Aurora Starchild
On Late Night with Seth Meyers, Miley Cyrus says Dolly Parton still prefers to communicate via fax machine. Ironically, the conversation comes up over a T-Mobile commercial that the two singers did together for the Super Bowl. “Every time I coordinate and kind of communicate with Dolly, it’s still through fax,” Miley reveals.
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In the advertisement, which comes off like a UNICEF parody, Dolly says “America’s got a serious problem. So, I’m gonna get it off my chest.” She pulls a T-Mobile cell out from her cleavage. Sad piano music and a lonely cellphone on a park swing accompany the rest of Dolly’s narration. “Do it for the phones,” she pleads.
Miley points out the hilariousness of it all.
“…I don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s rarely on the phone. Next time we have to ‘Do it for the fax machine.'”
That’s right. Apparently, whenever Dolly communicates with anyone—and this is confirmed by Reba McEntire—she faxes.
When Meyers jokingly accuses the singer duo of false advertising, Miley clarifies.
“Well, we do use the phone. But she does a fax, and then someone scans the fax, and then they put it into a text message, and then that gets sent to me… And it’s always signed. So now I’ve kind of started my own version where I go into the notes, and I’ve started to try to make my own letters. Because there’s something so amazing just about a connection… that she took the time to get out, I guess, her typewriter?”
It gets better.
Miley describes how Dolly once sent her a demo about being high-tech. It was recorded via cassette, transferred via voice memo to a flip-phone, sent to an iPhone, and sent to Miley.
Miley likens the process to receiving something from a courier “pigeon… with long acrylic nails, big boobs, and a blonde wig… the Dolly Pigeon.”
Miley points out that Dolly’s fax practices mirror her authenticity, which comes across in everything she does. She perceives the infusion of the personal, whether it involves a handwritten signature or a personal twist on a cover song, as what Dolly wants.
“That’s what I think has made Dolly so loved… the authenticity.”
