Jew Eat Yet?

Before Madness

Here’s a topic I am intensely interested in: the early lives of people who are later viewed by society as “crazy.” What were these people like before they went over the edge? Were there obvious signs of mental illness that were somehow masked by youth, beauty, or wealth? What ultimately led to these people’s losing their grip on reality? Was it a long-standing chemical imbalance? Traumatic life event? Descent into poverty? Basic inability to cope? Dependency on drugs or alcohol? A combination of the above?

I admit I have some very personal reasons for being interested in this topic. Every time I see one of those crazy people on the street, the ones who are invisible to most passersby, there is a moment when I think to myself, “there but for the grace of God…” Let’s just say that there is a more-than-generous dollop of mental illness in my gene pool. I think I’ve written about my father’s mother who was institutionalized from the time he was a little boy until her death when I was 18. Because there was such shame around mental illness in those days, the very questionable decision was made to not tell me and my siblings about her until she died in the 1970s. My father told stories about her from his childhood and always said how much he loved her but I had assumed she died long before I was born. I saw her for the first time at her funeral and couldn’t help but wonder about her life and circumstances before she lost touch.

I’ve always had a strong attraction to the mentally ill. Without mentioning any names, I’d have to say that my favorite relatives growing up were the people who my more “normal” family members would say were a few cards short of a full deck. Let’s face it, crazy Auntie Mame-types are always more fun, especially for an uptight kid who had already learned to suppress most of his feelings. I would dutifully play my part of the “good little boy” at all family events while secretly envying my family members who were volatile enough to break from the rules and cause a “scene.” I saw being crazy as a kind of freedom, a liberation from the stifling norms, even though I simultaneously feared the loss of control it seemed to bring and I certainly didn’t envy the ramifications of such behavior, including, in some cases, being forcibly committed.

I’m on this bender today because I just downloaded the CD from the new musical “Grey Gardens” that opens on Broadway next week. It’s based on the 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysles about the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy. In the film, now a cult classic, we meet Edith “Big Edie” Beale, sister of Jackie’s dad, “Black Jack” Bouvier, and her daughter “Little Edie” who was once one of the most sought after young socialites in New York. By 1975, elderly Edie and her middle-aged daughter were recluses living in a decaying 28-room mansion called Grey Gardens in East Hampton, New York along with 52 cats, several rabid raccoons, and an occasional rat. The Suffolk County Health Department had declared the home “unfit for human habitation” in the early 1970s which caused Jackie O. to step in and pay for a cleaning and partial renovation. By the time the Maysles brothers arrived a few years later, the mansion was once again in an appalling state.

Throughout the film, the love/hate relationship between Big Edie and Little Edie is apparent. While the filmmakers were later dogged by accusations that they were exploiting the Beales, it’s clear that they had a great affection for their subjects and that the women loved being in the spotlight. Seeing them living in such squalor after having once been the toasts of New York society, I couldn’t help but think of the social, physical, and mental freefalls experienced by other well-to-do American families, including my own. When I first heard that someone was writing a musical based on the documentary, I thought it was insane. How would that be possible? What was the point? I haven’t seen the play yet (which had a successful off-Broadway run earlier this year), but I was completely transfixed by the CD from the moment I played it. It’s rare for me to go that nuts for a score the first time I hear it but I was amazed at the way the emotions of these complex characters were so perfectly conveyed through the songs (written by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie). The fact that both Edies were intensely musical during their lives and were frustrated singers in their own right helps a lot. Big Edie died in 1977 but before her death in 2002, Little Edie gave her blessing to the planned musical of the film—she loved the idea.

“Grey Gardens” the musical is two plays in one. The first act takes place in 1941, during the heyday of the Beale family when their mansion was well staffed and boasted the finest gardens in the Hamptons. What a brilliant move to take the older Beales, as documented in the 1975 film and work backwards 30 years to a time when they were young, attractive, and accepted by society. While the first act plays like a high-spirited Cole Porter musical, it’s impossible to miss the heavy strands of dysfunction that crisscross the seemingly carefree lives of mother and daughter. Every hopeful moment in the first act is made all the more poignant because of our knowledge of how these dynamic characters ended up.

Jackie Kennedy and her sister Lee Radziwill are characters in the play, little girls, aged 12 and 8, who are in awe of their kooky, talented aunt and beautiful cousin. As the musical opens, the older Edie is busy preparing Grey Gardens for a glittering party honoring her daughter’s engagement to Joseph Kennedy, Jr., bright star of the Kennedy family and older brother to Jack and Bobby. Although the two dated back in the day, I’m not sure if they were ever really engaged, but Joe Kennedy is another poignant character, since we all know he will be cut down in his prime when his plane goes down towards the end of the war. Little Edie was a debutante and model in her youth, known by the nickname “Body Beautiful Beale,” and besides Kennedy, was supposedly courted by J. Paul Getty, Howard Hughes, and two of the Rockefellers. In the end, their eccentricities led both Edies into seclusion, dumped by the society families that once clamored for their attention. Little Edie was dropped by the Kennedys even before Joe’s death while Big Edie was abandoned by her husband and disowned by her own family, the Bouviers. Big Edie received no alimony from Mr. Beale but she was allowed to keep Grey Gardens, the palatial home that slowly withered around her since she could not afford to keep it up. In the early 1950s, Big Edie summoned her daughter to Grey Mansions to take care of her, thus beginning the co-dependent relationship that would comfort and torture both for the next two decades.

Can a Tony Award be given to an actress before a play opens on Broadway? Can it be awarded by someone who has never even seen the play? Christine Ebersole deserves all the honors that will come her way for this amazing career-altering tour de force. In Act 1 she plays Big Edie at the age of 45, at the height of her power as the Society Matron of Grey Gardens, just before it all goes terribly wrong. We see her embarrassing Little Edie with her outrageous songs (including a minstrel number called “Hominy Grits”) and irritating antics that eventually spell doom for the union with the Kennedys. In Act 2, Ebersole plays Little Edie at age 58, with all hopes for her glamorous life and well heeled suitors long gone.

The wonderful Mary Louise Wilson plays Big Edie at age 79 making a completely believable transition from Ebersole’s younger version in Act 1. A lot of the dialogue from the film is incorporated into the play and the words take on a special poignancy when we hear them coming out of the younger versions of the characters. In some cases, whole songs are created from the dialogue such as Little Edie’s explanation of her bizarre ensembles that included sweaters wrapped around her head and held in place with an ornate brooch. “This is the best thing to wear for today, you understand. Because I don't like women in skirts and the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think. Then you have the pants under the skirt and then you can pull the stockings up over the pants underneath the skirt. And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today.”

