Nostalgia

I'm feeling nostalgic for the scandals of yesteryear. They had a profound impact on the building of an AngryBlackBitch. Vanessa Williams buck-naked in Penthouse, Darryl Strawberry going on a three day drug fest and who could forget my favorite show O.J. on trial.

When Vanessa Williams was crowned Miss America it was a huge moment for me. It was as big a deal as the first time I saw a brown person on the cover of Vogue - I literally cried. Even though Vanessa was weird about the whole issue of being the first Black Miss America and seemed to handle the press with all the polish of the Soviets regarding Chernobyl ("Has there never been a Black Miss America? I had no idea! came across like "Has there been a nuclear melt-down? Really? I had no idea!"), I was proud and convinced that it meant something.

Then came Penthouse. My mother, whacked out on Xanax and ritualistically sipping tea, ranted about how that "'Ho had let us all down". My father, under the guise of disbelief, rushed out and purchase the Penthouse immediately. He had to go to three stores because so many were sold out! My sister and I begged and pleaded to see it - I can't remember how, but we finally eyed the pics and DAMN were they kinky! Although publicly I stated my horror, I was privately impressed. Nowadays a kinky sex scandal is Paris Hilton looking high while delivering the most un-inspired blow-job in the history of potentially illegally obtained celebrity internet porn. It's a wonder she still gets any after that sad and sorry performance on tape. And stop playing shocked - of course I watched it several times and in slow motion. But anyway, Vanessa was splayed out with mood lighting and exotic camera angles that made the shot of her licking the crack of that mystery woman's ass almost seem like art. Even her return to fame didn't diminish that fall from grace.

And Darryl Strawberry. I just saw a program about celebrity wives on A&E and there was Darryl with his overly religious but beautiful wife talking about addiction as a disease and how he feels blessed to be alive and blah, blah, blah. I remember his baseball playing ass with red rimmed nostrils and blood-shot eyes bitching about the media in the late '80 and '90s. It made for great television and had all the makings of an on-going publicly witnessed suicide, but fuck it all he pulled his ass together. Or so it seemed. Out of the blue his cancer diagnosed crack addicted ass disappears for not one, not two but three days. I imagined him roaming the state of Florida promising blow-jobs for $5. His arrest was short on the drama and now he's redeemed himself. Or so it seems.

Oh and O.J.! I was so pissed when that shit went off the air, but you have to admit that the ending was every bit as good as the beginning! I barely noticed the news flash that O.J. Simpson's wife had been killed along with another adult male. Honestly, it took me a moment to remember who he was - Hertz and something about running through the airport. With the release of information that he had pled guilty to assault, had a difficult divorce and that his ex-wife now road around L.A. in his car with other men I was certain that he killed her. It may be a Sistah thang, but riding around in your former man/lover/love-thangs car post break-up with your new squeeze while cashing checks is cause for suspicion of murder to me.

Anyhoo, then came the hand-cuff thing followed by the best three hours of live television I have ever witnessed. Yes, children, I'm talking about the Bronco ride through L.A.! The commentary was fantastic, the people lined up along the highway was right out of a script and the possibility of O.J. ending it all on live t.v. like the militant angry Black man he never really was threw me into a blissful sort of television heaven. I was just about to break out the pop-corn when it ended. The Michael Jackson trial ain't got shit on two years of O.J., a violent racist cop, a mountain of evidence, the glove that didn't fit and the verdict that pissed off most of White America.

Yeah, I really miss the good old days.