Make-Up, By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

September 8, 2010 Whitney Farmer 15 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A. She has an M.B.A. and two little white dogs, one with seizures.

At the local drug store, the cosmetics section is full of shouting signs about mineral make-up: foundation to eye shadow to lipstick. There are now half hour blocks on television dedicated to these new tools to capture sheer or bare or natural beauty. The truth of it – that women are spending $50 bucks for ‘minerals’ which are another name for what we geology buffs call ‘dirt’ – is lost in the scramble to get help to be beautiful. We pay money for dirt to put on our faces. I do,  because showgirl make-up is the basic uniform for the show-runner that I am. But I do enjoy washing my face clean at the end of the night, or the edge of the morning.

The City of Bell, a suburb of Los Angeles, has 40,000 people with 17% of the population living below the poverty level, and with the median income being significantly lower than the State average. Recently however, it was reported that Robert Rizzo, Bell’s City Manager, earns approximately $800,000 yearly, making him a contender to being the highest paid public servant in the country. This is approximately double what President Obama earns.

Now the political cosmetics are being applied with dirty hands to cover up the flaws rather than fix them. The citizens of this small fringe of the City of Angels are having none of it. They are digging deeper and cleaning wider, committed to knowing the extent of the damage and to taking steps for it to never happen again. It was disclosed that the Chief of Police makes over $400,000 annually.  All but one of the City Council members make six figures. The one exception makes $800 each year for carrying the same workload as these fiscal fornicators.  Revelations of private estates, vacation homes, horse breeding, and lavish private entertaining abound. Stories of shamed apologies and restitution do not.

There once was an evil ruler named Jezebel who used her position to seize an inherited vineyard and have it plowed under to plant a vegetable garden. When I was at the British Museum, I looked intently at the cosmetic pots of this wicked leader. From what I had read, she would make herself up before she would go out and do her worst.  Her last moments were described as her painting her eyes and making her hair beautiful, getting herself ready to confront  an inveterate warrior who had arrived to take her life. She had perpetrated so much evil as she made the king of the land her puppet that her death and devouring by dogs was a fitting end. What is our modern day equivalent for those who destroy the vineyards of others?

A city can be mistreated like a woman: People want to take her, and then want to talk about it amongst their buddies. But she breathes, and she bleeds. Neglect can kill her heart. The truth is that she can open a door to you. She is a place where you can put your life, a surprise of laughter and refuge and the glory of the sun. A new life can come from her. And like a woman, stripped bare and washed clean, she is beautiful.

No amount of make-up will cover up these betrayals. Bell needs to be scrubbed clean to again be ‘belle’.

Quote of the Blog from Ed, Dude of Light and Fog, “I can make it look stupendous, but I need a lightbulb.”