Unfortunately, my bottle of Cher perfume, given to me as a birthday present one year by Elvira, is long empty. Just like Burlesque, the film that opened this week that Cher and her once great face that no longer moves stars in. But in the case of Burlesque, I wasn’t expecting emptiness so much as a big fat Thanksgiving turkey gloriously stuffed with kitsch. I’d been whetting my lips for a year and a half since the insanely done-to-death-27,000-times-over storyline was revealed to me when I, along with God knows how many other songwriters, was asked to submit a song for the film. My co-writer dropped the ball and never handed in any of the three we did  – I’ve yet to even hear a mix…..Earth to Steve…..but often when my songs haven’t made it into a film it saved me from being stuffed into too many cinematic turkeys. Unless, of course, you count Howard The Duck, which I co-wrote five songs for with Thomas Dolby. But that was just about writing with Dolby and George Clinton as, despite being excited about being in a George Lucas produced film, I knew it was headed for the turkey farm my first time on the set when Howard, a little person stuffed into a costume that looked like a pillowcase with feathers glued on, ran in.

I was so excited to see Burlesque that I even organized the first public outing of my film club, L’Chien Du Cinema, The Dog Cinema, to leave my living room and see a film at an actual theater for the first time since 1983 when we were lucky enough to have two turkeys in the same season, Pia Zadora’s monumental Lonely Lady and Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone’s immortal Rhinestone.

But, alas, Burlesque isn’t so much a turkey as one big, long, never-ending lump of white, packaged mashed potatoes. No gravy, no cranberry sauce, not even any turkey; just constant servings of the same bad blue lighting on Cher, the one forlorn look from Christina Aguilera, the same numbing beat of predictable songs and we’ve-seen-it-before-Pussycat-Dolls-with-a-hit-of-Flashdance choreography, a story as predictable as jelly slopped on top of peanut butter, and all of it hitting with such regularity that your eyeballs go numb. An endless, bombastic pile of nothing. At least my empty bottle of Cher perfume has enough in it you can still smell some brilliance of what once was.

Which is a shame as all the bad film faithfuls that came to see it with me had high hopes Burlesque would be a contemporary classic of Showgirls proportion. I even got out the old the ol’ doggie bags and filled them with gold sprayed Milk-Bones, as the tradition of L’Chien is for everyone to throw down their bones and rate the films, a 5-boner being the biggest dog and a 1-boner not even worth the price of the ticket.

Here I am walking in with RuPaul:

And here I am at dinner after the film with more of the party faithfuls where we discussed and rated the noisy pile of mush we’d just seen. (Clockwise: Christian Capobianco, Craig Fisse, Michael Patrick KingGail ZappaDiva ZappaLaLa Sloatman, Bob Garrett, Charles PhoenixmePrudence Fenton and Pat Loud, the matriarch of the first reality show family ever.)

It was a sad night for Burlesque as far as our boner ratings went:

Out of a possible 55 bones from the eleven of us, Burlesque only got 9 and 1/32nd. It would have been 9 and 1/64th but a 32nd was the smallest bit of Milk-Bone any of us could break off.

Back to my Cher perfume, the silver paint on the cap has curdled away:

I guess that’s what Cher thought was happening to her face when she started shooting it full of whatever she shoots it full of to be left with a face that’s as immobile as a rock. It may look pretty but the only real emotion you could detect from her in Burlesque is when her eyes teared up. Twice. But I don’t want to be mean to Cher. I love Cher. It’s just that you can’t feel anything from something human that doesn’t move. And when you throw that into a movie that’s all surface/no heart or soul and shakes at the exact same frequency for two hours straight it makes you want to check your cell phone or do whatever else you can do trapped in your seat until the slop ends. My friend Diva always brings her knitting with her in case of just that.  Here’s how much she got done during Burlesque:

Even this bottle of Cher perfume has a little actual something in it:

It may all be stuck in the spritzer thing but at least it’s there and you can still smell it. I was hoping Burlesque reeked with kitsch classicism, bursting with so much flavor of self-importance that I’d never be able to get the stench out of my nose. Instead it was nothing, just a big plastic inflatable turkey:

Big budget movies offend me to begin with. And one that throws so much in your face and you don’t even feel the splat really bums me out. What a nothing experience. And, by the way, how do you put Cher and Christina Aquilera in a movie together and not have a duet?! What a waste of Cher.

But I’m not here to give a movie review. I’m just here to show you a bottle of perfume.

Now the only question is what do I do with all the Milk-Bones?

