In other news: Hell freezes over

Well, Mother Rubble is online. It’s the sixth sign of the apocalypse.

While there’s still time, feel free to drop her a line (but be gentle, she’s new.)

As I write (March 24, 4:15 pm) Terri Schiavo’s parents have submitted ANOTHER appeal to the Federal Court.

As I wrote the other day, I waffled for a long while on this whole issue. But the past few days, in doing my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that Mrs. Schiavo’s parents, pitiable as they are, are just plain crazy.

The most telling evidence in my assessment was a report by the Mrs. Schiavo’s court-appointed Guardian Ad Litem, who spent considerable time with her, her husband and parents. From the report (emphases mine):

Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.

And….

In 2000, despite conceding their daughter's persistent vegetative state, the Schindlers said they still believed she knew when they were there. When Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, asked Bob Schindler if he thought Terri would be tormented by her current state, he replied ''Yes,'' but added, ''she's not that cognizant to be aware of it.''

It’s clear to me from the above that Mrs. Schiavo’s parents simply can’t let go, and perhaps have a bit of a control issue.

But any sympathy I might have felt for the Schindlers for their delusions of eventual recovery for their daughter has been whittled away by the ghoulishly political behavior of the Repugnantan party. To wit:

Tom Delay’s assertion that God sent Terri Schiavo to Earth in order to expose the vast liberal conspiracy threatening conservatives everywhere:

“One thing that God has brought to us is Terry Schiavo, to help us elevate the visibility of what is going on in America … This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and many others … a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in.”

DeLay’s, and the President’s, sudden concern for the welfare of those in vegetative states is remarkable, considering that in 1999 they could have done something to stop a Texas ruling which allowed people who wanted to be kept alive and whose families were in unanimous agreement that they wanted to be kept alive to be taken, involuntarily, off life support if the facility they were in decided that they weren't able to pay for the treatment that would sustain their lives. Especially if they were black.

Feverishly pro-Bush radio host Glenn Beck, who has offered to buy Terri Schiavo from her husband. Oh, and on his website, you can buy a T-shirt with Michael Schiavo’s picture on it, which says “I starved my wife to death”. Classy! (And in case you were wondering, Michael Schiavo relinquished his right to make the decision to remove his wife’s feeding tube. That’s how it ended up in the courts in the first place. The decision was the court’s. The decision would not change, even if her parents were to gain custody.)

And Dr. Bill Frist, who diagnosed Mrs. Schiavo via videotape and used that as a basis to give her already-addled parents false hope for her eventual recovery. Interesting in that he had this to say about the death of Democrat Christopher Reeve:

"I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. "We should be offering people hope, but neither physicians, scientists, public servants or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype."It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope."

The hypocrisy of proclaiming a “culture of life” is astounding, in a world where 20,000 people a day die as a direct result of poverty, 100,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq, and Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer continue to receive death threats from “religious” folk across the nation.

Jesuit theologian John J. Paris has this to say to the zealous among us:

Here's the question I ask of these right-to-lifers, including Vatican bishops: as we enter into Holy Week and we proclaim that death is not triumphant and that with the power of resurrection and the glory of Easter we have the triumph of Christ over death, what are they talking about by presenting death as an unmitigated evil? It doesn’t fit Christian context.

And my last sad, unfortunate truth for today: Terri Schiavo, who previously had the option to either die with dignity, or be kept alive with dignity, now has grandstanding Repugnantans to thank for stripping away any dignity she might have had.

Way to go, GOP!

What's that smell...?

...Why....it's Jesus!

Sorry I've been gone - I can hardly fend off the complaints of my, apparently, innumerable fans. I’ve been busy, you see, though I know you’re all busy and that’s no excuse.

So, let’s see…I went to Charleston, SC last week to a seminar about the online submission system that most medical journals use. Charleston is built on top of a swamp, you see, which you can tell by the swampy smell that permeates the town. Except for the lobby of my hotel, which smelled like asparagus piss. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers, I guess – I DID have free wireless internet access in my room, a sofa AND an easy chair, and room service that was quick as you please. Plus, every item on the room service menu came with either fried green tomatoes OR buttermilk-fried oysters. Yum!

There was a gal at the conference who couldn’t stop talking about the excitement of being on the volunteer fire department, back in Kansas or New Jersey wherever she was from. I bet it IS exciting, especially for the people whose homes are on fire, since she also disclosed that she’s BLIND IN ONE EYE.

And the person who drives the fire truck is deaf.

I returned to face an endless week of rehearsals and performances. Jet and I have ill-advisedly consented to help out the kids down at the college with their production of La Boheme. We’re making a pretty penny to do so, but I think we would have been better off to stay poor and have a free evening now and again. Plus we both work in churches, and it’s the Easter season, and if you’re not aware, it’s a pretty big deal for most churches. Plus we were doing a concert with the Washington Bach Consort, which made us mad because the hired soloists from out of town were not very good, and the people who did little tiny solos from the choir, like ME, were BETTER, and some people, like ME, who saw the Washington Post reviewer feverishly scribbling on his pad every time I sang my little insignificant solos, expected to wake up to the Tuesday Post to find that I at last had a champion in the Press, who would decry the hateful practice of flying in out-of-town soloists while local talent languishes in the choir. But it was not to be.

Poor Jet had to have a stress test yesterday, and the nurses made such a patchwork of his chest hair that he decided to trim it down to the nub when he got home. If you’ve ever SEEN Jet’s chest, you can imagine it was quite a chore. I imagine SOME gals would be delighted to have a clean-shaven husband, (like the young lady recently being squired by LSBB’s friend Doctor J, until he noticed a line her email that read “Men rock – except the hairy ones. Can’t deal with that shit.”) but not me! I’m just counting the days til it grows back!

I just don’t know what to think about this Terri Schiavo business...I was tending to come down on the side of the parents, so I asked Code Dependent for the buzz in the medical community, and she’s of a mind to let her go. And trust me, if Code “Softest Heart in Show Business” Dependent says it’s time to let go, then it’s time to let go. (And, Republicans, by “letting go” I DON’T mean parading Ms. Schiavo in front of Congress to “testify”, or comparing her state to that of a crumpled hundred dollar bill.)


I INSIST everyone go to the video store right away, and rent or buy the series set of Firefly, the late lamented FOX series by Buffy-creator Joss Whedon (who also writes a mean X-Men comic, and has just been signed to write and direct a new Wonder Woman movie). See, it’s kind of imperative that you do this for me, because then you’ll have time to fall in love with all the characters, and then you’ll go see the movie version when it comes out in September, and then FOX will regret canceling it, and it will come back on TV, and Jet and I will be happy. So just do it. Honest, have I ever steered you wrong?

Commandments, shmammandments

So the Supreme Court continues hearing oral arguments today about the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property. Opponents to the displays argue that it’s a blatant governmental sponsorship of a particular religion, which violates the First Amendment.

Those in favor of such displays countered yesterday that, in fact, the Ten Commandments are not even religious. Who knew?

Well, since the Ten Commandments ARE, apparently, the basis of our laws, I suppose, we ought to, you know, actually enforce them. At least one or two. Let’s run down the list, shall we?

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Should be easy to enforce, once we decide once and for all who the “me” is that’s speaking, and then deport all the Hindus, Sikhs, Wiccans, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, and I would imagine most Catholics, Jews, and progressive Protestants. Oh, and we’ll also have to repeal that pesky First Amendment.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Let’s see, no smiling Jesus on velvet paintings. Oh, and no naturalistic painting or sculpture. Or photography. Oh, and, effective immediately, descendents of criminals are responsible for the crimes of their ancestors, to the fourth generation.

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Well, in the original meaning, it dealt with using God’s name in a contract. Like, you know, when you swear on the Bible in court or, say, at your inauguration as President of the United States.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Guess we’ll have to stop selling liquor on Sundays, huh? Except, of course, that the Sabbath is Saturday, meaning that this commandment is broken by nearly every facet of society, including EVERY CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION IN AMERICA. Whoops! Oh, and technically, you’re really not supposed to do anything but rest on the Sabbath, including anything fun and relaxing. Just a slight technicality.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. We’ll save a bundle of tax dollars when we eliminate Child Protective Services, since children in abusive homes will have no option to get out. And we can probably do away with Medicaid and Social Security altogether, since elderly parents will be living with their children until they die.