A feature film version of “Grey Gardens” is now in pre-production with Jessica Lange as Big Edie and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie. Their life stories have become something of a cottage industry, Little Edie would be so thrilled. I am fascinated by these tales of lost potential, of people who are trapped in their circumstances and see no way out. The Beales of East Hampton were like two modern-day Miss Havishams, sitting in their faded, dusty finery and waiting for the crowds of admirers who would never come. Except now they have.

As I sit here pouring through boxes of old family memorabilia, spending hours researching obscure elements of L.A. history, or immersing myself in the brilliant hues of a technicolor fantasy, I wonder if I’m really all that different from Little Edie Beale and her quivering grasp on reality. What really separates me from the crazies of this world? My ability to limit most of my ramblings to my blog instead of accosting strangers on the street?

Happy New Year to Our Jewish Friends…Who Don’t Exist

I remember waiting each year when I was little for the acknowledgment on television that the High Holy Days were upon us. At some point during Rosh Hashanah, usually at an off hour, the local networks would screen a drab blue and white card that read “Happy New Year to our Jewish Friends.” It was in the time slot usually reserved for PSAs about drug abuse or starving children but that gesture meant a lot to me. Seeing the Jewish holidays acknowledged on television seemed validating in some kind of sad way. They sure weren’t mentioning Rosh Hashanah on “The Brady Bunch,” despite the fact that the man who created those characters, Sherwood Schwartz, was probably deep in prayer at his synagogue.

As I sat in Rosh Hashanah services on Friday night listening to our wonderful rabbi talk about the need to care for and protect the planet, I looked around at the high turnout of members from our shul. Kendall and I belong to Beth Chayim Chadishim, the world’s oldest gay and lesbian synagogue. The BCC congregation has always been incredibly warm and welcoming to its few straight members. Not that our sensibilities are that much of a stretch from the gay congregants. Kendall and I could beat any BCC member in a game of “Name That Showtune” and we could spew more quotations from the films of Joan Crawford or Rosalind Russell than a West Hollywood Drag Queen.

During the services, several people got up and spoke about how they never felt like they really belonged in any synagogue before they joined BCC. Many of the members grew up feeling like outsiders, unaccepted by the groups in which they lived because of their homosexuality. As they talked I thought about how their words resonated with my own Jewishness. Those feelings of “otherness,” the longing to be accepted by the larger group. But how could that be? I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, went to a school where over half of the student body was Jewish, and had a large extended family of observant Jews. Sure, I was surrounded by Jews in my daily life, but they were curiously absent from another place where I spent an inordinate amount of time.

Having spent a big part of my childhood hypnotized by the shimmering blue light of the cathode ray tube, I was still pretty young when I reached the conclusion that Jews simply did not exist in the world I saw on television. We were as culturally underrepresented as gay people and if we were shown, it was usually with the same outrageous stereotypes. This is particularly puzzling when you consider the disproportionate number of Jews who had important roles behind and in front of the cameras. While I won’t go as far as our pals Hitler, Goebbels, and Henry Ford to say that Jews controlled the media in an international conspiracy, I will say that we were clearly well represented at all levels of the television industry.

Jews weren’t always absent from the small screen. In the decade before I was born, there was one bona fide Jewish hit on television. Beginning as a popular radio program, “The Goldbergs” followed the adventures of Yiddish-accented immigrant Molly Goldberg, her husband Jake, and their two children. The show moved to television in the late 1940s and was a top-rated show until 1954, surviving even a McCarthy Era witchhunt against Philip Loeb, the actor who played Molly’s husband. Led by actress Gertrude Berg, who also produced the show and wrote many of its scripts, the Goldbergs made no attempt to hide their Jewishness. Life magazine said that watching “The Goldbergs” was like “slipping on a pair of comfortable old shoes that never seem to wear out.” The shows may seem dated today, but they evoke an ethnic diversity that simply disappeared from the airwaves during my formative years.

Even though many of my favorite programs were written, produced, and directed by Jews, Jewish people didn’t exist in the white bread version of America that was presented in my childhood. Where were Beaver Cleaver’s Jewish friends? Didn’t Darrin Stevens at McMann & Tate ever have a Jewish client? How is it possible that the Clampetts never came across a Jewish neighbor in Beverly Hills? Don’t you think that Lucy Ricardo would encounter some Jews in her desperate attempts to break into show business? Did Fred and Ethel Mertz have a restrictive covenant on their Manhattan brownstone that prohibited Jewish people from renting? No matter what show I watched back then, one question rang in my ears until I couldn’t hear anything else. WHERE WERE THE JEWS?

On the few occasions when we did see Jewish characters on TV, they were comic foils with more stereotypical traits than a 1942 German propaganda film. I remember how excited we all were when an episode of “the Dick Van Dyke Show” revolved around a song called “Bupkis,” supposedly written by one of Rob Petrie’s army buddies. Although the word Jew was never uttered on the show, we knew that “bubkis” was the Yiddish word for “nothing” and that several of Rob’s old friends were obviously Jewish. So was Rob’s writing partner Buddy Sorrell (Morey Amsterdam) although again, the word was never used. I remember the episode in which everyone thought Buddy was having an affair but it turned out he was just studying with a rabbi so he could finally have the Bar Mitzvah he never had as a child. Ironic how thrilled we were at the slightest whisper of Jews on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” when the characters of Super Goys Rob and Laura Petrie were actually based on the lives of Jewish Carl Reiner and his wife.

I could count the other Jewish people I saw on TV during those years on the fingers of one hand. On “The Waltons,” the Depression-era Family Hour show that helped get me through my parents’ divorce, the tolerant clan went a little nuts when they found out that Jason Walton’s new bride was Jewish. Their concerns mirrored those of my own family members who warned me that “it’s hard enough for two people of the same faith to make it in this world, why add that extra stress?” But Jason and Toni Walton did make it, so much so that the actors portraying them, Jon Walmsley and Lisa Harrison, actually got married in real life. So there, John and Olivia!

