Ann-Margret is officially credited with unleashing certain hormones in this baby boomer boy; but Elizabeth Taylor may have been the car a generation of adolescent dogs imagined chasing. I’m still unclear what I was supposed to do if I’d ever caught “Liz”.
On the local sports front, two otherwise very solid guys go “Wuff-silly” reminding me how stone blind our overt partisanship can make us.
The line is “like a dog chasing a car …. what would he do with it if he caught it?” For any young man coming of age in the 60s (and probably for lots of not-so-young men too) Elizabeth Taylor personified “that car”. Liz Taylor was “a WO-Man!” We had attractive women in our town and certainly our share of pretty girls ….. but we didn’t have nothing like “HER”. If we did, I never encountered her. I’m not sure I have in the ensuing years either.
She was cold …. but she was HOT! Her eyes, her cleavage, her rampant lasciviousness ….. she was classy, she was nasty. Oh me! Oh my!
Come to think of it, I cannot conceive of any adolescent fantasy involving her. A dozen cheerleaders in a mini-van sure. Every Clearasil Cowboy has that one …. but Elizabeth Taylor? Marines were afraid of her! …. Lets not even get into Sophia Loren or Elke Sommer.
Cleopatra! NO ONE else could have played that role …. Tennessee Williams created “Liz” – the quintessential “cat” on the hot tin roof. My dad tried to explain the meaning of that phrase to me once. It was an awkward experience for both of us. The role that never made sense was National Velvet.
In all her adult films she basically “played Elizabeth Taylor” regardless of her character’s name. She used her evil “wiles” to steal Eddie Fisher from sweet little Debbie Reynolds. Debbie never had a chance. And Liz and Burton “doing it” drunk as skunks and screaming obscenities. The mind will forever reel.
We mark the Evolution of Pop Culture as relevant to our personal age of discovery. As baby boomers we have a bit of an edge because there were so gosh-darned many of us “coming of age in The 60s”. When we say Mickey Mantle or Bob Cousy or Johnny Unitas were The Greatest we really don’t care what you think if you are from a different era. Any “All-Time Sexy Hollywood Siren” list without Liz Taylor very very high on the list is inconceivable.
Jane Russell died a few weeks ago. Liz Taylor joined Jane on the “she’s dead” ledger this week. “Marilyn” (there’s only one “Marilyn”) punched her ticket 40 years ago. “Marilyn” will be forever immortalized standing over that sidewalk grate with the air blowing her skirt up. She never had to endure countless nips and tucks or become a wrinkled recluse in a penthouse awaiting The Grim Reaper.
“Marilyn” was The Iconic Sex Symbol of the 20th Century. I’m not sure what Elizabeth Taylor was. For all her sexual escapades, you never saw Liz Taylor in a nude scene or a Playboy pictorial. Think about that in this current era of explicit sexuality.
Liz aged as we have aged. I recall the debut of her White Diamonds perfume maybe 20 years ago. She still had “it” with the eyes. Then the aging dowager got mixed up with Jacko’s Circus. THAT was Mondo Bizarro. What must Bubbles The Chimp have thought? Liz and Bubbles ? Ya think ??
Arkansas filled their Head Coach vacancy with Mike Anderson from Missouri. An interesting little nugget to that is Anderson’s agent is Butch’s amigo – Jimma Sexton. The con artist that squeezed the $250,000 ransom out of UNC to keep Butch after Year One. “Jimma” negotiated Anderson’s deal by circumventing normal protocol of going thru an AD to request permission. Jimma plays by Jimma’s rules. Jimma (w/ Butch) will screw UNC again one day.
Now Missouri is “in the market” along with Tennessee, GaTech, Oklahoma ….. and NC State. But, NC State IS SPECIAL or so “they say”.
I had lunch this week with two certifiably sane adult WuffPackers. One I’ve known for some time. The other he has known for some time. Both are unashamedly partisan and curse beautiful blue sky because it’s blue. But both function as husbands, fathers and successful businessmen. They are not “those wuffs” locked up in the Reynolds basement under heavy sedation. Both are avid BLSays disciples. That said:
Both “high-grade” Wuff-guys are convinced that NC State University is THE quintessentially ideal collegiate environment ever assembled on God’s Earth. OH WOW – Reynolds, DT, Three Guys Pizza, Sembowers BookStore, Amedeo’s, Carter-Finley, That Tunnel thing, Philip, The Brickyard – Oh Joy, Oh Rapture – “Heaven On Hillsborough Street”.
I listened …. quietly lifting my feet off the floor as the bulls**t was ankle-deep and rising. Stifling a gag reflex while eating a hush puppy is a special skill. Kinda like when a guy told me, with a straight face, that Joe Biden is among the most intellectually superior politicians in American history. Really?
I love my home town. Everyone from a similar community seems to feel the same way about their hometown. I chatted today with a Rockingham Rocket from the mid 60s. He talked about a home town memory. The joy radiated from him. Despite my home town certainly being MUCH BETTER he seemed equally proud of his. Go figure.
98.3% of alumni/fans have an greatly inflated partisan opinion of their personal college of choice …. there is a difference between “I think its great” and “everyone else should think its great”. Many State fans are in the “obviously everyone thinks” mode. Alas, they are mistaken.
I applaud PackPride. School spirit is a good thing. Oklahoma, GaTech, Tennessee and Missouri all have
School Spirit?? Talk to a Texas A&M Aggie.
it in abundance too. Talk to a Texas A&M Aggie about School Spirit! My own alma mater certainly takes a backseat to no one no where in its religious conviction that it’s fecal matter smells like gardenias. Franklin Street’s absurdum does not lessen the foolish assumption that Sean Miller cannot possibly be happy in Tucson. A paradise in the Sonoran Desert vs Mayberry ? Really!
State may indeed land the coveted “Big Name Coach” …. Phil Jackson hasn’t said “no”. Unlike every slobbering goober in West Raleigh I don’t know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody that heard Lou Pucillo tell Chris Corchiani that ……!
Jimmy V was DEAD before today’s recruits were BORN !!! Everett Case was Dead before today’s recruits DADDIES WERE BORN. How do you spell “relevant”?
If State gets “the Coveted Big Name Coach” he will likely demand “more than Roy 2 Rings” currently makes. Uh oh! THAT could prove “interesting” on several levels. Regardless of where the $$$$ comes from, it comes in a time of severe campus-wide system-wide lay-offs – “interesting” indeed!
It would be a freakin’ hoot if Frau Yow hires a young unknown but enthusiastic young man from a podunk place like “Iona” …. or maybe from West Point. I recall successful precedent for such a strategy. If Frau goes that route SHE WILL BE LYNCHED! Times change. But fans don’t.
