http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/282qadjs.asp
This is a must read.
That’s very sweet. Thanks for the link.
Geez, I always get all teary at this stuff…
I switch the channel every time an Anna Nicole Smith story comes on (I do a lot of channel switching these days).
I needed to read that eulogy – thanks for posting it, FriarTed.
I don’t know why I was attracted to this thread. I don’t know why I clicked the link. I don’t know why I read the article. But I’m enriched for doing these things.
Amen.
That was actually… touching. Thank you, FriarTed.
I like Larry Miller. That was nice.
I recently read his “Spoiled Rotten …” book. (Linked to at the end of his article.) A great read.
“So I decided it wasn’t the right time to bring up Israel.” 
Larry Miller rocks.
That was wonderful.
I liked his point about “You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to have something to contribute to society,” which followed the “Don’t tell me you don’t know who Anna Nicole Smith was” lead-in.
But then I started thinking about how ludicrous it is to go on a one-shot date with a man you can’t even talk to: he’s going home in the morning, with a story to dine out on for the rest of his life; she got a diamond necklace out of it and she’ll never see him again. But…presumably she had sex with the guy, right? I mean, be fair. And it’s not like there’s a courtship, a relationship going on here. So, she’s…a whore. Okay, so it’s silly and fun instead of gritty and sad, and she has no problem with it, so…what? We use the word “courtesan” or something, instead.
And Miller’s point seems to be that even if that’s all she ever really had to give to the world, dammit, she was one of the best. But the angry little feminista way deep down inside of me, currently running the Department of I’m Thinking About This Way Too Much, within the Office of Why Do I Even Care About This Stuff?, says that this isn’t right. I don’t like the idea that if you look a certain way and if you’re willing, you can (and maybe should) let the world use you a certain way (until your looks go, anyway). Sure, you’ll get paid, and you can even find happiness in the end, maybe, if you don’t crack up somehow first.
I don’t like the idea that society needs to have beautiful women to ogle – Smith, Diana, Marilyn Monroe – and that the tragic end is part of the story. There are thousands of beautiful models and actresses and other women who manage to enjoy their 15 minutes of fame and live happily ever after, but we’re not talking about those. I just can’t tell if I’m mad at Miller, mad at Smith, mad at society, or mad at myself for paying attention.
Never mind, I’m just ranting.
I didn’t get that impression. I thought the “tiny, meaningful” look she gave him after she said that the man had just flown over for dinner meant, “I am not a whore, so don’t think that I am.”
That was how I had interpreted that line as well.
Me three.
Interesting story, but to be honest I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of it.
Along these lines, there was a very nice and heartfelt monologue given by Craig Ferguson a week or so ago regarding Britney Spears. Well worth watching.
Wow, that speech was . . . significant. This guy has some serious integrity.
I really did not think much of Larry Miller and Ferguson before reading this thread. Good thing I read this thread.
Thanks, Ted.
I was touched by it, but I sent the link to my wife, and I’m sure she will be even more.
Huh. Where’d you get that?
I got “You’re not bothering me but you really should leave us to our date now.”
-FrL-
Ditto.
And ditto to the courtesan statement. She was this generation’s most high-profile courtesan, just as her potential-baby-daddy-number-3-is-husband-9=to the most high profile courtesan of the WW2 through Vietnam era courtesan Zsa Zsa or Sarah Bernhardt’s mom/aunts were in Second Empire France or Nell Gwynne was to Restoration England. (I should add this isn’t a judgment- I happen to think there’s a need for high-class professional escorts and kept-women.)
Her death is tragic but none can deny the comedy aspects of it as well or that it’s all around fascinating. It’s got freaking everything from the totally absurd (crying blathering judge, Prince von Deesteitel-Eestfurzell-von-Zsa Zsa, hypothetical frozen geezer jizz, etc.) to the mysteries (who’s Dannielynn’s daddy, what was taken from the house, what’d she die of, what’d Daniel die of, what’s Howard Stern’s role, etc.) to sleaze to glamor to medieval-morality-play- there’s bound to be Greek masks, an Atlantean connection, and a new hit single by Roy Clark before it’s all over with. I felt mild guilt at first for enjoying it but now I just enjoy the ride. Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz and an army of Cartland wannabes could never manufacture this stuff; it makes OJ look like Robert Blake.
I can’t sit through a full Larry King show on her (I don’t know I could sit through a Larry King interview with my 6 closest friends and a Santa Dancing Jake Gyllenhaal) but I enjoy the daily synopses. Besides, Anna Nicole’s been dead since her son died; this was a formality. The best line in the Miller piece was the
I hope that I’m ultimately disproven in my suspicion that his death was due, directly or indirectly, from a drug habit he picked up from being her son.