I was having lunch with an industry friend of mine today, got talking shop, and the ‘lil cabana boy discussion’ crept up.   Summarized, this convo basically rests on the following idea…  how can I take the guy who’s pushing pool chairs seriously?  Now, I’ve always been an equal op kinda gal, never choose to fraternize with only rich or poor, just the witty and clever (traits that exist beyond money).  But her parting words to our ‘cabana boy’ chat stuck in my head after lunch, “hun, I can’t get wet for under 2 mil”.

Sounds harsh I know.  But not everyone is looking for romance.  I know many that don’t build castles in the air over that ‘ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love’ that carrie and big found; Some over zealous souls even describe such love as an idealized social propaganda which will only leave all of us feeling like no one will ever satisfy us, ask Chuck Klosterman!  As a result, my adolescent hopeless romantic brain was challenged to wonder this thought (even in its obnoxious unpolished tone)…  Should I get wet for under a mil? 

Assuming your personal experience with relationships guides the majority of your ideas of love… In order to answer this question, us women have to ask ourselves ‘have the men in my past been ‘winners’?’  Easy answer… they are in the past, probably meaning you didn’t hit the jackpot.  Of course there are always the guys that left you, which usually leaves you not really wanting them back for RECIPROCAL happiness, but more so wanting them back to change the ending so YOU feel happy!  P.S. waste of time…  if your getting power from taking back the power, you have much needed therapy to hit up cause power is a hollow thing to strive for in life.   In the sea of fishies thus far, (the ones we left, the ones that left us) it’s safe to say we haven’t found Mr. Right.

Now I wonder, who’s Mr. Right?   I know I could bust out my long list of dream-catchers, but like Chuck said most of those are based on my boy wonder ‘Lyod Dobler’ (from ‘Say Anything’), and has anyone REALLY ever met a man that FINISHED?  Had a love where both could Say Anything? nahhhh.  So letting my balloon fly into the sky, I move to my next man-exam…  maybe Mr. Right loves me more than I love him.  What’s wrong with that?  He’s good, good enough.  He’ll be loyal. Play fetch with the dog. Take the kids for ice cream. Buy me tampons when I’m in bed with cramps.  He’ll do.  NO HE WON’T, I’m already bored!  Since the love symbolisms (‘you love> me’, ‘you love < me’, ‘we love' =) prove to be a headache, to say the least…..maybe money could simply factor into the love equation.

Dating dudes w/money vs. dating the cabana boy.  My slogan thus far, ‘I'd be happy living in the gutter as long as I loved the man I was with.’  Hmmm, may have to rethink that.  Love doesn’t seem as brilliant as when I was a child, and I sure do love my plush bed.  Sometimes I think I love that bed more than romance itself, but I’m also a very jaded 25 year old with a line up of ex’s who’s combined egos could take on the likes of Kanye West or 20 Pack from I Love New York!  Age-old notion of love without money, you start to not like the life you have with the guy you love, without money.  So you date a rich man.  Usually this sucks because men with money usually love power (reference line re ‘power seekers’ above), and what women really wants to bow to the likes of power for the rest of their life (certainly not me, displayed through my constant cat fights with puff)!  And if you can stomach the obedience to the All Mighty, or find that rare dope dude with more than 2 mil. in their checking, can you stomach the cheating?  Cause if they got 2 mil, they got more than one p*ssy.  Id say for every 300k they add an additional pus.  Didn’t you ever wonder why you needed to add houses (then hotels) once you bought Boardwalk and Park Place, gotta have somewhere to keep all the bitches stored.

In the end, I wonder, am I f*cked?  Maybe I should just continue to be single, love my plush bed, sleep comfortably without one eye open, and MOS DEF get wet for under 2 mil. cause hey, porn only costs 12.99 on ‘On Demand’!

http://globalgrind.com/content/717803/GETTING-WET/

What did the king of all things say he wanted when he started his career? Simple. "Cocaine and p*ssy".

Now you can't imagine that goal leading to much more than a two hit wonder rapper that made his highest radio play off of his smash "Booty juice" (shout out to Fear of a Black Hat) but by some miraculous twist of fate and hard work that goal gave birth to a mogul that continues to inspire millions; a man living, breathing, and continually defining hip hop.

I use that intro to bring this idea to the table: Aren't we all taking ourselves a lil' too seriously? In the entertainment industry there is this strong pressure to be an artist that has "longevity and credibility". Don't get me wrong; those are amazing goals but all too often, we measure every action of an artist as to whether it will directly achieve those goals. Webster’s dictionary defines longevity as "a long continuance". Credibility is defined as "the quality of inspiring belief". Those definitions are subjective and therefore capable of holding different meanings depending on who you ask. Who on earth is so all knowing and and all powerful that they should be the one to define the goal or meaning for another's life and career?

