Hot, Sexy and: (a) Dead (b) Undead (c) Other...

FAMOUS ROLLING STONE COVER HEADLINE: “He’s Hot, He's Sexy and He’s Dead”         Rolling Stone magazine’s famed headline about Jim Morrison, on the cover of the September 17, 1981 issue        These memorable words were used for a Rolling Stone story about the legendary singer and lyricist for The Doors, published a few months after the 10th anniversary of Morrison’s death.          The article, written by Rosemary Breslin, noted that Doors albums were selling better than ever. A spokesperson for the band’s label Elektra/Asylum Records, told her: “The group is bigger now than when Morrison was alive. We’ve sold more Doors records this year than in any year since they were first released.”        The catchy Rolling Stone headline soon became reused, repurposed and parodied — and still is today — in variations that use a three-adjective formula that may or may not use the words hot, sexy or dead, even though most are consciously (or unconsciously) based on the 1981 Rolling Stone headline.

INFAMOUS ROLLING STONE COVER VARIATION: “He’s hot. He’s sexy. He’s an accused terrorist.”        Mary Elizabeth Williams        Staff writer for Salon.com        In a July 17, 2013 Salon.com post about the outrage over the cover of the August 1, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone, which featured a photo of “Boston Marathon Bomber” Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.           Many observers harshly criticized Rolling Stone for seeming to glamorize the “accused” (but obviously guilty) terrorist, by not only featuring him on the cover but also picking a photograph in which he looks sexy and attractive. “With tousled hair and bedroom eyes,” Williams wrote, “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev looks more like this month’s emo chart burner than a bombing suspect.” Nonetheless, Williams defended Rolling Stone. She noted that the magazine had always covered news and politics as well as music, and Tsarnaev was newsworthy. “With news comes notoriety, and a photograph is not automatically glamorization,” she concluded. “But the fury over the Tsarnaev image shows that it’s not always so clear, and the unease that the fuzzy line between infamy and fame brings.”

THE UNDEAD PINUP BOY VARIATION: “The genius of the Twilight saga is the way it celebrates the passion of the all-American fang hag, with Robert Pattinson as the perfect plasma-slurping pinup boy:  He’s hot, he’s sexy, and he’s undead.”        Rolling Stone review of the soundtrack album from the 2009 movie New Moon, the second film based on the Twilight saga book series.

THE UNDEAD HOOKER VARIATION: “She’s hot. She’s sexy. And she’s sutured to please.”       Promotional tagline for the cult classic horror flick Frankenhooker (1990)

THE UNDEAD JIM MORRISON VERSION: “Morrison: Still Hot, still sexy, still dead.”          Associated Press headline for a review of the 1991 movie The Doors, starring Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading, listening and viewing…

The “light at the end of the tunnel” – from Joseph Alsop and Robert Lowell to Hunter Thompson

THE PRO-WAR JOURNALIST’S FAMOUS QUOTE: “At last there is light at the end of the tunnel.”        Joseph Alsop (1910-1989)        American journalist and newspaper columnist         An oft-cited comment he made about the Vietnam War in his September 13, 1965 syndicated column         Many books and websites about quotations or the Vietnam War mention this line by Alsop. It’s often assumed to be either the origin of the metaphor or the first use related to Vietnam. In fact, the figurative use of “light at the end of the tunnel” dates back to at least 1922. And, ironically, it had been used in reference to Vietnam in 1953 by French general Henri Navarre, who told reporters he could see France’s eventual success in its war with communist leader Ho Chi Minh’s troops “clearly, like light at the end of a tunnel.” A year later, Minh’s troops decisively defeated French forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu and France lost control of its former colony. Joseph Alsop’s use of “light at the end of the tunnel” in 1965 was in a column predicting that America would eventually defeat Ho Chi Minh’s troops in Vietnam. Alsop said the French lost because they fought “with grossly insufficient resources.” He wrote: “This is in fact the real flaw in the argument of the silly people who parrot the assertion that this kind of war cannot be won, because the French failed...Today, however, American power is fully committed here, side by side with the considerable and courageous army of South Viet Nam. The American troops in the country already number more than 100,000. And eventually the U.S. force in South Viet Nam is likely to reach 200,000...at last there is light at the end of the tunnel.” Of course, 10 years later, after more than 58,000 Americans had been killed (along with an estimated 2 million Vietnamese troops and civilians), America essentially lost the war and pulled out of Vietnam.