Thou shalt not kill. Don’t panic, Republicans! According to the letter of the law, the following persons may still be killed:

· Persons found guilty of temple prostitution
· engaged women who are seduced by a man other than her future husband
· women who practice black magic
· women who are raped in urban areas
· children who curse their parents
· some non-virgin brides
· Jews who collect firewood on Saturday to keep their families from freezing
· persons proselytizing in favor of another religion
· persons worshiping a deity other than Yahweh
· strangers who enter the temple

I suppose this list can conceivably apply to Iraqis and Iranians, so we’re okay there, but it looks like the death penalty will have to go.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Again, fellas, not to worry! This refers ONLY to a man engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman who is betrothed or married to another man. So I suggest you choose virgins for your extramarital affairs. Oh, and – masturbation’s out. Sorry, gents. Ladies, you can do whatever you please, since under the new laws you will be property and inconsequential. Sorry about that. On the plus side, since we’re limiting things to just these 10 commandments, gay sex is A-OK!

Thou shalt not steal. I, ummm….er……okay, you got me. This one is already illegal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. I guess television and movies will already be illegal with the graven images thing, and this ought to do away with conservative talk radio…I smell a renaissance of live theatre!

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. So long, Capitalism, been nice knowing ya!

I suggest a compromise on the issue that's sure to please everyone - round-the-clock screenings of The Ten Commandments at all government facilities. Yul Brynner's manly scowl, the way Anne Baxter sort of pouts every time she purrs "Oh....Mooooses", an appearance by my dear aquantiance, Riselle Bain....and HESTON RULES, BABY!

And don't get me started on the f&%@ing monkey

Okay, I’m back. Seriously. My boss, Dr. Phil’s Good Twin, is back from his kidney-removal surgery, and so I can safely goof off again, though Poinsettia has now gotten in the habit of asking me how to do EVERYTHING, regardless of how many times she’s been shown how to do it before, and if said task involves her actually spending more than five minutes doing it, she sighs loudly and complains about how much work she has.

Anyway, here I’ve been sitting around feeling sorry for myself all month, and grousing about life and work and such, and being apathetic about nearly everything, and after all that, my wonderfulness cannot be hidden, and in fact is endorsed in print by The Washington Post. Not to mention my forthcoming CD release, featuring my solo which was stolen from a little child who still gives me dirty looks. It almost makes being mind-numbingly busy worth it. Almost.


My only joy in the past month has been in snatching up DVD bargains and hard-to-find bootleg movies and such. Like yesterday, when I bought this at Target for $29.99, even though its retail value is $90. I can only imagine the embarrassment in the stock room when the pricing mix-up is discovered.


I also FINALLY received my black market movies ordered well before Christmas – I guess the black market movie business gets busy over the holidays. So I got, much to my delight and Jet’s chagrin:

- Every episode of the original Space Ghost, featuring teenage siblings and a monkey

- Every Superfriends short produced between 1981 and 1983, featuring teenage siblings and a monkey.

- Every episode of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl –just one teenager and no monkeys, unless you count actor Norman Alden.

If you ever want a refreshing reminder of what you learned from mass media as a child, sit down to a few hours of back-to-back Superfriends episodes. It’s an eye-opening experience. Some common through-lines:

1)If you are NOT white and American, then your superhero name should probably include your skin color, or should be stereotypically representative of your cultural heritage. Oh, and you can ignore the laws of physics.

Exhibit A, the “International” Superfriends, who despite being from the four corners of the Earth, always seem to be hanging out at the Hall of Justice waiting for trouble:

Apache Chief - Can grow to 50 feet high by saying “Enek Chok”.
Wears a leather vest and matching loincloth - even though his crotch is plainly visible to anyone of normal size who happens to be standing under him. Once shouted “Enek Chok” over and over until he was BIGGER THAN THE EARTH. When saying anything other than “Enek Chok”, he speaks like he’s had a stroke.

Samurai – Can turn into cyclones, fires, and other things that the writers made up as they went along. Dressed in a green bathrobe-diaper sort of thing, which I’m reasonably sure real Samurais never wore.

Black Vulcan – “Hey, everybody, did you hear? He’s BLACK. Not that you could tell, what with his bikini shorts and tunic open to his navel. Better add the “black” in front of his name so everybody knows his race right off.” Black Vulcan can turn his legs into lightning, which enables him to do lots of things that real lightning can do, like fly through space unaided and travel through time. Shockingly, didn’t speak in jive.

El Dorado – He’s Mexican. You know this because he’s named after a Mexican City. An imaginary Mexican City. And he speaks perfect English except for when he has to say “yes”, or “friend”. He wears a blanket, which he can use to wrap around himself and disappear – just like real Mexicans!

Rima the Jungle Girl – Not quite sure what sister’s deal is. She’s from South America, but has white hair and doesn’t speak in regional dialect. She’s barefoot and wears a potato sack no matter the weather, and manages to find vines to swing from, even in the middle of Washington, DC. In her favor, she always has to be picked up for missions, and doesn’t seem to loiter in the Hall of Justice like the boys do.

2) Every scientist, astronaut, archaeologist, and teenager has access to a direct video uplink to the Hall of Justice’s “Trouble Alert”. One caveat: if a teenager’s crisis is particularly pedestrian or commonplace, then they apparently ONLY have access to the “teen trouble alert”, which bypasses the Superfriends proper and only alerts the Wondertwins, Zan and Jayna. Such commonplace problems include teens who drive too fast, sass their parents or spend nights in haunted houses on a dare. The Wonderwtins subsequently get captured or trapped, because they are tools, and have to be rescued by a real Superfriend anyway, so why they bother with their own alert system I’ll never know.

Jayna, as you may remember, can turn into any animal. ANY animal. But instead of turning into a kodiak bear or sperm whale and whupping some ass, she relies on a steady menu of sparrows, giraffes, gophers, and the like.

Zan can turn into anything made of water, ice, or steam. Like “gelatin dessert”, which he actually changed into once. I didn’t make that up. Zan apparently shares a sort of psychic link with Jayna, so that if she changes into, say, a kangaroo, he will instinctively change into, say, an ice bowling ball. (Kangaroos are renowned for their bowling skill, I guess). I didn’t make that up, either. Zan also feels compelled to announce that the object he’s turning into will be made of ice, even though THAT’S ALL HE CAN TURN INTO. Like, maybe, if he accidentally said “form of a wrench”, he might actually turn into a WRENCH, instead of one made of ice.

Retards.

Poor Dino, having tasted freedom for a brief moment, has had it snatched away from her just like that. You see, Jet installed a doggie door for our little precious, at the urging of the Gay Reverend, who was horrified when we revealed over dinner that Dino sat on the sofa all day watching BBC America and waiting for us to come home.

So after three weeks, we finally got Dino to go through the door without being manhandled, assuming that, since she came back inside while we WERE home, she would do the same when we WEREN'T.

Well, our kindly neighbor Miz Smif came over the other night to reveal that she had been called by Mrs. Kravitz on the next street over, who threatened to call Animal Control because Dino was outside ALL DAY, in the FREEZING SNOW, barking. Oh, you can't imagine our horror and sadness, and to think that we could have been a segment on "Animal Precinct"! So, the doggie door is closed until summer. Or until we get another dog to boss Dino around.

That's all for now. I pledge to be more regular from now on, don't despair!

Large and In Charge

Well, my plan of disappearing for a week just to see if anyone missed me seems to have worked, as I’ve been practically inundated with requests, nay DEMANDS that I post something. And here I thought no one cared.

The problem lately is that my boss, Dr. Phil’s good twin, has taken the dramatic step of having a kidney removed (I assume the surgery wasn’t for cosmetic reasons, but one never knows these days). And, because I’ve done such a good job these past months of surfing the internet all day and doing just enough work to appear competent, I’ve been left in charge of production operations for my major scientific peer-reviewed journal, and my two co-workers, Poinsettia and Palsy. Poinsettia is from Argentina, and tells me she would go dancing every day if she had the money, and plays Andrea Bocelli CDs at top volume (while singing along, off-key), and has the amazing ability to be shown a task repeatedly one day, and the next day have no recollection of how to do said task, nor that she was ever shown how.

