And my referring to my friend of twenty five years in that fashion is neither patronizing nor denigrating, regardless of any feminist jerking of knees that might result.
The story of why I call her Chickee and she, me, "Scoot" is a fun story all its own.
One of these days.
Meanwhile, the wit I attribute to Carla comes in many forms, but I was reminded, lately, of one "cism" in particular.
Asked for an opinion on any given cultural junk food/news item, Carla offers up what I consider a classic, and classy, response.
"In the first place," she opines, "...who cares?"
"...and in the second place.....who cares?"
Bada bing.
Carla's comedic comment popped up in my medulla this morning as I read the latest installment of the Adventures of Demi and Ashton", still, to paraphrase Paul Simon, newsworthy after what seems like all these years.
Here's a chunk of one tome', for backdrop purposes only.
"...Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are a couple no more, two months after Ashton's sixth-anniversary gift to Demi of a scandal around his alleged infidelity with a San Diego party receptionist while she was off working in New York City. Her belated gift to him was, of course, her decision Thursday to get a divorce.
After his-and-hers statements Thursday, speculation -- some of it humorous -- has filled the information vacuum. Prepare yourself for some gossipy gossip, which we hope you'll keep in the proper perspective.
Who gets Bruce Willis? What will @mrskutcher's new Twitter handle be? Will this drama, like the life of Charlie Sheen, be incorporated into Ashton's "Two and a Half Men" character's story line? (Whoops, too late on that last one, as Kutcher's Walden Schmidt has already been suffering the pain of a divorce from a wife who told him he was emotionally immature.)
Then there's the open-marriage buzz. "Everyone in Hollywood knows about their arrangement," an unnamed "insider" told the Star tabloid, "but they've managed to keep it a secret from the general public."
Chelsea Handler, who said she doesn't know them "personally very well," opined to a shocked, simply shocked Piers Morgan on his CNN show that "I think they probably had a lot of good times with some other women... Clearly they had a lot of threesomes, that led to twosomes without Demi and that leads to a divorce." After watching tape of the couple on a previous "Piers Morgan Tonight," she added, "I absolutely feel for her."
One such twosome was allegedly with Sara Leal, who went public with her claim that they'd had unprotected sex twice, that Ashton was not "weird or perverted," and that they'd talked about astrological signs and politics afterward..."
Truth be told, I've pretty much been in the Carla camp since the moment this "breaking news" broke.
Because, in the great scheme of things, after all, seriously.....take it, Chickee...
"...who cares....and in the second place....?"
Well, it turns out, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting (something Fox News Channel uses as a shroud slogan, but, hahahaha...)I think it right and proper to admit there really is a who to be offered up as the answer to that question.
Who cares?
Obviously, we do.
Or we wouldn't keep reading about it, thinking about it, talking about it and/or wanting to do some or all of those.
I think the more interesting question, the one that doesn't really get asked, let alone answered satisfactorily, is this one.
Why?
Ooh. I know. Call on me. I know.
And I even have a snappy slogan for it, too.
Dallas Syndrome.
Not as in the ultra-right wing capital of the Southwest, home to oil barons, cattle kings and Governors who get to run for president because their rich friends pay for it, but, rather, the infamous drama series/soap opera of the 1980's.
Jock and Miss Ellie, Sue Ellen, J.R./ On Pamela, Bobby, all our favorite stars.
And the reason that we find ourselves drawn back, time and again, to the foibles and follies of Kutcher and company is the very same reason that "Dallas" held our attention for years in prime time.
A very simple, basic, primal quality we all share, if not admit.
Misery loves company.
Most especially when the company is stinky rich and privileged.
Something in our human natures, the inverse, perhaps, of the quality that has us pull for the underdog, compels us to take some kind of satisfaction in witnessing the unhappiness of those who seem to have so much but, alas, have just as many upheavals, heartaches and heartbreaks as we mere mortals.
And it's not necessarily a perverse or petty attitude, at all.
Neither a "na-na-na-NA-na" or a "neener-neener".
Actually, an authentic "awwwwww".
Turns out that really rich people put their pants on one leg at a time just like us.
And they get kicked out of their marriages for fooling around just like us, too.
All the money in the world, or at least north central Texas, doesn't insure happiness.
Those of us who don't really have any money (and that, of course, is most of us) are comforted by the fact that it wouldn't matter anyway.
So, in an odd sort of psychological way, we find ourselves drawn closer to these star crossed celebs because their human follies mirror our own...and the falling of their stars metaphorically, and literally, brings them down to earth...
...ergo, closer to us.
At which point, it's then that we return to our own struggles and, at some point in the evolution of the breaking news, realize that we have to deal with our upheavals, heartaches and heartbreaks without benefit of day spas, day care or dollars upon dollars upon dollars of swanky therapists.
And as we hear just one too many reports on how the suffering celebs are coping, we find ourselves quoting my irrepressibly witty friend, Chickie.
"...in the first place...."
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