WGBH Forum Network; Kate Clinton: I Told You So; Center for New Words

Good evening everyone that's much nicer. I am Jacqueline Freeman. I'm the program director of the Center for new words and on behalf of center for new words and Harvard bookstore. It's a great privilege and honor to welcome you here to here from the great Kate Clinton. Can claim is a faith based taxpaying America loving. Political humorist and family entertainer with a career spanning over eight years. Clinton has worked through economic booms and busts Disney fixation and Wal-Mart's position gave movement the gay movement and game markets lesbian chic and queer eyes an 8 presidential inaugurals. She still believes that humor gets us through a peacetime wartime a scoundrel time an economic downtimes. Kate represents the best of these values. Smart curious. Serious about social change but entertaining as hell. Political but hopeful. I'm not going to read you her bio credits because they're honestly there be no time left to hear from Kate herself. I will say only that she has done everything. Live shows CDs blogging writing charity work or

film theater political activism and writing for Rosie O'Donnell. There's nothing funny and gay that Kate has not conquered. As Kate Kendell executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights says Kaye Clinton has held the mirror that reflects every single issue that has faced us for the last 25 years. We've laughed with her. We've cried with her and we have been changed by her and we're here tonight to celebrate the release of her latest book. I told you so. Which is a hilarious bittersweet politically acute Survival Guide who does not need a survival guide right now. I told you so a spans refreshingly disparate topics sexual hypocrisy and gay marriage 9 9/11 and its aftermath. Girls Gone Wild and boys gone to war. Hillary Clinton in U.S. politics baptism and waterboarding as well as intelligent design and body shows. P-town and families of choice and even the colony and other collapses she also tell your friends is going to be doing a show at the comedy connection on Friday June 12th here flyers for that. But is our great privilege to have her here with us tonight. Please give a huge

hand to the one and only Kate Clinton. And I thank you for that lovely introduction and WGBH. And where was I. Anyway I'm glad to be here. And I want to thank the Breteau theater. I also want to thank the Beacon Press who put out my new book. Isn't that lovely. It's called I told you so. My girlfriend says it's too pink. I say it's pink with boots rising. Thank you and I and I my lovely publicist from Beacon is here tonight. Caitlin Myers where are you. Caitlin Thank you. There she is doing a great job. And also I want to thank the wonderful new words collective for all the work that you've done and I'm sorry for the transition. I'm not sorry for the transition. I'm glad I finally made it. She's the last author let's call it quits now. But what you know you've got to be you've got to learn to kind of move in this

these changing times and I think new words has done that from the bookstore to the collective to now this incredible media conference that they do. So I'm absolutely honored to be here. Thirty years of work they've been doing so this is not this is not a you know awake. We're not sitting shiva on anything they're doing but this is the beginning of something new so let's give it up for them. Oh my God. I know how to do a party and I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to be anywhere most days but I was just in Texas. I don't know why and I was doing a show there. I actually was on my courage to succeed Toure. I'm really encouraging them to succeed. And I think he'd be a great idea. And then we just shut the border a little north of Texas. Don't you think

and close Gitmo and just put everybody in Texas. I think that's a great idea. They look good in the orange onesies. And I actually got stopped in the airport in Texas in San Antonio Texas. I was detained for not wearing teabags hanging from my clothes and they just took me away and talked to me. And of course I was there. And. George is in Texas now. He's there he's in a gated community also. That's what they're calling it anyway. They keep him in there. And he's in a witness protection program. And all of you who love books know that it's frightening. But he is working on a book with really big crayons. And and also working on his library I know I know I thought just a shelf should do it just. But.

So he's been busy but I was there and and it was kind of frightening and I don't know if they'll go for the secession thing. But then last weekend I was in Provincetown for well Memorial Day weekend which is when women from all of young women from all over the northeast who have graduated go there for one big final blowout. We call it the Bud Light weekend and they really did it up. Let me tell you so. So it's it's just it's been a roller coaster ride of excitement. Then yesterday we had the good news and the bad news all in one day. Sonia Sotomayor which is very exciting to me. A woman appointed to the Supreme Court is very exciting. Perhaps Ruth Bader Ginsburg will now have someone to have tea with. I think that's really lovely. And a woman from Puerto Rico from the Bronx. Yes. And apparently she saved baseball I was unaware of that. And as you know she is a big Yankees fan. And I know I know and they said

she's a she's a oh she's an activist judge if she can save the Yankees that would be an activist judge that has a lot of power. So that was exciting during the day and then of course at night or in the afternoon a few know about an hour later the news broke from California that Proposition Hate had been up upheld by the California Supreme Court. I really can't handle it can you. I mean you were. And so it wasn't it wasn't a revision it wasn't an amendment. I don't know what they were talking about here's my fear. The Domino's Pizza Hut that school of law which is under funded this Catholic school funded by the Domino's Pizza people has now graduating people and they're sitting on supreme courts throughout the states because clearly they're in California. I had no idea what they were talking about in that decision. It was except for Carlos Carlos Marino a brilliant dissent. It was a six to one vote and he clearly understands empathy. I don't

