Come to the Caberet

I needed a lightweight read. OF FUCKING COURSE I DID (and do)! Don’t we all? I mean, fer fuck’s sake, the US is being stripped for parts by a crew of vulture capitalists and their installed kakistocratic puppet government.

So, what am I reading? Liza Minnelli’s memoir Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! I’m only 35% of the way in so this post isn’t a book review so much as a reaction to things I’ve come across so far.

First off, I’m at war with myself about how relatively easy it was for her to succeed in her family’s business – show business. WHY am I conflicted? Did I not know from the get-go that Minnelli was the daughter of ultra famous, successful-in-their-respective-crafts parents? Did I not take the damn book out of the library in part because I wanted to read about glittering celebrity lives? Why…yes, yes I did!

So then…what the fuck, madam?

I’ve always resented people who’ve been given opportunities handed to them like gifts they’re owed. Especially folks whose parents don’t just have money, they have connections too. They know the right people, can put in a good word for you, get you an audition, a review of your portfolio, a foot in the door. And if they don’t get the starring role right off, do they have to work the breakfast shift at the local diner until their big break? Nope, they can crash, rent-free, on their agent’s couch until something comes up.

Yeah, this is jealousy. I didn’t have the big financial cushion or familial connections within the art world AND, to be completely fair and honest, I was no Jean-Michel Basquiat either. Andy Warhol wasn’t about to discover me and put me on the cover of Interview. So, I’ll quit kvetching. Also, Minnelli is quick to volunteer that “I was the original nepo baby.” She’s well aware of the privilege she had. Still, if she wasn’t dynamite, she wouldn’t have become so popular. 

Imagine Paris Hilton (media personality, businesswoman, socialite, “actress”), the great-granddaughter of billionaire Conrad Hilton, taking on any, honestly ANY of Meryl Streep’s roles and doing anything beyond embarrassing the shit out of herself. Connections and money alone won’t ever do the trick – you have to have actual talent.

Okay, second – mein Gott, Judy Garland, a profound prescription drug addict and alcoholic, was on so many levels an awful, horrific, horror show mother. Minnelli writes that at age 13:

“I was my mother's caretaker—a nurse, doctor, pharmacologist and psychiatrist rolled into one.”

There are other stories from when Liza was a bit older and starting to make it as a performer on her own. Garland seemed to be torn between being a supportive mother and fellow artist and being an insecure, imperious, resentful, competitive bitch.

And yet Liza writes of her great love for Judy. It seems to exist at a far greater level than any bitterness over being, at bare fucking minimum, denied a significant part of her childhood. Has she embraced and worked through all of her anger and sadness about her mother’s negligence, abuse, and the insane home life she created for Liza and her siblings? Is she numb, in some kind of denial, or clinging through all the bad memories to those few wisps of goodness? Is she trying to find, within memories of Judy, the kind of love she needed and deserved as a child?

If so, why? 

I guess I’m going to need to keep reading to see if there are any answers to that question.