Icons: Celebrity Satire

Icons: Celebrity Satire

By William Wright

Copyright © 2016 William Wright. All rights reserved.

Published by Lulu.com

ISBN: 978-1-329-84559-6

For Susan and Angel

Intro

10/25/15

Dear Judy Garland,

I am writing this to you, and I hope that you will read it so you'll know. My heart beats like a hammer, and I stutter and I stammer, every time I see you at the picture show. I guess I'm just another fan of yours, and I thought I'd write and tell you so.

May I call you Judy? Miss Garland sounds so formal. I’ll take that as a yes. I can’t take credit for the paragraph above, of course. It’s from your song Dear Mr. Gable. I have it on a CD of yours. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album, along with Meet Me in St. Louis and of course Over the Rainbow, my all-time favorite Judy Garland song. It’s such a perfect song; I get teary just thinking about it.

Then there’s the movie, my favorite movie in all the world, The Wizard of Oz. When I think about you, it’s mostly as Dorothy. I sometimes think of myself as a character in the movie, a character that got cut during the final edit.

It would’ve been the opening scene. I’m a boy about your age, and we’re standing together looking into each other’s eyes. I tell you how much I care about you and, holding out my hands, ask if you’d be my girlfriend. Without thinking twice you smile, say yes and take my hands. While you’re distracted, your dog Toto sees a cat in the garden of Almira Gulch, who as you know becomes the Wicked Witch. Toto barks and chases the cat.

You tell me you have to go and run after your dog, but it’s too late. Miss Gulch protects her cat by hitting Toto with her rake, and Toto responds by biting Miss Gulch just as you scoop him up. I’ve put up with that dog of yours long enough! she says as you and Toto run away.

The only other scene I’d be in would be the final scene, standing in your bedroom with your other loved ones smiling down at you.

In your real life I sometimes think of myself as your first husband, David Rose. Except unlike the wishy-washy Mr. Rose I’m madly in love with you, and I treat you like a queen. I like to think that if I’d been your husband your life would’ve been happier. Maybe you’d still be alive today.

If I can’t be with you in your movie, at least you can be with me in my book. I hope you like it; you helped inspire it. Please don’t take anything I say about you or the other celebrities personally. They’re only stories – fake, phony, fabricated and fictitious. Mainly I just want to entertain folks, but if something seemingly offensive stimulates or challenges them in some way, I’d say that’s a good thing as well.

Anyway I’d like to close by saying that you were a truly remarkable lady, incredibly beautiful and talented, and I wish I could’ve met you personally. You know you made me love you.

Sincerely Yours,

William Wright

Amanda Bynes

5/24/15 – It all started with an apology. It was late, maybe eleven o’clock, and I was doing some reading before settling into bed when the phone rings. It was Amanda, said Lynn Bynes, mother of actress Amanda Bynes. She asked me to get her dad on the other phone so she could speak to both of us. She told us she was sorry for acting so hateful toward us, and Rick and I forgave her without a second thought like we’ve always done. Right after that she asks for our help – classic Amanda.

Amanda, 29, told her parents she wanted to do something nice for Beverly Hills, a community she has a lot of respect for. That seemed a little strange to me because I’d never heard her speak glowingly about Beverly Hills in the past, but I just went along with it, said Amanda’s father Rick. She said she wanted to give everyone there lemonade. I thought it sounded kind of loony, but Lynn and I took some time off from work and stayed with Amanda to help her with her plans.

After her parents arrived, Amanda expanded on her idea. It would be a one-day event on Saturday, May 23, called Free Lemonade Day. Lemonade stands would be set up throughout the city, and everyone would get one free cup of lemonade. No money would be accepted except for tips to the girls and boys serving the lemonade. That actually impressed me, that she had given the matter some serious thought, said Rick. Amanda assigned her parents’ roles: Her dad would work on getting the stands approved by the city while her mom would help with advertising. Then they went to work.

Rick found Beverly Hills city officials to be uncooperative: A lot of red tape and a generally suspicious atmosphere. Surprising to him, Amanda didn’t seem at all bothered by the setback. Immediately she decided to go with plan B, making a strange but practical choice: San Gabriel. Located in Los Angeles County about 13 miles northeast of LA, San Gabriel is a small town, at least by Los Angeles standards, that prides itself on small-town sensibilities. Officials there were eager to work with me, especially after they learned I was father of a celebrity. Rick got the necessary forms approved that day, which gave him time to handle other tasks such as renting tables and chairs for the lemonade stands and buying signs for the front of the stands that said:

Free Lemonade Day

Sponsored by Amanda Bynes

One Cup per Person

Amanda and her mom, meanwhile, prepared mailers that got sent to homes throughout the town, offering $100 to the children running the stands and another $100 to their parents who would be providing their yards, and they got lots of responses. After running a full-page ad in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, everything was set: On Saturday the 23rd from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon, everyone who went to the stands would get a free cup of lemonade.

