Peter Emslie Caricatures

Check these out - there's some great likenesses. The Larry David is especially good, but I had to post Don Rickles because the drawing makes me laugh! I can hear his voice when I look at it. It's nice to see a Hirschfield flavor, rather than someone simply copying his style.

Thanks to John K. for the link.

On Fame And The Audience

NY TIMES: Why Did We Watch? The Answer Isn’t Pretty
By CARYN JAMES
Published: February 10, 2007

Becoming famous is relatively easy: Anna Nicole Smith was born with a beautiful face, a big smile and a voluptuous body she was happy to bare for Playboy. Staying famous for nothing much is hard work, and that is the real story of Ms. Smith’s life and death. Her desperation for fame was so raw that she didn’t mind being the butt of the joke if it helped maintain her place in the spotlight. Her career started out tacky, went downhill from there and ultimately says more about the culture’s fascination with celebrity than it does about Anna Nicole Smith.

While most stars play a clever cat-and-mouse game with the media, Ms. Smith’s sport was Extreme Fame. Her sense of how to court attention was simply to show up, pose and practically say, “Come get me, use me.” In that blatant desire for publicity she embodied the ultimate symbiosis of celebrity: between an individual who acted as if life out of the spotlight were worthless, and a press and public eager to indulge her craving for attention.

But without any actual career to back up her claim on the public, the question becomes: why did we watch? The unsettlingly vapid reason: because we could. She was a glittery spectacle who offered guilt-free voyeurism, as we watched her dramas with drugs and weight and inheritance laws. And the lesson of her fame is that there is no lesson.

All the attempts to justify her fame that have flowed in since her death on Thursday are hollow. She was not Marilyn Monroe; the closest Ms. Smith came to a real movie career was a small role in the spoof “Naked Gun 331/3 : The Final Insult.” She was not a rags-to-riches inspiration; most little girls don’t dream of growing up to be Playmate of the Year, marrying an 89-year-old billionaire and fighting for his money all the way to the Supreme Court. And she was not a cautionary tale; she courted attention too relentlessly to seem innocent or deluded.

There was the ring of truth in what her mother told “Good Morning America” yesterday: that her daughter said, “If my name is out there in the news, good or bad doesn’t matter, good or bad I make money, so I’m going to do whatever it takes.” It says a lot about the bubble Ms. Smith lived in that even her mother, Virgie Arthur, communicated with her daughter through the media. On “Good Morning America,” Ms. Arthur said she had tried to warn her estranged daughter about her drug use, and had done so by appearing on the Nancy Grace show.

Ms. Smith’s lust for fame coincided with a media explosion she could exploit. After her weight ballooned, and her modeling career declined, she latched onto the reality television craze. But her two seasons of “The Anna Nicole Show” on E! revealed how inept she was at shaping an image. Her speech was slurred, her voice was whiny, her manner was demanding, and the curiosity that fed the ratings quickly dissipated. She seemed beyond pathetic by 2004, after she became a diet-product spokeswoman and showed off her newly slim body in another slurry appearance at the American Music Awards.

Her story took an indisputably tragic turn in September, when her 20-year-old son, Daniel, died days after Ms. Smith gave birth to a daughter. Yet even then she couldn’t rise above the lurid nature of her fame. She sold photographs of her son and newborn in the hospital room where he died to In Touch magazine; even now, video of her Caesarean section is available on YouTube.

And soon an ugly paternity battle over the infant broke out in a flurry of media interviews, with two men claiming to be the father: Larry Birkhead, a former boyfriend, and Howard K. Stern, Ms. Smith’s longtime lawyer and confidant. (He seemed glued to her on the reality show.) It’s no surprise that Mr. Stern announced his fatherhood on “Larry King Live,” with Ms. Smith by his side.

The messiness of her death — its unknown cause, the continuing legal battles about the inheritance and the little girl’s paternity — have made its aftermath just as media-centric as her life, with cable news channels trotting out a parade of casual former boyfriends, sometime-friends and estranged relatives.

