Commentary
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Fame not lame, not for dame I
The last three years of college
have been a real eye-opener for me.
I’ve had to come to terms with the
fact that I’ll probably never be rich
and famous. The dream is over.
Actually, fame has never really
been a goal of mine. I’ve never
wanted to act, never wanted to sing,
never wanted to choreograph and
dance. I just had that hope that manv
dreamy-eyed young adults have. I’d
be sitting in a restaurant innocently
eating when suddenly a talent scout
would spot me.
“Excuse me, young lady. Have
you ever thought of acting? I was
just noticing that fabulous way you
chew. You’d be perfect for our
cottage cheese commercial.
“Can you say, ‘Gee, I love
curds!’?”
It could happen. Really, it could.
But I’m past it. I’m over it. I’ve
moved on.
I’m destined to be one of the
faceless, nameless masses. Always
in the audience, never under the
lights.
The closest I’ll ever get to a stage
is if I become the janitor who has to
sweep it. The closest I’ll ever get to
a movie career is the tram ride
through Universal Studios.
I do believe my golden voice
may have the potential to take me to
the top, though. Encyclopedias on
tape could really be my avenue to
fame. But Spanish conversational
tapes might be even better. I can
hear my fans now.
“Did you hear the way she rolled
the r’s off her tongue when she said
‘burritos’? She is sooooo good.”
“Yes, but her new tape, ‘How to
ask for directions to a toilet’ really
Heather Lampe
has Grammy potential. What a
star!!”
All right, I’m back. I just had a
relapse of a daydream. It’s just
sometimes I wonder... Fabio? How
in the hair did that happen? He was
a model for some artist who
sketched sweaty men for the covers
of trashy romance novels. Now he’s
everywhere! Why can’t the rest of
us have that kind of luck?
I know, most of us don’t have the
bodies, the faces, the hair or the
charisma to be anything but poster
children for the “before” pictures in
the lobby of Weight Watchers. But
we hold our chins up and muddle
through life.
Physical appearance seems to be
an important part of fame. And if I
was thinking of seeking fame (which
I’m not, because I’m over that,
remember?), I would probably try
being a body double. Did you know
the legs in the first part of the movie
“Pretty Woman” weren’t Julia
Roberts’ gams? No, they weren’t
mine, but thanks anyway. Sharon
Stone was using mine that week.
The legs that were shot for the
beginning scene where she zips her
boots up were a body double’s.
When an actress or an actor feels
embarrassed about exposing their
protruding parts or when their
endowments aren’t that endowed,
the movie studio hires a body
double to stand in.
I never thought my ears would
secure my place in the stars, but I
really have nice ears. Not too big.
Not too small. Anytime Demi
Moore or Winona Ryder may feel
insecure about exposing their lobes,
I’ll lend an ear.
When Roseanne needs a stand-in
for her cellulite, she can have my
number. A couple of thousand
dollars to expose my thingies and
I’m there. Hey people, get off your
high horses: I’ve never admitted to
having any standards.
The sad thing is that no one
would pay to see my thingies; hence,
no fame for poor Heather. I could
change my name to Heathio and
feign an accent, but one brainless
hairball is enough for the world.
Who needs the fame anyway?
Who could deal with the tabloid
reporters tailing you all the time or
the rumors that you’re pregnant with
Brad Pitt’s child? I could handle the
latter, but who could handle the
paparazzi following you around
trying to capture the perfect moment
on film when you yawn and drool
comes out of your mouth? Too
much uncontrollable saliva and your
career is shot. Who could handle the
pressure?
I’ll see you at the Academy
Awards. I’ll be the one standing
outside in the fine-looking red suit.
Can I park your car, Mr. Pitt?
Lampe is a junior news-editorial and
English major and a Daily Nebraskan col
umnist.
Tub scrub tops list for break
Boy, have I got some big plans
for spring break or what?
Nope, not going to Padre Island.
Not doing Fort Lauderdale. Can
you imagine ME out on the beach,
soaking up the rays, wrapped in my
Mickey Mouse beach towel? It is
not a pretty picture.
Not doing any of that. I’m not
going skiing in Colorado, camping
in Minnesota or heading home to
visit the folks.
Instead I’m going to clean the
bathtub. So, while you all are
working on your tans, I’ll be
working on my hard water deposits
and soap scum.
At least those are my plans.
Things could change. Something
better could come up, but I seriously
doubt it.
It’s my normal course of action
during the annual March respite
from hell, I mean classes, to take a
detour into domesticity.
Yes, every March I try to tackle a
major home-improvement project.
This year it’s the tub. Two years
ago, my husband and I painted the
living room and last year I was
going to finish the job by painting
the ceiling and the trim.
I said I was GOING to finish.
Never happened.
And I’m not guaranteeing that the
bathtub is going to metamorphose
next week, either.
I never make promises about
these sort of jobs.
I have a strong aversion to the
domestic sciences. An intense
loathing of vacuum cleaners and
toilet brushes. Major phobic
reaction to household duties. I am
compulsively sloppy. I break out in
RS. Write Back
Cindy Lange-Kubfck
hives at the mere sight of a dishrag.
Allergic to cleanliness.
That is why it takes an event like
spring break to get me geared up for
cleaning the bathtub. That and the
fact I’m probably going to have to
rent one of those power blasters —
the kind that spray paint off brick —
to get the dang thing clean.
Now, I didn’t simply randomly
choose the bathtub as a project. I’ve
given the matter considerable
thought.
