The Hamburgler: When Lame Advertising Events Happen to Pseudo (and Some Real) Celebrities

It was the 40th birthday of McDonald's "Big Mac" sandwich on July 27 in Malibu, Calif. I think Big Macs taste gross. (But I'm a burger Snob. Nothing tops a Double-Double from In-And-Out. I miss those dearly.) But ain't no party like a product placement party because all the celebrities were paid to be there!

Make that money, child, but don't let the money make you!

I'm not feeling my girl Serena's get up, but we spare regularly over what she deems fit to wear outside. Sanaa Lathan looks lovely, although that dress could double as a shirt.

Blu Cantrell, do you still work for a living? I loved "Hit 'Em Up Style" as much as the next jilted ex-girlfriend, but dude, seriously, ... what do you do to keep the lights on? That said, you look exhausted, but sort of pretty. And I like the top/scarf combo.

I get why Mickey D's would want Common (he's hot right now) but Ian Ziering from "90210?" Your choices intrigue me, McDonald's.

And now for the bargain bin of Robertson Blvd.: Celebrity Reality TV show stars. Kim Kardashian (dressed in some odd, button-less khaki romper and beige bikini top -- better to show off the boobage I gather.), is featured in these following pictures with her sister Khloe and later with Common, Serena Williams and singer Ne-Yo.

Ne-Yo serenades a burger.

And now everyone gather around the product placement and say, "Cheese!"

The 2008 Black Weblog Awards!

It's award season and time for the fourth annual Black Weblog Awards. Naturally, I'm going to nominate my favorite blogs ... so won't you nominate mine?

There are a few categories that suit me well:

4. Best Blog Post Series

Vote for my series on "Black Conservative Views on the Candidacy of Barack Obama!" (/imported-data/2008/6/15/the-associated-press-totally-steals-my-black-conservatives-o.html)

14. Best Humor Blog

The Secret Council of American Negroes all the way! (http://since1865.blogspot.com/)

22. Best Political/News Blog

Vote The Black Snob! (http://blacksnob.blogspot.com/)

28. Best Writing in a Blog

I'd like it if you'd vote Black Snob here, but a lot of bloggers deserve this from RawDawgBuffalo to Negro Intellectual to many, many others I like to read. (http://blacksnob.blogspot.com/)

30. Blog to Watch

Vote Black Snob (or SCAN, if you'd like). I'm feeling good things coming out of both blogs in the future! (http://blacksnob.blogspot.com/ or http://since1865.blogspot.com/)

Here's some more information about the contest from the award Web site:

Previous winners in categories for the Black Weblog Awards have won iPods, signed novels, and even cold, hard cash. If you would like to donate a prize to any of the winners of this year's Awards, please feel free to contact us. Nominations begin on August 1, voting for the finalists will begin on August 17, and we will accept prizes throughout the end of the Awards (August 31); please read our FAQ for further details. The winners for this year's Awards will be announced on September 4.

Morgan Freeman in Serious Condition After Car Accident

From The Associated Press:

JACKSON, Miss. - Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman has been injured in car accident in Mississippi and is in a Memphis hospital.

Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Kathy Stringer says Freeman is in serious condition.

The hospital, commonly known as The Med, is an acute-care teaching facility that serves patients within 150 miles of Memphis.

Ashley Norris, manager of the Ground Zero Blue Club in Clarksdale that is owned by Freeman, confirmed the actor was in a wreck. Norris said she had no other details.

The accident apparently occurred in Tallahatchie County Mississippi, but the sheriff's department referred calls to the Mississippi Highway Patrol. A highway patrol spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

I hope he'll be all right because he's one of my favorite actors and he's an all around cool guy. He chose to stay in the South rather than move to Los Angeles. He loves jazz and blues. He was in "The Shawshank Redemption." (And has an Oscar ... finally.) Let's all hope he'll make it out all right for his wife and family's sake.

