Saturday, February 15, 2003 posted by Jen at 2/15/2003 09:10:00 AM
I forgot to say Happy Valentine's Day! So Happy Valentine's Day!
We had a wonderful celebration here at Chez Weinbo (chez Boner?), involving long-stemmed red roses and dark chocolates and a delicious homemade dinner made by my husband. The evening was marred only slightly by the card I gave him that said something about how I can't wait for us to become a family (Adam kind of glared at me and said, "We already ARE a family." Oops. Well, he knew what I was talking about, right? Right?)
Anyhow. I hope everyone in Philadelphia who's not snowbound will shovel off their sidewalks and join me and Tanya Barrientos at Chris' Corner Books at 20th and Pine for a brunch/reading/discussion at 11.
And those of you who are not in Philadelphia should enjoy this discussion on Fametracker of Accidentally Hysterical Scenes in Movies that were Meant to be Serious. My personal favorite is from "The Devil's Advocate" -- which, by and large, I think is an unintentially funny movie and which is almost always on TV -- where Charlize Theron, in a molasses-thick Southern accent, grabs Keanu Reeves by the shoulders and moans "Keh-vun! They took mah O-VAH-RIES!" Cracks me up every time.
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Friday, February 14, 2003 posted by Jen at 2/14/2003 09:56:00 AM
""I was open with the information from the very beginning,'' Davis said. "There was no outside pressure for me to tell them, and my involvement with the website didn't even show up in the background check they did on all of the contestants....I just want people to know the site was not a child pornography site when I worked there," Davis said. "And I have never been involved in anyway with the abuse of children, which is what child pornography is."
So, just to review, Fox and 19 Entertainment knew back in November about Frenchie's work for the pornographic website. They didn't do anything until February -- when, the theory goes, one of the "American Idol" advertisers got wind of her involvement and said, "Uh-uh, not our Idol."
Thursday, February 13, 2003 posted by Jen at 2/13/2003 09:03:00 AM
Here's Lisa de Moraes of The Washington Post who sounds just as infuriated by Frenchiegate as I am:
"It's okay for a contestant on Fox's "American Idol" to have worked as a stripper, as had Nikki McKibbin, who made it to the final three on the reality series's first edition. And it's peachy if a contestant on the network's "Joe Millionaire" has dressed up as a high school cheerleader in bondage and fetish flicks -- like finalist Sarah Kozer.
But it is absolutely unacceptable for a contestant on the current edition of "American Idol" to have appeared on a porn site four years ago. Ask Frenchie Davis, who got booted off the show for just that."
Wednesday, February 12, 2003 posted by Jen at 2/12/2003 03:54:00 PM
Well, you knew this was coming: www.savefrenchie.com. With all pertinent Fox email addresses, plus links to boards, news articles, and petitions.
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posted by Jen at 2/12/2003 12:05:00 PM
Okay, here's The Smoking Gun's account of what Frenchie got disqualified for: "Davis posed topless (and appeared to be masturbating) on a web site that purported to feature naked underage girls (which, of course, would be illegal). However, at the time she posed for these photos, Davis was over 18. The Washington, D.C. native has claimed that she took the topless gig to earn money so that she could re-enroll in Howard University, where she is a theater major. In a recent interview, when asked about the proudest moment of her life, Davis said, "Other than getting back in school after not having the money and not being there for a year," American Idol "has been the proudest moment 'cause I worked so hard."
So she posed topless. Big whoop. Like she's the first pop singer to have posed nude on her way up. Anyone remember Madonna? Vanessa Williams? And especially given what Fox allows of its other reality contestants, it seems odd that the network's turned prudish over Frenchie.
According to USA Today, Fox has booted my beloved Frenchie Davis from the "American Idol" competition because she worked for an adult website four years ago.
No word on what she did there -- or who, or what, she did it with -- but let's review, shall we?
On last year's "American Idol," third-place runner-up Nikki McKibbin worked as a topless dancer. "I was having trouble finding a job," Nikki said. "It was in the middle of summer. I was having trouble taking care of my son, so I did what I had to do to take care of him. I am not ashamed at all." Did Fox throw her off the air? Not so much.
There were Taheed and Ytossie, who went on Temptation Island to fool around on national TV, in spite of the fact that they'd had a child together.
There was Rick Rockwell, of Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire fame, who'd been busted for beating a girlfriend. Did Fox toss him? Quelle non! (of course, they claimed they didn't know).
And if you want precendent, glance over at CBS's "Survivor," where big winner Brian Heidik had starred in softcore porn videos. Did the network have a problem with that? Oh, no it did not.
