Paula Abdul

We are beside ourselves with excitement about the Golden Globes, which are about a week and a half away -- not just because we're suckers for awards shows, but chiefly due to the size of the fashion parade on that red carpet. See, the holidays can be lean times for fug, and when our available resources run dry of celebrity faux-pas, we have to find somewhere else to turn. We have to find a happy place to get us through the rough spots.

Naturally, that happy place often involves poking fun at Paula Abdul.

The following is a photo I pulled back in December, but it fell through the cracks when more resplendent fuggery overshadowed it. I would come back to it occasionally, snicker, then get bored and move along someplace more dazzlingly stupid. But like an annoying younger sibling constantly popping up in your face -- trying to steal your Benetton rugby shirt because if you had one then she had to have one and please can I borrow your stereo and please can I have your stuffed animal because it's cuter than mine and I'm taking your Top Gun soundtrack cassette now and even though your shoes are two sizes too big for me I'm taking those too because it's MY TURN (not that I would know ANYTHING about being this younger sibling) -- this photo wouldn't go away. And now, in our hour of need, it's here for us (just as heroically as I am sure the aforementioned adult-angel version of that annoying younger sibling would be, IF she were real).

And so, in synch with the upcoming return of that talent contest she hosts -- have you heard of it? I can't quite recall the name at present -- we give to you: Paula Abdul in a bad corset.

What cracks me up about this corset is its air of being a really undisciplined teen craft project, designed by someone who thinks no outfit is complete until it's been crowned with pink velvet bows.  It reminds me of when I was nine and reading/watching Anne of Green Gables over and over again -- I decided that Anne was right, and that puffed sleeves were about the most glamorous and classy design touch in the world; then, when I was in the mood to pretend I knew how to draw anything beyond stick figures, I'd sketch a bunch of dresses and shirts with sleeves gloriously bloated with air.

The difference being, of course, that now, I wouldn't wear any of that stuff, because it was kind of ridiculous, and also, I wasn't kidding about not being able to draw. (Once, in Lower School, I unwittingly drew a magnificent white steed... with five legs. It was so insane that it got put on the walls of the Upper School Dining Hall with my name under it as part of some "Aw, look what lower schoolers think is art!", and I think my sisters got teased about it by their friends for a while afterwards. Oops, and oh my GOD, I need to stop digressing.) Whereas Paula up there, without the excuse of brain-addling youth on her side, is flitting around in something even Barbie would sneer at as "too childish," all the while pairing it with one of those terrible wraps that's all sleeves and nothing else. And, sure, this shouldn't shock us because historically her judgment has been proven somewhat off -- like, when she judges it appropriate to make comments on her show, she's almost always wrong to open her mouth -- but unless she's wearing this as a favor to an ailing neighbor-child whose last wish on this plane is to see her gothic princess corset appear on a red carpet, then it's a bit of a fugly mess.

Oh, PAULA. She's like Ziggy. Will she ever win?

In these crazy times -- these wild, unpredictable times -- we are grateful that until she is recaptured by the doctors whose straitjacket she slipped out of a few years ago, there will always be Paula Abdul.

And sure, this isn't as loony as half of what she wears, but the pattern is a trifle young for Ms. A -- it's much more befitting, say, an 8th grader at her very exciting graduation into high school than a talent-contest judge.

And, no less, a talent-contest judge who probably never had an 8th grade graduation, because you can't very well pass Language Arts when your idea of a complete sentence equates more to my three-year old niece's rudimentary finger-painting than, say, Claude Monet. [Although, at least my niece has a vision when she's smearing paint around.]

I'm not really sure what the ski pants are in aid of, considering it's a warm Southern California August right now, but then again, this is Paula Abdul. It's possible she thinks she's at Sundance.

That, or she woefully misinterpreted some starlets in the bathroom talking about an avalanche of perfect white powder.

I don’t even know what to say about Fugster Extraordinaire and Fugly Hall of Fame memberPaula Abdul anymore:

I am seriously without speech. What is she going for, here? Dominatrix cocktail waitress? Naughty milkmaid? Blind Former Popstar? She Who Picks Her Clothes Out in the Dark?

Paula Abdul seems to believe that simply attending the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards means that she needs to dress like one of the titular young voters:

[Photo courtesy of Daily Celeb.]

This looks like something Snow White would wear on laundry day. Did I miss the memo that said the Nickelodeon voters were also picking out what the attendees would wear? Because this looks like the work of a pre-pubescent girl on a sugar high. Or maybe Laura Ingalls Wilder, if she were thinking of becoming a Vegas stripper but wanted to dive in slowly.

Even the woman behind her seems skeptical. Sneering, almost. As if to wonder what any poor pair of breasts did to deserve such shoddy treatment. Memo to Paula: Wearing a corset two sizes too small doesn't make them look pert; it makes them look perturbed.

Yes, Paula, we do, as long as you keep showing up in stuff like this:

[Photo courtesy of Daily Celeb.]

"'ello, guv'nas! I say, anyone for a fox hunt?"

She seemed too strung out on the red carpet to put together a coherent thought, so maybe when she got dressed La Abdul was too zoned to notice that she grabbed her dress from the Juniors rack:

From the waist down... fine. Maybe a little bit like a stripper at the Aladdin in Las Vegas, but we'll tolerate it because of the more grievous atrocities occuring upstairs.

[Photo courtesy of Daily Celeb.]

Sweet Jesus. She has quadra-boob, she has armpit cleavage... Did no one tell her that she's not an A-cup? Did no one gently point out that breasts look nicer when they're not being smashed? Did no one have the nads to suggest that she wear a gown in her own size? Did no one explain that your breasts really shouldn't become one with your armpits?

And did no one take a brush to her hair?

This bodes badly for American Idol -- as if the commercials weren't disastrous enough.