LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
The Gospel According to Marc: With Friends like These...Why Liza with a "Z" needs Marc with a "C" |
by Marc Acito |
In a sure sign that I have no life, I am spending entirely too much time worrying about how Liza Minnelli's new marriage is going. I can't help it. I'm obsessed. I followed the details of Liza's nuptials to producer David Gest the way straight men follow sports. I even lost a whole night of my life examining her bridal registry, courtesy of Tiffany.com. The Tiffany Bridal Registry is endlessly fascinating because it shows both the quantity requested by the bride as well the quantity still needed. One can see, for instance, that none of Liza's guests bought any of the 12 requested Elsa Peretti Platters (at a cost of $2,900 each), or any of the $4,000 Elsa Peretti Tureens, either. And no one ordered the Elsa Peretti Pumpkin Boxes at $650 a piece, presumably because no one knows what the hell a pumpkin box is. As I continued to sift through the requests, I realized that no one had bought Liza any of the expensive gifts. In fact, as of the wedding day itself, only four people had bought an item that had cost more than $1,000. Now certainly when you look at the guest list (Esther Williams, Tito Jackson, Gina Lollabrigida), you realize that some of these people haven't worked in years, so I guess it's understandable. But there were plenty of A-list celebs on the list, too, including Best Man Michael Jackson and Matron of Honor Elizabeth Taylor. I can only conclude that Liza's friends were simply too cheap to buy her anything nice. I bet Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas pulled a Nancy Reagan and just rewrapped one of the leftover gifts from their wedding. (I can just hear Jones saying, "Well, it is her fourth marriage, after all." Yeah, just you wait, bitch.) Poor Liza. It's not enough that she's had to endure chemical dependency, hip replacement and encephalitis. But to be dissed by her own friends like this. It's too embarrassing. I realized the best way to show Liza who her real friends are would be to buy her a gift myself. I cursored through the list to see if there was anything I could afford and was horrified to discover that all 16 of the $32 Elsa Peretti Thumbprint Brandy Snifters had been bought already, which means Liza's "friends" are not only cheap but, considering Liza's battles with substance abuse, cruel, also. I settled for the next least expensive thing, a $65 Elsa Peretti Butter Spreader, Flat Handle. That's right, I spent 65 bucks on a butter knife. What's more, 16 cheap bastards spent half of what I did and actually got to go to the wedding. I'm glad I did the right thing, though. I take great pleasure in the thought of Liza rolling out of bed around the crack of noon to the sound of her new hubby clanking around the kitchen. "Do you want toast, honey?" he calls in to her. "Yes, dear," she says, and then bursts into song, belting out "Start spreading the butter..." Tiffany.com assured me that my gift would be delivered in one of Tiffany's signature robin's egg blue boxes. This pleases me, too, because, while I've given wedding gifts in Tiffany's signature robin's egg blue boxes before, they've always held something from Target. There was even a place to write Liza and David a personal note. Mine said, "Sorry we couldn't be at the wedding. Congratulations and best wishes. Love, Marc & Floyd." Floyd took a look at it and said, "But we weren't invited to the wedding." "Yeah, that's why I'm sorry we couldn't be there," I said. Besides, I just love the idea of Liza and David sitting around their apartment, surrounded by robin's egg blue boxes, saying to one another, "Do you know a Marc and Floyd? I don't know a Marc and Floyd." Before I exited the site I discovered it would cost me $10 to ship a butter knife, despite the fact that Liza lives just a few blocks from Tiffany's. For that kind of money, Elsa Peretti herself better be delivering it. But that is the kind of cheap-ass thinking of Liza's ungrateful guests and I won't succumb to it. I just hope that Liza appreciates those of us who really care about her and remembers who to invite the next time she gets married. Maybe then she'll follow the example of her sister Lorna Luft, who couldn't attend the wedding because she was performing at Gay Pride in Sydney, Australia. Now there's a woman who knows who her real friends are. And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc. Marc Acito's address is now registered with Tiffany.com so Liza can send a thank-you note. He can be reached at MarcAcito@attbi.com |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 04, May 3, 2002. |