Mais, qui est son chum?

Here is Jessica's dear friend Sarah, wondering my goodness, where is Jessica's chum (boyfriend). There's her brother's gf, there's her sister's bf, but no Jessica's bf. Where is he?

Ah, says Jessica. It is he who took the photo!

Yes, this is what I thought, replies Sarah.

Is this for our benefit - of course. Otherwise Sarah would say, where's 'Simon"? You know, use a name. Or not ask, because Sarah already knows. The whole thing is for our benefit.

Is it for our benefit Jessica-wise (her ego) or is it for our benefit sham-wise.

She wants us to know she has a boyfriend. Same guy she's had for five years now, or someone new? Which is it.

And Jessica doesn't appear to have whittled off an ounce since her increase in dimensions was first observed.

Also, Skate Canada appears to be behaving as if they'd like us to all forget a team such as Dube-Wolfe ever existed. Dube Wolfe - what's a Dube Wolfe?

Run, Kaetlyn, run

 

ETA - there are people swearing that although they'd considered attending Worlds or Canadians, they won't if the in-house commentary by Wilkes continues (not a positive remark to be found - Debbi might want to have Barb get on that). Wilke's fatuous babble after every skater skates has turned people off more strongly than would a program of aboriginal folk dances choreographed by Linichuk.

Of course the in-house commentary, plus interviews conducted by Wilkes, will continue, because she's got somebody's nuts in a vise. Wilkes got involved in Skate Canada in the first place not to do a job but to mug the camera, and Skate Canada is running out of work arounds. So all you potential attendees who were going to spend money on tickets to enhance SC's revenue - may as well stay home.

I kind of feel as if I'm patronizing Kaetlyn Osmond by wanting her to refuse to be interviewed by Debbi Wilkes. When you look at that slight eyebrow raise and smirk of Kaetlyn's, you know she gets it.

Still, may as well point out that Osmond, like Scott and Tessa, can decline to be interviewed by Debbi Wilkes (Debbi has interviewed all the SC 2012 Canadian figure skaters except Tessa and Scott, who are saving themselves for P.J.).

An advantage of belonging to a dysfunctional federation like Skate Canada with nothing for title sponsors and a bankrupt women's program is, if you are a female figure skater who has, thanks to your own efforts, and to the support team you have personally put together, emerged from obscurity to become a skater who can do triple combinations and win a Grand Prix, there's no need to endure a creepy, narcissistic eyesore shoving her way into your spotlight.

I don't believe any skater should be figuring out how to avoid one of their federation's directors. Debbi's situation is that because she's a director with an empty title, she can insist upon a media role for herself. But Tracy Wilson, PJ Kwong, Beverly Smith and the competent, professional bunch of apparent no-names who've done media for SC are the ones who ought to be doing media. Debbi's not media. She's the Director of Business Development, and what a fine job she's done, what with having a minor sponsor in Thomas Sabo jewelry and with Kozy Shack not actually cutting and running but merely downgrading their involvement to "preferred supplier".

Debbi has no purpose. She's a complacent fool. She's nasty. The target audience can't stand her. She alienates sponsors and public alike.

She invades the personal space of not only the person she's interviewing, but those watching. Maybe if Debbi stopped fogging up the camera lens with her ghastly visage and pried her nose away, the rest of us could breathe.

Among the universally disgusted reviews with Debbi's revolting performance (even someone competent would be obnoxious bleating on after every figure skater, their words echoing throughout the venue. The fucking vanity!), there's this:

kwanfan1818: Yeah, that and, did you ever consider that you might be creating a little Field of Play violation by reviewing performances while the judges were marking inciting the crowd to disagree with the judges?

Skate Canada never considers anything, Kf.  

So this:

I was considering going to Canadian Nationals if I could work it out, but if they continue with the in-arena commentary, I'm never attending another of their events.

is best. Of course SC was going to figure out a way to snatch attention from the event and turn it towards Debbi (by force). Debbi also did her best to hijack the Olympic spotlight from the figure skaters and direct it towards her own suffocating imbecilities.

Lots of events in Canada this season. Good idea to start off by making those who dug into their pockets to spend their hard-earned money decide the experience isn't worth repeating. There's nobody who works for a living just to use their disposable income to satisfy  the vanity of Debbi Wilkes.

So it was good for you too, Rosie?

She's lovely.

If you don't know Rosie DiManno, this is her:

Why your hometown columnist sucks

It's unfortunate how a pair of ice dancers as magnificent as Virtue and Moir find themselves surrounded by the tackiest bunch of needy, cheap, intellectual deadbeats this side of www.stupid.com .

Thank God they also have Zoueva, Tracy Wilson, Maria Mountain and a host of others as counterweight to the clowns that occupy directorships at Skate Canada, and now the first person to weigh in on Carmen is that prominent masturbatory dimwit, Rosie DiManno. It's no wonder Skate Canada loves her. Here's her article, not recommended if suffering from Tessa Virtue esque "tummy problems, if you know what I mean". *

Rosie gets off while ruining it for everyone else, which also gets her off

When any "journalist" - or anyone, really, writes about sex like this - like it's been 1972 since they've seen a penis - they reveal more about themselves than whatever it is they're trying to describe. This is Carmen. Carmen is a sexy story. The moves are sexual/sensual but are using the vocabulary of contemporary dance movement. You see more groping on Dancing with the Stars, any music video, and SYTYCD, only difference is, Tessa and Scott's choreography actually has meaning.
____________________________________

*Debbi is the fucking worst.

In the comment section for the post beneath this one, an anon shares something unsurprising about Debbi Wilkes:

A side note - when Debbie had her TV show years ago in Toronto, my uncle had the contract to deal with her wardrobe as a delivery man. He could not stand her because of how nasty she was so he used to wrinkle her clothes up in a ball and do everything he could to annoy her. No one at the production company was ever mad at him....
 

Of course.

Everything Debbi projects, the sham projects, and still projects even in its current fitful state. That's not coincidence. That's the culture Skate Canada has created. A culture where we're better then you, you're all nobodies, and I'm treating you like nobodies. Where my sense of humor is about mocking others and malicious enjoyment of what I consider other people's shortcomings, and to amuse myself, I'll set people up to make idiots of themselves, without their knowledge.