Palsy has a framed copy of the serenity prayer on her desk, leading me to believe that she may be in AA, yet she smells like booze, and sleeps at her desk during her lunch hour. Most of my workday is taken up with doing her work, as she can’t seem to get any of it done herself.

Both ladies are black belts in karate, which I am not, so I just go about my business, keep my mouth shut, and write about them behind their backs.

I’m also doing quite possibly the stupidest opera ever written, where the director is determined to make us rehearse for a full three hours a night, whether we need to or not. If we run out of things to rehearse, the rest of the time is filled by the director or conductor telling mind-numbingly boring stories and name-dropping. I was informed the other night that the costume department has nothing to fit my manly frame, and apparently no money to spend getting me something, so I’m on my own in aquiring a costume. Lack of funds must be why the conductor wears the same dirty jeans every night. You may think I would be stricken by the indignity of it all; on the contrary, I can guarantee I will be the best looking thing on stage.

Having been gone, I’m coming in on the tail end of all this Jeff Gannon brouhaha – you know, the “reporter” from Talon “News” Service, who despite having no journalism credentials was given unprecedented access to White House Press Briefings, where he was wont to feed Scott "Caught-in-the-headlights" McClellan staged questions culled from Sean Hannity talking points.

It also seems that he may have been involved in the outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame , a Federal crime.

Oh, and more amazingly, he’s gay military escort service websites. Not strictly illegal, but against the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and awfully hypocritical for someone who has promoted "ex-gays," defended Bush on gay marriage, and defended Rick Santorum’s equating gay sex with bestiality.

And I’m willing to bet the whole thing blows over by Saturday, thanks to the “liberal” media who lets Bush get away with anything.

Sigh.

Bamm-Bamm’s bigger brother, Randy-Randy, is also having surgery today, to remove his bladder, prostate, and whatever else needs to be removed to ensure that no cancer remains. The surgery is being done by Randy-Randy’s ex-wife’s new husband, a gifted and magnanimous urologist.

In a stunning show of humility, Randy-Randy’s ex-wife, Satan, is insisting that the credit for the life-saving surgery belongs entirely to her, because she GOT MARRIED TO A UROLOGIST.

Randy-Randy will appreciate your good wishes, and I’ll report what I hear from Mother Rubble, who has gone to tend him in his convalescence.

In happier news, horse-faced people the world over are rejoicing at the news that those lovebirds, Charles and Camilla, will be married next month.

Think she’ll wear white?

Also wed this week is long-suffering single gal Cathy, who finally married her gay boyfriend of 75 years, Irving. I am assured the wedding will not affect Cathy’s ability to cram her unreadable strip with too many damn words, but I sure will miss the hilarity of trying on swimsuits in the Spring!

Speaking of marriage, or close approximation thereof, Jet and I celebrate 12 years of blissful togetherness today. I’m eagerly awaiting his arrival for lunch, which is likely the only time we’ll see each other for more than five minutes this week, though he sent me a lovely bouquet of multi-colored roses for my desk, and he’ll receive his dozen red today. Mother Rubble sent a lovely card, and we’ll celebrate with a pot-luck with friends in a couple of days. Take that, James Dobson!

And isn't "frog" a slang word for....

More from “Dr.” James Dobson, whom as you’ll recall is of the devil.

If you can stomach it, head on over to the Focus On The Family Website, then look for the link to Ribbits, a magical land filled with anthropomorphic Frogs.

At least three of whom have prominent pelvic bulges protruding from their nether regions. One of the frogs who sports wood is also purple, which is a clear indication he is gay.

Further examination of the Froggy Friends cast list reveals a Brazilian drag queen, and Sally, who “has a habit of breaking out into song and quoting lines from classic movies”.

Where’s a good homosexuality detection expert when you need one?

I urge you to Write to Dr. Dobson or simply dial 1-800-A-FAMILY and ask him why he's subjecting America’s children to such filth.

Go, you Chicken Fat, Go!

The final nail in the coffin of purity and goodness. Sigh.

More on the SpongeBob Squarepants outing…another organization has apparently confirmed
confirmed “Dr.” Dobson’s suspicions about our poor little sea creature.

From the article:

A "homosexuality detection expert" at the similarly conservative Family Research Council told the NY Times that words like "tolerance" and "diversity" are part of a "coded language that is regularly used by the homosexual community."

I’m not sure which is creepier – that tolerance and diversity are bad words, or that an organization actually pays someone to be a homosexuality detection expert.

I detect it every day, for free, and I’m never wrong. Premature and optimistic in some cases, perhaps, but not wrong. Maybe I should be charging a consultation fee?

For all you busy mothers out there - Xavix Interactive Technologies has finally perfected technology to ensure that your children will never have to leave the house again! Now they can work up a sweat playing simulated versions of such American classics as bowling and baseball, without the risk that they might actually have to interact with a real person, especially one of another race.

Jesus, even I might actually get off my ass and drive to the bowling alley if I want to go bowling.

Poor LSBB is working so hard to make a better life for herself. She toiled for a year before being offered health insurance, and even excelling all that time she’s still low man on the totem pole. The latest insult is her new colleague Jessica the Hut, who waltzed in only to receive a better office and more smoke breaks per day than anyone else. As her nom de guerre might imply, she is ponderously fat – so fat that she informed LSBB that she didn’t even know she was pregnant (with her son-named-after-a-dog, Milo) until she was six months along. (Not being a medical professional I suppose I shouldn’t speak to such matters, but…wouldn’t you start to think something was up if you didn’t have a period for, like, two or three months?) When asked if she quit smoking during her pregnancy, she answered, “Well....................yeah, i mean, when I found out!" (Again, NOT a doctor, but…if you’ve already smoked for the first two trimesters, why bother quitting for the third?) The very picture of idealized motherhood, Jessica paid extra to have a c-section a week before her due date…so she could attend a PRINCE CONCERT.

Ms. Hut wears gargantuan Tori Amos concert t-shirts to work, apparently, and in fact has sent Ms. Amos several hand-crafted gifts, which she then follows up on via email to ensure that her gifts have been received and are being used for their intended purpose – say, as a door-stop in the studio or something. I’m CERTAIN Tori is touched by the thought.

As this week began with the most depressing day of the year, followed Tuesday by my singing at the memorial service for Washington Post columnist Marjorie Williams – where her high school chum Mary Chapin Carpenter sang a tearful goodbye, followed by Ms. Williams’ young children eloquently reading Shakespeare, followed by her 8-year old daughter singing “Fields of Gold” with a mournful, grown-up-sounding voice – you can imagine I was ready for a pick-me-up. Which arrived in the guise of a video of the only remaining episode of Luci’s Toy Shop, the beloved local children’s television show that anyone growing up in Columbus, Ohio from 1960-1972 will surely remember.

I don’t know WHY there’s only one show left, but there is, and it’s not a very good one, and it’s from before I was born, but I delighted to see it just the same. Luci, then, was a perky Sandy Duncan-esque gal who wore a red- and white-striped pinafore dress (every little girl in Columbus had an exact copy!) and, obviously, hung out in a Toy Shop, joined by her puppet friends Stanley Mouse, Mr. Dragon, Walrus, Pierre Poodle, Wonder Witch, Baby Giraffe, et al. I myself had all the knockoff puppets there were when I was a lad, including Charlie Horse who had to be operated with two hands!

This episode has something to do with a circus, and Luci’s efforts to enlist her pals to audition for it, only everyone runs away to join a real circus, because they don’t know about the auditions, except they don’t really run away….something like that. I suspect the episode had been written, bleary-eyed, over a cup of coffee at the all-night diner, because Luci keeps looking desperately off screen for cue cards, and situations that are resolved one minute are still present the next.

