Infamy, Infamy,
They’ve All Got
It in fa Me!
As an internationally noted and much-beloved author, social commentator, raconteur, film/tv scenarist, lecturer, and all-around spiffy guy, it has been my pleasure for more than fifty years to associate with, and to report on, the great, the near-great, and the schlubs. While on this long and rewarding hegira, I have amassed many wise words from my equally terrific peers, though not so many from the schlubs.
One of my favorites is this gardyloo from Herman Melville: “No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”
Bearing the above cold dead forefront in my mind, I must admit that writing about the current state of “infamy” as it relates to what passes for contemporary American culture, is a lot like writing about how much sweat is produced by a sybaritic flea’s armpit. One either tells the truth, or lies in the manner of magazines like People or Entertainment Weekly; that is, pretend all this transitory crap means something. I have chosen not to lie to you. (Though—leaping to quote another of my golden compatriots—as the Welsh novelist, Oxonian scholar, and playwright Gwyn Thomas has noted, “All writers are liars. How else can we caress the truth?”)
No lies. I’m down with the Word. Open covenants, openly entered into. These are an omnipresent, usually loathsome—if not outright despicable—bunch of minimally talented, meanspirited, selfish and obnoxious, bad-mannered, whiney and nose-picking cadre of louts, bullies, bitches, assholes, and self-aggrandizing semiliterate ego-drenched manifestations of a nutjob society that ought to be ashamed of itself for elevating to the heights of publicity and a pasha’s fortune, the sort of person who ought to be condemned to shoveling yak-dung in the deepest crevasses of the Himalayas.
Their ascendancy signals a kind of hideous metamorphosis in which casual and dismissable celebrity has mutated into a melding with “infamy” until they are now inseparable…a kind of shambling, slime-dripping Lovecraftian monster that has swallowed our society.
There is no longer such a thing as “infamy.”
Gone, as arcane and as beyond our reanimation as the fabled T’ang dynasty blue glaze. There is nothing so low, so odious, so stomach-wrenching, or sensibility-insulting that a “celebrity” can do, that will offend anyone but a Bible Belt fundamentalist (and since everything gets their knickers in a twist, ah what the hell).
Infamy, these days, is what passes for notoriety. Notoriety, these days, is what passes for celebrity. Celebrity, these days, is what passes for impolite behavior. And impolite behavior, these days, is what would’ve gotten you a boot up your ass in saner times.
The truth is anathema to their ears, but here it is: these are fleas we’re dealing with here.
Fleas. They stay in the news by making you itch; and all too soon the only congress we wish to have with their nasty, overwhelming presence is to scratch them or slap them bloodsucking flat.
In the same week in 2002 in which the most cataclysmic accounting scandals and bankruptcies in American history broke—WorldCom, Arthur Andersen llp, Enron—Julia Roberts was the sacred cover icon that appeared on thirteen major national magazines. Infamous!
Clinton consentually got his participle parsed by Jewish American Princess Monica Lewinsky, and the Far Right jackalpack gulled the electorate into running him down and savaging him out of power; Schwarzenegger manhandled a double-six-pak of women in gyms, streets, elevators, miniature golf courses, logging camps, bidet manufacturing plants, and gunseller conventions, and the looneytoon constituency of California elected him by default as Governor.
Jack the Ripper had to put in a full day’s work butchering at least five hapless women in Spitalfields in 1888 to become infamous; John Wayne Bobbitt merely needed his old lady to lop off his whangdoodle. Josef Stalin had to purge maybe as many as twenty million people (and we still haven’t figured out how he did it, absent any Dachaus or Auschwitzes) to become infamous; Michael Jackson just had to act like a carny freak and dangle a baby out of a hotel window. Stephen Jay Gould and Madame Chiang Kai-shek and Allen Lomax and Chuck Jones (Who? ask the scions of B.H. 90210) died relatively unnoticed, but the national tear-duct spigot was turned on full lock-to-lock at the demise of 30-year-old bad girl, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, of the rhythm&blues trio TLC. Record companies shamelessly hype bad doggerel masquerading as “street poetry” (while Langston Hughes and Jimmy Baldwin spin like gyroscopes in their graves) using the oxymoron “rap music” (giant shrimp, really unique, military intelligence), deifying musically bereft thugs who gesticulate spastically with their fingers and flail their arms like squid afflicted with St. Vitus’s Dance, trumpeting their ghetto roots while moving their asses into fortress mansions among the honks in Bel Air…and the sales and audiences for classical music, jazz, blues, all go down the commercial drain. R. Kelly makes headlines for running afoul of the law over child pornography and sexual assault, and his sixth solo album debuts on the sales charts at #1.
