Tag Archives: britney spears

You Wanna Hot Body? Call Britney.

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black cutout heartThere was a window of time, back in my 20s, when I could have been considered a “gym rat,” meaning I went there a lot because I didn’t have much else to do. As a result, I lost a bunch of weight and fit into a pair of tiny pants that I wore to that one party that one time and never wore again. I found them four years later while cleaning out some old clothes and marveled at the circumference of the waist. It was an oddity, like excavating Pompeii and uncovering the sleeping dog forever frozen in ash.

I know what was motivating me then: I was single. Now that I’ve been married for a long time, I need new motivation and it came in the form of standing in a dressing room and looking at what was becoming of my body. I looked at my back fat and thought, “I’m not ready to give up.” I’m not going quietly out to pasture, or worse, to the glue factory. I can still be foxy.

But I needed a task master. Enter Britney Spears.

Britney Spears, Work Bitch video

If anyone knows what it’s like to go to seed, Britney does. If girl doesn’t watch it, she tends to get a gut. But still, she came back from paunchy, jean-short wearing baldness to be pretty fly, so I feel safe in her hands. That’s why her song “Work Bitch,” is my absolute fav workout song.

heart-2.1You wanna hot body
You wanna Bugatti
You wanna Maserati

You better work bitch

Yes, yes (I had to look up what a Bugatti is but, yeah, it’s pretty hot) and sure, why not? Let’s stay with that hot body for a second. At least Britney is being honest with you… you want a hot body? Look, you gots to put in the time. And if that means you have to stay on that elliptical machine in front of the gym window, staring out into a January night of sub-zero temps wishing for all the world you were at home on the couch with a pint of caramel/cone/fudge/pretzel ice cream, so be it. And for God’s sake don’t be one of those women who read a magazine while they work out.

Look, if you’re tired of the arm flab, if you can’t stand to let your thighs expand one more inch, you better crank that mo-fo up to level 11.

heart-1

You wanna Lamborghini
Sip martinis
Look hot in a bikini

You better work bitch

OK, so there’s more emphasis on cars than I’d like (do you think she had trouble thinking of other things to want?). I drive a Kia. The most envious I can remember being of a car was on a recent snowy day when a woman with a new Subaru Outback plowed right through a snowy parking lot like it was no biggie.

But, hell yes, I want to sip martinis and I want firm arms while doing it. I don’t want to reach for my martini only to have my triceps wobble like I’m doling out mashed potatoes in the lunch room. Double points for me if I’m sipping a martini on someone’s fab yacht while wearing a bikini (in my mind, when I’m on the treadmill, this bikini is always white. A white bikini is super Britney, isn’t it? Maybe I need a white bikini. With little gold stars all over it.)

heart-4

You wanna live fancy
Live in a big mansion
Party in France

You better work bitch

Everyone knows you can’t party in France if you’re fat! They are all skinny over there! Really though, I don’t need a mansion. A house with two bathrooms would be just fine. But I do want to live fancy by having some hot jeans that look great in the butt.

Which brings me to exercise payoff #1: since my renewed attention to exercise, I achieved a dream: I fit into a pair of jeans I’ve been saving because they used to fit me and I was sad that they no longer did. I remember wearing this pair of jeans and having extra room in the ass. Then all the sudden (it seemed) I couldn’t get them over my ass. Now they are up and zipped and just somewhat tight. I can sit in them comfortably.

I am so into them. And these are cheap jeans! These are not Rag and Bone or Hudson or even 7 For All Mankind. I think the brand is TINT, which probably folded up shop after producing jeans in Bangladesh for about 2 months back in 2007. They are not even skinny jeans because skinny jeans weren’t even invented yet when I bought them. I don’t care. I’ve been rocking the TINTs like every other day.

black cutout heartBring it on
Ring the alarm
Don’t stop now
Just be the champion
Work it hard like it’s your profession
Watch out now
‘Cause here it comes

The last time I did my cardio workout and was sucking air in mile two of my run, this song came on and when she sang, “Work it hard like it’s your profession,” I thought, “Hell, yes, working out is like a second job.” I finish work and I go to my part-time job at the gym, which is becoming a hard body.

heart-7Go call the police
Go call the governor
I bring the trouble
That means the trouble y’all
I make it bubble up
Call me the bubbler
I am the bad bitch
The bitch that you love enough

Yes, alert Governor Mark Dayton: I’m working out again. You will want to sip martinis with me and discuss the shortage of propane this winter and if you are super nice I will show you my biceps.

Honestly, this is the most ridiculous part of the song, especially if you grew up in Wisconsin calling a water fountain a “bubbler.”

But it ends on just the right note: be the bitch that you love enough (to whip into shape.)

If you have a hard time working out, I suggest losing yourself in a fantasy. Pretend you’re Britney. It’s 2009 and your hair is almost all grown back in. The meds are working. You divorced Kevin! Now The Circus starring Britney Spears Tour is about to begin and all eyes are on you. You’ve committed to some sexy costumes, including a spangly bikini. If Britney could do this all this stuff (granted she’s got resources, but it still couldn’t have been easy), you can go on the treadmill and pretend to be her for twenty minutes.

So hold your head high
Fingers to the sky
Now they don’t believe ya
But they gonna need ya
Keep it building higher and higher
Keep it building higher and higher

Work work work work work work work work (Work!)

Britney Spears with whip

The Short Stack: January 10

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Every Friday, I share  the pop culture, fashion, lit and random blips that were on my radar during the week. Enjoy! 

Books
Sometimes  you read a book because you’re looking for answers but you’ll only end up with more questions when you read The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. I first saw The Room in 2009 and it replaced Deep Blue Sea as my favorite terrible movie –  I got my prized DVD signed by Tommy Wiseau at a midnight screening at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis. After reading this book I want to know:  what does Tommy think of it? And is he ever going to make that vampire movie? Could he please, please be on The Bachelor?