Donna Hogan, Ms. Smith’s half-sister, talked to Larry King on the phone about her forthcoming book (announced long before Ms. Smith’s death), predictably called “Train Wreck: Anna Nicole Unauthorized.” Ms. Hogan said she hadn’t seen her sister in about a decade.

And while commentators are struggling to find meaning in her life, the responses to her death in the hours just after it was announced may more accurately reflect the public attitude toward her as a joke who drew gawkers rather than fans.

Many reactions seemed to defy the usual courtesy of not speaking ill of the dead. A post by the Web site Wonkette.com said, “the dope-addicted floozy Anna Nicole Smith keeled over dead in a Florida hotel about an hour ago,” a fast turnaround of irreverence even for the Internet. Geraldo Rivera on the Fox News Channel put the blame for Ms. Smith’s sorry life on Mr. Stern, saying, “He’s a pimp,” who sold her to the media. (What does that make her?) And even Larry King, the friendliest of anchors, told Wolf Blitzer that Ms. Smith was “not the smartest person in the world” before praising her good humor and good heart.

The news of her death brought the inevitable jolt that comes when anyone dies suddenly at 39. And there is the inescapable tragedy of a 5-month-old left without her mother. But Anna Nicole Smith’s fame is as sad and shallow in death as it was in life, just as much of a tawdry compact between her and us.

On Hollywood Scandal And 'Redemption'

NY TIMES: You’ll Work in This Town Again
By JERRY STAHL
Published: December 17, 2006

GOD bless Mel Gibson.

Of course, the deity doing the blessing is less likely to be Yahweh than Gukumatz, traditional Toltec god of culture, agriculture and opening weekend grosses.

By now the miracles have been quantified. “Apocalypto,” when it opened, promptly took the top box office spot with $15 million. Plus — what are the odds? — his Joseph Campbell-meets-Mesoamerica epic has been nominated for a Golden Globe, and is now being mentioned in the same sentence as Oscar.

It’s the last thing you’d expect for a movie in Mayan — especially one made by a man whose last project was a staging of Hate Crime Theater on a Malibu police-cam. Which begs the question: How low does a human being have to sink before Hollywood shoos him away and he can’t get an Oscar?

Stars have always been bent. Wallace Reid, the silent screen’s first heartthrob — and a full-on dope fiend — needed the studio to slip him morphine to keep production going. (This was the pre-rehab era; Reid died trying to kick his habit in a sanitarium.)

The celebrated Charlie Chaplin? In his 20s, he married a 16-year-old moppet; in his 30s, married another 16-year-old; in his 50s, settled down with a 17-year-old. But his penchant for child brides did not prevent him from receiving the longest standing ovation in Oscar history when he was given an honorary statue in 1972. Of course, Chaplin’s honor also marked his return from exile in Switzerland.

Once, Hollywood required scandal-ridden stars to go away for a while — a penitent hiatus before they could enjoy redemption, their second acts. So after being banished for years for her baby with Roberto Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman was, in 1956, finally welcomed back and given an Oscar.

Roman Polanski waited decades after fleeing a warrant for pedophilia before he finally snagged, in absentia, his best director statue for “The Pianist.” And even Leni Riefenstahl, the Führer’s darling, received a posthumous mention among the notable Hollywood dead at the 2003 Oscars.

But less than five months have passed between Mr. Gibson’s spouting of tequila-fueled bons mots on the dread power of the Hebrews and his basking in the glow of a No. 1 movie. His brief time in the wilderness may represent the fastest about-face since Democrats re-embraced Joseph Lieberman after he bested Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate race.

I know what you’re going to say: Fatty Arbuckle. The exception to the rule. Once bigger than Chaplin, he’s now remembered as the gold standard of degraded celebrity, someone who allegedly committed such unforgivable acts that he could never really come back. In 1921, the year he became the first comic actor to make $1 million a year, he was accused of raping and murdering an actress during an orgy at a San Francisco hotel.

It wasn’t Hollywood that finally barred the door to Arbuckle — friends like Buster Keaton helped him scrape together directing gigs under a pseudonym — his audience left him. Back then, the Christian reform movement blamed movies for an epidemic of teenage degeneracy, but these proto-Don Wildmons loved Arbuckle, who radiated less sex than a lawn chair.

