Archive for April, 2012

Katy Perry dating Florence + Machine guitarist?

Katy Perry reportedly referred to Florence + Machine guitarist Robert Ackroyd as “her boyfriend.”
The singer split from estranged husband Russell Brand at the end of last year and Katy is believed to have recently ended her romance with 22-year-old model Baptiste Giabiconi.
The beauty has apparently moved on to dating Robert, as they were seen holding hands at California music festival Coachella.
“Backstage at the Artist Lounge at Coachella last weekend, Katy kept saying her boyfriend was the guitar player for Florence + the Machine,” a source told Life & Style magazine. “She and a bunch of friends were supposed to go see Dr Dre together, but Katy said she was waiting to watch her boyfriend perform!”
Days later, Robert apparently began following Katy on Twitter.
He then shared about his experience at Coachella, seemingly mentioning Katy by her initials.
“Best Coachella ever. Scratch that, best weekend ever. Dre, Snoop, Pac, Nate, Fiddy & KP. (sic)” Robert tweeted.
Katy recently released Part Of Me, a song about a tough break up. Although she wrote it two years ago, it was apt in its release.

Ben Flajnik and Courtney Robertson Are ‘Engaged Dating’.

So far, so good.

After adjusting to a long-distance romance, Ben Flajnik and his controversial fianceé, Courtney Robertson, are enjoying what The Bachelor couple calls “engaged dating.”

“We’re still getting to know each other and taking it slow,” Flajnik told PEOPLE at a Mark Zunino for Kleinfeld fashion show in New York recently. “[Things] are working out really well.”

Robertson says she still has a lot to learn about her new man.

“It’s nice to see him in social settings and with his family,” she says. “He is the life of the party. He’s got this great personality.”

She’s also finding out what they don’t have in common: He “hates bananas,” she says, while she “loves them.”

But she has won him over with her favorite drink: “She’s got me drinking those things,” he says of the fermented tea-based beverage kombucha.

Although they are looking forward to a summer filled with travel plans and wedding invitations, the lovey-dovey couple won’t be rushing down the aisle anytime soon.

“We’re not even there yet,” Flajnik said.

A New York man’s meticulous dating spreadsheet has gone viral after he sent it to one of the women he was dating.

The Excel spreadsheet chronicles David Merkur’s interaction and relationship with each woman he met on Match.com.

The grid is broken down into several categories including Match.com user name, real name, age, profile picture, online appearance ranking, initial notes, contact information, timeline of communication, date status and date comments.

“Mixed bag of pictures, but great bod; works in my building, also in finance; well traveled; lives on LES,” Merkur wrote of one of the women. He noted on the chart that he was supposed to go on a date with her on April 3, but she had to cancel due to a work-related event. “Next time TBD.”

The column for “initial date status” is color-coded with some of the women’s dates in red, meaning “Monitor closely (bold = ASAP),” and others in green, meaning the date is upcoming.

On April 4, Merkur went to New York’s Rose Bar with a woman whom he described as, “Very pretty; sweet & down to earth/great personality; hope to see again soon.”

During their date, the spreadsheet came up in conversation and the woman asked if he would send it to her. After some hesitation, he did.

A few days later, the woman forwarded the spreadsheet to her friends as “Monday morning entertainment.”

She wrote, “I went on a date with this guy last Wednesday. On the date, he tells me that he has a spreadsheet for tracking all of the people from match that are ‘in process.’ Naturally, I tease him and ask him to send me the spreadsheet. For some strange reason, he actually does.”

The email ended, “Just when I thought I had seen it all….”

From there, the spreadsheet went viral. But some of the women are not thrilled with the newfound attention.

The highest score for “online appearance,” a 9.5, went to Liliana Beidaut, who Merkur noted “looks beautiful; from coastal Romania; Chanel make-up artist.”

“I’ve gotten a lot of calls from random people saying, ‘Oh, you’re the 9.5,’” Beidaut told site.

Beidaut, 26, has mixed feelings about the spreadsheet. She holds no resentment for Merkur, whom she is friends with through Facebook and text-chats but has never met in person.

