PeaceBang

What Did Gerald Ford Ever Do To Me?

I was at a party last night with a lot of theatre pals, and the Music Director of one of our local theatres said he had just worked on Sondheim’s Assassins in Boston, and there was a great part in it for me. “You have just the right look for it,” he said.

First of all, I admire this man’s talent so much that I would play anything in any production he’s working on, but I have to admit that when I found out that the part I had “just the right look for” was mentally unstable Sara Jane Moore, I was a bit taken aback. Her claim to fame is to have plotted to assassinate Gerald Ford:

http://www.geocities.com/proprioter/y_moore.html

After I read more about her, though, I thought, oh man, this could be more cathartic than playing Emma Goldman.

What I wouldn’t do to appear in another Sondheim production. Even a second-rate one.

Dan Savage, Part Dos

What I remember about Dan Savage at General Assembly was just as Rev. Thom and Peregrinato describe it: a pathetic combination of celebrity worship and hipper-than-thouness and snark and sincerity — and for some people, real harm.

I don’t remember many of his specific comments, as I was lurking in the back and, I think, walking in and out trying to find some friends I was meeting.

I find Savage’s columns to be hilariously funny, crass, occasionally shocking (not so much him, but the stuff people write in about), and I admire his persona.
I distinctly dislike the way he talks about his partner’s and his adoption of a baby boy, but to be honest, I haven’t done a thorough exegesis of Dan Savage and his work. To me, he’s entertainment. I do realize, as Sean Parker Dennison points out in the comments to the previous post, that people may take Savage all too seriously. If he’s making obnoxious and dismissive comments about bisexuality and trangendered identity, I’m not surprised, but I am not amused. It seems wildly inconsistent for him, and angry and ugly. I wasn’t aware of it, or if I read some columns that featured this attitude I was probably pissed off and did nothing about it.

What happened at GA that became the real brouhaha, was that during the Q&A following his loudly cheered lecture (one of those typical UU-Are-So-Superior GA moments), a young lesbian went to the mic to ask a question.

Now, I’m remembering this from a few years back, so I’m not making any promises that this is 100% accurate reporting.

What I remember is that this youth said she lived in rural West Virginia and was gay, and couldn’t be out, and was miserable. Dan advised leaving. She insisted that she had no support to leave. Dan said, “Listen, gay kids leave home and strike out on their own every day. You’re 19. Get a job, move into a city somewhere. You can do this. You can have your life.”
He was, at first, sympathetic, but it was obvious that he expected the Q&A to be just that: Q&A, not therapy.

At this point I saw that the girl was not going to sit down, and that no one was moderating this debacle. She pressed on, tearier with each inquiry. “But I don’t have a car!” she moaned. The crowd began to stir, smelling blood.

Dan’s voice became more strained and brusque. He was frustrated, and obviously wanted this questioner to go somewhere appropriate to work out these fears and questions. In my opinion, had every right to expect that he would not be expected to solve her predicament during a Q & A session. The crowd became distinctly edgy, but no one had the sense to get up, quietly inform the young woman that there were more appropriate settings for her to seek help, and to lead her away from the microphone and more public exposure.

Dan Savage had no idea how to gracefully back out of the situation and in his typical manner, pushed back at the now weeping young woman with more directives. She was crying, he was wretched, the crowd was livid, and as the girl dashed outside to cry, I went out the back and around to the side hallway to see if she was okay.
(see? I’m not such a bad person, ya’ll!)

She cried and another woman and I talked with her and said, “You have so many huge things going on, and he’s just a sex columnist. It was really brave of you to put your struggle out there like that, but you know, he didn’t have the resources or the sensitivity or the position to help you. There are many more people with real resources available and the time to help you figure out some next steps, if that’s what you want and need.”
As it turned out, this kid was not nearly as alone in the world as she appeared to be when she stood, a tiny vulnerable presence, at the microphone. I think (and hope) she’s going to be okay. I still can’t imagine why she stood there exposing more and more of herself to a man who clearly has no credentials or call to really help her while supposedly sensitive and caring UUs watched without doing anything. This is one of our kids. If a speaker is responding insensitively to her and she’s crying, howzabout jumping up and leading her to her seat with a comment like, “This obviously isn’t going well, Dan. Let’s take the next question.”
I mean, HOW MANY MINISTERS WERE IN THE HOUSE THAT NIGHT?