Isn't that how the sham operated and how "Scott" has managed most of his social media? That particular brand of asshole?

Was this a perfect storm of phony, pompous, know-nothing fuckwits all with the same vulgar preoccupations coming together in a common enterprise while enabling each other? Or is it a case of someone like Debbi setting the tone and influencing the culture while everybody else - Moirs and Virtues, Dubes and Team Skate Canada abdicates responsiblity because they prefer to focus on their higher purpose? Unlike Debbi Wilkes, the Moirs and Virtues are delightful in person. The Moirs operate a functioning figure skating program. When the Moirs feature participants from their skating programs on social media, the participants are the focus, not Moir self-promotion.

It's towards the abstraction of  'the fandom'  that they're awful people.

That dichotomy is of course a cop-out on their part.

The culture Debbi has created is an alienating one. Look at her now, at Skate Canada 2012. She can't shut up. Turning people off. Making attendees squirm.

What foresight. There are parents at Skate Canada. There are potential sponsors and other connections at Skate Canada that don't announce themselves immediately to Debbi. It's an international event; a functional organization would understand it's an opportunity for the organization. Debbi doesn't care. What's Debbi thinking? Captive audience for me. She is going to suck up every fucking moment someone isn't skating and fill it with her insufferable.

The public at Skate Canada aren't just a bunch of nobodies dumb enough to purchase event tickets for the privilege of having the experience destroyed by Debbi's verbal diarrhea and creepy self-enchantment. They're not there to endure the boorish deportment of the Skate Canada delegation when it mingles with the common people, either. Yes, we get it, Skate Canada delegation, the world is your toilet. Common consideration is beneath you; all "common" things are beneath you. You've even managed to convince two seemingly inherently decent people like Scott and Tessa to think the same way.

Here's the thing with Skate Canada 2012. There are actually people there who might consider Skate Canada a worthwhile potential corporate partner, an entity worth sponsoring. If anybody had that idea, Debbi makes sure it's not entertained for long. Would you want to deal with her? With an organization represented by her? She's had one day of commenting and people want to kill themselves. How she's handling this "showcase" Skate Canada is foisting upon the public (which is also any potential sponsor's MARKET) tells us all we need to know about Skate Canada. So no thanks.

The way Debbi treats nobodies: There's an old post on this blog called The Camera Loves Debbi Wilkes but is only in Like with Barb MacDonald. In that post are screen captures showing Debbi Wilkes positioning herself in the background of Scott and Tessa's interview with P.J. Kwong. There she stays. She's dead center, facing 3/4ths our way, framed by Scott and Tessa's heads, and while the background is populated with camera crew, other skaters, other venue personnel, only once does someone block the sightline from Scott and Tessa towards Debbi Wilkes, and that person is immediately told to clear the sightline, and does. Look at the screen caps, no audio required. Nobody even crosses behind Scott and Tessa. That center sightline is ruthlessly kept open for Debbi Wilkes. And for what? A 3/4ths full body shot of herself showcased in the middle-distance behind Skate Canada's star ice dancers at a training camp in a video hardly anyone will see. She's that rapacious.

What is required to get that done? Everybody working in the field of vision of the camera filming Scott and Tessa was explicitly instructed to keep the sightline clear for Debbi. They were told how to stand and where, and to keep their faces turned away from that camera - that was Debbi's camera.

It means Scott and Tessa themselves were told how to stand so as to keep that window between their heads clear for Debbi - and they DID it.

That is pitiful.

I responded to the anon comment above by saying you only need to watch Debbi a few seconds before knowing she's a phony.

Let's look at somebody who has genuine, enduring popularity, in Canada and in the US. My beloved Tracy Wilson. You watch her for a few seconds and what do you immediately understand? That she listens well. In an interview, she focuses on the other person. She's composed. When she speaks, it's worthwhile. She has an unforced, natural warmth, obvious empathy, and you can see she's smart and no fool. She's generous. She's got good taste. She's down to earth. She's funny.

The behind the scenes stories about Tracy match how she presents herself in front of the camera, just as the behind the scenes stories about Debbi do, although Debbi doesn't appear to be aware that people watching her or listening to her via the media can see what she's like.

I just enjoy how Skate Canada keeps upping the ante of douchery. Two years of title sponsor fail, here comes Skate Canada and they still don't get it. Or can afford not to care, which is quite interesting. There's no accountability.

So. Let's force the public watching at home and in person to listen to Debbi Wilkes' inanities, as that's what her vanity demands. Ignore that there may be people watching and listening who are in a position to help advance Skate Canada's best interests as an organization. Skate Canada, represented by Debbi, never can see past its own petty ego concerns, the ego that requires the public be considered a bunch of nobodies, mostly because, at heart, that's what Debbi is.

Shut up Debbi, Everybody Hates You

Piper and Paul are nothing like Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall. You're plenty old enough to remember (and then some) that Tracy Wilson could actually ice dance.

You're annoying people around you and being rude because you and your familiars will not shut the fuck up so people in your vicinity can watch the skating (typical, typical typical of everything you touch at Skate Canada. It's all about you. The skating is a vehicle to shove yourself into the spotlight). Most of what you say is heavy with misplaced snobbery, misfired pandering and finding yourself hilarious while everyone else thinks you're an ass in love with your own voice.

I realize this is typical of how you comport yourself both at competitions and practices going on forever now, but it's still fucking obnoxious.

Is this a warm-up for London? Is the idea to have as few locals attend as possible? Are you gonna be smarming it up so nobody watching in person or on live streams can avoid you?

Debbi Wilkes, Barb MacDonald, and previously, William Thompson, don't give a flying fuck about Skate Canada. That's why they're relaxed about the lack of sponsors. That's why they don't care about up and coming skaters, or making skating more appealing to the public (or this Debbi/Liz gig would have been shot down from the first).  Or behaving like civil, professional partners with the city hosting Worlds in Canada. All Debbi cares about here is she has a captive audience to use figure skating as a pretext to show herself off.

