Happy Memorial Day, Comrades!
Here I sit at work, chained to my cubicle, on yet another national holiday. But I must, for it is the way of retail supply chain logistics.
Just please go out and buy some cheap plastic shit from China*, so that my work here is not in vain...
*including, but not limited to, toxic food, clothing, or over the counter medicines originating from our friends in the far east.
I've been curious about whether or not Perez Hilton, the Gossip Ganstar tour-de-force and genius behind PerezHilton.com, gets paid to endorse the musical celebrities he touts so enthusiastically. Half the time, I think, no - he's too catty, too wickedly honest to be getting paid by a promoter, or God forbid, simply publishing press releases (I'm talking to you, OC Weakly). The other half of the time, I don't know - Hilton waxes so enthusiastic, so gushingly, that it makes you wonder.
Now, in this recent Newsweek article, Hilton says he doesn't get paid to post at all: "He insists he gets paid nothing for an endorsement—unless hanging out with celebrities counts as some kind of currency. "I get free clothes," he admits, "but no one's ever offered me money." Well, no one's offered me clothes, Perez, so count your blessings.
"I wish," says A&R Rep Jennifer Hirst of the post-for-pay idea, "because if that were the case he would just take any music we send." Um, yea. An A&R rep just now gets the idea to offer folks money for mentions? Mabye this lady's not the sharpest crayon in the box. It's called "payola" and it's been around a long time, lady.
But in a strange way, I want to believe Hilton when he says he doens't get paid. I want to believe that his "celebretard" crushes on folks like Mika, Lily Allen, and St. Brangelina are as real as his disdain for certain "hard pAArtying starlets." Because in this business, all you have is your name.
What do you think? Is it okay to take money for mentions?
Time Magazine reports that though HPV, or Human Papilloma Virus is usually more easily detectable in women than men, it seems the recent awareness of the HPV vaccine Gardasil has given rise to yet more research and related studies. There is still so much the medical world doesn't know about virus and it's ability to mutate and affect body organs.
"The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue. Of the 300 study participants, those infected with HPV were also 32 times more likely to develop this type of oral cancer than those who did not have the virus. These findings dwarf the increased risk of developing this so-called oropharyngeal cancer associated with the two major risk factors: smoking (3 times greater) or drinking (2.5 times greater). HPV infection drives cancerous growth, as it is widely understood to do in the cervix. But unlike cervical cancer, this type of oral cancer is more prevalent in men."
