to this Rihanna at Met Gala:

When you burst onto the scene a few years ago with that song that Madonna liked, I thought, “mildly amusing, but not my thing.”  Then you came back with “I Kissed a Girl” and I thought, “Oh man, I’m going to have to hear this a lot.”  And then when I was really drunk and it came on in a bar for the first time, I thought, “Oh man, I’m going to have to sing this a lot.”  But I foolishly thought that would be all, that the summer of ’08 would slowly fade into fall, and your professional twilight was nigh.  I assumed you would make an appearance on the VMA’s and then it would be off to that giant NOW! That’s What I Call Music Compilation in the sky.  You’d retire in a Hello Kitty-themed home for pop stars of yesteryear.  Maybe split a condo with Avril Lavigne.  Ke$ha could live in the dumpster out back.

Go ahead, Katy, cash in with that Proactiv commercial, because your clock is ticking, I thought!  Good, good, marry Russell Brand — he’ll always be famous in England!  Yes, befriend Rihanna.  Maybe you can find a post-stardom job sewing barbed wire onto her panties or something.  Smart girl, that Katy, I thought.

But then the greatest pop scourge of 2010 happened.

I’m speaking of course of “California Gurls” (sic).  It had everything that makes for an inescapable pop hit.  Thinly veiled sexual references.  A cameo from a once-great rapper who should really know better.  A video that involves breasts shooting whipped cream.  A chorus so dumb you’re not sure if an actual songwriter wrote it, or if you simply gave everyone in your entourage a gel pen and made them scribble a word, any word, that they actually know how to spell on a piece of looseleaf (and someone was showing off with “popsicle,” huh?). It was as if you were challenging America not to pay $1.29 for an iTunes download and America responded, “Challenge accepted…just kidding, GIVE ME THAT NOWWW!”

So it is with a heavy heart that I admit defeat in this candy-coated war of atrition.  Katy Perry, you are, apparently, here to stay.  And I suppose I can accept that.  But in order to coexist peacefully, you should know that there are certain things that I cannot accept.

Let’s start with your latest monstrosity currently terrorizing the airwaves: “Firework.”  First things first: have you ever in your life heard anyone refer to a singular firework?  On the Fourth of July, people aren’t sitting on blankets in fields and on rooftops saying, “Look how nice that firework is!”  No, they’re saying, “Look at all of these fireworks, plural!”  A firework, one single firework, would be the saddest, most bootleg, low-rent, post-apocalyptic display of half-assed patriotism ever conceived by man.  Here’s a hint: most fireworks come from China.  China has a population of roughly 1.3 fucking billion.  Do you think they ever make only one of ANYTHING?

And that is but one abomination in a sea of abominations that threatens to drown me whenever I hear this song played in one of the many Bank of America ATM vestibules across this city.  Let’s talk about the opening line.

“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting throught the wind
Wanting to start again”

WHAT.  The next time you feel like a plastic bag, please come to my building and buzz apartment #14, so that I can let you in and pull you over my face and secure you in a tight sailors knot around my neck and suffocate myself to death so that I will never again be forced to hear the audio Ebola virus that is your body of work.  And p.s. “boom” and “moon” don’t rhyme.

Also, this song went to NUMBER ONE.  By sending every song she releases to number one, we’re only encouraging her, America!  We have to be the pop music gatekeepers!  We have the power to make it stop!

Or so I thought, until the Grammy nominations were announced and Google News, acting as Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger,” informed me that the RIAA had graced you with an Album of the Year nomination.  Really, RIAA?  Really?  Album of the Year?  You do know that on the nomination ballot when it says “Album of the Year,” you’re supposed to write in what you think is the best album, and not just name five that you know were released this year, right?  It’s not a memory test.  We’re all clear on this point?

Maybe it’s me.  Maybe my standards are too high.

No, I just looked at my iPod.  My standards are NOT HIGH AT ALL.  They are decidedly LOW when it comes to pop music.  I own “Whip My Hair,” by Willow Smith, for fuck’s sake.  Granted, I didn’t pay for it and the play count is three, but still.  At least Willow is like four years old and created a dance craze (somewhere, among certain communities, like probably black drag queens).

