by Jill Kargman
“A hickey from Kenickie is like a Hallmark card.” I didn’t quite know what that meant when I first saw Grease as a child. I think of Hallmark cards as lame and cheesy, but subsequently learned that in the 1950s they were considered really special. And the famed greaser sidekick adds, “When you care enough to send the very best.” Love bites have never quite been my thing, but Kenickie? I loved him so much he could vampire me to death. But for the adoring lash-batting masses, it was Kenickie’s best friend, Danny Zuko, the star, who seemed to be the one every girl swooned over.
But I have never been every girl.
When everyone loved Ferris, I fell for tragic Cameron. When hordes screamed for the throaty front man at the rock concert, I oogled the hot bassist. Again and again, my “type” is that I have no type, other than that he is always the one overshadowed by his glowier friend, the supernova who makes the other girls faint. But not me. Fuck the starlight—it’s the night sky that makes them pop anyhow. The darker sidelined characters always revved my engine louder.
When Grease hit theaters around the world, its prized headliner was sealed in as a heartthrob. My father called him “John Revolting.” While other girls wrung their Calvins over Zuko, I chundered at the thought—he was Puko to me. Even when it was nostalgia cool to dig him during his Pulp Fiction renaissance when the brilliant Tarantino fished him out of the career shitter and christened him Vincent Vega avec royale with cheese, I loved the familiarity and kitsch value but could’ve hurled at the thought of fucking him. I mean, ew.
Not because of his Scientology or his lupine features, but because of the ghost of Zuko past. This is a guy who was such a pussified assface that he ditched Sandy (who played serious tonsil hockey with him in the waves that summer), when his pals ridiculed her enthusiastic greeting. He had to say, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!” prompting shrill Aussie shrieks of “You’re not the Danny Zuko I met at the beach!” Yeah, well, fuck him. And that Goody-Two-shoes with her dumb chucked pom-poms? She was sweet but they both sucked, if you asked me. And what a lame lesson their so-called “love” proved: Change yourself completely and then the other person will like you!
I myself have always been more of a Rizzo-type of girl. In fact, I played her in my high school musical senior year. Screw blond, pretty, and perfect; I much more identified with the tough cookie. Not that I was banging in backseats or planning to Dyson out a fetus if I ever got knocked up, but that somehow seemed edgier than some cheerleading blonde with Dumb and Dumber bangs. And why did I feel this way? Because the knocker-upper, the bad boy with the heart of gold, the stud who put the sizzling grease in “Greased Lightning,” was my very first heartthrob. Kenickie.
It’s still unclear what kind of a fucking name that is. I’ve yet to hear of another before or since. But that guy slayed me. They sang “The chicks’ll cream” and, while I was too young to “cream” (vom, BTdubs), I do remember, as a small child of six or seven, being turned on by him. I know! Paging Dr. Freud. I look at my young daughters and swear they don’t get aroused by movie stars, but who the fuck knows. It’s not like I broadcasted it. I think my mom just thought I really dug the music.
I opened my vinyl double album cover and would stare at him for hours. I watched the movie on our spanking-new VHS player and wore that tape into the ground. So smitten was I by Kenickie, I used to tiptoe into my parents’ living room in the dark (which was a big deal for me) to borrow/steal an antique magnifying glass my father had bought. It had an ivory handle and rested on a mahogany table. The poor dead elephant tusk, warped crystal, and I would pore over the group photos of faux-yearbook collages and find Kenickie. Sigh…He was beautiful. He was flawed. He was everything. Pourquoi?
Some answers: First of all, he was drawn to the strong woman. He didn’t care that Riz was a bit of a ballbuster. She made pronouncements, spoke her mind, and wasn’t afraid to ruffle feathers. In order to protect herself, she played it cool when she thought she had a bun in the oven. When “good news traveled fast” at the drive-in, Kenickie says he doesn’t run away from his mistakes, lending instant support and a hand on her shoulder. Jeff Conaway, the actor who played my beloved, looked positively crushed when Stockard Channing coolly replied, “It’s someone else’s mistake.” You can almost see the hurt conjuring up a mist of tears in his eyes as he looks away and says, “Thanks a lot, kid.” The chink in his leather armor melted me.
