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April 21, 2007

Buzzkill

I don’t know about you, but it was a tough week at the office. Here’s a story I’d been following: on the West Coast, 60% of the bee population is missing. Here on the over-achieving East Coast 70% has gone missing. It’s called CCD – Colony Collapse Disorder when a bee hive’s inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and few immature workers. Sounds like a Gay Pride planning meeting I attended once. Theories about the disappearance involve mites, pesticides, genetically altered foods, global warming and cell phone radiation. I blame everything on this year’s premature time change. In the longer light, the bees busied themselves to death. Also Starbucks.

Albert Einstein, and he’s one Alberto we can believe, once said that if the bees disappear mankind would have only four years of life left. I’m hoping that CCD will turn out to be an urban legend like that one about the counter clockwise toilet flow south of the equator. I think what we are really witnessing is the collapse of the white male colony. As predicted, it is not pretty.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart to support the ban on partial birth abortion partially paralyzed me. Judge Anthony Kennedy, a man who recently judged a mock trial of Hamlet, a disturbed young man with a sword not a glock, fancies himself quite the writer, and wrote floridly for that damnable 5-4 majority. Next up: honor killings.

Perhaps Kennedy was working out some problems he’s been having at home with a regretful woman. Perhaps his wife didn’t get her bid on a pear-shaped finial she wanted on e-bay and was horrible to live with for weeks. You know how we get when we’re regretful. He’s not going to put up with that again. In a co-dependent crisis moment he decides it’s the man’s job to protect the little ladies from our emotions around abortion, so he won’t have to cop to the fact that he’s the one who can’t deal.

And I can blather like this because it has been The Festival of Amateur Analysis Week from Dr. Sean Hannity to Tucker “With A T” Carlson to Good Grief Counselor Paula Zahn.

Of course I am reviewing my memories of the excitement I felt at Kennedy’s lofty writing in our favor, in the Lawrence v. Kansas case, decriminalizing sodomy and overturning Bowers v. Hardwick. Has Kennedy changed? Could it have been all the henpecking he’s been getting from that regretful woman at home? More piling on of the amateur analysis. Don Anus must have been relieved this week that the spotlight was off him. That whole sorry episode killed Don Ho.

And thank goodness, empty-headed, incompetent cronyism is confined to the workings of the Justice Department. It is, isn’t it? Again I review my memories of other hearings – Watergate, Iran-Contra, Anita Hill, Guantanamo, no wait, did we even have one? – and I have never seen more evidence of white male colony collapse. Perhaps the ban on abortions, combined with abstinence only sex education, is the new army recruiting plan. Brilliant! It’s going to be a long war.

Gonzales is the hapless tool at Justice who makes you long for the good old days of Ashcroft. He was called before the Senate committee to answer questions about the possibility of politically motivated firing of eight federal prosecutors. Republicans are worried about voter fraud! That there is not enough of it. The Gonzales hearing was no Mind of Mensa Show. It was like Reagan, the Iran-Contra years. I’m going to try that Gonzales maneuver next week at work. George W gave him a “heckuva job” performance review. If I premember correctly, Alberto will be gone next week.

Posted by admin at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

April 13, 2007

Amazing Grace

In March of 1989, pre-full-blown March Marketing Madness, I was traveling through the old Denver airport and surprise, surprise was delayed by a weather event of some sort and had hours to kill. I had been hoping to get home in time to watch the Women’s NCAA basketball finals with some raucous friends. It didn’t look good.

After I resigned myself to a long delay, I found a smoky airport bar, ordered a beverage and thus felt entitled to ask the bartender if he would turn one of their TVs to the women’s final game. The what? The women’s basketball finals. You sure it’s on? After much cajoling, he finally sighed and all put-out, reached up and changed the channel. Although it was a Tennessee rout of Louisiana Tech, it was a pleasure to watch the women athletes.

It was not a pleasure to have to sit and listen to the men and some women in the bar wonder why that game was on instead of hockey, who those Amazons were, and other pre-Imus idiocies. I glared at any complainer, dared the bartender to touch the dial, and marvel to this day that I did not get into a barroom brawl. I was ready.

On this 35th Anniversary of Title IX, an equal opportunity measure which still must be defended from Bush late night signing statement shenanigans, the Women’s final was another Tennessee win, this time over the scrappy Rutgers team coached by the eloquent, inspirational C. Vivien Stringer. We in the Northeast, suffering through the insufferable Nicks and Nets season were cheered by the improbable success of our local Rutgers varsity team with all their talented freshmen athletes.

As the Scarlet Knights were settling back into mid-terms and dreams of next year, Don Imus launched the word bombs you’ve heard a million times and all hell broke lose. For anyone who has chanced on the doubly formatted Imus in the Morning show, this was not new behavior. The I White Man show has for years been a clubby, chummy safe place where mostly men correspondents, politicos and celebrities could josh and mix it up with the curmudgeon in the cowboy hat.

