February 13, 2015

Best burglar ever: Michelle Phillips!



"Cass's house was the biggest mess I have ever seen a house be in my life. She never cleaned, never tidied up, never did the dishes, never made her bed. I remember going to her house in Stanley Hills before she moved to Woodrow Wilson. I got to her house and she wasn't home, so I decided to jimmy the window and get in. You know those huge, giant, industrial-size jars of mayonnaise? She had dropped one on the floor and just left it there. I cleaned up her entire kitchen, her entire house; it took me, like, three and a half hours. I just kept cleaning until it was spotless. Then I walked out the door, closed it, and never said a word to her."

57 comments:

chickelit said...

Mayonaise makes great sandwich lube!

chickelit said...

Philips is lying on a Jaguar XKE, no?

Anonymous said...

Cass was a much better singer, but Michelle was easy to look at.

She seldom had lead parts, but "Dedicated to the One I Love" was my fav.

Anonymous said...

Philips is lying on a Jaguar XKE, no?

yes

traditionalguy said...

If only we had women in the military and its draft in 1968. Momma Cass would have learned a lot about discipline in the Army. And Michelle Phillips would have married herself an officer

chickelit said...

@Drill SGT: A beautiful woman tops a beautiful car.

Mitch H. said...

I read Weird Scenes inside the Canyon last summer. Very bitter, paranoid book. When the author's being lucid, he denounces the Laurel Canyon crowd as a bunch of talentless, drug-addled, homicidal maniacs. Where he's off his meds, he also insists they were a bunch of tools of the military-intelligence conspiracy to dismantle American leftism through drugs, sex, and hippie music. Spends dozens of pages listing the members of the scene who were military brats or children of spooks. (In his mind, the fact that the various incarnations of the LA Wrecking Crew actually recorded most of the instrumental elements of the output of the Laurel Canyon bands was a crucial part of this grand conspiracy.)

Ficta said...

If you've seen Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express, this anecdote will make you happy for the rest of the day.

I feel like Christopher Hitchens discovering that one of Hitler's lieutenants designed lingerie and wondering who he could possibly call at 3am who would understand why he was so excited.

YoungHegelian said...

Why does a single person living alone need an industrial-sized jar of mayonnaise?

Maybe, that's one of those "if you need to ask, you don't want to know" questions.

Ann Althouse said...

Think it was the 30 oz. Hellman's? The 64 ounce? Or more of bucket-like vat of the sort a restaurant might have? I pictured the latter. That's a lot of mayonnaise on the floor!

Ann Althouse said...

"Frequently Bought Together
Hellmanns Real Mayonnaise - 64 oz. jar + Heinz Tomato Ketchup - 3/ 44 Oz. + Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Bath Tissue, 48 Double Rolls
Price for all three: $59.17"

Tank said...

@young

the answer's in the article.

Gusty Winds said...

Phillips is kind of piling on the whole "ham sandwich" thing by mentioning Cass kept industrial volumes of Mayo in her house for personal consumption.

If Michelle Phillips was altruistic enough not to tell Cass she cleaned her house, why is she telling us?

tim maguire said...

I wonder if Cass noticed. It pleases me to think she didn't.

dbp said...

"Think it was the 30 oz. Hellman's?"

If this was the West coast, then the branding would have been Best Foods

lemondog said...

Or more of bucket-like vat of the sort a restaurant might have?

Institutional-size? at 20kg = 44+lb's.

That should have sufficed for a day or so.

Big Mike said...

Michelle Phillips deserved better husbands than either of her first two.

Ann Althouse said...

"If Michelle Phillips was altruistic enough not to tell Cass she cleaned her house, why is she telling us?"

Was it altruistic or a weird prank? How would you feel if you came home and found that someone had broken in cleaned up your house? Even if a note was left and you knew it was someone you trusted, wouldn't you feel violated or at least criticized... or obligated? If no word was left as to who'd been in your house messing with your mess... wouldn't you be disturbed?

But is it even true? I find it hard to believe that if the house was that messy it could be cleaned to spotlessness in 3 hours. The kitchen alone should have taken that long.

Richard Lawrence Cohen said...

Michelle Phillips was possibly the most beautiful woman in rock, but Cass was the one everyone wanted to go to bed with. I'm just saying.

