Monday, March 28, 2011
The Main Line Was Made For Housewives
Ok, I will bite...I have been avoiding the topic (although y'all know I have been mocking the Housewives franchise for a couple years now and making mocking references for quite a while about the "Real Housewives of Radnor Township")...but I cannot snark another day without having a petite giggle over the very thought of this.
I first heard about this a couple few weeks ago when I read about it on another blog - then I saw a mention of it on NBC10 and then the tongue in cheek story on Fox29 which was actually fun even if I think that Skirt in Bryn Mawr is not must stop shopping destination for Fashionistas, more like must stop fashion for Sameinistas - the store is nice mind you, just not the penultimate.
Now one other little thing about that Fox29 piece? Who the heck is that blogger they interviewed? Someone name Joey Fortman? Why is it I have never heard of her or her blog before? And oh honey, she should never, ever, with that hair in need of a salon day refer to herself as a "desperate housewife". She's not, I don't think, although I don't know her.....she was rather amusing although an unknown quantity.
So what I want to know is who is applying? Why who is applying of course! I have a laundry list of self focused social climbers with a side dish of collagen shots that I can think of, and I have fits of giggles as I visualize the pilot with a Dynasty-like overhead helicopter shot of Ardrossan as some made for TV music beats in the background and some woman with Locust Valley Lockjaw announces the show, shots of the annual Lily warehouse sale, dinner at the "club", spa day, running people over in their giant SUVs while on their cell phones....all the affairs and cheating scandals coming out...
It's just too delicious to ignore. And oh yes...even I have been hearing about this for weeks. Blah, blah, blah...and the ones saying "I would never" - well $20 bucks says they either don't have the cojones to do it or have already sent in an application.
But seriously? Think of all those plastic babes (literally since so many have replaced body parts and gotten hair extensions) who would be purrrrrfect for this? And truthfully, I think it is damn amusing even if I have heard some mommy and me types singing the "oh the horrors" out in public. To those women I say, get over yourselves - after all I need something amusing to watch on TV now and again.
Personally, I would nominate those babes from Merion Cricket Club's 2007 Christmas Ball who got into that cat fight . After all, what's a good reality TV show without a prerequisite cat fight?
Dodo and Co. can hang onto their hats, however. I don't think you'll see any old school Main Liners participate. It'll be the relatively new crew.
I won't be republicating the e-mail from the producers for this pilot experiment - dang that is out there enough already. But I do wish him luck with the high maintenance babes of the Main Line and look forward to more giggles on the topic...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
View from The Snarky Peanut Gallery
First we visit with Kelly Rowell, Main Line Wannabe and mass offender - Kelly has been obsessed lately with of all things, mannequins. She was commenting on what she refers to as "Fat Mannequins" :
Fat Mannequins … So Wrong
No matter what size we really are, don't we still want to be shown the ideal?
I just returned from a trip to the mall where I passed a new lingerie store with a window display filled with silky underwear on mannequins. Not unusual. Except these weren’t your standard-issue mannequins. They were the new and improved mannequins—the Rubenesque variety. Why is it that new and improved is rarely improved? These mannequins were right up there with New Coke.
Perhaps political correctness has gone too far when we have to increase the size of our mannequins to look more like the population. The problem is a simple marketing issue. On larger, round-bellied mannequins, the lingerie looks as unfortunate as it does on the rest of us. If we’re honest, bras and panties look a lot better in a size 2 than a 14. There’s a reason for using skinny models in advertising: The clothes hang well. Even if we ourselves are not perfect mannequins, don’t we secretly like to suspend disbelief when we see a cute store window display and convince ourselves that the clothes would look as good on us? There is nothing particularly desirable about lacy underwear when it’s stretched over broad, white plastic hips....No matter what size we really are, we still want to be shown the ideal....I know my body well enough to gauge what will be flattering or not once the dress is increased to my size. Looking at some other woman’s big breasts and wide hips in a dress I’m trying to shop for only confuses matters. Just give me the skinny bitch so I can see the dress, lump-free.
I have to ask? What is up with this woman? One of the largest problems in society is a woman and her self body image. And on the Main Line, like NYC and elsewhere, women are obsessed with body size and why perpetuate the myth that all women are stick figures with purchased, plastic boobs, and faces full of botox?