The most surreal moments are when Luci reaches into the sky to beat an imaginary gong, which even though imaginary, is apparently located somewhere because she looks frantically for it, and acts as if there’s a risk it won’t be found. Once struck, the gong magically blanks out the screen for a few seconds, and when the picture comes back we are greeted by a new puppet friend, Chan Ten, a shocking Chinese caricature who says things like “Me rikey” and “Gorry”. I have no recollection of Chan, I think he must have been fazed out by the time I came along, but I’ll be sure to ask Code Dependent about it.

The rest of the show is spent dancing to songs from the Mary Poppins soundtrack, and trying to prevent Dragon from getting angry (because when he does so, he turns from a puppet into an adult man wearing a vaguely dragon-shaped bedsheet, with dress slacks and wingtips sticking out the bottom. And who wants THAT?)

And just when you think the fun is over, the tape keeps going….first comes a series of news clips talking about the anniversary of Luci’s Toy Shop, and what Luci’s doing now, and how another local children’s show had recently filmed a special reunion/tribute/documentary thingie about Luci.

And THEN…a Buckeye Potato Chip commercial from the 60’s, with a dancing cartoon female potato chip (it’s hard to explain).

And THEN…the actual reunion/tribute/documentary thingie! Mind you, all but the episode itself was completely un-heralded on the video jacket. You can only imagine my glee, and Jet’s revulsion, at the hours of enforced misery that lay before him!

Sadly, Luci passed away in October 2003. Sniff. I guess I’ll go back to being blue now.

Goodnight, Johnny

January 24: Welcome to the most depressing day of the year!

I don’t know why I should be so worked up over the death of Johnny Carson, but I start to tear up every time I think about it. I was not a particular fan of him OR the Tonight Show, though I did watch it every now and again, especially when I was a post-college young adult and it made me feel urbane to do so. I haven’t watched it since Johnny left, however, as the sound of Jay Leno’s voice makes me want to smash his face in.

I DID have a fantasy-life, starting at about age 9 or 10, which involved me being a precocious child star and making requisite appearances on The Tonight Show. My spot always followed either Shelley Winters, Hermoine Gingold, or a cast member from It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. (Only once did I fantasize following Robin Williams, and the subsequent predicament of how to make him keep his mouth shut during my interview).

I suppose I mourn more for what Johnny represented – the last true vestige of the Borscht-Belt entertainment of my parents’ generation, which I always thought I would be quite good at had I been born forty years earlier. I can do a slow burn with the best of them, but there’s not much call for it nowadays.

I also nursed imaginary lives as a singer on Lawrence Welk, a cast member on Hee Haw, and a star of a Beach movie, so you can see my love of cornpone pop culture of the past is longstanding.

In other news….

- My sanity is saved. Liberal talk radio that I can hear at work!

- The emperor with no clothes? YOU be the judge (WARNING: may not be appropriate for the workplace!)

- Jet and I DID make it to see Kate Mulgrew play Katharine Hepburn. Amazing. Not just amazing acting and script, but a remarkable physical and vocal impersonation of Ms. Hepburn at age 31 (Act I) and 76 (Act II) - though Ms. Mulgrew is, in our opinion, far prettier than Hepburn ever was.

I’m sure you’ve heard that Fundamentalist kook James Dobson, who as you recall is of the devil, has come out swinging against beloved star of stage and screen, SpongeBob Squarepants, for being a subversive homosexual.

PLEASE give us some credit. Oh, sure, we radical homosexuals, along with the Jews, have been busy taking over Hollywood for the past fifty years PRECISELY so that we could subversively homosexual characters in children’s programming and recruit children to our deviant lifestyle. But we’re not so foolish as to use such OBVIOUS agents like SpongeBob, Tinky-Winky, Vanity Smurf, the Pink Panther, and Bugs Bunny in a dress. No, our secret weapons are much more insidious.Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you a sampling of some of our success stories;

Archie
Black Vulcan
Mr. Magoo
Jem
Goofy
Yosemite Sam
Schleprock
Captain Planet
The entire cast of Scooby Doo, including Scrappy

I could literally go on forever, but I don’t want to give away ALL our secrets. If this sort of thing upsets you, I encourage you to drop a line to Dr. Dobson right away and ask him why he’s been so slow on the uptake. Children’s programming is teeming with secret queers!

Before I go, a couple MORE things about Dubya’s prayer meetin’: I’ve had several reports that, indeed, Dubya was NOT prepared to contribute to the collection plate, but that Daddy slipped him a twenty. I can’t vouch for it, as I only saw Dick ante up, but I suppose if it was on TV, then it’s so.

Also, I forgot the excitement witnessed as I was driving home after the service. Lining Massachusetts Avenue were abortion protestors, with giant placards displaying photographs of bloody, dismembered fetuses. So they took their obviously expensive protest materials and set up shop:

a) outside the VATICAN EMBASSY;
b) on a strip of Massachusetts Avenue traveled primarily by BUSLOADS OF REPUBLICANS coming back from the inaugural prayer service

Ummm….isn’t that kind of preaching to the choir?

Snow Day!

Not that there was THAT much on the schedule, it being Saturday and all, except that we were planning to go see Kate Mulgrew in Tea at Five tonight...but Ticketmaster informs us we can have our tickets honored at one of two shows tomorrow, so we're staying in, mixing drinks for Floozy Flingland and watching Dino cavort in her first snow.

Unfortunately, having worked in a box office or two, being able to exchange our tickets for our choice of performances tomorrow tells me the show must not be selling well. A shame, as we adore Kate Mulgrew (gay men are perhaps the only people who like Captain Janeway and her ilk), and we love Katharine Hepburn, the subject of Tea at Five.

Thanks to all my peeps at Democratic Underground for all the kind words of encouragement, and I promise to try and be witty and insightful always, now that people I don't actually know are apparently reading. If you're linking from there, scroll down for yesterday's report. And here are a couple fo things I forgot to mention:

- Despite being caught without his wallet last inauguration, Dubya was again unable to conribute anything to the collection plate...though Dick did ante up. The proceeds, apparently, go to USA Corps.

- Rumor has it that Laura's hairdo cost $700. I achieved the same sort of look on Little Sister with a round brush and a blow dryer, when I was thirteen years old. She could have saved a bundle by coming to me (and one's mind reels at the hubbub that would have been created had a Hilary Clinton or, say, Therza Heinz Kerry been caught spending that much on themselves).

That's all for now. I've got to go learn an opera and figure out how to make a Bloody Mary that doesn't turn my stomach. Ta ta!

I, witless to History

As promised, here is my on-the-spot report of The Fifty-Fifth Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service, held this morning at The Washington National Cathedral.

First, my assessment of security. The choir had to arrive at 7:45, so that we could be safely escorted through in plenty of time to eat our muffins, warm up, and get to our places. Once we were all gathered at the College of Preachers, a separate building from the main Cathedral, we marched up the hill to a side entrance, where we were to stow any bags or packages that we had brought. Then we had to march back outside, aaaalllllll the way around the building to the main West entrance, where we could be magnetometized and wanded before entering the building. Then we were allowed to proceed to the choir room, where our muffins were waiting.

The choir room, which is just inside the entrance where we had first stowed our bags.

Our bags, which we still had free access to, with NO ONE WAITING TO WAND OR MAGNETOMETIZE US.

Should any one of us taken it upon ourselves to hide, say, an atomic weapon in our Hello Kitty lunch pail, it would have been a pretty simple thing, I should think.

Otherwise, the SS (Secret Service) took every opportunity they could to make us stand erect with our arms outstretched so they could rub their wands all over our bodies. Yes, it’s JUST as homoerotic as it sounds. Several of the choir men commented that they had had many fantasies that began just that way.

Fun Fact for the day: The leading health complaint of Secret Service officers is bladder infections, because once they’re on duty they’re not even allowed to take pee breaks!

We took our places in the Great Choir shortly before 10 o’clock. For those unfamiliar with the National Cathedral, the Great Choir is a little cordoned-off section nearest the altar, separate from the main church, which is where most of today’s action took place. Fortunately, I was positioned in just such a way that I had a perfect view of the ront rows of the nave, which is where the President’s family was seated.