“I think the guy is really nice,” Beidaut said. “I never met him and I don’t think he did something that bad. He was nice, and he was trying to keep himself organized. I think he took that seriously and was really looking for a girl.”

Beidaut has harsher words for the woman who sent around the spreadsheet.

“Why would she send it to the whole world? It was a really stupid move,” Beidaut said. “My face is plastered everywhere now. I wasn’t looking for that. I just thinking that I was using Match.com.”

Beidaut said she is “absolutely” considering taking legal action against the woman that sent the email because she believes her privacy has been violated. She has already spoken to at least one other woman on the list who is similarly upset.

“I think he really liked the girl and he trusted her, so he sent her the thing,” she said. “He had some doubt before she sent it out and I think she was spiteful.”

Julia Roberts offers to babysit for Brangelina.

Julia Roberts has offered to babysit for newly engaged couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a wedding present.

The actress has starred alongside Pitt in two films, ‘The Mexican’, and ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ was happy to hear the news of his engagement to his partner of seven years Jolie, and has even offered to look after the six children they raise – Maddox, 10, Pax, nine, Zahara, seven, Shiloh, five and three-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne – if they needed some quiet time.

“Oh yes, it’s exciting news. It’s always nice when you’re ready to hitch your wagon for eternity to somebody,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling E! news.

On being asked about the gift she’d choose for the wedding, she revealed that she would babysit for them.

“That’s a ways down the road, but it’s starting to be, now that people are starting to ask me and put pressure on me, so – babysitting. Yeah, that’s good,” she added. (ANI)

I’m the worst dater ever: Eva Longoria.

Eva Longoria has confessed to being terrible at dating, and insists she can understand the reason as to why people turn to dating shows to find a partner.

The ‘Desperate Housewives’ actress, who recently came out of a year-long relationship with Penelope Cruz’ brother Eduardo, says she does not perform well during initial romantic meetings.

“I’m the worst dater ever,” Contactmusic quoted her as telling Access Hollywood.

The 37-year-old, who divorced ex-husband Tony Parker in 2010 after three years of marriage amid allegations he had cheated on her, is launching her own dating show called ‘Ready For Love’, and insists that she understands why people would want to take part.

“When you get to a point in your life and you’ve tried everything and you’ve exhausted blind dates you kind of go, ‘I really want to share this life with somebody’,” she said.

“That’s one thing I think these guys are, they’re ready for love and they’re at a point in their life where they’re ready to share that with someone,” she said.

But having been spotted enjoying a cosy meal with 26-year-old Eduardo at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood earlier this month, she remains coy about whether she is looking for her own new love.

“Who knows,” she laughingly added.

Dating nowadays no better than ‘back in my day’.

New novel gives amusing look at then and now.

2It’s the way parents or grandparents (usually men) respond to the assumptions or complaints of young people. There’s even a term for it now: Grumpy old man meme.

“Back in my day we couldn’t afford shoes. We had to walk to school in our bare feet, uphill both ways. In the winter we wrapped our feet with barbed wire for traction.”

Jenkins, the main character and narrator in veteran Winnipeg writer Dave Williamson’s latest comic novel, Dating, isn’t grumpy, but he does have a serious case of “back in my day” syndrome.

Half of the book is comprised of his reminiscences about dating in his youth.

The other half, alternating with the nostalgia, is about his current dating encounters.

Since the mid-’70s, Williamson has published four other novels that have dealt comically with love and male-female relationships. He has also written plays and non-fiction.

Jenkins is actually Robert Henry Jenkins, but nobody calls him by his first name or a nickname. He’s a widower, a nervous, self-doubting, 70-something. It’s two years since his wife Barb died, and he’s back on the dating scene after 50 years of marriage.

Things aren’t much better for Jenkins in the present than they were back in the good old days of junior and senior high and the University of Manitoba. He was a mostly unsuccessful dater back then, and he remains so in 2007, the year of the story.

Williamson has Jenkins as an old fogey, as he once was a young fogey. A pre-baby boomer, he’s from a generation (like Williamson’s) that did not benefit from the pill and the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

His dating experiences were all about necking, petting, clumsy groping and abstinence. In other words they were elaborate exercises in anticipation and frustration.

