Said Phillip Picardi, quoted in "Condé Nast’s 26-Year-Old Man of the Moment/Is Phillip Picardi, a former intern who now heads up Teen Vogue, the future of Condé Nast? Anna Wintour seems to think so."
Mr. Picardi grew up in North Andover, Mass. His father, a devout Catholic, owned a technology company. His mother was a homemaker and an executive assistant.... It made for a sometimes challenging environment for the young Mr. Picardi. “I was gay,” he said. “G.A.Y., with an exclamation mark and a little asterisk.”TV is influential!
He came out to his parents in the summer before ninth grade. It was 2 in the morning, and Mr. Picardi, who had just finished watching “Queer as Folk,” burst into their bedroom and said: “Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you.” His mother sobbed as he said everything he had to say. Ten minutes later, his father rolled over and asked what was going on. He had slept through it.
His parents sent him to a Catholic therapist and instructed him not to tell his neighbors, his friends or his younger brother. Before coming out, he had wanted to be a lawyer. Now, he decided, he should work in fashion.
“I watched ‘Will & Grace,’ and that’s what it felt like they were doing, more or less,” he said.
You know, I find "Philip" such a hard name to spell. It it one L or two? It's hard to see, because the lower-case i also looks like an L. Picardi is a 2-L Phillip. He even spells "Phill" with 2 Ls, which seems excessive, but it was "Will & Grace," not "Wil & Grace."
Philip means fond of horses. "Phil" is love, of course, as in "philanthropy," and "ip" is the same as "hippos," which means horse. (A hippopotamus is a horse of the patomos (the river).)
Anyway, did you as a child get any ideas about how to live and be your true self by looking at some TV-show character? Here's a list of the top-rated TV shows when I was in 9th grade. Who would I have looked at and thought, well, that's where I'm going? I see 3 housewives and a "jeannie." The jeannie and one of the housewives had superpowers, and the other 2 were Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) and Lisa Douglas (Eva Gabor). I can see why I was so deeply affected when the hippies suddenly appeared on TV...
And, people, Gomer was gay.
ADDED: I found that 1969 Gomer clip because I was looking for things with "Goldie" (that is, Leigh French), and I did not recognize — until EDH asked about it — that the other hippie there is Rob Reiner. And here's Reiner as Mitch the hippie in a scene in a 1969 episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies":
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How did Gomer know the words?
"Who would I have looked at and thought, well, that's where I'm going?"
Who would I have looked at that would have looked at a TV character and thought, well, that's where I'm going, and thought, OMG?
That clip brought back one of my favorite movie moments.
The drama club was the gay club back before gay was an interest group.
Anyway, did you as a child get any ideas about how to live and be your true self by looking at some TV-show character...
Alex P Keaton?
Isn't that Meathead Rob Reiner as the hippy?
"How did Gomer know the words?"
Where did BenDeLaCreme get the White-Out?
The endless mysteries of TV!
"Isn't that Meathead Rob Reiner as the hippy?"
I don't know but I was searching for Goldie (of The Smothers Brothers) and that is "Share a Little Tea With Goldie" Goldie.
IMDB says that is Rob Reiner along with Leigh French ("Goldie"). The episode is "Flower Power" (1969).
From Wiki:
"Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli (better known as "Fonzie" or "The Fonz") is a fictional character played by Henry Winkler in the American sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984). He was originally a secondary character, but was soon positioned as a lead character when he began surpassing the other characters in popularity..."
"Fonzie would at times demonstrate an almost magical ability to manipulate technology with just a nudge, bump or a snap of his fingers for things such as starting a car, turning on lights, coaxing free sodas from a vending machine, making girls respond, or changing the song selection on a jukebox - occasionally pounding one with his fist and eliciting the response of a classic 1950s tune, such as the Elvis Presley song Hound Dog..."
"The phrase "jumping the shark", a term originating from a melodramatic Happy Days scene in which Fonzie jumps on water skis over a shark enclosure, has become part of popular culture."
All television idols eventually jump the shark: it gets harder and harder to be THE COOL GUY, and eventually they overreach.
