He is far more famous for whom...
He is far more famous for whom he dresses down than for whom he dresses.
Mr. Blackwell, that designer-cum-poison-penman, has again let fly with his annual Worst Dressed list, spanning the globe in search of fashion felons, who include:
From Washington: Marilyn Quayle, skewered for dressing like “a 1940 unemployed librarian.” (Except the future Second Lady is apparently looking to be employed and resume her law career).
From Hawaii via Manila: Imelda Marcos, “an over-the-hill actress auditioning for Evita.”
From Kensington Palace: Sarah, redheaded Duchess of York, who looks “like she should be making beds on the second floor of a motel.”
From Hollywood: zaftig TV newcomer Roseanne Barr--”Fashions by Goodyear, body by Sara Lee!” gasps Blackwell--and actress-singer Madonna. (Keep in mind, though, that Blackwell made his list before a New York columnist alleged that Madonna had been “trussed up like a turkey” by her husband, Sean Penn, after a quarrel. It might have made a difference.)
Blackwell did give couture kudos to, among others, mother-daughter plutocrats Ivana and Blaine Trump, and unabashed double-digit-dress-sized Barbara Bush.
Where does a thousand-pound chocolate bar sit? Anywhere it wants, except next to Tommy Lasorda, if it knows what’s good for it.
The half-ton Nestle’s Crunch bar went to the highest bidder, who paid $1,100, at Wednesday’s sports celebrity fund-raiser here for “Wheels Across America,” wheelchair athlete Bill Duff’s upcoming 20-state cross-country push, which is itself a rolling fund-raiser for a Miami-based spinal cord injury research center.
Among the big names at the reception were big guys like footballers Jack Youngblood and O. J. Simpson, and Dodger blue blood Lasorda.
If the 2.8-million-calorie bar was de trop, the benefit also auctioned 10-pound bars autographed by the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Pete Rose and Larry Bird.
Maybe it’s just as well that equal time restrictions mean that Mayor Tom Bradley, by running for reelection, has aced himself out of a guest cameo on the NBC-TV show “Hunter.”
Remember the lessons of video history:
Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis did a guest spot on “St. Elsewhere”--and later lost the presidency.
President Gerald Ford did a taped bit on “Saturday Night Live”--and lost the White House to Jimmy Carter.
And Richard Nixon appeared on “Laugh-In” to recite the gag line “sock it to me”--and wound up resigning the presidency.
In short, mayor, you could do it, but it would be wrong.
On Wednesday, the City Council declared that Van Nuys’ Picover Station--a stop for the old Red Car electric trolleys that once crisscrossed Los Angeles reliably and cheaply--shall henceforth be venerated as a historic-cultural monument.
Today, the Chambers of Commerce of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena will sit down to discuss “The Road to Tomorrow,” fantasizing about ultra-tech 21st-Century commuting that might even include “electric trains . . . swift, smog-free transportion.”
O Brave New World. O big Red Cars.