George H.W. and Bar were already in place when the choir arrived. Of course, I’ve already sung for THEM, in 1998 at the University of Miami. I’m certain they would have remembered, had I been able to chat them up a bit. Bar was wearing a black dress with a black-and-white houndstooth jacket, and of course her signature pearls. HW wore the Republican uniform of the day, a dark suit, though he spiced it up with a pale blue shirt and red tie. My 1998 assessment still holds true: she looks great in person, he looks like the Cryptkeeper.

Five minutes AFTER the service was to supposed to begin, the JennaBarbaras traipsed in. JennaBarbara One (the brunette) looked lovely and poised, and a sweet little teal Audrey Hepburn-esque number. JennaBarbara Two (the other one), in winter white, looked, as she always does, a bit...well, dirty. She certainly showed too much cleavage for church, and that’s a fact. At least her hair was brushed, not like at yesterday’s swearing in ceremony when it was secured by a RUBBER BAND and looked all kookity. The JennaBarbaras weren’t hungover THAT I COULD TELL, but I imagine by now they’re pretty good at spritzing a bit of perfume in their mouths, pinching their cheeks and sallying forth to meet the world.

The JennaBarbaras were followed in by the Cheneys. Say, did you know they have a lesbian daughter? Dick wore a dark suit with dark mauve tie. Lynn wore a Norwegian Blue suit accompanied, unfortunately, by MATCHING EYE SHADOW. Dick, as always, lurched along like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and looked as if he begrudged every breath he took.

G.W. and Laura were the last to enter, he in a dark suit with puce tie, and she in a lovely pale pink suit. She really CAN look elegant when she wants to, and I have to tell you that the camera doesn’t do her justice. I always think she has a plump face when I see her on tv or in photographs, but she really has quite strong cheek bones and a nicely defined jawline.

The service began with the singing of “Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee” – all sang except Dick – followed by Reverend Billy Graham’s opening Prayer. He is on a walker, and had to helped to the podium, but he still has a fierce, Charlton-Heston-in-the-second-half-of-The-Ten-Commandments look about him. His hair is so white it glows, his voice is strong, and I do believe he could whup some ass if he really had to. (I do wish he’d whup some sense into that son of his, but that’s a topic for another time). The National Anthem was then sung, and then we all sat down for the parade of multiculturalism:

The first lesson, read in Hebrew by Rabbi Mort Yolkut (A Jew!)
A prayer by Bishop G.E. Patterson of the Church of God (An African-American!)
A Psalm led by Reverend Luis Cortes, President of Nueva Esperanza, Inc. (A Latino!)
A reading by the Meropolitan Herman, Orthodox Archbishop of Washington (A Greek!)
A reading by Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore (A Catholic!)
Prayers by all of the above, plus Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, (another Catholic!)Archbishop Demetrios of New York (another Greek!) , and Imam Yahya Hendi of Georgetown University (gasp! A Muslim!).

The sermon, by Rev. Mark Craig of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, was some claptrap about living every day to the fullest, and then degenerated into a coy re-wording of Bush’s speech yesterday – you know, spreading freedom throughout the world, yadda yadda yadda.

The choir then sang “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”, the fifth verse of which was my solo verse, written just for me – and JennaBarbara talked ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I can tell you one thing, if we chilluns ever acted up in church, Mother Rubble would have had us outside getting spanked so fast, it would’ve made your head spin! Seems to me a good whack every now and again might do those girls a world of good.

Shortly thereafter, one of the boy choristers lost his muffins in a most ungainly way (apparently, he had eaten lots of cherry Danish). Bless his heart, he had no sooner wretched than he was right back up, ready to sing. But THAT SOUND, and the SMELL, it’s a wonder the lot of us didn’t have one of those chain-reaction vomit-offs you’re always hearing about.

So then we sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. Overlooking a pile of fresh vomit.

The only other dignitaries I was able to pick out were Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who I see EVERYWHERE, and John Ashcroft, who practically fell over himself trying to shake Billy Graham's hand.

Most hopeful portent of the day: Reverend Craig, amidst the claptrap and political shilling, managed to let us know that God actually DOES love Hindus and Moslems and Buddhists and Jews, right in line with the Gospel reading, Matthew 5:43-48;

You have heard it said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect , therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Most troubling portent: The singing of the obscure second verse of the National Anthem, which reads, in part (emphasis mine): “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just…”

Spreading freedom, indeed.

Coronation Day....

…and the town is abuzz with Inaugural activities for Emperor Shrub. I myself will take part tomorrow, when I sing at Dubya’s Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. A solo. Written just for me. But I’m not bragging. Upstaging me on the marquee will be peg-leg Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, who butchered Ave Maria so badly at Reagan’s funeral, I guess they decided to give him a chance to redeem himself. And, lest I appear on television, rest assured I have grown a bit of a beard so as not to receive any long distance complaints (you KNOW who you are).

I WAS sorry to miss Jenna and Barbara’s “Youth Concert” the other night, if only to hear the gasps of horror when a musician inadvertently uttered the “f” word for the audience. That would have been the ONLY event of interest, apparently, as the following account relates (emphases mine - the image of Stephen Baldwin makes me especially giddy):

While the message was positive, the concert's cool quotient was in question. "I guess it would be a cool concert if you're a 17-year-old girl," said Roy Trakin, senior editor of Hits magazine. Not really, said Millicent Bolin, 17-year-old from New Orleans. Many in the audience were on school trips, and some weren't thrilled that the concert was on their itinerary. "We had to come," Millicent said. "I don't like these people ... they're too fake and mainstream." If the concert fell short on the hip scale, it wasn't for lack of trying. Stephen Baldwin took the stage on a skateboard. "Are you guys rockin' or what?" he enthused. While the star power was only so-so, according to Trakin, he gave the Republicans credit for persuading a half-dozen acts to perform. "It's not all country and polka," he noted. Still, the GOP line-up didn't compare to the Democrats' star-studded concerts last fall that featured Bruce Springsteen, the Dave Matthews Band, R.E.M. and other heavy hitters, Trakin said. "All the action is still on the Democrats' side," he said. "Bill Clinton had Fleetwood Mac ... George Bush has Hilary Duff."

Of course, I'm astonished that any activities could proceed as planned, being that we've had AN INCH of snow, throwing the city into chaos. Tuesday, BEFORE the snow came, several school systems closed anyway...because it was COLD. I'm not kidding. Rather than wake up a few maintenance men to go down to the bus yard and warm up the fleet, they cancelled school for 200,000 children in a week where they had already had a holiday.

When I was a lad, during the blizzrd of 78, there was two feet of snow and the school building was without heat for two weeks, and we STILL had to go in to school for half-days, bundled up in our woollens and caps. And the other half of the day we had to go to the public library and do our homework. Kids today, sheesh.

A moment of silence, please, for Ruth Warrick, claimed this week by pneumonia. She is, of course, the creator and 35-year portrayer of the second-greatest female soap opera role ever, Pheobe English Tyler Wallingford Matthews Wallingford (number 1 is Erica Kane, number 3 is Dorian Lord). She also appears in a host of old-timety movies, such as Citizen Kane and the never-to-be-seen-again Song of the South (though my sources tell me Disney is itching to get it out on DVD, if they can just find a black actor with enough cache in the black community to support it. Wayne Brady volunteered, but he’s not black enough, apparently. I, of course, have a bootleg copy of my own.)

And finally today, the mystery of why I like caveman movies has finally been solved.

Back tomorrow or the next days with my full prayer meetin’ report!

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

The Today Show, which for some reason I can’t stop watching even though I hate it, has given me two frights this week; The first, yesterday, when it showed a clip of a man being fished out of a Los Angeles river. Apparently, he had been wearing sweatpants when his car became trapped by rising water, and at some point in the course of being rescued and hauled to shore, he lost said sweatpants…and apparently wasn’t wearing underwear. The point being, the Today Show producers just ran the tape without digitizing the poor man’s wiener. Not that I object to the sight of a penis, obviously, but not at 7 o’clock in the morning, and not on the Today Show! Subsequent airings of the tape did utilize digital obfuscation, and Lester Holt was even kind enough to mention to the poor fool during a live interview that they were, in fact, protecting his modesty – except for that one time, I guess.

