Girls is for Everyone

I just want to say that I think Lena Dunham is amazing. Her show, HBO’s Girls, is SO funny and well-written and she is SO smart. I’ve heard a dozen podcast interviews with her if I’ve heard one and she sure enough is smart. Also humble. She freely admits how nice it has been to have parents in the arts, because they understand. Also to have parents who said she could still live at home with them as long as she paid her way.Hanna Horvath is the name of her character. Here are the four main  'ladies' in the show now in case you don't know them:I like that her best friend from college is in the show with her, sexy Jessa played by Jemima Kirke. I love the character of Soshonna Shapiro played by the versatile Zosia Mamet, daughter of David Mamet and  granddaughter of Russel Crouse, who wrote such blockbuster musicals as Anything Goes and The Sound of Music.I like that we get to see newsman Brian Williams’s daughter Alison every week, though she may be getting a tad too THIN lately. (eh?I love Elijah played by the wonderful Andrew Rannells is great too. His is a face any camera would love.And the honesty of  last season’s boyfriend is amazingly appealing to me. Adam Sackler, played by Adam Driver.In the first episode of the new season she is coming to his apartment every day because she more or less caused him to get in such a state at the end of Season One that he got hit by a truck. His leg is broken and he needs bedpan help. At one point she says to him, “You’re not being very nice to me right now” and he says back,  “When you’re in love you don’t have to be nice all the time.” Great writing! -  and in my book about as true a thing you can say about that raggedy ol’ thing called marriage oh yes.) Anyway I could look at that long crooked-nosed face of his all day and was surprised to see him in Spielberg’s Lincoln.Finally I think I love her because who in the history of capturing still or moving images has even been braver than she is about showing her soft untoned body in its true light in episode after episode? I read a John Updike passage lately where he spoke of a young woman’s thighs as looking ‘columnar'. Like the thighs of all young women, he said, and I thought for the millionth time how true and exact he was as an observer of us all.Lena is 26. I’m the flip of that age plus add a year but I feel the truth of everything she writes and says. I say here’s to her and her fine intelligence. She even reacted kindly when the puerile Howard Stern called her a 'little fat chick' on his radio show this week. Wit! Humor! Forbearance! She has it all. May she live to be a hundred!Here’s the trailer from season one, a perfect little ‘film’ all by itself, Her very last remark, made in an examination gown on her gynecologist’s table is one for the ages.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_L52eExAHU]

Abe Called

To round out our talk of mirrors let me end with these two photos of Abe Lincoln which do show what a marked difference it makes to flip your image, right to left.In this first photo with his dry and difficult hair and that sensual lower lip he looks as we ‘remember’  him: noble, generous, broken hearted.In the second picture you get a whole different impression . Here he looks really rumpled,  almost deranged, and those spots on his cheek look almost cartoonish, as if they were drawn on by somebody.I remember reading somewhere that more words have been written about this man than any other figure in the world with the exception of Jesus of Nazareth. The shock we feel on seeing him in an unfamiliar way proves that he is 'in' us all right, an iconic figure if ever there was one.  And now let's end with this tuneful song by someone whose perceived image of himself seemed to torture him all his life. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgpEg3tu01I&feature=related]

Button it Babe

In thinking about teeth yesterday I tried to  come up with elebrities who have NOT gone the caps-’n-veneers route and in doing so thought of one of our best actresses ever: Susan Sarandon who was born in 1946. believe it or not.  I looked at a dozen pictures of her and still couldn’t tell if those were still the original surfaces of her teeth we were seeing or if she’s now wearing some kind of siding on them.Of course I actually didn’t get too FAR in my research before realizing that probably she doesn’t care all that much about her teeth since her major assets lie elsewhere, as you can see.To this I can only say Good for you Susan. You’re a braver woman than I am.And I’m sorry if I hurt Robert Redford fans by remarking on his big fake teeth. Certainly I'm no one to be talking about teeth with my two front ones leaning hard to the left the way they do. And teeth just darken with age, what can we say? Look in the mirror. Open your cat’s mouth. It’s true.It’s true and it’s sad. since we have little enough left to us as we age.Once I was a big midriff person. No more. Now the only parts of my body I expose are my knees and my shoulders, and only those because the nice round bones underneath keep the skin looking at least somewhat taut.I was once a great one for low-cut clothes, God help me. No more o' that either - which makes life hard since it seems like all women’s tops these days come with these deeply scooped necks. It used to annoy me to no end - until I started wearing them backwards . People keep coming up to me in the Post Office to say “Uh, do you know you have your sweater on backwards?” I know. Believe me I know.This is me at a Come As You are Party I went to at our best pals' house with my poofy 80s hair. I had been sitting on the back porch writing when the call came. And here just for fun is another shot of that fun time. That’s David on whose lap I'm sitting. He gets why I've buttoned up finally but I think the backwards dressing makes him a little nervous. :-) 

