Terry Two

Well, this is interesting . . . 

Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe won the Virginia gubernatorial primary to run for a second term. McAuliffe, whose last term expired in January 2018, could not run for a second consecutive term in the previous gubernatorial election because the Virginia state constitution bars incumbent governors from running for re-election.  McAuliffe defeated two female opponents, both named Jennifer.  He got more votes than both Jennifers combined.

Meanwhile, Grosvenor Phil Murphy of New Jersey was nominated to run  for a second consecutive term, promising that the state will move forward, not backward - something McAuliffe can't promise because he's been there and done that already.  Will Virginia voters want someone else?  Or will they vote for McAuliffe again, which probably would have happened in the 2017 gubernatorial election had he been able to run for re-election?  We'll find out this November.

The Resurgence of Nastasia Urbano

So now that the GoFundMe campaign for Nastasia Urbano is over, how is Spain's greatest model faring now?

Glad you asked.  Nastasia is now living in an apartment she has rented with the money from the GoFundMe campaign set up by her friend Daniel Mirabal Gallego-Díaz and - wait for it! - is now fielding modeling offers.  She's already modeled for a Spanish newspaper, of course, and she's even had a modeling session with her son.  The only thing she doesn't have now is the long, flowing chestnut brown hair that always made her so irresistible, but don't fret over how her short cut makes her look like she's about to join the United States Marine Corps; she'll grow her hair back.

The more important thing is, Nastasia is once again doing what she loves and what made her famous, and she would have been happy working at any old job just to have the comfortable life she has now regained.  And this is only the beginning, as Raul Rodriguez reports in on Spanish Internet news site El Español's "Jaleos Del Corazon" section.  Below is his article, translated and cleaned up by yours truly, about the most remarkable comeback in modeling in twenty years. 

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The resurgence of Nastasia Urbano: Top model leaves indigence, returns to fashion and moves into her own home

In recent years, the economic ruin of the model led her to accept precarious jobs and even sleep in the ATM booth of a bank in Barcelona.

Nastasia Urbano, 57, the legendary Spanish top model of the '80s who fell into disgrace and lived in poverty, is seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  According to what JALEOS has learned, her friend Daniel Mirabal Gallego-Díaz has managed to reach the goal for his GoFundMe page for her that was set at the beginning of February.

Gallego-Díaz, also a fashion professional, set up a campaign on the GoFundMe Web site where he requested 6,000 euros so that the former muse of Yves Saint Laurent could pay three months' rent on a small apartment outside Barcelona to live in with dignity.  Now that goal has been achieved by awakening the joy not only in Mirabal but in the very model he has been helping, who has reacted radiating happiness:

"I am the happiest person in the world and I am very grateful and overwhelmed by your kindness and love for me, helping me with money so I can start my life over without worries.  Sometimes I cannot believe that this has really happened to me, how lucky I am to have you.  My love and gratitude is endless and forever.  Your words are forever in my heart, of course, thank you very much also to my friend Daniel, whom I love, for the time and effort you put into this campaign.  Without you, Daniel, it would not be possible.  Thank you, my love, I love you with madness."

In response to Urbano's message, Daniel has responded: "I am the happiest man in the world!  Finally, we have obtained the money that I wished for Nastasia Urbano, since GoFundMe has told me that the amount I wanted for her has already arrived.  Thank you all, you have shown that the world of fashion is much more than lights, poses and five minutes of glory, and for all of you who do not work in this world but have helped Nastasia, I just want to just tell them that they are the most important ones and that makes us magical.  You have the power.  Thank you very much. "

The new life of Nastasia Urbano

According to Gallego-Díaz, the leader of the whole "Nastasia Urbano operation," Nastasia is "happy that they have given her all the money she needs, they have been great and they have given all sorts of help.  They have contacted me because it has been a campaign that has had a lot of repercussions. Nastasia is exultant, she is happy, she already has her apartment, a small one, and she has her dog . . .. She feels as if she has been reborn."

In addition, Gallego-Díaz says that her professional life is also in the midst of changes.  "I've gotten different calls for her from the papers, and the publishers that have come out, I've gotten them myself.   It's been a radical change.  She's changed his life, she has a project, she has a future, she's happy, she has an economic base . . ..  This is very important, she is happy and she is a new woman," he concludes.