On “Little House on the Prairie,” the long-running series based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series of children books, troublemaker Nellie Oleson eventually married Jewish businessman Percival Dalton (aka Isaac Cohen), sending her nasty mother Harriet into an anti-Semitic rage. Mrs. Oleson should have aimed her tirade elsewhere—the two stars of the show, Michael Landon (Pa Ingalls) and Melissa Gilbert (Laura) were both Jews.

In September of 1972 every Jewish person I knew couldn’t wait for the fall season to begin. For the first time since the Goldbergs ended their reign, we had our own show. Although “Bridget Loves Bernie” was a pretty standard sitcom, it created tons of controversy because of its premise: a nice rich Catholic girl (Meredith Baxter) marries a swarthy, working class Jew (David Birney). Not since Darrin and Samantha Stevens’ inter-species marriage was a TV union more nervously anticipated. Adding to the nightmare for the Bridget Fitzgerald’s Catholic parents, Bernie Steinberg was a lowly cab driver. For Chrissakes, Bridg, if you have to marry a Heeb, what’s wrong with a Jewish doctor? Oddly, while most goyishe shows were written, produced, and directed by Jews, you would have been hard-pressed to find a Jewish person behind the scenes at this sitcom. Hell, it was even directed by America’s favorite Gentile, Ozzie Nelson. I watched every episode of “Bridget Loves Bernie” but didn’t really mind when the show was cancelled after one season. Although it was popular with viewers (sandwiched between “All in the Family” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”), CBS pulled the plug because they were worried about offending people on both sides of Bridget and Bernie’s marriage. I don’t remember being offended, but the scripts were certainly full of stereotypes, especially in scenes involving Bernie’s overbearing Jewish parents played by Catholic Bibi Osterwald and Harold J. Stone (the actor who replaced blacklisted Philip Loeb on “The Goldbergs”). Like Jason Walton and his Jewish bride, Meredith Baxter and David Birney fell in love and got married in real life. They had three kids but divorced in 1991. See, Bernie, your parents were right! Oh wait, did I mention that actor David Birney was really Irish Catholic?

It was definitely a topsy-turvy world for Jews on television in the 1960s and 70s. For all its talk of brotherhood and tolerance, you couldn’t find a Jew on “Star Trek” to save your life, even though William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were both observant members of the tribe. Of course there were no Muslims on the Enterprise either and people claim Spock’s Vulcan salute had strictly Jewish origins. And how about the most famous Jewish character of the 1970s? Mary Richards’ beloved Jewish friend Rhoda Morgenstern was played by Catholic Valerie Harper while Rhoda’s non-Jewish husband Joe Gerard was played by Jewish actor David Groh. Go figure! I remember when Harper and Melissa Gilbert were running against each other in a rather heated race for President of the Screen Actors Guild a few years ago. There were many jokes at the time about aggressively Jewish Rhoda going head-to-head with timid shiksa Laura Ingalls. In the end, the aggressive Jew won, but it was Melissa Gilbert, not Valerie Harper. Oh well, Valerie got the last laugh. Right now she is touring the country as Golda Meir in the play “Golda’s Balcony.” You go, Rhoda! Your mom Ida Morgenstern, the quintessential Jewish mother (played by Irish Nancy Walker) would be so proud.

Even today, there are few shows where Jewish characters embrace their Judaism as unabashedly as the Goldbergs did over 50 years ago. The prerequisites for Jews on TV still seem to include being highly neurotic, self-deprecating, and married to a shiksa.

Oh my God, I should have my own show!

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

I’ve been sick in bed for most of this week and finally catching up on some NetFlix DVDs that I’ve been holding onto for months. One of them was the second disc in a series called “The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons.” I loved watching “The Dick Cavett Show” back in the day. It ran on ABC from 1969 to 1975 opposite “The Tonight Show.” Cavett was known as an erudite talk show host, rather uptight but with a great sense of humor. He seemed a bit of a snob, but as a pre-teen snob myself, I enjoyed his intellectual banter. My friends and I used to count the number of times he worked German or French words into a conversation, or how many times he mentioned his “close, personal friends” Woody Allen and Groucho Marx. Cavett always had an amazing assortment of guests, and he’d often convince people who never gave interviews to come on his show. I remember the excitement surrounding Katharine Hepburn’s appearance in October 1973. The four-time Oscar winner never appeared on television, much less a talk show, but she sat down with Cavett and wouldn’t stop gabbing. At the end of the show with Hepburn all revved up, he asked her if she wanted to stay and she agreed to tape an additional 90 minutes. I also remember honest hard-hitting exchanges with the likes of Bette Davis, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Fred Astaire. Most of these interviews were just released last week on a new DVD compilation called “The Dick Cavett Show: Hollywood Greats.”

But back to Cavett’s frequent exchanges with the rock icons of the day. Even Cavett himself, who turns 70 this November, was puzzled that so many incredible rock personalities appeared on his show. “I don’t know who said, ‘Dick would be great with rock people,’” he said in a recent interview. “I would have asked ‘Why?’ if I had been there. The fact that I had all these people on still surprises me. For some reason, I was accepted by the rock folk. Maybe they understood that they and I were on the same side of the Richard Nixon question.” Cavett was an outspoken critic of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War and he also railed against the censorship that had reached a boiling point the year he began his show. "Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself,” he said at the time. Earlier that year, CBS had deleted an entire segment on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in which Harry Belafonte sang against a backdrop of footage of police beating demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. CBS also refused to air an episode of the show in which Joan Baez mentioned that her husband was going to jail rather than accepting the draft. The show was cancelled shortly thereafter.

The censors were also on Cavett’s case, knowing his opposition to the war, and they probably went apoplectic every time someone from their “watch list” appeared on his show. One classic moment that the censors missed can be found on Disc 1 of the “Rock Icons” collection. Cavett taped a show on August 19, 1969, just hours after the Woodstock music festival had ended. The studio audience was made up of mostly young people who were on their way home from Woodstock and the show featured several acts from the festival who hadn’t even had time to clean themselves up. Joni Mitchell was also on the show in a supreme bit of irony. The woman who would write the song “Woodstock” had not attended the music festival even though she’d been invited to perform. The reason? Her manager thought it would be better for her career if she appeared on “The Dick Cavett Show.” Oy. Following Mitchell, the Jefferson Airplane, still covered in Woodstock mud, performed an intense version of “We Can Be Together” and kept in the now famous line, “Up against the wall, motherfuckers!” The censors missed it but the audience went nuts. It was the first time the F word had ever been uttered on television. If that happened today, ABC and Dick Cavett probably would have been fined several million dollars each.