Black Snob on Twitter and Other Developments

Per popular demand (OK, like one person asked ...) The Black Snob is now available via Twitter. I've also taken on another writing gig. This time with AroundHarlem.com. I'm excited. This should be a good deal. I'll let you know when I start writing articles for the site. As for my other projects (the books, the screenplays, etc.) still in progress. But I'm going to figure that one out sooner-or-later.

Bored? Feel free to check out my blog at MySpace where I simply moan about my personal life (or lack thereof).

I got to meet fellow St. Louisan and black blogger, Negro Intellectual, last Friday. We had a delightful time discussing the demise of our once proud people and whatnot. You know? Fun stuff. I suggested that maybe this was our 40 years in the wilderness, only we were going beyond 40 years. More like our 200 years in the wilderness. But we'll make it ... eventually. I'm an optimist. This confusing post-Civil Rights Era will be navigated and all its after-effects -- good and bad -- will be worked out with time.

I hope.

I have some letters I need to print. Another response to the Mothers/Daughters series and a few reactions/responses to the blog amongst other things. Also, keep an eye out for the Top Pundit Awards, running either Monday or Tuesday. (Voting is closed!) I'm still accepting story submissions for Doomed Romance (500 words or less, stories can be good or very, very bad). I have six submissions so far and I'm willing to take on about four more, so all interested parties have until this upcoming Sunday to write them up and send them in.

All stories will be printed anonymously. Just send them via email, blacksnob@gmail.com.

Everybody Wants Michelle Obama

Never has a woman, a black woman in her 40s, been so sought after, so followed, so admired, so envied and so despised. That's a sign she's doing something right. She's moving from lawyer/wife/mom to icon. I'm waiting for Mattel to release their limited edition Michelle Obama Barbie, complete with black leggings and a strand of fat white pearls.

There have been some fashionable murmurs about Michelle and the many designers who aren't her go-to girl Maria Pinto that want their mitts on the Glamazon's 5'11" frame.

And who can blame them, really?

New York Magazine brought up the reality of Michelle Dress Madness in June.

Details are emerging from The Daily and WWD about the fund-raiser held Tuesday night in Michelle Obama's honor attended by a giant fashion crowd. Tickets to the cocktail reception at the Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Gallery cost $1,000 to $2,300, and tickets to the dinner following at Calvin Klein's house cost $10,000 ...

(A)ll the famous designers laid out the cash, including but not limited to Catherine Malandrino, Erin Fetherston, Cynthia Rowley, Thakoon Panichgul, Ralph Rucci, Nicole Miller, Tory Burch, and Zac Posen. They were all "pumped" to meet her — even though the room was uncomfortably warm — and she dazzled with charm and a chic Isabela Toledo gown and Tom Binns necklace she picked out herself.

Rumor had it that the exuberant and extravagant Vogue Magazine Editor-At-Large Andre Leon Talley was hankering to make Michelle his muse, but Talley shot down those accusations at Style.com.

"(L)et me go on record saying that I have never, ever given her any advice on what to wear," he proclaimed about the event he hosted with Anna Wintour and Shelby Bryan at Klein's, which raised $1million for the Obama for America organization.

"To put the record straight, I think that Michelle Obama does not need advice."

He revealed that he had no involvement in choosing the Isabel Toledo gown she wore to Klein's dinner, nor did he find the $148 Donna Ricco dress, bought at her local White House/Black Market shop, which she wore to co-host "The View," but he was in full support of both choices.

Elaborating on the topic, which Talley is prone to do, he added that he's most impressed with the Chicago resident's chic sophistication, à la Jackie O.

"But it's not about Jackie Kennedy being a woman of privilege. She has, in many ways, taken some of Jackie's elements of simplicity, elegant restraint, three strands of bubble-gum pearls, the flip of hair, solid colors, simple lines, and clothes—and it's working for her. I think she's incredible."

Indeed, Talley. She is most incredible, indeed.

