe. One day, she'll show up looking totally charming, with cute hair and shoes and great makeup that makes her eyes pop, and then -- as Jess put it -- the next day she'll show up looking like she suffered a head injury.

Case in point: There was this, which we loved, and then there was this, which gives off the impression that she's about to hop on the trapeze at a gay circus. She looked adorable in this, but we weren't so wild about this.

Or this:

Aside from the fact that the base dress would be more at home in a production of Swan Lake Erie, in which all the water fowl are poisoned by pollution, it also looks like she spilled a rubberizing compound down her front. After drinking blood. Well, actually, I don't mind the lip color so much, but in combination with the dress I feel like she's headed to an after-party at weirdest ballet-themed S&M club in town.

Next week we should get a few stateside Spider-Man premieres, and frankly, we can't wait, and are hoping she will show up in the most fabulous Marchesa gown imaginable, followed up by sticking her legs through an old barrel and filling it up with beer that she then serves to the fans. I mean, why not, right?

Fug The Poster: Michelle Williams

Based on this description, would you go see this movie?

"A Gainesville Florida auto upholsterer attempts to transcend his mundane life by taming a wild, red-tailed hawk. He chases his passion while caring for his autistic nephew, and becoming caught up in an abstract and uneasy relationship with a young psychology student." [Source.]

I can tell you right now that I would run, not walk, away from the theater. I mean, obviously, it's incredibly relatable to try and spice up your life by taming a rare bird, but I am guessing the random insertion of the young psychology student came because whoever developed the script turned to the writer and said, "Where are the boobs in this movie? Where is the illicit tongue? People like illicit tongue more than they like birds." Incidentally, that is a valuable lesson for everyone to remember. Otherwise, the whole thing seems rife with depressing and potentially pretentious discourse about growth, plus annoying metaphors about wildness versus obedience and the spreading of one's wings. And bird feet. Lots of bird feet.

Next question: Does this poster make you any more inclined to see the movie?

Problem No. 1: It's Giamatti, which means the movie description left out the important detail that the Gainsville auto upholsterer is a sad-sack Gainesville auto upholsterer. He may be a great actor, but that doesn't mean I haven't reached my limit of watching him be short-but-deep streak of misery.

Problem No. 2: Michelle Williams has no eyebrows in that picture. Seriously, that girl is lovely, and yet she looks consumptive -- as if they left out from the description that the young psych student is being devoured from within by her own inner demons, and also, possibly some kind of rare and debilitating navel cancer. Who did that to her? Did the old Dawson's Creek hair and makeup people take over the production of this movie poster? She reminds me of my other official Eyebrow Nemesis: whoever was responsible for Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed, where they got bleached clean off the planet.

Problem No. 3: It reunites DC's Jen Lindley with her greasepig freshman boyfriend Henry, a.k.a. Michael Pitt. Down that road, agony lies.

Problem No. 4: No, seriously, what did they do to Michelle Williams? Do humble students suffering through abstract relationships with sad-sacks never go to the drugstore to spend $2 on some Wet N Wild lip gloss and some Maybelline Great Lash? I object.

In sum, I really don't understand why they would decide Michelle Williams is one of their most important marketing tools for this movie, and then make her look as if you will spend the whole time wishing you could take her to Rite-Aid and/or crying over her sensitive wisdom while she dies all over the place, or falls in love with the autistic nephew, or makes out with Giamatti.

No. She should be a selling point, but she's not in that picture.

Billboard Latin Music Awards Fug Carpet: Jullye Giliberti

If IMDb is to be believed, Jullye Giliberti has appeared in several telenovelas, all of which seemed to have involved priests, secret weddings, coincidental liasions with relatives of former lovers, and -- I hope -- people getting slapped. Which is why I really wish I'd taken Spanish in high school instead of French. If the school had told me that Spanish would have increased the number of soaps I could watch, I totally would have signed up. 

At any rate, it seems that no one told Jullye that there IS such a thing as Being Too Coordinated:

That is a LOT of aqua.  Unless she's attending A Salute To Miami Vice (an event I would completely support, by the way) we've got a problem.

Pregnancy Rumor-Mongering Apology: Sarah Michelle Gellar

So, remember back at the Oscars when I bet all my money and every pair of shoes I have that Smidge here was up the duff? Sorry, Buffy:

You are as wee as ever, and I stand officially corrected. Also not pregnant: EVERYONE ELSE I THOUGHT WAS PREGNANT.

One of these days, I will get something right, I'm just SURE of it.

All that being said, you look very pretty in what I assume might just be Chanel. I was going to say that you could use a spot of color, but then I remembered that I myself own literally 32 black shirts (what? They're all different. A black turtleneck is very different from a black halter top is very different from a black cashmere boatneck is very different from a black tank) and thus have really no leg to stand on regarding this particular issue. You are pretty, your hair is pretty, I secretly love Cruel Intentions and I hope you forgive me for going all BUMPWATCH 07! on you. Especially since I'm pretty sure you still remember how to kick ass.

A Moment Like Fug

I hate to kick a girl when she's having wardrobe trouble, especially when it's happening at an event that's for a very good cause and especially when it's Kelly Clarkson. But we don't want to violate Kelly's trust -- we like to think of ourselves as good girlfriends, and good girlfriends tell you when you need to go back inside and try on something else.

If only Kelly had invited her good girlfriends to the Idol Gives Back show (the logo for which somehow just makes me want to bake crescent rolls, or cookies-from-a-tube), because she needed a firm shove back toward the closet.

Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. You have officially veered away from poorly thought-out flowy dresses and straight into muumuu territory.

Do you see the look on Jeff Beck's face? He is giving the evil eye to your stylist, indicating that she had better not cross either of you again or else she will wake up one day with his haircut. Jeff knows, as we do, that you're a lovely girl with a voice that could make an inanimate object smile, and there is no reason you should be carelessly draped in fabric that makes you look both heavy and squat. Now, I get that maybe your shape is changing, for whatever reason, and that's fine -- that's life. Listen, we've all been there. I had to give up potato chips for Lent for a reason, and I'm sorry, Mom, I love you very much, but I must confess that reason had zero to do with piety and everything to do with the fact that for me, "Bet You Can't Eat Just One" refers not to one chip but one bag. I am a salt-food,  junk-food junkie -- me and Cliff Huxtable -- and I have totally looked in the mirror some days and wondered if my hips could just please find a way to lie just a little bit longer. However, I actually think you and your pretty eyes and that shiny hair look gorgeous. I want to hug you for not losing 30 pounds just to fit into hot pants and then claiming you have no idea how you lost the weight because you have no time to exercise, and so the brand-new muscle tone all over your frame must have therefore appeared by magic. This is not about you not rocking just the way you are. (You do.) What it is about is somebody deciding to give up and just throw any old thing on you to hide your hips. You should be working those curves, not burying them.

So go home and put on some Right Said Fred and dance comfortably knowing you're too sexy for your caftan, and start fresh tomorrow.

Fugily Deschfugnel

Emily Deschanel needs to fire her people.

It's not the dress -- although there's something so very twee about it, to the point where I half expect there to be a mini-Deschanel, or even a puppy Deschanel, that trots out in a matching ensemble.

No, as usual, my main problem with Emily Deschanel's getup is her makeup. Somehow, whoever does her eyes -- maybe it's her, maybe it's a three-year old, maybe she's an equal-opportunity employer who hired a blind makeup artist -- always manages to make it look smudged, as if she's still wearing yesterday's mascara even though half of it has taken up residence under her lower lash line.

This is new bad, though. Weird bad.

She just looks tired. Her eyes are a pretty, icy color, and whatever stuff's been caked around them just gives them a red-rimmed, slitty, rubbed-raw appearance, like maybe she hasn't slept in four days because of the beer IV she's had jammed in her arm. And as much as we'd all like to borrow that contraption from her (although in my case I'd fill it alternately with Diet Coke and chocolate martinis), I suspect she just needs some of that nice Clinique creamy eye-makeup remover and some cotton pads, and she'd look like a different person. Like, say, an awake, alert person who didn't accidentally try to strip off her eyeliner with some astringent.