Barb and Debbi's interest in Skate Canada reaches only as far as Skate Canada is a platform for self-promotion. As soon as the audience is there, we get fucking Debbi instead of the skating, or she poisons the experience for everyone by saturating it with her infatuation with the sound of her own voice.  She's incapable of speaking in public as if we're not all two years old.  Everyone says that. Ever wonder why? It's because that's the level of insight she has to share. If she aimed higher, she's disqualify herself.

She hasn't been a great representative for Canadian figure skating. She hasn't "done so much" for Canadian figure skating. She's harmed it.

She's a star-fucker, a politician (for her own advancement) and a media whore. I don't mean "in addition" to other stuff she does. That is ALL she does.  Her insights at this competition are either announcing the obvious (because everyone is dim) or telling us about herself. She doesn't care that nobody cares. She's got a spotlight, and that's all that matters to her.
******************************

Jennifer Comeaux‏@LadyWave4

"@LynnRutherford: SC has enhanced the event by having Debbi Wilkes & Liz Manley offer insights after each skater. #SCI12" Too much yapping.

Caroline‏@CarolineJeanne

@LadyWave4 @LynnRutherford Yeah, it's really weird and awkward. We can hear it on TV and it is uncomfortable. I can only imagine it live.

  It sucks live, Caroline.

            
           Kate‏@kateanderson6h

I swear to god, if I have to listen to Debbi Wilkes blither away at Nationals, I'm gonna open up a can of whoop ass.

JAMIE‏@_ohheyjamie

@AlexShibutani Can you take over the in-arena commentary?

sap5

Originally Posted by DaveRocks

Debbi just announced to the entire arena: "Tessa is fine, but she had tummy troubles, if you know what I mean."

Oh, Debbi. Oh, Debbi. "

 Awful! Debbie Wilkes is an embarrassment. Please someone take the mike away from her!
 

Over Debbi's dead body.

Debbi has gotten back into the interviewing game, and I hope Kaetlyn Osmond's parents punch Debbi out, or insist on whatever deal it appears Scott and Tessa may have worked out that has P.J. interviewing them instead.

Debbi wasted no time popping her eyes at the camera lens and telling us what we were thinking, which apparently was 'where did she come from' and then she did her patented shove-the-large-phallic-mike move and commanded "Tell us!"

 

************************

sk8fun: Haven't had a chance to read through the threads but I'm sure there's talk about the commentators after every skate. They think they are funny and they are so very not. My daughter said if she was a skater and had to listen to that after a rough skate she'd probably walk over and smack them. That could be interesting to see.

Your daughter can still do that FOR the skaters, sk8fun! It would be way more of a public service than anything Debbi's doing.

And I'll bring this up from the comment section in the post below:

AnonymousOctober 26, 2012 8:08 PM

Was at the event tonight and would rather kill myself than listen to her "conversation" with Liz Manley between the skaters, it really took away from the event. Is this common at other competitions? A good number of the SC delegation plopped themselves down near where I was sitting toward the end of the night in time for VM and did not stop talking

 

Yes, it does take away from the event, Anon. Most everything she does turns people off. She does not care. Debbi is for Debbi. She's not for making a good experience for anyone but Debbi. This is a woman desperate for any spotlight, and as for some reason she seems to feel she needs to steer clear of skatebuzz and not shove her mug into other people's camera frames, or make herself the focus of other people's interviews, or conduct on camera conversations with people even more uninteresting than herself, as has been her past practice, she has turned to this. If this ends up getting shot down she'll find something else. This is All she cares about.

That's not an enhancement

LynnRutherford: Skate Canada has enhanced the event by having Debbi Wilkes & Liz Manley offer insights after each skater.

It feels like Skate Canada is finding make-work for Debbi. Really want to know how and when she's business developing. Thomas Sabo makes very cool pseudo-goth jewelry but they're not a title sponsor and SC is still in need of one or more of those.

Find make-work for Debbi, SC, but why do those in attendance have to have the value of their expensive tickets depreciated by listening to her inane observations? It's difficult enough to get an audience for these events, why turn them off?

Off topic but

Okay.

WTF is that?

Davis & White previewed their fd by telling us they had looked for chemistry for years and finally found it. White wants to show "chemistry you can cut with a knife". Marina reminds us that love makes the world go round.

We know he's not saying he's getting with Meryl - he's talking about adding chemistry to their programs. Implication: in every other way DW and VM are equal, but VM's chemistry kicks them to the top.

Yes, Marina has to proceed as if DW are as natively talented as VM, and simply need ingredient x. I get that. Her policy has been to give her teams all the chances, all the tools, and then it's up to them. It's just odd that in this program the "chemistry", unlike the refinement in the tango, is being attempted outside the actual program. If they'd hunted for something every bit as useful as chemistry - natural musicality - they'd have had to show that inside the skating.

They're over the top and vague while describing the chemistry they've found, but not explaining how this improves their skating.

Chemistry's not an add on. It's wonderful to see, but it doesn't add to the pcs or TES, at least none of Meryl, Charlie or Marina have mentioned how it's going to add points in either category. Based on Skate America, they believe chemistry is a pre-and post-performance enhancement recognized by gazing heatedly at your partner before and after a program, growing your hair romance-novel long and flinging it about, and wearing a face of angst.

The pre-Olympic season is no time to take skating tips from Annie Barabe'.

I almost feel insulted as a VM fan that chemistry in ice dance is being redefined as kitsch, as easily acquired as sewing extra crystals on your skating costume.

And that thing up there. Hey, Tessa and Scott - that's what it's amounted to all these years. Anyone can do it!

Chemistry matters to Tessa and Scott because they're so connected and in tune, it allows them to skate at speed with their bodies extraordinarily close together, in scarily interdependant positions (one slip immediately affects the other), with matching body lines. Add in all of the other things two hugely talented athletes are able to do if they're that in tune with each other - make micro adjustments by sensing what's going on with the other, agreeing to something by looking at each other. Scott and Tessa are able to do insanely intricate, difficult skating with refinement and speed, moving as one, because of chemistry. The expression on their faces and the emotional component is an add on.