One unlikely repeat guest on Cavett’s show was Janis Joplin. Disc 2 of the set is completely devoted to the brilliant singer and features three of her appearances: one in the summer of 1969 and two in 1970, just a few months before her death from a heroin overdose. In addition to six electrifying live performances, including fantastic renditions of “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” and “Get It While You Can,” the DVD includes the complete unedited shows. Looking at the bizarre combination of guests in each program, you might think that the person who booked the show was on heroin himself. I say he was a genius.

Joplin’s 1969 appearance had something of a counterculture theme. In addition to Janis, the show featured the improv group “The Committee” featuring a very young Howard Hesseman (who is called Don Sturdy for some reason). Many of the skits performed by this group would never be allowed on television today, such as a bit in which an African-American man teaches Hesseman how to “act black.” The other guest was English rock critic Michael Thomas, all of 25 years old and taking himself very seriously. Sparks fly when Janis challenges his work and the function of rock critics in general. At the end of the show, “The Committee” asks Cavett, Joplin, and Thomas to join them in an improvised  “emotional symphony.” Each person is assigned an emotion which they must express on cue. Janis, quite in touch with her emotions, performs gamely with the group while Cavett looks painfully uncomfortable.

My favorite Janis Joplin appearance is from June 25, 1970. Joining her on stage are Raquel Welch, fresh from the premiere of “Myra Breckenridge” and at the dizzying height of her fame as an international sex symbol; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the former Mr. Joan Crawford, looking quite handsome and debonair at age 61; and Chet Huntley, who was about to leave his partner David Brinkley after 14 years of delivering the nightly news together and spends all his time on the show openly lusting after Raquel Welch. Watching contemporaries Joplin and Welch interact provides a fascinating glimpse into the polarities that beset America at that time. Welch represents everything that Janis is not. She appears on the show in a micro-mini dress that I don’t think would be allowed on broadcast TV today. She is gorgeous, refined plastic from head to toe and flaunts her sexuality unabashedly, her large, perfect breasts jutting out of the low-cut knit. Janis is decked out in her vintage rock duds but wears not a stitch of makeup. Her wild hair would have made Raquel’s hairstylist weep and unlike Welch’s careful poise and affected speech, Janis sits slumped in her chair and blurts out anything that comes into her head. But here’s the thing. Although it would have been quite easy for Janis to mop the floor with Raquel, the two women treat each other with great respect even though they clearly have wildly different opinions about most things. Their conversation is amazing. Joplin freely admits that she didn’t care for “Myra Breckenridge” and Raquel doesn’t seem to take offense. The women seem to accept the different roles they have in American society and though Cavett sometimes seems to clench up at what he calls their “arguing,” Janis is always quick to point out that she is enjoying the free-spirited discussion and doesn’t consider it an argument at all. Raquel tries a little too hard to shake her bimbo image, but through her convoluted ravings about world events you can see that she was definitely no fool. Douglas Fairbanks just enjoys the ride, and it’s sweet to see how excited Janis gets when he talks about meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald as a child. Joplin says she is a Fitzgerald fanatic and after one of Raquel’s diatribes she encourages the actress to read a new biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, making a comparison between the two that flies straight over Welch’s head.

What is most remarkable about watching these shows, apart from seeing what an utterly authentic person Janis Joplin was, is the difference between the REAL conversations they contain, for better and for worse, and the manufactured, artificial sound bites that pass for conversation on talk shows today. I have a hard time watching any of the current crop of TV talk shows, even when I admire the host. Everything is forced into a few brief moments and there is always the overriding objective of plugging some commercial entity. All hosts and guests are prepared in advance so they can simulate conversations that show everyone to the best possible advantage. No warts, no disagreements, no truth.

Janis’s final appearance on Cavett’s show occurred on August 3, 1970. The eclectic guests that night included actress Gloria Swanson, who at 73 could have passed for 50; a very young Margot Kidder, years before “Superman,” who walked onto the stage in her bare feet wearing a floor length granny dress and gigantic glasses; and former pro-football star Dave Meggyesy, whose ground-breaking book “Our of Their League,” was about to be published to great controversy. Meggyesy was an anti-war activist who wrote about how sports in the United States dehumanized athletes. He resented the jingoistic use of football to sell the war in Vietnam and today is the president of Athletes United for Peace.

Joplin seems genuinely curious about what it was like for Gloria Swanson to make films in the early days of the film industry but Swanson seems to have a hard time relating to the singer, instead wanting to show off her legs and 1930s-style outfit. A waif-like Margot Kidder sits curled up in her chair and breathlessly blurts out her recent discovery about how the old-time actresses always made their nipples stand out underneath their thin silk gowns. “They used ice cubes!” she giggles, embarrassing Dick Cavett who continues to squirm as Gloria gets up and demonstrates how she used to deal with the underwear lines under her costumes in the days of the silents. The mood changes dramatically when a very serious Dave Meggyesy, wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and jeans, presents his leftist views about sports in America. Despite his earnestness, you can feel the sexual tension between him and Janis Joplin rising by the second.

How lucky we are that Janis Joplin’s personality is captured on tape in these interviews.  She tries to explain the difference between getting underneath the music, as she does, and coming at it from the top down. “If I hold back, I’m no good. I’d rather be good sometimes than hold back all of the time.” She gets flustered whenever Cavett calls her a “lady rock star” and asks him to just call her a singer. When asked who her favorite “lady singer” is, she says Tina Turner and then has to explain who that is to Cavett who has never heard of her. There is the poignant moment when she tells Dick about her plans to attend her 10th high school reunion in her home town of Port Arthur, Texas.  She playfully asks Cavett if he’d like to be her date.

Dick Cavett: Well, I don’t remember having any friends in your high school class.
Janis Joplin: I don't either. I don't either, believe me.
Dick Cavett: Do you think you'll have a lot to say to your old high-school classmates ?
Janis Joplin: I don't have a lot, man.
Dick Cavett: You were not surrounded by friends in high school?
Janis Joplin: They laughed me out of class, out of town, and out of the state, man. So I’m goin’ home.