Losing Battle Department

The picture of Robert Redford here is from the online version of the  Q & ATime Magazine recently  did, tying it to his latest directorial work  The Conspirator which comes out today. I look at his face and suppose that even the Pope would recognize it. I guess by most standards he looks great - for the fact that he’s still wearing his hair like it’s 1969 and oh those giant white teeth.It’s mostly the teeth I find jarring because teeth actually get less white the longer you trot them around in the world, not more white. Sure, lots of celebrities try to fight that fact what with veneers and all but to me they just end up looking silly.In this Time interview, the person posing the questions asks Redford if it was limiting during his early years in Hollywood to be perceived as so good-looking. He said yes.  “because when I started [in TV], that's not the way I was seen. I played all kinds of parts - killers, psychos. They were fun, real character roles. Then, when I went into film, it suddenly shifted. You're not given freedom to move out of that.”Well if he REALLY wants to ‘move out of that’ he could be more like Clint Eastwood and just let nature take its course? As it is, with that mop of Sundance Kid hair and those teeth like bathroom tiles you look at him and think only along Young vs. Old lines which is never the best way to think about  people. The way I like to think about them is "Are they still in the world  where I can write them a letter or are they gone beyond to where zip codes just can’t reach?""Are they dead or are they alive?"  is all I ask myself. And the paradox is that even with his slight stoop and his no-longer super-white teeth, Clint strikes me as a more 'alive' than Bob.and now because it's so nice to see a great director act, a clip of Clint as Walt Kowalski  in Gran Torino[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVYWxEF49PQ]

You Think You're So Smart

Okay so a lot of  people guessed right yesterday: Those WERE pictures of Hillary Clinton and Robin Williams when young but what about these two pix. hmmm? What I want to know now are the identities of (a) the child in the middle here.........and (b) this babe with the slightly inturned teeth:They each reproduced, like many humans (and also rabbits) and certainly the tie between parent and child is very strong. To show you how strong, take a look at this video from 1984, which is the year my son was born. (The strange thing: I remember seeing this show air on Mothers Day of that year. The stranger thing: it seems like it was just five years ago.)I love how fun-loving Robin Williams’ mom is and also how young he looks and how happy. This was just after his first film Popeye, which totally tanked,  and before he began making movies in which he let the audience see the empathy of which he is capable. (That scene from Good Morning Vietnam alone when as Adrian Cronauer he watches the convoy of fresh soldiers passing…!)What really kills me about this clip is not the then-newly-altered shape of Carol Burnett’s jaw the peculiar getup on her sidekick as those two women introduce the segment but how very clear it is that Robin really likes his mom. It’s worth watching all the way through - but for sure stick around long enough for the sightgag with the rubber band.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oziLWy5IVo8]

Not So Famous THEN

,I was once asked to play this parlor game where you have to identify celebrities by their baby pictures. I was terrible at it. I’m convinced I wouldn’t even recognize ET as a baby, so now here’s an easier challenge: What two famous people are seen here, in pictures lifted from their yearbooks? Just do the quick ID and we’ll let class out early.Also, just if you feel like it, post a link to a puzzling name-this-celebrity picture YOU have come across.Oh and the person to the left here someone I met a wig convention once, ha ha. (Don’t be scared; I shave my sideburns now. :-))and....

Sunday Funnies

Sunday again! I say let’s mark this Day of Rest by making fun of famous people.First, check out the mullet on the husband of the year here. Mellie we hardly knew ye!Now, here’s the President of Russia with an obscure sidekick as the two get ready to stand in for TweedleDum and TweedleDee in a remake of that famous final croquet game at Alice’s place over there in Wonderland.And finally a big “hello” to Jerry Brown now putting his signature crotchety spin on his race for the California Governor’s mansion. He was once good-enough looking to date Linda Ronstadt as I recall but now he looks a lot like Peter Boyle God rest his soul…And speaking of Peter here HE his is along with Michael Keaton and Christopher Lloyd in the trailer for that that awesome 1989 film “The Dream Team.” Give yourself a little gift: watch all two minutes of it and ask yourself if you wouldn’t have loved to him as governor of just about any state you care to name.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFeyf3NwHPc]

