I am really worried about Monica. Yeah, THAT Monica. The Big
Lewinsky. My niggling concern for her has just metastasized into
full-blown worry. She was in a kinda sorta dangerous auto accident last
week. Finally, a real accomplishment.
Actually, the timing of this
accident closely coincided with the release of Hillary’s riveting
revelations in the debut issue of Tina Brown’s Talk
magazine about Bill’s
oh-so-horrid childhood (“caught between two women which we all know is
an abusive situation because he wanted to please both of them
yadda-yadda”) which made me want to hurl; so I can almost imagine how
Monica felt. Competitive. That’s how she must have felt.
Anyway, the newspaper reports of Monica’s accident had the
26-year-old ex-White House intern “slightly injured when she became
distracted while driving” her SUV. Her midnight-blue Explorer rolled
over, or toppled on its side, into oncoming traffic in Ventura at 1 p.m.
on a Sunday afternoon. They didn’t indicate if her car radio was on, or
if Pearl Jam’s cover of “Last Kiss” was playing on the CD or tape
deck. They said no alcohol or drugs were involved in the crash. They
said she wasn’t cited for the accident. They said she was alone. They
said she was reaching into her purse.
For an Altoid?
First of all, this purse of hers sounds truly labyrinthine for it to
cause a car accident, if we are to take this explanation seriously.
Switch to a small backpack and don’t bring your overnight stuff with you
wherever you go. Just don’t. Put an extra tin of Altoids into your
glove compartment. Now. And stuff some quarters in your Wonderbra and
dollar bills into your thong so you know where they are. For tolls, of
course. Secondly, why does SHE need a sports utility vehicle? Whether
they are the latest in overpriced car chic or the moral equivalent of an
armed tank, isn’t it overkill for her? How ’bout a nice white truck? I
can see that. Every Valley Girl needs one. It’s the automotive
equivalent of go-go boots.
Besides, why is Monica driving herself around? Doesn’t she know
ANYTHING? A babe like that definitely needs a chauffeur. AND a limo.
Image and all. Makes men drool. Ask Daddy. He can afford it, he’s a
Doctah. Surely he wants the best for his princess. Moreover, limos are
great places for, shall we say, those Candid Sentimental Moments, much
classier than vans, plus your hands are free.
Listen, has Monica even gone to driving school? She’s not exactly a
Road Scholar, says my Arizona friend Jackson, who insists things are
getting so dicey on highways, it should be mandatory that every driver
absolutely must have driver training before anyone lets them even touch
the ignition. And the ones who have accidents should be left back and
repeat it twice, Jackson says. Jackson, I say admiringly, this is
definitely a visionary program; have you ever considered running for
political office? Oh. Right. Sorry. I forgot you go-go-danced your way
through college. Look, Jackson, how can you turn that apparent
dauntingly embarrassing detail into a campaign asset and credential? You
didn’t take money, did you? Never mind. I’ll get backatcha later. But
Monica, Monica is always with us. Like dental plaque. Like the drought.
Like Global Warming. Like Y2K. Like I said, I still maintain that Monica
IS the Patron Saint of Y2K.
Naturally there’s more to Monica’s accident. They said when she
looked up after rummaging in her purse, she saw she was in danger of
hitting a motor home in the next lane. They said when she veered away
to avoid a collision, she “lost control.” They said she swerved back and
forth and was “unable to regain control.” What a metaphor. They said
that her vehicle crossed a dusty median strip and rolled over into a
lane of oncoming traffic. They said it was not known how fast she was
driving, what she was doing 60 miles north of L.A., or what she was
trying to get out of her purse. They said her SUV was scratched and
dented, and the mirror on the driver’s side was crushed. They said her
Explorer had 5000 miles on it. “5000 Miles, 5000 Miles.” Wasn’t
that a song?
Miracle of miracles, Monica was “awake and alert” when paramedics
arrived at the accident scene. I bet she was steamed, though, that
motorists who stopped to help her didn’t recognize her. No one asked the
former presidential squeeze for her autograph, not one person. Even
though they kept saying her name out loud over and over again to calm
her, “It’s OK, Monica, it’s OK.” Though her left arm was apparently so
badly cut up she bled onto the hands of one of her rescuers, she “never
passed out.” After she was treated for “scrapes and bruises” at a
hospital and released, her father and an “unidentified person” came to
pick her up.
She’s fine, her father told an L.A. TV station. Easy for him to say.
He’s been saying that all her life. But what a relief. I was beginning
to wonder.
Several days after her accident, I almost get a black eye from yet
another Monica headline screaming out at me: “LOVE STILL HURTS
LEWINSKY.” Ouch. “I still fall for unavailable men … men who don’t
want my heart. As a result, this year has been just as painful for me as
every other time it happened,” she writes in the just released, updated
paperback version of her life story, and I experience a shock and a
shudder of self-recognition in those florid words.
But not everyone is sympathetic to Monica’s continuing saga of her
romantic plight. My favorite therapist, Pam Ladds of Philadelphia, has
this blunt, stern reaction: “However, she is still making money from it!
Many people have unrewarding career paths — hers at least pays more
than others. Instead of focusing on her own pathology, she should treat
her BS as a career choice — which it is. Victim/Vamp. She plays it to
the hilt. Any feminist lit will give her info/perspective — the
premise is old. And maybe someday she’ll go back to school and learn
that there are other people in life besides her and her narcissistic
needs. Maybe some day she’ll grow up! Maybe some day she could get a
real job.”
“Anyway,” Pam Ladds continues, “Vamp/Victim is something we do to
ourselves. The old ‘I knew you cheated on other women but didn’t think
for a moment that you’d ever cheat on poor little me!’ The old ‘I just
keep on falling in this great big hole in the road even though I could
walk down a million other streets, or could walk around it easily.
Instead I just land in the hole and scream to be pulled out — again!
Why me?'”
Warning to her subject, Pam Ladds adds: “Monica (not you) should be
sentenced to six months of Camille Paglia.”
Yes, I’ve done my Paglia time, haven’t I? Two of her books are
prominently displayed in my bathroom, where my male visitors can see
them, right next to the condoms. Anyway, Monica is such a twit. I mean,
why doesn’t she just live her life, chill out at a mall or something.
“She thinks she is,” replies Pam Ladds. “She was raised to be a
mistress, but that takes brains; she’s not matured above bimbo!”
There, there, Monica. It’s OK, Monica. Don’t you just hate when you
fall for unavailable men,
men who don’t want your heart, and it’s so painful you can’t breathe?
You and me, Babe, I’m, like, sooo there. Sometimes I think we are …
Soul Sisters. (SOB!) Oh, don’t make me feel real, real sorry for you,
Monica, or I’ll have to refer you to a guy mothers everywhere would
consider a Really Nice Man. (Only Slightly Used. Make that Barely
Used.) He’s rich. He’s smart. (SIGH!) He’s handsome. He runs things.
He’s a good kisser. (SWOON!) And if he turns out to be another
Yo-Yo, well, as /news/archives.asp?ARCHIVE_ID=15Rip Rense
says, “Heck, I can tell you about male Yo-Yo’s. You can make them
sleep, walk the dog, rock the cradle, go around the world, as long as
you keep them on that string.”
Monica, my trash is your treasure, Babe.