Perhaps it’s was Obama effect, or the sixtieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball that tipped Imus’ behavior into the last straw category, but enough was finally enough. The 24-7 drama has been about sexism, racism, free speech, the market etc. You’ve heard it all. I trust Pat Summit has sent a note.

I head off to Pennsylvania this weekend to watch my niece, a freshman on the Gettysburg College Women’s Varsity Lacrosse team, a strong contender to win their Division Three and to go onto the finals. Her name is Grace. She’s fierce, fast, has great hands. I will be the fan in the stands whooping inordinately with all the pent up fire I didn’t get to vent in that Denver airport bar. It will be for Grace and her team, of course, but it will also be for the double unformatting of the I-White-Man and all that it means. I am so ready.

Posted by admin at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 11, 2007

A Great Anniversary It Was!

‘Tis the season of bizarrely colored egg salad. It’s delish of course, but I tend to look away at the approach to my mouth. Not in a shunning way, all creatures great and small after all, but more in a distracted “wow, look at how much I owe in taxes, why don’t I just buy a Humvee and armorize it myself?” way.

And I owe all those taxes because of the success of our 25th Anniversary “It’s Come to This Tour.” Beware when your Turbo Tax program crunches the numbers and the final report begins with a laugh track and a flashing, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.” If I could just earmark it to women’s healthcare, early childhood education or a Scarlet Knights scholarship fund.

The last show of our tour was in Denver, Colorado at the wonderful Gothic Theater. It was on Good Friday of Passion Week. Ironically, it came to that. I gave it my all and it wasn’t just a good Friday, it was the best. It was mile high. As she has for almost 22 years, the lovely and talented maven of Maven Productions, Nona Gandleman brought me to the Rockies and produced a sold-out, standing room only blast of a night. They were scalping tickets! I love those Rockettes.

It was my last show with the sponsorship of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. I’ll thank them again at their big 30th Anniversary gala on May 12th in San Fransisters, and always. [think about coming to their gala – it’s a sea of leggy women in black cocktail dresses, yum] NCLR’s early and unconditional support made the tour even more special. As a bonus, at different stops on the tour, I got to hang out with my brilliant, dynamic sister Kate Kendall, the executive director. Other hard-working NCLR staff joined me on the road at events during the year. If you want maximum bang for your buck, join NCLR. And dearies, it’s tax deductible!

A special thanks to my hard working booking agent, Tam Martin, my own Velvet Hammer, who stylishly represented me and our million details to producers. And a special thanks to my indefatigable publicist/promoter, Michele Karlsberg who helped producers get people in the seats by dragging me out of the Dark Ages of Mimeograph into the New Dawn [for me] of websites and MySpace. I am very proud and honored by their work.

We’re not stopping! We are already into the second quarter of the Climate Change Tour. The climate is changing! Next season of April flowers and taxes, I hope we will be closer to peace dividends and more women in power and that someone will finally have pointed out that Don Imus has absolutely no right to speak of anyone else’s hair.

Posted by admin at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 05, 2007

DC 911

Quick! Is the line, “No one does a better job of not doing their job better,” a description of the Bush “Administration” or an ad for Reno 911? What’s the matter? Having a hard time with the image of Karl Rove in tight tight state trooper short shorts? Or Harriet Miers, pointing her glock and squawking “Fire ‘em all”? Or Alberto Gonzalez, who always looks like he’s laughing at us, behind his mirrored trooper sunglasses, snarling, “I serve at the pleasure of the President.”

If you guessed Reno 911, you would be right, but there was that nano-sec of doubt, wasn’t there?

Comedy Central’s hilarious updated version of the Keystone Cops actually seem competent by comparison. The private firm that was hired by the feds to erect the seven hundred mile border fence was recently busted for using illegal immigrant workers. If I were in charge, I would build a sixteen lane highway along the border with lots of on and off ramps. On patrol, I’d be wearing knee-length multipocketed shorts, driving a Prius and I’d be dragging Lou Dobbs. Could we just put the fence around the White House?

If the presidential election were held tomorrow, we’d save a lot of money. The first quarter results of the big obscene presidential money race are in and if you combine the amount the Democrats and Republicans have extorted, we could pay off a year of student loans for everyone, start to rebuild the Katrina ravaged south, and still have some cash left over for that big victory celebration, Bush/Cheney are planning in Iraq.

The election is nineteen months away and the whole thing sounds like some tiresome fantasy sport race. Let me know when it’s over. The Bush Legacy is Clean Up on Aisle 5. After eight years of the Bush mess, everybody has to work.

I’ve got dibs on a job already. I’ve called all my woo-woo galpals, bundled up the necessary herbs and written a ritual modeled on the recent Mayan saging of Machu Pichu. If and when Bush leaves we will be ready to sage the White House. We call it Macho P.U. We serve at the displeasure of the president.

Posted by admin at 05:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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