As far as hippies: here is an internet squidget on Grace Slick jumping the shark:
"The 80s were bad for Ms. Slick, but let’s face it; the 70s weren’t exactly kind to her either. Constant substance abuse for over a decade definitely took their toll. She could get away with it in the 70s, when it was cool to be a burn out; the more haggard and disheveled the better. However, in the 80s, the music industry was full of bubbly smiles and pastel colors with no room for casualties of the rock star life. Slick re-emerged into this new sparkly world as a peppy, bedazzled pop star cranking out bubblegum hits. And while “We Built this City” and the theme song to Mannequin may make you want to kill yourself today, they were gobbled up by the masses in the 80s. What makes it all so tragic is that Grace was the coolest of the cool during the psychedelic 60s. The contrast between “White Rabbit” and “Sarah” (blecch!) is just too much to handle."
Now for the obligatory follow-up: In Soviet Union shark jumps you. Yes: a meme that has jumped the shark.
One step further: from the copious internet hits for "jumped the shark" perhaps 'jump the shark' has jumped the shark.
The Germans have a word for this.
That's so funny. I did not recognize Reiner.
BenDeLaWho?
When I was a boy there were plenty of TV shows with manly role models, Davy Crockett, Gunsmoke, Navy Log to name a few.
Rob Reiner typecast for life from one Gomer Pyle appearance?
Althouse: enthralled by hippies, but closer to "That Girl".
From Wiki on 'That Girl':
"According to Marlo Thomas, she was approached by ABC executive Edgar Scherick, who saw her in a screen test for a failed pilot, but still wanted to feature her in a project. Scherick gave Thomas several scripts to read, none of which she liked, as they all focused on a woman who was either a traditional girlfriend, wife or secretary to someone else; Thomas wanted a show in which the main character was a young, modern woman focused on her own dreams and aspirations."
You're going to make it after all.
Yes, that was another show, but one can easily picture a young Althouse throwing her cap into the air.
Freeze frame.
The Germans have a word for this.
"How did Gomer know the words?" Gomer had magical powers.
Reiner played a hippie on an episode or two of The Beverly Hillbillies. I think he and the others were pissed at banker Drysdale over something or other.
The Beverly Hillbillies. One of the greatest shows ever for family values.
I would've liked to have seen Sgt. Carter singing along with them. Too funny to imagine.
The tv characters I wanted to be were Davy Crockett and Hopalong Cassidy. And by "Davy Crockett" I refer more to the semi-fictional version on the "Disneyland" tv show and played by the late great Fess Parker than to the historical congressman. He was a figure of great integrity. I love when, after fighting in the Creek War, he makes peace with their war chief, Red Stick. "White government lie," Red Stick says dubiously, hesitating to take Davy's hand. "Davy Crockett don't lie," Davy says. And the next episode, "Davy Crockett Goes to Congress," shows Davy going to bat for the Indians even at the expense of his political career. Re-visiting the mini-series in my footage I felt glad and grateful that Parker's Davy had been my first childhood hero.
By "Hopalong Cassidy" I refer to the movie and tv version played by William Boyd rather than the original Hoppy of Clarence Mulford's novels and short stories. Boyd gets criticized for making Hoppy too much of a Boy Scout, but re-visiting the movies and tv shows I find Boyd's Hoppy more interesting and a better role model than Mulford's original. Boyd's Hoppy was a gentleman (albeit rough-hewn) and a Jeffersonian "Natural Aristocrat."
By the way, both Hoppy and Davy defended themselves and others with unregistered and unlicensed firearms; so today they'd probably be seen as bad guys.
Hollywood hippies were so awful. The worst was Larry Storch, who couldn't figure out if he was Harry the Hipster, Jim Morrison or Maynard G Krebs.
Anyway, did you as a child get any ideas about how to live. . .
Harry O (starring David Janssen) always resonated. A retired cop (shot in back) becomes a PI working out of beach house on Coronado. The character seemed to best represent the type of man one would want to become (he was a lot like my father). His neighbor was Farrah Fawcett. The series was cancelled after 2 seasons and replaced by Charlie's Angels, mirroring or driving the steep cultural decline then happening.
Sadly, Janssen in real life was not enough like Harry O, and died from his vices at 49.
It should be noted that Lisa Douglas had limited superpowers, i.e., the power to understand and converse with Arnold Ziffel.
Hilarious. Jethro's description of his immersion into college protest culture in that clip is timely.
Jethro: Because I'm part of the academic revolution. I'm fighting for intellectual freedom. I'm throwing off the shackles of [the] economic power structure and putting down you corporate entities and conglomerates. I have done solved my identity problem. I know where I'm going, and who I am. I'm free to make up my own mind and do my own thing.
Jed: And what is that?
Jethro: They ain't told me yet.
I typed "dotage" not "footage." Autocorrect strikes again.
