Friday, January 2, 2009

THE RITZ THRIFT SHOP 1970'S AD LINK


The apartment is emptier now and I'm liquidating items that are fabulous but I have no need for as I'm totally redoing everything. The furniture was actually arranged a certain way for over a year to cater to Lulu's dementia. If you've ever had an elderly dog with dementia you would understand - perception of structure and space is the first to go. My bedroom was all damask patterns and huge venetian glass urn lamps and mirrors and that's being moved and I'm erecting my huge Chinese opium bed once again and getting large red orb lights to flank it. I'm also getting rid of everything else that I don't have any interest in. I'm definitely not a hoarder. I was given a very expensive flashy shiny black pony coat that has to be seen to be believed. It makes the pony above look like it has mange. It has the luster of the bag below. It's sale is going to my Thailand fund.


Not a drop of untruth in this bizarre story...
This is what's a trip: I'm going to try and sell it at a business formally known as The Ritz Thrift Shop. I love this story. I can't believe I found the video clip! This is the ad from the 1970's that I saw over and over as a kid - it played on Manhattan cable constantly and I had it memorized. We all knew the Ritz thrift shop ad and the persnickety lady at the end. It gets even better! Later, when I was in high school this girl, Kat, a Kate Moss-like girl who lived on Sutton Place entered the school in the middle of the year and was obsessed with me. I stuffed her in a locker once - sorry, I'll admit it. She freaked me out, but my controlling 32 year old male prostitute boyfriend who was living off of me (when I was in 11th grade) said she was gorgeous and to be nice to her so I was (he was very controlling). There was something wrong with that girl and there is something oddly unnerving about someone with extreme physical beauty that is completely insane. Anyways, she was indeed a waifish beauty and got a real whopping $40,000 or $60,000 a year modeling contract with a big NY agency after high school and was seen in ads and b&w spreads on beaches with her bony hips and freckles. Unfortunately, she had serious problems and could not fulfill her contract. My friend later went to Budapest with her where they got mugged and she nutted up and screamed that she was from the ghetto (!) and got on the ground with her foot it the air screaming (it worked - the guy booked). I didn't see her for years until I ran into her on my corner on Ave. C 10 years ago and she was staying in the building literally across the street from me in an apt whose windows face me. Stuff like this has happened to me all my life so to be honest I'm not even miffed, but that is strange. She was just there for a short time staying in some rich kids room while he was away. She confided in me that she had just gotten out of an institution and was diagnosed with borderline personality and I felt very badly for her and, in turn, for being so callous in high school. She had stalked me back in school and we were a very rough crowd so I can't carry that guilt too much. I gave her a hug and that was the last I saw of her. I do hope she's ok. But this is why I wrote all this - and the story does come full circle here (sort of). I had gone to dinner with and met her mother and grandmother and Kat was a third generation model and her mother and grandmother were very happy when Kat had become a model. KAT'S MOTHER IS THAT LADY IN THE RITZ THRIFT SHOP AD BELOW. Fact. I gagged when I found out because I was living for her all through my growing up. She was perfectly preserved when I met her and I guess she had married well, living on Sutton Place in a sprawling apartment in a deco building. I don't know what became of any of them and I'm sure this will never get back to or exploit them, my blog being obscure with a following of unemployed fabulons or people in Asia.

The ad is from the 1970's but it ran through the 1980's as well. I don't know what all the other stuff after it is...

Link to their current store site: http://ritzfurs.com/location.html

7 comments:

ayeM8y said...

I’m not unemployed! I’m semi retired…underemployed…I’m not gainfully employed…I’m not living up to my potential…I’m an over achieving under achiever…Employer’s don’t like me…their jealous…I live in an unfashionably unemployable ghetto town…where I’m the most fashionably employed.

Reavis Eitel said...

And I just thought you were Asian!

ayeM8y said...

No way. I'm as white as you can get. Originally from Mississippi where my family roots go back to the Natchez cotton days.

Reavis Eitel said...

I know!

Reavis Eitel said...

There's nothing wrong with being Asian!

ayeM8y said...

No I agree nothing wrong at all. I just envisioned myself as an Asian man typing up nasty things from the Gulf Coast and thought it was a bit incongruous. So I thought I should point out that I’m a hateful Southern racist! Just Kidding! I’m not very politically correct.

However my love life and bed are equal opportunists in that I have slept with and or partnered with the following; Anglos, Arabs, Asians, Creoles, Germans, Greeks, Indians, Irish, Jews, Mexicans, Phillapinos, Polish, Spanish, and now I’m working toward the Nordic and Slavic countries.

Now the true meaning of this post was about the thrift store and your connection with the poor model. Sorry to hear of your learning of her passing. I too share strange experiences with people at unusual junctures in their lives. I expect that we’re supposed to know them for what ever reasons.

Reavis Eitel said...

I read about the horrific Natchez cotton factory explosion that killed tons of workers lol.

I just mentioned asians cause i had said only they and the unemployed read my blog (thailand gives me a lot of hits for some reason).

I love your ethnic list of lays!