Fanfare for the average celebrity

Most Americans believe that Martin Luther King, Jr, was born on the third Monday in January, but in our eagerness to celebrate the reverend’s accomplishments, we are overlooking two classic icons of American culture whose birthdays occur in the same week.

Unlike the venerable Reverend King, these two figures represent not the American Ideal but the American Reality and, as such, deserve our recognition. Therefore, in the tradition of President’s Day, that floating amalgamation of Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays that has at last become a kind of collective presidential birthday, let us choose one day this week to celebrate not only the two individuals whose identities will be revealed in a moment, but everything they represent. Let us take this one day a year to acknowledge all that is great in America, as personified by Charles Nelson Reilly (1/13/31) and Charo (1/15/51).

Why are they important? Because they represent everything magnificent about America in the last century, everything grand and glorious about our unique blend of liberty, commercialism, and shiny red sequin dresses. Charles Nelson Reilly made a career out of a weak chin, a few peculiar facial expressions, and a whiny sound that cannot be done justice on paper (but sounded something like "neeyeh!").



It might be said that Charo made her fame the old-fashioned way, by wriggling around in scanty clothes, but then how does one account for the millions of women who’ve shaken their hoochies and shimmied their coochies before and since with nary a guest appearance on Love Boat? No, Charo wasn’t simply a titillating nymphet, but a titillating nymphet who yelped and squealed like a dog in heat.



Very well, you say: maybe Charles Nelson Reilly made his fortune off a weak chin and "neeyeh," and maybe Charo made hers off a yelpy squeal, so what? What’s any of this got to do with America? Who cares?

I care and you should care. The important thing isn’t that they made their particular fortunes by means of those particular eccentricities, but that they were ABLE to do so. Our nation is great not because people like Charles Nelson Reilly and Charo succeed here, but because they CAN succeed here. It’s important to support the ideals of liberty and justice and equality before the law, but it’s just as important, nay, perhaps more important to celebrate the reality that we’re more than Democracy’s standard bearer, more than the defender of oppressed peoples, more than the "last best hope" we are unbelievably silly! We’re sillier than any other nation on the face of the earth, and it’s time to stop being ashamed. It’s time to stand up for silliness, and that is what I believe

(I only wish Valerie Perrine had been born on the same week - it would have been the perfect trifecta.)