To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People July 28, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/col/reit/1999/07/28/farrah Farrah's flip-out was mom's fault Fawcett shirks blame for wacko Letterman turn (but still takes responsibility for '70s hairdo); Jesse Helms has a big, big, big vocabulary. Plus: Israel says Tarzan's loincloth's gotta go! - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amy Reiter No, no, no! It wasn't dastardly drugs that made flippy-haired-no-more Farrah Fawcett spacey, fidgety and weird on David Letterman's show lo those many memorable moons ago. And it wasn't because she wasn't feeling well either, even though that's what she's maintained for the past two years. It was ... her mother's fault. "My mom said, 'Just go and have a good time,'" asserted the erstwhile "Charlie's Angel" during an appearance at the Television Critics Association Monday. (She's promoting the CBS-TV movie "Silk Hope," which marks her return to acting after time off to deal with ... uh ... "personal issues.") "This is your fault, Mom." Let's hope this blame-the-mom thing isn't a trend, or Sally Field's mother will have to do some serious 'splaining about that memorable "You like me, you really like me" Oscar moment and Celine Dion's ma will be making excuses for letting her daughter leave the house in that bizarre backwards suit/dress ... - - - - - - - - - - - - All the glitz that's fit to print "The New York Times turned us down. I guess they don't have my kind of columnist." -- Richard Gere on why his "Runaway Bride" character writes for the "Pretty Woman" of newspapers, USA Today, rather than the unwilling-to-turn-tricks Gray Old Lady. (Bonus credits for the McPaper's pimps, who brokered what may be the most in-your-face product placement deal of the year.) - - - - - - - - - - - - Someone alert the NEA If you readers feel a bit of floccinaucinihilipilification when it comes to Nothing Personal, the vast majority of you are kind enough not to share. (I confess, I'd be just a wee bit gobsmacked if you did, though I would not, as you might imagine, feel compelled to open a window.) What's that? You wouldn't know a floccinaucinihilipilification if it poked its little head out of your lightly toasted Pop-Tart? Well, every few years some frisky politico (most recently Sen. Daniel Moynihan and former presidential press secretary Mike McCurry) figures out a way to slip this $3 word -- at 29 letters one of the longest in the English language -- into casual conversation. The latest is GOP Sen. Jesse Helms, ever-enlightened best buddy of boundary-pushing creative inquiry. (His junior high school English teacher, were she around today, would undoubtedly be right proud.) In a note to Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan, reports the Nando Times, Helms employed the whopping word, which, according to the Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary, means "the action or habit of estimating as worthless," to address concern that he has caused delays in the Senate's consideration of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an international arms testing ban. "I note your distress at my floccinaucinihilipilification of the CTBT," wrote Helms, quaintly using the treaty's acronym for short. "I do not share your enthusiasm for this treaty for a variety of reasons." But perhaps, Sen. Helms, given time, even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious, you might come 'round and see the treaty as simply supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. - - - - - - - - - - - - I, Ike "That movie gave me high notoriety. Now people see Tina as a woman scorned ... I'm not denying things, just telling my side of the story." -- Ike "I may be a wife abuser, but at least I know how to use 'notoriety' correctly" Turner on his upcoming book, "Takin' Back My Name." - - - - - - - - - - - - Cri de coat Well, I'll be gob-damned. A cashmere overcoat worn by John Lennon, valued at more than 100,000 British pounds (around $159,000) was sold to a gloating antiques dealer at an auction in Britain this week for a mere 4,023 pounds (approximately $6,397). But the really startling news is that "gobsmacking" may be ready to make its transatlantic jump any second now. After cadging the Crombie-style coat, Larry Castle, who rejoiced that Lennon was a "fellow New Yorker," told the BBC he was "gobsmacked and delighted at getting the bargain of the century" and planned to sell the prime piece of pop memorabilia for a tidy profit. That's assuming, of course, that the world at large doesn't regard the coat with floccinaucinihilipilification. - - - - - - - - - - - - Juicy bits It's all over for Indian Red. The Crayola crayon color is going the way of Prussian Blue (now Midnight Blue, because kids had no concept of Prussian history) and Flesh (now Peach, because not everyone's skin is pinkish). The crayon company announced Monday that confusion over the color's origin -- said to have been evocative of a reddish-brown pigment found near India, but controversial among those who believed it was meant to evoke American Indian skin color -- has led to its new name: Chestnut. "We were looking for a name that would be helpful to teachers working in the classroom, and we thought chestnut was appropriate," Crayola spokeswoman Stacy Gabrielle told the press. Other names suggested by a surprisingly creative crayon-contemplating public included ginger spice, old penny, baseball mitt and "the crayon formerly known as indian red." I'm guessing the focus groups had a hard time deciphering the unpronounceable symbol on that last one. A yell worthy of Carol "Ear Puller" Burnett is echoing across the desert, if not the jungle. A bold band of ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews is reportedly hollering up a storm over publicity posters promoting Walt Disney's "Tarzan," in which the swinging animated star is shown wearing nothing but a loincloth and a decidedly determined look. (Could he be about to say the blessing over the vine?) And, Reuters reports, the company responsible for the film's PR push in Israel is considering caving in to complaints. "It wouldn't be so terrible to have Tarzan in pants," said firm head Avi Lant. Jane, for one, might not agree. salon.com | July 28, 1999