boomerlaughs

This last time down the aisle I spouted my ‘I dos’ to a wonderful YOUNGER man.  We’re talking eleven years my Jr.  I almost qualify for Demi Moore status minus the eternally perfect hot bod and, of course, a garbage truck load of fame and fortune.  We are in our 9th year of conjugal bliss……..sometimes more conjugal……..sometimes  more bliss , always entertaining.  Regardless, I get to be a Cougar.

Last week we grabbed a cable moment to watch Factory Girl, about the life of Edie Sedgwick during the time of her idolhood with Andy Warhol.  Being a native New Yorker, I was pretty fascinated with the trip down memory lane.  And, let’s face it, if you push the question of talent aside, Andy Warhol was rather like a traffic accident on the side of the freeway;  you must look even though there is the potential of seeing something dreadful.  Edie Sedgwick ranked right up there with him only she was pretty, didn’t really paint, and her life ended up as a tragedy.

In my youth I used read about the two of them with an incredible amount of fascination and wonder.  The Happenings were a source of curiosity and I became adept at sneaking my almost Jr. High School body out to trot down the 20+ blocks to hang out and see if I could see him.  In those days New York was not quite as dangerous as it has become, but my mother still had a complete litter of kittens when she caught me.  I was forbidden, threatened, bribed, and read endless riot acts to.  Of course, it didn’t stop me.  It totally created a little obsession………..I was foaming at the mouth to see WHAT was so very awful about that man and his friends.  I was forced to become sneakier, and sneakier, and sneakier.  Thank goodness my mother had her own little obsession with contract bridge that took hold of her most afternoons.  Once the cards were dealt I became child non-grata and could have slipped out of a room tiled with plastic bubble wrap wearing football cleats and she wouldn’t have noticed.

When the original building Andy lived in burned down (or was torn down-I don’t remember) it became increasingly hard to toddle off to Warhol land.  However, I am not one who is easily deterred.  I found a friend who lived in Gramercy Park which was within reasonable distance to Andy’s new digs.  That friendship was cut short when she noticed that I was always trying to drag her out of her building and down to where the new Factory was.  She didn’t like waiting on the street with nothing to do for the slight possibility that he would show up.  She didn’t like that I was using her.  I was too young to understand that the purpose I used her for was not what friendship was about.  I’m sorry Janice! (pronounced Jan-eeese)  I know better now.

Suffice it to say that Andy Warhol was a part of my growing up.  Edie Sedgwick was too.  In those days we didn’t have a Paris Hilton or Hanna Montana splashed on every page to go gaga over.  We had some teen idols, however, we also had the more sophisticated, quirky people with which to mold our curiosity genes, especially in New York.

Silly me, in my ripe aging brain I thought it was the same all over the world and the same throughout the generations.  And now, being the cougar that I have become, I am beginning to face the fact that it is not always true.  The generations that followed are blissfully unaware of the likes of …….say…..Gene Tierney or June Lockhart.  They know who Lassie was, but they don’t know who June Lockhart was.  And my Andy is right there among them.  Campbell’s soup cans, cows, Marilyn Monroe in multi-hued repetition be damned, they don’t recognize the shock of white bowl-cut hair and the odd voice.  Andy’s voice was something of a genius of a tool for marketing and making an impression.   It was so quiet, hushed and odd that a person just HAD to listen to what he said.  Now THAT’S some serious communication power.

I miss him, now that he’s passed on.  For that reason I truly loved the movie, which was actually rather so-so.  What made me love it was bringing back the memories and re-enjoying the weird obsessions of my youth.  When the movie was over I was rather giggly, looking at my husband.  I was filled with delight when I asked him what he thought, and “Oh my, can you BELIEVE how much it was just like Andy Warhol??”.  I expected agreement with a little bit of wonder mixed in.  What I got was…………….”Who’s Andy Warhol?  And who were all those weird people? I don’t get it.”

I’m sorry Andy,  your 15 minutes seem to have been up for quite some time now.  (and if you don’t know what THAT means……….there is no hope for you!)

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