I could hardly contain myself with excitement when I thought my new issue of "TRANNY WARRIOR" magazine had arrived in the mail. The grave disappointment in realizing it was just the new "W" forced me to turn off all the phones, crack open a bottle of Maker’s Mark, and try to make myself feel better by watching a marathon of old Almodovar movies. (And it did help…just a little bit….and the MM certainly warmed things up…). But I demand to see a transcript that shows where JJ /JD / Damita Whozitwatzit /Janetsemicolon, while looking over the photo selects, breathily coos: "Oh, that one for the cover! That one there. Yeah, that one’s amazzzzing! Yeah, um….that one…. I look pretty there."
Notice how the tag line: "The Fatted Calf: When You Can’t fit Into the Season’s Boots" runs right alongside LaToya’s….err….Janet’s seasoned boobs, challenging the elasticity of that stucco-colored winter swimsuit. Is the art department still clinking flutes of bubbly over letting that one get by?
Journalist Jenny Comita opens the article by setting the stage for the atmosphere of the interview: security guards, cliched power publicist / mouth filter, etc. in the private room of a Mexican restaurant. She then quickly lays out, according to JJ’s protective camp, what would NOT be discussed during the interview, e.g. Michael, her ex-husband Rene Elizondo, and THAT PLUMP, DARK, SWEATY, BEPIERCED, AXIS OF EVIL LADY-NIPPLE THAT BREACHED HOMELAND SECURITY AND SHOWED SUPERBOWL FANS WHAT EXACTLY FILLS THE TOP PART OF A CORSET. (And no, the W magazine cover does NOT have a break-away panel where you can simulate another tabloid-ready "wardrobe malfunction," as of course it was the first thing I checked.) Comita then writes: "Still, there are certain seemingly personal subjects that Jackson is more than happy to blather on about." Hahahahaha. She used the word "blather." Comita later uses the word "spew" in further describing Jackson’s delivery on said personal subjects. (I think I have a crush on Comita already…no…I know I do. I can feel that Herpes-coldsore-like tingling, but its in my toes rather than on the mouth, as friends with H have described to me.)
Although I’ve never been a fan of JJ’s music (unless, say, when lip-synced by a Guatemalan gender illusionist who makes a noble attempt at mouthing the phonetics of "What Have You Done for Me Lately?"), it’s confusing whether W is happy to have her on the cover or not. Three of the four inside photographs of Janet show her with her eyes closed, which would lead anyone to believe that she must have been super sleepy on the day of the shoot. Is the publishing world that cruel to refuse a girl her much needed mimis for the sake of a couple of photos??? The single interior image of her with eyes open has a Dior hooded dress (in metallic viscose jersey, by John Galliano, at select Dior stores, 800.929.DIOR) obscuring one eye. This is convenient for when i-D wants to buy the image for their one-eyed cover, but I suspect W is sneaking in some subliminal metaphor to the mythological Cyclops and JJ’s monocularly-focused vision for her big comeback. I like it, I like it.
I’ll leave you with a sample line from the story: "It had gotten to the point that many of her [Jackson’s] male friends were offering themselves up as sperm donors, should she want to go the single-mother route. ‘I thought,"How sweet of them," [Jackson] says. ‘I had a lot of options."
But did her male friends offer themselves up individually to her or did they sort of all get ’round in a circle, undo their zippers and….
Dino Dinco
Los Angeles
