I dunno, Jocko. I think I can imagine slightly more ominous opening lines:

* * *

“Suzanne Vega was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

* * *

“Flowers are my life.”

* * *

“Rod and Bob Jackson-Paris will go down in history as the greatest gay role models ever.”

* * *

“Tristan awoke at dusk and crawled from the confines of the coffin in which he spent the hours of Phoebus’ glorious ride into the endless gloom of the Parisian catacombs, in the process, nearly stumbling over the gabardine cape of his kill from the previous night–a bawdy house tart who claimed virginity as her only vice.”

* * *

“Oh, Miss Thing, grab yourself a cocktail and relax, because I am going to share with you my many, many adventures as a fabulous circuit boi!”

* * *

“Self-publishiing can be the gratest experience in you’re life.”

* * *

“I discovered my gift for poetry on my 73rd birthday, when my great-granddaughter, Barbie, stopped by with her newest little puppy, Mr. Tinkles.”

* * *

“Call me Ishmael.”

* * *

“My name is Norman Mailer, and this is my autobiography.”

A few letters that got left on the editorial floor:

* * *

Despite repeated cease-and-desist letters sent to Mr. Mathers and his SWAT team of attorneys, he has continued to market his “music” under the intentionally duplicitous pseudonym “Eminem.” While we understand that this stage name is merely homophonically related to our own M&M product, we nevertheless believe we have legitimate grievance against the “artist.”

First and foremost, we find the “hook” for Mr. Mathers’ pseudonym ludicrous and ill-informed. If Mr. Mathers does, indeed, wish to acknowledge his inner-identification with African Americans (theoretically symbolized by the chocolate center of a typical M&M), then how, we ask, does the other half of the metaphor stand up? “Chocolate” (i.e. African American) on the inside, perhaps, but how does Mr. Mathers express green, red, or blue on the outside? Clearly, the facile symbolism collapses under such scrutiny.

Furthermore, Mr. Mathers has been and continues to be the direct cause of increased expense associated with the official M&M website. Countless bandwidth is expended on visits to this website by legions of Mr. Mather’s underwashed and undereducated admirers, none of whom who seem capable of distinguishing between a very white, very whiny “musician” and our delectably refined chocolates.

Lastly, we find Mr. Mathers’ bilious (and oft-times conflicting) ideology at odds with the smooth, sweet taste of our own flagship product.

As such, we cannot support Mr. Mathers’ nomination for an award from the GRAMMY Foundation and have taken up a collection from the secretarial pool for a contract on his so-called life. Once this contract is signed, we cannot be held responsible for the acts of any professional assassin or bounty hunter who may and will cause serious bodily harm to Mr. Mathers. Consider yourself warned.

Sincerely,

Mars, Inc.

* * *

Yo, that dumbass playa’ Eminem piece of shit done ripped me off, too. Ain’t none of y’all got no respect for me! Fuck you and that bitch of an Academy. Have your goddamn awards show. I’m going to Shoney’s.

Spitefully,

Yo’ mama,

Martha Wash

* * *

I love M&Ms. They are my favorite food. They are good. My mommy puts them in a jar in the bathroom. I love my mommy. She lets me have some when I make it to the potty before I have an accident. I am almost potty trained! Mommy says my doggie can’t have M&Ms because they are bad for him but he likes them alot so I give them to him. Now mommy says that he is not housebroken anymore and he has to sleep in the yard. I like the brown M&Ms best. I miss my doggie. Why won’t mommy let doggie come inside?

Ronald Reagan

So I’m on my lunch break, and I’ve got a craving for bad Chinese food. Like the sloppy, messy kind of goop they throw in styrofoam containers, coating everything in a gelatinous brown paste. So I make a u-ey in the middle of St. Claude Avenue and head over to my favorite ghetto–and I do mean Good Times/Cleopatra Jones/Foxy Brown-ghetto–Chinese food place. It’s not even a restaurant, really; more like a snowball stand that just happens to serve Chinese. But not as clean. Eew.

Anyway, I’m standing on the sidewalk, waiting for my order to come up, when a low-stylin Buick Regal pulls up to the curb, its stereo blaring none other than the incomparable Teena Marie. And for a moment, as I looked around and saw that I was probably the only honky for several blocks, I felt somehow one with Miss Teena–lily white girl, black girl world. And I think to myself, was I always this, um, racially aware (for lack of a better term)? And my hunch is no, but New Orleans has created that awareness in me. The Creole legacy to the city has been an intricate caste system, complex and fascinating.