There was only one thing Amanda handled completely on her own. She already had the lemonade mix at her place, several cans of it in her cupboards. We offered to help pay for it, but she told me it was fine, Lynn said, tearing up because later it was discovered that the mix had been poisoned. Less than 24 hours after the giveaway there are over 300 confirmed deaths, many of them children, all of them wanting nothing more than a cold glass of lemonade on a hot sunny day. More deaths are expected.

Amanda and her parents were taken into custody last night. Rick and Lynn were released after being questioned by police, while their daughter is being held without bond. Lynn and I couldn’t understand what would cause Amanda to do such a horrible thing, and then this morning I check my email and see something in my inbox from Amanda. The subject was LOL, and Rick provided a copy:

You thought I was sorry? I’m only sorry that I have such sorry parents. Thanks for helping me kill all those people. It was fun.

Amy Schumer

6/6/15 – When Paranormal Activity writer and director Oren Peli was asked by the suits at DreamWorks to reboot the Exorcist franchise, his first question was Why? The original was great, the sequels were fair to poor, and it seemed as though the whole demonic possession idea had run its course (although possession movie retreads still continue to generate revenue at the box office). What could he possibly add to The Exorcist besides the latest greatest gory special effects? No one had a sufficient answer for me, and I had to turn them down.

Not long after that, Peli experienced some paranormal activity of his own. "I woke up at about three in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. I went to the living room to watch TV and was watching Friends when suddenly the CD player started blaring White Zombie’s ‘More Human Than Human’ full blast. I ran upstairs and turned it off, and when I came down my wife was pissed, asking if I was out of my freaking mind. I asked her if she was playing White Zombie earlier, but I already knew the answer; she hates hard rock. I hadn’t played it either. I hadn’t played White Zombie in months.

"I kept thinking about the title ‘More Human Than Human,’ and then suddenly it dawned on me: I had been thinking about The Exorcist the wrong way." In the original Exorcist Regan was an innocent girl victimized by the devil, but what if the roles were reversed and a grown up Regan was now the one pulling the strings? I remembered reading a quote by Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, something to the effect of ‘don’t exorcise the demon but exercise it.’ What it means, at least to me, is don’t cut away the darkness within your psyche but use it to make you stronger.

Peli accepted the job on two conditions: First, he would write the entire script himself and second, he had final say on who played the main character. As far as I was concerned only one person could play Regan, and that was Amy Schumer. As he expected, the studio execs were perplexed by his choice. "They couldn’t get past the idea that Amy was a comedian, the girl with the raunchy jokes. But just look at her! Look at her face! That’s Regan! If you want to talk about her comedy then fine, let’s talk about her comedy. A lot of what she says has dark undertones, as dark as anything you’ll find in The Exorcist. Now let’s talk about her performances on her show Inside Amy Shumer and in her movie Trainwreck. The woman is a hell of an actress. I’m convinced she can do it all – comedy, drama, horror, you name it. Amy was it, and there was no changing my mind."

Unless, of course, Amy wanted nothing to do with it. I almost didn’t read the script, Shumer, 34, said. "Not because I didn’t like The Exorcist but because I loved The Exorcist. Why mess with a classic? But Oren assured me that his version was completely different than the original, and after reading it I knew I had to be in the movie."

Schumer said that although comedy will always be her first love, she always planned on keeping her options open as an actress. I’m multi-faceted, and I want my characters to be multi-faceted as well. Her new movie The Exorcist: Born Again opens on Halloween, and Schumer promises that the new film will be every bit as scary as the original. You may want to wear an adult diaper, because you’ll probably end up pissing yourself.

Annie Leibovitz

1/3/15 – She may not fit the classic definition of a celebrity, but Annie Leibovitz has become a celebrity of sorts for the celebs she has famously photographed over the last several decades. Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Adele – Leibovitz’s camera captured them all. I prefer to think of myself less as a Jewish photographer and more as a photographer who is Jewish, she said. I’m also a woman. That’s important as well.

Spurred in part by the reaction to her photos of what appeared to be a topless 15-year-old Miley Cyrus published in a 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, Leibovitz decided to explore the controversial topic of child sexuality. I wondered what about it got people so worked up. After all, even babies exhibit autoerotic behavior. Sexuality is a natural part of life no matter what your age. Adults obviously want to protect children, but when it comes to sexuality what are adults really protecting children from – human impulses?

