Quips and Quotations (Rags to Riches Edition)

You know, before I would think, my cab driver hates me. Now I think my limo driver hates me. 

--Ray Romano 

Who's Who

Reese Witherspoon is a pretty big star. She's best known for a film that came out about 12 years ago titled Legally Blond, a comedy about a blond California college fashion merchandising major and sorority president (foreshadowing) who is dumped by her boyfriend for being an airhead (foreshadowed.) Brokenhearted, she follows him to Harvard Law School, intent on getting him back. She doesn't, and so tries to prove him wrong first by studying hard (the movie never says whether she ever did that in regards to fashion merchandising), then by working as an intern on a court case where she ultimately proves a woman innocent of murder. She graduates from Harvard with high honors, and gets a job at a prestigious Boston law firm. Her former flame, meanwhile, has graduated without honors and without any prospects. You see, the former flame is getting his comeuppance for ever doubting her intelligence in the first place (even though, had he not doubted it, she never would have gone to law school in the first place, and some poor woman would be rotting away in a cell for a murder she didn't commit. Maybe this fellow should dump a Harvard Med School student next. We might finally get a cure for cancer.) I'd recommend Legally Blond. It's funny, and Witherspoon is funny in it. If she doesn't quite make me forget Jean Harlow, Judy Holliday, Marilyn Monroe, or Goldie Hawn, well, I'm just wallowing in the past. Every generation has a right to the dumb blond pop culture icon of its own, assuming 12 years ago still counts as this generation. Since Blond, Witherspoon has appeared in several other hit movies, mostly comedies, playing smart blonds as well as dumb. She also played a smart (and, by most accounts, incredibly patient) brunette, June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, for which she received critical acclaim. Like I said, she's a pretty big star. Famous, too, which I guess is the same thing

Or not.  This past April,  Reese Witherspoon got in some legal trouble of her own. She and her husband Jim Toth were motoring around Atlanta--she was there to film a movie--in the very early morning hours when the car they were in was seen weaving across a double line by the last person you'd want to been seen doing something like that, a policeman. Toth, who had been behind the wheel, was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.139. Since Witherspoon was on the passenger side, all she had to do was stay in the car and stay quiet. Instead, the currently brunette actress went from playing dumb to acting dumb. She got out of the car when she was warned not to, and challenged the cop by asking this simple question:

"Do you know who I am?"

Soon in handcuffs along with her legally intoxicated husband, Witherspoon warned the officer that her arrest would be in the national news.

More about that national news in a moment. I'd like to jump ahead a month to just last week. Amanda Bynes is another big star. She's best known for a sitcom that ran on the WB network in the mid-2000s titled What I Like About You, in which she and Jennie Garth played sisters. She's also know for such teen-oriented moves as Big Fat Liar, What a Girl Wants, She's the Man, Sydney White, and Easy A. She also had a supporting role in Hairspray, so far her biggest hit.

Last week, Bynes allegedly had a hit of a different kind in the lobby of her New York City apartment building. A guard saw her smoking a joint and talking to herself. She was apparently so disoriented she couldn't even fake speaking into a cell phone. The guard called the police, who soon showed up outside her door. Another sign of disorientation: she didn't throw the bong out her window until AFTER letting the cops in. New York's Finest took her away in cuffs, but not before she blurted out:

"Do you know who I am?"

Before we go any further, I should assure you that I'm not a member of MADD, D.A.R.E, the W.C.T.U, or any other organization interested in preventing you from having fun and/or making an ass of yourself. Also, we've all had our run-ins with the law, often fully sober. You don't need any foreign substance in your bloodstream to tell you there's no reason to go past that stop sign when nobody's looking. Except for that cop hiding God-knows-where that was looking.

"Do you know who I am?"

The thing is, most of us know not to challenge the officer during those occasional run-ins because, let's face it, they don't know us from Adam. They don't know us from Reese Witherspoon or Amanda Bynes, either.

"Do you know who I am?"

I write about famous people quite a bit on this blog. But not because they're famous. Other than politicians, our celebrities tend to come from the arts, and the entertainment industry. Artistic types interest me, renowned or not. Of course, most artistic types--no matter how talented--never achieve fame. In fact, in a society where net worth is revered above all else, artistic types tend to get looked down on quite a bit. Ah, but not if you're one of the lucky few for whom, as the now-no-longer-famous Irene Cara once put it, people remember your name. Then people look up to you. Initially for the talent, I guess, but as time goes by, the name recognition is enough. They want to have their picture taken with you, they don't want you to have to wait in line, they want to make sure have the best seats in the house, the restaurant, the Dumbo ride at Disneyland for all I know. The famous come to expect this treatment from everybody. Including, it seems, the law. From Lady Justice herself.