Fugunion

God, Alexa Davalos, if you didn't want to be Josh Lucas's date for this thing, you should have just SAID SO. Showing up in your bathrobe is totally passive aggressive.

Las Fuggas

Molly Sims is on Las Vegas, right? I only knows bits and pieces about that show, like that Lara Flynn Boyle's character got blown off a roof top by a particularly nasty gust of wind, and that Josh Duhamel is on it, and he's extremely good-looking, though I prefer to remember him as Leo du Pres on All My Children, a character I was so fond of that I actually screamed "noooo!" when Heather gave me the sad news that they had killed him off (although! The body was never recovered. So he'll probably be back. But he'll have a totally different face. So I might be sort of out, you know?) (Also, I apparently wasn't fond enough of him to keep up enough with AMC to know that he was dead.) (It was still a blow.)

Anyhoodle, Molly Sims: Cover Girl, Las Vegas something or other, used to date that hot guy on Without A Trace, has a great house that I saw in In Style a few years back and coveted. That's the extent of my knowledge. Also, I know that this was a mistake:

I actually LOVE the fabric. It's very retro, but still modern and I think it's cool, and if the cut of the dress were different, I think I'd really like it. But this just isn't all that flattering on her. I mean, obviously, she doesn't look HIDEOUS or whatever -- she's working from a much higher degree of hot than the average Jane to begin with, which helps. I just feel like the peek-a-boob bodice makes her look both more squashed and more short-waisted than she actually is, because you've got SOOOOOO much shoulder and SOOOOOO much skirt and, like, nothing in between.

Let's go to the close-up:

Indeed. You know she is spending all night just tugging that up. This whole evening was a choreographed routine for Molly, one which all women have performed: glass in one hand,  clutch tucked under arm, other hand surreptitiously yanking your bodice back into position. She has the added degree of difficulty in that she has to make sure that her yanking hasn't repositioned those cut-outs right over her nipples. That's a lot to ask, honestly. Exhausting, even. Thank god she has that nice house to go back to.

Fug Cantrell

By now, many of our regular readers are familiar with GFY reverse-muse Blu Cantrell -- a singer whose style is so intensely insane that we're both frightened by her, and fascinated with her.

Her latest issues would appear to be borne of a follicular mid-life crisis. Here is Lady Blu before:

Okay, so the top of her hair looks kind of... greasy, maybe, and between you and me, her right pupil is freaking me the hell OUT, so perhaps I'm concentrating too hard on her weave. But overall, she's got some flattering waves around her face. It's subtle, and it's not overshadowing the rest of her, which is a good thing. Usually. Except maybe it needed to overshadow THE EYE, which ... seriously, is it just me, or is that thing dilating independently of the other one? Are they supposed to do that? Or is it just an optical illusion?

Ahem. Anyway, all ocular shenanigans aside, I think you'll agree that she looks better in the above photo than she has in the past few days. Let's start with this weekend.

Either the theme of this party was "Come As Your Favorite Olsen" -- in which case we'd obviously have gone as Nellie Oleson -- or Mary-Kate and Ashley do actually have a secret triplet. Although now that I stare at her, she also kind of resembles Lost's Emilie de Ravin, so maybe the party was in honor of all the old Roswell actors, in which case we'd have taken the controversial direction of dressing as the diction coach who finally got Shiri Appleby to say "thinking" instead of "thinkink" and the like. Regardless, it seems unwise for a lass like Blu, who hasn't had a hit record in a blue moon, to try and get attention by making people think you're someone else.

Not that Blu seems to mind, judging by the wig she sported a day or so later.

That thing is a giant pile of ass. Seriously, what is WITH all this cheap hair? It looks like she found it while rooting through a cardboard box of wigs at Courtney Love's garage sale, or bought it for $2.99 at Aaah's on Halloween because she wanted to try going as Julia Roberts' Pretty Woman character pre-heart of gold. Except even Prostitute Julia was able to afford a better wig. What gives, Blu? Are you just waiting for a dude in a borrowed Lotus to come by and give you $3000 to use his hotel hot tub? Because here's the thing: It kind of makes you look like a tranny. And I'm pretty sure that no matter how giving a mood Eddie Murphy is in these days, he's not going to be up for that kind of charity again any time soon. So you might want to reconsider the coif. Unless you're just short of cash, in which case, we'd be happy to loan you the cash for some of Ken Paves' over-the-counter hair extensions. They clip right in, and aren't even pre-owned. It's like magic.

Fug Karfugian

Kim Kardashian is truly famous for nothing. She has no discernible job, nor has she ever done anything really noteworthy in the public eye, and yet I know a lot about her. She is Brody Jenner's step-sister. She's friends with Paris Hilton. Her late father was one of OJ Simpson's defense lawyers, though that was mostly just because he was friends with OJ. He didn't really do any lawyering.  OJ lived at the Kardashian compound until he turned himself in, so Kim may have some inside scoop on whether or not OJ actually Did It (ahem). And now one of the things you know about me is that I know A LOT about the OJ Simpson trial, primarily because a great deal of the legal shenanigans were aired on local television during a very warm Los Angeles summer that I spent stripping wallpaper for my mother.  And speaking of criminal:

Listen, girl. When you're dealing with those big old (fake?) boobs, you really can't just drape a tablecloth over them and call it a day, because it makes you look like one of those ladies on the prow of the ship. (Intern George has just informed me that those are called "figureheads."  He has an impressive breadth of knowledge, truly.) And while it is conceptually dramatic to come sailing into the harbor with the strength of thousands of seaman behind you, this is not a look that translates well to the red carpet.

Well Played, Paula Abdul

Victory in our time!

That's right, Paula, celebrate. You look ... cute! I KNOW! The dress is fun, the shoes are fantastic, and although your Botox problem has your "smile" looking slightly more like a twisted grimace, I also know that's just unfortunate timing on this picture and I can relate because I am horribly unphotogenic. Although it does sort of look like you are resisting while Craig Ferguson is trying to escort you quickly and quietly to your car so it can take you back to the loony bin, but whatever -- I'm starting to find your incoherence and faux-drunken shenanigans amusing (to the point where I wish you'd attributed your fashion pick to the little sprites who dance on your shoulders and really shine in their own light of special rainbows; maybe you did).

Also, I do believe I actually heard you give an OPINION on American Idol last night, something that wasn't just a regurgitation of whatever Randy said before you. Did my ears deceive me? I almost hit my head on the coffee table when I fainted, I was so surprised. So well played indeed, Ms. Abdul. Let's shoot for one more of those per show. Okay? Great. Baby steps.

The Sofugos

Edie Falco usually looks totally pulled together at formal events, but it seems that the Tribeca Film Festival has inspired her Inner Frump:

This whole look just screams "Clinically Depressed Mother of the Bride." This is what you wear when your daughter is running off with a member of al-Qaida, or maybe Kevin Federline, as it's just a step above mourning, but also seems like it would be forgiving when, after the ceremony, you and your husband drive 25 miles out of town to go to Claim Jumper and each eat a piece of Motherlode cake in total silence.

God, now I'm totally depressed. Sorry about that. The good news is that SHE seems pretty chipper, despite the tragedy-wear, so at least we can all rest assured that if a Motherlode was required, it did its duty.

Spiderfug 3

Oh, Kiks.

Ever since The Incident of The Glasses, I've sort of been falling in love with Kirsten Dunst. She's kooky and she often shuns The Holy Covenant of the Bra, but she seems like a good sport. Also, I just read this whole interview with her and Bryce Dallas Howard in Jane magazine and it was all sort of self-deprecating and charming and she seems to be bummed about her Boy Situation, in a very relate-able way, and she also uses the word "dude" a lot, as do I.

So, DUDE, KIKI:

You look cute: that dress fits you nicely and your bod looks great. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the color on you, but it's all mildly fashion-forward, you look really happy, and you're definitely working it. BUT YOUR BOYFRIEND APPEARS TO BE WEARING MAN-LEGGINGS. And COWBOY BOOTS. And a VERY LOW CUT TEE. I'm seriously pretty sure that we just saw this EXACT SAME OUTFIT on Lindsay Lohan. And I'm sure if you wanted to date Lindsay, YOU COULD. 

Although I don't really recommend that.  Lindsay is not in a good place right now. You don't need her drama in your life.