know why in California they just don't go. For God's sakes it's almost the end of the world. Let them get married. You know just let them get married. We don't really care. But I know you're like ho hum because here we are in Massachusetts which has had gay marriage for five years. And the Commonwealth still stands. Congratulations. And I think I'm concern about people putting gay marriage in their states. Is they been following the Massachusetts way which means they get gay marriage and then they get health care for everyone. And I think people are daunted by that. But I do think we should say yes if you get gay marriage then everyone has to get health care. That's the only way we're going to get it. So congratulations for leading the way on that one too. You don't get enough credit for that. So I'm going to read for a little while and so get your jammies on. And snuggle up. I always feel silly reading because I'm a comedian and then when everyone's quiet I get nervous. So enjoy. And then we'll do some. And questions and answers after and then you'll buy books from the lovely people from Harvard who are here

who've told me they don't want to carry them home. So we have to sell every one of them we've locked the doors and you actually can't get out until you buy several books. That's just the way it is. So the book is called I told you so clear. OK. One reviewer had a problem. Why is it called they told you so. OK. It's going to be a long night here. I thought maybe I should have called it. I told you. But I want to read from the introduction so you know where it comes from and let's start at the beginning. I told you so is completed at the end of July 2008. This book is a collection of columns from magazines and the Advocate magazine The Progressive magazine 100 years out of Madison Wisconsin. Yes. And the Women's Review of Books. Yes. I don't know is Amy here are fine editor. Where is she. Amy Hoffman editor of Women's Review of Books a wonderful magazine.

The essays were translated from early century blogger Rijn and material written especially for this compilation. After I sent the document file of my book to my editor just by wearily pressing send I made a big flourish of checking off the last day of my six month writing schedule. I cleaned off my desk filed two trees worth of hardcopy rewrites and turned my full attention to writing for my summer show in Provincetown for more than 20 years I've performed in July and August in Provincetown I write something new every day especially if the weather is bad. I ride my bike down to the club and try the lines out at night. My audience knows that a lot of the material is being workshopped for the show. I will take on the road in the fall. They know because generally I tell them some weeks are brilliant three pages of newly minted material becomes an aside after only one. After only three shows. But other

times a throwaway line gets a surprising response and over a few performances grows to a brand new 10 minutes. My audience likes being part of the process. They often talk to me after a show. Then you said that I thought you were going to go this way as if the show were on Mapquest. But but then they finish with the perfect punchline that had eluded me since I have joked dyslexia. They kindly point out when I have reversed set up and punchline altogether. Or they tell me their stories. I take notes I promise them royalties. My partner of 20 years has said to me after almost every show she has seen. Well that was too long. But you need to do more political stuff. Over the years. And because of the world I have become more political actually. I'm a full blown political junkie. My shows reflect that on the Provincetown

entertainment menu of drag shows piano bars Broadway adaptations theater and comedy. I am the entree known as that political one in the past doing a lot of political material for people on their precious one or two vacation two week vacation in a resort town could be dicey. They have been at the beach all day reading trashy beach books or boogie boarding. They have not kept up. Some nights I felt as if I were anchoring a news show. Not so much doing a comedy show instead of laughter I would hear. Wish we had this on PowerPoint. The summer of 2008 was like nothing I had ever witnessed. It was not just because critical mass had been reached in the possession of personal handheld devices nor was it because the town's mothers and fathers had finally gotten some decent radio transmitters and fewer people had to stand out in the parking lot screaming into their cell phones. I can't hear you

that summer Wi-Fi was the preferred guest house amenity more than a private bath. No one wanted to be off the grid. No one wanted to miss anything. Even on vacation with the Hillary supporters get over themselves and make the change to Obama. Could Obama really beat McCain. The town slept fitfully waiting for a text message about Obama's choice for vice president. Would you pick Hillary in the line at the Grand Union this bitch in the line at the Grand. Things change in the line of the Grand Union. Strangers would say Can't wait to hear what you have to say about Palin increasingly panicked mass emails from California warned of the passage of Prop hate the anti-gay marriage ballot initiative. Everyone bemoaned high gas prices Bear Stearns week trumped the fun of bear week.

In. There's more groaners international tourists crowded town during Carnival week. Some shops excepted euros. In one ominous sign the store called Don't panic. We're shuttered. When your situation room is a resort town in August it is difficult to convey the seriousness of some developments to vacationers. It is also perhaps cruel in one late August show I joked about George W. back stateside from the Chinese Olympics which had been brought to us by our own credit card debt. With not one little toenail left on his moral footprint. And still president erect from cruising the Olympic volleyball babes and hectoring China on its human rights abuses our spectator in chief excoriated Russia for its pre-emptive strike on Georgia. You could practically hear

the world snorting. Or maybe it was me. After the show I was talking to one very sunburned woman and realized she thought Russia had invaded the state of Georgia. There wasn't Sarah Palin. She confided. If they can fix the Atlanta airport I'm all for it. They should give them Florida while they're at it. But even at half attention people who are more politically and passionately interested in politics than I could ever recall after Labor Day and before my tomatoes had ripened dammit. I finished my summer long run and returned to Manhattan with a shiny new show for fall touring. But every day brought such dizzying change I wrote new material and eased out pieces that seem dated with just a few week shelf life. Because the show was getting as long as a Bruce Springsteen show