Scouring the tub is one of 3,000
or so jobs that need to be done
around this dump we loosely call
home. Or this home we lovingly call
a dump. Whatever.
I considered scrubbing the
. kitchen floor instead, but I’d just
done that in the fall. Or was it last
summer? Anyway, that job had been
done in the last fiscal year and,
besides, nobody lays buck naked on
the linoleum like they do in the
bathtub.
(Well, hardly ever anyway. This
is not the movies and I’m not Glenn
Close. Or was that the kitchen
table?)
The kitchen needs paint and the
ceiling is sagging.
The carpets are dirty.
I am no longer able to navigate
the laundry room because of all the
empty Tide bottles and future
garage-sale junk strewn about.
Food is beginning to stick to the
shelves in the refrigerator, and there
are several containers in the back
that I am afraid to open without a
special hazardous waste-handlers
permit.
And there are enough dust balls
under the beds to begin a large-scale
allergy epidemic.
But, first things first. The
bathtub.
The job will probably take most
of the week.
Some people, for reasons unbe
knownst to me, seem to enjoy
puttering around the house. Painting,
sprucing, decorating, slocking around
the place with a paint brush in one
hand and a dust mitt in the other.
Not I.
And that is why I’m coming
forward to say that yes, next week,
next Monday, right after breakfast, I
am donning yellow rubber gloves,
hip boots and a gas mask to tackle
The Tub.
I figure if I tell the world I’m
going to do it, chances are I may
actually go ahead and take the
plunge.
So think of me ‘long about
Wednesday, while you are dozing
on that warm, sandy beach. Imagine
me, pallid and wrinkled, lying
inertly under the harsh glow of
fluorescent lighting—basking in
my shiny white porcelaiirtub.
Lange-Kablck ts a senior news
editorial and sociology major and a Dally
Nebraskan columnist
' .
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office in the basement of the Nebraska Union and visit with us.
‘Pro-kid’ pitch hard
to take before coffee
it s early morning, and I am
surfing. The remote control in.my
hand is traveling swiftly across
dozens of television channels. But
the same wave is breaking on
every network news show.
It’s Phil Gramm on ABC,
NBC, CBS, CNN. Ever since the
Texas senator decided to run for
the White House with his “reli
able friend” called “Ready
Money,” he’s been on more
channels than anyone but O.J.
Simpson.
The Gramm who faces me
across the bedroom this morning
is hard to take before coffee. His
appearances could be used as
aversion therapy for someone
trying to kick politics. Compared
to Gramm, Dick Nixon seemed
warm and cuddly. Then again,
Nixon was elected president.
But it’s not just the Gramm
image that repeatedly splashes
cold water onto my pillow. It’s
the message that comes crashing
in. This is how it goes:
“I think the American people
want less government, they want
the right to keep their own money
to invest in their own children ... “
Click.
“I’m going to cut... so that
families can keep more of their
own money to invest in their own
children... “
uick.
Is it conceivable that the
senator can sell his “I’m-the
most-conservative” candidacy as
a pro-child campaign? Or does he
have a better chance of selling
himself as Brad Pitt?
This pro-kid pitch is all the
rage among the newly muscular
right wing. Even the Contract
With America is full of reassuring
kindly pieties about the little
people in our homes. They are
served up as conservative’s
condiments meant to grace the
empty school-lunch tray.
But chief among the pro-child
lines is the one that Gramm
expresses with such surf-pound
ing regularity. It’s the idea that
we can wholly privatize child
hood. If only the government
would disappear, families would
have enough money to do right by
their own kids. They don’t say
which families or whose kids.
Maybe a little surfing of the
facts is in order before die
country’s memory is wiped out.
Try some of these:
Today 23 percent of the
children in America are living
below the poverty line.
Click.
A third of all American
children will live in poverty
before they turn 16.
Click.
The median income for a
Ellen Goodman
family with at least one child and
a head of household under 30 is
$18,420.
Click.
The highest-income families in
America could do a whole lot
with their tax money. A family
earning $132,000 pays about
$45,000 in state, local and federal
taxes. They could use that money
to pay for private schools, pizza
delivery at lunchtime, piano and
soccer lessons. They might have
something left over to pay for a
policeman or two.
But a poor family? Young
parents who have children while
they are in their low-earning
years? As Deborah Weinstein of
the Children’s Defense Fund puts
it, “They’d barely get enough to
pay for a McGuffey Reader.” The
notion that middle-income
parents could buy much more
than sneakers — say, schools and
safety nets — is equally absurd.
Of course, not even the
extremists on the extreme right
are truly planning to do away with
taxes. Nor are they going to touch
Social Security, although taxes to
support the old of all incomes
pose the heaviest burden for
young, low-income families.
In reality, the “pro-child”
conservative argument is a cover
up for policies that purposely and
directly strike at children,
especially poor children. From
Newt to Phil, the idea of totally
privatizing children does more
than ignore the poor. It detonates
the belief that all Americans are
shareholders in the next genera
tion.
As for the surfer of this current
wave, Phil Gramm? He was
raised with the help of one
government check—his dad’s
disability payment—and went to
school on another — the War
Orphans Act. Now he would get
rid of most, especially welfare.
But the candidate of Ready
Money doesn’t want you to get
the wrong idea: “I’m not going to
be swayed by people who say,
‘You have not compassion.’ I
have great compassion.” It’s just
that when he talks like that, it
ought to scare the kids.
© 1995 The Boston Globe Newspaper
Company
I
| TTie rich get richer,
| the poor get pcomr_ |
Mike Luckovkh