My next drag performance:
…Oh, yeah. I’m back there in Pilgrim times, over there in Salem, Massachusetts or New England somewhere. And I was walking by a town square where they were having some kind of public execution. I see that they got some chick tied up to a stake, like Joan of Arc or somethin’ and as I get closer I notice it’s my mother…except she looks just like Ethel Merman. And they got this big wooden vice attached to her head and they’re twistin the knobs tighter and tighter and tighter around her head. And as they’re twisting away, Ethel, my mom, looks around and she sees me, Ann, her daughter, staring at her from the crowd. And with tears in her eyes, tears in her eyes she tells me she loves me, except she sings it. “I love you! I love you! I love you!” And on the third “I love you,” her head pops like an overripe pumpkin on Halloween night. WHY? I sob. WHY? WHY? I sob. WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? Just because she was a ballsy lady? Just because she was a belter? Just because she lived with cats and cooked with herbs? Why, before we know it the FDA is gonna destroy the entire holistic community!
Of course, it’s even better when you hear it performed.
I wish I could say I wrote it, but it’s actually Ann Magnuson who deserves the credit. She’s rockin’ like Dokken, and she’s so timely, too, n’est-ce pas?
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