As a lucky bonus, on the way back to the office I heard another great one: Nancy Wilson‘s fantastic version of “Guess Who I Saw Today.” So…subtle, yes? I wonder what would happen if Lil’ Kim were to do a cover…

Guess who I saw today, muthafucka?

Lovah, brotha, bitch-bastard-sucka?

Bitch saw yo’ stank ass with that party ho’ Jojo

On the downlow

In the bistro

Workin’ yo’ shrinky-dink yo-yo

Creepin’ out the do’

To yo’ crib

And now you gon’ fib

To me?

Sucka mc?

You must be crazy.

Get on back to yo’ chick

Outta my face, suck my dick.

Pussy.

I’ve been uncommonly lethargic lately, especially in my spare time–probably because I’m spread so thin that by the time I get home from work, I just wanna crash. It might also have something to do with the fact that I’ve all but stopped jogging. Aerobic activity: so invigorating.

Or it could be just because I’m growing into an old lazy fuckwad.

Whatever the reason, I found myself doing very little this weekend. Cleaned up the new house so the contractors could begin work. Went to the gym. Attended a very petit birthday party for friends. Spent a couple of hours working on the party scenes in Camille. Made a brief sojourn to the gymnasium. But overall, I spent most of my time in bed, watching public television. And I noticed something very, very strange.

Liev Schreiber has a complete monopoly on the narration racket. Like, seriously, at one point I saw three of his documentaries in a friggin’ row: one on genetics and Egyptology; one on animal intelligence; and a third on evolutionary adaptation. He’s singlehandedly done away with John Lithgow, Stacy Keach, and that guy who does the voiceovers for the Arthur S. DeMoss ads (“Life. What a beautiful choice.”). I hope he’s paying his agent well…

A Slight Qualification

When I disparage popular theatre, that’s not to say that other people can’t enjoy it, or that I find it morally offensive–in fact, I don’t. Popular theatre–like popular music–is a great way for artists to make money, and that’s of primary importance in my book. Rock on. Just don’t expect to see me in the “will call” line.

No, what I’m really trying to say vis-a-vis Oklahoma et al. is that I’ve been there, done that. On the staircase, in the parlor, in the wheat fields with Sandy Duncan, I’ve done it. And I have little or no interest in doing/seeing it again. (Unless of course Jonno and Dorian’s offspring finds herself/himself as one of the family Von Trapp. In which case I’ll be there with the camera, third row back, on the aisle.)

So please don’t be all Pollyana with me and start talking about how there’s tons of great theatre going on in New Orleans these days, ’cause there isn’t. Yes, there’s more than there used to be, but for a city of its size…oy.

But enough about that. I’m off to see some good stuff–if I can only manage to avoid tonight’s festivities.

A Brief Diatribe Against Hippies and Other Smelly Things

So about five years ago I was on this boat, right? It was April 21, and the Society of St. George–gee, we sure seem to have a lot of saints’ societies in New Orleans–was having their annual birthday party for Queen Elizabeth II. She was not expected to attend.

Anyway, we’d danced at the hotel ballroom, we’d paraded to the levee (dressed, as the custom, completely in white), we’d climbed onboard the steamboat Natchez, and we’d all made a bee-line for the bar. I grabbed by vodka/rocks/dirty, headed up to the top deck, sprawled out on a chair to enjoy the sunset, and was almost immediately besieged by some guy–tall and cute, but skinny.

So we’re talking and he’s kinda flirty, and we’re chatting about stuff and things and junk, and we discover that we have a few friends in common, and then the subject changes. To art.

I’m not sure how it all came up. I guess it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that things went wrong. Terribly wrong.

Basically, we started talking about the performing arts here in New Orleans, and I think I said something kinda like, “Jesus H. Christ, the goddamn theatre in New Orleans fucking sucks toilet sludge.” Like I said, I can’t remember exactly.

Well, Skinny Boy was having none of it and started listing off all the venues in town and all the stuff that was going on like Oklahoma and crap. Oklahoma. And I said, something like, “Honey, that’s not theatre. That’s a two-hour high-colonic for the Geritol set. Makes ’em think they’re having an arts experience, but it’s really just bad TV with a pulse.”

HIPPIE
“At least those actors and directors are doing something, man. They could be just, like, sitting around becoming alcoholics, you know.”

ME
“Yes, well, I suppose you have a point. But don’t expect me to sit in on their public therapy session.”