(According to mtv.com, 14 July: “Over protests from prosecutors, a Chicago judge has granted R. Kelly permission to leave Illinois for a five-city tour in August. … The R&B singer—free on bond after being indicted on child pornography charges last June and apparently suffering little if any damage from the accusations—” Italics mine.
(I’ve got a friend in Medieval Georgia, Gwinnett County, who hasn’t even been indicted on a similar charge, and he’s either been in jail or under house arrest for going on three years, he has to pay the rental fees for the in-house cameras that watch him 24/7, his 83-year-old mother hasn’t been allowed to visit him, and he isn’t even permitted to open his own front door.) Ah, Kelly, the perks of infamy!
As we all know, Life is not a comparison of Chamber of Horrors; nonetheless, to become infamous in times past, one had to be, say, Copernicus, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, John Peter Zenger, Alfred Dreyfus, Joan of Arc, James Joyce, Mary Shelley. Today, you only have to be jerkazoids like Dennis Rodman, Howard Stern, or Jerry Falwell.
Let us pause, for just one pellucid moment, as we bail out some of the vitriol that threatens to swamp our li’l kayak here, and consider the term upon which we’re dwelling so obsessively. Infamy. What means it, exactly, huh? Well, here’s what the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd Edition, unabridged, has to say about it:
in-fa-my (ińfə?-mē?), n., pl. -mies. 1. extremely bad reputation, public reproach, or strong condemnation as the result of a shameful, criminal or outrageous act: a time that will live in infamy. 2. infamous character or conduct. 3. an infamous act or circumstance. 4. Law. Loss of rights, incurred by conviction of an infamous offense. (142575; late ME infamye < L infamia, equiv. To infam (is) ill-famed
—Syn. 1. disrepute, obloquy, odium, opprobrium, shame. See disgrace. —Ant. 1. credit, honor.
I could’ve used the Oxford English Dictionary, but I sprained my back trimming some hedges last Sunday, and it was simply too heavy to schlep for use here. So go with me on this.
Public reproach; strong condemnation; ostracism; hearty vilification, bad rep: those are the traditional, the historical concomitants of infamy. Not today. Today, impressionable, plastic minds of gullible young folks (what the hell else can one call an age group from 12-to-35?) are given the phrases “in your face,” “pushing the envelope,” “edgy,” as template codes for cool behavior. Study, learn something, know something, have an informed opinion not fed to you by Gap ads or VH1? The words for that m.o. are “nerd,” “geek,” “wuss,” “freak.”
So Pink, who was named #10 on Access Hollywood’s “Top 10 Bad Girls,” whose video record of giving the finger to the camera is—if my exhaustive research is correct—but maybe it’s insufficient, I can’t be everywhere, fer chrissakes—somewhere above forty, gets to use up somebody else’s 15 minutes of fame; and she has the gall, the temerity, the nerve, the chutzpah, to tell a recent interviewer, “Uh, like I, uh, I kinda see myself as like a, y’know, roe-ell model, y’know?”
Terrific, just what I’d want my kid, if I had a kid, which I don’t, to look up to as a roe-ell model. An attention-seeking freak within whose head exists an empty veldt whereat one cannot perceive the passage of a cogent thought. An 11-times bodily pierced twink sans ethic, sans philosophy, sans reason for us to give a daisyfart about her comings and goings. Her Aristotelian response to most everything is flipping you the bird. Talk to me about the penalties of infamy.
Jennifer Lopez routinely travels with a 90-minion entourage of blackamoors, mamelukes, esnes, serfs, toadies, and lickspittles.There’s a specialist who does nothing but Ms. Lopez’s eyebrows. (How’s that for a Life’s Work?) According to Radar magazine, she has issued strict orders that she is never to be “looked at or spoken to directly.” Geeeeezus lawdy! And this one’ll roll your socks up and down: to stave off tantrums, stylists will routinely replace size 6 tags on clothes she buys, with “size 2.” In 1999, when the cops detained her after then-boyfriend P. Doody, or P. Diddly, or whatever the hell nom-de-chanteur he’s using this week, when Mister Combs was busted in a shooting in Manhattan, she is reported to have been deprived of her jongleurs and handmaidens, so she sent a cop out to get her a jar of cuticle cream. Of all the canards leveled against her it is the preceding she denies denies denies. Crucify me, I deny it! Yes I served with the Taliban and drink the blood of babies, but I did not send that friggin’ cop out to get my cuticle cream, and the creep brought me some Buy-Rite crap anyhow!