Google Stalking TJ Holmes: Upscale Update! (5:34 PM)

Higher quality picture via the good folks at Upscale Magazine who heard my pleas.

Sister-of-Snob, Big Sis, was able to snag a copy of the August Upscale Magazine por moi in West County, St. Louis where she homesteads. I informed her to "Gimmie! Gimmie! Gimmie!" so now I have a copy of the picture and article on the site. (Click to enlarge.) This will all be added to the TJ Holmes Flickr page. (For an even larger shot of the article, click here.)

Also, TJ went to UNITY. That's a big diversity journalism conference that I wish I attended (bummer) and will probably try to attend next year in the future. (Along with the Society of Professional Journalists' and the National Association of Black Journalists' conferences. I need to return to networking with more and more journalists. I already couldn't make the "Blogging While Brown" shindig. Money's been tight this year.)

But UNITY posted some video of TJ talking about the biz. All of it sounds sooo familiar. I was originally going to go into television in college, but my writing professors persuaded me to go for an "electronic" journalism degree where I studied both print and broadcast. I still wanted to go into TV, but just my luck, print was the first to offer me a reasonable job ... in Midland, TX. Between it and Bakersfield for almost seven years I wandered in the desert of journalism. It was fun, but hard work, and B-town (big ups!) was definitely the better of the two. I'll always have some love for that Buck Owens worshiping, dusty, Republican red ag/oil town.

Enjoy the video!

Video from UNITY News.

Celebrity Hit Parade, Part I: Where is Russell Simmons?

Russell in his "uniform" of some variety of polo shirt, baseball cap and chinos or jeans, July 26, at a Donna Karan, Charla Lawhon and InStyle Magazine Super Saturday 11 for Ovarian Cancer Research

He's where ever the party is.

Much like the ultimate party girl Gabrielle Union (also in this photo spread), hip hop mogul Russell Simmons pops up in a lot of places. Mainly because I gather he has nothing better to do, but hang with model chicks and go to parties, yoga, ramble about "the poets," be a douche ... the usual.

But he had some cute kids, man! Thank GOD, they take after their mama!

Here is what Russell was doing the last week in July.

Big Pimping at the Waverly Inn in NYC with "Anonymous" Model Chick, July 30

See? This is why Kimora had to let you go. You are a notorious model hound. Seriously. Who do you think you are? David Bowie or David Copperfield or Tommy Lee? Are you from an 80s rock band? Because they dated a lot of models. Like Mick Jagger and Steve Tyler of Areosmith. Also, habitual model daters. Billy Joel. The list goes on and on. Apparently if you're a man in music of a certain tax bracket you're supposed to escort nothing but the finest the runway has to offer. And this girl is cute enough (I guess) to kick it with the lead representative from the Lollipop Guild.

Actually, I once dated a guy who looked like an ugly Russell Simmons. Considering Simmons isn't winning any beauty contests on his own, I can guarantee you ... dude was not attractive. And he was a douche. I hope you're not a douche, Big Russ. That would be annoying for all the models who tolerate you.

Getting it on with Good Housekeeping's eco friendly Green House in NYC, July 30

Pictured with designer Robin Wilson, below, Big Russ did not dress up for this event. (Nor does he dress up for any event. What? A polo shirt, a baseball cap and some pants aren't appropriate for everywhere?) Sometimes I wonder if Russ will go all weird on us, like Howard Hughes. Although, black America already has its own Howard Hughes and that's Michael Jackson.

Russ was never handsome or dashing like Hughes. Michael was once a gorgeous slice of raw, pre-teen sex machine. He had a birthday party at Studio 54, a den of sex, drugs and decadence. Sure, he didn't really know what sex was at the time, but man, he could project it! I miss old, black, sexy Michael Jackson so much. That's why I stick with Prince. He's never flipped on me, physically, only musically as he expanded his repertoire. Fifty years. Still the same musically uptight, sexually and spiritually loose freak. I adore him. Until the end of time I'll be there for you ...