I felt like that embedded war correspondent just a sentence or two ahead of breaking news. And whenever I thought back to some sections of the book I had had to turn in at the end of July. They seemed like all set up without punch cruel foreplay. I regretted not being able to finish the Clinton Obama McCain Palin Propp hate campaign election storylines it seemed unfair unfinished as we who wanted a woman president almost learned from Sarah Palin. Be careful what you wish for. In early September I received a call from my editor at Beacon Press requesting an additional chapter to conclude the political dramas I had been following. Though I had a busy fall to her schedule it was like receiving a reprieve from the governor and at 60 I find I work well on deadlines. The stay of publication also allowed me to move on. This time when I

finished the last chapter the book felt finished. I felt finished eight long years of being Kate the designated Bush watcher can make you very cynical. Yes it can. I am finished living and I told you so. The shodan is off my Freude. I am eager to transition into my new job Kate the happy chronicler of the successes of the Bush tax up Bush toxic cleanup committee the great restoration hardware Voting Rights Act the International War Crimes Tribunal the Truth and Reconciliation Commission the actual intelligent design project the stepping aside of the baby boomers ritual and the cynicism abatement tax force. Thank you. This one's called The Passion of the Penguins. It was written in 2005. In my recent movie if

my if my recent movie attendance is any indication of the National box office receipts Hollywood can put a fork in it. They're done since Wedding Crashers did not seem to be about gay marriage and the War of the Worlds and Brothers Grimm seemed redundant. I only went twice to my province town to the Provincetown new art cinema all summer. I did see the march of the Penguins set in Antarctica which seemed like a good antidote to the unrelated to global warming stickie freaky blast furnace of a summer we had. But despite all the anthropomorphizing going on around me I could not identify with the film with its emphasis on procreation monogamy and heart melting scenes of male penguins caring for their young for three months of the entire year. The documentary is relentlessly straight. Perhaps that is why it has become the next big date movie among fundamentalists. The Passion of the Penguins.

Then I saw the aristocrats. And that seemed like a good antidote to the serious world intruding on the crazy hazy lazy days of summer. But again I could not identify. First the Aristocrats is not a movie about the Bushes. It is a documentary about the world's filthiest joke and the comics who love it as showbiz family goes to a vaudeville talent agency. The agent asks the father to describe their act. The father proceeds the family dog is trained to poop in their son's mouth while the boys copulating with their 9 year old daughter and all the while the father is urinating on the mother and on and on. The agent asks the father what they call themselves. The Father announces with a flourish the aristocrat's the

filmmakers skeptic Penn Jillette and comic Paul Provenza became really intrigued with the joke at a Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner. Only three about three weeks after 9/11 at the roast Gilbert Godfrey a squinting tumbler with a shrieking ferrett shtick was scorching old hue. But the crowd was quiet. He made a joke about bombing then something about 9/11. There were hisses from the crowd someone shouted too soon. Desperate Godfrey lapsed into the old tried and true and began a rendition of The Aristocrats joke. Oh he saved the day that Gilbert in a new world of uncertainty fear terror and attack the reassuring familiarity of the old joke was a bomb for the male spirit. The joke is as predictable as a comedy threesome as

formulaic as a knock knock joke. It has three parts. The set up. The hilarious description of the troops act and the two word punchline. If the teller observes the rules of set up and punchline he is allowed between those two levels of levity. Total comic license to spew a toxic buildup of excrement sexism misogyny beast reality violence and pedophilia. The joke is a secret handshake and insider joke number 23 in your comedy hymnals. The joke comics tell to amuse each other after hours. The film is an unwitting NYT transport through the comic portals into a pure aisle world. Good little boys like full house as Bob Saget and mad about you Paul Reiser who found fame and Blansett comes get to show that when freed from the terrible style cramping burden of political correctness they can be as vile

as any of their good old boy club friends. Critics both of and in the movie claim that the constant repetition of the joke has the effect of taking away the hurtful meaning of the words that is saying. Banging your 9 year old daughter many many times eventually erases meaning so the focus can be on the amazing variety of comic styles. The ultimately practical joke of rape is not the point. Oh ok because it is the primer of mainstream because it is a primer of mainstream comics and comedy writers. I went to the aristocrat's as part of my ongoing professional research and development. The walls of the new art cinema are quite porous and often when I was supposed to be laughing all I could hear was booming rumbling blasts from the theater next door signaling the end of the world.

