My dentist is in Santa Monica. He was a professor once, but now he's just in regular ole private practice in an average office off a main drag in a not so swanky building. My insurance pays him, a friend recommended him. Like most dentists in LA, I'd expect him to have a celeb in his patient list. Maybe two.
My dentist sees the David Lynch posse.
As we were discussing my impending dental work, he asked me if I wanted to change the shape of my fangs. I said no, they weren't causing me any problems and I sort of like them. I've had these slightly funky teeth all my life and it's part of who I am. This led him to tell me a story.
"Oh, yes, I have this patient... she's an actress. Roselli? Do you know? Oh, Isabella Rosellini. I'm bad with her last name."
"Yes, yes, I know who she is."
"Oh, yes, Isabella. David brought her her when they were making Blue Velvet, about 20 years ago, and I still see his cameramen, and sound people, Dennis Hooper - uh - Hopper, yes, all of them. I saw Isabella and I told her, 'I can fix those front teeth' because her front teeth are kind of crooked. But she said no, that she was already a successful model and she liked her crooked teeth. Now everytime I get off the plane in the airport, I see posters of her for that makeup she models - uh - Lancane? Lancome. Yes. I see posters, and there is that tooth, right in my face!"
(Isabella and her teeth.)
Anyway, I had a talk with Kristin Hersh last summer about teeth. She likes to remind her kids of who I am by saying, "You remember Mo... the lady with the cool teeth..." She said that she was always bummed that her parents had made her get her teeth fixed when she was a kid, and she was always jealous about other people with slightly fucked up teeth. Well, I don't have a British smile by anyone's standards, just slightly funky and endearing, I think. So the fangs stay.
Hell, if Isabella can make it glamorous, why can't I?