Stipulating that DW skate at a very high level, and are wonderful figure skaters and athletes, I agree with Kurt Browning that they're skating the same as always. How do the post-skate histrionics enhance the programs?

They're fast, rushed, a little uncontrolled, pushing it, unison of body line not great and showing sort of wild lifts. They were miles apart in their twizzles (chemistry should allow them to be super close) and Charlie fumbled the first set of twizzles (they got +1s for that element, too. I wonder what Tessa and Scott got at Skate Canada when she stumbled on the first set while twizzling super close to and in sync with Scott?).

Minus the twizzle mishap, that's how they always skate. This program isn't a departure. Hunchback of Notre Dame, Phantom and Samson - romantic theatrical melodrama. How is this a vehicle to show chemistry? It's the sort of vehicle that makes chemistry unnecessary.

If chemistry doesn't allow you to have more interdependent movements in your skating, unison, intricacy, etc., then it's just theatrics. The unison and refinement, the intricacy - these were attributes DW attempted to improve upon with their tango program. That program was a departure - did force them to stretch their comfort zone - with results that imperfectly carry over to subsequent programs, but it appears to me the principal carry-over has been a slight loss of speed. For them, it's a Catch-22. Maintain speed, get sloppy, lose control (relative to VM) and lose some clarity of movement.

Sacrifice a bit of speed because of the more intricate choreography they're attempting (or did in the tango) - they're still rushing through everything, reluctant to hold, and lack unison in lines. Slowing down makes that more visible.

After all the talk of having found the chemistry, it seemed a bit beside the point to have it reflected in nonsense after the program has been skated, and some fevered facial expressions. Where is it in the actual skating? Wouldn't that be the point of chemistry - a greater connection that allows stronger unison in every aspect of what you do on the ice?

For Tessa and Scott, the chemistry does impact their skating, as does their mutual musicality.

I am a bit nervous now how "Carmen" will be spun. Will Marina, Tessa and Scott announce that everyone thinks they can only skate "in love" but the love/hate dynamic in Carmen will prove to the world that they can hate each other too? Will they glare at each other when they take center ice, will Scott scowl at her Carmen as he kills her (I'm misrepresenting Carmen a bit but there's only so much nuance possible in a skating performance). "For years we've tried to hate each other, and we think we've finally found a way." Then they'll be all over each other as usual, a single skating unit, but afterwards pretend they hated each other the entire performance.They'll stalk off to the Kiss'n Cry; Tessa will flirt with Johnny Johns while Scott fumes. That's diversity.

It's not, and what D/W are doing isn't chemistry. You don't "do" chemistry.

For me, the biggest departure will be if Scott's costume is something other than a vest, but I'm not holding my breath.

This applies to the sham

Escalation of commitment

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Escalation of commitment was first described by Barry M. Staw in his 1976 paper, "Knee deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action".^[1] More recently the term "sunk cost fallacy" has been used to describe the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit. Such investment may include money, time, or — in the case of military strategy — human lives. The phenomenon and the sentiment underlying it are reflected in such proverbial images as "Throwing good money after bad" and "In for a dime, in for a dollar" (or "In for a penny, in for a pound").
The term is also used to describe poor decision-making in business, government, information systems in general, software project management in particular, politics, and gambling. The term has been used to describe the United States commitment to military conflicts including Vietnam in the 1960s - 1970s and in Iraq in the 2000s, where dollars spent and lives lost justify continued involvement.^[2]
Alternatively, "irrational escalation" (sometimes referred to as "irrational escalation of commitment" or "commitment bias") is a term frequently used in psychology, philosophy, economics, and game theory^{[citation needed]} to refer to a situation in which people can make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken. Examples are frequently seen when parties engage in a bidding war; the bidders can end up paying much more than the object is worth to justify the initial expenses associated with bidding (such as research), as well as part of a competitive instinct.

Scott and Tessa always protest they don't want to sound cliche but they are one.

Well, she's looking fit

Here's a weird situation that's difficult to pin down without confirmation, but there are various hypothesis that would make things pretty simple.

Jessica's facebook and albums of facebook friends recently display a Jessica of such diverse body types it can't be immediately determined which photos are current.

The above photo appears to show Jessica after participating in Montreal's "color run" this past weekend. So

• Jessica has knocked another item off her bucket list.
• Her ankle is all better (5K run and all).
• She looks pretty bulky (or bulk-ier).

Jessica is out of the GP due to what Skate Canada has variously said is either her bum ankle or a "slow start". (Maybe her bum ankle caused the slow start).

Without extenuating circumstances, "Slow start" is a puzzler. What's the deal? Forgive me, but I don't think Jessica's calendar is jam packed.

But. If her ankle is better and she's training diligently for Canadians, shouldn't she be more streamlined at this point? Particularly if she's fit enough to do charity runs? She's a pairs skater!

Jessica is a copycat. Of a lot of people - Bryce, for example. Magazine types. Would she try and ape Tessa, be pregnant, plan on heroically competing at Canadians? (Unlike Tessa, she can't do Worlds without Canadians). Jessica is someone I believe is shrewd, but neither bright, nor insightful.

Still, to imitate Tessa to that extent seems awfully far fetched - and self-destructive. Their circumstances couldn't be more removed from each other.

Jessica isn't studying for a doctorate while simultaneously training elite gymnastics. The ankle is okay. If we take it as real, then she's back on the ice, but if she's back to training in earnest, she should be approaching at least basic fighting trim at this point. Instead, she's looking even more substantial than in the CTC Familia album.

Funny Face was funnier than I thought

Hey, remember last season when Scott and Tessa sought a moment of our time? Put out a random-seeming first person video from Paris (TEB), batted their eyes, told us they were taking an "extra day" in Paris? They were excited to tour all the typically Parisian places, emphasizing the plan was to take photos at the classic Funny Face highlights around town? They mentioned the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.


There she is.
Jessica Dube poses for Scott Moir a la Audrey Hepburn 
by the Louvre at TEB 2011. Kind of like a modern spin
on Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.
Except it doesn't look like Scott's camera is even aimed at Jessica.