The second scare was on today’s installment, with Katie Couric unashamedly flirting with Newt Gingrich, who looks like a grown-up Cabbage Patch Kid and reeks of pure evil. How he can still be going on about moral values, after serving divorce papers to his second of three wives while she lay in the cancer recovery ward, is beyond me. Who still listens to this fool?

Thankfully, more and more real Christians are reclaiming their faith from the kooks.

And speaking of religious kooks, Mel Gibson has driven the Fundamentalists crazy by recently coming out as staunchly anti-Iraq War, as well as pronouncing a kinship with fellow kook filmmaker Michael Moore. Makes me more inclined to watch my copy of The Passion which Mother Rubble gave us for Christmas, which I’ve been avoiding because of the gore, seeing as how I didn’t sleep for three weeks after watching the trailer for Dawn of the Dead. But that’s another story.

So it’s almost 70 degrees, and my allergies are causing me to have burning pain in my lungs, and I, like the rest of the world, am wondering what happened to winter. And just when I think THAT’S bad enough, I go and find that it may not be just the Earth that’s in trouble.

Now, who can help me figure out how to blame this on the Bush administration?

In addition to finding scary interstellar climate theories while surfing the internet, not doing my work, I ran across this interesting theory which caused me a good hour-and-a-half of sleeplessness: seems a mathematician has come up with a theory that the Dark Ages may never have happened – like, those years, roughly 614-911 AD, simply didn’t exist, they were just kind of, inserted into history as if they did exist, but there’s really no independent archaeological or literary proof of it. Which means it’s really only about 1700 or so. Wonder what this does to millenialists who think the end of the world is overdue?

Consuela, my workplace cubicle-mate, not only makes and receives cell phone calls, in Spanish, all day long, but also plays some kooky radio station that she streams from the internet. Here’s a sampling of today’s playlist:

Never On a Sunday (on vibraphone)
Once I Had a Secret Love
Mona Lisa
Born Free
Somewhere My Love
Witchita Lineman
Mack the Knife

Not that I have a particular aversion to these songs individually, but en masse they’re a bit much to take, especially without a cocktail in one’s hand. The last straw was Over the Rainbow – not the Wizard of Oz soundtrack version, but the old, boozed-up Judy Garland. That’s enough to make me want to end it all on the best of days.

More internet fun, about

Now that THAT'S over...

…we can all say goodbye to our fun and visits and eating and get back to our boring, humdrum lives, and be thankful we don’t live somewhere that God can smite us with a tidal wave for being Hindu (and I’m NOT EVEN KIDDING that I heard someone say that THAT was the reason for the tsunami that surely killed lots of Christians and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists, too)….

So Jet and I had a lovely nine-day visit with Mother Rubble – actually, it was mostly Jet, since he was off work and I wasn’t, and plus had to work extra down to the Cathedral and all. But Jet was kind enough to run her out to the grocery store, and up to Pennsylvania to visit the Reverend Uncle, and such, while I labored away. All for the sake of appearing on television on Christmas morn, along with Jet and Mother Rubble, only to hear that the lights washed me out and I looked pale and sickly! And from Code Dependent, no less, who now has the medical authority to back up her opinions!

I HAVE finally gone to the doctor for my persistent cough, only to hear that I’m a bad patient for not paying close enough attention to the color of my mucous. Oh, for the days when they would pass out antibiotics like candy! Now I imagine I’ll be back in a week with the same complaint, my coffers being bled dry one 10-dollar co-pay at a time.

After church on Christmas Day, we had a happy present opening, where I got everything I wanted and Jet got everything that he wanted-even-though-he-didn’t-know-he-wanted-it. Best present for Jet: the collected works of David Sedaris on CD, read by the author.

Best present for me: The Complete “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” on DVD, or, as Jet likes to call it, “soft porn”. Added bonus – the discovery of the hitherto unknown theme song WITH lyrics, which opens the premier episode.

PS – Gil Gerard is perfection itself.

Best present for Dino: the “Bow-Lingual” bark translator. So far she says innocuous things like “Yippee”, and “Keep Up!”, though we did get one “Resistance is Futile”, and I’m keeping a guarded eye open for things like “Eat Drano” and “Bomb the Harbor”. You never know.

Mother Rubble left and at almost simultaneously we welcomed our old pal JubJub from Chicago. Though it pains me to disclose that I’ve known JubJub for twenty years, and we met as adults, we never fail to have a good time when she’s around, even though we never seem to do much except lay around and talk about what we might like to do if we could ever get off our asses and do it.

For all you serial daters out there, JubJub has a strong warning against eHarmony.com. After filling out her exhaustive questionnaire and being sent many unexciting romantic possibilities, she was finally sent an imminently qualified language arts professor (she herself is a teacher of English as a second language). So she excitedly clicked on the link to see the young gent’s pictures.

There she came upon some pictures of what she presumed to be the young gentleman’s mother, or perhaps him dressed as Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie for Halloween.

Nope, nothing so delightful as that…he was indeed a cross-dresser, and proud of it.

Oh, and blind.

So now I’m re-charged and ready to get back to work, eager in the next year to focus on my strengths – 1) exposing hypocrisy, 2) making fun of celebrities, and 3) complaining about slights to gay people.

To wit:

1) God did NOT send the tsunami to punish people for being Hindu, I’m quite sure. They’ve been Hindu a lot longer than there have even BEEN Christians, one would think God would have done something about them long before this.

NOR is he punishing Muslims for fighting amongst themselves.

NOR was it caused by a joint American/Israeli nuclear weapons test.

It’s just a natural phenomenon, all right? With terrible, terrible consequences, unfortunately, but natural nonetheless. Move on.

2) NOR, Star Jones-Reynolds, is there cause to thank the Lord on National television that you got home from your southeast Asian honeymoon “just in time” to avoid getting swept away. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, that’s like saying you narrowly avoided the Kennedy assasination because you were riding in a convertible the week before.

It seems Matt Lauer has finally decided to start growing his hair back. I’ll never forget the gasp of horror when he first appeared with that shorn look he’s been wearing the past few years. Unfortunately, he’s now at that awkward stage where all he can do is brush all his hair forward in a faux-Caesar look. He looks more like character actor Jay Robinson (that’s TV’s Dr. Shrinker to you, post-Baby Boomers!)

And can someone tell me HOW Stephen Bing, who looks like a toad, keeps getting hot women like Liz Hurley and Nicole Kidman?

3) Virginia is for lovers – just not gay ones. New legislation will promote the creation of vanity license plates embossed with intertwined gold bands and the words “Traditional Marriage”. Perfect for drivers eager to have their cars keyed whenever they drive into DC! I’m hoping to get my own vanity plate soon, but can’t decide between “Women belong in the kitchen” and “Jesus on my lips, hatred in my heart”.

That’s all for now, but never fear, I’ll try and be back soon. And stay tuned for next Friday’s breathless, eyewitness account of the Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral (and be sure to bid on my collection of bulletins and other ephemera on eBay shortly thereafter).

Know what I hate?

I hate when insipid news “reporters” interview Hollywood “actors” (for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s Katie Couric interviewing Leonardo DiCaprio on this morning’s Today Show), and they’re sitting on a fake movie set (as if movie sets aren’t already fake enough) and they’re sitting on those fold-out director’s chair, and they’re making it sound like acting is a hard thing to do. Trust me, my acting never fails to get good notices in the press, and it’s NOT hard. It’s practically the easiest thing in the whole world, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone should get paid millions and millions of dollars for doing it, since anyone who pursues it for a living is either hyper-narcissistic or has a low enough self-esteem that they would probably do it for free.

So the only thing easier than acting, I imagine, is my day job, which requires my attention for about 45 minutes out of every day, and the rest of the time I surf the internet or write things, and yet today I received my second raise in five months and a “performance bonus” of 500 dollars. Ho-hum. This coupled with my forthcoming national television appearance (Christmas morning, 9am EST, ABC networks, check your local listings) MIGHT be enough to give me a swelled head, but something is sure to happen soon to keep me humble, so never fear.

