Asshat of the Week

The nominees are:

Sam Rubin
Ryan Seacrest
Giuliana Depandi
Annoying Female ABC Reporter
Isaac Mizrahi

And the winner is…

Isaac Mizrahi!!!!

I didn’t know or care about Mizrahi’s red carpet antics until I read about his performance at the Golden Globes, in which he groped Scarlett Johanssen’s chest and tried to look down Teri Hatcher’s dress. (As she told us on Seinfeld, they’re real.) There was the whole contention that hey, he’s gay, he’s not a threat, plus he’s a fashion designer whose job it is to grope women, so he can get away with it, blah blah blah. Once I read this whole thing, I must admit I was intrigued. Despite my outward dismay for celebrities and their non-news news, I was as interested as the next guy in seeing them be rattled out of their canned, publicist-approved answers. I wanted to see Naomi Watts tell Mizrahi to stop touching her bum, or something like that.

Okay, I will admit that I did NOT watch all 2 hours of the red carpet arrival coverage. I simply could not handle it. I drove by the Kodak Theater the other day while they were setting up, so I knew how long the red carpet would be and what that meant (it meant traffic…unbearable tangles of slow, annoying traffic). But still, I tried to watch the coverage. On E! and on ABC. Both were so bad I eventually had to busy myself in the kitchen with only one ear open in case something truly interesting did happen. Incidentally, the most interesting thing that I saw was Sandra Bullock arriving with…not her thug husband but…Keanu Reeves, looking vaguely amused and definitely high.

But what I DID see of the coverage was so very terrible. I nominated all of the reporters I saw because they all sucked. Sam Rubin sucks just by existing, and I must tell you that I didn’t even listen to one word he said. As soon as I saw his paunchy face I changed the channel back to E! even though it was commercial time. I simply cannot stand him. He is a blight on the entertainment news landscape. That chick with the long black hair on ABC made too much drama out of everything, so she gets a nomination, too.

And Ryan Seacrest. Oh, love and glory, Ryan Seacrest. I just can’t even come up with anything to say about him. Nomination is enough said.

As a former employee of the cable entertainment network, I know all too much about Giuliana Depandi, so I can’t comment here either, except to tell you that she used to be blond and annoying and now she’s brunette and annoying, and as soon as I heard her utter the word “hizzouse” on E! News Live I lost any respect I may have ever come to have for her. That said, she was very nice to me the one time we actually spoke to each other. I think it was an “excuse me” and “sure” exchange in the elevator. P.S. I have never watched E! News Live in its entirety.

Also, I have great disdain for the whole “red carpet commentary” thing they had going on. Giuliana and Ryan were not even on the red carpet. They stood somewhere off to the side, watching the arrivals on monitors, and providing a constant chatter about how great or tired or pregnant or in love the celebrities looked. Sports commentary is bad enough. Now we’ve got them talking about people getting out of limos and walking into a building. Do we need this? DO WE?!

So let’s get to Isaac and his hijinks, shall we? Yes, we shall. What I saw was so awful and insipid and awkward and embarrassing that I have decided that Mizrahi should no longer even get to be called “gay.” Gay people are inherently funky and cool and fun to hang out with. I should know, I hang out with several and I am related to a few. Gay people have style and decorum and their jokes are witty and often quotable. If they have outrageous haircuts, they are haircuts you secretly wish you could pull off yourself.

I do not secretly wish to have Isaac Mizrahi’s small-forest-animal-caught-in-a-trap haircut. (If you think my post is starting to sound like something you might read on Go Fug Yourself, I am flattered. But I am not that good or informed.) His jokes were not funny, and he didn’t even seem to know where he was or what he was talking about. He was obviously bored by William Hurt and stopped just short of saying “You are boring, old man, now move over so I can grope Jessica Alba.” He did not ask cutting edge cute questions. He said “What was that like for you?” way too many times. People, in Hollywood, that is the most asked question by journalists of actors besides “What was it like to work with Kevin Bacon?” I can criticize, because I once asked Russell Crowe what his favorite video game is.

I’m getting myself worked up over this. Imagine how much more I would say if I had actually watched more than 20 minutes of this crap.