Ladies and gentlemen, kicking Frenchie off the air just isn't right -- and, given who's come before her, it's a total double standard.
So here's what you can do. I'm going to try to figure out if there's anyone at Fox we can email directly, but for now, I found this petition online. Sign it. Tell the powers at Fox to stop being hypocrites and let Frenchie sing!
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Tuesday, February 11, 2003 posted by Jen at 2/11/2003 10:26:00 AM
I'm home, I'm tanned (okay, slightly sunburnt), I'm rested, and I've got lots to talk about.
But first: damn you, Fox TV!
Seriously. I come rushing home through a snowstorm (okay, there were flurries. Whatever.) to find out who Joe Millionaire picks, and what do you give me? Padding. Recaps. Stuff I've already seen before! And don't try teasing me with this "there will be a very special twist" stuff. I'm aggravated. I'm upset. I'm well on my way to livid. Don't toy with me like that!
Okay. Adam and I were in sunny, festive Jamaica for five days, and it was really wonderful. The sun was bright, the skies were blue, the palm trees swayed gently in the ocean breezes. I did water aerobics every morning and swam in the ocean every afternoon, and read and napped and played Scrabble in between, and it was just about the most perfect pre-baby getaway I could imagine, except for what we saw out the shuttle-bus windows on the fifteen-minute ride between the airport and our hermetically-sealed resort.
I'd heard -- from my mother, mostly, who is, politically speaking, an unreconstructed hippie, and from reading Russell Banks' RULE OF THE BONE -- that the poverty in Jamaica is shocking, and that there's an enormous gap between the tourist haves and the native have-nots. And living in a big city, it's not like I haven't seen poverty before -- bombed-out, boarded-up houses, homeless people, all of that. It's just....well, you don't expect that in a place that looks like paradise. There's the sun, there's the sky, there's the beach and there are the bombed-out houses and lost-looking people.
Which made me a little uncomfortable with the level of service at the resort. I mean, look, I'm as happy to be treated nicely as the next girl, but every time one of the maids would give us an elaborately polite greeting in the hall, or one of the waiters would make a big production of spreading my napkin on what's left of my lap, it just felt strange. Nobody ever seemed to be resentful -- in fact, nobody seemed anything but perfectly happy to have us there -- but I guess I was projecting the way I'd probably feel if I were in there shoes (and half-wondering whether they'd get their pay docked if they failed to be fawning).
"So what are we supposed to do?" asked my husband, who's much less of a hippie than my Mom. "Not spend our money here?"
Clearly, that wasn't an option. So I salved my conscience by tipping really well.
And the cool thing was, I saw people reading my books!
I never get over how amazing it is to actually see someone who is not your mother reading a copy of GOOD IN BED or IN HER SHOES at the beach. I'm just still kind of in awe of the whole thing, and a little freaked out (there's a tiny part of me that still isn't convinced that the book is available in stores nationwide, and wants to run up to random readers demanding "Where did you get that?")
In reality, I'm almost always too shy to walk up to someone and say "Hey, that's my book." (The one time I tried -- at my gym -- the woman looked at me really strangely and said, "No, it's my book." Which, technically speaking, it was). And there's always the fear that I'll start off with something smooth like "Are you enjoying that book," and the reader will say, "No, actually, it's awful." So I generally keep my mouth shut. I was happy just to know that the books were there, and to see Wendell's picture on the back cover, because it was sort of like having him there with us. (I'm sure that Wendell, who was stuck in snowy Philadelphia and who is currently curled up in his basket in the corner of my office here, is thinking, "Um, not so much.")
But Adam is braver than I am. He approached a group of women reading the books and said, "Hey, my wife wrote those, and she's here." And then he came and found me sleeping by the pool, and brought me over, and the people couldn't have been nicer. And they were from Philadelphia, too!
Final update for now: we had our twenty-eight-week ultrasound last week, before we left, and have discovered the reason for the whole under-rib-ache thing. The Bun is breech! "See, that's the head," said the doctor, "sort of wedged up underneath your diaphragm...." Ouch.
It's no big deal, medically speaking. The Bun still has plenty of time to execute the flip into head-down position, and the doctor showed us some things to try to encourage a southward migration. Meanwhile, the Bun has demonstrated a marked appreciation for reggae. I'm trying to get Adam to add "Many Rivers to Cross" to the "Goodnight Moon" rotation. No luck so far.
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Welcome to A Moment of Jen, author Jennifer Weiner's constantly-updated take on books, baby, and news of the world. Email me at jen (a) jenniferweiner.com.