The next day people were wearing signs that said, “SAVAGED BY SAVAGE? CALL THE CHAPLAINS AT 123-456-789.”

I bought Dan Savage a drink because when I met him later that night, he looked shaken and greatly disturbed. Not because he hadn’t known how to solve the problems of that one young lesbian, but because he understood that the UUs mostly had zero perspective on the situation and that many of us were expecting in him a kind of Gay Savior figure. Big mistake.
He perceived that the sudden transformation of a standard Q & A session into therapy seemed to be business-as-usual for this crowd, and that by failing to switch from entertainer/speaker mode to Dr. Phil Public Healer Mode, he was going down as a brute and an abuser among us. And, to interpret what I saw on his face, it grossed him out.
He was gracious enough not to say one critical word about the entire situation, nor has he, to my knowledge, written anything about his appearance among the Unitarian Universalists. And I, for one, appreciate it.

Dan Savage is Dan Savage. Offensive and insensitive at times, fodder for conversation and a foil off of which to clarify our own positions on important issues of sexual identity and social justice. To expect him to minister to our wounded children is naive and inhospitable; it’s like inviting the Fab Five to GA and expecting them to be supportive and pastoral about our awful clothes, hair and make-up. Just because a public figure is liberal and hip and gay doesn’t mean they’re going to be sensitive, appropriate or share our commitments and theological understanding.

And because we have such a victim culture at General Assembly, we ought to make sure that every lecture and Q &A session has a moderator.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dan Savage

You all know the work of sex columnist Dan Savage, right? Remember me to tell you about what happened when he appeared at GA two years ago, and how I bought him a drink afterward. Meanwhile, read this:

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/45150/1

My Jewish Dander Is Up

I almost always think The Onion is hilarious no matter how outrageous they get, but this left me cold and upset. Too close to the bone:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45357

Satire-While-U-Wait

It truly amazes me how quickly satirists can produce a pretty hilarious video or song in the aftermath of a tragedy tinged with ridiculousness. I mean, this Cheney debacle just unfolded a few days ago and here’s the inevitable re-do of “Janie’s Got a Gun:”

http://www.waltonandjohnson.com/blog/Chaneys%20Got%20a%20Gun.mp3

Where do these guys find the time to produce these things?

And you knew someone was going to do this, right?

"Self" Magazine : Issue Review

scrawnyactress
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Color me suspicious. My first issue of “Self” magazine arrived in the mail featuring famously thin-and-getting-thinner-all-the-time “Grey’s Anatomy” actress Ellen Pompeo on the cover, with one of those “everyone sez I’m anorexic but I swear I eat tons and I just have this wicked fast metabolism” confessionals on page 36.

This is a magazine about health, so why the notoriously scrawny cover girl, photographed so that neither of her pin thin arms is visible? There wasn’t a truly fit model available? One who might eat the occasional meal?

A small photo of editor Lucy S. Danziger on p. 18 reveals a sort of grimacing, overly blow-dried blonde who might be trying to have an expression on her face but you can’t tell for the Botox. That’s a lovely, wide forehead with nary a wrinkle ‘pon it.

Check out the model in the article “Your Firmest Abs Ever” who looks gorgeous from the front, but who, when photographed from the side, reveals another sliver-thin body totally unattainable to most women. I’m scared of her on the “T balance on ball” photo, where she looks like Skeletor in a pink jogging bra.

I hate the “Play Bod Libs With a Buddy” feature, which starts, “If I woke one morning suddenly adoring my body” and assumes that mostly what you’d do if you woke up adoring your body is be brave enough to ask your boss for a (fill in the blank) — “and I’d probably get it, too!” because of course the only thing standing in the way of women’s professional advancement is their own body issues.