Yeah, infamous behavior is really crippling to the rep and soul, these days.
Record mogul “Suge” Knight (that’s pronounced “thug”) forced a rival record industry guy to drink a champagne glass full of Knight’s urine when the guy wouldn’t give up Sean Dibbity’s home address. A stone righteous gangsta with ties to the Mob Piru Bloods, this gleefully sociopathic bully has threatened, assaulted, intimidated, and otherwise terrorized the charnel house venue of music production nearly as long as Dillinger or Capone dominated theirs.
Model Naomi Campbell pleaded guilty in year 2000 to misdemeanor assault charges after grabbing assistant Georgina Galanis by the throat, punching her, and clonking her on the noggin with a cell phone. In a 2002 national poll, she was the runaway favorite as the Most Hated Person in Britain. Ah, infamy, doncha smell sweet!
(I have to pass on an anecdote, though it’s only peripherally about Ms. Campbell. But it’s a good one, so stay with me. One evening a couple of years ago, my wife and I were channel-surfing and we happened to pause for no good reason at that odious “game show,” The Weakest Link, a hideous electronic rigadoon that rewarded the least moronic of a sextet of ignoramuses with enough money for him or her to get a lobotomy, and there stands an extremely pretty, well-turned-out young woman in an expensive suit. The harridan emceeing the show asked her the following question:
(“What ‘S’ who starred in the film Lawrence of Arabia writes an award-winning bridge column?”
(The young woman thought a moment, and answered with some conviction, “Naomi Campbell.”
(Now, even if one doesn’t know the answer, which was Omar Sharif—a terrific guy, a sweet man, who does indeed play and write about bridge at an international competition level, though he is a consummate fish when it comes to pool, at which Peter Falk and I regularly used to beat his ass—that answer is wrong in so many ways that it illuminates our perception of the role infamous behavior plays among hoi-polloi.
(There isn’t even an “S” in Naomi Campbell. Lawrence of Arabia was released in 1962 [but was filmed several years earlier] and Naomi Campbell wasn’t born until 1970. Naomi Campbell isn’t an actress. Anyone who’s ever seen her perform will attest to this. And she may or may not play bridge, but the chances of her remotely being capable of writing a coherent, well-parsed sentence about the game are roughly as salutary as the luck of a snail in a bucket of salt. Anyone unfortunate enough to have tried to read her “novel,” Swan, will attest to this.
(So my wife and I were both stunned and impressed by this level of ignorance, so handsomely proffered on national tv, and we decided, then and there, that Naomi Campbell was the appropriate answer for almost any question.
(What was the name of the ship that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912 in the North Atlantic? The Naomi Campbell.
(Who discovered radium? Naomi Campbell.
(What was John Adams’s wife’s name? Naomi Campbell.
(Around our house, this answer works wonders when you are tabula rasa, haven’t a scintilla of a clue, don’t know wha’s happ’nin or otherwise have powdered parrot kibble for brains. Susan and I offer this splendid kitchen tool for your amusement.)
I could go on for decades. The complete shrike crazy pit bull motor-mouth Ann Coulter, who never met a lie she didn’t want to screw. Pamela Anderson, whose breasts are considered by every balsawood-brained frat boy in America worthy of being carved into Mt. Rushmore, and I suspect only keeps remarrying rocker Tommy Lee because she cannot locate an imbecile who has pierced or tattooed his body at greater measure. Whitney Houston, a live grenade from whom somebody pulled the pin decades ago. Lisa Marie Presley, who defies logic but clearly “has her price,” which clearly ain’t money because she has ore-cars full of it, otherwise give me one salient reason for that creepy sham marriage to you-know-who. Beyoncé Knowles, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Li’l Kim, and Britney Spears: the Slut Squad. I don’t know about you, but I’m well past the horizon vanishing point of giving a flying foop about watching post-adolescent nymphs showing me their quivering butts. An ass is an egress for the transmogrified spaghetti and meatballs you had for dinner last night. Why must so much of the time of the public airwaves be given over to the masturbatory fantasies of the acne-festooned demographic, he asks, married to one of the most beautiful women in the world, who seldom finds it necessary to shake her booty in public?
