“Conservative politician and novelist Louise Mensch is to stand down as an MP, the party has announced. The MP for Corby is moving to New York with her three children to be with her husband of a year, Peter Mensch, who is manager of rock band Metallica.” Who is Louise Mensch? Funny you should ask.

It’s pretty terrible that there are all these people competing majestically, all for my entertainment, that is then delivered into my home for free, and then I will complain about it. (iTunes)

by Tom Blunt

When I heard the new Total Recall had remained true to its predecessor by including a mutant three-breasted hooker (newcomer Kaitlyn Leeb, who’s already steeping in the positive and negative attention associated with such a role), my elation turned bittersweet when I realized how little I knew about Lycia Naff, the actress who originated the role in Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 blockbuster. Even in a movie teeming with compelling females in thankless minor roles — the “two weeks” woman; the grotendously disfigured mutant fortuneteller; the wee, Uzi-toting Thumbelina — Naff’s performance became downright totemic. Verhoeven’s entire vision of man’s future balances on her prosthetically enhanced bustline.

Right after Total Recall, Naff earned an Emmy nomination for her role in The Perfect Date. She was on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” too, and next weekend she’ll appear at the enormous Star Trek convention being held in Las Vegas. But today her main work is as an undercover investigative reporter; previously, she has worked for The Miami Herald and People. When I reached out to Naff, she was kind enough to share bits from a never-published interview she’d given for another venue once upon a time… and she rounded it out with some sage advice for Leeb and any future actresses who continue her legacy of dystopian lower back pain.

What was it like working with Arnold?

He was super professional. In fact, it was almost like he was a robot with no mind of his own. Paul Verhoeven would literally tell him exactly what to do, how to say his lines, when to say his lines, everything. Paul completely directed Arnold’s every move on set.

And how was it working with Paul Verhoeven? Actors, such as Peter Weller, are on record saying that Verhoeven is “a sociopath on a film set.” Did you find that?

Paul hired me without auditioning for him, which was the first time that had ever happened to me. I was just given the part. He knew me because he was the DP on Clan of the Cave Bear [Naff played Daryl Hannah’s little sister Uba, a Neanderthal] and he knew I could handle prosthetic makeup and hours of sitting in the special effects chair each day. So for that, I was grateful. I was on the set for a week and he was very kind and gentle to me because he knew that I sort of freaked out when the reality of baring three breasts was finally hitting me, for real. I got shy and regretful that I said ‘yes’ to the part, so Paul went out of his way to make me feel comfortable. He promised, he really did, to give me a better role in his next film but he never did that. So he’s not a sociopath but I guess he also didn’t hold to his word, maybe? Just like most Hollywood types, I suppose.

Do you mind that a Google image search simply for “Lycia Naff” immediately finds lots of pictures of you with your shirt open and three boobs?

So I hear. I’ve never Googled myself and I never will. I can’t bear to look. Ignorance is bliss!

Are all three prosthetic, or are two your own? What was the make-up application process like? Was it very public?

All three mammary glands are fake. In fact, the prosthetic is a large chest plate that starts at the neck and goes down to my belly button. This huge piece is applied using spirit gum on the very thin ends of this porous, spongy piece. It took between five and eight hours to apply. Needless to say my call times were 3:30 am! They’d lay me down in a dentist-style chair that reclines back. And two makeup artists would have at me while I napped. The makeup room was very private. No one but me, my three boobs and the artists at hand.

You were shot in the back and blood splattered out the front of you and you die. How fun was that?

To do a dramatic death scene has got to be the most fun thing on the planet. The stunt director taped all of these blood packets to the front of my body and I had to put blood packets in my mouth to bite on to explode when I got shot. The blood packets were rigged up to electric wires and when I was sprayed with bullets in the back, the stunt director flipped a switch on a remote control and all of the packets exploded on cue. I was responsible for biting the ones in my mouth and spraying them out. Then I’d fall face-first to the ground and die in a pool of my own blood. Very romantic. To top it off, during the whole shoot, I was suffering from Montezuma’s Revenge, which made the whole experience that much more delightful.

Have you had any amusing (or unwelcome, or both) fan attention in the years since the movie?

I took the role for the money — and as a goof. Something fun to do. Go to Mexico, stay at a five-star hotel, work with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Why not? I wasn’t exposing my own chest, so I thought, no harm, no foul. Little did I know the fiasco that would unfold when the movie was released. I was bombarded with interview requests but became so embarrassed at what I did, I turned all of them down! Like an idiot. I’m kicking myself right now. Johnny Carson wanted me on his show and I had the audacity to say no. As far as fan attention, I decided that I either answer every letter from every prisoner in the world who was writing me from their cells, or I answer none. I chose the latter. Again, because I became embarrassed. Then, a few years ago, a friend came over with a T-shirt he bought at a porn shop on Melrose that had my face on it. The image was the screen grab from the movie of me opening up my blouse and exposing the three breasts. The caption read: “Got Milk?” I went down and bought up all thirty of the T-shirts so they couldn’t circulate out there. And then thought to myself, why not let them be bought, sold and worn? Since I was not asked permission to use my image and wasn’t paid, I kept the shirts and gave them away as prizes during “game nights” at my house.