Personally I found it refreshing to see what clothes looked like in other than a size zero. And I still do not understand why Kelly Rowell gets paid to write.
Moving right along to a writer I actually DO appreciate - Amy Korman - Amy I find très amusant. She has wandered into dangerous shark infested waters with her musings on Main Line Moms as Tiger Moms:
Will Main Line Moms Become “Tiger Moms”?
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/will_main_line_moms_become_tiger_moms/
By Amy Korman
Amy Chua, the Yale law professor who authored the all-the-rage Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, would fit in well on the Main Line: She’s brilliant, accomplished and attractive. Of course, if she actually lived there, you could add one more adjective to that list: shunned. The strategies she recounts in her book — calling her younger daughter “garbage,” forcing her to practice piano for hours, forgoing bathroom breaks and food, forbidding playdates — have been met with horror among the suburban glossy-mom set, where promoting self-esteem and social skills are deemed more important than musical prowess
.....Annie, a Devon mother with two kids in private schools, says that on a recent morning, Chua’s strategies provoked mom chatter — most of it negative — while she was volunteering in her daughter’s class. “Our kids are so busy with activities and homework that they’re really tired, and I don’t want to push them harder,” she says. On the other hand, “My kids don’t know which is the washing machine and which is the dryer.”....But don’t expect to hear Main Liners excoriating their offspring as pathetic sluggards anytime soon. “It certainly isn’t the way we work,” says Maurice Tannenbaum, father of a 16-year-old and owner of Gladwyne’s OMG Salon. “We’re not raising Hana that way.
First of all, Amy, Amy, Amy...always quoting Maurice Tannenbaum? What is her obsession with him? He's not an arbiter of taste. He's an obnoxious, social climbing ego-maniac who wants us to all forget about those wild early days with the likes of Gia Carangi. Donna Reed he ain't, ok? Puleaze.
Now onto Tiger Moms - I see a lot of helicopter parents, but not so much live Tiger Moms. And to really look at this, you have to look at the Nouveau Main Line - the upwardly mobile and socially aspirational. Half of those moms are so in love with themselves because their husbands moved them to the Main Line - they are caught up in their Town and Country Dreams and Muffy lives in Greenwich. Growing up these babes dreamt of the Main Line, but to me they will never represent it. For them to be "Tiger Moms" they would have to start with being less self focused.
I am thinking Amy Korman doesn't get this, because she is, like it or not, of the ilk of the Nouveau Main Line.
Another thing that tickled my fancy is this rant thing Philly Magazine has going on - and one in particular dealing with Facebook relationship statuses:
I Don’t Care About Your Facebook Relationship Status
Spare me your online displays of love BY KATIE EDER
Posted on 3/8/2011 at 10:59AM
My college boyfriend and I, who make the most un-mushy couple on Facebook, both have friends and young family members who litter our news feeds with the most eye roll-inducing, lovey-dovey statuses. We like to “call” when they will break up or get dumped. Ten out of 10 times, I see a change in relationship status pop up before the year’s end.
Oh my, out of the mouths of babes as they say! This is a pet peeve of mine. And Main Line women who are divorcing and re-entering the dating scene are the worst. First you have "it's complicated" which translated means "it's over". Then they have the single and hunting status and when they meet someone? Oh lordy help us all, Facebook walls become the land of TMI - too much information. I expect this from kids, but as for the rest of them? (And some men aren't any better) Embrace an air of inner mystery. Sometimes, it does not pay to advertise....
Now in other things Main Line - I am told from reading another blog that Main Line Media News has lost editor Tom Murray. That's a loss and the holding company I think is a mess as it is reflected in the newspapers. When editors leave of their own volition - sit up and pay attention. I wonder if our local newspapers are long for this world, or we will end up with a merger and just one? I have to say that they are just dull these days, anyway. Patch is not much better, except for the Radnor Patch - because that is being run by former MLMN reporter Sam Strike.
Well...except for the Society pages. They still amuse even if I can't figure out why Chronic Halitosis Carol Springer is still spreading fear and misery - with all the problems the local papers have, one would think that old bat would be sent back to her belfry.