She did go to the reunion and by all reports it was a painful trip for her. Janis Joplin proved that being the most authentic person you can be does not necessarily protect you from your demons. Weeks after her trip back to Texas she was found dead of a drug overdose. I remember when she died and in my mind it is forever linked with the drug deaths of her fellow musicians and some say former lovers Jimi Hendrix (three weeks earlier) and Jim Morrison (nine months later). All three of these icons were 27 years old when they died. What a waste.  The last recordings she completed, just three days before her death, were “Mercedes-Benz ” (later used in an actual Mercedes-Benz commercial, a move that I'm guessing would have made Joplin's stomach turn) and a birthday greeting for John Lennon. Lennon, another frequent guest on “The Dick Cavett Show” later told Cavett that Joplin’s taped greeting arrived at his New York home the day after she died.

Janis Joplin would be 63 if she were alive today. I think she would have remained a dynamic voice in the music industry and a significant figure in the cultural landscape of this country. “Don’t compromise yourself,” she once said, “you are all you’ve got.”

While Bette Midler’s 1979 film “The Rose” was loosely based on Joplin’s life, there are now two big studio films in development about her. It was announced yesterday that “The Gospel According to Janis” will finally start shooting in November. The long-delayed project, to be directed by Penelope Spheeris, was to have starred the singer Pink in the title role, but a recent casting change gave the plum part to actress Zooey Deschanel who will do all her own singing. We’ll have to see if she can pull it off. Other stars who were considered for the role include Scarlett Johansson, Lindsay Lohan (aaargh!), and Britney Spears (AAARGH!). The second Joplin pic in development is called “Piece of My Heart” and is slated to star Renee Zellweger as Janis. Gulp. Other actresses who were considered for this one include Courtney Love (no way!), Brittany Murphy (NO WAY!) and the one person I think would have been absolutely perfect in the role, the great actress Lili Taylor who even looks, sounds, and sings like Janis Joplin. Oh, those idiots in Hollywood.

A few weeks ago, the Joplin family mercifully put the kibosh on a planned reality show called “Searching for the Pearl” which would have documented a nationwide search to find the next Janis Joplin. That person was to have headlined a new world tour next summer with bands that played with Joplin including Big Brother & the Holding Company, the Kozmic Blues Band, and Full Tilt Boogie Band. As if there could ever be another Janis Joplin.

On Janis Joplin’s posthumous album “Pearl,” the song “Buried Alive in the Blues” was released as an instrumental because she died the night before she planned to record the vocal track:

It's real hard you know, it's real hard being buried alive
It's real hard being buried alive
When you're buried alive they walk right on by you
When you're buried alive they never care about you
When you're buried alive, oh, you reach out for somebody
And when you're buried alive you can't seem to press on through.

Dead is the New Alive

I know I should reserve my outrage for more important matters, but I just saw the new Gap commercial featuring Audrey Hepburn and my mouth is frozen in a silent scream. As part of their new “Keep it Simple” campaign, the Gap uses footage of the late actress from the Stanley Donen film “Funny Face.” We see Hepburn in a Parisian café saying, “I rather feel like expressing myself now. And I could certainly use the release.” She then starts dancing wildly and after a few seconds jumps out of the film onto a white Gap-like background and continues her frenetic dance to the tune of the AC/DC song “Back in Black.” According to Trey Laird, creative director of the Gap, “We wanted to do something really special to re-launch our skinny black pants and thought who better to showcase them than actress Audrey Hepburn—an iconic woman famous for dressing with sophistication and classic style.” What did he say? I couldn’t hear that last part because it was drowned out by the sound of Audrey Hepburn spinning in her grave.

I have to assume that the Gap secured the rights to Ms. Hepburn’s glorious image and I don't want to pass judgment on her family members who I assume held those rights. But even though the commercial is a technical marvel and fascinating to watch (you can find it on YouTube), it begs the question, “Just because something is possible to do, does that mean we should do it?” It’s not the first time a major movie star has posthumously starred in a TV commercial. In an even more unsettling ad campaign, Hepburn’s “Funny Face” co-star Fred Astaire appeared in a 1996 Dirt Devil commercial dancing expertly with a vacuum cleaner. Astaire’s young widow was roundly criticized at the time for selling out her husband’s reputation for a buck. Astaire’s daughter, Ava McKenzie, unleashed her fury in a letter to the manufacturer. “Your paltry, unconscionable commercials are the antithesis of everything my lovely, gentle father represented, ” she wrote, adding that she was “saddened that after his wonderful career, he was sold to the devil.”

It all comes down to money. Most family members who control the rights to their loved ones’ images say that they would only entertain offers from commercial ventures that the stars would have supported when they were alive. I’m fairly certain that Fred Astaire would not have considered hawking Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners as the perfect capper for his illustrious career, and I’m highly suspect that Audrey Hepburn would have thrown her support to the Gap’s skinny pants campaign, despite the name change of the 10-year-old product to “The Audrey Hepburn™ Pant.” Oh well, at least the Gap is “making a generous contribution to the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund in celebration of the launch of the Keep It Simple ad campaign.” But is there really anything to celebrate?

Digital technology is so advanced today that almost anything is possible. I just heard that they are going back into the original 1960s “Star Trek” episodes to update the special effects for a new DVD release. Say it ain't so! They could at least use the technology to correct actual casting errors. I would fully support the digital replacement of bored-out-of-his-mind Leslie Howard in “Gone With the Wind” or the computer annihalation of Richie Petrie from the otherwise perfect “Dick Van Dyke Show” episodes. I fear where all this is going. Are we really that far away from being able to create new starring roles for the departed movie icons of yesteryear? Coming soon: “Top Gun III” starring Tom Cruise and Rita Hayworth. Stay tuned for “Spiderman 6” in which our arachnid hero rescues Lana Lovely (Marilyn Monroe) from the evil clutches of the maniacal Sandman played by Charles Laughton. Or maybe they'll do another remake of “The Parent Trap” starring a pre-pubescent Judy Garland as twin girls who desperately try to reunite their warring parents, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

Do I sound like some old fogey who is resisting the inevitable changes that modern technology brings to each generation? Am I like the people who don’t trust those newfangled ATMs or still can’t figure out how to use their almost-obsolete Fax machines? In truth, there’s a lot about the new technology that I admire. Kendall and I saw the film “Hollywoodland” over the weekend which is a somewhat fictional tale about the real-life 1959 suicide (or was it?) of actor George Reeves (TV’s “Superman”). I’m not a huge Ben Affleck fan but I have to say he did a great job as Reeves and that the film perfectly evoked the feel of 1950s Hollywood. I was especially impressed by Diane Lane’s depiction of Reeves’ married sugar mama, Toni Mannix, wife of MGM VP and hitman, Eddie Mannix. Lane plays the role with a combination of toughness and vulnerability that is very touching. Even though the actress is only 41 (to Ben Affleck’s 34) and stunningly beautiful, she is quite believable in the role of Much Older Woman in Reeves’ life. Let’s face it, 41 is about 73 in movie star years, at least for women. In the film, much is made of Reeves’ attempt to jump-start his career following his unexpected success as the Man of Steel. In one sequence, we see Ben Affleck as George Reeves interacting with Burt Lancaster in scenes from the film “From Here to Eternity.” It is seamless—you’d swear it was actual footage from the 1953 film.