What I've experienced on the music end is a constant pressure to "ACT right and SPEAK right". The industry people telling me this are not trying to instill better behavior in order to help make me a better person or allow me to learn some valuable life lesson. They're telling me, in their words, to be "as vague and opinionless as possible, so you don't offend the masses, so you will sell a higher number of records". The industry provides endless hours of media training. Yes, they actually hire people to give you the "right" answer. How inspiring is that? I'm sure there are exceptions and industry leaders that rebel against this format and for those of you involved with them... more power to you! I can only speak from my experience, and I'm sure this applies far beyond the depths of the music industry, as most jobs are usually selling something!

I know artists that are credible, helpful and "down for any cause", that have been denied the ability to do charity work or to provide aid to a charity, based on the fact that something about them did not fit the charity's standards of an artist who has "credibility and longevity". How ridiculous is that? We can't even help people any more unless we are living a common denominator life! Do our artists really have to be just like us, act like us, go to the same church, share our political views, or be role models to our children before we buy their music?

So what I love about the mogul's less than politically correct or "wrong" answer, is maybe we all ought to lighten up and allow our artists to be what they are and say what they really feel or think instead of giving the "vague and opinionless" answer as taught to my generation of artists in order to achieve 'credibility and longevity' to sell more records... Maybe next time the answer should be something as simple as "cocaine and p*ssy".

-Aubrey

Here's Russell's response...
Wow…Funny. When I exposed Aubrey's educational, philanthropic and biz initiatives, I guess I was guilty of trying to "clean her up." And now she writes a blog that threatens to clean me up :-). I guess we are even :-).

I said it…when I was her age, all I thought I wanted was "cocaine and p*ssy".... I also told her that we as artists and producers always would say the "critic could get the didick!!!!" She shouldn't have to "accept judgment or worry or feel guilty or anything"... .and "the executives words should go in one ear and out the other." "Just be happy and make music," I said.

Anyhow .....Cocaine and p*ssy are short cuts to that "mindless state" of "happiness." But I must say, that the lasting state of pure bliss we are all seeking only comes through total clarity. Aubrey is 100 percent right that artists should be free to express honest art and executives and media are too often, too much a consideration. Art comes from the inside and the piece of god or goddess inside of you is the creator. Our access to that god is all that matters. There is no thinking or analysis involved in that creative process. So if u are a manager, encourage honesty and limit the forces that kill the artist’s freedom to create. Nowadays I prefer meditation to cocaine...But I haven’t been able to shake the second thing :-).

Aubrey O'Day the person, or is this just Aubrey O'Day the persona?

When Aubrey O’Day was a child, growing up in the desert city of La Quinta, she was bullied. While sitting in the bar at the Four Seasons Hotel several months ago -- flanked by her mother, Kandy Allen; her dog, Ginger; and Furhan, her best friend from UC Irvine -- the singer-dancer-reality star told of an incident in middle school when she had to hide in a dryer in a home ec classroom to escape from kids looking to beat her up. ¶ There was a song too that O'Day said her tormentors chanted at her and sang over the school loudspeaker. Recalling it, she cleared her throat and intoned: " 'Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey O'Day / Biggest slut in
the USA.' " ¶ Summarizing her childhood, O'Day said: "I felt like I would never be popular. And I would never be liked." And now? "Still not liked -- but I am popular!"

She's right about that. And on any given day in the blogosphere, the
insults hurled at O'Day -- who turned 25 last week and is gracing the
cover of Playboy's March issue, which was due to go on sale Friday --
haven't changed much since the sixth grade. Using the vicious terms of
un-endearment that, perhaps disturbingly, are often a measure of
Internet popularity, Perez Hilton regularly calls her a "slut" and a "skank" on his influential gossip blog; over on the well-read Dlisted, Michael K has written that she is a "tranny sewer rat" and a "shameless skeezer."

But do you even know who Aubrey O'Day is? If you don't read those
blogs, or one of their many kin, then you very well may not, despite
the fact that, until recently, she was on a semi-popular television
show (MTV's "Making the Band") and in a successful band (Danity Kane) for several years. (She was recently, and publicly, fired from both.) She even appeared on Broadway in "Hairspray" over the summer, playing the part of Amber Von Tussle.