 The fall from grace of Nastasia Urbano

The life of the model, who caressed the sky with her fingertips in the '80s and even managed to earn a million dollars for twenty days of work, took a 180-degree turn in recent years.  After being the focus of attention of international designers and brands, economic ruin led her to accept precarious jobs to survive from day to day, and she even ended up sleeping at an ATM booth in the streets of Barcelona.

However, the perseverance of her friend Gallego-Díaz got her back to a place in the media - not only general media but media specialized in fashion.  In statements to this newspaper, Gallego-Díaz has expressed that all of this was "getting out of hand, I knew it was going to happen but they are getting in touch with me, media from all over the world." Gallego-Díaz also says, "Nastasia is overwhelmed.  It's all very important.  [It involves] publications, television networks that have been put in contact: Fox, Univision, a Russian television network, many fashion magazines that want her again. The agency Iconic Focus in New York already wants her, One Models in London, too . . .."

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There's no stopping her now.

Nastasia had fallen so hard and so far, her comeback is nothing short of astonishing.  She shows every intention to take advantage of the help everyone's given her and making it from here on on her own. :-)

Nastasia Versus Catalonia

Nastasia Urbano (below) continues to get her life back together, but her GoFundMe campaign still remains short of the six thousand euros she needs after 38 days of fundraising.

I once joked, long before her descent into homelessness, that Nastasia, who got her start as a model in Barcelona after growing up in Switzerland as the daughter of Spanish nationals, was the most beautiful woman to grace that city with her presence with the possible exception of when American swimmer Janet Evans was there to compete in the 1992 Olympics.  But why don't the people of Barcelona take pride in Nastasia's accomplishments as a model?  The answer is no joke.

It's because Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, the region of Spain that has been in the news recently for trying to separate from the larger country, and Nastasia is not ethnically Catalan.  Apparently Catalans have a problem with those among them who are not Catalan themselves and run roughshod over the region's non-Catalan residents.

In the Spanish periodical La Tribuna del País Vasco, language professor Francisco Oya delves into how non-Catalan Spaniards in the region, particularly the elites, have mostly been shunned and dismissed, no matter how far they may go in life, and he urges the people of Catalonia to consider their humanity in the wake of Nastasia's misfortune.  It is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the ethnic and separatist politics in the region in Spain's northeastern corner.  As always, I offer it here in translated form, cleaned up a bit to make it more legible.

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"So that our soul does not go out": Nastasia Urbano as a paradigm of the Catalonia of the "purists"

In recent weeks, various media have reported about a veteran top model who has been forced, at times, to sleep in ATM booths in Barcelona: Nastasia Urbano

Her name did not mean anything to me, maybe because I've never been especially mythomaniac or fond of glamorous characters: actors, models, athletes and others. But the reports always include some photos of her time of splendor, and then I recognized her: It was impossible to forget the splendorous beauty and exquisite elegance of that woman who watched me from the billboards, magazine covers and television commercials for more than two decades.

Consuelo Urbano, called Chelo by family and friends, starts out as a model in Barcelona. After triumphing in Barcelona, she passes to Milan, Paris, London. There, she begins to be called Nastasia, which sounds more international. But Europe is too small, so in 1981 she lands in New York, the destiny that consecrates the definitive global triumph of a supermodel. And, indeed, the city of skyscrapers surrenders at her feet: a contract with the legendary Ford agency, an advertising campaign with the historic Revlon cosmetics company, one of the most important worldwide, with which the most famous models of the moment work, such as Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford or Elle Mcpherson.

Especially memorable will be the commerical for the Opium fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent, filmed by David Lynch, no less, in 1992 with Nastasia as the absolute protagonist. The days of wine and roses follow one another vertiginously for the young Barcelonan: dinners with Jack Nicholson, Harrison Ford or Andy Warhol, parties with Melanie Griffith and Simon & Garfunkel, gigantic parties, alcohol, even cocaine. Nastasia avidly sucks all the glory and beauty of the world around her. And she triumphs professionally, without a doubt, thanks to her gifts, professionalism and versatility in different registers. A cover girl in the main international fashion magazines: Vogue, New Woman, Redbook. And not only advertisements for cosmetics, but also for clothes, a kind of advertising that is not so popular at that time. Despite this, Nastasia becomes the first model to sign a millionaire contract to advertise clothes: one million dollars for 20 days of work per year.