“Althouse: enthralled by hippies, but closer to "That Girl".”
Maybe in your dreams.
I did not identify with her at all or with MTM later. I considered these women old-fashioned, and I considered wanting a career uncool. I still do. Remember, I studied art in college, only went to law school years later, absconded from the practice of law into teaching, and bailed out of teaching into blogging. I’m still in thrall to the hippie dream.
The late "I Love Lucy" hippie episode made a real impact on me. To this day I sometimes respond to an outburst with the famous quote "Don't blow your stack, pussycat." It tends to be an effective conversation stopper.
I love the Gomer clip. Pitch perfect propaganda, among other things.
Gomer was going easy on them in the singing to keep them in the game. He had a magnificent singing voice.
Magnum P.I made me want to be private detective when I was teenager.
"I’m still in thrall to the hippie dream."
But with much nicer stuff.
Ann seems to be channeling Fred Rogers today. I can see her looking into the camera, "Did you ever do that?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eFyLtUh99E
Skip ahead to around 4:30.
I remember seeing "That Girl" as a very young kid and liking it.
Saw a couple episodes years later on Cable TV.
God, its horrible! Marlo Thomas couldn't act worth shit. She was 3 facial expressions.
It pays to know to the right people in Hollywood.
Well Ann, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Singing space hippies!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pNQYHvhnms
If you lived in small town USA in the 1970's they played these 60s TV shows in re-reuns. Over and over and over again.
The Beverly Hillbillies could be surprisingly funny. Jethro was the rube who got caught up in every fad and fashion. I remember one show where he a "double nought" spy and had metal bathtub that came down over his head as he drove the truck.
Jan Hathaway turned out to be Lesbian -which isn't surprising.
We wouldn't have this great blog if ALthouse wasn't a hippie at heart.
Instead, she'd just be a dull, liberal law professor.
"Have Gun Will Travel" would seem to build better character in males than "Will And Grace".
His father, a devout Catholic
The phrase "devout Catholic" is such a tell, such a give-away that the person has no real understanding of what the Catholic faith and living that faith are about. And when applied to one's self, it is an indication that the person is really not a very good Catholic at all.
Jan Hathaway turned out to be Lesbian -which isn't surprising.
On the show she had the hots for Jethro.
Double Ought Jetrho
Skip forward to 18:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0nww56cfuA
"They ain't told me yet." Ex ore infantium et lactentium.
did you as a child get any ideas about how to live and be your true self by looking at some TV-show character?
The implication of the question being, of course, that "being gay" is a learned behavior, and not something that is innate to the human person.
The other part of this is how a child or young teen might "know" that he is "gay"? Picardi says that he determined he was by watching “Queer as Folk,” a show about fashion. So that's what a 13-14-year-old thought -- "I like fashion, therefore I must be gay," and not "I like having sex with other males," which is of course the essence of homosexuality.
"The Beverly Hillbillies"
Of course, everyone knows how they became millionaires - a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed was shooting at some food and up through the ground came a bubbling crude - oil that is.
Except I recently saw the pilot episode. And it was a representative from some oil company who had spotted a black pond on their land filled with oil and it was this agent who approached Jed to buy the rights. Wellll, doggies.
But back then, they had the ability in Hollywood to change history and soon thereafter, it was Jed who first discovered it.
Meanwhile, cousin Pearl (Jethro's mom) was rather prolific in TV land -- From Beverly Hills to Hooterville to Gracie Allen's best friend to Bedrock.
“Anyway, did you as a child get any ideas about how to live and be your true self by looking at some TV-show character...”
No, but “Jack Headstrong, All American American” on the old Bob and Ray radio show struck a nerve.
Thanks Ron.
The other great thing was Granny refusing to accept that the Confederacy lost.
In her world, Grant surrendered to Lee at Appomattox.
I wonder how much Bob Dylan got paid for that.
A lot of guys of a certain age in STEM fields were inspired by Don Herbert as Mr. Wizard. Not so much by the snotty kids he had on.
"Maybe in your dreams."
I was poking gentle fun.
How even 'modern' women on TV then were stereotypes on a theme.
What an independent woman like Althouse would be expected to be in TV World.
Like Gomer as a hippie.
Perhaps I was too dry.
The Germans have a word for this.
I can't say I wanted to be like anyone in tv. It's funny because thinking back, I thought Mary Tyler Moore and That Girl were so *old*. Especially That Girl. Her hair was dumb and Donald was such a dud.