Babies, the Comatose and Kim Jong Il

What’s nicer than a list for America the illiterate?  Top Ten This, Top Ten That, we love ‘em. Time magazine made this week’s whole issue a list, the World’s 100 Most Influential People. Then they made their funnyman columnist Joel Stein think up 100 of the least influential people for the magazine’s web edition – aside, as he says,  from babies, people in comas and everyone in North Korea besides that Dear and Crazy Leader.Under LOSERS for example he proposes Tom Tom, category Car GPS device: “Six years ago, these were from the future. Now they come with your phone.” Under SLIMY BASTARDS, John Edwards, category Former Presidential Candidate: “He already was irrelevant, then he allowed news of an affair and love child to come out so slowly, we forgot he was already irrelevant.” Under MORONS,  Our girl Heidi Montag, category Star of MTV's The Hills: "You used to be famous for being famous. Then you were famous for getting lots of plastic surgery and selling only 658 copies of your album in its first week. Now you're not famous. That was fast.”And under FLAMEOUTS, three that I really loved: Grover, category Muppet, “Elmo is taking all your airtime, yo”. Any mother of any eighth grade girl, category Parent: “You'll regain influence in a few years, moms.” And Mayor McCheese, category Mayor; ‘Hey, 100 is a lot of people.”It sure is. Who among us could think up 100 of anything except maybe reasons not to clean out the garage? I tried doing that just once and  stumbled upon a whole raccoon family using their delicate fingers to sort through our cans and bottles. I shut the door quick and  never tried that again I can tell you.

Thnax Grill Fiend!

Angry man writes me a letter, wonders where I got the nerve to take valuable newspaper space so that my ridiculous words could  stand in the place of actual news. He’s referring to last weeks’ column, versions of which you can see in papers from Harrisburg PA to Redwood Falls MN to good old Nebraska City News as well as right here at the top of my home page. My thesis there: that texting is doomed simply because when applied to a keyboard no bigger than a credit card the  thumb is one mighty blunt instrument.An example: the text you might find yourself sending to your colleague Tammy the night before that crucial meeting. It just shows what happens when those fat little thumbs miss their mark even by even a centimeter:"Tummy! Ate rou teady for the bog neeting? I’m feeping domewhat wirroed becalm my nimbles son’t seed to be adding up right. Con rou take a loop at them before hunch today?  Thnax grill-fiend!"Or the text I actually did send to my daughter the night Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” opened and Dave and I went to it:"Ho Hiney! Poops and I just saw “Malice in Wanderlust” wit Johnson Deep as the Mud Hitter, amazon! Fuzzy thong though: I kelp boing remanded of  some other actor,  I thank becalms of the bog spice between Johnson’s two frump teens. Who DOZE he look like? Mike Tyson? Lauren Hutton ? Waist, I know! He loops like Madonna! Minus the bivalves, bipeds, biceps ha ha.”My answer to the angry letter writer? Columnists really don't take space that would otherwise be devoted to the news. The papers set aside this space for us, come hell or high water, in the belief that our job as commentators is just as important - which it is, my friend, which it is.

Now for some good Tuesday fun, ponder these pix and you’ll see what I mean about a resemblance in the smiles. Pretty striking, right? I’d say “OMG!”, “LOL” and so on but call me old-fashioned: I still prefer whole words.

And,  just for fun, the Ear-Fillet-and- a-Side-of-Fries king himself  Mike Tyson, who has the ultimate in quirky smiles:

Go Your Own Way

You know you’re in the big winter funk when you’re reading some stupid Goth catalog that dropped through your letter slot and the witchy, droopy-hemmed outfits look good to you.My problem is I keep forgetting I’m not Stevie Nicks circa 1978 and there’s no wind machine tousling my wondrous locks.  Chicks my age go for lots of hair and sleeves that drip like candle wax over the hands. In fact if it were up to me I’d still be wearing long hair parted in the middle but Ronaldo is in charge of my look now and he keeps me in the right century thank God. I go see him today to get colorized, like the old-time movie that I am.It’s always so mellow there at the salon. I get in that chair and read the Herald, Boston’s answer to New York's Daily News with its right-wing  furious  fed-up tone and - it doesn’t even bother me.Tell ya what though: if I had the dough I’d endow the place with a never-lapsing subscription to The National Enquirer, there’s a publication! Jennifer Aston is going to be 75 and they’ll still frame her as gamely waiting in the wings for Brad. And all I can say to that is So am I Jennifer, so am I. Well, if Barry Gibb is no longer available that is.And now, for a REALLY good laugh click on those two links above which are headlines from the Herald AND the Daily News. Who says we're a trashy culture? (Joseph Pulitzer Rolls Over In Grave.)

