Dear Farrah

In the fifth grade, we went with friends to our one-horse town's lone movie house to see something called Logan's Run. When you appeared on screen our best friend Danny Tatterson whispered "dude, that's the Wella Balsam chick!" 

We came away from that flick thinking it was actually a good idea to make people to fly around a carousel and explode on their thirtieth birthday (which seemed a century away), not to mention that coolio gadget that enabled the citizens of bubble-town to browse homo or hetero hump mates from the comfort of home; "wow" we thought, "I hope they invent that when I grow up." But walking home from The Evergreen Bijou, all Danny Tatterson could talk about was "Creamy" (his retarded nickname for you).

Then came Charlie's Angels. That poster. That mega-watt smile, warm and bright as the first sunny day of summer. Holy crap. Suddenly everyone wanted to have you or be you, and we'll leave it to Jesus to figure out which camp we were in. You were single-handedly responsible for making everyone we know (including yours truly), compulsively feather their hair; an unfortunate plague that afflicted Bonnie Franklin, The Bee Gees, and everyone in between (and reaching its tragic apex with Blair in The Facts of Life). You dazzled. If we hated you for anything, it was because you'd taken The Six Million Dollar Man off the market.

So what if you were capable of chronic ditziosity? Aren't we all? You also handed Bill Cosby's ass to him on a platter in a wicked tennis match on Battle of the Network Stars (remember THAT?). And you proved that beneath your seriously pretty face and rockin' bod you had real chops. The Burning Bed is what everyone will talk about. But Extremities was a better performance; harrowing, intense and empowering. Beyond that, anyone who saw you in The Apostle wondered silently to themselves "Damn, she's good. Why doesn't she work more?"

And today. Today, the Pilsburry Doughboy that used to be Ryan O'Neal is reprising the final scene of Love Story, that movie in which his gorgeous girlfriend dies of cancer, long before her time. Why can't the Ayatollah die of ass rot? Kim Jong Il? Robert Mugabe? Bernie Madoff? Where Do I Begin?

And today, on the first sunny day to bless NYC this summer, Jill Munroe is gone. And suddenly, sadly, middle-aged folks like me (for whom age thirty, once again, seems a century away) look back on the time when you exploded onto the national scene as suddenly as the hormones in our adolescent bodies. And today, we feel a lot older. And sadder.

RIP and so long, Creamy. You were a beauty.

xox
WAM

Charlie sez: "Angels, your mission is to subscribe to this blog's feed." 

Comments

[Mike Waite]

Farrah's hairstylist in Hollywood was "ARMANDO"!! HE made her look famous!! ARMANDO (just imagine rolling that name off your tongue..because lets face it he probably was a super latino hair GOD..and you know he ws good because he only needed ONE NAME) in 1973 ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMANDO looked at Farrah and had the vision to "feather" her into the hairdo hall of fame!!!!! I was one of the prepubescent pimply-faced starstruck four-eyed brace-wearing worshippers of Farrah.. AND STILL HAVE THAT FAMOUS POSTER... I remember buying it at the record shoppe in San Antonio, Texas where I grew up...I fondly remember she was my crush......as well as Parker Stephenson and Leif Garrett...I was a confused child....I do remember blowing kisses to all three before I would go to bed...Not sure which one I was REALLY attracted to... I even remember going to a High School Debate tournament in Corpus Christi at CC Ray High School (Farrah's alma mater)where they even had a "Farrah" day...It just so happened that the tournament fell on that Friday... Seriously, they had painted foot prints of Farrah's supposed daily-foot trek routine.. from her locker to all her classes her senior year... I remember thinking, "Oh Good Lord.. Who does that??... It's just Farrah" Now I think, "JUST FARRAH???" The woman was/is an American Icon and now I want to go out and purchase the Charlies Angels library of episodes.... I almost feel a bit numb as if my childhood died today....

[Whup-Ass Master]

@Mike Waite: There's a hairdo hall of fame? Seriously, why does Farrah's death make me so sad? Such a lovely lady. We're hetero for her.

xox
WAM

[lablu*z]

She makes you sad because she was over-marketed. Associated with products you would never use (they just didn't have our segmentation of controls built-in then! It was the dark ages!). But
you remember her with some cream and on a poster which was i'm sure at the time mind-blowing.