BUT NOR DO YOU NEED MAN-LEGGINGS.

Virgin Fugatory

The other day, I was watching the reruns of The OC that they're currently airing on SoapNet, and thinking about Mischa Barton. Namely that even when she's dressed like a total nutjob or delivering a less than stellar line-reading, you can't escape the fact that she really is extremely pretty.  Which does help her get away with these sorts of pantsual shenanigans:

I think my feelings on super-high-waisted pants are very well documented, but the issue with these, as far as I'm concerned, is less "Ooh, if those are totally accentuating HER tiny saddle bags, I'd look like I was stocking up for a trip on the Oregon Trail in them," and more that they're total Mom Jeans. Not in the SNL Unflattering, Pleated Mom Jeans sense, but in the sense that I am pretty sure that my ACTUAL mother wore a pair like these when I was in pre-school. And so my reaction to them is very confused and visceral. On one hand, I think they're insanely unflattering and I hate them. On the other hand, I suddenly feel like I just had a nice long stint with finger paints, a peanut butter sandwich and a hug and I'm all ready for my nap. Which is quite pleasant really.

I think I shall resolve this quandary with a little Sesame Street.

Fugged!

It is well and truly established that I am quite fond of Miss Mandy Moore. She seems like someone you could be friends with -- actual Go Out For Beers With, Complain About Work To, Talk About Boys With, Borrow Going-Out Tops From Friends, as opposed to being someone who has solely Snort Coke With, Steal Parts From, Cheat On Boyfriends With, "Accidentally" Spill Wine on Your Favorite Top Hollywood-Style Friends.  And, apparently -- at least according to Elle -- she is both a lover AND a fighter, and who doesn't appreciate that in a girl? 

And, sure, maybe she's a lover and a fight with sort of unusually straw-like hair, according to his cover, but she looks cute and beachy in that dress, no? Imagine that with slightly healthier-looking hair. It works -- right? Sure. It works. Everything is working out fine for Mands. Let's take a gander at her on the inside, shall we?

Um.

That's... not such a great picture. In fact, I feel like if Mandy and I were Friends Friends, and I snapped that on my digital camera, she would squeak and force me to delete it. She doesn't look sultry as much as she looks sort of...well, let's just say that this is very, VERY similar to the look I had on my face last weekend when I was exhausted and hungover and the nice lady at the Coffee Bean told me that it would be about ten minutes before my coffee was ready because the coffee flux capacitor had blown a gasket (or something).

Mandy, I don't know what you did to the folks over at Elle, but -- as your friend -- I think you need to find some way to make it right. Now, can I borrow that white dress this weekend?

Since You've Been Fug

So, I am all about Kelly Clarkson. I love her, love her, love her. In fact, the night of the American Idol 1 finale, I told my co-worker Jenny that if Kelly didn't win, I was going to have to call in sick the next day, and I meant it. I was really invested.  So this definitely doesn't stem from some kind of misguided dislike of K. Cla. That kind of haterade simply isn't on the menu here at GFY HQ.

Um, okay. Dear, dear Kelly. I love your new haircut. Your makeup is great. This color is amazing on you. But we have to have a talk. I see what you're going for here, and I truly do salute it. However, the shape, on you, is not fantastic.  You're sort of bottom-heavy (I feel you), and this makes you look a wee bit shapeless and kind of -- maybe -- like you're the newest member of the Fruit of the Loom team of whimsical...you know, fruits, albeit obviously the most talented one (sorry, Grapes). You need something that sort of wrangles you into more of a shape. Because you HAVE a shape and I'm sure it's cute. It's just kind of lost and obscured in this dress, which just goes to show that you can have an ostensibly good outfit (I think the dress itself is really pretty adorable) and if it doesn't work on your body type, you're still SOL.

And I hate it when Kelly is SOL. She should be FULL of L.

The Bride of Fugly

Jennifer Tilly is, as they would have said in a previous time, one hot mama.  But I have a question:

So, say you're wearing a sexy little number with actual plastic cut-outs. When it comes right down to it,  isn't that incredibly uncomfortable? Plastic isn't very forgiving. I feel like it would poke you right there in your delicate midriff flesh any time you leaned over or sat down. Moreover, what if you got overly warm? Next thing you know, you have an embarrassing condensation situation. It just seems rife with issues for me.

I am impressed with her boob wrangling skills, though. The youngsters in this town could learn a thing or two from Ms Tilly, it seems, because if she didn't have a nip slip in this number, then there IS a Nip Slip Prevention Secret, and she should probably bottle it.

Well Played, The Pussycat Dolls

In life, there are few things to me as freaky as finding that the Pussycat Dolls don't look that bad. They are the queens of needing to remove about five or six elements from their outfits in order to reach the right balance. They also often dress like an alien army from the planet Rack.

But, dammit, I'm developing a soft spot for the Dolls, due entirely to my fascination with the screaming, dancing, finger-pointing, bad singing, and arguments over who gets to perform on the giant swing -- not to mention insistences that songs like "Don't 'Cha and "Bleep" are odes to empowerment -- that happen on the televisual crack The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search To Add Another Body To Its Already Enormous Group Of Bland, Interchangeable People. That doesn't mean their music doesn't make the baby Jesus cry, but it does mean that -- so help me -- I don't think they look that bad here.

These are girls who could stand to go a little simpler now and then, or else we're so blinded by the insanity that we never bother to remember their faces. Don't get me wrong -- they're the Pussycat Dolls, and I know this means they're always going to be a little bit Vegas, a lot of metallic sheen, and a dash of Not From This Galaxy. I understand that they have a sartorial mandate. But it's working for them better than usual in this pic. Of course, Pouty Person On Left might find that tiny skirt a little difficult to maneuver if she wants to, say, scratch her ankle, or indeed lean very gently in any direction. Faux Carrie Underwood looks pretty cute, though. Nicole's dress is hot. The redhead's LBD has a kinky fur trim at the bottom that gives it a nifty edge. The fabric of the gold thing on the far right looks kind of cheap and uncomfortable, which probably means it would cost $20,000 at Barney's, but Nameless Girl (seriously, the show tries to convince us they have personalities, but even the contestants clearly forget the names of anyone who isn't Nicole about two seconds after they've heard them) is working it okay.

I am a trifle concerned about That Other Doll. You know the one. Whoever did her makeup clearly has a fetish for people who eat the entirety of a Mini Babybel cheese, then use the halves of the red casing to make hilarious wax lips. Not that I've done that. Well, not today. But outside the confines of a Safe Place, like one's living room, it's not very fair to her to do that to her face. The whole effect reminds me of a scene from Spaceballs where our heroes get captured after a spectacular dive through closing doors, but then it's revealed that they're actually still safe because it was their stunt doubles who were captured, and they're all complete schmoes -- like the person in the wedding dress, who is not in fact Daphne Zuniga, but rather a squat man with a mustache and stringy hair. That's kind of how I feel here -- like Sixth Doll is somebody's bad stunt double (because the real Doll is fleeing Robin Antin's evil empire as fast as her stilettos can carry her), and they just hoped we wouldn't notice the bad fake, since we don't recognize half these people on a regular basis anyway.

But all in all, when you consider what these people wear most of the rest of the time, at least 70 percent of this photo is a step in a good direction. I'm not sure where the seventh Doll is going to go, though -- we don't really have room for one. Maybe she can stand in the back and jump up when the flash goes off? Or maybe they'll greenlight a second season of the show documenting the process of the new Doll mud-wrestling the old ones one by one -- while singing, of course -- to determine whose spot she takes.

