Feb 1, 2005

The Tsunami has been relegated to last week's Sun cover proclaiming that a UFO had been found among the debris on some remote beach. I didn't actually buy it, deciding instead to wait for the inevitable Learning Channel special... I immediately bought the latest Examiner with the beyond Diane Arbus cover and dreaded headline "Liz plans her own funeral", which is at least not yet "The Sad Last Days of Liz". While she is only 70 something, Ms. Taylor etc has lived through enough pharmaceutical epochs to qualify for at least 400 something. It is amazing the "old trampoline" as she was referred to last year by her butler (at least in the pages of the Examiner) is even conscious, much less still applying eyeshadow. I long for lavish longevity for both Ms. Taylor and her polar counterpart, Doris Day, who is also going through difficult times due to the recent death of her son. These two old broads showed us all how to go on for decades, and deserve accolades for having survived the valley of the dolls for so long. The Examiner story, written by my favorite tabloid writer Laurie Campbell, focused on Taylor's working out a way to be buried next to Richard Burton in Wales. He is currently interred near the home of his last snippy little wife in Switzerland. No mention of last year's embarrassing butler. Was he ever fired? Hopefully Ms. Taylor won't suffer the ignoble fate of Doris Duke, done in by unpleasant domestics (in conjunction with a doctor and a lawyer, if I recall the mini-series correctly)... Several senior stars did actually pass on recently and were covered quite well in all the rags, however I would like to add that Virginia Mayo, who will be forever remembered due (literally) to her appearance in the visually astonishing motion picture "The Silver Chalice", was the blatant inspiration for the late drag queen Divine's make-up. I cannot believe the New York Times leaves this shit out... Johnny Carson is surely going to be sculpted into Mt. Rushmore from all the mainstream media accolades. The tabloids more realistically went with his wife having left him prior to his death, and his son being the deadbeat dad of a mixed child . Carson came across in the stories as very grim and isolated. He was like Jackie Kennedy in that he gave the whole country a very credible and appealing image of itself - in his case through self-deprecating (if smug) humor, in her case through total calculated chicness. Like icon Jackie he seemed cold when encountered. Carson came one afternoon to the door of my school friend's apartment in the U. N. Plaza (he lived next door), in his bathrobe and slippers, to complain we were playing music (the brand new New York Dolls as I recall) too loud. He was cold, nasty, and (just like Jackie) smoking. I couldn't believe the U.N. Plaza didn't have better soundproofing, and fixated on Mr. Carson's somewhat hairy ankles sticking out of his robe... Let us return to the living, and where better than the pages of the New York Post, which sets the tone for my day GOD HELP US ALL! People in the Post are hell bent to live life to the fullest, and those are just the people who work there. The celebs covered in the post get a lifetime double A (for Absolutely Appalling). Never mind showing us how to go on, they do quite the opposite and I love them for it. Most of all I love Paris Hilton, and the Post (along with everybody else!) should lighten up on her already! Just what is so bad about this delightful girl of the (prolonged) moment? How many other girls of the "moment" have had their own network television series run three seasons? How many people period can make a home sex tape that is a best seller (and believe me I've tried!)? As someone who has suffered through more than their share of these often sodden and surly girls of the moment, I think Paris Hilton is the best one since Twiggy. Astonishingly, she manages this without a consistent hairstyle. She always looks amazing, no matter how ridiculous, and her brilliant, refreshing antics never fail to elicit genuine delight from this jaded, bitter old bitch... The best coverage recently in the Post has been that of the Danny Pelosi Hampton's murder scandal. Doris Duke's dubious demise aside, crime usually holds no interest for me other than to avoid it, along with the Patsy's and the Laci's who perpetrate and inspire it. Circumstantially convicted Scott could do in that slag Amber on the basis of her bad styling for all I care. Never mind a TV movie in the making, the Pelosi murder case is a TV movie with production values in the making! The dark undercurrents between the Long Island locals and the monied Manhattanites could be interpreted ingeniously by Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman as harridan Generosa in a Showtime production (or Fay Dunaway if Lifetime produces). My unanswered question to the Post is if the sadistic, brutal murderer Pelosi got 25 years to life for 2nd degree murder, what do you have to do to get convicted of 1st degree murder?! Perhaps if Pelosi had killed someone perceived as heterosexual... A recent tempest in a teapot, concerning the sexuality of Sponge Bob Square Pants, was handled "tongue in cheek" by the Post. Let me be blunt on this subject. ALL CARTOON CHARACTERS ARE GAY. DUH. Just get over it, or cover your mirrors and relegate yourself to a life of self-delusion in the proverbial red states. "Asexuality" is a myth embraced by the self-loathing in Hollywood and elsewhere. In a related story in last week's Examiner, again penned by the highly underrated Laurie Campbell, cartoon character Tammy Faye Baker recently had to flee from her West Hollywood church because the semi-buff, blonde highlighted minister, whose credo was to convert gays to heterosexuality, was busted for conducting his conversions in the church hot tub. Tongue in cheek indeed. In homage to my favorite New York Post columnist Cindy Adams, only in West Hollywood kids...