Tiger, Tim, and Barack: why do we slip our knickers off for jerks?

December 24th, 2009

If you

think Susan Sarandon

looks from afar like she would

be gracious, intelligent, radiantly lovely,

and very good-smelling in person — and the sort

of woman who turns out to be ever so much more so,

and also possessed of the ethereal skin of a goddess from a planet

where there is no solar radiation or cigarette smoke and people sleep at

night in footy pajamas made of cocoa butter — well, you couldn’t be more spot

on.  So why was she sleeping next to Tim Robbins for more than twenty

years?  And why do Americans think there’s anything to admire

about a Tiger Woods or a Michael Jordan?  And how did

Barack Obama get my knickers so far off, and why am I

on my hands and knees in a pile of cheerleading

pom-poms feeling oh so dirty

and oh so cheap?

Some

years ago I had

a good friend, Michael we’ll call

him, who had produced a film in which Tim

Robbins starred, and Michael reckoned that Tim Robbins

was one of the biggest weenies he’d ever met.  I found this remarkable

not because I knew anything about or especially admired Robbins; I didn’t,

on either count.  But Michael was one of the gentlest and most soft-spoken people

I knew, and it was unusual to hear him speak of someone, anyone, that way.

And good lord, I thought, how could someone as substantive and soulful

as Susan Sarandon be so devoted to someone who was the self-

worshipping, all-other-demeaning cocktard whom

Michael described?  Surely

there was some

mistake.

I had

the occasion to spend

New Year’s Eve at Robbins’ and Sarandon’s

home some years later, and there was no mistake.

He’s a douche of the first rank.  She’s lovelier in person

than you can even imagine, in every possible way, and he’s the

biggest putz you’ve ever met.  You know it inside a minute — the self-regard

that rolls off him, and his utter fascination with every aspect of that self-regard,

and his certainty in the face of it that you and everyone else is a filthy, steaming

nuisance, is so palpable that it is positively Bushian.  (There’s nothing lower

I could say about a man, but there it is.)  I played foosball with

him for a half an hour and I’d rather spend a long

night tossing salads in Jackson State

Prison than repeat the

experience.

So why,

Susan Sarandon, why?

And why did my father, a genuinely good

and wise man, so admire Tiger Woods for so long?

I read a long article about that cat in GQ a dozen years ago,

surmised that he was all Michael Jordan — misogynist, empty suit —

and no Muhammad Ali — seeker, spiritual warrior — and I

never looked back.  But how in the name of all that is

holy did  I convince myself that Barack Obama

was, as his very name asserts,

such a blessing?

I don’t

know the answer to this.

While I’m not sorry I voted for Obama —

as Bill Maher so pointedly put it, if the other side

had won, we’d have a barter economy and be at war with

Honduras by now — I do marvel hard at how naked I got for him.

Time, treasure, zeal, I gave a bunch of them all.  What a slave to Wall

Street, war money, and Big Pharma Barry Magic has proved to be:

the Tiger of the White House, the Tim of the Oval Office.  Aargh.

I hope that some of the delicious women who read this blog

will email and illuminate this phenomenon to me, because

I feel dirty and cheap, and I don’t want to anymore.

Susan Sarandon, I need to hear from

you now, girl.  Help me to

understand the

sickness we

share.

Because

there are other a

bunch of other folks in the

world.  The New Year’s Eve I spent

at Sarandon and Robbins’ house was star-

populated in the extreme.  You couldn’t swing a cat

without smacking an Al Pacino or an Ellen Barkin.  Celebrity

wattage is wearying after a while, at least for me — that self-regard

that is all of Tim Robbins is a great part of many celebrities, and it gets old.

So after several hours of dinner and conversation in the main part of the apartment,

I slipped off into Robbins’ adjacent office, where a number of people were relaxing

and talking quietly.  There was lovely soft little round woman of color half-

reclining on a sofa, all by her lonesome, and I sat nearby and said hello

and asked her name.  ”Phoebe,” she said.  She was unassuming in the

extreme, and I thought she might be Tim’s accountant or Susan’s

architect — a trusted employee who had been around

long enough to get invited to a party

like this one as a

treat.

Phoebe

was soft and kind and

sweet, and I relaxed in her presence

and visited with her for an hour or so, a deliciously

human respite from shielding my eyes from Barkin’s diamonds

(she was about to wed Ronald Perelman, another shining example of

masculinity).  I felt like I’d taken a soothing vacation when we smiled and

said goodbye, and I didn’t know until a few hours later, when the party

had grown smaller and quieter and someone lifted a guitar off

a stand and said, “Hey, Phoebe, would you give us a song

or two?” that I’d been lounging with

Phoebe Snow.

I want

to party again with Phoebe.

I want to spend New Year’s with Mohamed El Baradei,

that paragon of humanity about whom I blogged a few days

ago, and Natalie Merchant and Ben Harper and Amy

Goodman.  And my dog Sasha, and Susan

Sarandon, of course.  Tiger and

Tim and Barry can go

pound sand.