So I’m counting down the minutes until I can leave work early, and trying desperately to keep myself entertained until then. My favorite web diversion of late is Webshots, where you can browse thousands and thousands of pictures posted by people who, apparently, don’t know that posting pictures on the internet means that anyone in the world will be able to see them. Pictures like this, this, this, this, this, and this. I will freely admit that it gives me a certain voyeuristic tingle, similar to the days when I was working in a one-hour photo lab for a major Midwestern photographic specialty store. The workday there, while boring, was occasionally punctuated by a roll or two of film from a customer who was apparently unaware that their photos would be viewed by human attendants and, when particularly juicy, copied and posted on the staff room bulletin board. Customers like Mrs. K____, wife of Dr. N___ K____, the medical reporter for the ABC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. About once a month, Mrs. K___ would drop of a roll of pictures of her husband, sometimes fully naked and sometimes dressed in a Navy dress uniform, but always displaying his erect manhood. I don’t make this stuff up. Before you start forming a mental picture, let me add that, while Dr. K___ had nothing to be ashamed of in the manhood department, he looked like Alfred E. Newman if Alfred E. Newman had been smashed in the face, and was covered top to bottom in coarse red hair. There, go form your mental picture now. I’ll wait.

Dr. K___ lost his job, apparently, after he was caught illegally prescribing prescription laxatives or something to J___G___, the weatherman at the NBC affiliate. I was never too sure of all the details, but if you’re REALLY interested let me know and I’ll track them down.

That’s all. I’m off to whittle away my remaining hours and plan how to spend my performance bonus.

As Nana used to say: "Kids are Kids"

Charles Krauthammer says what I wanted to say the other day about Christmas and such, only he’s more coherent. That’s why he’s a professional columnist and I’m a weirdo who writes about buying comic books.

So last night I was at the National Cathedral’s annual National Cathedral School/St. Alban’s School Lessons and Carols service, in which every musical act at said schools gets to perform, so it should more accurately be called “One Part Lessons to Three Parts Carols”.

Tuition for the schools runs about $25,000 per year, which might lead one to think that the students come from DC’s better families. But apparently, money still doesn’t buy taste or class, or the ability to ensure that your children look like proper young ladies and gentlemen. Yet, WITHOUT exception;

EVERY young man had mussed-up hair, and looked as if he’d just come from snorting something in the boys’ restroom, and;

EVERY young woman under the age of 21 looked like a…well, Mother Rubble would say Street Walker, but I’ll just be straight with you and say they look like whores. They all had teased-up hair and caked-on make-up, and the tightest clothes imaginable, with the obligatory roll of fat poking out between their tops and skirts. And they all have permanent Paris Hilton-face, you know, the pouty look that girls make when they’re posing for the cover of a porno movie.

WHO is continuing to tell girls that this is a good look? I demand to know! I would have thought the fad would have burned itself out by now, or that girls of good sense would have asserted themselves, girls like Miss K at my office, who is young and drop-dead gorgeous (she’s a former model! ) and comes from California, and yet she wears her pants up around her waist as they should be worn, and wears little to no make-up, and if she has a love handle she keeps it to herself, and she has to practically BEAT the men off! Is this what the sexual revolution brought us, the freedom for rich children to look like trash?

Well, I’m done. I’m going shopping on my lunch hour, and then I’m all finished and ready to greet Mother Rubble’s arrival on Moday!

And the killer is....

THAT’S thirty bucks I’ll never get back.

I’m speaking, of course, of the seven-issue comic series Identity Crisis, which I wrote about a couple of months ago.

The series, by hot novelist Brad Meltzer (I mean hot in the pop culture sense, not in the Hugh Jackman sense) started off, as you may recall, with the murder of Sue Dibny, wife of the happy-go-lucky super-hero The Elongated Man. It was a classic locked-room mystery, no apparent clues and no apparent way for the murderer to get in and out. Sue was at home, preparing a surprise birthday party for her husband while he was out on patrol. The biggest surprise? After twenty years of marriage, she was pregnant. The only glimpse the readers got of the murderer was a hand holding a flamethrower and saying “Goodbye, Sue” before torching her.

As the series went on, we found out several heretofore unknown facts about the superhero community, including:

- that Sue Dibny had been raped by super-villain Dr. Light
- that the Justice League, in addition to regularly mind-wiping super-villains to make them forget sensitive information, mind-wiped Dr. Light to such an extent that his entire personality was altered
- that the Justice League, when confronted by an irate Batman (who objected to the personality modification of Dr. Light), mind-wiped Batman to make him forget the mind-wiping of Dr. Light

The reader was led to believe that a serial killer was on the loose…Jean Loring, ex-wife of shrinking super-hero The Atom, was attacked in her home, and plucky gal reporter Lois Lane received a threatening note indicating that the killer knew Superman’s identity. Jack Drake, father of Robin, was killed while defending himself against super-villain Captain Boomerang.

In the penultimate issue 6, we learned the results of Sue Dibny’s autopsy, which showed that she was NOT killed by the flamethrower after all, but by a brain aneurysm, an aneurysm caused by someone STANDING ON HER BRAIN (evidenced by a pair of tiny footprints which showed up in a CAT Scan). All evidence seemed to point to The Atom, who in fact had no alibi for the time of the original murder, and ended issue 6 about to get into bed with his ex-wife, with a leery grin on his face.

And so yesterday I was all jumpy and couldn’t concentrate, knowing that I would be leaving at 5:30 and going straightaway to the comic shop, and getting my grubby hands on the final issue, and finding out who the killer REALLY was, because I knew it WASN’T the Atom, and so the time finally came and I went and bought it and raced right home and, after walking Dino as I had promised to do, went right home and read it cover to cover, and then I cursed Brad Meltzer’s name and am forced to tell you that he is a hack, because the murderer is (stop reading if you don’t want me to spoil anything for you…)




Jean Loring. Yes, ex-wife of the Atom, who was attacked, as you recall, in her own home. She killed Sue by shrinking down to microscopic size using one of the Atom’s “spare costumes”, even though the existence of spare costumes was never established in the series. While microscopic, she used the Atom’s old trick of riding through the telephone lines, called Sue, and rode right into her inner ear, where she proceeded to accidentally grow too big and cause the aneurysm. She had intended, you see just to simulate a villainous attack. Luckily, she had enough foresight to bring a shrunken flamethrower with her, (and I quote), “Just in case.” JUST IN CASE!

So, having accidentally killed and then torched Sue, she staged an attack on herself, and then sent the note to Lois, and then hired Captain Boomerang to attack Jack Drake and left Jack Drake a gun with which to defend himself.

Her motive?

To get the Atom back.

Even though it WAS established, IN THE STORY, that the divorce was HER idea. Even though it was established, IN THE STORY, that the Atom still loved her and all she would have had to do to get him back was glance at him sideways.

So the entire series, essentially, with the introduction of legions of personality-altered super-villains, and a mind-wiped Batman, and oh, yes, the bastard son of Captain Boomerang who inherited super-speed from his as-yet unnamed mother, was all just a place to introduce these new concepts that will now, presumably, be explained in future comics! That’s like getting to the end of Citizen Kane, and you’re about to find out what Rosebud is, and then you find out you’re not going to find out until you go see, like, three or four other movies!

On the bright side, I have discovered “Astonishing X-Men”, written by Buffy creator Josh Whedon, which is really good, and actually has internal consistency, and if you like Buffy you should go and read it at once. And that’s that.

X marks the spot

So, I woke up all panicky this morning, because I haven’t done my Christmas shopping yet, and I usually have it all wrapped up by, oh, September 1 or so. But it’s been a lean year, so I’ve been waiting for this very day, December 15, when all the old bills were paid off and the new money started rolling in. So I go onto Amazon, which is where I do all my shopping, because you can find anything for anyone, and I complete my order, and then realize that Amazon cannot guarantee that my items will arrive by Christmas, only estimate. So then I get all panicky again, and start searching the Borders and Best Buy and Barnes and Noble websites, to see how much of this loot I can actually trot on down and pick up in person. And, as it turns out, I can get everything except one wished-for item, and the total bill, plus tax, will still be less than items plus shipping at Amazon. I’m a wonder, I am.

