In memoriam: Dixie Carter.

I just found out that Dixie Carter had died, and it hit me very hard. For my entire adult life and most of my childhood, she has been the personification of wit and great lines, because of Designing Women, yes, to a certain extent, but mostly because of Filthy Rich, a sitcom that ran on CBS from 1982-1983.

Carter's character, Carlotta Beck, was scheming and conniving and willing to do anything to get at the fortune left by her deceased father-in-law Big Guy Beck. But along the way, she had some of the great lines of television history, and next to no one knows about this show. So as a tribute to the memory of the late, great Dixie Carter, here are my seventeen favorite lines she ever delivered on this underseen gem.

You may recognize some of these, if only because I've been quoting them for the past twenty-five years.



"I became confused and forced it out of a small child's hand."

"You want to know what happened to me, I'll tell you what happened to me. I fell into the Mississippi River."

"We do not serve- gristle."

"If you refuse to pay servants, you leave us no choice but to adopt small, pliant children from underprivileged countries."

"This should be put on wheels and taken around to people everywhere to show that it could happen in your home too."

"How I hate it when she pummels us with clever repartee..."

"Yes, I want you hurt."

"If I looked in the mirror I would see someone demented, and frothing, and looking for just the right size axe."

"Kathleen, dear, I suggest you stay out of this or I will verbally annihilate you. I will cut you off at the knees. I will take that two-cent accent and perfectly coiffed hairdo and stuff it down your demurely concealed, but nevertheless dimestore cleavage!"

"We prefer not to seriously consider the opinion of a woman whose dog wears hot pants."

"Bootsie Weschester's taste in men ranges from King Kong to Lil' Abner and unfortunately, you do not fall into that category."

"It must be all that fresh morning air you get on those long taxi rides home."

"Marshall- thunder!"

"Our only regret is that we did not have time to purchase an appropriate gift. Perhaps a silver platter with rabbits on it."

"You've been meditating again... your pupils are dilated."

"Don't tell us! Random House has decided to publish your autobiography, I Was an Elementary School Virgin."

"Nouveau white trash."

In memoriam: Malcolm McLaren.

I know next to nothing about the Sex Pistols or the New York Dolls. But here are a few pieces of music Mr. McLaren had his dirty fingers in somehow or another, and they're all spectacular. He was a brilliant bastard of a businessman, and I think the world will be a little less sleazy-interesting without him.


FANTASTIC PLANET: Carry On Columbus

Ah, the rave years. With a melody that sounds like both the Phantasm theme, "Right in the Night" by Jam & Spoon, and "Spanish Caravan" by The Doors.

MALCOLM McLAREN & THE BOOTZILLA ORCHESTRA: Deep in Vogue

Samples from Paris is Burning, and this bad boy predates Madonna's "Vogue" by quite some time.

MALCOLM McLAREN and FRANCOISE HARDY: Revenge of the Flowers

From MMcL's jazz-pop "Paris" project. Love it.

MALCOLM McLAREN: Double Dutch

A global mush of everything, and one of the most enduring leftfield tracks of the early 80s.

MALCOLM McLAREN and ALISON LIMERICK: Magic's Back (The Ghosts of Oxford Street)
McLaren meets Stock and Waterman, with the voice of Alison Limerick (not Double You). Apologies for the wonky quality and the lack of embeddability.

Those damned very same bikers.

One of the greats.
Apologies for the uneven Basketball Diaries footage.

Teenage opera, sadly quieter...

We lost one of the greats today.

Ellie Greenwich, one of the finest songwriters who ever lived, died today, and it makes me several different kinds of sad.

The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and "Baby I Love You"
The Dixie Cups' "Chapel of Love"
The Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack"
The Crystals' "And Then He Kissed Me"
Freddie Mercury's "I Can Hear Music"
Manfred Mann's "Do Wah Diddy Diddy"
Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
and, of course, the best song ever written, "River Deep Mountain High."

She wrote and/or cowrote all of them. Any one of those would be reason enough to celebrate her life and career. But she helped create ALL of them, as well as countless others.