You also played a hooker in Lethal Weapon. Do you think that’s indicative of a lack of good roles for women in Hollywood? Is it better now than it was in the 80s?

In the 80s, during the time I was acting, “ethnic” was not in, like it is today. All, and I mean, all the lead roles went to white girls. I was relegated to audition for hookers, run-aways, drug addicts, maids, etc. Things are different now. All races and looks are “in.” So that’s good. But not in my day. The one exception was my recurring role in “Star Trek: The New Generation” in which I played Lamar Burton’s ensign in engineering. First her name was “Sonia Sherman,” a nice Jewish girl in Space. Then, they changed me to “Sonia Gomez” so I was right back where I started — an ethnic sidekick.

What made you leave acting for journalism?

As for leaving acting, it sort of left me. In 1992, I was nominated for an Emmy and I didn’t get it. That following year, I didn’t book one job. I kinda choked. So I thought, well, I’ve never been to college. Hollywood won’t miss me. Why don’t I go away to school? So I did. I fell in love with journalism while attending a school is South Florida and worked my way through college as a staff reporter for The Palm Beach Post, The Sun-Sentinel, and, the last five years, at The Miami Herald. I enjoyed it, and the fact that my paycheck didn’t rely on the way I looked, but just on the way I could put a sentence together, gave me some very absent self-esteem.

Do you plan to see the new remake?

Only if someone buys me a ticket. And popcorn. And chocolate-covered raisins.

How do you feel about your part being resurrected as a nod to the original?

Since sci-fi without boobs doesn’t sell, I’m not surprised that they’d throw a three-breasted mutant into the mix. Did you know that they wanted to give me four, originally, but the feedback from producers was that I’d look too bovine? They were right.

Any words of wisdom for Kaitlyn Leeb, the actress who inherited your role, who already seems to be struggling with the same sort of fan interest?

Be nice to your fans and keep your legs crossed. Blouse open. But legs crossed.

Tom Blunt is the host of New York City’s Meet The Lady event series, which celebrates women (obscure or otherwise) in the arts.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover is prepped to deliver color video from the surface of Mars. And equipment with science instruments designed to tell us “if Earth’s neighbor is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life.” So I sure hope it survives the “seven minutes of terror” that will be its landing on Sunday night. There are not enough exclamation points on this planet to express the drama of this video.

Happy 10th Birthday, The Rise of the Creative Class!

★ Single-minded and actively hostile. Drop the chin under the bludgeoning glare from the sky, only to catch an uppercut from the glare rebounding off the pavement. The lone mercy was that there was no cunning or depth to it: When an occasional cumulus cloud intervened, it was as if the assault had never happened. But the fire-escape railings were still hot to the touch.

Weather ratings range from zero to five stars.

Hard-Packed Ice Cream Or Soft-Serve?

Part of a series: Two choices — which do you choose?

Ice cream is way more fun to eat in the summer, especially if you like to go to places where they serve it to you in a cup or cone, because it’s like, a very American Summer kinda activity, hitting the ice cream place for something cold and sweet and bad for you, and in the summer, more than the other seasonals, the mere act of Hey I’m Going To Get Some Ice Cream, or Hey Let’s Go Get Some Ice Cream becomes a Social and Cultural Event, because you are gonna go to a place where lotsa other Peoples of the Earth are out there, in The World, on the exact same mission as you, and you will Congregate in peace and harmony and sprinkles.

So now in the summer, when Ice Cream is Go, the first decision is: Hard Packed or Soft Serve?

My name is Joe and my favorite flavor of ice cream in the whole wide world is the Baskin-Robbins Jamoca® Almond Fudge. It has everything left in and nothing left out and it starts with coffee ice cream, which I would never eat all by itself, because coffee-flavored ice cream, you know? I would have a cup of coffee with some vanilla ice cream or some strawberry ice cream, but I would never. Anyway.

I don’t hate on chain-places like Cold Stone Creamery or Dippin’ Dots or whatever it’s called, at the mall? I just think they are crazy overpriced and I almost never patronize them, but the other day, I was driving back from the tire store, where I got screwed outta an entire tire because the guy said I never asked for the Road Hazard Warranty thing, and I’m like, “why would I come back here to you with a slow leak in this tire if I didn’t think I had the Road Hazard?” And the guy’s like, “well, it’s not on the invoice, and we don’t put it on because people want us to take it off,” and I’m like, “but you never asked me if I wanted the Road Hazard, so I figured it was on there! Why would I not want road hazard for a tire that costs over a hunnert fucking dollars?!?” Sigh. And of course the invoice he prepared for the new tire, before we had the argument about the Road Hazard? It had the Road Hazard on there, he didn’t ask me.