For her own emotional shield, Rizzo takes up with Kenickie’s pockmarked white-trashtastic rival, who somehow has procured a vehicle with actual flames shooting out of its tailpipes. Humiliated, Kenickie sadly follows suit by escorting the at-least-twenty-nine-year-old Cha Cha DiGregorio to their high school prom. But it’s all an empty gesture meant to balance the scales of infidelity—Kenickie watches, forlorn, as crater cheeks holds his sassy vixen in red. Social-climbing and whorish Cha Cha ditches him anyway, scoring the dance prize with Zuko, who once again eclipses his hotter, cooler, sexier pal.
When Riz finally sheds her uterine lining and has a most welcome flag of Japan in her panties, she runs back into Kenickie’s arms, elatedly declaring a false alarm. They embrace beneath the Ferris wheel mid-carnival.
In my opinion, it is the kiss of the movie. Fuck the leather pants and cigarette-smoking poseur of Sandy or newly christened jock Zuko in his varsity letterman sweater—they each changed who they were to land the other, like a sick, twisted version of “The Gift of the Magi,” where it wasn’t about generosity but assimilation and subversion of identity. Lame. Kenickie loved Rizzo in all her adventurous, shimmy-down-the-drainpipe glory! That cunt Patty Simcox may have gossiped about his girl, but Kenickie didn’t give a shit about those preened, ponytailed, student council sock-hop boppers. Sandy had to get a total makeover from that train wreck Frenchy to land her man. Rizzo was just herself.
But back to her paramour, Kenix.
My best friend Vanessa’s fabulous late mother, Nancy, memorably advised us one night on her Martha’s Vineyard porch: “Like the guys who like you.” She didn’t understand the concept of chasing down some playboy, some project to work on, a man to morph. Like the guys who like you. Perhaps because I identified with Riz long before I played her, I liked the one who selected her—not because she put out, but because she was fierce. She was all woman. Opinionated, silly, sexy, badass. How hot is it to find a guy who’s drawn to that rather than poodle skirts? I’m not ragging on Sandy because she never had a drink or pierced ears or had a dick in her; I think she sucked because she’s a one-way ticket to snoozeville! Riz was never boring—she was the life of the slumber party, after all. And Kenickie saw that sparkle and it electrified him. It made him nervous and it made him feel things. Not just in his denim. He was exuberant when smitten, decimated when heartbroken. Lower lows but higher highs. He was in touch with his emotions, which was wildly sexy. I wanted someone just like him—that alluring mélange of a velvet fist in an iron glove. The most intoxicating combination.
Now, granted, his gum chewing and prom outfit left a lot to be desired, but in the purity of his default uniform—jeans, a T-shirt, a necklace that I found scaldingly hot—and his T-Bird leather motorcycle jacket, he made me weak. Every viewing through the decades.
I can honestly say the guy still drives me crazy. Tastes shift, one’s own romantic history colors idols or taints types, but Kenickie could’ve still given me a hickey anytime. In 2011, when I heard Jeff Conaway had died, I was sad the way anyone is when a beloved actor is lost to the world. But what I also buried was a piece of my childhood; I bade adieu not only to my first crush but also to my huge-hearted boy-crazy youth. We jaded adults don’t get starry-eyed the way young people do. He was the closest thing to matinee idol for me, but what he did was serve as the first spotlight on my affection for the guy in the wings. The beginning of a personal trend not to seek the star. Not the center of attention but the “lieutenant” (as he happens to call Danny, who takes over for him at Thunder Road and saves the day when Kenickie suffers unfortunat
e head trauma).
Maybe it’s because I knew I could never get the “main guy,” so I was drawn to the sidekick, but I think the pack often defines the leader; Danny wanted to impress Kenickie when fawning over Sandy. Steely Riz choked back tears for him. And in the end, it was their smooch that made my heart skip a beat. As for me, I’ve never gone for the leading stud in my own life. Only the quirky one stage left. We go together like rama-lama-lama-kadingi-da-ding-de-dong. Because those guys always have so much more lightning inside them.
The Von Blog, by Brooke Von Weber
Dearest readers: We interrupt this essay collection to offer a special guest entry from Brooke Von Weber. People think native New Yorker Jill Weber knows so much about city life, but it turns out Brooke knows waaaaay more about everything, so I asked her to excerpt some of her Von Blog, which…oddly has a cult following. Enjoy!