The celebrity blogosphere, however, does not concern itself with group
efforts such as ensemble reality series, bands and musical productions.
On the Web, it is individuals who matter, and that is where O'Day has
made a solo name for herself -- mostly by being photographed frequently
in clothes that are provocative or in questionable taste, or both. On
the largely gay male-authored gossip websites, she is one of a growing
class of citizens who are Famous on the Internet.

Michael K said in an interview: "Us blogs, we have to write X amount of
posts a day, and there are only so many celebrities, so you kind of
just start writing about interesting people."

He continued: "I look at a picture and a character is created. I see a
picture of Aubrey, like, on her knees, and a character is born in my
head."

Perez Hilton compared O'Day's fame to that of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt of " The Hills,"
who court media attention with every cell in their bodies and are
utterly self-aware as they do it. "And that's one of the reasons why I
love her -- she's in on the joke and she plays the game," Hilton said.
"And it's definitely a game."



Law-school dreams
O'Day's road to fame-ish-ness began in 2005 when Sean "Diddy" Combs
turned his attention, as filmed for the "Making the Band" reality
series, toward forming a girl group. At the time -- despite a lifelong
love of music and performing that had even led to O'Day landing in the
finals of Ryan Seacrest’s "Be a Star" radio contest -- she thought she would be law-school-bound after graduating from Irvine.

But her mother, a lawyer, thought otherwise. So when Allen saw Combs on
CNN talking about his get-out-the-vote efforts, and he mentioned that
he was holding auditions for a new group, she passed the information on
to her daughter.

After doing well at the audition, O'Day moved to New York City to live
in an apartment with other young female singers competing for a spot in
the band -- all in front of cameras, of course. "I wasn't into the
reality show aspect in the beginning, I was into working with Puff,"
she said of Combs.

Whether or not she was into the reality show aspect, it was into her.
O'Day proved to be an audience favorite because of her obvious talents
(as a dancer most of all) and her willingness to stand up for herself.
She was a clear choice for Combs to make for the group, which was later
named Danity Kane.

But the love -- between her and Combs, her bandmates and the viewers --
was not to last. "I was loved the first season," O'Day said with a
sigh. "The second season, the haters came."

That was when O'Day's public image began to take on a life of its own
on the Internet. She found one website that said she looked like "a
dried up, old leather handbag" because she was "skinny and super-tan"
then. On another, 200 people said they had had sex with her.

"Furhan, how many people did I sleep with in college and date?" O'Day
asked across the table. Furhan held up one finger. "One. I had one
boyfriend that I slept with. Lost my virginity in college my junior
year.

"I think I was mad at first -- then I laughed," O'Day said. "The 'whore' comments have only escalated from there."

True or false?

Aubrey O'Day's Web persona is friends with Kim Kardashian
and Jenna Jameson (true, she says), brings her white puffball dog to
red carpet events (and interviews), hooks up with male celebrities such
as Jesse McCartney (false, she says), plays coy about a rumor that she
is bisexual (unclear) and supports Barack Obama (absolutely).

Hilton, whose site attracts nearly 6 million users a month globally,
has posted about all of these things. "It's very calculated," he said.
"And, I think, incredibly fun!"

Regardless of what is true, false or just fun, it is a fact that the
gossip blogosphere -- and all of celebrity culture -- is harder on
women than on men. The words "slut" and "whore" are thrown around all
day long, often as compliments. "I use them for everything -- I use
them when it's good, I use them when it's bad," said Michael K. "It
doesn't really mean anything to me."

But in the real world, O'Day's image had actual consequences for her
day job when Combs threw her out of Danity Kane. In a filmed meeting
with the group that aired in an October episode, he fired her, and
said: "I don't like her energy, I don't like her style and direction
where she's going with it, I don't like what she does to the brand when
she's wilding out there being overly raunchy, promiscuous."


In the live season finale the following week, Combs -- who, through a representative, declined to comment for this article -- said: "I just want to work with the young lady that I signed, not the person that fame has made her."

O'Day seemed unhappy when talking about those events. "I think there
was a lot of lies in that season finale," she said. "I think that my
character was challenged way too much."

Like when?

"Everybody saying how I've changed, and how I've let fame get to my head. And all these things. It's just all not true."

On Playboy's pages

Getting to O'Day was not easy. It took a 20-e-mail exchange with MTV to
get into direct contact with her management, agency PR and label PR.
Then another 35 e-mails went into setting up the interview and photo
shoot. When the date finally arrived, O'Day said she had heard about
the request only a few days before, and had been told by Danity Kane's
agency PR that it was to be "a smear piece." She agreed to the
interview anyway, because, she said, "My theory on smear pieces is try
and win 'em over."

