The Junk Drawer of my Mind

There are times when I might be convinced that I remember every single thing that ever happened to me. But maybe it just seems like it. This particular pop-culture reference must have occurred some time in the '70s, but I remembered it so vividly that I wonder why that single synapse in my brain continues to fire half a century later.

It was an ad in Cosmopolitan magazine. I cringe to think that I actually read Cosmo, but I must have or I wouldn't remember so much shit about it. A couple of articles stand out in my memory, and one of them is about Liza and Jack Haley, Jr., proclaiming their undying love for each other and their plans to start a family. (They were divorced the following year.) Liza had even picked out names for their never-to-be-born kids, one of which I remember: Savannah May. Ye gods.

There was another article about - yes, it was about Warhol, or it had a Warhol connection, in that one of his "superstars" named Cherry Vanilla had gay friends. That was it, that was the story, that some women liked to have gay men as friends. This was the 1970s, folks, and people were a little slow on the uptake.

But this! This ad barbecued itself into my brain for reasons unknown, and tonight I googled "Andy Warhol white rum and soda Liza Minnelli", and THE VERY SAME AD popped up immediately. It's the kind of thing you can buy a reproduction of on Etsy and other sites. I don't know if it's so memorable because it mentions both Liza and Andy in one headline, or because it so reeks of social-climbing and empty, narcissistic self-importance that it has become a sort of period piece reflecting the cocaine-and-alcohol-fuelled disco lifestyle that rioted among partygoers, both gay and straight, until the AIDS epidemic crashed down on everyone and brought it all to a screeching stop.

In other words, it's a classic.