"Laurel Canyon," with Frances McDormand as an unreformed survivor of the Sixties, is a good movie with a great cast, set in more recent times: the hippie chick has become a record producer and the mother of...Christian Bale!

Herb said...

Poor Mama Cass, food was always her downfall...

Bob Ellison said...

"Burglar" is an interesting word. The noun form predates the verb we made from it, in English: to burgle.

Mary Beth said...

It couldn't have been that big of a mess if she could clean a whole house in 3 1/2 hours.

ron winkleheimer said...

"But is it even true? I find it hard to believe that if the house was that messy it could be cleaned to spotlessness in 3 hours. The kitchen alone should have taken that long."

I agree, in fact when I first read the excerpt I read it as her spending 3 hours cleaning the kitchen, not the whole house.

If the home's occupant is going to just let a spilled jar of mayo of any size lay in the kitchen and not clean it up then the house is probably hoarder class nasty. It would most likely take days to clean up.

The Savage Noble said...

But is it even true? I find it hard to believe that if the house was that messy it could be cleaned to spotlessness in 3 hours. The kitchen alone should have taken that long.

Depends on the kitchen to house ratio...

William said...

If she lies on a Jaguar XKE, she'll lie about anything.....I'm as slovenly as any human being alive, but if I broke a jar of mayonnaise on the floor, I would clean up the mess. That's too icky to let stick around. The story is probably bs, but, like Brian Williams' bs, it has a kind of zen quality. BS not easily processed by the rational mind.

Jason said...

All I know is, if Karen Carpenter and Mama Cass had shared that ham sandwich, they'd BOTH be alive today!

The Savage Noble said...

Usually, the kitchen and the bathrooms are the most time intensive. The rest can appear clean with mostly straightening.

Smilin' Jack said...

Michelle Phillips was possibly the most beautiful woman in rock, but Cass was the one everyone wanted to go to bed with.

Uh, no. Not that there's anything wrong with being the kind of guy who would think that.

Ann Althouse said...

Richard Lawrence Cohen said: "Michelle Phillips was possibly the most beautiful woman in rock, but Cass was the one everyone wanted to go to bed with."

Cass shares your last name. She's Ellen Naomi Cohen.

dbp said...

I always found Cass to be repulsive but maybe she had a different effect in person. Ms Phillips was beautiful to an extent that a lot of guys won't even try to approach since getting shot-down seems certain. Linda Ronstadt had the perfect combination of beauty and approachability. She was like Mary Ann in that respect.

Smilin' Jack said...

Michelle Phillips was possibly the most beautiful woman in rock...

It was between Michelle and Grace Slick. If pressed to decide at the time, I'd have said, "Can't I have both?"

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, is that what it says on her tombstone?

richardsson said...

I was never part of that scene but I went to see the acts. I saw Linda Ronstadt up close when she was still with the Stone Poneys at Doug's Troubadour in Hollywood. I saw Buffalo Springfield at the Golden Bear in Orange County before they went on a concert tour. The Golden Bear was tiny place, and they had enough amps to fill Dodger Stadium. My date and I had to get out of there and we went a block away and listen to them on a bus bench. All the music was getting too loud for me to enjoy, and I lost a few friends who got involved in drugs beyond pot. By the early 70's, it was over for me and I began listening to very old music on 78 records.

Bob Ellison said...

Who's a good-looking guy in pop? I've heard vastly different opinions on Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and Mick Jagger.

It seems to me that John Lennon was a very handsome man.

Anonymous said...

Hah. I used to do stuff like that when I was a little kid because it was in the Brownie handbook.

Mark O said...

"I saw Linda Ronstadt up close"

According to several friends in several cities, Linda was, in fact, approachable and enjoyed being seen up close.

William said...

Debbie Harry had both the good looks and the attitude. When she danced naked on the rooftops, there was nothing ethereal about her moves, and it wasn't done under the guidance of her publicist. I'm just saddened that she lived in an era where there were no nude photos of her to hack.

Anthony said...

I always wondered why ghosts were always supposed to be throwing stuff around. Aren't there any useful ghosts? You know, ones that do the dishes during the night? I'd not like them vacuuming in the middle of the night, but maybe some dishes, a little dusting. . . .

Jeff Gee said...

50 years after the fact, "industrial size jar" may mean "not snack size," "three and a half hours" may mean "15 minutes," "spotless" may mean "I used more than one paper towel," and "I cleaned up her entire kitchen, her entire house" means "I cleaned up most of the mayo."