Of society and photos, The Academy Ball photos were among my favorites. I don't know what some of those women were thinking - check out Susan Scovill and Philadelphia Magazine. I have said it before and I will say it again - these women do not understand what white tie is or a ballgown and some of these ageing dinosaurs of the Main Line need to give up the strapless for something more age appropriate and half the women, fake boobs or not, need to be properly fitted for bras that go under gowns. Some of the photos are udder-riffic.
One last thing? The Radnor Historical Society has apparently issued a Historic Preservation Watch List. Hasn't Ted Pollard moved to Cuba or wherever yet? He is the epitome of a mental fart. I love his vagaries when it comes to the Willows - good lord everyone in Radnor knows the Willows is being shopped to a high paying tenant. I don't know why the Radnor Historical Society is issuing any list except to kill trees - they don't do anything anyway (can you say Eastern Log Cabin and Poplar House?)
Tra la, that's it from the snarky peanut gallery...go chew on all this for a while
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Jewelers Gone Bad: The Sad Ass Tale of Craig Drake
Notice the photo at right which is a direct link to Philly Magazine link - look at all that booze. I wonder, how much a part THAT has to play in all this?
I know people who like the Drakes and people who wish the Drakes would go away. A lot of people say they are freeloaders? (I ask because I don't know)
I know that people are also sick of Son of Drake, AKA "Craiger" because everyone has caught onto his Wimpy from Popeye hamburger approach to cocktail parties with jewelry for non-profits - it's not altruism, it's just money.
I have seen stunningly beautiful jewelry that came out of Casa de Drake, and I have heard people complain about jewelry out of Casa de Drake.
It's all, in truth very tawdry as well as sad...and the rumor mill on the cocktail circuit has been running wild since Fox first broke the news of a raid on Drake.
Are the bookmakers running odds on the son now? After all when this gets nasty, the family disappears, don't they? Look at the tale of the old crone who thought a boy was a deer? Suzanne Lammers? Her family was certainly invisible through the majority of her fall from grace weren't they? Well except for that Vows section from the NY Times that is...
Here's what's out there:
The Informant: Craig Drake’s Wife Tania Arrested
One of many new problems facing the fallen jeweler
Victor Fiorello Posted on 2/28/2011 at 5:08PM
You remember the Drakes. There’s Craig, the 74-year-old, jet-setting bon vivant and jeweler-to-the-elite who went from chumming with Mick Jagger and Julius Erving and partying it up in his $4.2 million Touraine penthouse on Spruce Street to, in the last couple of years, being sued and raided and closing his business, a downfall documented by former Philly Mag writer Michael Callahan here.
And then there’s Tania, his much younger (she turned 48 this month) Brazilian wife....On January 13th of this year, the cops showed up at the Drake home on Spruce Street to serve an order of protection on Tania on behalf of Craig, the reasons for which are still unclear. According to a police department spokesperson, Tania “started acting out” and pushed the officers. She was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, violation of an order, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, and sat in jail for an entire week before Craig Drake’s son, Craiger, paid the $5,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April.
The arrest capped off five months of increasing problems for the beleaguered jeweler. In September, Chase Bank sued Craig over $30,980 in credit card debt, though the process server has been unable to locate him. In October, J.A. Reinhold Asset Management—the Touraine’s property manager—sued him for more than $15,000. And a month later, Craig was hit with a $202,000 tax lien by the Commonwealth. Tania, too, will have her day in civil court this March, when Citibank is scheduled to take her there over a $27,857 credit card bill.
But the biggest financial hit came this past January. Back in December 2009, a company called Louis Glick Diamond Corp. sued Craig in federal court seeking a judgment of $684,326....On January 13th of this year—the same day Tania was arrested—a judgment was entered in favor of Glick, and the plaintiffs are now seeking total damages near $1 million.
Craig Drake and All That GlitteredPHILADELPHIA - Only On Fox: Investigators raid a well-known Center City jeweler. Its customers are some of the elite in the Philadelphia area: from Bill Cosby to Julius Erving to Pennsylvania's first couple Mr. and Mrs. Ed Rendell.