The Best Damn Fug

I have to say, I'm surprised that Avril Lavigne returned to her punky, quasi-skater-girl look to do the PR for her new album. For quite a while she's been making public appearances working a more mature style, prompting me to say, "Wow, Avril Lavigne has REALLY GREAT HAIR." And she did! So I was naturally anticipating that her new album would bring the new look along with it, reinvention being the mother of attention. That way, in addition to talking to reporters about her new album, she could also discuss a whole host of issues related to her "more mature look," trotting out such tried and true celebrity comments like, "you know, I got married, and I really feel like I've GROWN as a PERSON. My personal life GROUNDS ME," or "you know, I'm a woman now. When I released my last album, I was still a kid. I really feel like I've GROWN as a PERSON. I'm so much more GROUNDED now. I think you'll hear this more mature sound on my album." Because being grounded naturally leads to more lustrous hair, as I'm sure we're all aware. (And, actually, she DID make several of these sorts of comments in the most recent Lucky, which would make you think she might actually have changed her public look measurably.) And yet, no:

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly the way she looked the last time she had an album out. In fact, La Lavigne has been working this exact same Gwen-Stefani-circa-1997 meets that-cute-girl-who-works-at-the-Vans-store-at-The-Block-in-Orange look for YEARS NOW. All we're missing is the tie! And while I actually totally think it's cool to style a young celebrity in a way that doesn't make her look like she's serving cocktails at the Playboy Mansion, this feels like a really unfortunate retread. Everyone has to evolve a little bit to stay interesting, right? Like, my secret favorite Mandy Moore used to be all bubble gum pop, but now she's That Girl Who Recorded Her Album In a Cabin in the Woods, Depressed Because of Her Bad Luck With the Dudes and the Overall Futility of Life, But Who Still Is Really Pretty.  Showing up with the exact same shtick years later is just kind of tired. And the thing is, Avril TOTALLY doesn't seem into it anymore. Leaving aside the fact that she's working kind of a Frankensteinian thing in this picture, if you saw her on Saturday Night Live last week, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I have never seen a musical guest who seemed more uninterested in and maybe even borderline embarrassed by her own performance.  And while I'm sure that a stale look and a totally bored artist really move records, worst of all, now I don't even get to read about Avril's routine for bouncy hair.

Giuliana De Fuggi

I don't really have a solid opinion on Giuliana De Pandi's outfit. The skirt is hugely reminisce of those floral spandex dresses all the really popular, perfect girls bought from Express when I was in ninth grade, causing all the boys to drool and those of us who ate potato chips to curse the hell out of Lycra and reach for another bag. Add the coat in there and it's a tad more  "Head of the Committee In Charge of Theme and Specialty Luncheons for the Cape Cod Country Club" than I imagine Giuliana being.

But, whatever. It's all sort of secondary to my real problem: the shoes. Without the beige strip across her foot, they might've been fine, but something about that addition makes her feet look bandaged. Bound, almost. It's distracting. It's actually making mine hurt. Time for my Thursday Georging. Oh, and G, no need to chug -- you can bring the margarita over with you.

Fugs

I may have mentioned in this space before that I kind of love Heroes actress Tawny Cypress's name. It's so evocative, and also slightly porn-y. I don't know if it's her real name, but I do know that if she decides to make a career shift and move into the exciting world of hosting infomercials for adult phone sex lines, she is set.

She's also apparently set to appear on NBC's (as far as I know, nonexistent) version of Dancing With the Stars, which I presume will be called Grooving With the Celebrities. (Parenthetically, no, I do not know why she appears to be posing next to the janitorial closet, or why that NBC plastic logo looks like it's about to go out with the rest of the recycling):

The color, theoretically, is awesome on her and while I don't like the shoes WITH THIS, I like the shoes very much. But there's something about this that just sort of screams, "I am off to practice the mambo with [Insert professional dancer's name here].  I'm also considering investing in a fake leg! Or a fake arm! It worked for whatshername! Maybe I can meet Steve Sanders!

Although, actually, when it comes right down to it, I feel that nothing is too extreme when it comes to spending some time with Steve Sanders. So play on, Tawny.

Fug Anything

So, Lili Taylor is cool, right? Even just for Say Anything. I mean, "Joe LIES when he CRIES" is awesome, a perfect little moment in a movie that made us all think that one day, a cute boy was going to hold up a boom box for us in the rain. Sigh.

Unfortunately, Lili Taylor sort of looks like she got CAUGHT in the rain here:

Are those...gardening clogs? Seriously? Listen, ain't nothing wrong with going casual. But there's "casual," and then there's "Honey, I think I'll clean out the garage."

Fuga Ward

Sela, Sela, Sela. You are so lovely. I wish you'd talked to Marcia Gay Harden before you did this. Unless you're on your way to a sock hop on the arm of the Grim Reaper -- in which case, make sure he has you home at a reasonable hour, and don't let him pull that, "Hey, I wish this evening could stretch into eternity! Why don't you come back to my place for a nightcap?" shtick. You really don't want to see where he lives.

Fugma Mays

We've seen Jayma Mays be adorable on Heroes and on Ugly Betty, so obviously, she knows how to do it.

But it's hard to sell "adorable" when you've just come from teaching a jazzercise class for seniors.

That said, she's still a cutie. We'll get through this if she'd just step away from the Henry and leave him for Betty. Go back to Hiro, honey. He needs you. But not in that shirt.

The Fugs of Hazzard

Dear Readers,

I'm going to do something we don't do very often around this parts, and fug someone despite not having the picture at our immediate disposal (for reasons both boring and technical). But, truly, you should be grateful that you can't see Jessica Simpson's new high waisted (PLEATED!!) pants.

Are you back? Can you still see? I'm so sorry for inflicting that on you. It's bad, right?  All the fashion mags have been panting over the the high-waisted pant for the last few months ("Oh, they make your legs look longer! Oh, no, seriously! Seriously, they look awesome! We promise, you'll WEAR THEM. WEAR THEM. WEAR THESE $2400 HIGH WAISTED PANTS.") and while I am THRILLED that the era of mad crazy low rise is over,  J Simp's Doom-Trousers are a sterling example of how very hard it is for someone who is not built like a model to pull off pants that essentially come up to your pits. If you've got boobs AT ALL, super-high-waisted pants pose a problem. Because you look...sorta stumpy in them, all boobs and then PANTS PANTS PANTS PANTS. And while I treasure pants, and love pants, and want to MAKE love to pants and regularly request that people consider pants, THESE pants are an assault to the concept of pants. 

AND TO HUMANITY.

So, readers, when you're standing there between the mannequins at Bloomingdale's or Macy's or Filene's or Barney's or Target or Banana Republic or J. Crew or Forever 21 or where ever pants are sold, and you find yourself thinking, "Huh. I'm totally going to try on these high-waisted, pleated pants,"  do not let me stop you. I would never prevent a fellow shopper from trying anything on. "Just try it ON" is my mantra. Sometimes things look better on you than they do on the hanger! And maybe you will look super hot in high-waisted pleated pants. I mean, you're pretty hot to begin with. So it's possible. But if you try them on and then suddenly feel like you've gained ten pounds in the walk from the display to the dressing room, DON'T BLAME YOURSELF.

Think of J Simp, and blame the pants.

The Number Twenty-Fug

For the past two days I've had that Corey Hart song "Sunglasses at Night" in my head for no good reason. When I was younger, and in fact possibly as recently as yesterday, I thought the lyrics were, "I wear my sunglasses at night // so I can, so I can // watch you eat and breathe your... something-something." In short, I thought he was a creepy stalker asshat who didn't want to be recognized, so he wore shades to facilitate his life as an icky peeping tom -- and not in a charming, bumbling, hit-by-a-car-in-the-street George McFly kind of way. [And on a related note, I was thrilled to learn through the Wikipedia grapevine that Corey Hart turned down the role of of Marty McFly in Back To The Future, because that reckless lack of foresight led to the part being handed to its true density, Michael J. Fox, and also, it might have ruined the movie for me if I'd grown up thinking the man behind Marty was spending the rest of his time singing about watching me eat and breathe. I mean... no.]

Anyway, my point is, I had that song in my head. And through that I realized I didn't know the words, so I looked them up, and that's when I found out "Sunglasses at Night" is actually supposed to be about a dude living in a police state, and he is not, in fact, watching the girl of his dreams inhale both air and Cheerios through her window while he hides behind his Ray-Bans.

Not five minutes after that stunning revelation, I came across this photo of Virginia Madsen. And suddenly it all came together, and for the first time, I began to see some sense in wearing sunglasses at night (a sequence of events and thoughts that is both lame and completely true; welcome to the train wreck of my mind).

Oh, Virginia. I'm almost speechless. Almost.