Questions. The end of the world. Think there was. Yeah. Tom Cruise shock. This one is called Kiss my benchmark. It was written in 2007 and it's a kind of MMO I think I wrote it around Memorial Day so here you go. Kiss my benchmark. Are you OK. All right. I get nervous. A little quiet. Here we go. I read to my girlfriend all the time she's like please just go home. You have to read that to me right now. Yes. Last weekend I was sitting in my old Jeep in a parking lot at a seafood stand in town waiting for a friend to get the world's most expensive smallest lobster roll. The place was packed. The lobster roll was not. I was listing to a prairie home companion and its special Memorial Day show from wolf

trap outside Washington D.C. Ever since Garrison Keillor tried to blog funny about gay men adopting children. I've been a little reluctant to listen and sometimes his breathy voice is a little too pervy for me. But the music was heartbreakingly tender ballads of leaving loved ones behind to fight the great big Last War to End All Wars. The finality of those separations is contrasted with the global connectedness of this war through emails podcast and Skype. Yet the pain of physical separation. I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places. What do I do when you are far away is just as real now for young soldiers and their families as I listened to absent mindedly watching all the sunburned people return from the beach. I got all choked up so I went home and called my oldest brother. He had been drafted learn

Vietnamese at the ironically named Fort Bliss and served a year in Vietnam. His job was interpreter with the pacification troops who went into towns and villages to help with rebuilding. He did not talk about it when he got home except for one story about almost falling out of a helicopter making a quick exit from a village that was not quite ready to be rebuilt. We caught up a bit on his family's Memorial Day picnic plans and then I thanked him for serving in Vietnam. He was quiet and then he said this is so weird. You're the second person to thank me. Back then no one thanked me. Sometimes it's surreal to be in a vacation town as the world goes to hell around us. Like during this dirge of a surge just a few streets over and commercial. The town was filling with fabulous young lesbians from colleges all over the Northeast. On one last huge fling the town is an unofficial party stop on the unofficial lesbian party circuit. I interviewed some of them.

That's what I'm calling it anyway. And they said it's all word of mouth and a lovely mouth. It is. Speaking of Mouth's I will miss Rosie's mouth on the view. There are certainly different ways of fighting the war and she chose to be outspoken and unwilling to swallow the extraordinary renditions from the Bush administration about what is happening. For that she was treated to a big hysterically. She was treated as a big hysterical lesbian. Interesting how the other side does an operation distraction and focuses on the Girlfight and not the war. I hope she has a good summer rest and comes back on her own late night show meets the constant coverage of Lindsay Lohan's last fling. I saw the story that Cindy Sheehan mother of a son killed early on in the war and announced that if she is she is depleted from fighting the administration and her so-called allies. She is going home. She should rest and come back as Rosie's

sidekick. Let's all rest up this summer because come September they can kiss my benchmark. Thank you. This one is called not full citizens. It was written in 2006. The New York State Supreme Court exhibited classic pre-9 11 thinking in its ruling that the state constitution does not permit gay couples to marry pre 9/11 B.C the court's majority reference sexual preference rather than sexual orientation. They reasoned that since same sex parents do not have children by accident or impulse gay parenting is unhealthy for children. This is not a decision this is a cry for help.

Or maybe they are really just protecting gay couples from the horror that is marriage. Is this the new closeted tolerance. I am not a lawyer but the court's brief made so little sense. I began to worry I worried about it then too that my worst fears had been realized. It's possible that the dominos pizza school of law has graduated and is already fast tracking judges under the state's highest bench. I was worried about it then too. Nice part about not remembering anything. Well that's a great idea. Oh I just had it. OK. Who wrote that I did. Great. Please note that the commentators on the cable shows did not sneer endlessly that they are activist judges. No. The New York State Supreme Court was just doing the right thing. Since the decision in our so-called liberal state. I've been trying to rally my fellow gay New

Yorkers because they are a parent because we are apparently not full citizens of our Empire State. I think we should just jaywalk whenever we want declined to do jury duty and I don't think gay people should pay taxes. A friend of mine pointed out that they put people in jail for not paying taxes. Oh contraire I said neither they nor their corporations do time except on golfing junkets in the face of the horrible law of the Middle East. My plane can sound like you're quibbling even to me but the rulings in New York California and many other states not only make gay people morally expendable they also have very real life consequences. Even in Massachusetts the home of gay marriage on June 26 2006. My good friend Eric Rockfest died suddenly in Provincetown. Each day it becomes clear what a huge loss his death is for the gay community. Eric Olmos

52 organizer educator historian sex radical feminist thinker and writer had cut his active activist teeth in Boston in the 1970s. He lived in San Francisco and was in his beloved Province town for the summer working on his 12th book. His death was discovered on Monday night and by Tuesday evening many of his friends from his old Boston gay Mafia days. Now national gay leaders had returned to town. Crispin Eric's partner of 16 years finally arrived from San Francisco late Tuesday afternoon stunned and stricken. He had in hand Eric's power of attorney his will and their domestic partner papers. We found the only Cantor on Cape Cod through the Yellow Pages and planned Eric's funeral. Crispin wanted an autopsy to learn about the cause of death. Despite his in Eric's 16 years together he was told that he would need Eric's mother's authorization.