The jeweler faces allegations of theft and fraud. While no charges have yet been filed, it seems the owners of Craig Drake Manufacturing are now under investigation by authorities in at least two counties, reported Fox 29’s Dave Schratwieser.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Fox 29 News got an exclusive look at a search warrant executed Monday that indicates this investigation involves a dispute over a 20-carat, $250,000 diamond ring.
When detectives from Chester County and Philadelphia arrived at the Walnut Street showroom of celebrity jeweler Craig Drake Manufacturing, they went to the fifth-floor offices not to buy jewelry but to execute a search warrant.
Police say detectives from East Goshen Township executed the search warrant seizing books, records, ledgers and computers with information on the firm's more than 12,000 elite customers, all part of an ongoing fraud investigation.....A copy of the search warrant reviewed by Fox 29 says that the case involves a 20-carat diamond ring valued at $250,000 that was given to Craig Drake Manufacturing for sale. Then later, the victim claims the company could not produce the ring or her paperwork from the sale of the ring. Police also wanted to seize bank records dating back to June of this year.
Always the life of the party, Drake was a jet-setting jeweler who catered to Philadelphia’s wealthiest clients and hosted the city’s most lavish soirees. Then, suddenly, the party stopped
By Michael Callahan Posted on 12/16/10
Before all of the unpleasantness, before the lawsuits and the gossip, before it all went so wrong, so quickly, there were the parties. Craig Drake loves a good party.
There were the dinner parties he would throw in the charming old-world dining room of Chez Donati, tucked inside the Les Trois Rois hotel in Basel, Switzerland. Andy Warhol was a regular at the hotel, as was Pablo Picasso, who is said to have painted a canvas or two in exchange for free meals. Every year, during the annual international watch and jewelry fair known as Baselworld, Craig Drake would score an impossible-to-score reservation for 12 or 16 and host a lavish dinner, commanding the room with his wit, charm and very good wine.
Then there were the parties in bars along St. Tropez, more impromptu, with Drake gregarious and welcoming, constantly drawing in more and more people, a jet-set Pied Piper. He smoked expensive cigars in expensive bars with his chum Julius Erving. He regaled Mick Jagger with jokes on the Concorde; he got invited to the birthday beach bash of the son of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy in St. Barts, where singer Enrique Iglesias admired Drake’s young, sexy wife. There were dinners at “21,” late nights at Studio 54, jaunts to Mykonos and Monte Carlo. Chicago socialite Candace Jordan, a former Playboy Playmate, encountered Drake while in St. Tropez with tennis ace Jimmy Connors and his wife. “The first time we met him, he had all of these fantastical stories about celebrities and all of these high-profile people. And my husband and I just looked at each other and raised an eyebrow,” she recalls. “And sure enough, the next time we were there, he’s with all of these people he’s just talked about.”
We envy the lives of people who “have it all,” and Craig Drake sure seemed to be one of them. His exotic Brazilian trophy wife and the showy penthouse and the lineage as a descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake (or so he constantly claimed) were augmented by memberships in the Union League and the Racquet Club. But mostly, what he had was his reputation, as the private jeweler monied Philadelphia and the Main Line ...Craig Drake, 73, is trying to pick up the pieces of his business, which he closed in January. He’s gone missing from the international party scene; his name has all but vanished from the society columns. He’s fighting multiple lawsuits. His penthouse is up for sale. And the powerful, pretty people in Philadelphia who once constituted the backbone of both his business and social lives are wondering: What the hell happened?
For the answer, you need to go back to last fall. When the police crashed Craig Drake’s party.....Drake’s reputation as a boozy, if slightly frat-boyish, raconteur became as much his calling card as his jewels. “He was the life of the party,” recalls a Gladwyne socialite who once bumped into Drake at the Lafayette Club on St. Barts. “He probably didn’t know anybody there but us, but he was buying the whole place drinks and had on some big obnoxious t-shirt about being drunk and seeing double or something.”....By the late 1980s, Drake had split from his first wife, Christine, and had dated a string of high-profile glamour-pusses, among them Action News man-eater Monica Malpass and Beverly Sassoon, the ex-wife of hair mogul Vidal. He courted the woman who would become his second wife, Tania, in Rio, where he introduced himself as “Bond, James Bond,” and gave her a ring that once belonged to Eva Perón.
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