So I got burned by the tire guy and now I just really wanted some ice cream on a hot summer’s day, and there were no options driving back from the stupid fucking tire store (which I will not identify by name, but the initials are NTB) so I saw a Stone Coldery on the strip near a Target, and I stopped in and got the smallest thing they have at a Cold Stonery, a little plop of ice cream in a giant goofy waffle cone, which I do not support, the Waffle Cone, because the cone to ice cream ratio is way off when you get a small ice cream, which is what I ordered because I need to lose a few, and it was OK, but what I really wanted was this thing pictured here, a large vanilla soft-serve with a chocolate dip, yeah, baby, are you looking at that bad boy?

Hard ice cream is like, totally great and wonderful and I enjoy it, and like I said, the Jamoca® Almond Fudge is my jam, but when the weather is hot and sticky, you gotta go soft-serve. Look at that cone! I got that at a place called The Arctic Circle, in Churchville, MD. That is Summer with a capital *UMMER*, man, being at a non-chain place like that having some soft-serve. Ice cream is not defensible for any health reason, so it’s not important what is in a soft-serve, man, it is cold and creamy and sweet. If you can find a place where you can score that choco-dip effect on top of your cone, you have a smooth creamy lickable that makes the soft-serve hold together better while you are enjoying, but even still, the decay of the structural integrity of the ice cream, the melting, fast, is a huge part of the Fun of the soft-serve, because now it’s an Activity, you know? Competition! You Vs. Cone! Everybody who is standing around in their Summer apparel licking a soft-serve at the ice cream stand is Interior Monologuing like: I gotta eat this thing before it melts!!!

You don’t get this with a hard-packed cone. There’s no sporting angle, you just kinda lick the dome until it recedes into the cone, and then the only real decision is if you wanna go in deep for the ice cream at the bottom of the cone, or crunch on the cone and risk the dry throat-choking thing.

But with a soft-serve, it’s like: I must eat this ice cream faster! When do I stop licking and start scooping with my tongue? When do I start slurping it along the bottom part where the melty ice cream joins with the cone? This is the only time I can be a hog on dessert and nobody will judge me because it’s Summertime and hot and you gotta eat the soft-serve fast! No drips this time! I won’t let any of it get on my shirt this time either! OK, next time! When do I bite the top of the cone? Not yet! The ice cream to cone ratio is still too high! I have contained the melting! Don’t let any of the sherds of choco-dip break off! OK, now! Bite the cone! Don’t let the melted soft-serve squish out! Yum.

Previously in series: Angela Lansbury Or Betty White? and Wallis Simpson Or The Queen Mother

Joe MacLeod realizes this thing came off as kinda dirty, but it’s just ice cream, seriously. Top left photo by Flare.

Who Is More Gangster, Rick Ross Or Timati?

What do you think Rick Ross’s favorite Fiona Apple song is? When you picture him in the audience at last week’s show at the Hollywood Palladium, where he was filmed pulling up in his Porsche for his new video, what song do you imagine him singing along with, standing on his seat in the front row, clasping his hands in front of his chest, just totally into it? “Criminal” is a good bet. Or “Paper Bag,” or “Anything We Want” — that’s my favorite one on her new album. But I think “Extraordinary Machine” is actually more his style. That phrasing — I could actually see that being a song title on his next album. (His new one, God Forgives, I Don’t, came out on Tuesday. It’s full of immaculate beats, as you’d expect, and is expected to sell around 200,000 copies its first week in stores. But I find his rapping kind of boring.) Relatedly, an even better rap video hit our shores yesterday. It has been viewed almost 13 million times. But not so much around these parts, I don’t think. It’s from Russia. And in Russian.

As Youtube commenter WxStarr says, “I dont understand a word — but this shit is DA BOMB!!!!”

Another commenter, Illyasemenkov, helpfully explains: “This is a public diss from a russian rapper Timati to the russian ‘pop king’ Kirkorov, the rap is actually pretty genius, and the setting of the video is a parody of another viral video.”

Here’s Kirkorov, whose first name is Philip.

According to the website Europopped, “Timati is basically the biggest rapper in the game these days in Moscow.” Here’s what Europopped says about Timati’s new video:

“Rock N’ Roll is dead. The new rock stars are Russian rappers like Timati, who are all too happy to take the place of American and English rock stars of yore. We’re talking private jets. We’re talking copious amounts of cocaine. We’re talking sex with international supermodels such as Kate Moss, who gets a special shout out in this new today clip, “Rock Star” (“РокСтар”).”

Oh, wow! Sure enough, Timati is huge! He’s worked with everyone from Fat Joe to Puffy to Snoop Dogg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umLCov9tj7g

The things you learn from the internet! (This particular rabbit hole somes courtesy of our world-trotting friends at ego trip.)

“During a PowerPoint presentation about reader polls, one slide asked the audience to guess which of the following things young women wanted most: a) beauty; b) an amazing career; c) fame; or d) lots of money. There was a slight pause as audience members made their own guesses. Then the answer: Fame. A faint murmur of confusion. Fame? Really? I conducted a copycat poll among my own friends: 15 picked an amazing career, 6 picked money, 3 picked beauty and only 1 picked fame.”
 — The international juggernaut that is Cosmo

— 64 international editions! — is either transforming the world’s women into empowered, business-minded feminists or skanks who use “backdoor booty” before marriage. (Wait could be both!)