One of the more amusingly articulated, if somewhat clichéd, scenes occurs on Jenkins’ fourth date with a classy girl named Marcia.

Marcia is prone to overusing the word “exquisite.” When she invites him in and serves salmon, Jenkins, as usual, fantasizes that it’s a prelude to sex.

“Seafood — good for lovemaking,” he thinks.

Marcia disabuses him of this notion with this classic speech: “We have a lot of exquisite fun together. And since we know that, I’m asking you, do we have to spoil what we have? Can’t we just be good friends?”

When the rules of middle-class dating etiquette don’t intervene, fate does or some higher power. While Jenkins gropes a working-class girl in her parents’ living room, a large crucifix on the wall makes him worry that divine intervention has arrived “at the perfect time to deliver me from temptation.” He is frustrated once again.

Jenkins and the novel are saved from the Sisyphean repetitiveness of anticipation and frustration by the appearance of his future wife, Barb. But even their romance is fraught.

His memories of their courtship are interwoven with a date in the present with one of his high school flames. From the beginning when her children set rules for Jenkins to its disastrous conclusion, the scene is a delicate balance of humour, irony and poignancy. It’s one of the better scenes in the novel.

Astutely crafted and amusing rather than compelling or hilarious, Dating is a comedy of manners that could use less sentimentality about the past, less wishful thinking about Jenkins’ prospects in the present, and more satiric bite.

In an age of rampant Internet dating, even among geezers, it’s also slightly out of date.

Williamson’s prose is neither dazzling nor distracting; it moves the story along calmly, smoothly and efficiently. And Dating does get better as it moves along. It’s more inventive; there are more surprises — right to the very last page.

With its references to the Chocolate Shop, the Highwayman restaurant, the Ivanhoe and other local institutions, Dating will have a special attractiveness for older, nostalgic Winnipeg readers.

Gene Walz recently retired as a film studies professor at the University of Manitoba.

Competition shows like “Amazing Race,” “The Biggest Loser” and “Dancing with the Stars” have featured diverse contestants since their inaugural seasons in 2001, 2004 and 2005, respectively.

But while African-Americans, Asians and Latinos can be seen racing around the world, losing weight and dancing the paso doble on TV, dating shows continue to be far less inclusive.

Two African-American men filed a class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, accusing ABC as well as other companies involved with the production of “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” and creator Mike Fleiss of racial discrimination.

The complaint alleges that, in 16 seasons of “The Bachelor” and seven seasons of “The Bachelorette” (the eighth season is slated to begin airing in May), the defendants have never featured “a single person of color … in the central role.” The suit also alleges that the few people of color who have been chosen to compete are often eliminated after the first few rose ceremonies.

It should be noted that Cuban-born Mary Delgado won Season 6 of “The Bachelor,” and Puerto Rican Roberto Martinez won Season 6 of “The Bachelorette.”

But even “The Bachelor’s” short-lived competition — like “Average Joe,” “For Love or Money” and “Joe Millionaire” — featured predominately white casts.

So why does it seem like dating shows might be behind the curve when it comes to inclusion?Nashville-based plaintiffs Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson assert in their complaint that: “‘Dancing with the Stars’ and ‘Extreme Makeover’ only involve platonic, as opposed to romantic, relationships among the cast members. This indicates that the presence of people of color in ABC programming is acceptable so long as there is no exhibition of actual romance between non-whites or whites and people of color.”

The lawsuit has helped stoke a conversation about diversity and dating shows, especially when it comes to black-white relationships.Allison Samuels, a senior writer at Newsweek/The Daily Beast, said the men who filed suit may be on to something.

“When it comes to romance and love, I just don’t think African-Americans … are viewed as people who love or know how to love,” Samuels said. “We’re made to be people who are not interesting or attractive … and can’t have that fairytale.”

Young minority viewers might end up watching a show like “The Bachelor” and thinking, ‘I’m not good enough to get on this show, but I’m good enough to get on the show where I can beat somebody up and fight all day long,’ like “Basketball Wives” or “Flavor of Love,” she said.

“The Bachelor” has set the tone for how women and people of color are portrayed on every dating show — on network TV and cable, alike, said Jennifer L. Pozner, the author of site online.

