Beautiful People

Up along Oregon's coastal highway, 101, there's an artists community called Canon Beach. I was there once, on a tourist's romp along the Pacific Ocean doing a ride from Tillamook, Astoria to Portland. We had stopped at Canon to check it out, poke around and see what we could see as I was curious. Walking around I wanted to step inside one of those galleries to see just what these artists were doing. Simple enough. Inside the gallery were paintings of seals on the beach, seals on rocks, seals in the water, seals on docks, seals back-lit by sunsets...all selling for $5,000+ each. One painting was for $30,000.

“Paintings of seals...numerous ones...all for sale...for the price of a car.” I thought to myself. I'd thought the subject matter might have been varied some what more. There is more to the Oregon coast besides seals. I guess seals sell.

In order to enter the gallery, I had walked along a pathway that led to an earthy grotto overgrown with ivy. On a stone bench, sat two people, but not just any two people. I had to stare as any tourist would stare. It's rude but there are times when you see something in real life and you have to take it all in. On this bench were a couple. They both had each hair in place, were wearing the latest clothing out of LA and sported RayBans nicely hanging from their shirt collars. One was holding a glass of Pinot Noir haphazardly, nearly spilling onto the gravel. Both were impeccably tanned. Their attitudes said, “I'm so rich and bored and I still don't care.” I instinctively knew w/o having to be told these two were California Beautiful People. I had read, seen on TV and heard about this breed, but never in my life had I witnessed it.

Those two were that perfect. It's like seeing a model or an advertisement and realizing for a bit, none of it was airbrushed at all. There are people who do look like this w/o any effort from Adobe Photoshop.

**

There are Beautiful People everywhere really, in every town, state or county. Perhaps not as tweezed as well as one from LA that I saw but they are “good enough.” Tonight I got to watch a couple of local types blow their image in a proper, quiet way so as not to draw attention. Too late, I saw it.

The guy is an acquaintance, she a distant one. The look like they belong together. They both had that Prom Queen/Quarterback look to them. That these two were together was ordained when time began. Not only that, but their lives seemed a bit like Camelot. He an up an coming young exec at a biotech firm and she, a model who's getting more and more attention from the NYC modeling agencies. She's stunning. She was naturally anorexic, exotic and had that skin that only 14 year girls olds have. Their lives seemed that there was nowhere to go but up.

Right looks, right jobs, right cars and right everything else. It made some around me jealous as I heard some comments. They weren't regulars at Chardonnay's in Seekonk but they were there enough to have made an impression. They were there enough. The girls hated the Golden Girl's looks and the guys were jealous of the Golden Boy's silly career advancement as he was promoted two ranks above his position in what seemed a short time.

Nothing changes, does it? High school never ends.

Anyway, while outside in the parking lot as a few others I know are talking, I tune into another conversation a few feet away from me. I am so bad at that, other's private lives are MY business! I hear Golden Girl lament to another the fact that her Golden Boy had kissed another at a party not too long ago at Capriccios. She brushed it off as politically correct as she could have, not wanting to seem like the distrusting type, but the fact she kept talking about it for so long was suspect. It did bother her. What was also telling was that I noticed she had spent the better part of night alone, leaning against a wall or at an empty table, texting away. Golden Boy was bouncing from group to group, chatting it up and the girls he palled around with did their best to engage him.

“Christ, even them.” I thought. Regular life intrudes into this storybook and fucks it up. Regular ol' human nature can't seem to reach the myth of Camelot.

By the end of the night, Golden Boy was playing with the boys around a video game and ignoring the over zealous girls that were orbiting him and Golden girl? I saw her leave, by herself, to her car and then drove off towards Rehoboth.

Beautiful people...even them. I have to wonder about all the effort that's put into maintaining that image when, in the end, regular,boring human nature seems to slam shut that Storybook.

Cannon Beach, with Haystack rock.