10/28/2010 12:00 am
Culture
Liz Smith: Cherry Vanilla's Tasty Invitation
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Cherry Vanilla/Image: 1977, Willie Christie
"When I was a rapper, the groupies didn’t have to try too hard with me. Just show up at the hotel," says excellent actor Mark Wahlberg, once known (much to his embarrassment) as Marky Mark.
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Very few books make me sit back and draw in my breath, but here’s a new one from my old acquaintance, the so-called Cherry Vanilla. She has finally put her saga of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll down between hard covers.
"Between covers" partially describes this girl of the decades that gave us The Beatles, the last of Elvis, David Bowie, Sting, the Police, hippies, civic unrest, Gay Liberation and all the rest of a saga that had drugs of all types on the menu and sex on the brain. Ms. Vanilla has titled her opus Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla,
and if you want to read an epoch-spanning chronicle about what these revolutionary eras were like, this is it!
My hair almost stood on end reading this book where I knew so many of the participants. For, although I was definitely around through all of it (Woodstock, the Copacabana, the Fillmore East, Andy Warhol, etc.), I remained somehow outside looking in and quite naïve. But I met most of these players so it was catnip reading to find out what they were "really" like, from Brigid Berlin to Kris Kristofferson to Lance Loud.
Besides being a sex addict, Ms. Vanilla also became a rock ‘n’ roll arranger and manager, an ad executive, PR expert, performance artist, writer and poet. She is still going strong though she says she now lives without sex. Amazing!
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The roars of laughter at the Music Box for "La Bete" are not dimmed by the half of the theater-going public who can’t stand this play, nor its offensive vulgarity. But I enjoyed this no-intermission evening very much – especially pleased by the three leading actors.
Mark Rylance is just incredible as Valere, the loquacious street clown, suffering from severe logorrhea, who seldom draws breath during his monologues. His 25-minute opening speech is historic. In no other work that I recall, has an actor had to speak so long, with other characters onstage, who do nothing but react! He is the same Tony-winning guy who was so great in "Boeing Boeing." (I am probably in the minority here – but I did think ten minutes of his opening ongoing flow could have been cut to give the audience time to readjust to the momentary silence.)
Loved, loved David Hyde Pierce, so uncharacteristic as the playwright with intellect and ethics. You’ll adore his long, 17th-century blond curls. I was also taken by Stephen Ouimette as his partner-foil, the hunchback actor who is humiliated by La Bete.
The show’s presentation of its "princess" – the one and only Joanna Lumley, known for her role on Britain’s wild TV comedy, "Absolutely Fabulous" – is more than accomplished by her "golden" entrance. Truly funny and no one has looked more divine onstage.
The sheer bombastic vulgarity of "La Bete" appeals to many. And while others are "turned off," this aspect makes the author’s point. He is David Hirson and how he ever wrote all this acute, rhyming verse-dialogue is a miracle. Let alone how Mr. Rylance learned it!
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She is still going strong though she says she now lives without sex.
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Some of us just found it boring after awhile and wanted something more "spiritual" although some of us are still looking for the something more "spiritual."
I actually get embarassed now when I watch "Shampoo" although I still have this reaction of "who told?"
Who knows. I may yet write at least one book. "The Great Pool Houses of Bel-Air."
It sickens me that "sex addict" has become the excuse for lacking moral fiber, using the freedom to say "no", having no self-respect, etc.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s nothing but bull s*!#.
Aaaaaaaahhhh Marky Mark…..I still remember the videos and posters of him in his Calvin Klein underwear…….
Were you saying something Liz? :-)