Which leads me to the penultimate proof of my theme, that there is no infamy today, no vileness or obnoxiousness that a constituency acceptable of Anna Nicole Smith will not tolerate, if not venerate and emulate. Here it is:
Earlier this month (October 2003), the wife of the governor of Maryland addressed an audience at Hood College in Frederick, MD. It was a domestic violence prevention conference, and Kendel Ehrlich, the wife of Republican Robert Ehrlich, was trying to make the point that it is hard raising a son in these times of shaken booty everywhichway one looks. What we call in law an “attractive nuisance.” She lamented the tilt toward slutdom, and said, “If I had an opportunity to shoot Britney Spears, I think I would.”
Now, I being a cruel and mordantly witty guy, think that’s pretty funny. I don’t for an instant seriously believe Kendel would do it, not even if she had a Glock up to Britney’s temple. It was a bon mot voiced out of what seems to me deep-felt sadness at the low standards of public behavior in our times.
So what happened? Did the media examine this passionate misspeak by an otherwise squeaky-clean first lady? Did they initiate a six-part series on “The BootyButt: Temple of Worship?” No, the only repercussion apart from Mrs. Ehrlich having to abase herself with an apology—heaven forfend she should upset the vast lynch-mob of Spears poppets and hairy-palmed boy-terrorists who would be unhinged by her comment—was the wide dissemination of an e-mailed statement from Jive Records, the New York-based label representing Spears. “Since this unfortunate comment was made at a domestic violence prevention conference, it seems Mrs. Ehrlich has shot her own self [sic] in the foot by promoting violence.”
Grand. Simply imperial! Blame the messenger, not the message. To the stocks with you, Kendel! Dunk the bitch!
If it were not for Extra and People and Celebrity Justice and Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight and True Hollywood Story and all the rest of the E! Channel persiflage; if it were not for Star Dates and The High Price of Fame and Cribs and MTV and VH1 and 101 Juiciest Hollywood Hookuss and It’s Good to Be…; if it were not for the thousand imitation magazines that live off studio and network handouts, and the 16 million news breaks and pseudo-journalism attentions paid to these pompous, drunken, self-absorbed, boring dummies, we might be able to clear the publicity fog from our heads long enough to realize that a society feeding off bread and circuses is doomed to pollute its commonweal so totally that we might even, weird and improbable as it might seem, elect another actor as our Governor, or even—ha ha I know this is silly—say, a showbiz wrestler! And they wouldn’t be as smart as Ron Reagan was. Or a head of lettuce.
Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Evans, Tammy Faye Bakker, every snippy chanteuse with a piping nasal voice who calls herself “diva,” which used to be reserved for Ella Fitzgerald or Marian Anderson or Edith Piaf; Jayson Blair, the dirty journalist who flummoxed the New York Times; Winona Ryder and Robert Downey, Jr. (whom it pains me to add to this list of miscreants, because I’m only nuts about them); hopeless drug-addicted obscenely overweight brain-damaged Rush Limbaugh; Shannen Doherty, who—besides me and Barney the Purple Dinosaur—is the only entity ever to have had an actual, membership-card Enemies Of— organization created just to hate her; Tara Reid, who encapsulates the arrogance and amorality of these “infamous” clowns with her response to an interviewer’s cavil that she was, perhaps maybe kinda, acting like a twerp: “I don’t care…the only person who needs to be happy is me.” Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, even Natalie Mains of the Dixie Chicks (who was damned right correct in exercising her right to express an opinion); Angelina Jolie, Steven Seagal, Lara Flynn Boyle; holy gadzoley betty spaghetti, I could go on for decades. But why, unless you, gentle reader, are a very slow pony indeed, and need to be crowned between the eyes with a ball peen hammer!
Infamy, like everything else that isn’t nailed down in our culture, has been misappropriated by the apparat that believes The business of America…is business. Whatever need be done to keep the green flowing, it’s okay. And if you wait a few years you’ll be working with a generation for whom Bach and Satchmo and Gershwin are white noise, for whom courtesy and not always being on your muscle and filled with purposeless angst are unknown concepts, for whom no vomitous behavior is less than cool, for whom “trainwreck television” like The Anna Nicole Show is Must-See Tee-Vee, and Ebert & the Chimp at the Movies is high kultchuh.
Just wait long enough, not very long in fact, and there will be no flea so adroit at infamous behavior that you won’t greet its Fall series with huzzahs and adoration.
2003