I liked the name Prudence from Nanny and the professor, and thought Audra Barkley (Big Valley reruns) was beautiful and got to wear cool clothes.
But is it a little sad that a gay man thought he had to know about fashion because some comedy characters who were gay knew about fashion? Talk about reinforcing stereotypes!
Next week, Timmy, we'll make battery acid.
I liked the name Prudence from Nanny and the professor
The best name on that show was Phoebe Figalilly.
The prototype of That Girl was My Little Margie. The scripts are interchangeable.
I'm totally with you on spelling "Phillip" ... so many variations! An old school restaurant here in Los Angeles, inventor of the French dip sandwich, is called Philippe the Original, or just Philippe's. One L, two P's.
Check out philippes.com for more info about their delicious sandwiches.
Transgendered leverage.
Jeb! Get your squirrel gun and shoot those Marxists before the ruin Jethro!
If you lived in small town USA in the 1970's they played these 60s TV shows in re-reuns. Over and over and over again.
One time I was inprocessing into a new duty station in the south and spent most of a day in a waiting room that had TNT playing on a TV. This was back in the early 90s and Andy Griffith came on three different times.
"I picked up a copy of Vogue just because I was, like, I need to know about women’s fashion now, because I’m gay."
Is that how he was like?
"Like" is set off by commas, indicating a pause before and after "like" when reading the sentence aloud.
I came to the realization that my life was far too informed by The Twilight Zone. I'm always looking for what I do not see or understand. And id i think i understand something i keep looking.
As for role models - Artemis Gordon, who got to wear all those disguises and engineer such cool stuff in The Wild, Wild West
and Emma Peel who wore great clothes, was deadly with or without a weapon, and was smart. Beautiful and sexy was a given.
IF I think I understand, not id...
I liked Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) the most of any character on TV.
Did I Love Lucy?. Even as a child I regarded the character as a childish, manipulative liar. I couldn't understand why someone as cool as Ricky would want to be around her.
Cindy writes: "As for role models - Artemis Gordon . . . [from] Wild Wild Wesr, and Emma Peel who wore great clothes, was deadly with or without a weapon, and was smart. Beautiful and sexy was a given."
I had my own daydreams about Emma Peel, but they involved being with her than actually being her. As someone once said of Diana Rigg at the time, "the Thinking Man's Sex Symbol."
"The prototype of That Girl was My Little Margie. The scripts are interchangeable."
Except that the heroine of "That Girl" wasn't insane like Margie. I saw some episodes recently and I wouldn't be surprised if the dad paid Mrs. Odettes to hang around Margie and keep her from hurting herself or others.
By the way, have you ever heard Robert Klein's routing about "My Little Margie"? Very funny, and spot on.
retail lawyer wrote: 'Have Gun Will Travel"'would seem to build better character in males than "Will And Grace"."
I can see what you mean, now that I've seen episodes on video. It used to come on too late for me to stay up and watch, but in retrospect I think Paladin would have been a great role model for me. Not only was he capable of handling himself in a fight, and was a nicely-dressed gentleman, but he was quite the Renaissance Man. He was well-spoken, and apparently well-read, capable of quoting poetry. He was also (for a hired gun) very moral, judging by the episodes I've seen. I read somewhere that the creators saw him as a "liberal," but if he were, it was more in the classical-liberal sense.
The elegant ladies of What's My Line and To Tell The Truth TV shows were roll models for me when I was very young. In particular, Dorothy Kilgallen, Kitty Carlisle and Arlene Francis. They were kind, funny and beautifully sophisticated. Diana Rigg was a favorite when I was a teen. Other roll models, for fashion style, were the girlfriends of the Beatles including Jane Asher and Patti Boyd.
"did you as a child get any ideas about how to live and be your true self by looking at some TV-show character?"
No. I think my earliest wow-it-would-be-so-cool-to-be-like-that-guy model was Tintin. Followed a few years later by Jacques Cousteau.
What's My Line. My favorite game show, and I still enjoy it occasionally on YouTube.
You could do worse for a role model than the moderator, John Charles Daly - as Bennett Cerf used to introduce him. Daly was courtly without being prissy and displayed impeccable manners and a seemingly sincere concern for the contestants.
John Charles Daly - as Bennett Cerf used to introduce him
That was his billing as an important radio journalist in the 1940's.
“I can't say I wanted to be like anyone in tv. It's funny because thinking back, I thought Mary Tyler Moore and That Girl were so *old*. Especially That Girl. Her hair was dumb and Donald was such a dud.”