Blue Moon

We’re having a blue moon tonight, and we won’t have another one on New Year’s Eve until 2028 when I’ll be picking up some extra cash doing Wilfred Brimley impersonations at the local mall.That’s the sin of it all right, the way we girls all talk ourselves down. I went to the beach and the pool at 15 and 19 and 22 and counted myself round, homely, altogether unlovable… Now I  look back at the pictures of myself in those days with my shiny dark hair and skin all smooth and that rounded cheek of youth that Meg Ryan will never get back no matter how much plastic surgery she has (and if God made a more adorable young woman I’d like to know who she is.)What a waste not to know when you have it good! How blind and foolish and altogether human.Look at Meg back in the days of When  Harry Met Sally Days  up top here.Now look at her today.Some say her mouth looks like the Joker's. she definitely let them fiddle with it.Now if you dare check her out at the beach just a few days ago. I may be embarrassed by the jutting mantelpiece I 've been carrying around since age 12 and now I won't show my bare arms to anyone but my doctor and not even my doctor  come to think of it but look what happens when you lose TOO much weight and the lathe shows right through the plaster. Poor Meg all ribs and a sternum. Poor all of us, so much fruit slowly softening in the bowl.

Man in the Mirror

Here at the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists I’ve just heard a talk by Jeff Zaslow, author of The Last Lecture on Professor Randy Pausch’s amazing final talk before his death from pancreatic cancer and the sound of gulped-back tears filled the room.Randy left behind three small children even younger than the three left by Michael Jackson, God rest his troubled soul.These children of Randy's won’t remember their dad and he knew that. It is the cruelest and yet the kindest thing that happens to you as the sorrowing left–behind one, the way your spider of a heart wraps the time immediately following the death in such thick numb bunting you can’t recall them.When, at 45, my sister Nan lost her young husband Tom to death on the tennis court, she blundered blindly through the whole following year. Then one night she 'saw' him as she lay in their bed. He stood at their bedroom door in the tennis outfit he had died in. “I want to come back,” he said plaintively. “You can’t!” she exclaimed through fresh tears.  “Your friend took your job and I gave away your clothes!”Was it a dream or did Tom really come to her that night? And if so, did he repent the pack-a day cigarette habit, the six-hard-boiled-eggs-and–six hot-dogs suppers chased down by whole pints of ice cream?  Does Michael repent the fact that he exhausted his frail and pain-wracked body in preparing for the superhuman task of a 50- show tour? We can’t know. But if we could speak with our dead just one time more I think they would have us take a long look in the mirror and resolve from here on out to spend our own remaining days loving all those of whatever age who shelter in our care and nurture. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcYv5x6gZTA]

Goodbye Angel

Poor Farrah, the original California Girl... I thought I had her hair for a while there, only mine was curly so I actually looked more like an English barrister with bangs. That  TV special where she’s seen alternating between throwing up and dutifully scribbling away in her illness journal was so sad. That’ll be me, still trying to write in my diary in the funeral home. (Remember what the young lady says in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest?  How she never travelled without her diary because a person should always have something sensational to read on the train ha ha ? Those were the days when my diary was so racy with the adventures of a 13-year-old that my sister stole it and used it to blackmail me!It's Thursday morning and I'm in the LA airport with my own diary. Noticng that they really are all tanned  around here and some sensational-looking man-made breasts just went by. This just to say goodbye Farrah with your courage . I only wish you hadn’t been talked into that lip-altering facelift; you were gorgeous just the way God made you.