So when the comedian was exposed as a sweaty, waif-crushing love-manatee, it wasn’t just a revolting crime — it was a core betrayal of his conservative fans. A jury found him innocent, but it was too late. In this industry, Arbuckle’s sin was worse than Mr. Gibson’s: he wasn’t bankable anymore.

That’s what it comes down to. If you’re going to offend your peers, parade unforgivable behavior and find all-new ways to turn your life into a nonstop shame-fest, you’d better also deliver big box office.

Speaking strictly as a paranoid Jew, I want my celebrity anti-Semites to be loaded mega-stars screaming into the night by the side of a road. How much more disturbing would it be to hear, say, Wilfred Brimley making the same racist claims over a bowl of groats, sober as a judge?

Mr. Gibson’s anti-Semitism is in fact the least interesting thing about him. Maybe he was simply craving that next level of public humiliation; maybe his espousing of such heinous opinions and subsequent talk show tortures are valuable research for his violent onscreen debasements.

The point to remember is that every award won by “Apocalypto,” every ticket sold, doesn’t mean that “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” will start inching upward on Amazon. Mr. Gibson’s anti-Semitism may be as American as canned ham (that’s the dark truth of why he’s not been completely shunned), but his film will win accolades in spite of who he is — not because of it.

What do I know? I’m in this business because somebody made a movie about my life as a drug-addled loser in Hollywood. If lifelong integrity were required for gainful employment in the entertainment industry, then I’d still be sweating through my McDonald’s poly-blend, serving Happy Meals alongside other showbiz reprobates.

You simply can’t vet the moral worth — or at least, the absence of obvious, deep-seated depravity — of every potential Oscar nominee. If they only gave work, let alone awards, to non-sickos, non-egomaniacs and non-hypocrites, there would be nobody left to make movies but Tom Hanks.

Jerry Stahl is the author, most recently, of “I, Fatty.”

You Know What I Don't Get? - Part 4

Pantiless celebrities. There's been a lot in the tabloids lately about Britney with no panties, and Lindsay with no panties, and Paris with no panties as they come and go from clubs and parties.

A few things need to be dispensed with right away:

1) I really don't find this sexy. I'm sure some folks do, but for me, this generates that feeling I get when I see an episode of Cops; and a drunk, pantless guy is getting arrested. His Mr. Happy is mercifully blurred out, and it's a sad experience for all involved. This guy is at the nadir of his life, I'm watching it happen, and he signed the release so his lowest ebb could be aired on television. But I digress.

2) I don't care if they're promiscuous or not. Have fun, as long as you're playing safe.

3) I make fun of them, but I don't think most celebrities are dumber than anybody else. I don't think I would've made a lot of sense to anyone either if the media started following and recording every move I made when I was nineteen or so. Not to mention becoming insanely wealthy overnight.

I suppose the easiest answer is, "hey - they were young and drunk - underwear isn't really a priority with you're plastered". Well, okay. But these folks get their picture taken a LOT. Going to the supermarket. Working out. Buying new clothes. Whatever. So if you're climbing in and out of sports cars in a dress sans panties, you can pretty much bet the farm that your privates are going to show up in the papers - and be all over the internet - very, very quickly.

It's also a pretty good bet that you're going to see those pictures at some point (or someone's going to show them to you, or tell you about them). It follows that you're going to react in two ways: you're mortified, or you don't care. If you're mortified, you're going to make capitol-S-sure that it doesn't happen again. At least, that it won't happen again when you've stopped being moritified and are able to go somewhere with cameras.

If you don't care, you're going to keep on keeping on, and it probably will happen again - maybe several more times. Now I would think that after the third time or so, a kind of cumulative effect would start to creep in, and some sort of embarrassment would begin to develop. You'd start looking in the mirror and seeing 'the pantless Cops guy', or you'd start to feel that other people see you that way. So either way, I don't get how it keeps happening.

Anyway, there's enough of this going on right now that you'd think that famous people would learn from one another (or at least their publicist), and cancel appearances if they're, uh, not up to it. I guess the combination of alcohol and fame can be pretty damaging.