Tamara Tunie, actress on one of the many Law & Order's (methinks SVU), also attended the event sans makeup. Tamara is a beautiful woman, but Lord. Girl. Makeup. Please. She looks so washed out, pale and tired. Not flattering for an otherwise gorgeous woman of a certain age. No eyebrow pencil for those pencil thin, pale eyebrows. No lipstick to make those lovely lips pop. She looks like she just woke up and sauntered over to the shindig.

But like I said ... gorgeous woman, but please put on some makeup when you now the cameras will be flashing, making you look tired, colorless and washed out.

Partying with baseballers and hip hoppers at a Vitamin Water shindig, July 14

Russell and "friend." (Once again, WireImage is too lazy to ask names.)

Russell and Gabrielle Union. They must run into each other a lot at these sorts of shindigs. The dress feels familiar and Gabby's roots are in dire need of a touch up. But Russ looks like Russ. The party changes, but the man's outfits stay the same.

Unik's Edeyo Foundation Charity Event, July 12, in the Hamptons

Maxwell, Russell, Jamie Kennedy and Unik

Russell and David Rosenberg

Russell and Jamie

Hip Hop Summit Action Network and CPX Interactive's "Vote for It 08" Launch party, July 9

DJ Clue, Valeisha Butterfield, Kevin Liles, Little X, Russell Simmons and Rocsi

Valeisha Butterfield, Kevin Liles, Little X and Russell

Russell and Dr. Ben Chavis

Russell and the ubiquitous "Mashonda." She's like Gabrielle Union. Everywhere. Is there no party she won't crash?

Random Pictures

Russ at the Lily Pond Night Club for Singer22.com on July 19.

Model chick Porschla Coleman and Russ at VH1's Save the Music Foundation Summer of Soul Concert, July 18. Nice plaid, Russell. And no hat. I'm so very, very confused. I'd assumed that thing was bedazzled to his skully.

Tyra as Michelle? This I Gotta See!

Fashion Drama-Mama Tyra Banks is going all out as "Michelle Obama" for Harper's Bazaar, sayeth Page Six.

TYRA Banks - the mastermind of gimmicks - is at it again. Banks - who once had her breasts examined on TV to show everybody they were "real" - is now dressing up as Michelle Obama for the September cover of Harper's Bazaar. "It's a full makeover," said one spy. "You know how Tyra likes to do that stuff. And she'll get a lot of press off it." A rep for Banks didn't return calls.

WTF? But I love this because this is sooo Tyra. And I will SOOO be buying this Harper's just to gawk at whatever crazy concoction Ty-Ty Baby comes up with. As I've mentioned before, I love supermodels (with Naomi reigning as number one in my heart). But crazy Tyra rounds up a close second or third. Anyway, I hope, want, NEED this to happen. (Please, Page Six. Don't lie to me!) This will either be genius or a trainwreck. Can't wait!

Upscale Magazine: On CP Time?

As previously reporter on The Black Snob, Upscale Magazine is supposed to have TJ Holmes as their "Maleman" in their August issue.

Well, it's August, Upscale. WHERE'S MY FIX?

I keep going to the Barnes & Noble, the Target, the Walgreens -- nothing. Everyone else put out their August editions in July. Like normal magazines. But noooo ... all I keep starring at is an old picture of Meagan Good. Mind you, I like Meagan Good, but ... YOU OWE ME A NEW PICTURE OF TJ!!!

You haven't updated your Web site. (Which cruelly still features Good.) Where is the August issue? Where? What is the hold up? Has Upscale gone down scale without notice? If Ebony, Essence, Heart & Soul, Vibe, Uptown, XXL, Savoy, Sister 2 Sister, even Rap Pages and Black Hair Sophisticate can get an issue out on time, what is your deal?

For the love of God. It is Aug. 1. Put out your August issue! I beg of you! I have needs!