You do not want to anger gay lawyers who are heads of national organizations in their time of grief. The autopsy was performed and revealed the massive heart attack and undiagnosed congestive heart failure. Important information for Eric's surviving brother Chris been wanted to honor Eric's wishes for cremation and was informed again that he would need the mother's authorization again. The Angry Gay Lawyers on cell phones Eric had part powerful relentless connected friends to fulfill his final wishes. But what have other Crispin's in small and large towns paralyzed by grief. Going it alone with no energy or agency to decide what will become of their partner remains. They are the collateral accidents from unjust impulses. OK so cute your cuddling up now or are you

thinking of them. Tell me another one OK. This is one of my favorites but it's so in. OK here you go. This is called B is for benchmark. AB culturists have answered the famous Hamlet multiple choice existential question a to b or B not to be. The answer is B not to be on the west coast 60 percent of their bee colonies have gone missing on the overachieving East Coast. 70 percent are has billions. All right all right all right all right. This latest plague upon the land is called the bee is called colony collapse disorder. It occurs when a HIV's inhabitants suddenly disappear leaving only Queens eggs and a few immature workers. Sounds like a planning meeting.

I was at for gay pride. Each day I checked urban legend debunking sites for news that some bored high schoolers from North Dakota started the rumor. So far nothing Abian scientists posit many causes for the deaths of the bees mites pesticides. Radioactive waves cell phones genetically altered foods global warming or all of the above. I think it's Starbuck's in the groundwater. Absorbed by plants the caffeine makes the bees busy busy then crazy busy then dead from overwork. No more little bees knees jutting from peonies obscenely pantaloons in pollen. Goodnight. I'll be here all week. Okay. Let's see. Albert Einstein won. Alberto we can believe in said that after the bees disappear

humanity has about four years left. I do not want to sound like some Notre Dame but we have already we have already begun to see a corollary collapse. It's beby CC baby boomer colony collapse. Quite frankly I could not be happier and I am one. My baby boom generation has been endlessly tediously fascinating to itself spawn of World War 2 regrew up on Spock. We rock from Elvis to the Beatles. The Vietnam War was our first quagmire. We did drugs. Inhaled fought for civil rights for women blacks and gays. Love meant never having to say you're sorry. Our idealism was supposedly killed with Martin Luther King and the Kennedys. Some late bloomers some late boomers got conservative corporate rich did cocaine and in our inevitable fifties many did Viagra. Botox and hormones aided by our Uncle Tom Brokaw and Hanks.

The rich who had not served in the first quagmire because they had other priorities grew nostalgic for those so-called greatest generation wars when attacked in 2001. We were pumped up and ready. We gave ourselves a rhetorical goosebumps about freedom. Goosestepping Iraq. Now I'm talking about my generation George Bush king baby boomer in chief and his loyal cronies have not represented well. The defining moment of his administration is not 9 11 but Reno 9 1 one. A cable cop show whose tagline is no one does a better job of not doing a better job than Bush Clinton Bush Clinton B C B C double helix of hubris is the buzz kill a B B C C though Hillary is a woman. There is cold comfort on a farm with you go to the polls with a candidate you have not the one you wish to have. Now in our sixties we are terrorized by death and of course no one has

ever experienced that so exquisitely it is unseemly for us to be called baby boomers. We are Gaiser boomers. We should just get out of the way. Work for a habitat fewer here for humanity do meals on wheels be literacy volunteers. I'm sorry our work here is done. It's time to step away from the hive. Now this one I'm very proud of because if. You want to respond. I feel it's myself sister. Go ahead. Whatever happened to the. I think they went to Yale

Business. They went to Yale Business School and confidently ran the economy into the ground. Thank you very much. Yes exactly. Anyone else moved. I'm very proud of this next one because it appeared in the progressive magazine and it caused many people to ask for their subscription to be canceled. And math Rothchild was so proud of it. It's called reading between the holy lines. I am not saying this in any kind of mayflowers snooty way. But I was recently jiggering with some of those nifty Mormon genealogy computer programs. And I have traced my lineage back through St. Bridget to Mary Magdalene and Jesus. I do not mean to brag but it turns out I have Jesus's cheekbones for a couple of extra dollars. I also found that my partner a goddess of

multitasking is a direct descendant of the many armed and dangerous Hindu goddess collie. Despite our luminous lineage we could not be allowed would not be allowed to adopt a child in the Boston Archdiocese of Mormon Mitt's Massachusetts. Apparently the 2003 Vatican statement that same sex adoptions are gravely immoral and would actually mean doing violence to these children. That was not trumped by the trumpeted 2006 papal encyclical day as Caritas asked or God is love. In his first official papal letter after the semi official papal poster called Harry Potter I'm anti-Christ I'm asked. Benedict news to the faithful on the glories of love. The papal apologists at the New York Times expressed surprise in their article on the cyclical that the pope did not denounce the abomination of gay marriage.

