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Oh, no! Say it ain’t so
A few months back, I was waiting in a long checkout line at the grocery store when my eyes wandered over to my left and happened upon the cover of a magazine called Life & Style. The picture of a young lady rang no bells with me, but the headline was big and bold and plunged me headlong into what must surely have been a question of some terrible import: “KENDRA: WHY I LEFT HANK.”
The question immediately came to me: Who the devil are Kendra and Hank?
The only evidence out there that I am now totally removed from the heart of American entertainment and culture is the fact that I seldom have any idea who the faces and names featured on magazine covers might be. In my salad days, “Hank” would have been Henry Fonda, or maybe even Hank Williams. Kendra would have been a place with permafrost and no trees — wait a minute, that’s tundra, I think.
The longer I stood and examined Life & Style, the clearer it became that not only was I failing to identify Hank and Kendra, but I didn’t recognize, in fact, a single name on the whole darn magazine cover. Heidi and Spencer? Was Spencer Tracy in a remake of Heidi at some point before his recent untimely death in 1967? Teresa? I somehow don’t think that refers to either Teresa Wright or Mother. I’m batting way under the Mendoza line here. (Ha, let’s see Heidi and Hank identify the Mendoza line!)
Should I care “Why Demi Lovato Checked Into Rehab?” And would her checking into rehab mean more if I knew who Demi Lovato is? But first, how is it that Ms. Lovato, whoever she is, had stolen a name that is very clearly the exclusive property of one Demi Moore, someone you and I clearly WOULD recognize?
I next glanced at the covers of InStyle and People. Audrina? Miranda? Kourtney? “Amber’s Secret Past?” It hit me that I was a stranger in a strange land. And at that moment I resolved to perform a true public service by helping even the most out-of-it boomer become cool, in style and in sync. Thank heaven for Google.
Kendra and Hank: Having found her online, I saw that I did know Kendra — I just never knew her name, and neither did you. She’s one of those three blondes who lived with Hugh Hefner in recent years, posing as his girlfriends. (By the way, my niece Tiffany was in Vegas recently and Hef walked right past her. “He looked ancient,” she e-mailed me.)
Hank turned out to be Hank Baskett, the wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. Hey, I knew Hank, too, just not in the context of Kendra, who apparently is now Hank’s on-again, off-again wife. (Sorry, Hef — you lose the girl when you look ancient. “Your bad,” as we boomers say.)
Heidi and Spencer are both from a reality show, The Hills, that you and I have never seen — blessedly, I’m sure. (Audrina, who was briefly on Dancing With the Stars last fall, is another Hills alum.) Heidi is evidently famous for masterful feats of cosmetic surgery, and Spencer for blowing $10 million very quickly. They have an on-again, off-again marriage.
Teresa is on another reality show, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." Demi Lovato is a Disney actress who recently underwent a stint in rehab — but then I repeat myself.
Amber was a teen mom on Teen Mom on MTV. She and the baby’s father have an on-again, off-again relationship. Miranda Lambert is a country music singer, and Kourtney is a Kardashian, related somehow to the Kardashian lawyer from the O.J. trial, but more importantly known for a reality show and on-again, off-again relationships.
Now that you have been invaluably enlightened, be sure to drop some of this important cultural information into the next conversation you have with the 25-year-olds in your family and watch them look at you funny.
Randy Fitzgerald teaches modern American literature at Virginia Union University. He was a longtime public relations director at the University of Richmond and columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Contact him at
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