Inevitably, every time a god or goddess dies, we cry bloody murder. From Monroe to Diana to Cobain, inevitably the murder investigation begins. And so it should. How lucky are those savages who aren’t even questioned when their crime is tucked smoothly away, filed neatly if tearfully under suicide, overdose, accident, natural causes. It’s good to wonder. And then to say goodbye.
But then there are situations that seamlessly blend Passions-style pathos with Dynasty extremes. Live on camera, but more real than the players even know. Anna Nicole Smith’s tragic story ended in a bizarre series of brutal events, including quite a few unanswered questions about her and her son’s demise.
I might dismiss the whole kitten-caboodle because really, who cares about Anna Nicole Smith? She was a socialite bimbo, clearly a very minor talent, likeable enough, and seriously, obviously troubled. Her contribution? Negligibly nothing. Practically illiterate, the poor little girl from Texas got lucky when oil Tycoon J. Howard Marshall came into the bar where she was working as a peeler.
But I’m one of those people who think all human life is sacred, and just because Anna Nicole was clearly not the brightest crayon in the box gives me no right to dismiss her. Just because she shimmered in the glitter and the sleaze of sex and drugs, I have no right to demean her value. After all, the only ones whose lives have not been both enriched and mired by sex (or the even more enjoyable proclivities) are liars.
It sure wasn’t just the riff raff who appreciated her buxom charms. From the Texas truckers to the tycoons, Anna liked ‘em larger than life. She was a real hit with the ladies, too, living out the fuzzy joy of soft-core videos of bubbly pink hot tubs and naked ladies frolicking about. Who is to say that simply sharing what she had with this world- her beauty- and vamping it up and camping it up were not unique and special gifts? I cannot underestimate the power of a woman’s body.
Anna’s life and death both feel like a neon joke, a blow-up Barbie decked up in the tinselly ritz of Planet Playmate. A sweet moron, Anna’s celebrity was her curse. Sure, she loved the attention and being able to afford everything her little heart desired in pink, to wear cute shoes and keep her blonde hair impeccably huge. But the girl didn’t know what she was doing.
Her life was a running joke about botched plastic surgery, extreme and multiple drug problems, possible mind control, deeply disturbed friendships, questionable signed contracts, mental illnesses, conspiracies, diet pill industry drama, financial mayhem, liposuction galore, prescription drug hell, methamphetamines, estranged family politics, child abuse, incest, binging, maybe purging, videos of her pregnant and our of her mind, the unexplained death of her healthy 20-year old drug-free son Daniel, and of course, those billions she may still inherit from the death of her 92 year old hubby. Everyone in line for that money is gone, including J. Howard’s son, Anna, and her son. Everyone, that is, except Little Orphan Dannie. As far as that goes, Dannielynn could have starred in her own reality TV- Who’s Yer Daddy? the miniseries.
Still, I didn’t think she was ‘swindling the old man of his millions.’ Is a man, old or otherwise, helpless when he decides to go and spend his money on strippers? The old dude’s ashes are apparently buried with her, at her request. It doesn’t matter if they both knew it would be a brief union and that she’d get a lot of pretty dresses. He waited for her for two years while she demurred his proposal. She made him a happy man when she finally said yes. I’m sure he knew full well what the cards were.
I didn’t bother with Blonde Ambition: the Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death when it came out because I wasn’t paying thirty bucks for a hardcover with huge font that was pumped up through the media as the story that blew Big Gay Larry and Howie’s cover (her lawyer and her ex). And then, in a cloud of pink cotton candy, poof, she was gone, and I forgot all about the big naked blonde from Texas.
Plumb forgot, that is, until I pulled out my favourite gingham clog stilettos for a summer patio affair. They were a fun little Wal Mart investment, $14.95, and I’d called them my “Anna Nicole shoes.” They were definitely for blondes, southerners, Texans, and I love them. And that’s how it went through my mind, “Hey, I wonder if that book’s in at the library.”
While I can’t vouch for every last observation or data Rita Cosby writes in a book that isn’t particularly riveting one way or another, her credentials are not exactly novice. She’s a smart and gutsy journalist whose groundbreaking ‘exclusives’ include an interview with war criminal Milosevic, numerous world leaders, presidents, and politicians galore. She was also working quickly to get the facts out, so she didn’t wait around by her typewriter to see about a more poetic pacing for the story. I haven’t followed Cosby’s work before, so who knows, maybe the scandals she digs up are just publicity stunts, but even with what are just known facts, there are too many unanswered questions in this series of unfortunate events.
I’d say anywhere there is sex and celebrity and half a billion dollars and suitcases of dozens of kinds of drugs, paternity circuses, a dead son’s frightened consultation with a private detective a month before his end, and more than one unexplained death, it stands to reason that murder lurks nearby.
