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The year in "I'm not here to make friends!"

A year ago today, I posted my supercut of people saying various iterations of "I'm not here to make friends" over and over and over again on reality TV. So much has changed since then -- Obama became president, the sinking economy went belly up, Sarah Palin became queen of her own ass, then sank, then went belly up, etc. And yet, as the video above (containing examples of my most favorite of televised cliches that have been uttered in the time since the first video) proves, they've also stayed much the same.

Original video is below, in case you don't know what I'm talking about.

Another day, another ANTM-related painting

A few weeks ago, a reader named Gary sent me this email:

may i mail you a painting? i work with people with developmental disabilities and one of them painted one of your all time antm faves...

let me know!

And I was like, "May you!" And so he did. And it arrived.

Allison in "Fake Blood"

Here's the other video I cut with ANTM's Allison, as promised last week. It's a video to Sifl and Olly's "Fake Blood," inspired mostly by the sock-puppet banner that precedes it in this clip. I gotta say, I love this girl. I was so impressed with her willingness to do whatever and, in the process, poke fun at the whole blood fixation that helped define her on-screen persona. She took direction so well that it made me wonder if ANTM had helped sort of condition her as a conduit for other people's ideas. Or maybe she's just innately awesome and easy-going. Either way, hire this girl, big boss people. You won't be disappointed.

Allison on my couch

ANTM 12's Allison Harvard, light of my life/fire of my blogging loins, recently visited New York (she's actually still here!) and so you KNOW I had to do something on the collaborative tip with her. The problem is that once a reality show is over, it's over so all the minutiae that would have been fascinating to pick through a few weeks ago seems, well, over. So I decided to do something completely nonsensical with her and have Winston "interview" her. I'd want to talk to someone who painted my picture, too, so I thought it was only fair. If you enjoy watching this a tenth as much as I did when making it, you should be right tickled.

Next week, I'll have one more little video collabo with Alli. She is such a good sport!

Celia on my couch

Above is the extra lil' ANTM somethin' that I hinted at in the end of my finale recap -- Celia came over to my apartment, and I interviewed her like I did with Sheena last cycle. We talked for over an hour and along the way, she gave me many tidbits on the reality-making process including the prep speech Tyra made that led to Celia throwing Tahlia under the bus, the post-elimination fight Natalie had with Tyra that didn't make it to air, and how the girls are "trained" to produce maximum drama. That's, of course, in addition to Celia's own personal take on the experience and how she feels about being called "old" and "ugly" and stuff. Talking to her definitely illuminated things about the process I had no prior idea about. It was kind of mind-expanding. I'm smiling with my brain as I type.

(BTW: here's Celia's piece in the New York Post -- she's rightfully proud of it.)

Win in the face

For the sake of end-of-cycle summary, I believe that no one screen shot says more than this:

Paulina = A Keeper

The irony continues! And so does the shit-talk. I don't post ANTM news usually, but this is a story worth following. More from Paulina on Tyra's fierce bitchiness:

“I must admit I was having a little bit of an issue with Tyra being late for every judging,” she told Billy. “It’s six hours later and I feel like I am being told my time is not as valuable as hers. They pointed out that I should shut up and be grateful for the job and that Tyra is really busy.”

“I think that my little hissy fits about ‘Well, we are all here on time. Why can’t she (Tyra)?’ didn’t go over all that well,” added Paulina, who replaced the previous judge, supermodel Twiggy.

When asked if there might have been an issue that she was the only other woman on the judging panel, Paulina said she didn’t think that was the case, especially when it comes to Tyra.

“I don’t think that in Tyra’s universe that’s even a consideration. I don’t think she cares,” she said. “I’m not even sure she was aware that I existed way out there in Siberia, much like I am not sure she knew Twiggy existed.”

And while Paulina and Tyra clearly didn’t get along in the professional landscape, did the two have any off-camera conversations?

“I wouldn’t know [what kind of person Tyra is] because all I know of her is literally when we are on set talking to each other in front of the cameras,” the supermodel said. “That is the only time she would speak to me.”

I miss her more and more everyday. (Thanks to Maria C.!)

Longness

This is the post where I comment on the ANTM winner, pre-recap. Spoiler is below. I know that's obvious, but for some people, you can never be obvious enough in regard to spoilers.

Just looking out for you since you're undoubtedly about to be very surprised.

Justified and ancient

She's old! She's old! She's the lady version of a 1,000 year-old egg (not as quite as aged as she's made out to be, but probably not fit for mass consumption). But isn't the elephant on the runway the fact that Celia's a Pikmin? I mean, isn't wheat grass that grows from her head what's really making her unmarketable?

So, basically I can die now.

The painting above, based on Winston's 2008 Halloween costume, is the work of ANTM Cycle 12 contestant Allison. I kinda got the feeling she was reading my stuff (via another ANTM girl, which...yeah, fraternizing with the talent is potentially problematic), so in my recap of the recap, I not-so-gently hinted that I wanted the sketch of a bloody-nosed Tyra that she did. Weirdly, the following week, she emailed me just to say hey, and I was all, "AHEM! I saaaaaaid I wanted that sketch." She gave it away to someone on the set, but she promised to make something else for me. I suggested something Winston-oriented (I wanted to experience the space dust of worlds colliding), and lo and behold a few weeks later, this is what she has come up with.

I probably don't need to say that I love it so, but I do. This is the single best material thing that has come out of my work on the Internet. My favorite thing about it is how utterly bizarre it would look to someone who hasn't seen Winston: a painting of a smoosh-faced cat wearing a hat and wig and stole and dress, as inspired by E.T.'s Halloween costume. What a wonderful thing!

No, sorry, that's my second favorite thing about it. My favorite thing about it is that Allison painted it!

There's a lot more of her creativity on her Flickr. To paraphrase the hushed words of Little Edie Beale, when you consider what's going on today, and then you compare Allison, she's very gifted. She really is. She's very gifted.