Stumble It!
Dear readers, if you're like me (and if you are, you'd sell your mother to the Taliban for a Little Debbie Ring Ding right about now), your eyeballs have been permanently scarred by the sight of inebriated celebrities traipsing to and fro between rehab and nightclub in outfits that defy taste, modesty, decency, gravity and much of the Old Testament. True, the glamorous world of fashion tends to embrace oddities and innovations. One thrills to the sight of bulimic heroin addicts slithering down a catwalk clad in bolero jackets made entirely of brillo pads and bacon on Project Runway (or as I like to call it "The Homolympics"). However, Aunt Betsy's patience and tolerance have their limits which, once breached, only faith in Jesus and a mortal fear of lesbian prison sex dissuade me from ringing my ex brother-in-law Fingers Romano, who has a talent for convincing irksome folks to take dirt naps (the last time I chatted with Fingers, Eloise Lipshitz mysteriously went missing after fixing the scores in a heated game of Yahtzee).
This time, however, in an unpremeditated spasm of Christian goodwill, Aunt Betsy has decided to push aside your desperate (and frequently misspelled) letters pleading for my gorgeous advice. Instead, she has dedicated this week's column (and the undeniable healing powers therein) to a proactive mission of sartorial mercy. My dears, Aunt Betsy has heard your cries for help. Now shush and listen.
ARETHA FRANKLIN: My dear, although negro music gives Aunt Betsy a headache and instinctively makes me lock my car doors, I've always been a stickler for spelling and therefore applauded you for teaching those of your race to spell "respect" (would that you wrote a sequel called "Z-I-P-Y-O-U-R-L-I-P-A-T-T-H-E-M-O-V-I-E-T-H-E-A-T-E-R"). And while I believe the lesson could have been taught at a lower decibel (and preferably by Connie Francis), I nevertheless have forgiven you for the highly distasteful (not to mention unhygienic) blasphemy of feeling like a natural woman. But I digress. No doubt it isn't easy to dress a walrus. Likewise, the only plus-sized emporium in my corner of God's favorite nation is alliteratively named Tents for Tanks, whose stock chiefly consists of mu-mus and caftans in offensive prints. Yet when one is invited to the Kennedy Center, it's ill-advised to sew together all the mosquito nets in Zimbabwe into a Statue of Liberty outfit. You look like Weezie Jefferson disguised as a Grecian urn.
HELENA BONHAM-CARTER: What a nose-dive your career has taken! Aunt Betsy quite enjoyed watching you pout in your corset in those lovely Ivory Soap movies (the one exception was that movie where you played a dreadful woman who spoke gibberish and seduced a lesbian cross-dresser). When you rescued that poor Kenneth Brannagh from the icy clutches of his snotty wife I was in your corner (despite entering your name in my "Hell-bound Adulterers Scrapbook"). But now I understand you're in a musical about a woman who eschews all epicurean standards by making pot-pies out of barber shop customers. In my day musicals were about nuns and orphans. What if Mother Superior solved a problem like Maria by baking her into a casserole? I, for one, would pass on the opportunity to taste an entree containing Julie Andrews. At any rate, despite your shocking lapse in judgment, Aunt Betsy still has a soft spot for you dear. So why on God's green earth are you prancing about clad as Edith Bunker in the Ringling Brothers swim suit competition?
OKSANA BAYUL: When that truck stop tart Tanya Harding hired a goon to play a little truncheon music on Nancy Kerrigan's bony patrician knee cap, yours truly secretly cheered for the thin-lipped harlot. Nancy was an uppity bore who skated like a pre-menstrual giraffe. You, on the other hand, toe-looped onto the scene from the dark tundra of some dreadful communist purgatory and stole our hearts. Lutzing and leaping and darting about the rink like Tinkerbell on booger sugar, you hoisted your nubile thigh over your head and spun your vagina around so fast I secretly hoped the first row brought rain bonnets. But look at you now. Goodness. You have triple-axled right out of your mind. Shown here at your thirtieth birthday soiree, you look pleased to have come into the possession of Eleanor Roosevelt's rabbit fur cape but are you aware that dress reminds your Aunt Betsy to empty her Hoover bag? Oksana (may I call you Ox?), you look like Amy Carter mincing about on the red carpet of the Head Injury Cotillion.
SCARY SPICE: For my money, coriander is the scariest spice. One look at you, my dear, convinces Aunt Betsy you should change your stripper stage name to Old Spice. I say this only because I strongly suspect your scent to be tolerable only to grizzled sailors. While I was rooting for you when you out-foxtrotted that demented devil doll Marie Osmond on "Hobbling Around with the Has-Beens," I frankly understand why donkey-impersonator Eddie Murphy preferred the company of worn-out transvestite hookers (at the very least it explains his passing interest in you). Listen, honey. Aunt Betsy understands. It was crushing, no doubt, when America decided a NASCAR idol had more grace than you. But we can all be grateful to you, Old Spice, for illustrating why Diana Ross shouldn't be cast as a post-op C3PO in George Lucas' upcoming STAR WHORES.
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