The hair looks a bit like you just came from the gym, but let's skip over that in favor of attacking the more grievous offense: the dowdy pea-soup colored dress with matching shiny accents. It evokes nothing so much as a mother-of-the-bride sale at David's Bridal. Combined with the neon lipstick, the brightness is so potent that I'm actually wincing and averting my eyes. And presumably, forcing people to look away from you kind of defeats the purpose of showing up at a highly photographed event in the first place. So I hope you didn't cut off the tags, Madsen -- David's might actually let you return it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to write a thank-you note to Corey Hart for his disregard of the Back To The Future script. It all happened as it should have -- nobody could've played that part like Michael J. That kid was MAGIC.

CMT Awards Show Fug: Carrie Underwood

I have a pet theory about Carrie Underwood and Kellie Pickler. For whatever reason, I feel like whenever they run into each other on the red carpet, Kellie is like a puppy dog who's just thrilled to try to hump Carrie's leg, while Carrie will simply have none of it. In fact, I imagine that Carrie just slides past Kellie without a word, merely turning up her nose and looking away. This is based not at all in any fact -- though I have heard the Underwood is kind of a pain -- but mostly on Underwood's general demeanor, which seems prim and a bit self-impressed.  That being said, she's certainly dressed for the part on the CMT red carpet:

She looks very pretty and sweetly conservative -- if much, much tinier than she used to be -- in a way that works with her sort of Reese Witherspoon-y, debutante-y looks. She also looks like a supporting character in a romcom in which the lead is sort of this klutzy (but charming!) girl who is marrying into a conservative, very monied Southern family, who of course are all taken aback by Klutzy But Charming's inability to blend in at Junior League functions (with the exception, I imagine, of the genial grandfather character, who realizes that a shot of moxie is exactly what his family needs!). Carrie, of course, would be playing the disapproving, uptight -- but beautiful -- sister of the male lead. And after a lot of raised eyebrows over the punch bowl, naturally, she would come to embrace Klutzy But Charming, so we can all have our happy ending. So I can see why she wouldn't want to have much to do with The Pickler, who seems like she might have sticky hands.

However, THIS version of Carrie Underwood has no right to judge:

To be completely honest with you, this Carrie Underwood looks like a lot more fun than the other one. Sure, she's wearing shiny shorts and a really too-large belt and freaking legwarmers, but she doesn't look nearly as brittle and also, she'll probably do some shots with you and then drunk dial that stupid boy you're not supposed to be drunk dialing to tell him, on your behalf, that he's a MORON.  Then she'll drag you out to pick up other boys. And the whole time, you'll be thinking, "I can't believe you're wearing freaking LEGWARMERS, Carrie, JESUS" but you're also thinking, very quietly, "but your legs do look kind of awesome. But LEGWARMERS. No, I just can't. NO TO LEGWARMERS"

But this Carrie Underwood really shouldn't be mean to Kellie Pickler. She should buy Kellie Pickler a drink and then try and fix the poor girl's hair.

And fail, obviously. But still.

CMT Fug Carpet: Kellie Pickler

Because I am a nerd, I secretly enjoy it when someone's last name is also a word in its own right. Like if your name were Fred Microwave. Something about that would please me. Or  Charlene Coffeecup. That would be good. Because it's a last name....and a noun. Fun with phonics! Or Kellie Pickler. Now, I'm not sure what a pickler is, exactly, but I'm sure it's a word that gets tossed around the Vlasic factory with abandon, like, "Marge, get your hand outta that pickler! It'll take it clean off!" or "I don't know, Eleanor. There's something about that new pickler. He's so handsome." Or even, "Kellie sure ran herself through the pickler with that outfit." Because she certainly is in a pickle:

Lady Pickler (ooh, that sounds sort of painful) needs to get herself a new hairdresser, pronto, because she looks like she styled her hair with a mixmaster (a compliment my father used to pay me every Sunday morning when I wandered down to breakfast. Yes, I have really bad bed head. I DO generally comb it before I leave the house, though, KELLIE).  Combined with her pickle-y hued dress -- which seems to go from being Ruched On Purpose to Wrinkled On Accident -- and (I'm sorry, kid, I have to go there) her new boobs, which haven't entirely settled in yet, it seems,  the girl really is in a bit of a  jam.

Or, technically, I guess, a relish.

(Yes, it's Pun Day here at GFY HQ. We have to make our own fun.)

The Fugly Bunch

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Here's the story of a lovely lady.

Who was famous for playing one of three lovely girls.

Now she's appearing on Celebrity Fit Club

Where she will be forced to do lots of curls.

(Even though she looks all right to us)

Here's the story of the former Marcia

Who we feel really ought to have known

That when you're famous for a particular era

You need to leave that look alone.

Because although her blue mod frock is kind of cute

We all know that it's much more than a hunch

That everyone else at this party

Snidely commented that she's no longer in The Bunch.

The Brady Bunch.

She's no longer appearing on The Brady Bunch.

Fugga Jameson

Jenna Jameson claims her divorce caused her recent, startling weight loss that has rendered her alarmingly ill and plastic-looking. And that might be a true story, and if so, I'm sorry she's hitting a rough patch. But when I find myself in times of sorrow, Oscar Meyer comes to me, speaking words of wisdom. Words like "beef hot dog" and "bologna" and "bacon." So I can't relate. Plus, since she's identified her problem, you'd think she'd start doing different things to cope with it. Things like:

1) Take two pieces of white bread. Slap an assload of cheddar on them. Butter the outsides. Fry until golden  brown. Then shove into your mouth and lick your greasy fingers and marinate in the bliss of a grilled-cheese sandwich. Repeat as needed. (And may I suggest a scraping of mustard and a splash or five of Worcestershire Sauce? You won't be sorry.)

2) Don't wear a sack dress that hangs limply off your vexingly bony frame.

3) Buy pre-made cookie dough. Preheat the oven, per the directions. Open the dough and proceed to eat it. Laugh to yourself that you bothered turning on the oven and switch it off, retiring to the couch with your dough loaf and a spoon.

That's just a sampling, And yes, that last one isn't exactly a healthy way to put on weight, but it IS a very mentally soothing exercise that comes in handy when you're angry and you just want to sit at home and relax with a viewing of Crossroads and the subsequent barrage of reminders that your life could be worse. Mostly, we just feel that clearly, Jenna's coping skills consist primarily of consuming no solid food, so count us in among the people who hope she realizes that strategy isn't working to her advantage and that she will be much stronger for the rough road ahead if she is fortified with carbohydrates. And if our gift of grilled cheese -- seriously, the Lea & Perrins makes it sing -- somehow doesn't help, well, at least we tried.

Georgia Fug

I seriously feel like my relationship with Lindsay Lohan is sort of like the blogger/actress equivalent of a Lifetime movie, wherein she keeps doing dumb shit (the flashing, the serial dating/stalking of inappropriate dudes, the claiming that she wants to play Princess Diana, the rumor that she's dating K. Fed), and I keep making excuses for her.  Lately, we've been at the point where I don't even make the excuses here anymore, because I know y'all will be like, "GIRL. You have GOT to MOVE ON. She is BAD NEWS. This is just going to HURT YOU." And I don't want to hear it, because I secretly STILL LOVE HER.  So I make the excuses in my head. "She's just dating K. Fed because she wants attention. It's a cry for help, really. No one understands her the way I do. Everyone else is so mean." I know: it's a sickness. Next thing you know, Lindsay will stab Tori Spelling with a vegetable peeler or release a new Blackberry missive titled, "Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?" ("Danger" being Kevin Federline and "Mother," I assume, being self-explanatory) or start an affair with an underage student as a means to forcing him to murder someone and then I will really have some justifying to do. Until then, I think I can handle this one:

It's....really cold where she is. And that's why she's wearing an incredibly long sweatshirt UNDER her cropped leather jacket. You can't expect someone to choose form over function in the arctic conditions of a small boutique! God! No one understands her but me.

Spiderfug 3

Sure, on first glance, it looks like Kirsten Dunst stood still while Cinderella's crack team of rodent tailors draped this fabric around her with imprecise cheese-fueled zeal. But, hey, it doesn't make her look saggy, and the color is actually very pretty, as is her makeup. So close.