Remember how Tessa smiled and shared that she wanted to have a crepe? It was weird because apropos of nothing they were skyping the fandom to tell us about their "extra day" and it seemed random. Were they taking baby steps?

Above is a little whack-a-mole from Absolute Skating from last year's TEB, captioned: Jessica Dube poses for Scott Moir.

See Jessica's pose with the arm flung up and out. Isn't this adorable? She's Audrey to Scott's Fred. And down below, they're in front of the Eiffel Tower. This is awesome.

Tessa and Scott keep producing their own do-it-yourself version of Jackass. This is typical of the 'nice things' fans are deprived of because of the blog.

Did any of us expect jack shit from Scott and Tessa from Paris? No.They sought us out especially to share their excitement about this special extra day. They were so fresh-scubbed kidlike about it.The clever - it never gets old. 

ETA - as a comment under this post said, Scott and Tessa's conceit is really something. At this point they're working only off their fantasy of what they think their celebrity must be in Canada.

Even when they compete, attendance at the big events is poor. There were people watching Canadians who didn't know who Scott and Tessa were. There are tumbleweeds blowing through some of the fan sites and threads set up to talk about Scott/Tessa right after the Olympics. The people who reliably tweet and post about them the most are at this point such a small group we can all name them.

It's obvious the fans who have a good idea there's no Jessica and there is a Scott/Tessa are keeping their mouths shut in public.  It's all down to Team Virtue Moir's own petty resentment and pride at this point. Insist on your right to lie, Tessa and Scott. If there's a place you can't lie, you'll take your toys and leave. 

Speculation was they planned a Funny Face-related photo shoot to spring upon us for Canadians or Worlds. But the photos many fans assumed they were talking about never surfaced.

Remember when they did this?
Scott and Tessa:
"We. We we we we we we we. We're staying an
extra day. We want to see all of our favorite things in Paris.
WE are staying an extra day because WE want to take photos of all
the classic Paris sites. That's what WE are doing.
All the famous stuff even idiots like you would know were part
of Paris. We are doing this. Photos. Us. We. Keep an eye out."

When they did the above video, anyone with a working memory would figure they were up to something. The blog immediately called out what they were doing and consequently, no photos from their fun extra day in Paris were ever shared with us.

Wouldn't it have been fantastic if Charlie and Meryl had approached fans to enthuse about the great love for Vienna they both shared, how they loved it so much they were going to spend an off-ice day in Vienna taking photos at places that evoked Die Fleudermaus? But it turned out to be Charlie photographing Tanith who was aping a contemporary version of Meryl's character, even though Meryl and Charlie had killed themselves leading fans on to think it was gonna be them? So charming.

I suspect that Tanith and D/W would have considered the idea pretty assy. I bet Scott and Tessa don't see the parallel. Tanith is the real gf, and D/W are platonic. That's way different than Scott really being with Tessa, and using a fake gf as a blind.

But, we're supposed to believe the fake gf is real, so that means for people who believe, it comes off ASSY.

And for people who know better, it also comes off ASSY.

Great role models. Manipulative by default. Vain, bitchy, treacherous, malicious, competitive and trying to one up fans for sport. What kind of egos are these? Oversized, but made of glass?

What kind of people are they besides douchebags who play at being snobs? Scott once said he wasn't a classy guy. I think he meant "refined." But dude. You were still on point.  

They meant with Jessica!

Dessous Le Tour Eiffel! With Jessica!

Goodness. We know there are photos of crepe-eating, demitasse-sipping, Seine-boating, stair parading Jessica all over the place from TEB circa Funny Face, with Jessica cutesily posing for Scott, and they had to put those photos on ice. It must kill them, the stuff on his old facebook, the stuff they took time to photograph, all wasted!  All this great stuff they never got to use to... to...?

I get the idea the whole "photo shoot" had already happened when Scott and Tessa set us up in that video, so they were lying about going to do it. They'd done it already. How much you want to bet?

This photo shoot and sting was the month after the profile photo stuff on Scott's facebook and after the birthday wishes sting.

Link to blog post about them setting us up in Paris 2011

I want Tracey Wilson to tell us what the "good reasons" are for Tessa and Scott to behave this way.

Are Scott and Tessa just too shy to come out and say it? "We laugh at you, and how many ways do we have to prove it? Jesus, you people are stupid!"

Maybe they want fans to get the point already. What fans would stick around to be treated like this by people who make a point of using their most lovely-seeming qualities as a decoy? A way to set fans up to mock fans for liking them and being interested?

"Look at us flirt and laugh and smile! You fall for that shit all the time, don't you! Get a clue you dumb fucks!"

Do Scott and Tessa pump filtered oxygen into their bubble, so their lungs aren't contaminated with air the ordinary people breathe? You know they've looked into it.

Look at Scott and Tessa when we know they're lying. The very serious-faced interviews they gave recounting the rift over her shins, the communication blackout that never happened (they were living together in London where both were based during that period). I don't mean the fidgety, we're not a couple stuff, but the video above, for example.

Then look at video when we can reasonably believe they're telling the truth.

Manipulative.

They have had an exclusive environment because they trained for an elite sport throughout their formative years, have been in love with each other forever, and feel rarefied. They're not interested in not being rarefied, even though they're 25 and 23, married and parents. They want to keep living in a bubble, and they want to remind fans, through mean stunts like this, that the bubble is exclusive and not meant for the likes of the public in any way, shape or form. That's a weird combination of insecure and dickish.

 

I think what I love the most is they're the ones working people over but for all the world they (or those who've helped them) come off like they think the people who don't like to get played by them are haters, and they're just going to rise above. But this isn't really about those two, even though they think everything is about them. It's about fans, and how they treat them. There's nobody who deserves what Scott and Tessa have done with fans, and it wasn't and isn't called for by anything in Scott and Tessa's circumstances.*

It's not only the athletic track that has produced these two. It's also money. Insulated from the real  money concerns that preoccupy most figure skaters (not abstract concerns about business or long-term planning, but basic and fundamental insecurities about money - rent, food, medical bills, etc. that concern many of their teammates), Scott and Tessa can afford to toy with fans for sport.They can afford to think of themselves as extra super duper ultra "unique".*

Other skaters would be afraid of alienating the public, because popularity is their ticket. Scott and Tessa can literally afford to indulge themselves with their effete preoccupation with pranking the lowly fans who've presumed to show interest in the two of them.

