Thank Heaven for Little Girl Scouts
YOU MAY NOT get many songs out of a Cramps concert, but they sure kill time in style. Lux Interior desperately tries to pad the time between songs in his role as a free-associating mutie deejay. That's the best part of the show, because he's totally inept despite nearly 30 years in show biz. Every witty remark is massacred by a breathless delivery. Nobody can say that the patter is overly rehearsed. In fact, it's the most honest and enthusiastic part of the show. The Cramps may not care much about playing music, but they obviously love creating a fake atmosphere of a funhouse 50s rock 'n' roll horror show.
The un-American breakfast fare reminds me that I have serious doubts about this formerly fine organization. The Girl Scouts have definitely been infiltrated by lefties over the past few years. That's no excuse for my showing up looking like a beatnik. I'm clearly underdressed amongst these fine people who are all about to head off to their day jobs. My usual strategy in this situation is to pretend that I'm Judd Nelson. In this case, I'll pretend to be Avril Lavigne.
My wary cynicism is briefly won over by how the breakfast begins with the Pledge of Allegiance. We even get to say the "under God" part. I'm expecting a real embarrassment when the crowd is then asked to join in for "God Bless America." I knew that Irving Berlin had bequeathed the song's royalties to the Girl Scouts, but I expect a mumbling disaster on the level of when the Zombies expected their audience to know the words to the old standard "Summertime." Instead, everyone's singing loud and clear.
This is looking like my kind of crowd-even though the expected MILF level is sadly lacking. The vibe is a little more stern. Carmen Dubroc, the current board president, almost manages to bring me down with her announcement that "today's Girl Scouts is much more than cookies, cooking and crafts." She also invokes the CosmoGIRL Born to Lead Patch, where Girl Scouts get to meet with "leaders like Madeleine Albright."
Yeah, there's a good role model: "So, girls, that's when I found out those North Koreans were total liars!"
Dubroc restores some of my faith by announcing how much money's been raised at this breakfast-and adding that, "We always report the net here." That means she concentrates on the sheer profit, just to assure us that administrative waste isn't devouring the money like it's a boxful of Thin Mints. Which reminds me that sales of Girl Scout Cookies support our servicemen and servicewomen overseas.
The first Woman of Distinction-and also our keynote speaker-is Seventeen editor-in-chief Atoosa Rubenstein. She's introduced as being "very cool and hip" by no less than MC Deborah Norville. There's the ultimate compliment. Rubenstein's already gotten some attention by announcing her proposed topic of addressing mean young girls. As it turns out, that's only a partial description of her main concern. Rubenstein is actually speaking out against how mean we are to young girls who are rich and famous.
"I am part of the problem," she states at the beginning. That's necessary, too, since the event's gift bag includes a copy of Seventeen, which boasts of "Gossip: Wish we could name names! Turn the page and read between the lines-you'll figure it out." Rubenstein is still eager to address a "shift in the celebrity landscape." Specifically, Rubenstein is concerned about how the media is looking at young sex symbols and "talking about their bodies in a lewd way." Rubenstein sees this as the world "punishing them for being bold and being gutsy."
She picks a bad example by likening her early days at CosmoGirl to the rise of a young superstar. Rubenstein complains, "If I had a dollar for every radio-show host who asked me if Britney's breasts were real, I'd be as rich as Britney." Maybe nobody would've been asking those questions if Britney's cup size hadn't been changing every six weeks.
But that's all beside the point. The real "shift in the celebrity landscape" is strictly a shift in Rubenstein's world. She's joined Jane Pratt and Graydon Carter in socializing with her celeb pals over at Bungalow 8. As she explains, Rubenstein is now at the point where Mary Kate Olsen's publicist is counting on her to run interference for famous clients.
This means Rubenstein gets to parrot nonsensical statements such as, "She hasn't had a relapse. You need to recover to have a relapse." We heard the same thing from Robert Downey Jr.'s apologists. It's even more baffling when Rubenstein suggests that incredibly sexy tabloid pics of Mary Kate in a bikini were related to her anorexia. Those sexy tabloid pics led to Mary Kate on the cover of Maxim.
I'm not inspired by next honoree Diane T. Ashley, either. I'd expect a former advisor to Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to join in condemning tabloid journalism. The network news weren't going to expose Rev. Jackson's corruption.
My heart won't get pattering again until it's time to honor the very distinctive-if not particularly womanly-Cholene Espinoza. As Norville explains, "She has eliminated so many barriers for women in aviation." More importantly, Espinoza has probably eliminated many evildoers while logging over 200 hours in combat over Iraq and Bosnia while manning a U-2. This fine dame joins the others in endorsing Rubenstein's thoughts, while including a "litigious" society in her definition of petty meanness.
The final honoree turns out to be a true legend. People like the Cramps and John Waters revel in white-trash culture, but Lillian Vernon actually planted the seeds with her extraordinary Lillian Vernon Catalogs. Her homegrown operation continues to offer such timeless items as Cake-On-A-Stick Pans and "Give-Us-This-Day" Aspic Molds. Vernon represents the best of America-and she loves this country, which probably has something to do with how the German-born genius came here after fleeing the Nazis with her parents.
Vernon begins her short speech by handing over the $10 registration fee to be a Girl Scout. We should all be sending her money, too-as she'll later note at the end of her old-fashioned speech. "Keep sending in your orders," she says, "Christmas is coming." Now, that's the kind of great capitalism that's worth honoring.
Sadly, I can't stand around to see the event's Future Woman of Distinction. I'd like to hear more about how young Aishah Scott created the girl-friendly forum of "Pillow Chat" for junior-high students overwhelmed by the pressures of life. It's just that I have to go attend the funeral of an old Jewish woman who gave birth to my father-in-law on an abortionist's table while hiding out from the Nazis in Vienna. Which Patch gets a girl ready for that kind of action?