She doesn't act like a victim. Monica Lewinsky does Vanity Fair -- syndicated columnist and satirist Rick Horowitz does his best.

And He Gets to Keep All the Negatives

By Rick Horowitz

This one here, this is probably one of my favorites, I'm licking a corner of the Constitution. You see how they've got it blown up really big, and all lit up in this kind of golden glow like it's sunrise or something? They've got special lights for that, I didn't even know, I thought you had to get up at like three in the morning.

We had to shoot this one maybe a dozen times before they got it the way they wanted it, with my expression and everything. By the time we were done, this one corner of the parchment here was so soggy they had to wipe it off with a towel just so it wouldn't curl too much! I think it sends a really strong message.

What's-Her-Face isn't the only one who can go Glam, you know -- columnists can do it, too.

This next one, this was really a lot of fun to shoot. I have no idea where they got all those tobacco leaves -- they must have rented a truck or something -- but they just dumped them right there on the grass and said, "Roll around." The first thing I'm thinking is, "Wait a minute, I've been saying some pretty nasty things about the tobacco companies -- should I really be rolling around in their leaves?" But then I really got into it.

You see how my feet are sticking out over here and I've only got one sock on and my toes are all curled? That was my idea, just to kind of shake things up a little. It's like, "Wow! That guy's really unpredictable -- I'll bet George Will wouldn't be missing one of his socks!" So it's really making a point.

The other thing it shows is I'm a major player. That's the whole reason to do one of these things -- that, and to make me feel good about myself and my libido. OK, so I couldn't get one of those fancy-dancy guys from Vanity Fair to shoot me, but I think those kids from the art school did just fine, especially for their first time. I mean, we're not talking four-shots-for-a-dollar here, you know what I'm saying?

I'll bet they even had ideas the Vanity Fair guys wouldn't have come up with in a million years, like this one about technology -- have you ever seen so many wires in your life?

It was kind of like having all these snakes curling around and around your legs like it's a jungle, but then there's this strategically located laptop here -- it took about a roll of duct tape to keep it from moving -- so it's like an intellectual thing, too. Kind of a cross between Monica and JFK, Jr., with a little bit of Dennis Rodman thrown in. Why should they have all the fun?

And this last one here, this is probably the best one of the whole bunch. All that weird stuff in the background is the special lights again, plus I really like the way the black leather looks on me, I didn't think I would.

One of the kids, just when I thought we were done, he says to me, "Nuclear proliferation," and I'm like, "So?" Turns out he's against it, same as I am, and with everything going on lately, he's feeling pretty bad about it. So he runs back to his apartment for maybe ten minutes and he comes back with this whole outfit, even the collar, and he sends one of the other kids to the grocery -- I didn't know portabellas grew that big!

Anyway, they started calling this one "Mushroom Cloud," and you see the way they've got the lights set up way over here? It really does look like I'm sitting right in the shadow of the thing. You know, real end-of-the-world stuff, except that they've also got me sticking my tongue out at the camera, like "Who cares?" So it works on lots of different levels, and now people will have to pay attention to me.

Plus the collar was really cool.

Posted 6/12/98. Fresh stuff right here twice weekly!

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