Then we realized why she might have chosen this strange, fussy, flowy cut.

Kiki is merely being practical. Like any sensible woman, she is making sure she's dressed correctly in the event that she abruptly becomes six months pregnant with twins. And you know what they say: an ounce of preparedness is worth 40 pounds of figure-unfriendly fabric. Right?

Fugouse

I don't know what it is about Lisa Edelstein, but nine times out of ten, she shows up places looking like she purchased her outfit at that store in the mall that sells really shiny, spangled two-piece dresses such as you might see during the evening gown competition of a low level pageant, along with, like, knock-off Judith Leiber purses in the shape of ice cream cones, and belts with giant buckles that say "SASSY" or "WILD."

It's a shame, really, because she's got the kind of body that can pull off all kinds of things, and she always looks decent on House, so she seemingly gets a daily demonstration of ensembles that flatter her, but everything still just comes out off-kilter and fussy -- like the proscenium theatre at the bottom of her skirt there. I'm a little scared that tiny actors are going to emerge from from there to perform for us. And while I thought this was something that didn't actually need to be said, it's my opinion that you should avoid anything that makes your fellow party-goers concerned that miniature thespians are going to spring fully-formed from your kneecaps.

Fuggifer Fugwin

With her weird hanky-dress in its full figure-gobbling, crotch-showcasing billow, Ginnifer Goodwin is learning the hard way that some days you really are better off just leaving the house in a bathrobe. Seriously, it that thing looks like the wings of a very rare, elaborate insect that has landed on her and is attempting to eat her whole. The mannequin looks more satisfied.

And she looks zombified. Judging from that, and her hair, it seems Chris Klein's cunning plan is working. Free yourself, Ginnifer! Step one is finding a way to flee without catching any stiff breezes. Which will be hard; in that thing, one errant sneeze will reveal all your secrets.

Well Played: Robin Antin

So I've been looking for a cute black minidress for about six years. Okay, six months, but it FEELS like a long time. The perfect one is hard to find. So I'd like to congratulate Pussycat Dolls guru Robin Antin on finding one that works nicely on her. It's short, but she's got great legs and the long sleeves ensure that the skank-factor is low. The boatneck is flattering, the sparkles distract from how much she needs to not wear nude lipstick and her shoes are good.  Sure, her earrings kind of look like two dangling IUDs, but overall the effect is, as I've learned from watching The Pussycat Dolls Present The Pussycat Dolls Search for the New Pussycat Doll, sassy BUT classy.

Okay: you found me out. She looks fine, all right? But that show is seriously totally freaking genius. It's like the funniest thing on television right now and I had to find some excuse to talk about it. Is it empowering women, as McG claims? Well, I seriously doubt that Gloria Steinem is watching it with a bowl of popcorn on her lap, going, "AT LAST. ALL I HAVE WORKED FOR: ACHIEVED!" However, it is possible that Gloria Steinem is watching it with a bowl of popcorn on her lap, on the phone with her friend, saying, "I think I might need to set a season pass for this thing. Don't tell anyone." It is that captivatingly cheesy. With the dancing and the short shorts and Lil' Kim and a hilarious choreographer who scolds girls for eschewing their boob pads, it's kind of like Fame, but with more boas. Every week, it imparts lessons like, "be confident" (AKA: show more cleavage), "be creative" (AKA: surprise us with your cleavage) and "be sexy" (AKA: CLEAVAGE).  And then there is dancing. I love it. And I had to tell the world, okay? Is that so wrong? It's Courtney Peldon's birthday, and if I can't sing the praises of a show that regularly features sequined bra tops, then what CAN I do?

Okay, I can't find a good black mini-dress. Point taken.

Fugovich-Hawk

MILLA JOVOVICH: I love these events.

JENNY LEWIS: Yeah, I'm having a great time here in my Jovovich-Hawk sandwich, but seriously, Milla... is Carmen okay?

MILLA: Ignore her, Jenny. She always looks like she's dying.

JENNY: Aren't you afraid she'll keel over?

MILLA: Eh. It's kind of awesome that she's always at death's door because she never notices when I hog all the best of the dresses we make.

JENNY: Yeah, I meant to thank you for getting me out of my regular babydoll shifts and knee socks.

MILLA: I'm a stud.

JENNY: Although do you think maybe next time you could give me something that isn't so high-waisted? The distance between my boobs and my belly button looks like it's about two inches.

MILLA: Right. I'll get Carmen on that.

JENNY: I don't think she's even blinking. And did she wash her hair this week?

MILLA: Of course not. I figure, if people think she's about to go toes-up, they'll buy a lot of clothes out of pity.

JENNY: I think she might already be dead. She smells like Marc Anthony.

MILLA: Oh, fine. Can somebody please get Carmen some vitamins? And a hose?

CARMEN: I should've had a V-8.

Happy Fugday

Here at GFY HQ, Heather, Intern George, and I would like to wish our patron saint Courtney Peldon a very happy birthday. (There is conflicting evidence about which birthday it is. We think she's actually 26. She MAY be claiming to still be 25, but we don't want to tar her with the old lying about her age brush. Girl, we've all thought about lying about our age. But have you considered the fact that this is going to involve a lot of math, going forward? Think about that.)

No matter what your age, Courtney, we miss your shenanigans.

We miss those days when you used to attend almost anything, wearing something that involved a hot glue gun and sequins. Remember when you were a perfume magnate?  Or the time you got stabbed? Or the saga of your engagement to Crispin Glover? God, that was so much fun. But you don't seem to go out as much anymore.  It makes us sad.  Are you depressed, Courtney? Too heartbroken still to leave the house much? Just real sleepy? Whatever it is, our birthday gift to you is just this: the heartfelt wish that you get up, put on some hot pants and get back out there. You're 25(ish)!  Go out there and shake it! Shake it in the faces of those of us who are aesthetically opposed to hot pants! Get out there and show us up!

Fugday Night Lights

I love, love, LOVE Friday Night Lights. Yes, I know, it's not a soap opera, and it's not by Aaron Spelling, and no one on it has been thrown into a lily pond or returned from the dead; amazingly, I have been able to get over all those drawbacks. If I may drop my brutal, trollish facade for one moment, though, I must note that Friday Night Lights is best show on TV right now -- even better than Heroes, which I also love -- because of the way it's truly funny, moving, relatable, well-developed, perfectly acted, and excellent at both big scenes and the small moments that can really set a show and its cast apart.

Plus, and let's not undermine the importance of this, there is some serious eye candy on this show. Kyle Chandler? Yes, please. And of course there's Taylor Kitsch, who plays fullback Tim Riggins, the long-haired, troubled boozer who somehow makes being a dishevelled, brooding, grouchy, hung-over high-schooler with a heart of gold and an ass of steel kind of fantastically hot. If you are not watching because you think it's all about football, you are missing out on all that masculine longing that Tim Riggins wants to shoot your way. Move over, Patrick Dempsey. You are not the only professional-level gazer on television.

However, even with an order for six more scripts, my beloved Friday Night Lights is still endangered. So Taylor Kitsch, a relative unknown before this job, should probably re-think showing up at movie premieres dressed in a head-kerchief.

I still love him, but Taylor, if Friday Night Lights gets cancelled (please, God, NO) and you need to find another job, it might be best not to show up in public dressed as if your true passion is mopping the floor. Because unless those crackpot developers at CBS are working on a sitcom entitled JaniTorial Duty -- a Tori Spelling vehicle about the trials and tribulations of a roving cleaning staff led by Larry The Cable Guy -- then you might be a tad pigeonholed into actually scrubbing the bathrooms. And I won't stand for that. Unless it's my bathroom.

Yoanna Fug

Back in the very early days, when a talk show was just a glint in Tyra's eye, America's Next Top Model picked Yoanna House as its second winner.

Yoanna's best moment on ANTM was screaming at uber-bitch Camille, in an oft-replayed talk-to-the-hand moment that won me over forever even though I can't really remember anything else she did that season. Well, except for when she cut her own hair at the final photo shoot, a ridiculous thing to do that only didn't hurt her because she was lucky enough to be posing with a helmet on (and what a photo it was, saving her from obscurity by giving Tyra something she can put on the wall of every ANTM house until the end of time, or available networks -- whichever comes first). She had kind of a weird personality, in the sense that she might not have had one at all, and she was the typical "I used to be 50 lbs. heavier"/"The judges say I need to tone up in order to have a model's body" heartwarming tale that we all so cherish -- the kind of thing that would have gotten her an entire episode of Tyra's talk show, if only it had existed.

