THE GREAT GADFLY: Confessions Of A Dangerous Rack
I finally had an opportunity to watch the E! True Hollywood story on The Gong Show, home of two of my absolute most revered figures in pop culture: the voluptuously horrific Jaye P. Morgan and the low-rent James Brown himself, the tubbilicious funk god known simply as Gene Gene The Dancing Machine (what I wouldn't give to have the Gene Gene dancin' theme piped into my bathroom every morning before work - the world would be a better place).
My adoration of the notorious Ms. Morgan is certainly no secret - if anyone asks me what I feel sums up the '70s to a tee, I would waste no time in responding "oh, the '70s was all about Jaye P. Morgan in oversized sunglasses and a pink feather boa, giant gong stick in her hand, tweaked to the gills on the finest nose candy Studio 54 had to offer that week, being physically restrained by Jamie Farr and Phyllis Diller from gonging some poor off-key singer into oblivion as they tried to warble through a rendition of 'Rocky Mountain High'."
The Gong Show is why I can't watch American Idol. If those killjoys on Fox would just throw some memorably hideous vocalists into the final competition and get someone like Courtney Love or Shane MacGowan to join the panel of judges, I'd be glued to the set every week. Let's face it - the closest we have to Jaye P. Morgan these days is Paula Abdul, and that's hardly what I'd call a comforting consolation prize.
If in the middle of one of Kelly Clarkson's heavily shellacked SUV-friendly sugarballads, some big fat man in a track suit and a beret started dancing the locomotion across the stage, I'd be in TV heaven. Hell, give me ten seconds of Rip Taylor and a bucket of confetti and I'm happy. Something. Anything.
While watching the E! True Hollywood Story on The Gong Show, I was thrilled to hear Jaye P. mention she was sacked from the show because she flashed her breasts to the audience one too many times while on the air. Apparently, every time the audience would hoot at her during the taping of a Gong Show episode, out came the ta-tas. This habit eventually became even too outrageous for the show's infamously batty host/creator Chuck Barris, who ultimately handed Jaye P. and her golden gongs a pink slip. Her poor Gong Show partner-in-crime Kaye Ballard must have felt like someone chopped off a limb.
Ya know, if you were too over the top for The Gong Show, I think you should have statues erected in your honor in wig shops and public restrooms around the world.
"Television is all about silliness and bullshit," Jaye P. said in her own defense with a shit-eating smile, decades after her boobie-baring glory days.
This woman, I tell you, is why the word "fabulous" was created.
2003-10-14 - Last Haiku
2003-10-09 - Don't Cry Out Loud
2003-10-09 - Sit Down, You're Making Me Nervous
2003-10-08 - I'm Sure Miss Thing, I'm Sure
2003-10-07 - Carbonated Water, Caramel Color, Aspartame