Goodbye Vickie Lynn

Anna Nicole Smith died last week. Born Vickie Lynn Hogan, she was just 39 years old. I felt a wave of pure sadness when I heard the news. I thought first of her little baby girl, then the recent death of her son. I realized that deep down I had always been rooting for Anna, or more precisely, for Vickie Lynn. Vickie Lynn was a gal from nowhere and nothing, who had stumbled onto a magic lamp and had her three wishes granted to her. But when she made those wishes, she was young and poor and only knew to wish for the opposite of what she had always known.

Looking in from outside and very far away, it seems Vickie Lynn or Anna Nicole made so many bad choices. It also seems as if she got used by a lot of people, including the media. I guess I hoped she’d turn it all around. No more embarrassing and painful public appearances with slurred speech and campy poses somewhere between mid-century cheesecake pinups and soft porn. I hoped she’d break the curse of the blonde bombshell and unlike Marilyn Monroe, live to a ripe old age. I hoped she’d turn out to be just as brilliant as Judy Holliday, and leave us all slack jawed and cheering after an interview with Charlie Rose. I wanted her to ditch the genie with his phony lamp and instead be told by Glinda the Good Witch she’d had the power within her all along.
:: Peace...