It’s that time again, the end of a long and (for me, anyway) especially grinding week. I need to decompress, but since I’ve never gotten around to replacing the bottle that used to be in my bottom desk drawer, I think maybe I’ll head on over to the student union… find myself a spot in front of that projection TV the size of a bank-vault door… I’ve got a paper tray filled with those greasy English chips I like, a big splotch of ketchup in the corner for dipping… what’s on today? Oh, this is good! It’s that song I used to consider my personal anthem back in my, shall we say, less settled days:
I realize there’s a certain redundancy in the videos I keep choosing… Look, it’s another cavernous performance space filled with moody shadows, except for the shafts of light silhouetting the band. Look, more self-important posturing while wearing ridiculous outfits! Look, more hair!
Meh, whatever. I like the song. It resonated very strongly with me for a couple of years, all that stuff about “another heart in need of rescue” and “the lonely street of dreams.” It fit my notion of myself as a Byronic hero brooding in the dark about lost love. Or maybe it was frustrated lust. So hard to remember now.
Speaking of lust, incidentally, I really like the redhead who is, to paraphrase the immortal words of Bowling for Soup, shaking her ass on the hood of Whitesnake’s car. You might recognize her; she’s a model-turned-actress named Tawni Kitaen who had a few good years in the late ’80s and early ’90s with frequent guest spots on TV series such as Seinfeld, Married… with Children, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. She also appeared in the movie Bachelor Party (the one Tom Hanks doesn’t put on his resume any more), co-hosted America’s Funniest Home Videos, and had a starring role in the short-lived syndicated sitcom The New WKRP in Cincinnati (which is actually where I first noticed her, as best I can recall).
And she provided eye-candy for a number of Whitesnake videos in addition to this one. That’s not surprising when you consider she was dating the lead singer, David Coverdale, during the band’s most successful years. (Did you notice that they share essentially the same hair style?) They would later marry for a brief, tumultuous period.
Sadly, time hasn’t been very kind to her since her heavy-metal heyday. After several years in obscurity, she roared back into the public eye in 2002, charged with beating up her then-husband, a pro baseball player, and appearing in an infamous (and not very flattering) mugshot. Since then, she’s had various substance-abuse and anger-management problems and is widely viewed as a bit of a nut case. (Perhaps we should’ve taken the end of the video, when she drags Coverdale into the back seat of a moving car, more seriously!)
She may be a wreck today, but back in her prime… wow. Remember what I wrote a while back about Kirsten Dunst sometimes getting a certain look in her eye that I find very, ahem, appealing? Tawni gets that look, too… it’s especially nice right around the 4:05 mark, when she’s mussing her hair. Yeah… that’s a nice image to end the week on, don’t you all think?