One of the earliest attempts to combine old and new film footage was Woody Allen’s 1983 film “Zelig,” a remarkable achievement for the day. In that faux documentary, we see Allen’s Leonard Zelig interacting with real-life historical figures such as Babe Ruth, Woodrow Wilson, Al Capone, Fannie Brice, William Randolph Hearst, and many others. This was done by inserting shots of Allen into old newsreels and it was so complicated at the time that the film took many years to complete (Allen made two other films in the interim). Today such effects could probably be done on computers in a matter of months or even weeks. 11 years later director Robert Zemeckis had Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump performing in scenes with actual 1960s icons such as JFK, George Wallace, John Lennon, and LBJ.

I have no problem with these movies. In fact, I enjoy them immensely as long as the real-life characters are presented in the spirit of historical accuracy. I’m also a huge fan of historical fiction, from E.L. Doctorow’s “Ragtime” to Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City” and a book I just finished reading called “The Kitchen Boy” by Robert Alexander that tells the story of a servant in the Siberian house where Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks. One of my favorite job assignments ever was a series of stories for McDougal-Littell in which I had to create fictional characters against the backdrop of important historical events. I wrote about a woman in 1955 who lived in the same apartment building as Rosa Parks and was on the bus when Parks refused to move to the back, I had a family in Chicago grappling with its fears during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and I guessed how a student of John Scopes might have reacted when she saw her teacher examined by William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow during the infamous 1925 Scopes Trial.

But inserting dead celebrities into crass commercial ads? Don’t you think that we have to draw the line somewhere?

And now, screen legend Greta Garbo explains why she’s going “muy loca” for Taco Bell’s new triple-decker burrito…

Trying Not to Write About September 11th

I wasn’t going to write anything about today’s fifth anniversary. For one thing, I’m aware that whenever the topic of 9/11 comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is my disgust at the way Bush invokes that day at every possible opportunity. Has any world leader ever exploited a tragedy to such an extent? (Don't answer that.) I am also appalled by people like Ann Coulter who recently called the widows of September 11th opportunists who seemed to be “enjoying” their husbands’ deaths. If I had lost a loved one on that day, I don’t think I could trust myself around that woman. I didn’t watch the new TV-movie that lays a lot of the blame for not stopping Osama bin Laden at the foot of the Clinton administration. I’m sure every recent administration has played a role in laying some of the groundwork for 9/11 but is anyone seeing this film, coming so close to an election, as anything other than a bald-faced and desperate political move?

So why should I comment if all I’m going to do is rant about Bush and his cohorts and do my own politicizing? That is hardly the way to remember the victims of that terrifying day. Nor do I have the stomach this evening to grapple with my feelings about the hijackers and their fanatical leaders who were responsible for the senseless murders. Still, despite my intention to leave it alone, I spent the whole day thinking about it.

I thought back to the first time I saw the World Trade Center. It was September 1972 and I was on my first trip to New York. My grandfather had been elected President of the Menswear Retailers of America and, as a Bar Mitzvah present, had taken me to the swearing-in festivities at the Americana Hotel. I was thrilled to see that great city at last, and I’ve already written about some of the memorable moments from that trip, such as when my grandmother accosted Liza Minnelli in front of the Plaza Hotel screaming, “Leeesa! Leesa Minoolli! Come over here and meet my grandson!” as well as my unwilling participation in some grand theft at the fancy La Côte Basque restaurant. One of our touristy adventures during that trip was a boat ride around New York Harbor. I vividly remember staring in awe at the brand new towers that I believe were still being cloaked with some of their white sheathing. Sure, we had skyscrapers in Chicago, including the under-construction Sears Tower which would soon eclipse the towers as the tallest building in the world, but I was still impressed by the sight of these towering monoliths.

I first ventured inside the World Trade Center in September 1978. My mother and I were spending a week in New York prior to my departure for my junior year abroad in Paris. The day before I left the country, we had a sumptuous brunch at Windows on the World, the elegant restaurant on the 106th floor of the North Tower. I can picture exactly where we were sitting although I remember the breathtaking views more than the food. I can still visualize the employees of the restaurant buzzing about. Could any of those people still have been working there in 2001? How many of those had the misfortune to be present on that Tuesday morning? As we know, there were no survivors from that floor, well above the swath of the building that was decimated by the plane. The restaurant lost 73 members of its staff along with 87 people who were eating breakfast or having meetings there at the time. There is a haunting photograph dubbed “The Falling Man” that I couldn’t stop staring at this morning that shows one of the restaurant employees in mid-air, having jumped from the building in order to avoid the raging inferno.

In the mid-1980s I visited New York with my then-girlfriend Julie and we couldn’t get enough of Manhattan, walking from one end of the city to the other. I took my shiksa girlfriend to lunch at Sammy’s Roumanian, a Lower East Side Jewish hangout that is not for the faint of heart. A pitcher of golden chicken fat sits on every table and there is enough cholesterol in each meal to clog the Lincoln Tunnel. I remember Julie ordering some dish that featured “unborn eggs,” God help her. When she couldn’t finish her plate, the waitress reprimanded her, calling it a shanda to waste all that good food.

Trying to walk off our heavy meal, we continued southward until we found ourselves in front of the twin towers. It’s eerie to see Julie standing in front of “The Sphere,” Fritz Koenig’s massive bronze sculpture that stood in the plaza between the two buildings. “The Sphere” was the only work of art in the entire World Trade Center complex that survived the terrorist attack. It was heavily damaged by the falling buildings, of course, and the unrepaired sculpture is now on display in Battery Park. It’s a surprisingly powerful memorial and will eventually be moved back to its original location at Ground Zero.