In one of her stays in Barcelona, ​​to visit her parents, she meets the man who becomes her husband. She will have children with him. Her professional triumph and personal happiness go hand in hand and have reached their peak. But the descent from the zenith is going to be really hard, too. The days of glory will be diluted while the money of Nastasia's Swiss accounts is appropriated by him who will eventually reveal himself as an interested and unscrupulous consort, before abandoning it. Nastasia begins to feel very affected by the decline, falling into depression and not being able to lead a normal life. She can no longer pay her usual expenses and ends up, sometimes, sleeping in ATM booths. She has hit bottom.

The only sweetness that contradicts the bitterness of recent years is the help of Daniel Mirabal Gallego-Diaz, a fashion professional who met her in her glory days and is trying to help, against all odds, by organizing a  GoFundMe campaign. Daniel seems to be the exception, because the fashion industry and the acquaintances of yesteryear have turned their backs on Nastasia.

It is very illustrative, to understand the social reality of Catalonia, to compare the current situation of Nastasia with that of other Catalan models that also stood out internationally, although none of these were in the select group of  the Ford agency in New York. Teresa Gimpera, a muse of the 1960s, is today an octogenarian spoiled by the Generalitat [Government] of Catalonia . . . and by the public or subsidized Catalan media. Long after she left professional modeling, there were always interviews with her on radio or TV3, collaborations, tributes, contacts, facilities and promotion for the modeling agency she created in Barcelona. All of which has allowed her to feel recognized, overcome personal misfortunes (a son died of AIDS) and lead a life more than worthy. The same happens with Judit Mascó, whose international career was institutionally supported when she was chosen to be the ambassador of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, and who at 49 years of age continues to appear on TV3, has prizes and public recognition, invitations to events promoted by the Generalitat . . ..

For Nastasia there were never invitations to public events, interviews on TV3, offers of collaborations, recognition or institutional promotions of any kind, although her merits in the strict field of fashion were superior to those of Teresa Gimpera or Judit Mascó. Not even a little help in recent times, at least for a mere matter of humanity. You have to ask yourself: Why this difference in treatment?

The answer is that Nastasia was not one of them, unlike Teresa or Judit. Although from Barcelona, ​​she does not have a Catalan surname; her parents were Spaniards who had emigrated to Switzerland and had returned to Spain, therefore the kind of people regarded with contempt by the Catalan oligarchy and by the large percentage of Catalans who have been inoculated with supremacist poison. And this regardless of her professional value, good work or personal beauty. Nothing is recognized by these institutions created in the image and likeness of the 44 families that dominate the Catalan oasis: for those who are not Catalan, there is only discredit, slander - nothing but contempt, unless they diligently perform the established protocols of submission.  I've seen real boors - yes, with eight Catalan surnames - looking down their noses at doctors and university professors in Murcia. So the only options offered by Catalan institutions, created by supremacist separatism, to the majority of the population of Catalonia are civil death and abandonment or absolute humiliation. And they have shown, in the case of Nastasia and many others, that they are relentless. Epi and Sibilio were the glory of Catalan and Spanish basketball, two reference players in the history of the basketball section of F.C. Barcelona, ​​but they were not of Catalan origin or proved to be submissive enough, so they left the media scene as soon as they retired. Quite the opposite that Solozabal, who was made a commentator on TV3 and was named an honorary Catalan for having been a good boy and making the separatists content.  Also, if people in any of these cases work as a dependent official of the Generalitat, they will be subject to a relentless protocol of institutional harassment with impunity. We're seeing it with public school teachers . . ..

Indirectly and unconsciously, Nastasia reveals this situation when she expresses her nostalgia for New York City. "I miss it day and night, New York is a city that makes you vibrate, you go out and you get goosebumps," she says, and, referring to Barcelona, ​​"I've been dying out. My life has been extinguished."  Nastasia misses an open and cosmopolitan city, in which you feel integrated as soon as you arrive, because only your personal worth and effort is taken into account; nobody harasses you with identity issues or make you pay the absurd toll to use a minority language, absolutely useless as a vehicle of communication. In these aspects, Madrid is like New York, and it is not by chance that the capital of Spain has been chosen as a destination by prominent Catalan personalities, weary of the suffocating climate gradually established by separatism, with the complicity of successive Spanish governments: those of Albert Boadella, Francesco de Carreras, Felix de Azua, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Loquillo, and many more.