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Hi, Ladies! Brooke Von Weber, here!
ALL my friends are constantly asking me where I bought certain wait-listed accessories, how I get to the Hamptons, et cetera. When everyone’s asking you to send them contacts or vendors, it can get a little overwhelming. I figured it was time to consolidate my findings and do the right thing: share. So, I hereby present my gift to you: Welcome to Von Blog, my own version of Gloop. I’ll be blogging twice a week on “a few of my favorite things,” like another Von Mom—Maria von Trapp! But screw whiskers and kettles and strudel. (Who would eat that, anyway?!) My list of must-haves is chic, modern, and has everything an uptown girl would need.
UBER CHOPPER!
Bumper-to-bumper traffic on the LIE making you want to dice up your Prozac and snort it? Me, too. It’s just unacceptable that it can take five hours to get to the Hamptons! My sister-in-law, Jill, calls it the Cramptons, which really annoys me, but when I’m staring at the legions of Escalades clogging Montauk Highway, I must admit, I get it! So what to do to avoid the hideous waits? Since my husband, Lex, sold his company (which brought bagels to China, which was just the innovation they needed), it is to the Thirty-fourth Street heliport we go! Rather than torturously sitting in a frazzled state of anxiety, we blithely take off when I say so, via Uber Chopper. Cruising through the air above the East River, we glide over everyone, and get to our destination in thirty-five easy-breezy minutes. You can see the city skyline, and then the Gatsby-style mansions in Locust Valley, where Lex plays golf, followed by farmland and greenery, which is just fabulous for Shipley, McCallister, Rutherford, and Langley and their little city lungs! Not to mention the highway where everyone else is sweating it with brats screaming in the backseat with the help! Thank goodness those days are over. Now we just have the freedom to do what we want, when we want. Bliss! So forget the silly tollbooths and honking headaches—let that propeller propel you where you want to go, faster. Because life is short! Time is money, so let’s pay a little to get some back—you’ll thank me for it!
MERCEDES SPRINTER
I manage so much! Shipley, McCallister, and Rutherford have horrific pickup schedules. It’s like Tetris for me trying to organize each of their nannies to be where they need to be. But a whiteboard in the kitchen? An app on my phone? No, thanks. We took our family office mobile with our new Mercedes Sprinter. Sure, it might sound crazy, buying a huge truck used to transport twenty businessmen from conventions to the hotels, or a New Jersey bachelorette party to the Meatpacking District, but we made it all our own. We bought our black Sprinter, had all the insides ripped out, and had it custom retrofitted (or “pimped,” if you will) with leather couches around the perimeter, flat-screen televisions, a refrigerator for snacks on the go, handmade cushions and back bolsters, an ottoman, and a trading desk for Daddy. It’s heaven on wheels! Why load into a hideous minivan like those people with the curly-hair sideburn things in Brooklyn? The Mercedes Sprinter may seem enormous for a personal vehicle, but if you think of it as an extension of your home, then you’ll get it. My decorator, Bradley, worked with the gentlemen at the design firm that also created the interiors of our jet, and they did such a wonderful job. From the trims on the drapes to the wonderful carpet lining the floor, our drop-off process feels like a rolling living room!
GLAMSQUAD
Isn’t it such a drag to haul ass to some salon, only to run into all your friends there pre-hairwash? And, really, do I want that pushy class mom to see me in a towel turban? Hell to the no! That’s why I use Glamsquad. It’s an app on your iPhone and it’s basically the Uber of hair and makeup. Minus the rapes. Cool stylists and artists come over and blow out your locks before a function and beat down your face till you’re red carpet ready. Whenever they come over, I feel like a million bucks afterward! If I wanted a Steel Magnolias moment, I’d call my annoying sisters. But I don’t. I can even get my nails done at the same time! Last time, I had a pedicure technician, hair sculptor, and lash specialist all at the same time! I felt like Cleopatra. Luckily without the asp! So next time you gotta get glam, use the squad. Anything else is just an extra errand. Happy flashbulbs!