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A few nights ago I had dinner at Street with Michael Patrick King.

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Sex and sex appeal are topics on which Michael is an expert given that he writes about them a lot as writer and director of Sex and the City.

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We’re  great friends and hadn’t seen each other since the second movie came out so there was much to talk about let alone eat. We were joined by the lovely Prudence Fenton and had our usual stuffed-within-an-inch-of-our-lives feast that one naturally expects at Street.

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All of which makes our bellies very happy but doesn’t necessarily leave anyone feeling very sexy.

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We started with Millet Balls, Street’s version of bread:

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That was followed by Lamb Kafta Meatballs over warm Syrian cheese wrapped in grape leaves and drizzled with date and carob molasses and served with za’atar spiced flatbread:

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Then came one of my favorite dishes at Street, Ono Sashimi with spicy sesame mayonnaise, yuzu ponzu sauce, smoked salt, pink peppercorns and with savvy radish sprouts. For someone who usually hates ono, sashimi AND peppercorns, that this dish is my fave is quite a feat.

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I forgot to photograph the Burmese Melon Salad that came next with melons, toasted coconut, peanuts, fried onions and sesame ginger dressing but Prudence did a lovely job of hand modeling the Shrimp Stuffed Shitake Mushrooms that were tempura fried and filled with shrimp mousse with pozu dipping sauce:

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The Wild Columbia River Salmon and Hawaiian fried rice made with brown rice, Chinese sausage, taro root and scallions was a little healthy for me…

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… so instead I went for the Brioche Hamburger with Vermont white cheddar, homemade pickles and yuzu kosho mayonnaise…

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… and the Vietnamese Corn with 5-spice pork belly, hot chili peppers and scallions…

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… topped off with Smashed Potatoes with sour cream, chives and pink peppercorns.

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We all had an excellent meal though the last thing anyone felt like doing afterwards was measuring themselves on the Sexometer.

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I am so absolutely not a cook so the fact this 1950’s kitchen tool de-veins and peels a shrimp in one fell swoop isn’t what I cherish most about it but, rather, the gorgeous aesthetics that grace the box. From the pre-psychedelic background pattern on the lid…

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… to the gorgeous color palette inside, the bizarre lower arm graphic with little devils popping out of it as they rise in steam from the non-boiling-over pot below, the meaning of which completely escapes me,…

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… to the shiny ribbon and Shrimpmaster tag laden layer of brittle plastic that still ripples over the pristine utensil – all of this is mastery in 1950’s package design.

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I bring up the Shrimpmaster today because I dined at Street last night with three as artfully designed friends, two of which were vegans and one who was vegetarian. So as not to send them screaming from the table when my usual steaming platters of Tatsutage Fried Chicken and Lamb Kakta Meatballs arrived, I ordered Andouille Sausage And Shrimp Gumbo. Yeah, it was pumped full of delicious smoked hot link sausage but all evidence of that was hidden under the okra, corn and red beans and rice while massive shrimp played lookout on top.

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The monster Crustaceans were beautiful and clean, as if someone in the kitchen took to them with a Shrimpmaster, though I know the chefs are skilled enough to accomplish this without the handy vintage tool.

My dinner companions were Tiffany Daniels, Mito Aviles and ChadMichael Morrisette.

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Tiffany played Squeak in the first National Tour of my musical, The Color Purple. Squeak’s crowing scene in the show occurs in a bar brawl with the much beefier Sofia. Compared to Sofia, Squeak is a SHRIMP.

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Just last week, Mito and Chadmichael led an ‘art attack’ on the West Hollywood City Council and not so long ago hung a Sarah Palin mannequin in efigy from their roof, an act that was plastered throughout the press. These boys are certainly NOT SHRIMPS when it comes to self expression.

As far as the SHRIMP-worthiness of our meal, there were no such critters in the vegan dishes like Indonesian Peanut Noodles:

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And none in the Stir Fried Chinese Brocolli:

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The Toasted Amaranth with slivered almonds, cuzco corn and roasted yam in almond milk was a no shrimp zone as well:

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Crossing into vegetarian territory there was positively no shrimp in the Ono Sashimi.  Our waiter pointed out that this particular serving resembled an actual fish.

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The rest of the meal was filled in with Burmese Lettuce Wraps, Fried Plantains, some kind of specially made vegan desert with too much fruit for this candy worshipper to want to try and a big ball of smooth chocolate something sprinkled with powdered sugar. No shrimp were harmed in the making of any of these dishes. But had there been a need, I know the Shrimpmaster was primed and ready for service.

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