And for a decade, “[ABC and creator Mike Fliess] have done everything they can to create an on-screen America that looks like the segregated South in the ’50s,” Pozner said, adding, “It’s as if [the network] is afraid they could lose advertisers by showing interracial dating.”

Calling “The Bachelor” “light and fluffy entertainment,” Bradley Jacobs, a senior editor at US Weekly, said, producers are “probably not interested in getting their hands dirty in some kind of interracial romance.”

The show has always featured a bunch of “white girls fighting over a white guy,” Jacobs said. “That’s what the viewers, I guess, expect and what the advertisers, I guess, expect. … A lot of people a still are against mixed-race marriages.”

According to data from 2008 and published in Social Science Research last year, white women who were surveyed are more likely to approve of interracial relationships for others than themselves, while white men are more likely to personally engage in such relationships.

People are increasingly becoming more accepting of interracial relationships, Samuels said. But TV doesn’t “push black-on-black love, so why would [viewers] want to see black-on-white love. It’s taken a lawsuit to make people talk about this, but I’m not perplexed.”

Arturo R. García, the managing editor at site, said he is surprised “The Bachelor’s” alleged whitewashing is just now being widely criticized.

“I’m surprised that someone like Fleiss didn’t at least see the revenue potential of expanding the cast,” García said. “Why wouldn’t you feature a successful African-American man or woman?”
Not to mention the fact that “a meaningful multicultural dating show … would more closely reflect modern interaction,” he added.
However, García said, one lawsuit can’t immediately change the dynamic of such a long-running program.

“It would take a re-engineering of the show’s thought process to make inclusiveness part of the culture of that program,” he said. “If the plaintiffs win and you see an African-American Bachelorette, would there be a stigma associated with her? She’s only there because the lawsuit said she had to be there.”

It’s too soon to tell how the lawsuit might effect impending seasons of the dating show. But lawsuit or not, Lamar Hurd hopes to be wielding roses in the near future. The Portland-based sportscaster has been petitioning to become the first black Bachelor.
This isn’t the first time the issue of diversity has been raised regarding “The Bachelor.”

In March 2011, creator Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly: “I think Ashley [Hebert] is 1/16th Cherokee Indian, but I cannot confirm. But that is my suspicion! We really tried, but sometimes we feel guilty of tokenism. Oh, we have to wedge African-American chicks in there! We always want to cast for ethnic diversity, it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.”

“I’ll take tokenism if it’s going to get one person a job,” Samuels said, referencing Fleiss’ quote. “The point now is that not even that one person is on there.”

I’m not dating Shahid…or anyone: Nargis Fakhri

Nargis Fakhri has one answer when asked these days about her rumoured link-up with actor Shahid Kapoor. “I wish!” “No, really,” she insists. “I wish my life was as exciting as the media makes it out to be. My life is so boring.”

So, is she not seeing anyone? “I would love to be in a relationship but the fact is that I am single. I start my day at 8am and it usually ends at 11pm, during which I have to attend so many classes. And amid all that I don’t have time for a relationship. I don’t even get time to speak to my mom. But if and when I am seeing someone, I won’t hide it,” says the 32-year-old model-actor, on a visit to Delhi to cheer for Delhi Daredevils at an IPL cricket match.
She says the popularity of cricket fascinates her and she wanted to have a first-hand experience about the ‘cricket-craze’ she’s heard so much about.

“In India, Bollywood and cricket are the two biggest obsessions. I have never seen a live cricket match, as back home in the US, we don’t have cricket, so I wanted to be part of the craze that cricket has in India. I don’t know much about cricket, but my friends do tell me about it, so I am here to experience the thrill.”

Though there are reports that after the success of her debut film, Rockstar, in 2011, Fakhri, a New York-based model, born to a Pakistani father and a Czech mother, has signed her second film, Khiladi 786, opposite Akshay Kumar, but won’t reveal anything. “I can’t confirm anything. Wait and watch,” is all she says.

Nargis Fakhri on dating Shahid I wish my life was as exciting as the media makes it out to be. The fact is, I’m single on signing a film I can’t confirm anything (about signing Khiladi 786 opposite Akshay). Just wait and watch.