Yes, big problem with that show is that the boyfriend was like someone a generation older would be interested in... or someone from a very square background.
Philip/Phillip:
Relevant in the Pants house as we, until after she was born (just Wednesday!), were still deliberating on a middle name for our new baby. We wanted one that started with P for monogram/initials reasons, and Philip/Phillip is a family name in several different directions, so I floated Philippa, which he shot down because of the ambiguity of pronunciation.
Philip/Phillip is the middle name of not only Mr. Pants, but my brother, my dad, and Mr. Pants' grandfather, whose first name in its feminized version we'd already chosen for the baby's first name anyway. I thought Littlepantsine Philippa would be a nice tribute to Grandpa Littlepants Philip, especially since I inherited the wedding set that he gave his bride and it has their initials engraved inside it and she will inherit it herself someday.
But Mr. Pants said no, so here we are, and maybe he was right, because as I was filling out the paperwork for the birth certificate and I was entering his info on it, I had to double check how he spells his middle name because that L/LL thing is so confusing!
Ms. Hathaway was hot!
Are you sure about "fond of horses," Ann? I remember, from a play of Aristophanes, a name translated as "horse-lover" (meaning, in context, basically a betting tout), but it was longer -- "Philidippedes," or something of the kind.
Sorry -- just Wiki'd it, and the name is Pheidippides. It's from The Clouds, the play that notoriously lampooned Socrates.
"Yes, big problem with that show is that the boyfriend was like someone a generation older would be interested in... or someone from a very square background."
Don was supposed to be square - so marlo thomas could be the "zany" one.
Only it was marlo thomas.
So Don had to be really, really, really, square.
"And, people, Gomer was gay."
I didn't see this brought up, but just a point. How do you know Gomer was gay? As far as I remember his sexuality was never a topic within the storyline. Jim Nabors was gay and by implying that makes Gomer gay is to suggest gay men can only play gay roles. I think that is a presumptive position the LGBT community may disagree with.
For example, all Rock Hudson's roles depicted him as a heterosexual and he was very successful in that character type.
I hope the impressionable guy hasn't seen Deliverance.
This movie got me interested in my future career
Jim Nabors treaded lightly around his sexual preference on that show. Gomer's beard - the Lou Ann Poovie character - was an attractive blond, and they had to give her a breathy, syrup-thick Southern accent and sugary behavior as prim as Gomer to make the viewer believe she might find him attractive.
The Gomer Pyle character was much more believable and realistic in interacting with women on the Griffith show. The character changed a lot in the spinoff. Not that there's anything wrong ...
I don't believe Rock Hudson's homosexuality was ever a secret to anyone. I clearly remember in the 1950s my friends and I discussing rumors that Rock Hudson and Johnny Mathis were "queer with each other." In the 1950s! We were just a bunch of preteen kids from Chicago and but even so we knew Rock Hudson's true sexual orientation. Same goes for Jim Nabors.
Secretary (on phone): Uh, well, he's in a meeting with the lead singer of Masculine Harmony right now trying to convince him to stay in the closet.
He (cutaway): We all want to be gay, Steve. All of us. No women telling us what to do, great fashion sense. You can seemingly grab women's breasts willy-nilly, and it's apparently fine. But I just don't see that working for you in the context of the music industry. Look, think about it. Which would you rather have... The freedom to love whomever you choose or loads of cash?
- Gun Shy (2017)
You want to talk Gay? What about Floyd the Barber?
But Gomer? Not really. Just a nut. Like Barney Fife.
Rock Hudson - looking back, you can see...clues.
But at the time, most peeps thought he was straight as an arrow. Until he got AIDS.
Leigh French was such a beautiful representation of the ideal hippie girl. Too bad the usual ones were mostly nasty bitches.
My late mother in law had the last word on Philip/Phillip. A classically educated pastor's wife, she knew that one-l Philip is Classical Greek (Philip of Macedon)and two-l Phillip is New Testament Greek (disciple, apostle, etc).
She named her son with one l.
Spooky! Two days ago, I looked up Leigh French. While binge-watching "Lark Rise to Candleford," a BBC series set in late-19th Century England, there appeared a young "milk maid," and for a day or three, I thought she resembled a "Laugh-In" cast member. Turns out I was off-- it was Leigh French from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour! Her image popped into my head, along with her name. Hours later she appears here. With video! Does this qualify for inclusion under the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon?
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