And all this talk of Christmas makes me think of the Cold Room, which I mentioned to LSBB the other day, and she got a creepy feeling because she kind of knew what I was talking about, until I described it in detail, whereupon she realized that she had blocked it from her memory.

The Cold Room, you see, was an odd little room, about 4 by 6, attached to the basement of our childhood home. It was a little room that was, well, cold. It had a wooden door with a latch, and you had to step up to get into it, and it was where Mother Rubble kept her onions and potatoes and empty mason jars. And in the far corner of the cold room was an old timety trunk, with old-timety Christmas decorations that were never used, and they smelled like Christmas (in retrospect, I suppose they smelled like mothballs and mustiness, but to me it was the smell of Christmas). Though LSBB is apparently blocking some secret fear of the cold room, Big Sister and I agree that it was a magical place full of treasures if one knew where to look.

And speaking of Christmas, why in the hell is everyone so up in arms about calling things “Christmas This” and “Christmas That” ? If your town puts up a tree in the public square, and calls it a “Holiday Tree” or a “Community Tree”, it’s STILL a CHRISTMAS TREE, and it’s up because it’s CHRISTMAS TIME, and EVERYONE has the day off whether they celebrate Christmas or not (except Safeway checkers and Church musicians), and putting up a tree (which originated as a pagan winter solstice celebratory tool) to commemorate what is, for all intents and purposes, a secular celebration of capitalism, hardly constitutes an endorsement of religion by the state. Especially when the “community tree” is flanked by a Menorah and a Muhindi, which are NOT re-named “Community Candelabra” and “Holiday Ear of Corn”. And if someone says “Merry Christmas” to you, and you don’t celebrate Christmas, just smile and walk on by, chances are very good that they genuinely wish you well and mean no disrespect. So everybody just settle down. If you really feel that a Christmas display on public property is exclusive, then pressure your town to build a display that includes all religions of the community. Putting a fake name on a Christian display still doesn’t embrace everyone, and pisses off the Christians.

And don’t think you’re off the hook, Christians. You can settle down, too. Boycotting stores because they haven’t put up ENOUGH Christmas decorations, why the very idea! And writing “Xmas” is NOT blasphemous, if you think it is you’re an idiot and you need to do some historical research on the early Christians and their symbols.

So there.

Speechless (literally!)

So, I’m back. The terribleness of the weekend, I could practically write a book, but beyond that, I’ve decided to stop bitching about the state of the nation, about which I can do nothing at the moment except bitch, and just write about any old thing that comes to mind.

Jet was gone all weekend at a work-related conference, staying at the rah-jah-jah J.W. Marriott in downtown DC, where our friend Uncle Mame works and made sure Jet was treated to the best of everything. So, I was at home alone with Dino, but without much time to sit and stew because I was performing in a sold-out cabaret of Noel Coward and Cole Porter songs, cleverly titled – wait for it – “Noel and Cole”.

Thursday night, I started feeling that terrible heavy feeling in my lungs, which means that a chest cold is imminent. Friday it was still there, but holding steady. Friday night I downed about a half-bottle of Robitussin, which not only kept me awake most of the night, but is apparently hallucinogenic. As I lay in bed watching a History Channel comparative biography of Hitler and Stalin (which I’m allowed to do when Jet is gone – watch TV in bed, that is), I was gripped with empathy for how horrible their respective childhoods had been, and convinced that if only I could invent a time machine, I could go back in time, kidnap them both as infants, and raise them up right. Then I was locked in a night-long debate with myself as to whether it would really do any good, or whether their evil was genetic.

Saturday matinee, worse. Saturday evening, I had to make several spur-of-the-moment exits off stage to get water, clear my throat loudly and disgustingly, and sneak back on without causing too much of a commotion.

Sunday I woke up with no voice, and had to muscle my way through two more cabaret performances as well as a Cathedral service in the morning.

It was murder, honestly, maybe the worst feeling in the whole world. The closest I’ve come to crying in public in a good long while. But to blow my own horn a bit, a fellow cast-member (who is also an internationally experienced stage performer and respected teacher) said the dramatic choices I made to get through said shows were smart and the sign of a true pro. So that’s that. I’m a true pro, but I still have no effing voice, and I’ve got gigs lined up every day from now through December 26, and what’s a girl to do?

I’ve been mainlining Mucinex and drinking, on average, a gallon-and-a-half of water every day for the past four days, with no discernible benefit. Last night, I tried Mother Rubble’s cure-all, a Hot Toddy (liquor, water, lemon juice and honey – though I suspect Mother Rubble used quite a bit less water than I did). I seem to remember having one once, going to bed, and waking up the next morning completely cured of all that ailed me. So I guess I made it wrong, because the result was that I was wide awake all night, swimming in a pool of my own sweat, and still have no voice today. Thankfully, I DID get to see an episode of my beloved Bewitched, and an Aunt Clara episode to boot! Unfortunately, I also saw an episode of Gunsmoke, from the 70’s when Marshall Dillon looked like a wax figure and Miss Kitty was, like, ninety years old, and I got engrossed, only to find that it was a Part 1, which means I have to wake up at 6 tomorrow so I can see Part 2.

I also saw plenty of "Girls Gone Wild" commercials, and I ask any straight men that might be reading to please write and explain to me what is appealing about young women pulling up their halter tops while staring blankly into space, or worse yet, gyrating their hips while making a face like they've just gotten a mouthful of iodine and are trying to scrape the taste off their tongues with their teeth.

So, I'm back at work, my first full day since last Thursday, and glad to be greeted with emails from oddly-named scientists from around the world! Here are my favorites so far:

Dr. Eberhard Fuchs
Dr. Electron Kebebew
Dr. Alison K. Death

Last night, Jet and I finished Gone With the Wind, which we’ve been watching in installments, and Jet now avows he’s never seen before in its entirety. It’s been quite awhile since I’d seen it, and it made me realize how political correctness has permeated the popular culture, as I was startled every time a character said “darky” - which was, like, a THOUSAND times. But I still love it, and many of you will remember that it’s Code Dependent’s favorite movie of all times and she could watch it a hundred times a day every day for the rest of her life. It also made me think, why the hell won’t they release Song of the South (also starring Hattie McDaniel)? It’s not nearly so offensive (I have a bootleg copy, of course, but would still pay good money for a restored version on DVD). The movie was released on VHS in Britain, and Laserdisc in Japan, which accounts for the ease of acquiring a bootleg copy. But, according to my sources, nervous Disney execs, planning the eventual video release in the US, had a notion to ask a prominent African-American celebrity to film a framing sequence that would place the film in its historical context. This being the mid-1980’s, the first person approached was Maya Angelou, who promptly refused and threatened boycott should it ever be released. This, apparently, is why Disney has pretended the movie doesn’t exists ever since.

But come on – if Maya Angelou isn’t out protesting Gone With the Wind, she CERTAINLY wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in protesting Song of the South, which as I said, is not nearly so offensive. I’m just sayin’.

Speechless, part II

Here ya go.

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/12/120104alabama.htm

"Where they start burning books, they end burning people."

Speechless

Liberal bias in the media? I wish.

An ad from the United Church of Christ has been rejected by CBS and NBC because it’s “too controversial”.

The reason it’s controversial? Because it advocates inclusiveness for all, including gays.

Really, some days I just want to hang my head and cry. When they come for us, will someone hide Jet and me in their attic? I promise a share of the royalties from the subsequent publication of any diaries.

Here is a statement from CBS on the matter (emphasis mine, to illustrate how far the media has its nose up Dubya’s ass): "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and otherminority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS andUPN] networks."

Suggested punitive-but-probably-pointless action: CBS and UPN (who also refuses to air the ad) are owned by Viacom, which also owns Blockbuster Video, currently under capitalistic attack by NetFlix. Write a nice letter to Blockbuster, including the cut-up bits of your Blockbuster card, explaining why you are no longer using Blockbuster and will be switching to NetFlix (or do as I do, buy any DVD you might even suspect you want, whether you ever watch it or not).