The Minds That Shaped Los Angeles, Vol 4: Malibu Barbie, Living Rent-Free In The Mind's I

Has any fantasy so soaked the earth, drenched it in its radiant golden sun and King waterbeds and navel oranges and satin-shorted Venice Boardwalk roller skaters as the fantasy of California in the late seventies (and their overflow into the early eighties)? Endless leggy big-titted blondes escorted to the Regal Beagle by Jack Tripper (so many casual lays that if placed end to end they would reach the moon); Mrs. Hart laughing as Mr. Hart tugs a cashmere sweater sleeve from the clenched jaws of lovable Freeway; Bo Derek oiled up in a suede bikini, riding a steed through the canyons of moneyed Malibu--these images are imprinted in your mind too, pressed in deep, where you can never rid yourself of them. California, no matter where you are reading this, infects you.

Which brings us to the first person I ever met from California, Malibu Barbie. What a looker she was, how exotic in her awesome L.A.-ness, what a welcome and unexpected presence in our dinky freezing farmhouse. I loved her pale blue one piece and her spun plastic, nearly white hair. And the chic bubble sunglasses that were sewn to her temples (though you could move them from the top of her head down to cover her eyes.) I would pay $300 bucks on eBay this minute if a human sized pair suddenly materialized there (1970s vintage, unscratched).

Haters can say whay they will about her moony Malibu beauty and her fan-fucking-tastic legs--how such things harmed the egos of brunettes and the shrimpy, how they later stuck fingers down throats in the dorms of Vassar in memory of her unrealistic ideal. Yes, Barbie is tacky, Barbie is unimaginative, she is unrealistic, but Barbie is us.

You had many educational toys, and you loved the wooden architectural blocks most. You had read more by age 12 than most people do in their life. But Malibu Barbie. You could never put her away for too long, never forget the drawer where she radiated uncomplicated sex and awesome American glamour and the promise of a California that didn't really exist, a naive child's mental Malibu that you still pay homage to in small former Michigander ways every day.

How could anyone intelligent still be so haunted by such a comical, brainless outline? Oh Malibu Barbie, our only crime was loving you.

Comments

[BaronVonLuxxury]

You're right to connect “the haunting” with Ebay. I think a solid 75% of activity on that site stems from the fact that everyone associates their childhood pleasures and traumas with significant objects of childhood desire (or possession, a la Rosebud). The remedy of rediscovery may now available within a few search queries, but what will still be missing should you buy those sunglasses will be a tantalizing, impossible-to-replicate combination of people and circumstances that would give that object its original value. As much as I’d like to plug the gaping hole in my life that came from my never having a remote-controlled R2D2, even if I were to track one down online I wouldn’t be able to play with it while my grandfather watches “The Price is Right” on his brown couch in San Diego. This sense of absence is worse than a phantom limb, since childhood is unrepeatable. Ok, not worse. A phantom limb is pretty bad.