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Tired...tired of being admired...

The new issue of Swindle is the Second Annual Icons Issue. Some of their choices are undeniable (Debbie Harry, Marianne Faithful, David Lynch, John Waters, Deepak Chopra), some are refreshingly offbeat (Amy Heckerling, Naomi Wolf, Betsey Johnson) and some are...fucked up (Dee Snider, Dolph Lundgren, Adam Ant). More bizarre still are some of the taglines—Debbie is a "Timeless Sexpot, Vocalist, Actor" but is she really a "vocalist?" Wasn't Peggy Lee a vocalist? (In her feature, she confesses touring is "really tiring, really hard work. I guess you get the swing of it.")

Lundgren, who I haven't laid eyes on in a decade or more, is called "Action Hero, Olympic Athlete, Ex-Scientist" and admits he suffered from "imposter syndrome" over his sudden '80s fame. He describes Andy Warhol approaching him at Studio 54 to snap a Polaroid of him, asking, "Why don't you take your shirt off?" Lundgren "ended up in shorts or something."

Spaceman Buzz Aldrin is most well known of late for saying he had seen a UFO and then denying it, but there's no denying his recent, take-me-to-your-leader facelift, a procedure that rarely sends me on a man.

We have facelift-off.

Waters claims to "always keep up with the times" and "never look back," but reserves a special hatred for the fans who insist on cellphone pictures. "That's the bane of your existence. A lot of good it did Mel Gibson."

Even with some missteps, it's a compelling issue. And where else would I have learned that we have a bus-accident settlement ($6,000) to thank for Steve Buscemi's acting abilities? He spent the money at The Lee Strasberg Theatre And Film Institute at his dad's urging. That runaway bus carried him all the way to Fargo and beyond.

Comments

[Verushka]

That is my favorite picture of Debbie.