I think they are more than the product of an exclusive athletic environment and personal relationship combining to produce a couple of people who miss bigger contexts, who miss connections, as it relates to public relations.This is not a consequence of their skating life. They get this from their families. And as they're both well into adulthood, this is who they are as people, not skaters. "Where are their families"? is a question that gets asked, as if surely the grown-ups would see how bad this is and set things to rights. If not the Moirs, then the Virtues.

This IS their families. And as for the Virtues, Tessa goes out of her way to paint her relationship with her mother as so close that any guy she's with better expect a threesome.

It's nearly enough to make one feel bad for Jessica. Scott and Tessa believe fans deserve garbage. And so what the fans got is a big load of Jessica Dube.

_______________________

*I love how they do extreme shit like these scams and hoaxes, stings and set-ups, all to fend off the crowds of nosy fans that apparently encroach upon them, but then Tessa turns around and describes being in the parade at the Gold Medal Celebration as a case of her looking around to see where the REAL celebrities were in the parade. Or when she wrote about the invitation to dine with Queen Elizabeth when the Queen was in Canada, and this first Canadian Olympic gold medalist in the sport of ice dancing gushed "But what could we have done to deserve such an honor!" That girl could cut the disingenuous starry-eyed stuff in half and it would still be overkill.

 

The way Scott and Tessa have exploited their privileged circumstances makes the privileged D/W and the Shibs look fantastic.

P.S. I wonder if Scott and Tessa smirked at the idea fans would believe them going around Paris doing cheesy like posing Funny Face-ily. They've been to Paris tons of times before.

Round-up

That's all this post is, a round-up of thoughts that aren't individual post-worthy, but I still want to chronicle.

For example.

By Olympics 2010, Jessica and Scott had been boyfriend and girlfriend for 3 years, as extensively displayed on facebook. More to the point I'm about to make, Scott had attended a Dube family wedding in 2008 (a cousin) and vacationed in the Dominican in 2009 with not just Jessica, but her siblings. Jessica spent Xmas 2010! with Scott and the Moirs. She got a Tiffany key pendant, and Alma captioned the photo with "The key to?..."

Why weren't the Dube parents in the stands watching Scott and Tessa compete at the Olympics? Why weren't any Moirs (nor Scott) sitting in the stands with the families watching Dube Davison the way Jessica was planted next to Cara to watch Virtue Moir? Scott's close to the Dubes according to facebook. So are the Moirs, according to that terribly convincing Paris album of Jessica's. Same with Canadians, actually. When Virtue/Moir skated, Jessica was dead center between the Moir and Virtue families, next to Cynthia Phaneuf.* When Dube/Davison skated, the Moirs were nowhere to be seen, nor was Scott, but the Dubes and Davisons were glued together in the stands.

Come to think of it, although the Virtue/Moir families were in adjoining seating at Canadians, at the Olympics, they separated. That's okay. After better than a decade working together for this moment, sit apart. Prioritize the sham - even if only in your half-brained way of thinking would the families being seated separately support the sham. Tessa and Scott are so platonic their families don't even sit together at the Olympic games!

Why didn't any national broadcast - not in Canada, not in the US, mention Jessica Dube in the stands with the Moirs, even with the camera focused on the family and the commentators identifying other family members?

How to be a dick:

When asked when your webpage might be updated, say "Soon!" even if you have no fucking idea. Even if you habitually ignore most questions. Just toss out that chum and disappear. If it's a year later, well, language is flexible.

You want to restrict your facebook, which has previously been open to nearly 5,000 people, because the current privacy settings have become inconvenient.You figure you can launch a fan page and move all the people you intend to restrict (actually delete) as friends over to your fan page, and they'll feel acknowledged and taken care of.

Here's the best way to do it. Announce on your original facebook that you are "shutting this one down" because you don't want to "leave anyone out." Go ahead and launch your fan page with only the most purposefully unengaging photographs in your file. (Scott at a crafts service table from yards away. Scott mock smooching Marina from 2008. Scott sitting like a lump in the WTT Canada condo. Like that.)

Then, don't shut actually shut your original facebook down. Instead, switch out your profile picture on your original facebook to one with your fake girlfriend (for the first time ever. Although you've deleted so many people from your facebook, you don't want to lose them as your stooges. They can see your profile picture despite you deleting them, so make that profile pic sham). Now, delete a few thousand fans while keeping your original facebook active where everyone you've just deleted can see it, and retain a select number of fans who go around rubbing it in the faces of the rejected. Neglect your new fan page, while those left on your original page boast and hint as to its exclusive content.

Next, after being largely unresponsive to fan comments on your fan page, surface on your "fan" page to acknowledge dozens of birthday wishes, for the first time in your facebook history.

It's a set-up.

In the same time frame, appear on your facebook to solicit suggestions for a profile picture when you already know what you're going to put up as your profile picture. Watch as fans fall over themselves trying not to scare you away, trying to appease you, while still asking earnestly, as politely as they can, for a photo of you and your ice dance partner. Watch as these suggestions accumulate. Show up to acknowledge the great ideas. After a beat, post a photo of Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Watch as fans choke down their disappointment and fall over themselves telling you it's a great photo.

Call out fans who make friend requests to "Tessa Virtue" on facebook, because that facebook is fake. Announce it's just not cool to support a fake facebook account.

Continue to set fans up and bash fans over the head on facebook with your fake relationship with Jessica Dube. When you're called out, go whack-a-mole.

Skate a summer exhibition that's a full house when you and your partner skate. Ignore the fan congratulations on your fan facebook. Another birthday passes and ignore all of the well wishes. Show up to announce you are closing down your fan facebook, and direct fans to your webpage for new updates. Remind fans the new season is just around the corner (implication - updates will correspond to new season).

Withdraw from the new season's first competition.

Ignore withdrawal on webpage.

In October 2012, webpage is up-to-date as of August.

