Ray Charles, Edna Applebaum Top People Worst Dressed List

onday's People Magazine contained the usual fare of stories and photographs about celebrities, as well as an added attraction that fans of fashion look forward to annually—the list of People's Best and Worst Dressed of the year.

Hollywood favorites Julia Roberts and Halle Berry headed the Best Dressed List, along with up-and-coming stars like Kate Hudson, Kate Beckinsdale, and Reese Witherspoon. Also included was popular actress Nicole Kidman, Ally McBeal's Callista Flockhart, Will & Grace's Debra Messing, and Felicity's Keri Russell.

The upset this year was People's Worst Dressed List, unusually topped by star of yesteryear musician Ray Charles, and followed by Washuka, Wisconsin Wal-Mart associate Edna Applebaum.

Charles, labeled a "fashion disaster" by People Magazine editors, was accused of having no sense of color and wearing suits "from Liberace's garbage can." Among the harshest-critiqued outfits from Charles' closet was a gold lamé jacket worn on a Tonight Show appearance and a red velvet suit Charles wore to a charity event to benefit the homeless.

"You know you're in trouble when you show up to a benefit for the homeless and people are giving the money directly to you," said People editors. "The charity recipients must have been offering to donate their outfits to Ray."

Runner-up to Worst Dressed was Wisconsin housewife Edna Applebaum, breaking the long tradition of choosing listmakers from the celebrity pool.

"Sometimes you just can't let someone slide just because they're not famous at all," People Magazine editors explained. "And Mrs. Applebaum has gotten away with fashion crimes for way too long. With her greeting the shoppers at the Washuka Wal-Mart, you can bet there's one town where K-Mart's clothing sales are through the roof."

Nor are the editors excusing Mrs. Applebaum's age in their evaluation of her fashion.

"Even at 65 Mrs. Applebaum should know better than a pink chiffon babushka for church—God sees all, and it makes Him nauseous. And no matter what generation she lived through, flower-print spandex pants were never in fashion. The Depression must have been all the more depressing when Mrs. Applebaum showed up."

The surprise additions to this year's Worst-Dressed List are part of People's new "take no prisoners" policy toward fashion offenders, and they promise even more merciless criticism next year.

"Let the warning go out to everyone: We see the black socks and red jogging shorts of a certain unemployed 7-11 shopper in Fresno, California, and we'll be making our list and checking you twice. And a note to Stephen Hawking: If you really want to look smart, dump the cardigans and add a couple of Armanis to the closet."

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I don't remember anything from last night, I was comatoast. I'm not kidding, I fell in with this fast crowd of Olympic blood-dopers I met at GNC when I was there pricing one of those camelsack things you wear on your back so you can piss on the go. And everything's pretty much all a blur after that. It got a little weird at one point, I think I woke up in a closed library with torn-out book pages papier-mâchéd all over my naked body, but thankfully the next blackout warped me back home. So all's well that ends, like they say. I think I may have ran a marathon in there somewhere, because my feet are hella sore, but I'd still say partying with reckless Olympians isn't bad as far as hobbies go.

Especially when my other main hobby is throwing away paperclips, pretty boring. I'm not kidding, my trash can sounds like a sleigh bell whenever the janitors try to move that thing. Whenever I get something that's paperclipped together, that little metal doohag goes straight in the trash, because fuck you if you don't think I can keep my shit together without your help. I resent that, and if I wasn't making your memo into a naked origami chick, that shit would be filed right where it belongs, under the corner of my desk that's all lopsided from when I had my office outside last summer. I still laugh when I think of those wimpy little neighborhood kids dropping my desk while they were schlepping it back up the stairs. You don't know funny until you've seen six little third graders screaming and scurrying away from a desk that's cartwheeling down a stairwell like some kind of berserk wooden monster.

Speaking of the office, I guess the big news around here is that Red Bagel's dad died last week, some kind of buffalo-smoking accident. And I know exactly what you're thinking, but I already asked and apparently he ran a buffalo jerky shack in Wisconsin somewhere. Though if you ask me that sounds like an answer designed to avoid the question, and I'm still not convinced the man wasn't some kind of High-Plains pervert. I decided not to push the matter further out of respect for the dead, but you know I'm going to hit the 'Net hard to get to the bottom of these buffalo-smoking allegations.

Anyway, the big Sixth Sense whammo surprise of the whole deal is that it turns out Bagel's dad actually owned the commune, he won it in a poker game with a mute Indian or some shit years ago, and so now it's been passed on to Red and his half-brother Gay Bagel. No shit, a surprise brother! Makes me wonder who's gonna come out of the closet when I die. Next thing we know this Gay Bagel shows up and spontaneously craps out a kidney when he realizes the commune has accidentally qualified as a non-profit organization for three years running, due to the fact that we don't make any money and Rok Finger once had a girl scout sleepover party at his house.