"Do you know who I am?"

But the lady is blind and can't read People.

Reese Witherspoon was right when she said her arrest would make national news. The Atlanta police helped out a bit by videotaping the whole thing, which was played on YouTube, all four broadcast networks, all the cable news shows, Twitter, etc. She eventually apologized, and payed a fine of $213

Amanda Bynes, meanwhile, has threatened to sue everybody. The police, the media, anybody who might have had something unfavorable to say about her (nice thing about not being famous--she doesn't know I exist.)

There are more important news stories out there, I know. But when a celebrity expects preferential treatment from the law, such excessive media coverage seem like comeuppance to me.

"Do you know who I am?"

Next time a star asks that, I hope the officer answers the question with a question:

"Just who do you think you are?"

 

                       

Archival Revival: Star Search

(originally posted on 4/04/2009)

Lately, I've been thinking quite a bit about Lindsay Lohan and Rich Little.

First, Lindsay Lohan. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across an article about her on The Huffington Post that was actually a link to some gossip site. It seems Ms. Lohan had just had a lover's quarrel with her girlfriend, one Samantha Ronson, and was seen standing outside a nightclub screaming "The bitch left without me!"

OK, that's about as salacious as this post is going to get. Remember, Rich Little's coming up. He's anything but salacious.

To be honest, that Huffington article was just salacious enough that I had to read it twice. I swear I had no idea until right then that Ronson was Lohan's girlfriend. In fact, I had never even heard of Ronson. But here's the real scary part:

I wasn't entirely sure I knew who Lindsay Lohan was!

I mean, I had heard the name before. A couple of years (or perhaps months) back, when Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were getting in all sorts of trouble, Lohan was often lumped in with them, usually as an afterthought. It was often something along the lines of: "Britney and Paris were driving drunk and naked through the streets of LA, swearing at the top of their lungs and making fun of chess nerds. Oh, by the way, Lohan was seen the same night upchucking into an open manhole!"

Like I said, she was an afterthought.

Not anymore. I read the Huffington article/link twice, and there was no mention of either Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, thus forcing me to finally confront a question I had long avoided--who is Lindsay Lohan?

I asked an acquaintance, who promptly answered my question with a question:

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHO LINDSAY LOHAN IS?!"

I answered her question to my question with yet another question:

"Well, why should I?"

Finally, she gave a straight answer.

"BECAUSE SHE'S FAMOUS, THAT'S WHY!"

"Well, if she's famous, how come I'm not exactly sure who she is?"

"Have you tried to find out who she is?"

"Other than this conversation...no."

"WELL, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE EFFORT!"

You have to make the effort.

So I googled Lindsay Lohan and here's what I found out. She's a model, actress, and pop singer. In the last ten years, she rose to stardom in such Disney remakes as The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday.

How could I not know that? The answer lies with Rich Little.

About a year ago I caught Little on David Letterman. He was the very last guest. Not even that if you define "guest" as one who sits down and talks to Dave. Little just did his stand-up routine, as if he was some unknown getting his big chance on a nationally televised program. It was really kind of a comedown for Little, who was quite famous in his day. Famous mostly for imitating other people quite famous in their day. And my day. By that I mean I recognized every person he imitated. Had I gone into a coma in 1980 and emerged sometime after 2005, I still would have recognized every person he imitated. He did Jimmy Stewart, Richard M. Nixon, Carol Channing, Truman Capote, George Burns, Jack Benny, Paul Lynde, Archie Bunker, Ronald Reagan, Walter Cronkite, and...Howard Cosell. Howard Cosell? Man, I hadn't thought about Howard Cosell in years! He also was quite famous in his day, but unlike old movie or music stars, there was little chance of an old sportscaster being rediscovered by a whole new generation. Unless that whole new generation happened to catch Rich Little on David Letterman.

Whatever the generation of Dave's studio audience that night, Rich Little's routine did get a lot of laughs. As soon as it was over, a surprisingly pleased Letterman (he does have a reputation as a cynic, you know) walked over, shook Little's hand, and asked, "So, what you been doing with yourself?"

