Where is that quote located, Patrice?

JUSTIN TIME: Justin Guarini, who has been busy covering "American Idol" all season on the TV Guide Channel, tells us it's one of the things he looks forward to most when not busy making music. "I love it. It keeps me in tune with 'Idol' every single year. I'm really proud of the job we do week in and week out because I feel like it really does give people an inside perspective on a show that they really love," says Guarini, who seems to have been born to be on camera. "My mother was one of the first 200 people to start up CNN. She was one of the first anchorwomen, so I would go hang out with her on set. I've grown up around cameras my entire life." Next up for the curly-haired host now that the Fox singing competition won't be back 'til January? "I'm in the studio right now putting together my own music."
http://www.creators.com/lifestylefeatures/hollywood-exclusive/def-leppard-s-rick-allen-source-of-inspiration-to-amputee-vets-tv-movie-duty-made-nancy-travis-appre.html

This is an interesting essay found at NPR. Thank goodness I have only ever had maternal feelings toward Justin. (holy crap! Was that just a bolt of lightning? It came MUCH too close for comfort)



NPR
Let Us Allow The Word 'Cougar' To Die Instantly And Painfully

Cougars: They don't exist if seeing the attractiveness here is what it takes to be one. Frazer Harrison/Getty Images by Linda Holmes

It was this Newsweek piece, entitled "Why Cougars Crave 'Idol' Runner-Up Adam Lambert," that finally broke me.

It is time for the word "cougar" to go, preferably instantly.

The Newsweek writer, Joan Raymond, spends paragraph upon paragraph explaining why she and her "cougar court" spent an American Idol season sweating over the heavily hyped, extremely popular, out-without-having-ever-been-in Lambert. How could this be? How could it possibly be that they, as non-teenagers, could be interested in an American Idol who, at 27 years old, was young enough to be...their nephew, if they had a significantly older sister?

When I first heard it, "cougar" was a crude slam -- I think I first noticed it on the "Aldrin Justice" episode of How I Met Your Mother, which aired in October 2006, though this ABC story was chatting it up in 2005 and it surely is much older than that.

But interestingly, as the ABC story notes, it began as a putdown -- a ridiculing of older women who went home from bars with "whoever was left."

We could go through the sexual politics, the cultural baggage that comes with older men and younger women versus younger men and older women, we could explain why seeing women gleefully referring to themselves the same way Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) did on How I Met Your Mother is kind of disheartening, but really, it's not necessary.

The term can be easily retired simply on the grounds that it's so stupid.

Crazy fans, too many sex therapists, and never calling yourself "punk rock," after the jump...

Maybe there was some cultural moment in which this term had something to do with being self-possessed or in control or financially independent enough that it was no longer necessary to consider the career prospects of blah blah blah yes, okay, fine, maybe for a brief moment.

But when I saw it applied to Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto -- who is 24 -- when initial reports emerged that she was dating her co-star Dev Patel -- who is 19 -- it became clear that whatever minuscule speck of usefulness it might have ever had was gone.

And if it can be applied to a bunch of 40-year-old women because they are shocked by their own ability to be attracted to a physically attractive, heavily marketed, highly talented 27-year-old? It's done. Fully cooked. Burnt to a crisp, in fact.

Perhaps this is true of Raymond and her "cougar court":

When we got together, we no longer talked about good books, North Korea or the recession. We talked about all things Lambert.
But if it's true, and if they're thinking it's weird, then it's not weird because they're 40. It's weird because it's weird. Forty-year-old women who cancel all other conversation for a period of months so they can talk about American Idol aren't cougars. They are overinvested fans, and overinvested fans have been part of Idol (and the careers of plenty of other musicians -- gay ones, straight ones, old ones, young ones, and Mick Jagger) since Adam Lambert's run on the show was but a platform-booted twinkle in his own eye.

If you want to be an obsessed fan, then by all means be one, and enjoy it, and don't feel guilty, because it's not one of the more harmful ways you could entertain yourself. But it's pretty silly to promote the idea that your attraction to an American Idol contestant under 30 is something that requires an analysis by a psychoanalyst and two sex therapists, as if a woman of Raymond's age should naturally expect her tastes to have turned exclusively Wilford-Brimleyward by now.

This is not a freak occurrence of cougar-osity, of aging female sexuality remarkably brought back to life by the wildly unexpected appearance of a man in eyeliner. This is one of the show's chief draws every year -- complete with the women over 40 who, every single year, say, "I'm a woman over 40, and believe it or not, I LOVE HIM AND CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM."

They did it all the way from Justin Guarini and Clay Aiken in Seasons 1 and 2 up through Blake Lewis and David Cook in Seasons 6 and 7.

You don't need a special word for 40-year-old women who can respond to a good-looking man on television with a healthy "yowza." They're called 40-year-old women. Calling yourself a "cougar" is like calling yourself "alternative" or "punk rock" or "famous." When people start saying it about themselves, it means even less than it did before.

And now it means nothing, so with apologies to the new Courteney Cox sitcom Cougar Town, I must suggest -- no, request -- that it end here.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/06/let_us_allow_the_word_cougar_t.html?ft=1&f=93568166

(btw, they didn't love the label either--said people should be free to relate to each other one-on-one without there being a derogatory label; and they all agreed that today Cougar has a negative connotation. Funny thing is, Susan Lucci is 62 and by today's labels I think that would be called a Jaguar, but I just looked it up and now they seem to be using the term sabretooth; but hang all the labels, Lucci is just a force of nature unto herself.)

yes, what you said about the cougar business and about Justin is what I wanted to say--so I'll just say 'me too'--that's what I think.

Hey, AMC is my alternate universe. I was there at the beginning, and through the years it has been amazing how at the same time as something is going on in my life, something similar to it is actually going on there. It hasn't even freaked me out because I've just always taken it for granted because I was there when I was a girl and just went through all my own phases of life with it. Even if at some periods of time there were months and maybe even years that I didn't get to watch, I always knew roughly what was going on and kept up until I could watch more regularly once again.
It's uncanny that a continuing story can be with you throughout a whole lifetime (and now there is a 'new' story: the story of Justin, lol. I really enjoy tuning in for that one!! It's fabulously entertaining and is a real life roller coaster ride).

***Entertainment Weekly
Jun 16, 2009, 03:06 PM | by Michael Slezak
Let me get this straight: Adam gets slathered with "exceptional," "rare and special," "event," "thrilled," "brilliant," " unique and unforgettable," and "certain star of tomorrow." Kris, by comparison, receives "soulful voice," "good looks," "gracious demeanor," "passion for music," "love of performing," and "stands the test of time and makes American Idol proud." Now don't get me wrong: I'm not saying Adam hasn't earned every superlative his new label wants to throw at him, but why am I having visions of Fuller trying to banish Kris to indie-land after a hastily released, poorly promoted debut? Oh, and anyone who thinks 19 is above burying its own artists should simply take a look at the way the company promoted records from Blake Lewis, Diana DeGarmo, Justin Guarini, and even season 5 winner Taylor Hicks. Which is to say, not at all.
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/06/kradam-signed-yay.html