THE ANTI-WAR POET’S COUNTERQUOTE: “If we can see light at the end of the tunnel It’s the light of the oncoming train.”        Robert Lowell (1917-1977)        American poet, World War II conscientious objector and anti-Vietnam activist         These lines are from “Since 1939,” a poem originally published in Lowell’s book Day by Day (1977)

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN: “Leon Panetta leaving the CIA to replace [Robert] Gates at the Pentagon and General David Petraeus taking Panetta’s job in Langley just seems like a revolving door that bodes ill (more drone attacks and missile strikes) for the people in the AF/Pak  war...There seems no light at the end of the dark tunnel U.S. policy makers have put us in and which most Americans continue to enable with their passive indifference.”        Dave Lefcourt        American blogger and book author        In an opinion piece about the war in Afghanistan and U.S. military operations in Pakistan, posted on the OpEdNews site, June 11, 2011

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN — AGAIN: “When Mr Obama assured the UN and the world that the ‘kinetic military action’ would quickly subdue Libyan military forces, he forgot an axiom of war. It is easy for a national leader to start one; but once started, it is impossible to stop...NATO airstrikes have fostered a war, which has turned into an inconclusive trudge through the swamp. Not only is there no light at the end of the tunnel, there appears to be no tunnel.”        A Bangkok Post editorial titled “What are they doing in Libya?” (June 10, 2011)

HUNTER THOMPSON’S OBSERVATION: “This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary’s trip. He crashed around America selling ‘consciousness expansion’ without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously...a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody — or at least some force — is tending that light at the end of the tunnel.”        Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)        American “gonzo” journalist and novelist        In his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), about the darkly comic misadventures of the semi-autobiographical character “Raoul Duke.” (A slightly altered version of these words are also spoken by Johnny Depp, as Raoul Duke, at the end of Terry Gilliam’s 1998 film adaptation of Thompson’s novel.)

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook group.

Related reading and viewing…

“All the news that’s fit to print.”

THE FAMOUS NEWSPAPER SLOGAN: “All the news that’s fit to print.”         Adolph Simon Ochs (1858-1935)        American newspaper publisher         This is the famed and oft-parodied slogan of The New York Times. It was coined by Ochs in 1896 when he gained control of the paper. According to Professor W. Joseph Campbell, author of the book The Year That Defined American Journalism, the slogan was first used on signs promoting the Times. It was first printed on the front page of the paper on February 10, 1897, in a box at the upper left corner, where it has appeared ever since.

THE TYPICAL CONSERVATIVE VIEW OF THE NYT: “‘All the news that’s fit to print” has morphed into “‘any news that fits our agenda, we print.’”        Conservative blogger Alicia Colon        In an opinion piece criticizing the New York Times as “left-leaning,” posted on the American Thinker site on January 20, 2011

THE PLAYBOY VARIATION: “All the nudes that’s fit to print.”          Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner         Describing a fan’s view of Playboy magazine in his column in the November 1963 issue

THE ENQUIRING MINDS VARIATION: “The National Enquirer: ‘All the News That’s Unfit to Print.’”        Ralph Ginzburg (1929-2006)         American writer, publisher, activist and porn pioneer          In a 1964 issue of his magazine Fact (published 1964-1967)

ROLLING STONE’S VERSION: “All the news that fits.”         Slogan created for Rolling Stone by the magazine’s editor and publisher Jann Wenner        Used since the first issue, which was published in November 1967 and featured John Lennon on the cover

JOHN LENNON’S VERSION: “‘All the shit that fits’ is more like it.”        John Lennon (1940-1980)        Complaining about inaccuracies in a Rolling Stone news story. The quip was the last line of a handwritten note Lennon sent to the magazine’s “Random Notes” department in 1967. A photo of note was published along with photos of John and Yoko in an interview with Jann Wenner in the February 4, 1971 issue of Rolling Stone.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    

Comments? Questions? Corrections? Post them on my quotations Facebook group.

Further reading: books about famous slogans…