That was in late October, and O'Day had been freshly tossed out of the
group, which has since dissolved entirely (as viewers saw when new
episodes resumed on Thursday). When the conversation turned to
finances, she said she had not been left well off. "I'm, like, this far
away from working the street corners," she said with a laugh. After
seeing her mother's look of horror, she added: "I'm kidding. You know,
I make enough."


She talked about moving forward with music, television, acting, fashion
and charity work. (Both Michael K and Hilton, when asked their opinions
of her prospects of going from fame-ish to measurably famous
for her actual, you know, achievements, were upbeat. "I think she can
sing, she has a good personality, she has star quality and she's
pretty," said Michael K. And Hilton said: "I see a great future for
her. She wants to stay relevant, she wants to stay in the business.
She's got that hunger and she's willing to work for it.")

In a phone conversation earlier this month, O'Day said all of her
music, TV and other goals "are still in the works." Given that, this
month's Playboy spread, with the headline on the cover reading "Aubrey
O'Day Breaks Free of Danity Kane (And Her Clothes)," is the most
concrete career move she has made since the fall.

"When I was kicked out and moving on, I got the offer and I got it in
my terms," she said. (The rumored payout was $500,000, which neither
O'Day nor Playboy would confirm.)

Christopher Napolitano, the editorial director at Playboy, said O'Day
had been on their lists for a while, and once she was out of Danity
Kane, which had a large teen and tween audience, she was free to pose
for them. "I think as she strikes out on her own, this is a great way
for her to broaden her audience," he said in a phone interview. "And
when you are in Playboy and you do something like this? Your name just
blows up -- you blow up. This is the thing we give people."

On the phone, O'Day, who was under the weather, sounded weary at the
mention of the word "fame." "I know that everybody is so obsessed with
this idea of fame, and they think that I'm obsessed," she said. "In all
honesty, I'm just doing me. You met me -- I wore what I wore, I said
what I said, I did what I did. I'm not changing my story months later
that we've now caught up again.

"People," O'Day said, "will pay attention -- or they won't."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-aubrey-oday15-2009feb15,0,5199297.story?page=1

..............Come one, come all… ....

It’s a new year…so as my dear friend Miss
Woods says, ‘let’s find something new to talk about!’ My theme this year; let
go of the past, and focus on all of the beautiful things that are about to fill
our future!  I know most of you find that relevant to me in relation to my
departure from dear ol’ DK.  I’ve stayed away from directly responding or
commenting on the negativity, or misguided views and judgments that have unfortunately
been the voice of summarizing Danity Kane.  But, since I’ve launched a new
myspace, and have a new theme of the year… its only fair to finally put my
thoughts of DK to rest. ....

For those of you who care, Danity Kane was
a beautiful experience, filled with all of life’s wonderful ups and downs, and
I will forever be blessed to have had that experience with none other than
Drea, Dawn, Shan, and D.  Each one of those girls is a talent to be
reckoned with… and beyond pure talent which I hands down experienced on a daily
basis from each girl, each girl really did want to be a role model and change
the world in their own little way… and that’s what made us real, what made us
the truth, what made us something to believe in, and that inner desire on all
of our parts has not changed… you may be seeing expression of emotions
succeeding expression of actual reality, but that does not change the reality
that every girl in this group had a dream, and we fought long and hard to see it
become reality.  There is no rulebook to life, and how to handle your
dreams once you get them.  We are NOT a sad story of loose, betrayal, and
something to teach you what not to do next time… we are a story of courage,
determination, fearlessness, and at the end of the day, real emotion.  We
made not have given the world the answer to how to make different types of
women unite as one for eternity… but we wanted to try and that’s more than most
do!  ....

That all said, lets support the future of
us all, and forgive the negativity and lost emotions.  Life is to be
enjoyed and cherished, and experience is something we should all be thankful
for, not look at in regret.  We all have lost jobs, suffered bad
relationships, felt suffocated, unappreciated, sick of giving in, and
determined to take a stand whether anyone is behind us or not… SO really, like
we always said… we were never any different than anyone else… and we loved
that!   ....

THUS, My first blog! One of many to come,
I love you all, stay happy, its all we have!   ....

Aubrey   ....

P.S.  cop the playboy in stores Feb.
13th, it's only partial nudity… and one of the most beautiful works I’ve created
thus far!  Part of me finally letting it all go!    ....

P.P.S. Remember guys… It’s not over when you lose, it’s over
when you quit!