Leibovitz, 65, embarked on what she called the most experimental project of her career, photographing children from birth to seventeen in what she called sexually suggestive poses. The result is her New York Times bestselling book Taboo: The Forbidden Art of Childhood. It was actually pretty easy, she said. I just contacted talent agencies in New York, told them who I was and what I was doing, and most of them were happy to work with me. She told the agents their clients would be paid a percentage of her profits. I had it all on paper, prepared by my attorney. That goes a long way in getting things done.

Two of those clients were sisters Charlotte and Nicole Borden, twelve and ten respectively. Their picture, a close-up of the girls kissing, was among those that most outraged children’s rights groups. Annie told me the photo she wanted to take, and I really didn’t have a problem with it, said the girls’ mother, Patricia. There was no nudity and no sexual touching, just a kiss. And it wasn’t like they were kissing strangers, either. What girl hasn’t kissed her sister? I thought the photo was tastefully done.

Patricia’s daughters had a less positive take on the experience. It was gross! said Nicole. She kept telling us to do it again, do it again, do it again. Was she crazy? I pretended she was Billy Parker, a kid in my school, said Charlotte. He’s way cuter.

Leibovitz said she planned to follow up with a book exploring elderly sexuality. "I think we as a society sometimes tend to confuse protection with repression, but ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think. All I’m doing, after all, is taking pictures. To be honest I don’t even like commenting on the pictures because they speak just fine for themselves, a thousand words to every one of mine.

What people think of my book says more about them than it could ever say about me. The important thing is not that people love the book or hate it but that they’re discussing it, talking about things they wouldn’t otherwise dare to talk about. That’s what motivates me as a photographer. That’s what keeps me going.

Anton LaVey

10/29/15 – Although Church of Satan founder and High Priest Anton LaVey was, by his own admission, a persistent liar, efforts have been made by those closest to him to accurately depict who he was and what he did. Former CoS Magister and LaVey right-hand man Michael Aquino, for example, spent several years writing an account of his time in the organization, and LaVey’s lover Blanche Barton published a LaVey biography. But while LaVey’s estranged daughter Zeena Schreck chooses not to speculate on the sincerity or motives of others who have written about her father, she does consider herself the preeminent authority on the subject. Only my mother, who is dead, and my half-sister Karla knew him as well as me, Schreck said. We knew him as he really was, not how he chose to present himself.

Since renouncing her father in 1990, Scheck has publically said little about LaVey. I decided to leave him in the past with the rest of my discarded belongings. He wasn’t worth the effort. But on this day 18 years after LaVey’s death in 1997, Schreck came forward with a confession, and it was a doozy: In 1977 at the age of 13 I became pregnant. I never told anyone who the father was. To this day my own son doesn’t know, but he’ll know after this, she said. His father is my father, Anton Szandor LaVey.

To Barton, who lived with LaVey the last several years of his life, the allegation is tantamount to blasphemy. When does it stop? After he’s dead? Apparently not. It may be hard to believe that an ‘evil’ Satanist can hurt, but it broke Anton’s heart after Zeena left the Church, disavowed the LaVey name and wanted nothing more to do with her father. Now he can no longer speak for himself, and she spits on his grave. I’ve always been disappointed with her, but this is a new low.

Aquino and Karla LaVey are noncommittal. As I’ve said on other occasions, the Anton LaVey I knew died in 1975, said Aquino. That was the year LaVey began selling CoS Priesthoods and Aquino consequently left the Church to found his own organization, the Temple of Set. Whatever happened after that was between Anton and Zeena. My sister and I were never particularly close, said Karla. I know that she’s very bright and very headstrong, and I know that my father was very mysterious. I wish I could give you a nice tidy answer to settle things once and for all, but I can’t.

Shreck said she was concerned less about being liked and believed and more about ‘exorcising the demon’ that had been possessing her most of her life. After my father had his way with me, he whispered that if I ever told anyone what happened he would see to it that I was tortured for eternity in hell, she said. Well now the secret’s out, and guess what? I’m no one’s slave, no one’s doormat. I’m a queen, and Anton LaVey can kiss my ass.

Ariana Grande

7/21/15 – A week after issuing an apology for licking a donut in a store, Ariana Grande went back and gave away 100 donuts along with 100 fun-sized cartons of low-fat milk. What I did was really messed up – I know it, everyone knows it, Grande said. I’m here to try to make up for it. Tickets were handed out, and everyone with a ticket got a donut served by the repentant star herself.

Wearing a white apron and clear plastic gloves, Grande, 22, seemed genuinely happy as she served the donuts while her boyfriend, whom she had tongue-kissed during the incident, handed out the milk. Personally apologizing to the owner of Wolfee Donuts, as well as to the cashier involved in the incident, she said simply, I’m sorry I licked one of your donuts. I’d just left the dentist and was pretty woozy, but it’s no excuse. I promise it won’t happen again.