Let’s not even get to how crazy you sound when you perform live, because I’m about one YouTube clip away from throwing myself out the window and I really don’t want to do that considering I live above a Duane Reade and there’s a 90% chance that your music will be playing on their overhead system as I fall to my death outside of those revolving doors.

I guess what I’m trying to say, Katy, is that if you’re going to stick around, and you’ve made it pretty clear you are, I need you to promise me a few things; namely, that you’ll stop sucking so hard.  You seem nice and like you’re having a good time and are probably fun to knock a few back with.  But that alone does not justify everyone in the world having to hear the musical equivalent of Chinese water torture whenever we turn on the radio, TV or get in a taxi.

So, I’ll leave you alone and we can both happily enjoy each other’s existence, if you make me one, simple promise: be better.  I mean, seriously, do you ever listen to your own music?  It’s really, really awful.

Oh, except “Teenage Dream.”  Love that shit.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Dool

City.

City.

Post-Apocalyptic Bonfire Dance Party.

City.

Rihanna feat. Drake, “What’s My Name“

I realized today that I haven’t posted much of anything from this season’s men’s shows from Paris, New York or London Fashion Weeks.  So, going through some of my favorites from this season* to pull together a highlight reel of my picks, it struck me how well the AW10 collections from Viktor & Rolf, Pringle of Scotland and (Jay-Z’s favorite label to mispronounce) Maison Martin Margiela complement one another.  Sure, everyone makes room for layers in their fall collections, and many designers also use the same muted palette these three labels worked in.  But the way these three design houses mix and match textures, work knitwear into their clothing and keep the focus on suiting as outwear really fits together quite well.  You can see a Viktor & Rolf-esque quality in Pringle’s comically oversized fur gloves; Pringle and Margiela both play with the effect of having a blazer embellished along each side of the front, echoed again in a furry Viktor & Rolf jacket.

So what does it mean that these three very different brands have so much in common within their respective fall collections?  Are we all moving closer still to one giant globalized fashion community?  Are European designers feeding off of one another?  Will Tilda Swinton, the current face of Pringle, and noted Viktor & Rolf aficionado Rihanna start to share a wardrobe like a high school girl and her Cool Mom?

Probably not.  It probably just means that my taste in menswear is pretty consistent.  And that I will take any opportunity to mention Rihanna in a blog post.

Have a look at some of Viktor & Rolf & Pringle & Margiela after the jump below.  Doesn’t that sound like one of those over-played t-shirts from a few years ago?

(*On an unrelated note, I’m usually a big fan of Michael Bastian, and there was some pretty great stuff in his show, but what was up with some of his collection veering dangerously close to Dsquared2 territory?  No bueno.)

Margiela:

Pringle:

Viktor & Rolf:

Lately, I’ve noticed a huge resurgence in interest in the iconic artist Keith Haring, and, ignorant as it may seem, I didn’t realize it was the 20th anniversary of his death until I read about it online.  Which makes complete sense: Haring is a quintessential New York artist, responsible for defining an era in this city.  His work, and in particular the “radiant child” is emblematic of New York in the 1980′s and all that went along with it.  Despite his tragic death, his art lives on.  Today, we can see his influence in everything from Rihanna’s music videos, to Betsey Johnson’s Fashion Week presentation and the most mainstream of all designers, Tommy Hifliger, who designed a limited run childrens’ shoe collection based on Haring’s work.  Along with Basquiat and Warhol, Haring has made a place among New York figureheads who defined what it meant to live in this city at a specific time.  For some current admirers of his work, click through after the jump.

Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” video

Tommy Hilfiger x Keith Haring children’s sneaker collection

Designers Cole Nahal and Garrett Bowser’s Haring-inspired apartment.

(Photo via www.rihannanow.com.  Yes, that’s right, her official website.)

1.) Still from Rihanna’s upcoming video for “Hard”
2.) Prince Pelayo takes on Mickey Mouse
3.) Teenage photography phenom Eleanor Hardwick