I was less concerned with what Rich Little had been doing with himself lately, and more curious as to why he didn't imitate anyone who had become well known after 1980. According to Wikipedia, Little's about 71. So, maybe he's just an old coot stuck in the past. But why that past? And, at any rate, he was 42 at the beginning of the 1980s, and 52 by decade's end, and not even eligible for Social Security by the millennium's end, so I didn't think senility was the answer. And remember, the studio audience, most of whom looked younger than 71, got all of the jokes.

I picked up the remote and started channel surfing.

Cowabunga! I had my answer!

You couldn't channel surf before 1980. Well, you could, but it would have been a pretty small wave. Just the three networks, public broadcasting, and UHF. Then, in the 1980s, came cable, and, in the 1990s, the Internet.

Now, I want you to remember what my acquaintance said: You have to make the effort. Not before 1980. In that three network era, finding out who was famous required no effort at all. You had the luxury of total passivity. The burden lay entirely with the famous person. That's why he or she had to hire publicists, press agents, personal managers, media spokesmen and the like. The non-famous just had to sit back in front of the tube and absorb it all, even if they didn't particularly want to.

Here's an example. I have never seen a single episode of Kojak. Yet, by 1976, when I was 14, I somehow knew that it starred a bald-headed actor named Telly Savalas who sucked lollipops and asked, "Who loves ya, baby?" Now, I didn't seek that information out. But, by some peculiar cathode ray osmosis, I just knew.

And it wasn't just TV stars. The small screen was also informed by the big screen. Or vice-versa. That's how I knew, at a very tender age, that some guy with cotton in his mouth named Marlon Brando played a bad guy named Godfather who wanted to make people offers they couldn't refuse. It's not from sneaking into an R-rated movie at the age of 11 that I knew all that. The film's trailers were on TV, and, more important, everyone from Fred Travelina to Frank Gorshin to, well, Rich Little, imitated the guy (It was a few years later that I found out about the other Marlon Brando, the young guy in a motorcycle jacket or torn T-shirt who coulda' been a contender while screaming for Stella.)

You even knew, again without particularly wanting or needing to, about public figures outside of entertainment. The President, obviously. But how about Henry Kissinger? Why is it exactly that he is, or was, a more famous Secretary of State than either Dean Rusk, who served under LBJ, or Cyrus Vance, who served under Jimmy Carter? Well, I suppose you could say, "Henry Kissinger was the architect of the policy of rapprochement with China blah, blah, blah...", but I think his real claim to fame was his weird accent, mimicked by everyone from Robin Williams to John Belushi to, well, Rich Little.

But that's now all in the past. With hundreds of networks and web sites and whatever it is people Twitter on, the burden has shifted from the Lindsay Lohans of the world to us, the non-famous. We no longer have the luxury of being passive. We have to make the effort.

Hmm. Maybe I should hire a publicist.

Star Search

Of late, I've been thinking quite a bit about Lindsay Lohan and Rich Little.

First Lindsay Lohan. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across an article about her on The Huffington Post that was actually a link to some gossip site. It seems Ms. Lohan had just had a lover's quarrel with her girlfriend, one Samantha Ronson, and was seen standing outside a nightclub screaming "The bitch left without me!"

OK, that's about as salacious as this post is going to get. Remember, Rich Little's coming up. He's anything but salacious.

To be honest, that Huffington article was just salacious enough that I had to read it twice. I swear I had no idea until right then that Ronson was Lohan's girlfriend. In fact, I had never even heard of Ronson. But here's the real scary part:

I wasn't entirely sure I knew who Lindsay Lohan was!

I mean, I had heard the name before. A couple of years (or perhaps months) back, when Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were getting in all sorts of trouble, Lohan was often lumped in with them, usually as an afterthought. It was often something along the lines of: "Britney and Paris were driving drunk and naked through the streets of LA, swearing at the top of their lungs and making fun of chess nerds. Oh, by the way, Lohan was seen the same night upchucking into an open manhole!"

Like I said, she was an afterthought.

But no more, for I read the Huffington article/link twice, and there was no mention of either Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, thus forcing me to finally confront a question I had long avoided--WHO IS LINDSAY LOHAN?!

I asked an acquaintance, who promptly answered my question with a question:

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHO LINDSAY LOHAN IS?!"

I answered her question to my question with yet another question:

"Well, why should I?"

Finally, she gave a straight answer.

"BECAUSE SHE'S FAMOUS, THAT'S WHY!"

"Well, if she's famous, how come I'm not exactly sure who she is?"