Other than that, okay, there are some good features and the fitness tips are good. I can even do most of them. All I’m sayin’, SELF, is that we’ve got all them there beauty and celeb magazines to pimp the skinnies to us. We don’t need Skeletor from you, too.

Young Divines Do "The Vagina Monologues"

On a hot tip from Philocrites, I ran out to Harvard Divinity School last night to see their production of “The Vagina Monologues,” mostly for the pleasure of hearing Eve Ensler’s famous “c-word” monologue performed in the chapel at Andover Hall. Daaang, ya let chicks into the place –http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/09.22/07-divcon.html
and the next thing you know they’re acting out fake orgasms all over the chancel.

It was a just okay reading of the show — the ensemble pieces were whiny and one-note but most of the individual monologues were far better. Despite all the graphic content, the only thing that really shocked me was how young the students are.

Ohmigawd, all those 20-something kids working for their M.Divs and M.T.S’s and going into ministry with pierced noses and shiny, long hair and shiny red lipstick!! They couldn’t have found more than one performer with a vagina over forty? I felt so motherly sitting there, beaming with approval from the back row with my hands folded primly in my lap (”Sweetheart, you did such a good job as the professional dominatrix!”). You can see the production on Thursday or Saturday night at 7:30. Proceeds are going to Casa Myrna Vazquez, a Boston-based organization working against domestic violence.

More on Kwan

Now here’s a girl I like:

http://moxie.nu/moveabletype/archives/003441.php

Our blogs were cited side by side here,
http://blog.blogpulse.com/
with mine as the “pro-Kwan” blog and hers the “not so kind to Kwan” one.

I agree with Ms. Moxie that Kwan wasn’t the greatest artist on the ice. She’s right: when the media claims an Olympic darling, it’s hard to slide out of the room with your drink in your hand and the integrity of your opinions intact.

Michelle Kwan wasn’t my darling, though, and I didn’t even love her skating. In fact, after watching the couples skate the other night, I think that all figure skating has become mechanistic and freaky. I still watch it and cling to the hopes that I might catch a performance like Brian Boitano gave when he won the gold in Calgary in 1988. Remember the Battle of the Brians? I think that was also the year that the women’s competition saw the likes of Katarina Witt (whose choice to skate to “Carmen” was so wrong, unless you can picture the fiery Spanish siren as a stern, monobrowed Cherman lass) and the plumb crazy Surya Bonaly, who could do a backflip on the ice. The point is, it was fun, and the drama was not only off the ice in the scores and the competitions between athletes, but on the ice, where it’s sorely lacking nowadays.

I don’t love Michelle Kwan as a skater — never did — but I admire her athleticism, her hard work, and her reputation as an emotionally stable, dedicated skater.

How Can I Share Lena Horne With You?

Does anyone know if I can upload mp3 files from i-tunes into Blogger? ‘Cause sometimes I want to share tunes with you all.

Like tonight I loaded about 35 photos onto my i-pod and it just so happened that the song that came up for the slide show was Lena Horne singing “Yesterday When I Was Young.” from her Broadway show, “A Lady And Her Music.” This is a song that will rip your heart out ANYWAY, but try listening to it while watching a slide show of people and places you love best rolling by. It’s like being at your own funeral. But in a good way.

If you don’t own Miss Horne’s brilliant 2-CD recording of that show, by the way, I just think it’s a huge omission from your life. All libidinous women need to listen to “A Lady Must Live” on Valentine’s Day, and you can dirty dance with your honey to “‘Deed I Do.” Her rendition of “Stormy Weather” will make you sit down real hard on the couch and cry no matter what you’re doing, and “That’s What Miracles Are All About” could so easily be the first dance at your wedding. When you’re feeling blue, you gotta have “If You Believe,” which might also make you cry.

So get it, okay?