Dying Isn't Easy

I miss people’s real teeth now that everyone’s trying to go for the makeover-fakeovers.  People seem to feel so apologetic about their teeth and I I get that: I tried the Teeth Whitening Mouthwash, hoping for the best, like when my mom used to put white shoe polish on my sneakers but what  happened? My tongue turned black; scared the bejesus out of the young tech at my doctor’s office. Seems the stuff kills the algae or whatever all that flora is in there, so then the fungi have themselves a field day, amazingI wrote about this nostalgia for people’s real teeth in a recent column and mentioned Ali McGraw, who has these two crooked teeth there along the center aisle of her upper jaw. I noticed this watching the last hour of the 1970 film “Love Story” in which nobody even tells poor Ali-as-Jennifer that she has cancer, even though her rich young husband knows it, as does the fancy Fifth Avenue doc they go to because they can’t seem to get a baby going.The doc uses that favorite Old Hollywood method of delivering bad news, meaning by the slow-drip followed by the sudden fatal dose.  He’s having a secret meeting with Ali’s young groom  Oliver Barrett III, played by Ryan O’Neal.  “I’m afraid children won’t be possible,” he gravely intones.  “So we’ll adopt!” counters cheeky young Oliver. “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that.” “What do you mean?” “She’s dying.”Then there’s more schmaltzy music, a feeble walk or two in the park, some exhausted-looking kissing and the next thing you know she’s telling him she wants to bring the troops home by Christmas which means she wants to  die. Now please. And she does it too.Anyway if you read the column you’ll see that although Jennifer slipped away, Ali McGraw is still going strong at 71 with the same cute teeth God gave her.Really though I’m thinking now of her co-star today.  The girl Ryan O’Neal has loved for 30 years is now dying in the hard old-fashioned way and was there ever a smile as bright as Farrah’s?  Every man in America loved her and every woman used her hairstyle to pay her tribute.  Here on this matchless spring day I am paying it still.'

Move Over Zac Efron

At the supermarket yesterday the kid ringing up my items had the regulation nametag on, only it read 'Zac Efron,' which of course is the name of the star of all 20 versions of  High School Musical. Yep, ‘Zac Efron’ spelled the letters neatly machine-chiseled onto that small Chiclet of plastic.

“Manager off today?” I almost said to the kid but what did I know about the situation really? Maybe the manager is the one put him up to this prank. And what could I say that a hundred people before me hadn’t already said to him, plus he was busy joking away with the girl workin’ the next register so I just handed over the dough and moved along.

But he had given me an idea: I'm scheduled to give a talk tomorrow night and sometimes at events like everyone fills out a nametag so I’m thinkin' "Can I put  “Susan Boyle?” I’d LOVE to be Susan Boyle, with her little Scottish village and an old-time piano in the parlor and a voice to send those scary tigers packing for keeps. Good idea, right? I mean until I got to college and my roommate came at me with a pair of tweezers I sure had the eyebrows!

OK DON'T Cut Me!

Jeeze, never have a facelift. Remember how Demi Moore used to look? Even in the over-40 years she was lovely but not lovely enough it seems.

Never MIND that she now has as set of giant fake chompers, she also must've wanted the plumper cheeks of youth back or something because it looks to me like she had the skin on her face picked up and filled with foam or something. Plus she’s had her nose carved down so it looks like the nose of a witchy old lady and I mean come ON: Mother Nature does this for us so why would anyone ASK medicine to do it?

I’ve always marveled at the change in the face of Scott Fitzgerald's wife Zelda in the all-too-short years of her public life before mental troubles landed in her in the 'home' where she burned to death, leaving a single ballet behind.(Ballet became her obsession in her late 20s, though she was years too old to take it up.) She once had that same plump look. Then all of a sudden she looked well, hatched-faced.

This all began occurring to me when I was talking here about Linda Evans and saying how for years I had a hair-style like hers. (You can see it by clicking here. I call it Dave and His Cheeseball Wife.)

But here’s how Linda once looked.

Darling, right? Natural, approachable - basically gorgeous, right?

Well here’s how she looks now with her old rival Joan Collins:

Goin' for that rounder young face, see. Goin' for God-knows-what in the lips department. She looks like she put her mouth on the exhaust pipe of a Harley after a long hot ride.

Now I'll admit it: I used to look in the mirror and think Man, if I could just find the money to have those docs hike up THIS old face! Just untack the carpeting, give it a good stretch, nail it down again and boom, there I’d be again, little Terry Sheehy just as she looked singin’ in the Special Chorus at Lowell High School.

Instead I look like Zelda myself these days and now after that incident at Christmas my family has taken away all my matchbooks. (click here for that one.)

But what are you gonna do hey? We've lived through what we've lived through and our faces just mark the journey.

Thank You Mr. Updike

Years ago, John Updike had a short story in The New Yorker about the death of a tall and salty woman who anyone familiar with his work could tell was his mother.

