Ok, quick aside post. I've got a humdinger, motherload entry forthcoming about my trip back east last week, but I had another very Hollywood moment yesterday that I thought I'd share first.
So, I'm coming out of Ralph's supermarket yesterday (I love the Whole Foods and all, but it's a tad pricey to be hitting it up on the regular). I'm turning onto Sunset Blvd., and like they taught me in driver's ed, I take a good long look to my left. I see a hot pink car coming my way. "Hmm, you don't see hot pink cars very often" I thought. As it got nearer, I could tell it was a classic shaped Corvette. "Hmm, you REALLY don't see hot pink Corvette's every day." Hot pink Vette on Sunset, it was a foregone conclusion that there'd be a vanity plate on it. So as it got closer, I made out the name, "ANGELYNE" on the California tags.
For the uninitiated, Angelyne is a Hollywood "icon." She's an icon who's famous for absolutely nothing. Check that, she IS famous for something. She's got platinum blond hair, HUGE plastic boobs, and enough make-up to make Tammy Faye say, "Hey, you might want to ease up on the face paint, hon." Since some time in the 80's, she's been advertising her "talent" on billboards around Hollywood. And THAT'S why she's famous. That's it. The billboards. The ONLY reason I know who she is, is because I used to watch "Moonlighting" when I was a kid, and they'd show a second or two of the billboard in the opening credits.
But that's Hollywood. That's the TMZ culture that's been cultivated out here (my mom was really "impressed" when I explained to her that I live smack in the middle of the "Thirty Mile Zone,"). Less is more. Less talent that is. But really, when you get down to it, Angelyne is the caricatured, epitome of Hollywood. The simple elements of fantasy (in this case, a pretty, fit Marilyn Monroe type blonde), exaggerated to absurd proportions, with little to no basis in reality.
i·co·nog·ra·phy - symbolic representation
Angelyne is just that. A symbolic representation of all that is Hollywood.
2 comments:
Dana Carvey once said you could put a cantaloupe on a cable TV show and everbody would say, "Isn't that the cantaloupe from TV? Hey, everybody! It's the cantaloupe from TV!"
Scott, I don't know if you caught Jeter's local Tri State Ford commercials. Jeter is in disguise and selling Ford vehicles and an insightful youngster recognizes him: "Are you sure you're not a shortstop?"
Kid, have you seen Jeter's weak-ass range to his left?
I'm pretty sure he's NOT a shortstop.
"You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, put it in the naval of a fruit fly, and still have enough room for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart." -- Fred Allen
Nice blog, Buh.
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