A Pink Lady Speaks

Two recent stories about dumb, censorious Christians really disturb me. The first comes from Paul Wilczynski, who reports that at least 100 Christian pastors have signed a petition against gay actor Chad Allen appearing as a Christian in a project called (hold your snickers, please) “End Of the Spear:”

http://www.paulwilczynski.com/

I know these dimwits think that homosexuality is catching, but I had heretofore believed that the perceived danger was if your kid had exposure to an actual homo, not just one playing a Christian on television. Honestly, these people get more ridiculous all the time. How many people did they manage to insult and embarrass with this latest bit of activism?

Hmmm. Let’s count ‘em up:

Of course, as rampant homophobes, they insult all God’s homosexual children, and especially actor Chad Allen. They insult and damage the reputation of the wider Christian community. They insult the integrity of the supposedly impressionable young people whom they assume will turn insta-gay by being exposed to Chad Allen’s performance (because of course the actor will be using this role as a way to convert thousands of kids to Team Gay! That’s why he took the role!). And from non-zealots, they earn yet another huge eye rolling sigh of disgust.
WAY to go!

In a similarly upsetting story, Philocrites reports another group of Mad Stoopit Christians who can’t have their tender progeny exposed to smoking and drinking and the wearing of babydoll pajamas:

http://tinyurl.com/7p4zy

The offending drama project is “Grease,” which only every single teenager ever created since the late 1970’s has known about, and loved as either kitsch or as one of their earliest introductions to John Travolta as a singing and dancing hottie. My Mom saw it on Broadway about five times in the late 70’s and took us to see it which caused my friend Lee Grogan’s mother to be appalled, because it involved mooning and characters named Danny Zuko grabbing the breasts of one of his gal pals and saying, “boola boola.” It involved greasers and girl gangs! And a nefarious car known as “Greased Lightning” with a back seat where bad girls got pregnant!

I thought it was slightly shocking, but more because the actors sang into hand-held mics for the first time in Broadway history. I was in the fifth grade.

You can imagine — or maybe you can’t — the absolute hysteria when our high school became the first in America to get the rights in 1980, and how outrageous the auditioning process was. EVERYONE wanted to be in this show: the drama “fags” (sorry, that’s what we were called), the jocks, the nerds, EVERYONE. The director announced that freshmen were not going to be cast, but I snagged a leading role as one of the Pink Ladies and my friend Little Stevie T. also got in. (He’s now a minor cable celebrity, and we had a falling out several years ago, and I have nothing good to say about him. So I won’t tell you his last name but it’s not Stephen Colbert, who’s a fine old bean of an old college pal).

I was fourteen years old and looking back, was fierce hot as Marty, “the beauty of the Pink Ladies” (or so it says in the script, a description that carried me through many moments of massive insecurity during my teen years):

The director actually taught me how to smoke, ’cause it was 1980 and we were willing to suffer for our art, even in high school. My parents could not have been prouder of me in my tiny pink baby doll pajamas singing “Freddy My Love.”

Sure, some parents wrote letters to the editor of the local paper expressing their shock that the high school would mount such a salacious show. And then other parents wrote in saying nonsense, it was a delight, get over it. Those of us who had been involved in the production were absolutely thrilled by the controversy.

What didn’t happen was that the superintendent of schools was so cowed by the response that he took it upon himself to take creative control of the Drama Department, as happened in Fulton, Missouri.
Our theater teachers would never have tolerated that. Never. And they would have had full community support, too.

It should be noted that I later went on to play Rizzo in a Minneapolis production of “Grease” in 1996 (much too old to hand jive at thirty) and that I suffered no ill effects to my virtuous Christian life. I don’t think it counts that I was living in sin with a man at the time. After all, there are worse things I could do.

I have written a letter of support to drama teacher Wendy DeVore, and I invite you to do so, too. She may be out of a job for choosing such shows as “Grease” and “The Crucible” for her student performers, and she can be reached at Wendy_DeVore@fulton.k12.mo.us.

Pink Ladies forever!