I knew it was his mom. I also knew he lived not 30 miles from me because my oldest girl's Ninth Grade English teacher told the class as much. Her husband played cards with him and she had these kids reading some of his stories and I guess she just mentioned the town.

As soon as I heard it I got right on the phone to Directory Assistance and there he was, street number and all, so I wrote him a condolence note, enclosing with it something I had published about my own mom cracking jokes at her birthday party one minute and dead the next. It also had in it a small black cat and a woman playing the cello; a white slab of pastry marble set into the wooden counter top of our 1890s pantry and the even more stunning death by heart failure of a much-loved youth in front of 20 pals at the close of a church retreat.

Mr. Updike answered immediately, on the first of three postcards I have had from him over the years. He said his mom had 'keeled over' in the kitchen and the neighbors had found her body. He thanked me for my thoughts and then made a remark so wonderful about my writing that when I was preparing to bring out my first book I wrote again to ask if I could print it on the cover. Again came an immediate postcard: "OK on the quote. Good luck with the book," it said and this one act of generosity is what has kept me going ever since.

I am not writing this to thank him for making me famous. I am not famous. I'm just a newspaper columnist looking to catch people at their best, or quirkiest or most outrageous. I am writing to thank him for showing me what joy you can feel if you let yourself see everything as connected, which Physics teaches us it surely is.

Look at this short passage from "The Full Glass," one of his most recent New Yorker stories and see if you don't think it simply shines. In it his narrator and alter-ego is remembering a long-ago barn dance to which he invited a pretty and popular girl he had loved since kindergarten but rarely spoke to, a girl he never thought would say yes.

"I had been to barn dances before with my country cousins and knew the calls. Bow to your partner. Bow to your corner, All hands left. Women like all that, it occurs to me this late in life - connections and combinations, contact... As she got the hang of it, her trim waist swung into my hand with the smart impact of a drum- beat, a football catch, a lay-up off the reverberating backboard. I felt her moist sides and the soft insides beneath her rib cage, all taut in the spirit of the dance..."

Connection, combinations, contact. The drumbeat, the lay-up, the catch.

Who wrote about sports the way John Updike did? Or art for that matter? Or books? Or even love? It seems to me that in everything he wrote there are these surprising and wonderful revelations: that the sexual IS the spiritual, that all math is really music, and that friction brings heat and sometimes, if we're lucky, babies.

"Never stop!" I earnestly wrote in my final letter to him last June, "and don't even think about leaving the party early!"

He did though; he left it much too early and I see now that when he wrote this piece he probably knew there was a taxi outside waiting for him.

I hope that his ride in it was easy and that he is safe now in the shining world he could all but feel lying just beyond this world. And I know that strangers though we were, I will miss him for the rest of my days.

Man in the Mirror and My Blue Day

I felt slightly blue today maybe because the garage is brimming with things I’ve been told that I personally should take to the dump, just because I’m the one who put them out there. That I should be the one to get my hands dirty handling a bunch of broken coffee makers and blow-driers, never mind the bath mats that have had bleach spilled on them and so look like victims of vitiligo, the bleach coming into it because every few months I go through a stage where I feel like changing the colors of things and so dye the towels, my clothes, even the lampshades if I don’t like the way they look on a particular day, and then sometimes well most of the time I end up making the colors perhaps a little TOO vivid and have to try toning them down with a quart of Clorox. All right so now I feel bad about mentioning “vitiligo” because just think how hard it must be to have that pigment problem and be spotted all over like Michael Jackson. Wait a sec, now I’m Googling Michael who I have been worrying over ever since his nose fell off and would you look at that! There are scads of videos on You Tube where you can watch his face change over the years, in, like, time-lapse photography practically.

‘Course now I feel even sadder thinking how people love to criticize poor skinny MJ who certainly did NOT molest any children and I should know. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who really knows him now that Diana’s gone, the only one who’s been there for it all, the Liz Taylor friendship, the Barbara Walters interview, the Oprah one, his own descriptions of how would take him to the mirror as a little fella and say “Look! Look how ugly you are” and all.

But hold the phone maybe I’m not the only one! Because here’s this chat room I’ve just entered where people have been really dicing him up fine and a young woman weighs in and says to this other moron “How OLD are you anyway? All you ‘teens’ need to grow up so you don't become lame donkey-ass adults. Grow up, teenager!” Well now I believe that’s done it! I feel completely cheerful again. “Lame donkey-ass:” now there’s a phrase that’s worth remembering!