To get as much of the towers in the frame as possible, I then lay down flat on my back and snapped this photo of Julie standing in front of the massive buildings, the same picture that was probably taken millions of times up through September 10, 2001. Looking at the photo now, all I can see are the obscene gashes left in the buildings by the two planes and the grisly footage of the people who jumped to their deaths, many landing in the very spot where Julie is standing.

I wandered around the World Trade Center complex many times since then, including the summer before the attack. Kendall and I were on one of our pilgrimages to New York, the ones where we try to cram half a dozen plays into three or four days. Being an early riser, I’d hightail it onto the busy New York streets and wander down Broadway, past Greenwich Village and Soho and into Lower Manhattan. I remember that last Sunday in August 2001, using the twin towers as my compass rose as I headed towards the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a beautiful structure which sat in the shadow of the World Trade Center. As part of its permanent collection, the museum contained priceless artifacts rescued from Staszow, my great-grandparents’ Polish shtetl. I gazed at the towers as I walked by, remembering earlier visits, including those with my mother who had died in 1999. Sad that I’d never be here with her again, but at least these buildings would be permanent and everlasting reminders of our New York adventures.

Early on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was sitting at my computer answering emails from my company on the east coast. It was a little before 6 am when I noticed a news scrawl that said “small plane accidentally hits World Trade Center.” Huh? By the time I got to the TV set in my bedroom it was clear that it wasn't a small plane but there still seemed to be massive confusion about what had taken place. When the second plane was caught on video slamming into the other tower, I thought it was a video replay of the first attack. When the Pentagon was struck by yet another plane, I remember running to my bathroom window to see if the tall buildings in downtown Los Angeles were being attacked as well. I was on the phone with my friend Helena as the first building collapsed. It took us both almost a minute to understand what had happened, it just seemed incomprehensible that the building wasn’t there anymore.

But again, why am I going on about this, we all had the same experience, except for those who knew people in the buildings or on the planes who must have felt a terror that I can’t even begin to fathom. After getting through to all my friends in New York, I later learned that a close friend of one of my colleague’s was on the 105th floor of one of the towers and, knowing that he couldn’t get out, had called his family and friends to say good-bye. At the time I was working with an author in North Carolina on a geography book. Two close friends of this woman worked for National Geographic and were on Flight 77 with some Washington DC teachers and three 11-year-old sixth graders who were traveling to California to participate in an outreach program at a marine sanctuary near Santa Barbara. The students were from an underprivileged neighborhood and were terribly excited to be on their first plane trip. All of them were killed when the plane slammed into the Pentagon. The author I was working with dedicated her book to her lost friends and colleagues.

One local sight that always makes us think of the victims of 9/11 is the West Hollywood playground that is dedicated to three-year-old David Gamboa-Brandhorst, who was killed on United Flight 175 while traveling with his parents, Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa. Daniel and Ronald had changed their flight plans at the last minute so they could return early from a trip to Boston with their son. Countless lives affected by these actions, agonizing pain and suffering for those left behind. Have we really learned anything from it? I wonder how we will be commemorating this tragedy on its 20th, 50th, and 100th anniversaries.

American Girl Jihad

I’ve never had much trouble getting in touch with my “feminine” side. I cry every time I see Debra Winger kick the bucket in “Terms of Endearment,” I’d rather watch the Food Network than ESPN, and…well, you only have to read a few posts on this blog to realize that my writing does not center around football, fast cars, or strip clubs (unless you count some fantasies involving Joan Crawford and Jane Russell—have you seen their quarterback shoulders?). But the other day I had an experience that was so cloaked in the asphyxiating pink wash of feminine energy that I wanted to grab a hunting knife at the nearest Big 5, drive up to Big Bear with my blue-collar buddies, and gut a few deer while downing a 12-pack of Schlitz. The cause of my estrogen overdose? I took my daughter Leah to the American Girl store in Los Angeles.

American Girl Place opened at the Grove shopping center at Third and Fairfax this summer but I managed to avoid it until this week. I had been at the one in Chicago several years ago with Leah and my nephew Spencer. My father bought Leah the World War II-era doll named Molly and we took the doll to have tea in the store’s restaurant. The dolls get their own chairs at the table and Spencer was so bummed not to have his own Molly that Kendall took out a small bank loan and bought him one. Hmm, doesn’t every fifth grade boy/rock star dream of their uncle publicly writing about their American Girl doll? Oh well, I can restore Spencer’s rocker cred by mentioning that when we got home he proceeded to chop off Molly’s trademark braids and give her a punker coif that made the doll look like Wendie O. Williams of the Plasmatics. (Truth be told, Spencer thought the hair would grow back.)

On a later trip to New York, Leah’s French grandparents bought her another doll at the American Girl Place on Fifth Avenue, and earlier this summer Leah received a third doll at the opening of the Los Angeles store. While my daughter no longer plays with dolls in the same way she did when she was younger, I think it’s cool that she still enjoys the role-playing opportunities that dolls provide and that she really gets into the history of the different characters. To the company’s credit, these are not your grandmother’s white-bread dolls. The eight dolls in the American Girl collection include Kaya, a 1764 Nez Perce girl “whose deep love for horses and respect for nature nourish her spirit,” Josefina, an 1824 Hispanic girl “whose heart and hopes are as big as the New Mexico sky,” Addy, a courageous African-American girl during the Civil War “who yearns to be free,” and Kit, a clever, resourceful girl “who faces the Great Depression with spirit and determination.”

In addition to the expensive dolls, you can purchase accessories from each time period such as Kaya’s teepee and her horse, Steps High, or Josefina’s weaving loom and her baby goat, Sombrita. You can also buy a variety of clothing from the era (including matching outfits for real little girls), and a library of books that include stories and historical background. Despite the obvious commercialism of the American Girl experience and the obscene prices that make the dolls prohibitive for many children in this country, I have to hand it to the company—at least they are teaching girls about challenging times in our past without whitewashing every event to comply with Lynne Cheney’s version of America. It sure as hell beats Barbie.

And how can you not admire a company that has been condemned by crazy Donald Wildmon’s so-called American Family Association? As I wrote last November, the AFA has accused the doll company of “luring youth into radical feminist ideology by promoting abortion and lesbianism.” I LOVE when those right-wing fanatics lose it to such an extent that even die-hard Republicans start realizing how insane they are. I can assure you, despite the fact that Josefina’s godmother, Tia Magdalena, is a natural healer, she was not performing illegal abortions on their Santa Fe rancho. And yes, World War II-era Molly is now living with her pretty new English friend Emily, a refugee from the London blitz, but I highly doubt the two nine-year-old girls are getting it on while the rest of the family is out getting their food rations. Yet the American Family Association issued a press release last fall urging people “who care about little girls and about the value of human life to refrain from purchasing products and visiting American Girl Place during the entire Christmas shopping season.” That alone makes me want to empty my wallet in the store.