That's how it's done.

ETA - there were so many conspicuous, "personal" conversations conducted on a public wall visible to thousands of figure skating fans, but Alma's with Jay Loosley remains a favorite. Loosley is a local, a neighbor of the Moirs, involved in figure skating, with a brother who is a figure skater. I suspect Alma has Jay's phone number and email. After all, he attended Leanne Moir's wedding and I didn't see any invitation on Jay's facebook wall.

One day in August 2010, Alma posts on Jay's wall (this is the style/gist but I'm not digging up original for exact details).

"Hey Jay! I have that picture! How about lunch on Sunday!"

"Sounds good, I have to [blah blah blah] but am free after 11:00!"

"Scott has to work out in the morning so how does 1:00pm sound at SHOELESS JOES!"

"Good! Casen [baby] is excited!"

"It's a date! Joe, me, [name], Scott [name] and Jessica will be there with bells on!"

Goes the fandom: Gulp - Jessica!

Before the day is out Jay Loosley uploads on his own public wall. "Casen's lunch with Scott and Jessica!" You know, because unless he'd put Jessica in the title, the total strangers (fans, stooges) this is aimed towards might neglect to click on the link to receive their scheduled dose of propaganda.

Shoeless Joes was empty. Jessica was posed to the side of the family Loosley, apart from Scott, and she posed solo with Casen. Cara Moir posted that she was sorry she had to "miss this photo shoot."

They somehow thought it worthwhile to recruit a neighbor to pose with, and to buffer, Jessica and Scott in the middle of what appeared to be a completely empty early afternoon, two people who appeared to be in that restaurant purely for the purpose of being photographed, as it doesn't seem food was consumed. A short time later, Jessica and Scott posed for one photo at Leanne Moir's wedding, so why bother with this "lunch"?

These people (Moirs, Virtues) enjoyed fucking with the common folk. They enjoyed it.

Still - weird that a woman such as Alma, who so prefers arranging lunch dates with neighbors on facebook, has not the time to update Scott's facebook fan page for him.

And another thing. If I recall correctly, the original edit of Menage a Trois Sur La Glace was released in early 2009. Also in early 2009 was the World Team Trophy. In Menage, Bryce faces the camera and volunteers that it is difficult to see Jessica with her boyfriend (unnamed by him but which the voice-over tells us is Scott Moir). Bryce and the boyfriend had been friends since childhood, shares Bryce, but "We're not anymore."

Remember, this is Jessica and Bryce's show. They speak directly to the camera. They volunteer stuff nobody had known about til the two of them apparently decided to bellow out some truly tacky information directly to us. Jessica is for definitely dating Scott Moir, so just because you don't see the two of them around each other at competitions doesn't mean they're not dating, cause they so are. It's even wrecked Bryce's friendship with Scott!

That's exactly the sort of information privacy-seeking figure skaters are apt to share. If nobody is super sure you're dating someone (as they hadn't held open house on facebook yet) - just broadcast it on Tellement Sport for internet fans, as these are the people figure skaters are most eager to keep posted about their intimate lives. Be explicit on the web broadcast that even though you and Scott Moir are so private nobody sees you together when you're at the same event, you are totally dating. I hope we're clear.

Then along comes World Team Trophy and Scott completely ignores Jessica while he and his ex-friend Bryce fall over each other making jokes and kidding around together, right under the camera's nose. This is like, seconds after Bryce tells us all about how he and Scott aren't friends no more.

It would be one thing if Bryce and Jessica had attempted to keep the sad rift with Scott a secret, and Bryce and Scott were attempting to spin/deny the story after some expose'. But, that's not what happened. It was Bryce who broke this news. Then he and Scott display bromance all over the cameras in Japan.

FF a bit less than a year later when Bryce and Jessica make the Olympic team, Scott grabs Bryce arm and hugs it. Jessica, on the other side of Bryce, may as well have been stuffed.

I don't think these people understood that people who read facebook also read interviews. People who watch Tellement Sports also watch WTT.
_____________________________________

*Cynthia. We remember Jerome (Jay) LaRochelle, who co-starred with Jessica and Scott as Cynthia's boyfriend during Worlds 2009. There was an entire facebook album of Jessica's dedicated to the sightseeing tour the two couples took of Los Angeles highlights. The foursome even shared a hotel room. The following year, Jay was still  Cynthia's beloved, surfacing in Catherine Miller's "Ete 2010" album as Cynthia's date to Sophie Richards' wedding (where all the sham couples were seated at the same table).

Cynthia has announced her retirement. No longer is her boyfriend Jay LaRochelle, but a hockey player, and she intends to relocate to Pennsylvania, USA, to be with him. Boy, that is some whirlwind romance. When she was with Jay, she trained with Annie Barabe. Between then and now, she changed training centers, split with Jay, found a new bf, was injured, and the relationship with the new bf (a very busy, professional hockey player) developed to where she's moving to the US to be with him. She traded a very metrosexual sort of guy for a more rough and ready sort of guy. Ah, figure skating romance.

Photo of the Month

www.virtuemoir.com

August 2012 "Photo of the month"

September 2012 "Photo of the Month"

October 2012 "Photo of the Month".

Keep looking.

That didn't take long. The "new" website has only been back up and running since July 2012.

In many other blog posts it's been hashed out that Scott and Tessa don't want to interact with the public if they can't use the various outreach platforms to market lies. Fine. But virtuemoir.com was put up quite some time ago, then its registration expired, then Team Virtue Moir grabbed the address back, then the current rendition went live, changed up one photo from mid-July to August, and here it is once again, a fossil.

Why didn't they grab the address back to prevent some horrible person from using it for ill-purposes, and leave it at that? Why revive it with pretty pictures, smarm and empty promies, then abandon it?

I wonder why it was set up to begin with, really. I wonder if it was intended to be another, more adroit staging ground for sham - if not Jessica, than platonic stuff - and when that became problematic they lost interest.

Out of Finlandia

Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue have withdrawn from Finlandia "due to the injury of Scott Moir."