Yoanna is also arguably the most successful winner, given that she has an actual, visible job as the host of The Look For Less on the Style Network. Despite the fact that she was a combination of bizareness and blandness heretofore considered impossible, she has managed to get herself a regular paycheck. This is largely due to her face.

Yoanna has some serious face. The short hair set off her cheekbones, and the dark color amped up the natural beauty of her skin tone and her green eyes. She's unique.

Or, she was. Sadly, those days are behind us.

Now, she looks like refried Lindsay Lohan.

When I saw this photo in a smaller, blurrier size, I seriously thought it was Lindsay, and that hanging out with Hilary Duff again had prompted her to rediscover her old Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen hair, which then resulted in a partial-amnesia spell that meant we'd have to deal with a retread of them fighting over Aaron Carter and Chad Michael  Murray (please, nobody encourage those boys like that). And then I realized that maybe her amnesia would mean a complete do-over, and we'd get to see Lindsay relive her youth without the nip-slips and the overdose rumors and the Bruce Willis blow-job fiasco, and I got misty-eyed, because it's Shannen Doherty's birthday today and getting our proper Lohan back -- the way she should have been -- would seem like the perfect way for the universe to honor such a spectacular day.

But no. It's Yoanna, having played down what made her unique and bronzed herself up and morphed into a generic clone with bad extensions that she almost certainly got for less. I'm not saying she doesn't still have a charm to her, but seriously, that hair screams, "Ken Paves gave me Generic Hollywood Starlet Weave #4: Shaving Enough Years Off  Your Age That The CW Execs Will Look Twice At You Again." Sigh.

Fugst

Occasionally,  Heather or I look up from our sandwiches and wonder aloud, "I wonder where Bai Ling is." We assume she's off  dueling aliens or jumping on her bed with pants on her head or getting a bikini wax or drinking the blood of virgins so as to prevent herself from aging or whatever. But wherever she is, if she's not on the red carpet, after a while, we start to miss her and her wacky antics. Thank goodness she's back, and -- judging from her outfit -- actually working at the theatre as an usher!

Hey, a girl has to pay the rent somehow.

The Fug Life

GOOD NEWS! Paris Hilton's designed a line of clothing for Steve Madden.*  This is going to be perfect for all those times where you're standing in front of your closet, getting ready to go out and wishing you had something that was just a little more fame-whorey.

It will not surprise you that Paris has her finger firmly on the pulse of What a Girl Wants, and what we all want -- this part MAY surprise you -- are very tight, shiny white pants:

I hate to say it, but P Hilt kind of works these. I mean, she's really REALLY shiny all over the place here -- like some kind of Lame Lovers Barbie -- but she's looked worse.  The thing is, Paris Hilton also weighs like 100 pounds. Most women would put on shiny shiny white tight pants and things would go seriously awry. There would be frowns, and tears, and people asking if they're supposed to be able to see their reflection in your ass. It's like these pants are part of Paris's evil plan to take over the world by sending every other woman within the Los Angeles county limits to the sanitarium for one reason or another (eating disorders, sex-tape-related shame spirals, nervous breakdowns precipitated by her stealing your boyfriend). And we must fight her on it. Please, readers, do not bow to Paris's will and buy her pants.  We must stop her.

*GOODER NEWS. We've been informed by the nice people at Steve Madden that Paris has NOT designed anything for Steve-o. Steve Madden merely provided the shoes herein.

Fugica McKellar

Winnie, Winnie, Winnie. We were just lavishing you with love as we strolled down memory lane, pleased to see how fab you looked all grown-up and full of math, and then you had to go and confuse us.

You're tearing me up inside. Because while you look cute, and I think I would like your earrings if I could see them, I'm not a big supporter of random neckties**. It bugged me when Avril Lavigne did it. Admittedly, I laughed with glee when Brenda Walsh did it, but that's because she's Brenda, and I could never truly be mad at her -- not even when she's spitting self-righteous claptrap at her parents and threatening to move out, or actually moving out, or snorting that nobody understands her, and that she hates you both, never talk to her again.

And now you're out there wrapping a tie around your neck and tugging on it excitedly, as if doing so will result in the butler arriving with a fresh peanut-butter sandwich and a cold Diet Coke. [Although it bears mentioning that if your math brain can invent a tie that does that, I will buy 20 of them.] But I just can't give it the same affectionate pass. I go back with Winnie, sure, but I go way back -- and way forward, thanks to SoapNet -- with Brenda. If Shannen Doherty went out on the town wearing a giant tie apropos of nothing, I would get misty. When you do it, I kind of just want to take you shopping for a kick-ass necklace.

** Okay, so it looked like a tie she fed through a brooch, but some eagle-eyed readers have pointed out it could also be a belt. And indeed probably is. Either way, though, we're not interested unless pulling on it makes a limo, a gourmet dinner, or a bartender appear out of nowhere. Danica, belts aren't for neck adornments. Belts are for scotch. Right?

Perfect Fugger

Every time I see an ad for the new Bruce Willis/Halle Berry movie Perfect Stranger, I misread the title as Perfect Strangers, and I can't help wondering which of them is playing Cousin Larry, and which is Balki Bartokomous. (For what it's worth, I think Halle would have to be Cousin Larry. She's definitely more of the straight man-type in that twosome.) Sadly, no one is doing the dance of joy over the outfit  Adriana Lima chose to wear to the movie's premiere:

So many problems. For one thing, when you're a Victoria's Secret model, why why why are you covering everything up like that? Tights AND long-sleeves? Honey, you're a babe, and it's springtime. Show a little skin.

Which brings us to problem number two. When I was a girl, my family would occasionally go to a restaurant called North Woods Inn, which was decorated like a faux log cabin, complete with faux snow on the roof. Inside, there were peanut shells on the floor, roaring fires and huge servings of meat and garlic toast. In retrospect, it was kitschy in the extreme, but fun, especially if you are a kid. Anyway, in addition to the fake snow and the peanuts, North Woods Inn also featured cocktail waitresses who wore -- in the opinion of 9 year old me -- the CUTEST outfits. Basically, they looked like can-can dancers, but with extremely short skirts. So alluring were these uniforms that every girl I knew in my elementary school cherished, at one point or another, a burning desire to be a cocktail waitress when she grew up. And it seems that Adriana must have felt similarly, judging from her Tray Of Boobs. I could rest many a Shirley Temple on that rack and while I think cleavage is awesome, this cleav seems strangely out of place bursting out of the rest of her Salute To Spinsters in Mourning ensemble.

Let's not even talk about the bow. I fear it's holding her head on, and that mental image will send me into a Shirley Temple binge for sure.

Sarah Fuggica Parker

Oh, SJP. Get Pat Field back on speed-dial, okay? This drab, corseted yawn of a dress looks terrible with that old jacket Candy Spelling unloaded on eBay, not to mention that random white belt. At first I thought perhaps it was portable lumbar support, but the more I look at it, the more it looks like she ripped the waist-fastener off an old-school feminine-hygiene or bladder-control contraption. Honey, menstrual belts are so 1973.

I also feel like her face, especially near her eyes, looks tighter. The forehead is completely smooth. Nipped, do you think? Or tucked? Perhaps she gave up Botox for Lent, and come Easter Sunday, went hogwild when she was finally able to sup on the forbidden fruit. Regardless, whatever froze her face must also have blinded her to the unflattering and kind of ugly dress. So pay attention, kids: These things do have harmful side effects.

Center Fug

Normally, I would not fug Susan May Pratt for the below. She's hugely pregnant, after all, and the hugely pregnant have clothing challenges that those of us currently lacking in womb fruit do not.  In other circumstances, I might give her a pass  just for that.