But that is just an individual solution. If the Catalans want to definitively end this oppressive situation and prevent our soul from going out, to use  Nastasia's beautiful expression, we have to take the bull by the horns and demand such elementary things in a democratic society as equal rights, respect for the law and the end of school indoctrination.

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I have friends who have known Nastasia far longer than I have, and a few of them believe she's not ready to go back to New York yet.  But it's easy to see why she's not ready to embrace Barcelona . . . because Barcelona is not ready to embrace her.

Whatever happens, I, as always, wish her the best.

And you can (and should) still contribute to her GoFundMe camapaign. 

Nastasia Urbano Returns

Nastasia Urbano, the Spanish supermodel who ended up homeless on the streets of Barcelona, is back.

Nastasia, who has been a dear friend of mine through the magic of social media since 2009, is being helped by a GoFundMe page that is still a few hundred euros short of the 6,000-euro goal that her friends have set for it.  It will get to that amount eventually - she has so many people helping her out, it's inevitable that it will - but Nastasia is not one to wait for that moment to come.  She's already resumed modeling, having done an editorial session for the weekly edition of the Spanish newspaper El País with an accompanying article by fashion reporter Patricia Soley-Beltran. This article-cum-photoshoot is likely to lead Nastasia to more lucrative opportunities. The article, with two absolutely gorgeous poses from Nastasia, is reproduced below, translated into English from its original Spanish.  I give all of the credit to Patricia Soley-Beltran for the article and to Nastasia for the wonderful poses, courtesy of photographer Manuel Outumuro.

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The supermodel that ended up on the street returns to pose

Nastasia Urbano was one of the top models of the eighties. A muse of masters like Yves Saint Laurent. On the covers of great magazines. Icon of the best photographers. She's been in the news for having lived on the street. Today she struggles to recover her life. And she stars in a unique session in these pages

Nastasia Urbano, a supermodel before the term existed, returns to the set almost a quarter of a century after retiring. In the eighties she posed for the best photographers: Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, David Lynch, Steven Meisel, Peter Lindbergh and Fabrizio Ferri. The list of those who photographed her is as long as the list of her numerous covers of international magazines. The roster of her clients, fabulous: from Armani to Loewe, along with Yves Saint Laurent, whose iconic Opium perfume ad bore her image.  She shared a dance floor at Studio 54 with Jerry Hall and Melanie Griffith, and she dined with Jack Nicholson. The world was at her feet. But the headlines that she has attained recently do not refer to this successful career, but to the difficult situation that has crossed her 57 years. Last November, after her "third eviction," Nastasia was forced to live on the street.

It is news that a glamorous model is now homeless, but it should not be; the precariousness of the profession at any age is the norm. The models, often minors, are workers with little or no legal and union protection in an unstable and arbitrary market. The reality of a model's life and work is far from the glamour that the advertising creates.

Consuelo Urbano, as she was originally named, is the daughter of Spanish emigrants in Switzerland, where she was born.  Her mother was employed at a factoy ,and it wsa in Switzerland where young Consuelo herself began to work at the age of 16. She says that a photo of her on the beach ended up in the hands of a modeling agency, and that's how her meteoric rise began, the last stop of which, to date, has been reflected in these pages. She had not been in front of the camera for twenty-four years.

Nastasia speaks five languages ​​and arrives on time. Stylists combine costumes and accessories, while photographer Manuel Outumuro and his assistants prepare the set of the impressive Fonollar Palace where the session takes place. Discreet, Nastasia glides on the exquisite pavement towards the hangers. "You can do what you want with me," she tells Outumuro.  Nothing else; she puts on the first dress and dazzles.

In photography, one of the challenges is to get the perfect light. Nastasia has incorporated a light of her own. Two of their partners, she says, tried to turn it off. First, a man who apparently wanted to separate her from her career, and then later, her husband, the father of her two children, in whose projects, she says, he invested all the money she had earned. And that was a lot. She tells us that she even signed contracts for one million dollars in exchange for twenty days of work. "I left these relationships alone," she says, "because one day I got up and said: 'It's over.'"

