Courtney Love's breasts changed my life.
It's not as if I sought out her boobage. It was thrust upon me, a cruel twist of fate. I had driven six-and-a-half hours from Pittsburgh to New York City for a little R-and-R. My significant other and I were walking down Sixth Avenue, minding our own business, when a young man on the sidewalk mumbled something about Letterman tickets.
Sure enough, if we were willing to be verbally barraged by little Letterman Nazis about how we must laugh at everything Dave says and be constantly enthusiastic, including clapping like some Chucky Cheese geeks on amphetamines while waiting to get into the Ed Sullivan Theater, free Letterman tickets were ours for the taking.
It was during this annoying pep-rally lobby lecture that we learned Dave's big headliner guest would be the 39-year-old cutest little crack whore on the planet. We could hear Courtney practicing from the lobby, the endless drone of depressing guitar riffs and scratchy-throated suicidal vocals enveloping the lobby, like a bad fart from Grampa at the holiday dinner table.
Courtney came out in a short brown dress and matching top with green tights and no brassiere to suppress her protruding nippleage, which stuck out like Fred Honsberger at a Weight Watchers meeting. Maybe that's why Dave keeps his studio meat-locker cold.
But little did I know that on this magical night in the Big Apple, I would be tempted by the fruit of another. Courtney's cantaloupes were first revealed to Dave Drew Barrymore-style, with her back to the camera while she stood on top of his desk.
But unlike sweet little Drew, Ms. Love would not be stingy. Courtney flashed the audience off camera, not once but twice. She came out after a commercial break and lifted her shirt for the stunned audience. Then during another break while talking to Paul Shaffer, she playfully flashed her left boob again.
I know this made national news because my 85-year-old mother said she and her bridge-club mates were talking about it in Kankakee, Illinois -- which, by the way, once received a gift from Letterman of two identical gazebos. I even have a "Kankakee, Illinois, Home of the World Famous Twin Gazebos" T-shirt. But Courtney's twin gazebos would prove to be much more newsworthy.
Of course, Janet Jackson already ruined our country when her nipple appeared on the TV screen for an infinitesimal amount of time during the Super Bowl. You all know how radically different this nation has become in the wake of Nipplegate. But Courtney's boobage, for those of us unlucky enough to be in the Ed Sullivan Theater that night, changed our lives forever.
The exit doors opened after Dave said goodnight and we spilled out, gripped by mad-dog mammary fever. They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, but this prurient posse was on the hunt for headlights. We chanted en masse while hookers were forced to show their ta-tas for free. Tourists were given a choice ... their boobies or their lives. Fortunately we didn't have to kill anyone. There was random groping of strangers. We stuck together, united by our common bond. We knew what we had to do: See everyone's breasts in Times Square. We'd be satisfied with nothing less.
Wait a minute. I think that last part was a dream. You know, the part after we left the theater. Actually, there were absolutely no consequences whatsoever to Love's display, with the exception of another buzz-creating breast display to help fill newscasts and talk shows. Society did not suffer. Sexual assaults did not go up. No one was traumatized for life. Absolutely NOTHING bad happened as the result of Courtney Love flashing her breasts. Same with Janet.
So why are we obsessed with breasts? And why are we convinced that breasts will attack us in our homes at night? And why do nitwits like Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell rail on as if there is a whit of actual danger to society?
I saw George Carlin, infamous author of the "seven words you can't say on television" routine, sum it up very nicely on a cable news show. He said the right-wingers are stirring up their base in an election year, and religious zealots have taught us that our bodies are dirty and something of which we need to be ashamed.
Could we possibly grow up and realize that boob-flashing just doesn't matter?
Thanks for the mammaries, Courtney.
