Dear Top Design Junkies

February 27, 2007

Alas, there's no new episode this week--have we learned nothing from "Lost"?--but I received something in my in box yesterday to tie me over until next week and I want to pass it on to you all. It was created and sent to me by my kind and clever pal Landon Bryce. It's a YouTube tribute to my favorite TD contestant ... you'll have to watch to see who but it should surprise no one. Here's the link. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5lSymCM1dc

That was ding-dong-a-doorbell, as my friend Brett would say. I home man-curtsies becomes a trend and we all start doing it. I think the world would be a better place. --Dennis

Dennis Hensley
Visit me at www.dennishensley.com
Listen to me on Twist, Sundays from 9 to 11 PM on K-BIG 104.3

Top Design 4: Don't Crimp My Style

February 21, 2007

This week’s challenge is to design a post-grad living space for an L.A. design student—a place where someone could sleep, eat, study, design, cry about their student loans and have drunken sex with their former R.A.

It’s a lot to ask of a 12’ by 12’ space but our eight remaining designers are determined to hit it with their best shot.

Unfortunately, they’re all upstaged by judge Kelly Werstler’s brave and crazy decision to have her hair crimped. Though it may have seemed like a fun idea in theory, in practice, it’s a bummer and the normally delightful Kelly seems diminished by it. She’s like a cross between fellow judge Margaret Russell’s nana and Grizabella from Cats. I kept waiting for the reprise of “Memory.”

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Top Design Episode 3: The Best of Cabana-Rama

February 14, 2007

“It takes a village of gay designers to build a cabana.”

So says young Michael halfway through episode 3 of “Top Design.” With last week’s eliminate-ee John out of the picture, Michael’s brought it down a few notches and is actually fun to watch, especially when he snaps back at the judges with a “Gilligan’s Island” reference, which we’ll get to later on.

In the meantime, I think I’ve cracked the mystery of Goil’s stylish spectacles. Last week, I wasn’t sure if he had one cool pair of glasses or several because they seem to change color but now I think I’ve figured it out; it’s one pair but they’re ‘mood glasses’ and the frames change color based on Goil’s mood.

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Thanks for Sharon Stone

February 13, 2007

Last weekend, I attended a delightful Super Bowl party where, frankly, I didn’t watch two seconds of the game. Instead I hung out on the patio with some friends old and new and flipped through the week’s tabloids, which our hostess had the good sense to provide.

One photo that ran in more than one rag shook me to the core and I can’t get it out of my mind. No, it’s not Britney’s vag. Or anyone’s vag, for that matter, though the woman pictured became famous for her vag, in a way, so I guess it is vag-related.

Anyway, the picture that’s captured my imagination is of Sharon Stone walking down an LA sidewalk carrying two cardboard drink trays with two Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf drinks in each tray. It’s Sharon Stone toting four coffees basically. I find this incredibly shocking because big stars like Sharon don’t even go get their own coffee, let alone offer to pick up coffees for other people. They have people to do that, don’t they?

After some serious thought, I’ve decided that Sharon must have been getting drinks for three people who are, at the moment, anyway, higher than her on the celebrity food chain, people who Sharon wants something from.

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Top Design: I (Heart) Goil

February 07, 2007

Okay, I’m totally digging the new Bravo series “Top Design” although I think it should be called “Goil and Friends”. But more on that later.

For starters, “TD” serves up lots of glamour shots of my fair city, Los Angeles. Before “Top Design”, I had to make do with “The L Word” trying to pretend Vancouver was LA and not always doing a convincing job. The headquarters of “Top Design” is the is-it-beautiful-or-is-it-an-eyesore Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Until “Top Design”, my memories of the PDC were pretty much negative; one time I got deathly ill there on a date and practically had to be carried out. Another time, a friend insulted another friend leaving me with a huge “friend mess” to try and clean up in the parking structure.

“Top Design” is giving me happy associations of the PDC and I appreciate that.

By the way, the PDC parking lot is where people pay to park if they’re going out clubbing in West Hollywood. Because of this, I think a fun challenge would be for the designers to have to incorporate vomit from just-legal party boys who had a few too many at Rage into a design scheme.

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Peachy Kisses: Oh What The Fuss?

February 06, 2007

Though I had done some kissing at Truth or Dare games as a kid my first real kiss was after a school dance my junior year of high school. I think it was the sweetheart ball, where the girls ask the guys. I had been invited by a lovely girl we'll call Meg. Afterwards, I could tell she wanted me to kiss her because she sat next to me in the car and made a big point of throwing her gum out. I wasn't into it because I was, you guessed it, gay.

But at that time I hadn't quite figured that out about myself. So I drop Meg off at her house and we start kissing on her doorstep and she's giving me the full tongue and all and the whole time her dog, Peachy, was barking. So she'd be kissing me, then she'd stop and yell, "Peachy!" Kiss. "Peachy!" Kiss. "Peachy" etc.

I walked away feeling very disillusioned with my first kiss. I was like, 'Wow, that's what all the fuss was about?' Of course, it might have been better if we had ditched the dog.

Sundance-ing With the Pseudo-Stars

February 05, 2007

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I was sent Utah a few weeks back to cover the Sundance Film Festival this year for Hollywood Life magazine. It had its moments and I saw some terrific movies -- like the excoriating Iraq documentary No End In Sight -- but I think my favorite summation of the whole Sundance experience came from my friend Derek Hartley, a radio host of Sirius, who observed, “Sundance is where C-list stars go when they want to feel like A-list stars.” One only need witness Tara Reid get mobbed like the Beatles in a swag house to see he’s right on the money.

Some other random musings on the fest:

LANCE AND REICHEN were apparently in Park City but I never laid eyes on them. This rankles me because I feel like these kooky kids are, historically speaking, the First (same sex) Couple of the blogging era and I’m the only person I know who didn’t have some sort of sighting or run-in with one or both of them in the last year--and now they’re supposedly Splitsville for good! I never witnessed a text messaging hissy fit in P-town. I never saw either of them hitting on a bartender while the other went to the bathroom. I never saw any kind of swag-related meltdown. Nothing. And I really feel cheated. I hope they get back together, just so I can have my moment. I’m not asking for a three-way, I just want to witness a furtive gesture or a stolen kiss. Something.

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Celebrity Swag Bag ... Sundance Edition

February 02, 2007

Hey Outzoners! I regret how MIA I’ve been lately as I’ve been dealing with pinched nerve in my neck—the C7 to be specific—and it’s, well, a pain in the neck, arm and index finger. I may end up getting surgery, in which case I’ll make sure to blog while I’m on drugs like Rosie appears to do. Haiku, here I come!

I also had to finish filing my Sundance story for Hollywood Life magazine. They sent me there, after all, to interview everyone and their dog, except Winona Ryder. Winona’s not talking.

I’m putting together a Sundance wrap-up blog to share with you next week. In the meantime, here’s a little tease from a piece I wrote on Celebs and Swag for the current issue of Hollywood Life. The premise is basically, that a lot of the crap stars get in gift baskets goes unused or given to the housekeeper. I think this is unfortunate so I came up with a celeb swag bag full of stuff that stars could actually use.

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