CRONUT
Okay, so perhaps you wouldn’t actually consume this thousand-calorie confection—it’s the world-famous combo of a croissant and doughnut in a blender (or cookie sheet) but do you really want to say you’ve never even tasted one? Provincial tourists and Japanese guidebook toters have all sampled their buttery goodness, so why not you? The wait, of course. Endless! The average is an hour and a half, and as a mother of four, I simply haven’t got that kind of time. But you can pay people to do it for you! There is a whole cottage industry springing up of people who are desperate for dough! So for McCallister’s class party, I hired ten people to wait in line, since the maximum purchase is two Cronuts. And voilà! I got my precious pastries. They cost hundreds of dollars, but you can’t buy PR like people buzzing that you served Dominique Ansel pastries at a first-grader’s party, am I right? It’s nice to teach kids to appreciate the little luxuries. Anyone can have a cake, but I say, let them eat Cronuts!
A CHIC NAME
Can’t get into the new It cantina? Try adding a von to your name! Well, we didn’t add the von, of course. As my mother-in-law, Candace, said, we restored it. If a Cézanne were chipped, you would restore it, yes? Well, so goes a name. As it turns out, you can hire a genealogist to excavate the roots of your family tree, even if the trail gets fuzzy after your dead grandparents. If they don’t find anything, you can always buy a title! Seriously. There are nobles who squandered their fortunes through the generations and are now dirt poor. So they sell their de or van or di or della, and it can be all yours. There are just so many counts without accounts. So plunder their crest and start a new chapter! It opens doors and checkbooks. My fundraising tripled when I solicited money for my NACHO gala. People want aristocratic names on their boards and all charity is tit for tat. I’m happy to take my place in society as a philanthropist, and it helps when you have the history of an old illustrious family backing you.
WHEELS UP
Do you really want to go through one of those toxic X-ray machines at the airport? Be herded with immigrants from god knows where, wearing god knows what? I sure don’t. That’s why Lex and I charter exclusively. If it’s pricey, just split it with your friends! It’s a worthy investment—just think about the protection to your health. There’s so much less of a risk of contracting Ebola or hepatitis F. You don’t want to hear incessant coughs where chunks of lung are propelled through the cabin. Even in first class, Lex and I had a passenger behind us who was spraying sneezes into the air nonstop! I say: Life’s too short. It’s time to fire up the bird and depart when you want, not when Charlie Brown’s teacher announces it.
A BABY NURSE (FOR A YEAR)
Moms, listen up. I’ve heard it all: Baby nurses are a racket, it’s three hundred dollars per day, etc. But let me tell you something: It’s an investment in your beauty sleep. It’s hard enough having a newborn and recovering from your elective C-section. But if you have the proper nurse on hand, she can worry about sleep training while yo
u heal! It’s a no-brainer, really. Be sure when you interview nurses to avoid ones on the hefty side. One mother I knew woke up at 10 A.M. and went into the nursery to find her newborn screaming in his crib with the baby nurse dead on the floor from a heart attack! Her little ticker had stopped tocking and couldn’t support her load. So my friend had to start interviewing new nurses and was alone with her baby! So I say, trust trim. If they can’t control their waistlines, how can they control your child?
KIBU THE JAPANESE DOG WALKER
If you’re a dog lover like I am, you need Kibu. And by dog lover, I do not mean adopting some mutt at the shelter. We were on the wait-list for seven years for a Cavalier King Charles spaniel from those famous lesbian breeders in Minnesota, and, let me tell you, it was worth every second. Farnsworth is a delight (it’s a family name), and I wouldn’t trust anyone to care for him other than Kibu. The famed dog walker of the Upper East Side may look interesting with his long straight hair reaching his backside, and his head-to-toe Rick Owens postapocalyptic leather outfits are a bit on the eccentric side, and he may charge two hundred dollars per day per dog, but he’s a gem. You have to be on your best behavior when he comes over to interview you. Offer him drinks and chef-made hot hors d’oeuvres (he loves caviar) and he will interrogate you—I mean, question you—about your dog. If he accepts you, you’ve hit the dog owner lottery—you must thank him with a gift. He loves Vuitton or Goyard messenger satchels! He will then commence duties with your dog’s doodies! I can be so clever sometimes! Each week, he will give you a laminated Microsoft Excel spreadsheet with a complete fecal and behavior report, which we keep in a T. Anthony binder in the front hall. If I were dyslexic, I’d say “I thank dog for Kibu!” There I go again, being funny!
