where's the flava?

The last time we spoke, I was trying to entertain and inspire with the product of my love for gossip and an innate Asian fondness for crunching numbers. This yielded the Hot Mess Index, which was to serve as a bellwether for the current state of "celebrity". I had high hopes for the HMI, envisioning for it a place in popular culture with such venerable indices as the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Picture the CNN ticker scrolling across the bottom of your television screen: "Dow 12,000... S&P 500 1400... HMI 3799". So naturally I got lazy and slacked. I'd like to blame this on you, my inattentive though adoring readers, but I think we all know the fault lies in me and my casual attitude with what you people call "deadlines".

While the HMI is no longer, "where's the flava?" should make for an entertaining replacement column that is as entertaining as reading US Weekly and as soul-satisfying as this morning's Oprah. The more ridicule I can heap on Bai Ling for showing up at yet another red carpet event scantily clad in an outfit that even Courtney Peldon would reject, the more I do to dispel the stereotype of Asians as the "model minority". I'm all about providing equal opportunity at blogtastic coverage for all celebrities, dilettantes, scenesters, and hangers-on, no matter what their race, creed, sexual orientation, religion, or Olsen twin affinity.

In the next edition of "where's the flava?", my condolences to Kaavya Viswanathan on the demise of what should have been a career writing chick lit for the Asian ladies, and a side-by-side comparison of interracial hot messes Mariah Carey and Kimora Lee Simmons.