Look deep into my eyes:

tommy wiseau of The Rooom

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 is only the first volume of this new biography and the brick is 1056 pages long. This is my beach read for 2014 since I plan to spend a lot of time working on my tan. I mean a lot of time. If I want a shorter, trashier read I’ll go with Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations.

Just finished Johnny Carson by his lawyer Henry Bushkin. Ultimately a sad portrait of a tormented man but Bushkin is equally as pathetic, giving up his family to trail around after Johnny like a puppy. Lots of boring details about their business dealings, not enough juicy Ed McMahon tidbits. Also question Bushkin’s taste in girlfriends: Joyce DeWitt and Mary Hart (from Entertainment Tonight?). Yick.

Fashion
I first looked at the book (un)fashion a couple of years ago, after I learned that Maira Kalman, one of my favorite illustrators, put it together with her husband. It’s a strange collection of, well,  unfashion photos from around the world that seem random at first except for the one or two word headings they’re grouped by, like “headgear” and “wedding.” I couldn’t stop thinking about it the book so I checked it out from the library again, trying to decode its message. I think maybe fashion can only be headed this way, into a disjointed but global, ethnic, freestyle vibe. Unfashion is the next, last, thing.

So in 2014 I’ll try to start cultivating my look of plaid pants, shawl, basket hat and mask now so as to be part of the first wave. The look is hard to explain but there’s something to this sweater:

child wearing hat, sweater and amulet necklace

Or this headgear:

sweet headgear, shirt, tie, cane combo

On the other hand, can someone bring riding habits back for, like, everyday wear, no horse required?

vintage riding habit, top hat and crop

Crafting Front
I’m trying to figure out if there is some way to make macrame truly cool. In my quest I spent a lot of time on etsy, where I stumbled into a nest of hundreds of macrame owls. Why the owl? Why no other animal?? I want to buy them all and make one gigantic exhibit.

OK, here is one thing you can do with macrame knots that could kick some ass.

If you’re looking for a craft project, ornamental knots (I wish I was “respected internationally” for my knotting skills) offer some potential coolness. Rock an ornamental knot necklace with your cape and rag & bone jeans with your hair tied up in a rag and you got it – unfashion!

Places To Be
On January 29, Jake Rudh’s Transmission at the Varsity Theater is a tribute to Bowie. Start crafting your costume immediately.

Random
Um… who is in this photo and is it really possible for breasts to be this far apart and this perky at the same time?? Doesn’t even look like the blowsy Brit we’ve come to know and love. This looks like some woman named Candy waiting for her curtain call in Vegas Atlantic City Des Moines. But that “Work B**ch?” Very fine tune for running.

Work Bitch album cover Britney Spears

It may be 2014 but Homey still don’t play that.

The Wednesday Outlook: May 25, 2011

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While cleaning out some drawers today, I found the above pic. I think I cut it out of a magazine and saved it because it represented the best of bizarro pop culture – two strange worlds colliding to overlap for a moment of ultimate strangeness. It was taken during the time that Liza was married to David Gest and was having a bit of a revival, thanks to all the press attention and David’s maneuvering [quick Google of David reveals that most recently he “donated thousands of pounds worth of showbiz memorabilia to a Derbyshire (UK) charity he saw on television.” It’s worth hitting this link just to see a photo of David’s face.]

It was also during the time when Britney Spears was hot stuff – before the K-Fed debacle, before breakdowns and shaved heads and rehab and giving power of attorney or control of her financial affairs to her father. It was also a time of flat stomachs. At least for Brit, not sure what’s going on underneath Liza’s sequined shift.

Isn’t it amazing how a time just ten years ago can seem so quaint and innocent? It makes me wonder about today but it also gives me a certain appreciation for today, in a way I can’t quite describe. I often think my days are boring and filled with nothingness because I’m not saving the world or conquering Twitter but they are actually quite rich in simple ways.

I’m touched that I bothered to cut that photo out because it was funny and that I found it today. I’m happy that I walked with Freja to the water tower and sat looking down on a house that I find very beautiful. I’m glad to be working on a collage that’s as strange as this photo – last night I became completely immersed in it, cutting and pasting as I listened to the WTF with Marc Maron podcast (I listened to Garry Shandling and then the one from April with Conan O’Brien, both of which are excellent). These things have meaning to me and often that’s what we need to do here – infuse our lives with meaning that is specific to us and let other things go.

Reading: Confessions of An Art Addict by Peggy Guggenheim, published in 1960

Watching: Far From Heaven (2002), which was a terrible film that received Oscar nominations for its director, Todd Haynes, and female lead, Julianne Moore. What am I missing here, people? I wanted to hit Julianne’s character across the face as well, just like her closeted husband did.

Doing: getting ready to run my first 5K. Baby steps! I’m going to run the Twin Cities Pride Rainbow Run before the Pride Parade on June 26th. I’ve never run a race before.

Also, the superstars at this past weekend’s Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis (in my opinion, of course – and we didn’t get to the Northrup King Bldg this year) included painter Patricia Canney for her amazing paintings of dresses, Farida Hughes for her innovative oil paintings of crowds as seen from above – the best is titled Fair Days – and also Victor Yepez for his nearly life-size sculptures of horses constructed from metal – the head on one was a bike frame; on another bike chains served as the horse’s mane and tail… I love.

Anticipating: Trying out breakfast at the new Bread & Pickle at Lake Harriet tomorrow – a run around the lake topped off by a breakfast sandwich… is that bad? Then Memorial Day in Wisconsin. Hell yeah.