It trips me out merely to think about what a guiding hand and voice Ellie Greenwich was in modern popular music, and she will be missed.

R.I.P. John Hughes.

An American original. The man who defined what parties when the parents are gone should be. The man who taught us that no trauma couldn't be overcome with a proper soundtrack choice.

R.I.P Eartha Kitt.

Politically active, sexually charged, distinctive in voice, and one of the most enduring and unique of icons. She will be missed.

R.I.P. Majel Barrett-Roddenberry

Be sure and give your Trekkie friends warm and supportive hugs today.

R.I.P. Bettie Page

Eighty-five years of singular iconography.

R.I.P. Odetta.

One of the most important voices in American history has died.

People often use the phrase 'voice of an angel' to descirbe whatever twee white woman is deploying some tasteful melisma over strings and dispassionate tunefulness.

I call bullshit.

There are several voices that I feel manage to encompass the breadth of divinity and still express what mortality means to us as human beings- Diamanda Galas, certainly. Antony Hegarty, pretty much. But there is no one who ever put the expanse of the human experience into song like Odetta James.

"People like doing what they used to do, after they've stopped being able to do it. "

He was an icon who aged gracefully and went out on his own terms. I will always cherish his work and his Low Fat Sesame Ginger dressing.

"Am I the meanest?"

Character actor Julius Carry died two days ago from pancreatic cancer. I had the fortune of seeing a 35mm print of The Last Dragon last month, and his performance as Sho'Nuff, The Shogun of Harlem, stands the tests of time. I didn't realize that he was also Lord Bowler from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. So I'll take that as a sign to rewatch Brisco County for the first time since it initially aired, back during my first year at NYU.

True story: I was in the midst of an intimate moment in my dorm room back in the day while an episode of Brisco County was on in the background, and the guy I was with caught a glimpse of the TV and was like, "Is that Ash?"

Which is very funny if you happen to be naked at the time.

Anyway, RIP Julius Carry. Truly you were the meanest. Truly you were the prettiest. Truly you were the baddest mo-fo, low down, around this town...

"You don't understand; I ain't scared of you motherfuckers."

I was just wrapping my mind around Estelle Getty, and now Bernie Mac? That's what we call hardcore. He was a notable presence, even if he didn't always make the best choices in movie roles. I've got respect for anyone who can get sampled on a Prince record (It's called "Pope," and it's pretty good), and if I have to be 100% honest, I'll cop to being dismayed by his death because I always wanted to cast him and Grace Jones as a couple in a movie. But here's to you, Mr. Mac. It's a testament to your talents that I was willing to let your homophobia and pro-child beating ways slide, and I hope there was "some milk and cookies" waiting in the next life.

"Picture it... Sicily."

We've lost our first Golden Girl.

Estelle Getty had quite a few other roles in her life (Mannequin, Tootsie, Torch Song Trilogy on Broadway), but she was always going to be Sophia Petrillo, the foul-mouthed voice of common sense and doyenne of cutting to the chase on The Golden Girls and, metonymically, all of American life from '85 up until '92.

She was so good on The Golden Girls that I actually made my mother go see Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot in the theatre during its five minute theatrical engagement.

And she is now the first of the Golden Girls to leave us. And she died horribly, just as she lived horribly over the past few years. Lewy Body Dementia... as cruel as Alzheimer's, but not as well known. No red carpet galas for LBD (though there is an Association, and I just bet they rename themselves The Estelle Getty Foundation for LBD Research and Awareness, and if they don't, then some rich people need to get on it), and the woman who showed us a glorious and independent life in the golden years was unable to enjoy her own.

The saddest thing about Estelle Getty's death is merely what it demonstrates about the world. I loved The Golden Girls because it showed me what strong friendship could mean, and how as long as you had a network of people who cared about you to rely on, you could handle anything life threw at you (as long as there was cheesecake and sex to be had). And even that can be taken away by the vicissitudes of the body.

Maybe the Cathars were right.

Hats off to you, Miss Estelle Getty. One way or another, at least the paralyzing fear is gone.