"Have you tried to find out who she is?"

"Other than this conversation...no."

"WELL, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE EFFORT!"

You have to make the effort.

So I googled Lindsay Lohan and here's what I found out. She's a model, actress, and pop singer. In the last ten years, she rose to stardom in such Disney remakes as The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday.

How could I not know that? The answer lies with Rich Little.

About a year ago I caught Little on David Letterman. He was the very last guest. Maybe not even that if you define "guest" as one who sits down and talks to Dave. Little just did his stand-up routine, as if he was some unknown getting his big chance on a nationally televised program. It was really kind of a comedown for Little, who was quite famous in his day. Famous mostly for imitating other people quite famous in their day. And my day. By that I mean I recognized every person he imitated. Had I gone into a coma in 1980 and emerged sometime after 2005, I STILL would have recognized every person he imitated. He did Jimmy Stewart, Richard M. Nixon, Carol Channing, Truman Capote, George Burns, Jack Benny, Paul Lynde, Archie Bunker, Ronald Reagan, Walter Cronkite, and...Howard Cosell. Howard Cosell? Man, I hadn't thought about Howard Cosell in years! He also was quite famous in his day, but unlike old movie or music stars, there was little chance of an old sportscaster being rediscovered by a whole new generation. Unless that whole new generation happened to catch Rich Little on David Letterman.

Whatever generation, or generations, were in Dave's studio audience that night, Rich Little's routine did get a lot of laughs. As soon as it was over, a surprisingly pleased Letterman (he does have a reputation as a cynic, you know) walked over, shook Little's hand, and asked, "So, what you been doing with yourself?"

I was less concerned with what Rich Little had been doing with himself lately, and more curious as to why he didn't imitate anyone who had become well known after 1980. According to Wikipedia, Little's about 71. So, maybe he's just an old coot stuck in the past. But why THAT past? And, at any rate, he was 42 at the beginning of the '80s, and 52 by decade's end, and not even eligible for Social Security by the millennium's end, so I didn't think senility was the answer. And remember, the studio audience, most of whom looked younger than 71, got all of the jokes.

I picked up the remote and started channel surfing.

Cowabunga! I had my answer!

You couldn't channel surf before 1980. Well, you could, but it would have been a pretty small wave. Just the three networks, public broadcasting, and UHF. Then, in the '80s, came cable, and, in the '90s, the Internet.

Now, I want you to remember what my acquaintance said: You have to make the effort. Not before 1980. In that three network era, finding out who was famous required no effort at all. You had the luxury of total passivity. The burden lay entirely with the famous person. That's why he or she had to hire publicists, press agents, personal managers, media spokesmen and the like. The non famous just had to sit back in front of the tube and absorb it all, even if they didn't particularly want to.

Here's an example. I have never seen a single episode of Kojak. Yet, by 1976, when I was 14, I somehow knew that it starred a bald-headed actor named Telly Savalas who sucked lollipops and asked, "Who loves ya, baby?" Now, I didn't seek that information out. But, by some peculiar cathode ray osmosis, I just knew.

And it wasn't just TV stars. The small screen was also informed by the big screen. That's how I knew, at a very tender age, that some guy with cotton in his mouth named Marlon Brando played a bad guy named Godfather who wanted to make people offers they couldn't refuse. It's not from sneaking into an R-rated movie at the age of 11 that I knew all that. The film's trailers were on TV, and, more important, everyone from Fred Travelina to Frank Gorshin to, well, Rich Little imitated the guy (It was a few years later that I found out about the OTHER Marlon Brando, the young guy in a motorcycle jacket or torn T-shirt who coulda' been a contender while screaming for Stella.)

You even knew, again without particularly wanting or needing to, about public figures outside of entertainment. The President, obviously. But how about Henry Kissinger? Why is it exactly that he is, or was, a more famous Secretary of State than either Dean Rusk, who served under LBJ, or Cyrus Vance, who served under Jimmy Carter? Well, I suppose you could say, "Henry Kissinger was the architect of the policy of rapprochement with China blah, blah, blah...", but I think his real claim to fame was his weird accent, mimicked by everyone from Robin Williams to John Belushi to, well, Rich Little.

But that's now all in the past. With hundreds of networks and web sites and whatever it is people Twitter on, the burden has shifted from the Lindsay Lohans of the world to us, the non-famous. We no longer have the luxury of being passive. We have to make the effort.

Hmm. Maybe I should hire a publicist.