People living deeply have no fear of death.
— Anais Nin
Just forty-eight hours ago, I was sitting down to write about what great friends I have. Mere moments after writing, “Pirates never die,” I received a phone call which showed that the world had decided to see just how much I really believed that.
She was there one minute, laughing with us like no tomorrow.
And then she wasn’t.
We’d met before, briefly, some fifteen years ago. We knew the same towns, some of the same people. And when she showed up again last year, it was all so familiar … hard and fast friends, an instant sister, that crazy gypsy, that Wicked Wench.
It was only natural that I wrote her a testimonial a few months ago:
She’s an incredibly talented artist with a death-lock stranglehold on the eclectic. She’s all fun, all the time, complete with an infectious laugh that can change the mood of an entire bar!
For those of us who’ve been around her, all we have to do is remember how she she lived: Like there’s no tomorrow. Nothing left unsaid. Nothing left undone. No regrets.
Laughing at every damn thing — like a bunch of kids with attention deficit disorder — certainly has its benefits. I remember taking her out for her birthday that night with Niki, going to Market Square…
Oooh, Kitty!
(Maybe it’s Susan *grin* Besides, it’s only a 24-Bar Break)
Even if Dannielynn Hope Smith was old enough to respond to the question “Who’s your daddy?” I’m sure she’d still be confused.
Since her birth four months ago to Anna Nicole Smith, there’s been wild speculation about the identity of the father. At least, that’s what the Mass Media says to justify their feeding frenzy of late.
At around 2:30PM EST on Thursday, February 8th, 2007, Anna died.
A few moments later, her ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead went public that he was the father, and that he would be taking Dannielynn to raise as his own.
A few hours later, her attorney, Howard K. Stern (no relation to the shock-jock with the missing K.), went public that he was the father, and that he would fight Birkhead for custody of the four-month-old.
Today, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, went public that he was the father, but has no intention of fighting Birkhead or Stern for custody.
Given the Gabor sisters’ propensities to slap the Hell out of unsuspecting men, this move was a bit surprising.
Now that there’s no one to deny it, I submit that I am the Father, given that I was conducting business in the immediate vicinity of Hollywood, Florida during the second week of April 2006. Apparently, Anna Nicole and I used the same toilet within fifteen minutes of one another.
Of course, South Florida might not be the place to go for the influx of Castro Sympathizers who may want to find a new place to live, considering the number of anti-Castro refugees who’ve escaped…
Now we can give it a few months for Democracy, forgive John F. Kennedy’s cluster-copulation, remove sanctions and get some Cuban cigars instead of the Dominican Hand-rolled cigars I’ve been smoking.
Although, the blasphemous bastard in me says the Dominicans are better… heh
It’s time to bid a fond farewell to a favorite, formerly famous, front-yard fowl. Alas, the Pink Flamingo is no more, dead at a mere forty-nine years of age.
Union Products, of Leominster, Mass., has finally given up production of these unsightly eyesores due to financial problems.
Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, paid tribute to the infamous bird that has been immortalized everywhere — from the John Waters’ movie Pink Flamingos, to bachelor parties and lawns across America.
“Let’s face it,” he said. “As iconic emblems of kitsch, there are two pillars of cheesy, campyness in the American pantheon. One is the velvet Elvis. The other is the pink flamingo.”
The birth of the plastic pink flamingo in 1957 coincided with the booming interest in Florida, Thompson said, making it possible for those in other parts of the country to have a little piece of the Sunshine State’s mystique in their yard.
By the late ’70s, according to Thompson, the pink flamingo became a symbol of bad taste. It was considered trash culture and embraced by folks with a wise-guy attitude. They knew better (wink, wink) but embraced the iconic symbol anyway.
By the late ’80s and early ’90s, he said we learned to make fun of pop culture items such as the pink flamingo as well as appreciate them.
“The pink flamingo has gone from a piece of the Florida boom and Florida exotica to being a symbol of trash culture to now becoming a combination of all we know — kitsch, history, simplicity and elegance,” Thompson said.
Until recently, Mike Smollon was one of the folks who put the pink flamingo in the kitsch category.
But during a recent trip to Massachusetts, the Boynton Beach firefighter and battalion chief had an epiphany.
After reading a story in the Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Mass.) about the closing of the factory, he bought 12 pairs of flamingos.
“I never owned a pink flamingo before,” Smollon said. “To be honest, I used to think this was the kind of a thing only a girl would put in her yard. But when I found out the factory was closing, I thought this is something historical happening.”
Smollon went to the factory and bought 11 sets of pink flamingos and one set of the commemorative gold flamingos that were made for 2007, which would have been the bird’s 50th birthday. He plans to keep a few and give the rest to flamingo-loving friends.
Flamingo fever hit and he searched the Internet for Don Featherstone, the kitchy bird’s creator. When he learned that Featherstone lived only about five minutes from his hotel, he called him and asked if he could come over and get his photograph taken with him.
Not only did Featherstone and his wife, Nancy, come out of the house wearing matching pink shirts adored with green flamingos, the artist autographed two sets of flamingos. Smollon also bought a copy of Featherstone’s book, The Original Pink Flamingos: Splendor on the Grass (Schiffer Publishing, 1999), which he autographed for an extra $5.
After Smollon returned home, he bought a set of pink flamingos from the 1950s for $39 on eBay.
“Now I have one of the first sets made and one of the last sets made,” he said. “I have my own private collection.”
Of course, it’s lived a full life at only 49, growing from an Annoying Adornment to the King of Kitsch.
Don’t forget to check out the Mockumentary, “The Pink Flamingo: Ambassador of the American Lawn.”