Skate Canada p.r. shovels out bullshit and inanity by the bucketload, but in a real situation lies low. They can fall over themselves about Thomas Sabo but when it comes to updating the public on the status of a star attraction, suddenly everything's cryptic.

With the years and years of lies Scott and Tessa have foisted upon the public, and continue to foist upon the public, and with the season-long lie that was 2010-2011, the team has only itself to blame it's not taken at face value.

Jessica's "ankle problem" only contributes to the climate of fishy, considering she was a major element in Skate Canada's cross-platform bullshit dissemination strategy. I don't believe the two situations are connected, but they're each indicative of how SC operates in bad faith with the public.

I'm pretty sure Jessica isn't pregnant (Jessica is at least straining on pinterest trying to put that to rest) but am equally sure Jessica's ankle isn't why she's missing the Grand Prix.

Scott and Tessa have lied so much, the first thing you do when they announce anything is figure out where the lie is. What are they covering up?

Even if Scott IS injured; believing that he's injured isn't something you can take their word for.

He shuts down his fan page after keeping it up for a year; claiming he had no time. He's had "no time" (haha) for fb for more than a year and still it stayed up, but just before the season starts - bye bye. He also reminds us the exciting season is just around the corner.

Wait a beat. Oops, the season is delayed - they've withdrawn from Finlandia.

Did he know this when he shut down facebook?

What injury does he have? His back (all ice dancers and pairs guys struggle with back pain)? Is he practicing on which ankle he can limp most convincingly? You know they couldn't claim Tessa was injured, because everybody would believe it was shins, and going forward into the season Virtue Moir would be paranoid that the judges would see her as struggling on the ice even if she were skating like an angel. So if they needed to skip Finlandia, it had to be Scott this time.

Oops - update: "Slight" neck issue.

"It is disappointing not to go to Finland, but this early in the season we feel it was better to be cautious and careful. We have a long season ahead of us, and just don’t want to risk aggravating things by travelling and competing this weekend," said Moir. 

They do it like that. In 2010-2011 they were also just chomping at the bit to compete, also disappointed to miss TEB, SC, Canadians, but also had a long season ahead, felt it was better to be cautious and careful.

He might be injured, but it's not anybody's fault but theirs if they're not immediately believed. That's what happens when you lie more than you tell the truth, and lie when the truth would do just as well.

Scott and Tessa are stars and there are many disappointed fans who'd planned to attend Finlandia based entirely on their participation. It would be nice if these fans could trust the reasons they're to be disappointed and I certainly hope Scott and Tessa didn't decide to withdraw until recently. I hope they didn't know awhile ago but held back. They've done that type of thing before, and the paying public just has to eat the price of their tickets (and travel). We know where Scott and Tessa's priorities and values lie, and it ain't with the common skating fan or their hard-earned dollars.

Scott and Tessa should be huge stars for Skate Canada. They're stars, but apart from bragging rights, they've not done much for Skate Canada's bottom line, or for the public's interest in events produced by Skate Canada, and I think some of this goes to the shiftiness and lack of consideration towards the public where Virtue and Moir are concerned. It's been there from the start and I think the public feels a little burned.

After boasting about their promotional savvy in the run-up to Vancouver, Skate Canada failed spectacularly at converting gold medals/skating stars into increased public interest and enhanced revenue. As the blog has said a billion times, they have lost sponsors, and no matter how often they shove Thomas Sabo at us (is Kozy Shack now khopped liver?), Sabo is a minor sponsor a la Artistry, not the title sponsor that is key to the financial health of a thriving North American figure skating federation.

Scott and Tessa were supposed to generate a tidal wave of money for Skate Canada. They didn't.

It can't be discounted that Skate Canada just plain sucks at promotion.They're inane. They overestimate the public appeal of their obnoxious slate of directors. They promote everything but,  you know, figure skating. They promote the IMAGE they want of figure skating - so we end up with hazy impressions that SC thinks something BOMBASTIC and DRAMATIC is afoot, but SC is sort of vague about the specifics.They promote their logo.They've decided to promote the living hell out of Paul Poirier and Piper Gilles.To me the two of them come across as a reverse drag team, but Skate Canada and their fans believe they come across as likeable and FUN. They're FUN. Are they a major skating competition ticket's worth of fun, or a let's fight about them on message boards type of fun? What does the bottom line say?

This is all very try hard and does a lot of skirting around the skating. Skate Canada does a lot of skirting around the skating in general. You'd think a skating federation staffed at the highest level by ex-figure skaters would have more confidence in the public appeal of the actual sport they represent, instead of constantly and desperately trying to promote-by-association.

They also had this plan in place to promote Scott and Tessa and they ended up strangled by it. IMO with Scott and Tessa wanting to lie, they should have promoted Scott and Tessa as the once-in-a-lifetime ice dancing team they are and left relationship stuff minor key.

I thought it was interesting that, in a recent FSU discussion, it was claimed SC didn't promote Scott and Tessa's relationship, and so why would Scott and Tessa want to stage a fake relationship instead in order to protect their privacy?

I must have dreamt the book promotion done immediately after the Olympics, promoted in every possible media outlet, pushed by everyone from Tracey Wilson to Debbi Wilkes to David Pelletier, a book that centered around their "relationship". I don't recall very many media questions about training and skating. It was all relationship. An entire radio interview with a prominent outlet was all about Tessa and Scott getting choked up, jaws set, faces grim, reliving an estrangement between them that never took place. An entire Ben Mulroney interview took place with the three of them barely able to discipline their snickers at the expense of the public (you think Mulroney didn't know the score? You think they didn't know he knew?).

WTF does FSU think promotion is? That's promotion. Why was the book out in the first place? PROMOTION.

While Skate Canada is objectively bad at marketing, the management of Scott and Tessa compounded this by not just being ineffectual, but actually backfiring, so the whole gold medal deal became bragging rights for SC and did nothing for the bottom line. They've been shifty from the start, and so Scott and Tessa withdrawing from Finlandia doesn't read as a legitimately cautious reaction to a normal athlete injury, but raises the question of more Scott and Tessa wannabe sleight-of-hand.

All this utter crap, all this ugly, because these two didn't want the public - at least officially - to know they were in love and together.