And yet, I can not. Because when else am I going to have the opportunity to make ample Center Stage jokes? Hardly anyone from that movie ever leaves the house, it seems (save Sandy Cohen, but Peter Gallagher, I think we'll all agree, is no longer exactly just "that dude with the brows in Center Stage").  I've long been waiting for the dancer who played the lead role to attend some event in a garbage bag so that we could talk about the film's pivotal scene in which she brings cookies to her one-night stand, embarrassing everyone in the world in one fell sugary swoop. I've been waiting for the dancer who played her one-night stand to show up somewhere wearing a barrel, so we could discuss the ballet he choreographs which involves: a motorcycle onstage, several impossible costume and hair changes, and simulated sex. I've also been waiting for Pratt to show up somewhere in something that vaguely recalls the outfits they make the waitresses at El Torito wear just so I can talk about how freaking AWESOME she is as the bitchy bulimic with the unbearable stage mother while making snide commentary about how I'd love her to bring me another margarita. And now that the moment has come, I can't do it.

After all, she's the best goddamn dancer in the American Ballet Academy. Who the hell am I?

Fugs of Hollywood

I am starting to feel bad for Kim Stewart, and here's why: now that we've all been inundated with PR for her brother's new reality show Sons of Hollywood, it is clear that she's been saddled with a sibling who, by all press accounts, is kind of a total douchebag in the way now apparently favored by men 21-28 who appear on Hollywood-centric reality programming (see Mister Arrest-y, Jason Wahler and, of course, Spencer of The Hills, who may be the most loathsome person in the 310 area code, a feat which takes some doing.  I can't get into his crimes against humanity right now, because rage is bad for the complexion, but suffice it to say, if he were to wake up under the wheels of a speeding MTA bus, everyone who's ever watched The Hills would put down their Lean Pockets and applaud). This kind of behavior, parenthetically, is not doing mankind any favors, and by "mankind" I don't mean "humanity," I mean "dudes." Because watching Spencer's manipulative shenanigans (like, say, having two cells phones, only one of which his girlfriend is aware of) is not making America's young women sit up and say, "I have GOT to get me one of them," it is making them say, "Hmm. I don't know if I want to date anyone right now. "   Ergo, I am pretty sure that when society eventually dies out and the human race is extinct, we would be able to trace its destruction back to Spencer except for how, unfortunately, we'll all be dead.

Anyway, now that I know what Kim Stewart had to grow up with, I sort of understand why she sometimes leaves the house in stuff like this:

She doesn't even know anymore.  A negligee bedecked in widow's weeds? Sure.  Anything to get out of the house.

Fugque

Have you ever thought to yourself, "There just aren't enough 10-, 11-, or 12-year old girls singing about how they've given up on trust, and indeed on the very concept of love itself?"

Surely you have; you're only human, and all you want is for somebody who's lived, really lived, through fifth-grade homeroom to just come out there and rip open the wounds of scribbled "I totally like-like you" notes that proved false. Ergo you, like everyone else, have probably gotten a faraway look in your eye as you mused silently, "If such troubadours of truth existed, they ought to cite as their musical influences some combination of Hilary Duff, Green Day, Mariah Carey, and R. Kelly. And they'd better look like the love children of the three Hanson brothers, Fergie, and a pirate wench."

Well, my friends, your prayers and mine have been answered. Meet the lasses behind Clique.

Since everything in this town is manufactured, I refuse to believe the kids themselves woke up and decided that their best style option was to wear rags befitting a youth theater production of Les Miserables as reimagined by Anna Sui. Seriously, the one on the right up there actually appears to be wearing rope and satiny bloomers -- handy for scrambling up The Barricade and lowering oneself down the other side. Whoever foisted this idea upon them might want to reconsider pursuing a secondary career via some Learning Annex courses in gun repair, or computer-aided drafting,  because these fashions don't make me want to buy their record. Instead, I want to take them shoe shopping via Tim Gunn's house, so he can sit them down and discuss how, with the aid of some scissors, an overcoat or two, and some entirely different pieces, we can take this wardrobe and Make It Work.

To be fair, though, they do appear to be very happy and pleasant girls, and per their MySpace page -- don't judge, I had to go for research purposes -- they are not bad singers. Indeed, their pop is as frothy and catchy as anything you'd hear from the similarly world-wise JoJo, whose mid-teen stylings they also cite as an artistic influence. They'll probably make a mint. Although, a word of advice to Clique's managers: Tone down the R. Kelly admiration before they work up any misguided "Trapped In A Gym Locker" or "Sex-Ed Weed" homages to him. Also, none of them is even a teenager yet, so what are you doing letting them listen to R. Kelly in the first place? Don't you know he's entreating people to have sex in the kitchen over by the stove, yeeeeah, sex in the kitchen, by the buttered rolls, yeeeeeeah? You don't want them chopping up tomatoes, nor cooking vegetables and potatoes, with R. Don't let the R do that. Trust me.

Fugyl Crow

You know how once you declare you hate a song, it immediately gets stuck in your head, and you can't get it out? And it wiggles around in there like a nasty little sonic worm, inciting first a headache and then a murderous rage? That is basically my relationship to almost all of Sheryl Crow's songs. There was an especial blue period when "If it MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKES you HAAAAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, it can't be that BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAD" was all the rage on the radio, contradicting its own message because that song obviously made somebody very happy, and yet it was that bad. So bad. It started out annoying, then graduated to wailingly, discordantly maddening, and finally I'm pretty sure I just went into a fugue state.

I had a similar problem with this outfit.

Initially, I found it confusing, but passed it by blithely. Then, I couldn't get it out of my head. And I went back to the picture and studied it anew. Suddenly, I was bothered. What's up with the shrunken, shriveled vest that's making her waist look nonexistent? Why isn't she boosting her assets with a bra? What is her regimen for that fantastic skin? And for the love of GOD, is that a TAIL between her legs? Did she mean to look like she's in the middle of giving birth to a fully clad forest nymph? Is she merely advertising a new brand of sanitary style for the starlets of today who prefer not to wear panties with their tiny skirts, and need some kind of portable seat liner when they decide to sit down? What is going on, Sheryl?

I can't stop wondering. I wish I could, but this outfit is stuck in my head, and now I can't get it out. Much like the song of hers that this getup just conjured: "A Change Will Do You Good," whose repetitive, plodding refrain just shot up from hell and took root straight between my ears.

Fugrielle Reece

What has happened to Gabrielle Reece?

Don't get me wrong -- she's still got the interesting face. She appears to have showered and brushed her hair. All her body parts seem to be there, and I'm not being confronted by any of the more intimate ones. All those things are positives. But... has she forgotten she's Gabrielle Reece, striking Glamazon with the killer muscles and an inspiration to tall girls and muscular girls everywhere? Comfort is fine, but she's diminishing all her assets by shlubbing around in ballet flats, jeans, and a wrinkled red satin dress (OVER THE JEANS! My face is turning blue) that all combine to screw up her proportions. The entire ensemble makes me want to go all Miss J on her and start screaming about posture, before spitting out some tired old repeated joke about broken-down dolls. And did I mention the wrinkles? Satin is not your friend, Gabby. Good thing Nicole Kidman wasn't there, or she'd have turned all twitchy and then attacked the dress with a Botox needle.

Random Fug

Actress Dominika Wolski is cute in a way that suggests that she probably regularly finds herself competing with Dominique Swain for roles and is probably often mistaken for her thanks to the similarity in names, as well. I'm sure she's tired of having to explain that, NO, she wasn't in Lolita and she's really not sure how to address your rude line of questioning about her post-Lolita career or lack thereof, because she's a totally different actress but she'd also like to know what the deal is with Swain, so maybe she can stop having to deal with her.

Or maybe there's a more sinister explanation. Maybe Wolski is slowly -- so slowly! -- taking over Swain's identity -- you know, mostly so she can get into parties. It would explain the sort of awkward flowered frock and moderately mismatched boots:

As well as all the posing in front of Dominique Cohen's logo. It's all Dominika/Dominique/Dominique up in here, and I must confess, it is turning even my head. Who is who? What is where? How is "Dominique" even a word, with all those vowels? Did this outfit used to belong to an underage florally-fixated cheerleader named Florita? Where did I leave my pants? I can't unravel this kind of tangled mystery so early on a Monday.

October Fug

I really wanted to like October Road. I