It's why we feel horrible when Jimi Hendrix died. He was a madman, but damn, he introduced madmanism, inducted folks into madman halls of fame. That touches every part of society. The
parts which love it and those which don't.

[@Mike: i losthe to be a disappointerater, but i could make a few thousand $ gift to my alma mater and have a line of tampons commemorating my final pms episode on campus tracked. Universities are businesses, they <3 $ for nothing.]

Her life was about selling products because she was already famous but couldn't act. She slept with just the right no. of the wrong men to be exotic and all LAish rather than whorish and italian. She started out as a brand marketer and turned in by accident/fate/guts into her own brand.

And she and her brand partner for the last few decades couldn't wait to do the same thing for her death. Even O'Neill's announcement was somewhere between heartbreaking and manqëë, and i have no idea where that line is.

In 30 year will we all bemoan the passing of Jessica Simpson in the same light? Will Ashton Kutchner's final tweet: Demi-tasse, leave us restless and looking for bigger answers and smaller ones to satisfy our morbid pretend connection to folks whom we never met and certainly never knew. I would be amazed if they ever knew themselves.

We decorate with fame. Some of us because we are starf00kers of the highest calibre and others because we are looking for a connection to the mainstream of our world, a portal if you will (pardons to John Malkovich ---who, following a theme, i once forced to buy baby carrots for his daughter, true story.) Unfortunately doing so with empty eyed full smiled air-brushed (today) rotting corpses is not the way. Too many never realize that and develop relationships with loads of other folks on the internet who suffer the same dysfunction. Too bad they're not just at a coffee shop talking about life together.

<3

[lablu*z]

NB: I believe that Jackson's demise means childf00king, living in an hyperbolic chamber, and relying on shady gulf state interests to keep you out of trouble isn't any safer a game than shooting flowers in the blood, starf00king, and becoming a shady character on sets and around starbucks on the good sides of town.

Death is everywhere and mourning these folks in the endless entourage/montague that thankfully will be a sunny (away from media) weekend, is a slap in the face to every starving child (in africa or a few miles from where you live); homeless families ---because despite their eggregious and offensive wealth, they seemed to be able to do nothing about this in their own home towns; communities moved off their historic lands in "machete real estate ventures"; every person being tortured at this moment; and thousands of young iranians for whom michael jackson nor farah fawcet means much of anything; although they (young generation) where are hope of normalized future relations with a nuclear power right now run by a full frontal psycho - they are being disappeared by the scores. We will never hear them reach out to us with something more enticing than a pop song, and appeal to buy coke(acola) or some other marketing blitz. They just wanted to live in a better world. Maybe take a moment of silence for those folks.

shabat shalom,

~lb*/

[Whup-Ass Master]

yes, lablu-z: things are tough all over and the situation on the ground is, as always, desperate. but beauty and entertainment have a place in this life, in fact they play the vital role of providing momentary respite from the constant sh*tstorm. Yes, we mourn Neda and the many like her. And we can also mourn Farrah, whom we liked and who made everything just a tad sunnier.

xox
WAM

[Mike Waite]

Man Labluz! Bitter....TABLE FOR ONE... Honey! Good Lord! Do I need to put out a saucer of milk????? Sweetie, we are just remembering someone who obviously brought happiness to us..... reminds us of "Happy" times!!! Our childhoods.. sharing Charlie's Angels episodes over the phone with friends.. or even, dare I say, PRETENDING TO BE AN ANGEL....(there I said it....you know you all wanted to...) And as far as you making a thousand dollar donation to your alma mater and the reference you made to tampons.. ewwwwww. Oh and sweetie...And you, by your own words, are guilty of being a starfOOKER..you felt the need to mention (and which has nothing to do with this article) "forcing John M to buy baby carrots for his daughter??" WHO THE "F" CARES..... I'm sorry there is so much strife, war, poverty, social unrest and the like, however, we can revert to memories that make us feel good and take us back to when times were carefree and somewhat innocent... God, as much as I don't like the Hollywood gossip and think that Hollywood is way over-hyped.. a part of me still likes the Farrahs, Anna Nicoles, Reese Witherspoons, Suzanne Sommers, Girls Next Door......all the blondes.. Why? Because they make America SMILE....or chuckle....and there is NOTHING wrong with that... Peace to you and I hope you have happieness in your life...