For some, beauty is an enigma; for others, a construction. For Nastasia, it's quite simple. "Beauty is knowing how to take the years, accept your wrinkles and accept that your hair is not the same as before," she says.  "Beauty is to be so happy on the inside that it looks on the outside."  Does she feel that way? "I never thought anything about myself," she admits.  "I did not see myself as beautiful or ugly. Maybe I did feel special, because that's what they told me I was." At mid-session, her oldest son, a handsome young man with a maternal face tattooed in color on his right hand, visits.

Beauty ceases to be an impenetrable mystery when Nastasia lets herself look ahead with candid generosity, because what she likes most is to be in front of the camera. "I love to immerse myself in my own world, forget about myself, playing with clothes that favor me, being me," she says.  This animated sculpture is all permeability and delivery.

"You are a machine!" Outumuro says, praising her. All the shots are good. For Nastasia, photographers are the most interesting characters in the fashion business, although she recognizes that "a bad one can sink you."  For mythomaniacs, she evokes Irving Penn - "very silent, he gave you very few guidelines" - and director David Lynch - "super-caring and close, just the opposite of what he projects in his movies."  Her favorite session was with Steven White in the Italian Alps, playing with snow and huskies, remembering her childhood in Switzerland. A childhood that seems to continue accompanying her in her sweet remembrance of the writer Stendhal, who defined beauty as the promise of happiness.

"We are normal girls.  It scares me when they find me on the street because they have seen me divine in magazines, they have believed it and you are disappointed," she says, conscious of the magical deception. But now she's recognized by people who know the difficulties they have gone through and wish her a good life.

The session ends, and the performance ends. The team gives her low-key applause and she smiles with embarrassment, with sincere humility. They are not the only ones who have been seduced by her presence.  One of the most important model agencies in Spain has already shown interest in her. Maybe it will be hard for us to understand it, but we will always love Consuelo. 

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Nastasia looks older, to be sure, but hardly the worse for wear.  Her smile reminds those of us who were teenage boys in the 1980s why we fell in love with her and her attitude reminds those who were teenage girls in that decade why they wanted to be models.  As you may have noticed, her hair is still short - less suitable for Paris than for Parris Island - and she will likely grow it back, but her magnetic aura in the pictures above reveal a timeless beauty that nothing can seem to alter.  And she still knows how to model after being out of practice for so long, as if it were like riding a bicycle - once you learn, you never forget.

I could never forget Nastasia Urbano. And I remain deliriously happy for her return to modeling and for the ability to call her my dear friend.  I love you always, Nastasia.

Whitney's Back!

For those of you too young to remember, Whitney Houston is the greatest eighties female R&B female vocalist whose name isn't Anita Baker. She sold millions of records back in the Reagan years, and she had the most astonishing voice most people had ever heard, and as long as she got the right material for it, she was entertaining.

When she didn't, though, she could produce something really annoying (the less said about her cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," the better). More often than not, she got middling material that was neither entertaining nor annoying. It just . . . was. Houston's biggest flaw as an artist (as opposed to being a performer) was that she was more into showing off her voice than saying anything with it. (That's why Anita Baker gets my vote between the two.) Some of the blame for this went to Clive Davis, the legendary Arista Records founder who discovered her and signed her to his label, who watered down her sound and her proficiency for gospel singing and had her records aimed at a mainstream audience.

Alas, Houston didn't merely almost have it all - she had too much of it. Her downward spiral into drug addiction and her disastrous marriage to Bobby Brown ruined her career, but having finally rid herself of Brown - the welcome first step in her twelve-step program to recovery - she's been working her way back up to the charts and she's released her new album I Look to You, which critics say is her finest work in ages. I've heard one track from the record, "Million Dollar Bill," and it's an astonishing revelation. It shows you what she can do with her voice when she does have something to say.

Ironically, Clive Davis, the man accused of keeping her from saying anything back in the eighties, is engineering her comeback today. It's really great to see Davis having taken such a personal interest in Houston when the rest of the world was ready to write her off . . . and did just that.

I really hope Houston makes it back to the top. (Whitney, from one New Jerseyan to another - you go, girl!) I just hope she doesn't employ her trademark melismatic phrasing too much. Melisma only sounds great when it's really dirty.

Which is why I love Roger Chapman. :-D