They seemed unwilling to read between the holy lines when the pope went on and on and on about the sacred rightness of the love between a man and a woman. But PBS post PayPal's scriptum. What does his papal red Prada bumpiness know of love. With those deep set eyes. Was he a big dater before a seminar seminary. Does he have a secret stash of Harlequin romances. Is Daniel Steele's soon to be on the fast track to sainthood. Is he actually admitting that unmarried priests really are loveless losers. Does he have a postering doll of Jack Nicholson saying to Helen Hunt in as good as it gets. You make me a better man through the end. And so the end. Evangelium part me though the evangelist John wrote God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.

Holy smokescreen there are some exceptions to all that abiding when the state of Massachusetts required the church to follow anti-discrimination laws in order to receive public dollars. The Boston Archdiocese stopped doing adoptions all together. The new Pope Benedict makes the old pope John Paul seem as benign as Mr Magoo. He is intent on winnowing and purifying his flock. He holds a tight rein on his shepherds who seem eager to do his bidding and he's removing any hint of broke backlash from the herd. News flash. I think this with the paragraph. News flash to gay Catholics. The Church hates your guts. No matter what the goodness of your lineage. Be mindful if your host or wine tastes a little funny. I would suggest not sitting in the front pew.

I would suggest leaving. Yeah we lost a couple on that one. All right I read just a couple more of them will do. Question answer but this is just for you it's called Bush as Bella check. Are you football people are. I totally misread the crowd. Can you handle it. This was in 2008. It is first presidential summer with the Crawfords split rail photo op fence behind him George Bush the science guy squinted into the sun and announced his just say no to embryonic cells in stem cell research. It was kind of lame in the fall of 2001 and he was forced to take off his lab coat and put on his Bombardier jacket to deal with terrorist cells not stem cells. And now owing to the enormous progress in Iraq everyone has fled or is dead. Our favorite political scientist has done his white coat and wraparound safety glasses again and claims responsibility for the

latest discovery in Cell Technology. Picture a young Franken Bush surrounded by bubbling billowing beakers in his secure lab down in Nixon's old bowling alley with his trusty Mr Wizard chemistry set. He adds for pleura potent genes. Rica thanks to him instead of using human embryos cells researchers can now use cells from human skin especially if the skin is straight white and Republican researchers are already prospecting around plastic surgery sites in Palm Springs. I laughed when I wrote it. OK. In Colorado this discovery will free up the embryos needed for the embryonic personhood ballot initiative which was approved by the state supreme court there. The embryonic personhood ballot initiative for the arduous task of going door to door dical collecting thousands of signatures means they are going to need more blacks to say boots on the

ground. The New York Times made an inch and a half narrower to cut costs and yet still wide enough to carry Doud Brooks and Crystal columns reported and seem to believe that the president had modest goals for his last year in office. I heard that snort what you think we're going to attack Iraq. Apparently you did not read David Brooks as insurance the Bush administration is not going to attack Iran. Trust me the trust me thrust me into a frantic search for my passport. It has not expired. I have pages left. The Bush policy of unintended consequences has taught us one thing one person can change the world. And just seven excruciatingly long years. Bush's arrogance has destroyed the United States as the last remaining superpower. It's OK. I was never comfortable with all that unseemly messianic imperial chest thumping. When you are a haughty unbeaten number one everyone resents you.

It is a lot of pressure and you become like Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots spying on other teams getting caught and denying it. Piling on running up the score taunting glowering monosyllabic glee at press conferences and wearing whatever all the hoodies cut off. You want. Bush and his buddies have grease the skids of our decline and finally last one for the Gipper. Guantanamo and torture made our national symbol. The Americans spread eagle. Welcome to post America. When not slightly heartbroken I am oddly relieved. We got time for one more. Can you handle it. You're so adorable. We don't have to buy the book if she keeps up. I got to 10. Can you. Can you handle there'll be snacks at some point. Well. This one is called the unconvicted white man. My Indian girlfriend makes me capture crickets using a humane catch and release

program that would make a Lou Dobbs Minute Man Border Patrol pitch an Epi. I go quickly to the door and at a decent distance from the house release the critter into the wild. I can be driven to violence by night sounds but when it comes to crickets I bow to my skittish deligated partner's wishes. I honor her loosely held belief in reincarnation. One morning while we were reading the papers she announced as if I had asked that she had finally she finally knew her preferred form of reincarnation. Still drowsy from my night patrol and frowzy from trying to make sense of Maureen Dowd. I asked and as if she were declaring a Halloween outfit. She stated that she wanted to come back as an uncommon Pflicht did white man stood the straight was understood. Well my fallen away Catholic beliefs still imbue my eschatological hopes for

an afterlife. I have totally embraced her Tenet not George Tenet although he is a perfect example of an unconvicted white man. In the midst of an endless war and conflicted white men are perfectly at peace with themselves. Wideawake from cricket racket. I think he must have some regret for what he has done. It is pure projection on my part. The conflicted white man roster grows each day. Donald Rumsfeld who claims that he is now out of the loop on the war wants to start an institute to encourage more civic participation in government. In the Vanity Fair issue that finally chronicles the media Goehring of Al Gore gung ho war ho Christian Christopher Hitchens chronicled not his war makeover but his spa treatment Karl Rove angles to captain the swift boat veterans threatened by powerful women also

