Death designed
by Jon Worley

Washington, D.C. may be the capital of our nation, but New York is the capital of the world. This has nothing to do with the U.N. or anything, it's just that New York is the most important city in the world, bar none. Even the most arrogant Frenchman would have to concede that some of the time.

And so while Gianni Versace was shot in Miami, it was New York that reverberated with wails of anguish. Partly because Andrew Cunanan, the supposed serial killer who has been linked to the Versace shooting, is a cause celebre in Gotham, but mostly because New York is the center of the world when it comes to fashion.

I was in New York last week to get all of the absurd reaction. The New York Post ran page after page of photos and stories, some of which resembled good journalism. The local TV stations dangled model after model in front of viewers. They all said the same thing: "He was such a wonderful man. I think I'll go kill myself now."

No such luck, of course, but I'm afraid I just don't get it. Most fashion designers are among the more useless sorts of people on the face of the earth. Oh, yes, every once in a while stuff that appears on the runway shows up in stores, but most of the clothes people I know buy could have been designed by a shmuck with an architecture degree from Podunk U. It's all industrial-grade crapola, usually purchased at T.J. Maxx or Marshall's because we hate to pay retail for a pair of plaid shorts.

If Versace had invented plaid, by the way, I would have killed him myself. But I think that color scheme come about hundreds of years ago, and so retribution cannot be had at any price.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think anyone has the right to go around shooting people. As inane as Versace's existence may or may not have been, he didn't deserve to die. Nobody does. But all this wailing? You'd have thought Colin Powell had bit the bullet or something. Hell, I could even understand most folks shedding a tear for Paul McCartney or James Brown. But Versace? He had no connection to the average person, and by all accounts he was damned happy that way.

Now, I understand why the models got all torn up. Here are folks (female and male) who smoke two or three packs of cigarettes a day to keep thin, people who truly believe they are invincible. Stuff like death, taxes and driving their own car is beneath them. These are the supposed beautiful people, and we, the snarling underbelly of society, we are supposed to praise and idolize these freaks of nature and the people who clothe them because they are so obviously immortal.

No thanks. I've always been kinda strange about picking my heroes, and I can honestly say that I've never idolized a model (though I suppose I did go through a heavy Paulina phaze when I was 15 or so). In any case, there are many more important people wandering around, people who we would really miss if they died.

Top of the list: Beavis (or Butthead). Though I'm not sure if the Post would mark their passing.

Jon Worley resides near the banks of the lovely nitrogen-laden Codorus in southcentral Pennsylvania He reads the New York Post, but only for the pictures.

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