[Whup-Ass Master]

@Mike Waite: Sic 'em, Tiger! We're actually glad our saccarine tribute to Creamy illicited some strong response. Lablu-z and her rants are as welcome here as you are. And you never answered the question: Is there a hairdo hall of fame and where is it? Please say it's in Nashville.

@Lablu-z: Today's post should please you.

[lablu*z]

@Mike. When i was young and growing up in a house full of people continuing the work of Che Guevara -somehow without the strong, overtly sexualized, and strenuous use of "the carrot" (it's a reference, a joke, people with iq's, eq's and a sense of humour get those things), but learning daily about exploitation in factories in the .us which allowed worse exploitation of workers all over the world; that there would never be a land of the Jews until there was a land of the Palestinians, and then packing up and moving out for GWI because my family somewhere along the line got the difference between Tzionism and real estate; and some other simpler lessons which i will use to slow myself down a bit now and speak to you as if we were sharing a cuppa somewhere in the middle....

The table is large and might be even called a moveable feast (carrots included ---it should just become the mascot veg of COWA at this point). There is room for everyone. Because of that i feel not only confident, but justified in speaking for myself. Which i did in two posts which upset you very much. What i would like us both to contemplate here is what made you so dispeptic? Asking you to share your memories (childhood) with reality (adulthood)?

If i asked the Southie Plumber and Pipefitter over on the other side of me why a gay man shouldn't be at this table, i might find his answer a little closety and over-full of pink fluff wrapped in a manly -albeit low calorie, beer.

I would like to gently suggest, that perhaps your anger towards my words reflects your dissatisfaction with putting too much fun above the work the world needs you to be doing. Or i could be doing an harmless, online, text.based impression of Jim Carey (name.drop/starf00k me 10pts!) talking out his arse. It's not my call.

And as for your disgust at my menses, well, what are you? Straight? Gay? Or just a mysogynist? It was making a didactic point, and the fact that it was strong enough verbiage to make you remember it, means i was successful. You are welcome.

I'm going to quote from something i wrote earlier after hearing a musical tribute (depression increases basket size, remember that --which is why markets try to break down shoppers by time periods and age demographics in order to play songs which were in the top 40 when they were 18, a most beautiful, yet depressing time. Customers will just walk aimlessly looking for something to make them feel that good while filling up the hole of pain-remembered. AKA They will overshop.), and i hadn't even realized how much i had enjoyed his music. MJ when i was in uni was just a staple of party tracks: rasily accessible, not too black to be uncomfortable, yet just funky enough to "get down", and so ubiquitous and iconic that there was no one in the (our?) world who wasn't familiar.

In that moment, i saw everyone's big point about FF, a childhood star that brought joy and dreams and hope. Who represented something good and clean and "creamy" (;

But Michael Jackson was a pedophile. And while Farrah Fawcet didn't go around kicking old women in the streets (that i know), she wasn't a very good actress. (I understand there is a debate on this, but she doesn't move me.) IMO, she was good at acting LIKE...like something society is comfortable with in women. Sexuality and stupidity and lols...all the time lols. Sort of like all the buxom, blousy blondes who never need anything from guys like you because other sorts of guys are just always walking up to them and giving them what they need. That's the story line right? (On Wiki this am i read that Davy Mirish saw a picture of her and just called her up and asked her to come to Hollywood....well of course he did!) But that tight constant smile and obsessive lookism, it speaks to something eles.

Sort of like MJ diligently sculpting himself to become what he felt was more attractive? Apropriate? Better (whiter)?

Or as my grandfather, bless him, use to say, "There's good in everyone, look at Hitler [Y"S], built great roads!" And he, my grandfather, knew as they were partially through his home country.

So, Mike, lots of hard words from you, and i think i gave as good as i got. I still hope you sit at the table and i hope you pull up a chair right next to me.

@WAM ¡Hoy la Revoluciön, mañana las zanahorias!

~lb*/

[Whup-Ass Master]

@lablu-z: Lovely retort, my dear. Long-winded as heck, but lovely.

@Mike, we believe the ball is in your court. Though, at the end of the day (it's cocktail hour!), we suspect you and lablu-z could knock back harvey-wallbanger after harvey wallbanger and end up the best of besties.

xox
WAM

[lablu*z]

@WAM: It's not Twitter, I'm allowed 141++ chars LOL ktnx byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!