The first time I met Amy Winehouse wasn’t in a smoky rock club or backstage at a regal theater, it was at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Sunset Blvd. just west of Fairfax sometime in 2007.

I had stopped in for an afternoon cappuccino when I spotted Perez Hilton typing away in the back corner and went to say hello. “Amy Winehouse is coming,” he blurted excitedly, trying to wrap up his blogging so he could devote his full attention to her. Not thinking she would actually show, I made my way to the coffee line and four minutes later, the sugar counter when I felt a blast of air from the door nearby. Amy Winehouse had made her entrance…

http://free-soft-fiola.blogspot.com/2011/07/unique-artist-gone-too-soon-but-not.html

I don’t wear cologne very often.  In fact, I haven’t even had any for years.  Perhaps its all that time I spent in leather bars.

This Christmas I received a bottle of Tom Ford‘s fragrance, Tuscan Leather.  Even before I opened it, a memory pinged in my head, “This is the one that smells like cocaine.”

I marvel at chefs who can figure out a dish by taste; I don’t have the keenest nose (or palate) in the world, but even smelling the box, there was something oddly and precisely evocative of a handful of exuberant days and bleary mornings from a more chequered past.

So I Googled, and evidently, I’m not alone in this.

One reviewer mentions “raspberry.”  I get that.  They all mention the obvious “leather” which I only partially get.  The way leather smells and the way we imagine it to smell is subjective, filled in with our imaginations and memories as much as anything, but isn’t that what fragrance is about?  Evoking something personal?

Tom Ford doesn’t own up to the fragrance smelling like cocaine in much the same way that I don’t own up to even knowing what cocaine smells like.  We’ll go with that.

Judgments aside, suddenly Tuscan Leather is as much a social commentary as it is parfum.  It’s also a very specific choice for a gift.

Does the wearer have the street patina to recognize it?  Is it simply enigmatic?  He may say he “doesn’t smell it.”  She may say she’s never smelled cocaine, and doesn’t have the reference.

The arguably sexy secrecy of this bottled truth is for one to know and everyone else to wonder about, and that’s the allure.  It’s full of allure.  I think that’s the point.

It’s hard to imagine a girl looking like this, sounding like that, writing the songs, AND doing her own videos, but apparently that is the case. It’s the harmonic convergence of a new breed of talent: borne of the need to be able to do it all, and with the tools readily available to do so. Ladies and gentlemen, Lana del Rey. Enjoy.

And if you can’t get enough, check out the Summer ’11 release, Video Games.

212 by Azealia Banks is a lot of things: infectious, nasty fun and singlehandedly about to break down the taboo of the c-word: not “cancer.”  The other c-word.

Plus, there’s the whole Russ Meyer meets Herb Ritts black and white video with the impossibly cute specky geek just bobbing his head.  Who knew a simple geek nod like that could be so hot?  Check it out.

If you’re movin’ (and you will be) but not getting what she’s saying, check out RapGenius, where you can get all of the lyrics AND a point-and-click explanation of the more obscure shit.  Enjoy.

http://rapgenius.com/Azealia-banks-212-lyrics

Mom and I saw The Artist this afternoon.  It’s funny to watch a movie in Los Angeles, and with an “old movie actress” – that is to say “an actress who has been in the industry for a long time.”

I’m a gay, newly-single, forty-something man going to the movies with his aging mother, so it’s a challenge for a film not to hit home in a big way.  We generally don’t choose movies featuring a divorce, mother-child-heavy drama, molestation, or the depression era: all too close to home.  Mom is more of an escapist than I.  I don’t mind the warm viscosity of tears running down my face, or the lingering soreness of my throat from choking back a loud sob in a movie theater.  She prefers to laugh.