Fritz said...

John Phillips, on the other hand, was a real piece of work, even by rock star standards.

Darrell said...

Mama Cass didn't even notice. Next time her house needed cleaning, she just went out.

madAsHell said...

Philips is lying on a Jaguar XKE

Yeah....It's really difficult to know which one flips my switch harder.

JackOfVA said...

At common law, would this be a burglary?

As I recall it, a burglary requires breaking and entering (OK there) and the commission of a felony once inside, such as theft. Cleaning the house isn't a felony so it's a B&E.

But who knows what statutory "improvements" have been made upon the common law definition.

Gusty Winds said...

Professor said, "Was it altruistic or a weird prank? How would you feel if you came home and found that someone had broken in cleaned up your house?"

Guess I was looking at it like the elves who saved the shoemaker and his wife, or when Sissy cleaned Bud's trailer in Urban Cowboy. Neither publicized for credit.

I think Cass suffered standing next to the hot blonde Phillips, and can't see why Phillips would pile on a story of a Sam's Club size jar of mayo on Cass Eliot's already sad demise.

Considering the latter, perhaps Phillips original intent wasn't so altruistic.




David said...

But is it even true? I find it hard to believe that if the house was that messy it could be cleaned to spotlessness in 3 hours. The kitchen alone should have taken that long.

I had the same reaction. The Jaguar was not all she was lying on.

David said...

Richard Lawrence Cohen said...
Michelle Phillips was possibly the most beautiful woman in rock, but Cass was the one everyone wanted to go to bed with. I'm just saying.


Not everyone. I personally vouch for that.

CWJ said...

Pedantic CWJ says -

There is no such thing as a Jaguar XKE. She is lying on a Jaguar E-type, series one. You may as well call the awsomely wicked current incarnation an XKF.

chickelit and madAsHell, Fast forward to today. Assume both Michelle and the Jaguar have received equal doses of maintenance and "work" done on them. Now which do you prefer?

veni vidi vici said...

people who eat mayonnaise are statistically more inclined to be, or end up as, fatasses.

My name goes here. said...

If Mama Cass had given the other half of that chicken sandwich to Karen Carpenter, they would both be alive today.

jr565 said...

no one got fat except,mama cass.
The dudes went bald though. And one of them banged his daughter.

Darleen said...

Uh, how long do you think it would take a motivated person to clean a 1950's era house of 15-1900 sq feet?

Cass's home at 7708 Woodrow Wilson Drive is/was 4800 sq feet (current footage, last remodel 1973) but Michelle states it was Cass's Stanley Hills house she stealth-cleaned.

Darleen said...

To add on - I couldn't find the exact address of Cass's Stanley Hills home, but sampling the 1950's era homes along it show footage from 1100-1900 sq ft.

CatherineM said...

Veni - not necessarily. There are countries where they butter the bread as well as use mayonnaise and they are not fat.

CatherineM said...

I have friends who are horrible slobs. One lives in a fantastic resort town. When I visit I think of it as camping. I do clean the toilet and wear flip flops in her shower, but it's a lot less stressful than staying with the control freak clean friends that need to have things just so and I am never doing anything right (and they wonder why I decline invites).

madAsHell said...

Assume both Michelle and the Jaguar have received equal doses of maintenance and "work" done on them. Now which do you prefer?

From the wikipedia page....

She has been married[1] to:

John Phillips (December 31, 1962 – 1970) (divorced) 1 child
Dennis Hopper (October 31, 1970 – November 8, 1970) (divorced after 8 days)
Robert Burch (May 21, 1978 – 1980) (divorced)
Grainger Hines (divorced) 2 children
Steven Zax (2000–present)

Too many rogues in that gallery. I'll take the car!!

eddie willers said...

I was head of my Student Activities Committee at West Georgia College and we would book concerts.

We were going though the catalog for acts touring that spring ('72 IIRC) and saw where Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt were sharing the same backing band to cut down on expenses. That touring band was later known as The Eagles.

But they couldn't cut the money down enough as they wanted $7500!

That's seventy five HUNDRED dollars...too rich for our blood.

We went with Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.

furious_a said...

Her next trick, Michelle Phillips broke into Helen Keller's house and re-arranged the furniture.