Amazon's #1 Bestseller....

... is now Noam Chomsky's 2004 book, endorsed by Hugo Chavez in his recent U.N. address. You'll notice that I'm not linking to it...

Uniformed at the W

A friend invited me to the W - a fancy hotel in Westwood - for drinks a few days ago. The look of the waitresses is still going through my mind. All of them model-skinny, with fake boobs, dressed in black lycra mini skirts with slits down the sides and in short tank tops that held their breasts in an anatomically implausible position. They had at least six inches of exposed midriff, and the whole outfit was topped off with black leather boots.

So what am I supposed to make of an upscale and expensive hotel that dresses their waitresses like lap dancers or call girls? Wouldn't this be somewhat offensive to their female clientelle? I'm not such a prude (I don't think) but I felt kinda embarrassed. It wouldn't work for a business meeting if I were a woman among a group of men, and it doesn't work for a date...

I swear I'm not the type, but I had vague thoughts that we should picket the W.

The Cold Stats

The NYTimes, in a story last week about Tom Cruise, had a list of the top ten Hollywood actors, listed in order of the total gross of all the movies they've acted in. At the top was Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise was about number four, and the only woman there was Julia Roberts (sixth place I think).

That's pretty amazing. Since all top grossing movies have female as well as male leads, what this means is that the women are less instrumental, or to put it another way, more interchangeable as leads then the men are. Maybe not so surprising. The James Bond series comes to mind. James Bond stays the same (at least over a few years), while the Bond girl is different in every episode. Alpha male with (one of many) beautiful woman.

No, I'm not suggesting action is required. But it's something to think about.