known as the Giuliani campaign. Dick Cheney continues in his role as head of the executive plus legislative the executive branch of government. In China when officials err they have the decency to kill themselves and the United States they go on victory lap book tours the Press Rolled out of unconvicted white man Alan Greenspan's pre-emptive save face book could serve as a model for a coordinated well executed exit strategy. Like a bad penny Greenspan was everywhere. Newsweek. Jon Stewart the news hour on 60 Minutes he Chesire as the blindingly blond embedded reporter Lesley Stahl dimpled. That's. OK I think I want to hear that again. Do you mind. OK. I love that. I don't even verbs. I don't even know anymore. On 60 Minutes he checked

fired as the blindingly blond embedded reporter Lesley Stahl dimpled. I love that she said to him as in dimpled you were a jazz player. The underreported party spoiler of course was Naomi Klein simultaneously released Shock Doctrine as welcome in the discours as an unclaimed backpack and a bus terminal. The Grand Master of an unconditional white man. If I did it in Chief George Bush announced in a recent legacy building interview that when he leaves office he wants to start a Freedom Institute. And I quote. In other words people can come to the institute and talk about freedom. Of course I'll miss him. Of course I will but apparently I always have Dick Cheney. His. Tautologies make Miss Teen Calaf Miss South Carolina.

Rambling sounds sane. Mostly he noticed from his father and Bill Clinton that you can make big bucks speechifying. Got to fill up the coffers. You know Southern Methodist University is resisting housing the Bush presidential library. I think they should put the bush shelf at the Creation Museum. Nestled into one of the six seas of creation diorama as it would fit perfectly in corruption and catastrophe. Rapture man is divinely and conflicted because he has done his job as an independent contractor of preclusion intelligent design the landing strip for the second coming is ready. His work here is done. He is the one in whom only he is well pleased. Whew. There you go. Lyrical writers. Adrienne Rich. Mary Daly. Which I always call Mayor Daley Audrey Lord June Jordan. They were I when I went

through college there was no such thing as women's studies. And I never got quite with the incredible experience of the big whale was hunting the White Whale. I was always reading and it felt like everybody else was on spring break I was reading about the book and whale and Captain Ahab and I couldn't really get the big exciting thing there so I and I once wrote a paper on the NEA which I said was about Dido's so it should have been called the divied Yeah. That went over well when I was in graduate school at Colgate. I will say the name I was the only woman in the class and we were reading Madame Bovary and so like the first day of class and the professor said to me girl and I said My name is Kathleen at the time and I said my name and he said whatever and then asked me a question and the next day he called me and I held my name up on a card. And he said that because you were talking about I mean over and he was like let's get it from the horse's mouth girl. And

I held my card up again which of course made him fall in love with me and harassed me for the rest of my time there. But anyway. So when I finished I went and when I left teaching after eight years I went out to a place in Cazenovia New York called the Women's writers center. And anybody Yes I went there and I didn't intend to go I just wanted to not teach for a while but I went and I was hooked immediately. And that program had visiting teachers who came in the first week I was there read Rita May Brown came. I had no idea who she was. But she was sassy and. And that was it. She came in the winter and everybody she always wore her shirts down open like this and everybody did for like months and had horrible flu all the chest colds there was a lot but she was there. And. Olga Bruma came Marj Pearcey came. A woman that ran a magazine called Icon in

New York. And then the last person that came was Adrienne Rich and everybody who came every teacher who came I would say there doesn't seem to be much written about women's feminist humor and everybody had answers. But Audrey looked at me and said you write it. It was like OK. And so they were critical for my thinking for my to kind of have a philosophical basis to be funny. It didn't tell a lot of one liners. It was my job. But Carol Burnett just that image of the woman making women laugh people laugh. Moms Mabley I had a wonderful comic mom when I was growing up. I had a wonderful mom but she had five kids didn't have a lot of time. So my best friend's mother in high school would call me and say Come over here right now. And she would like listen to Mike Nichols in late May. I did. You know I listen to all those albums and really learn she would get she got Frederick's of Hollywood's Catalog which was like a lingerie catalog back in the 50s for God sakes and to make me do dramatic

readings. So I mean I really did. And one of my earliest performances was she got got these horrible Christmas letters. They had the weirdest friend long Christmas letters and she would make me read them and request an accent she'd like do this one in German and be fun. But that what they were important for me right now I would say I made it through the campaign with Jon Stewart and Paula Poundstone. They don't get to see enough of our wonderful. I've totally forgotten her name but did the correspondents dinner was Wanda Sykes. Wrapped it up and did a fine job. So they're inspiring but I'm more like I feel like I'm a translator. I feel like I really read Headey philosophical stuff and then let's try to make that into a one liner. Can I repeat it. So she's a lesbian for a long time I'm a lesbian for a long time. Ever ever. Help me