While they were gurneying Gay Bagel out of here and the EMTs were looking around under the desks for that kidney so they could put it on ice, he was mumbling some shit about making a ton of profit-milking changes around here so that his inheritance wasn't pissed down a river. Something like that. I don't know if that means we're going to get some new columnists with big tits or what, but I'm all for giving that a shot. Far be it from Omar Bricks to stand the way of progress, I might even have time to download JPEGs of some ideal candidates while I'm researching this buffalo-smoking story. Shit, I may even end up breaking Red Bagel's 57-month streak of "commune Employee of the Month" awards while I'm at it, hot damn.

Bricks out.

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Pitchers and catchers have reported, and I say it's about damn time. Every job I've ever taken the winter off from has canned my ass, so what makes these prima donnas so special? I refuse to root for any player who doesn't spend his winter driving a bus down in the Mexican winter league or wielding a shammy at my local car wash. As you might imagine, I don't root much.

And as if these manicured Mollies didn't have it easy enough, now they get to spend the next several weeks thinking about maybe starting to get ready to play a kids' game while working on their tans and playing grab-ass with half the male population of the Dominican Republic. Find me another profession, anywhere, where workers get to spend a good solid month goofing off and farting around down in Florida before they even have to start "working," if you can call shooting steroids into your teeth and hitting line drives at Steve Trachsel all day "work."

And who the hell decided to call this "Spring" training? I don't know where you live, but around here winter's just getting started. The last few months were just winter's way of saying "Howdy Doo?" I expect at least three more solid months of raining ice and frozen spinal fluid before the sun comes out again.

Regardless, baseball is carrying on as if it were hospitable outside, so we have little choice but to play along and take a jaundiced gander at what the upcoming season holds in store.

The Cubs show up at spring training this year amidst high hopes and nervous anticipation. After spending a record number of greenbacks this offseason in hopes of buying a title, fans know the Cubs are going to blow it somehow, but everyone is excited to see how they do it this time. Can the Cubs pull off another miracle collapse, or will they let their fans down by bringing a World Championship to Chicago? It hasn't happened since 1908, but the thought still wakes up many a Cubs fan in the middle of the night in a cold, terror-stank sweat.

What about the Yankees? The Yanks were embarrassed yet again in 2006 by failing to bring home their yearly trophy, which went instead to... whoever won last year. Don't pretend you remember who it was. Instead of their usual winter routine of shanghaiing all the competition's best talent over the offseason, the boys from New York took a different tack this year, instead casting off assholes like a hot air balloon sinking toward shark-infested pudding. First to go was historic malcontent Gary Sheffield, who was thrown to the Tigers like a Christian sightseeing in Rome. Next came Randy Johnson, the world's tallest asshole according to Guinness, who was sent back to the desert trailer park from whence he came in exchange for two jock straps and a copy of "Girls Gone Wild: Greenland." Somewhere in the mix Jared Wright was also shoved drunk onto a bus headed for Baltimore, a fine thanks for all the hard work he did in raising the Yanks' ERA to league average over the last few years.

The Giants handed former Oakland ace Barry Zito a blank check this winter and told him to fill in whatever he thought was fair, then shit blood for three weeks straight after seeing the figure Zito and secret agent Scott Boras had inked in. Ten bucks says they don't repeat that same mistake next offseason, when the contracts are up for several of their stadium's Haitian pretzel venders. Regardless, the Giants will be a better team for having Zito and his yoga dipshit shtick on board, but unfortunately the relevant question there is "Better than what?" and the answer is the Royals. Sorry, gays and other assorted San Fran residents.

The Royals also got a lot better this offseason, throwing money blindly at the free-agent class until some of it stuck to a guy nobody had ever heard of before. Too bad the relevant question with them is also "Better than what?" and the answer is the Topeka Devil Dogs on acid.

The Red Sox spent a massive pile of cash on Japanese import Becky Matsuzaka, though through a clever accounting loophole managed not to give the player any of it. American batters likely aren't ready for Matsuzaka's patented kamikaze pitch, which involves the pitcher charging home plate and diving through the strike zone with the ball in his back pocket. Matsuzaka, however, is unlikely to be ready for teammate Manny Ramirez, who so far has played all his spring training innings wearing a wedding dress that once belonged to Mariel Hemmingway. The Red Sox are poised to out-weird the competition this year, just like they did in their championship 2004 season.

Everybody else? They got worse. Sucks to be a fan, I know.

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