And basically he proceeded to tell me that I was some sort of theatre snob, and that all theatre is good theatre because people are doing something that comes from the heart, and I stopped his ass right there and set him straight: “Yes, I’m a freakin’ theatre snob. There has to be an elite in theatre, just as there has to be an elite in other disciplines. Someone’s gotta be at the helm, someone’s gotta be in charge, someone’s gotta say, ‘For god’s sake, Karen Finley, can’t you do something a little different, just this once?!’ Art depends on three things: (1) short attention spans, (2) big mouths, and (3) very big opinions.”

I was kinda stunned by the vehemence of my reaction. I don’t normally think of myself as a rude person–really I don’t. But something in him, something dark and malevolent and steeped in patchouli and prone to group hugs and communes made me furious. I excused myself rather suddenly and–I swear it was such a movie moment–raced down to the main deck just in time to jump back on shore before the cruise up the Mississippi River began in earnest. Half a minute later and I’d have been trapped with the yutz for three more hours….

The performing arts in New Orleans have seen some progress since then. It’s actually a very exciting time to be around, with no fewer than four monster-sized arts centers in the works. But I’m still sort of a snob.

I mean, who finds the pedestrian truly entertaining?

Epigram for Friday, February 16, 2001 (courtesy of Jocko):

When bankers get together for dinner they discuss art.
When artists get
together for dinner they discuss money.

—Oscar Wilde

* * * * *

On an unrelated note, do any of you ‘mos know who sings the song “Bill”? I hear it all the time on one of the local soul stations, and I’ve even seen the video, but for the life of me, I can’t recall the artist. Black woman of a certain age, looks kinda like Della Reese with a gin hangover, singing about finding her hubby in the arms of another man… I’ll paraphrase the refrain:

I was ready
for Betty,
Susan, Mary, or Ann,
but all the time
it was Bill
sleepin’ with my man.

Anyone? …Bueller? …Bueller? …Bueller?

Three Things

1. Tonight we have our first rehearsal for Camille, which’ll go up in April. Just for the hell of it, I went back and re-read Ludlam’s manifesto for the Ridiculous Theatre. I was particularly struck by item number seven:

The theatre is a humble materialist enterprise which seeks to produce riches of the imagination, not the other way around. The theatre is an event not an object. Theatre workers need not blush and conceal their desperate struggle to pay the landlords their rents. Theatre without the stink of art.

I’m not sure I completely agree. I mean, yeah, I can appreciate fine art, art for art’s sake. But I can also appreciate art that’s designed solely to wow the audience, to entertain, to make moolah, moolah, moolah. And I have a particularly low tolerance for artists who deny/are ignorant of the commercial possibilities inherent to their own art.

Bottom line: professional artists are just that–professionals, no less than doctors, lawyers, or Tiger Woods. There are good doctors and bad doctors; there are good artists and bad artists. Art is worth paying for, and it’s up to the artist to figure out how to get people to cough up dough. If that means futzing with their work–which is not the same as self-censorship, it just means being more precise–so be it.

Paint, dance, sing, whatever. But for goddess’ sake, don’t suffer because of it.

2. The house that Jonno and I bought nearly a year ago is entering the final stages of renovation. Or rather, the final stages of phase 1 of the renovations. Phases 2, 3, 4, and 5 to follow….

3. I said yesterday that I wasn’t really concerned about the origins of Valentine’s Day, but Sister Taffy’s essay is so compelling…well, see for yourself. (Thanks for the link, George!)

To me, Valentine’s Day is one of the great riddles of Western Civilization. Like W’s popularity, the success of Andrew Lloyd Weber, and the inner life of cats (Cats, too, for that matter), it mystifies me.

When I ask someone to “be my Valentine,” what, exactly, am I asking? I’m not talking about in the seminal sense–like, of what origin is the expression and all that crap. I simply mean, in semiotic terms, what do I signify with those three signifiers? Will you sleep with me? Will you be my paramour? Will you be my dearest platonic friend? Can I bum a cigarette?

Inevitably, I feel like Ralph Wiggum when Lisa Simpson choo-choo-chooses him on the big VD.

I’m not a very romantic person. To be as silly and dramatic and–some would say–nelly as I am, I’ve got very little of the Casanova in my bones.

Luckily, my boyfriend understands that my lack of romantic affection (or affectation) doesn’t mean I don’t love him. It just means I’m completely self-absorbed and thoughtless, that’s all.