by my house OK. And I thank you for that. And what's the difference between audiences like our hunger to see you know like oh my god sinister with him came out my arm and you know now with a flood of images etc. What is the response among young people. What's weird to me is you're not really real unless you've been on television. It's so weird and I've been at my shows been on LOGO a lot so I'm more than Priscilla Queen of the desert actually which is kind of hard to top I. I've actually gone over her numbers now but. And so people say where have you been. You know like and I've been around for like 28 years. But it's just a thing. You become real through media which is good and bad. It's great

because I am getting to places that I do all the travel to. Now you know like that's great. I mean the message is getting out but the actual like excitement of being in a room and looking around you and knowing that you're not the only one like I remember walking in to see jade in SAS Barilla. In upstate New York remember and I circled the building. That's why I always thank people for coming out because it was so hard for me to come into that building. But I don't know I don't they don't have that kind of experience I don't think. I think what's happened recently with Proposition 8 and the you know the demonstrations that I saw were it was wonderful because I really enjoy the young people's incredible sense of entitlement. It's delightful. But there was a way of being with them that they were shocked that they couldn't do something. And I love that. I love that. And that's a great organizing tool. It's amazing but there you

know it's like I'd fight with everybody all the time about all these kids around and you know as we look at each other we think you know we wouldn't recognize a revolution if we fell over it maybe you know what I mean. Because it's so different and it takes a different pace. But it's definitely happening there. But sometimes I think I don't recognize it but I believe it's there. And it's very it's more diffuse. And maybe I'm working myself out of a job. I don't think so. I knew she wanted me. I just love it. It's sort of what I love about it is. Oh right. Lindsay Lohan a high level conversation here. All right what about Lindsay Lohan and her new if she doesn't know she's in her new lesbian identity. It's shocking to me is. Who cares. Do you know it's like nobody cares.

It's like Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian I mean like which is fun to say but. Nobody cares. Absolutely no one cares. You know you can't get like you know like Ellen's a lesbian you know run for the hills. But this is like who cares. It's wonderful. Who is she. Who is she was the question. OK. OK. That's good. This is how you learn. From Al Gore. Oh right. Right. They just care about Lindsay Lohan. She got a certain Disney I'm embarrassed. I read widely but not deeply. That's the thing. And so she just kind of the child actors that's come up and then found drugs and alcohol and overdoses and a publicity publicity.

Fabulous. I'm not going to do the overdose though. OK. I know it's great publicity but I'm not doing it. OK. If I could say how the Obama administration is doing so far how I feel. How are you. I'm getting old. I don't have a lot of time. You know first of all it's stunning that it's not McCain I just say that to myself all the time and I am prepared to be disappointed. You know I mean I won the. And I mean I want the end of patriarchy. I want the collapse of capitalism. I you know like you know how is that going. And he's a centrist. And I think he's extremely as well. You know as the campaign showed he really has a plan and I think he's got a plan in this. I think he gets thrown off sometimes by actual things that happened. But you know you know I think he probably has a timeline for when he's going to actually talk about something LGBT.

I am. That said I am completely flabbergasted that we have a black president that we have an incredible black first lady. I mean that's amazing to me. We have that he can speak in clauses in long sentences like it's stunning. It's stunning. But I am prepared to be disappointed which is like saying I'm so disappointed in the patriarchy. Well what were you thinking. All right. That's four but that's good. They seem to like one a beat. So the first question was what was it like to do my first open mic. I didn't. I came up through the flowering of the LGBT lesbian feminist separatist circuit that played a lot of Unitarian churches. Thank you very much. And I knew when I made it when I started to go play upstairs but I had talked about wanting to try stand up comedy and my best friend got sick of hearing me

talk about it and she booked me in a club in Syracuse. She said you're on in a month I don't want to hear about it anymore. My first show is 33 minutes long and two minutes into it my friends started heckling. I said really what are you doing. She said it's a comedy show we're supposed to heckle I said shut up. That was it. But I I was nervous but I was I was much more nervous the first day I taught high school. So this was like I mean I was you know people say what are you going to do to you. That's amazing. Two shows in a night it was like I used to do five a day. You know it's like this is nothing. So you know like I was familiar with that. Those nerves do I think Janet Napolitano is a lesbian. No but her hair is. I don't know I don't like her border stuff at all. And what was the other one who influenced me who's.

My favorite politician right now. Barbara Lee. Barbara Lee. Barbara Yep. Yep. Out in California and. And what was the other one. Will I ever run for office. No I can't. I don't behave well in meetings. I'm just people ask me to be on their boards. So you really don't want that. But I will help you out by doing a show or something. OK. Because I try to get people to act poorly. My girlfriend can go to meetings all day long. She actually has a book it's called freedom is an endless meeting. Not for me but I thank all of you who do it. Yes. Anybody else. All right. Perfect timing. What. No I have not taken the Myers-Briggs. What do I look like seven or something. I see a blue eye I see seven. No I

haven't but I have. I have a friend who's. I think going to think I'm a healer. Well thank you for being here. Come to