Blonde Ambition: the Untold Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith’s Death
Rita Cosby
Grand Central Publishing, New York
2007
Visit writer Lorette C. Luzajic at www.thegirlcanwrite.net. You can order her poetry collection from indigo.ca, or through her site.
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chapters.indigo.ca
There’s Something in the Meth
January 14, 2008
Ever hear a paranoid meth freak tell you that there’s something in the methamphetamine? I heard this time and time again. Dude, yes, there is. There’s meth in your meth.
Of course, there must be someone manipulating the stock for mind control purposes, for alien abductions, for attic laboratories. One roommate felt ‘violated’ by the recording devices hidden in stuffed animals. One user was sure that there was ‘something poisonous” in the meth he was using.
If you’ve watched a friend, roommate, parent, or child go mad from methamphetamine, you know there’s no hysteria in the meth hysteria today. It’s not reefer madness, it’s real. And help is hard to find once those neurons that let you hope and think and feel are destroyed. There’s a generation of human shells walking around. Dead men walking.
Sure, you can blame it all on people stupid enough to try the stuff, but cut some slack for those who made an impulsive choice. Have you tried alcohol? Good thing it’s not quite as lethal, at least not as quickly. I tried it twice, way back before Marko died, always up to try another good time. I didn’t have one, so I didn’t revisit it. I’m lucky.
Today another 25-year old girl was found dead, one of the few survivors from the old circle of friends ‘upstairs on Parliament Street.’ Five years of intensive psychiatric care, and a shrink stupid enough to prescribe Adderall for her addiction problem! Adderall, like Ritalin but worse, hardwires the mind to need speed. It’s nearly the same thing as methamphetamine, just not quite as strong or fast acting. The poor girl, once a vivacious, beautiful dreamer spent five years as a mere skeleton, checking the walls for bugs (both kinds), refusing to eat, scratching holes in her face. She died alone after one last hurrah. I’m speechless, but sadly, I’ve been in this place before. Marry, then bury. What can stop this? I’m not sure.
In all the recent press about poor little crazy girl Britney Spears, my heart has gone out for a pop icon I didn’t really care for before. With the immense pressures of fame, her impulsivity which I among many share, her disastrous marriage, and her serious postpartum depression, there’s only the money to assuage the emptiness. I always joked that I would like to ‘try’ and see if money could help my instabilities. All I am saying, is give cash a chance. Well, my dear Ms. Spears has illustrated its helplessness in restoring self-esteem or happiness. Her latest irrational incident holding her son hostage allegedly was a nightmare scenario of her losing her mind, muttering that K-Fed had planted the bugs in her home. DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? Not one person, including her medical spokespeople, has ever pointed out the paranoia and madness that comes from the Adderall. COULD HAVE BEEN THE METH IN THE METH. While her alcohol and Ecstasy use have been greatly examined, has anyone thought that the treatment might be the cause?
I researched so many treatments, police and psychiatric programs, medical and naturopathic care, and drew a big blank. Even the seasoned psychiatric staff at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and the judges in drug court, had no bleeding idea how to talk to, care for, or protect the meth addict. The drug-induced rage you hear about in zombie flicks is science fiction for the most part, but not when it comes to the meth in your meth. It’s terrifying for the few who are able to put the drug down and go on, they may or may not be better off. Many effects of the instantaneous brain damage are permanent. Which means you may always be convinced your wife is part of a CIA plot. Or you may always be unable to feel an emotion because you have no more dopamine wiring.
I likely wouldn’t be so reactionary if I weren’t still doing the body count. And it’s not about ‘my circle.’ Truck drivers, ministers, and dieting housewives are constantly making the news for their descent into meth. Apparently, it feels so good at first, and then after your first three-day bender, you’re already certifiably insane and you’re just waiting it out until the end. You might starve to death before you overdose.
In some ways it’s the Government Liars’ fault for being so hysterical about other drugs and not arming people with reasonable facts and choices. Everyone who grew up in the Just Say No generation can’t trust the information they were given. Obviously, marijuana didn’t cause murderous rampages, so the info about meth must also be outlandish. It makes you feel terrific and thin and able to complete two double shifts, a bonus if you need the money, as most blue collar North Americans do. In fact, job efficiency and productivity is the main reason the drug is becoming an epidemic in Thailand and other Asian countries. Life’s a bitch, then you work, then you die.
Please pray for E. and her family and friends. If you have any strategies or information or an inspirational story that might help, please share it. I feel incredibly hopeless today. The madness is not just far away in the hills of Hollywood, safe for a greedy gossip gorge. It’s close to home, mine and yours, too. Let’s pray for each other and share any answers or hope that we can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17808933/#storyContinued
http://todaystoronto.com/content/view/100/88/
My review of Toronto author’s book about meth.
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Astronauts-Wife-Poems-Eros-Thanatos-Lorette-C-Luzajic/9781847287335-item.html
The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos.