And boy is that easy to do. The store includes large sections for each of the historical characters, a line of “Just Like You” modern dolls that you can match to your own eye and hair color, the Bitty Baby store where younger girls can buy baby dolls for “endless cuddles and kisses” (what’s the emoticon for endless vomiting?), a bookstore, a doll hair salon, a photo studio, a full-scale restaurant, and finally, the American Girl Theatre which was our destination for the day.

Leah was eager to see the American Girls Revue, a live musical drama that features eight young actresses and four adults, each playing several roles. I was curious to see it too since I read that the show’s book and lyrics were written by Gretchen Cryer, the talented actress/writer who made a big splash in the late 1970s with her feminist musical called “I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road.” This autobiographical show opened at the Public Theatre in New York on June 14, 1978, and ran for a whopping 1,165 performances. I actually saw the show twice, once with Gretchen Cryer in the lead and once with the wonderful Phyllis Newman. The musical told the story of a woman auditioning for a new act without any of the traditional showbiz props, no makeup, and no fancy gowns. Instead, we see her transform into an outspoken, liberated woman through her songs. It worked back in the day but it also screamed for parody which it received in spades. The best of the bunch was a hilarious SCTV spoof in which Andrea Martin’s liberated TV personality Libby Wolfson joined forces with her best friend Sue Bopper Simpson (Catherine O’Hara) to stage their feminist musical called “I’m Taking My Own Head, Screwing It On Right, And No Guy’s Gonna Tell Me That It Ain’t.” Pure, unadulterated brilliance. Much to Libby and Sue’s dismay, the one male star of their play, Seth Dick III (Joe Flaherty), cast in the role of “Sexist Pig,” walked away with all of the good reviews.

For the American Girls Revue, Gretchen Cryer (who, by the way, is the mother of actor Jon Cryer, star of “Pretty in Pink”) reunited with her “I’m Getting My Act Together” composer, Nancy Ford. I have to say I was a little surprised by the steep $30 ticket price considering they present this show several times a day and it already succeeded in getting us inside their mega-shopping complex. I gulped as the lights dimmed and the overly cutesy voice of a little girl advised us to turn off our cell phones and enjoy the show. (WHY, I asked myself, do adult directors so often encourage child actors to use that cloyingly sweet fake voice that sounds nothing like any real little girl I’ve ever met?) Prepared for the worst, I watched the eight girls walk out onto the mostly bare stage and begin the play. In the story, the modern-day girls are members of an American Girls Club. A shy girl named Laura has just moved to the neighborhood. Her parents have recently split up and the girl’s mother has no idea how she is going to make ends meet now that the father is out of the picture. Laura knows she cannot afford one of the actual American Girl dolls (nice touch!) but the other girls assure her that this is not necessary (indeed, a doll is never seen on the stage, thank God, especially since the audience was full of them). They then proceed to tell the girl the story of the eight historic characters. As they do, each girl takes a turn becoming one of the characters and the adults appear in costume portraying the other people in that character’s life.

I have to admit that by the end of the first number, “We Will Find a Way,” I was hooked. Cryer and Ford had succeeded in turning what could have been intolerable to adult viewers into a surprisingly engaging and moving show. In this number, Native American Kaya ends up abandoning her friend Speaking Rain in the woods. She feels massive guilt that she left her friend alone and doesn’t know that the girl was found by a neighboring tribe. The adult characters include Toe-ta, Kautsa, and White Braids, who is, you guessed it, a very wise old woman (a required presence in all Native American stories written by white people). My only problem with this part of the play was the ridiculous wig on the lone male in the cast—with its 60s bangs and long black braids it looked like something left over from a production of “Beach Blanket Bingo.”

The male actor fared no better in the next number, “Fly Like the Wind,” in which we see horse-loving Felicity, “a spunky, spritely colonial girl, full of energy and independence,” do battle with the evil Jiggy Nye, a terrible man who abuses his horse and goes after poor Felicity. Jiggy’s wig was only slightly less offensive than the Indian’s. I started worrying that all the male characters in this play were going to be presented as ominous and threatening, thus confirming a grossly unfair stereotype about “feminist plays.” So I was relieved to see Samantha, “a bright Victorian beauty being raised by her wealthy grandmother,” interact with her kind but kooky Uncle Gard who, to the horror of the grandmother, introduces his young niece to that newfangled invention called an automobile.

Considering that this play is intended as a lure into a commercial store, I thought it was surprisingly well done and that the gamble of hiring an established team such as Cryer and Ford paid off big time. The store could have gotten away with a play that was half the length and took half the energy of this full-scale production so I give them credit for going the extra distance and daring to include some challenging aspects of each character’s story such as when Addy learns that there is still plenty of racism to go around even after the slaves are freed.

Leah and I then picked up her Samantha doll from the hair salon ($10 for a quick makeover) and went to lunch. I immediately saw that the store had improved the menu since my visit to the Chicago outlet. While there were the expected chicken fingers and individual pizzas for the little girls, there was fairly sophisticated and delicious fare for the adults, and in a very shrewd marketing move, the addition of decent wines to the menu.

Nevertheless, I was starting to get a little dizzy at the barrage of pink-soaked girliness. There were several birthday parties going on in the restaurant and many of the girls carried the same dolls and wore the same matching outfits, creating the feeling of an army of glassy-eyed “Children of the Damned.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I am an occasional sufferer of paedophobia, a fear of dolls. I was always creeped out by my sister’s doll collection, and after seeing the Karen Black classic “Trilogy of Terror,” I was convinced that during the night the sweet-looking dolls would transform into the maniacal devils I knew they really were and chase me around the house nipping at my ankles with their razor-sharp fangs.

After several hours at American Girl Place, my eyes had to readjust to the bright sun on the fake streets of the Grove with the programmed muzak wafting out of carefully hidden speakers. After doing serious time in that oasis of girlhood, I must say it was a relief to discover that the male species still walked the earth. I wanted to high-five every guy I saw and ask him if he wanted to head over to Hooters to watch the game and have a couple of brewskis.