A tale beyond comprehension begins nearly 4,000 years ago, yet it’s timely as today’s Teabaggers. Uncover now the astounding secret of human evolution as we race halfway around the world on the heels of America’s foremost amateur archaeological sleuth, Arkansas Times Editor Max Brantley, and his siren sidekick, JudgeEllen, into the blazing jaws of hell – the Tomb of the Übertrolls in ancient Syria. OMG!
I may be “disappeared” for this report, so cache it before it’s taken down.
The journey starts in Little Rock, Arkansas, where mild-mannered newspaper editor Brantley harbors a well-concealed – until now – lifelong obsession with archaeology and the secrets of the ancients. Each year, he and wife Ellen feign innocuous two-week “vacations” in Europe.
In reality, recalls old Washington and Lee friend Bertrand Lee, “Even when they were dating they used to dress up funny and go out on these digs at the Toltec Mounds and stuff. Which we all thought was weird so they shut up about it and claimed they went to the races or floated the Buffalo or something.”
Ever since, it turns out, even whilst familying and journalisming and judging and functioning under the radar in Little Rock, the Brantleys live a double life and secretly foster international contacts with radical archaeologists Bob Brier;Graham Hancock, John West, Robert Bauval, et al.
The advent of the internet deepens the Brantleys’ research and involvement in arcane digs starting in 1990, drawing them to increasingly distant and dangerous adventures under the guise of gastronomic “vacations” in Paris or Naples. By now, Max and Ellen Brantley are known on the archeological circuit by the code name, Mellen.
Armed protection proves lifesaving as the Mellens venture closer to the 4,000 year old cuneiform source of The Secret in remote Syria this past summer. Their cover? Pretending to be on a light-hearted tour of Italy and seemingly blogging about it (on a bullet-proof Dell laptop – see shoulder murse, below).
My insider pal in Ar Raqqah who accompanied the Mellens emails me this snapshot of Arky Max just before the intrepid duo donkey-up for the searing Syrian mountains in search of the cave-tomb of the Übertrolls – ever-ready to blast bad guys, whip raging bulls, if any, and blog.
Who’s Bad?
________________________
Inside the Tomb of the Übertrolls, the Brantleys discover an astounding inscription identical to one on the ancient Code of Hammurabi stele – humanity’s oldest known written codified laws.
My Ar Raqqah insider emails me (with pix) that Brantley noted a cuneiform inscription on a wall inside the Tomb of the Übertrolls that is identical to one on the Code of Hammurabi stele.
Below, the Tomb of the Übertrolls where the Mellens disemdonkeyed.
And now, The Secret.
Max Brantley confirms one of the world’s oldest human laws – inscribed both on the Code of Hammurabi stele and inside the Tomb of the Übertrolls. Previously, the puzzling inscription on the stele was thought to refer to allegorical “ogres” or “trolls.” With the discovery of the tomb’s identical inscription, science no longer questions their literal existence.
“They literally sent them up there to die,” said an excited Ellen Brantley, now back in Ar Raqqah bartering for native scarves in the local bazzar. “They starved them to death!”
Here is the cuneiform Arky Max identified inside the tomb.
4,000 years later it still looks like “D” “F” “T” “Troll” if you look at it.
The March, 2010 issue of “Archaeology,” published by the Archaeological Institute of America, honors the discoverer of the “DFTT” Principle with the official scientific appellation, the Brantley Maxim.
Thank you and congratulations, Mellens, for a lifetime of defying danger, living the dream, tripping and sharing.
P.S. The scarf works with everything, Ellen. Shukran! شكرا
Main Street’s fondly-remembered heyday in Little Rockwas over 50 years ago. The glory days of Blass’s, Pfeifer’s, Kempner’s and Cohn’s. Arkansas’ exciting Capital – The Rock!
(CUE BARBRA STREISAND AND GLADYS KNIGHT: “Misty watercolor, etc.”)
Does Main Street look wider then, or has time rewritten every line?
Main Streetwas wider. Built-out sidewalks halved street traffic for all the foot traffic that never showed up.
But enough about city planning through Prayer. Let’s not waste time on blame and instead fast-forward toward a bright and twinkling tomorrow.
(KILLSTREISAND AND KNIGHT TRACKS)
_________
It’s always best to start at the beginning so let’s tour Main Street Present after half a century of failed but pricey professional planning. It all passes too quickly from a moving vehicle. Take the Walking Tour instead and see it up close from a visitor’s perspective for the full appalling effect.
Bring Kleenex.
Main Street 2010 is –
One or two contemporary large beige brick Main Street edifices supposedly staff government workers of some kind but it could be Soylent Green. Who knows? No identifying logos adorn these anonymous exteriors.
“Where are all the people?” you wonder as you wander. Main Street’s creepily ominous vibe is like George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” just before the cry of “Action!” and hundreds of state-employed zombie extras spill onto the sidewalks to devour you and your little dog too.
(Film Commission? Christopher Crane? Graham Gordy? Run with it.)
__________________
“VILLAGE OF THE DREAM!”
__________________
How in 2010 do we get from . . .
and from. . .
. . . in just ten short years?
That’s what they all asked when I first marched my proposal into their offices months ago. Mayor Stodola, the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, Main Street Revitalization Task Force, Arkansas Building Authority, Clinton Foundation, Stephens, Moses-Tucker, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Bennett's, et al.
“You’ve tried everything else over the past 50 years and nothing’s worked. So drop all this ‘planning.’ I know it’s your jobs, but find something else to ‘plan.’ Let nature take its course instead, as it always does to revive dying neighborhoods from Hong Kong to Honolulu to Hoboken to Hell’s Kitchen and Helsinki,” with spectacular success.
“And what would THAT be, Ms. Bates?” (Oh, Rett, Rett . . . and you too, Jimmy. I just wanted to bitch-slap you cynics. Thankfully, you listened and came around.)
“Two words, boys. Then two more words.”
_________________________________
“GAY GENTRIFICATION + FENG SHUI!”
_________________________________
That’s right, Razorbabies. The old Tried and True.
1)The River Market already works beautifully, notwithstanding “problems.” (Look. Patrons pee on sidewalks from Beijingto Beale Street to Bourbon Street. Business owners don’t whine. They hose down their sidewalks each morning and open for business as usual. We’re not talking Heritage USA here; another ghost town BTW.)
2)The dream is for River Market’s vitality to turn the corner onto Main Street and spread into surrounding streets and neighborhoods. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Let gays and lesbians do the initial dirty work like everywhere else and revitalize Main Street businesses and housing through gentrification!
3)Gay gentrification initiates a number of positive effects, including cultural revival in the inner city, the protection and preservation of historical properties, the enhancement of the quality of life of residents as well as a rise in property, income, and sales tax revenues for local governments. Gentrification also tends to increase the safety of an area and its desirability as a tourist location.
4)It’s Organic, not “Imposed,” development. Why does Hillcrest work and Main Street doesn’t? Your gays and your gay-friendlies. Nobody in Hillcrest gives a rat’s tush who’s gay and who’s not. Neither does anybody in Sticky Fingers or the Rumba Room or Copper. Bygone bigotry’s dying faster than retirees who plunk down six-figures (cash) for MarriottHotelRiver Market condos. What’s the “dream” there? To turn the River Market and Main Street into Leisure World? Talk about your Pacts with Satan.
5)But wait: there’s more! The Clinton Library pumps some 300,000 tourists annually into River Market restaurants, entertainment venues, shops and hotels.
6)5%-10% of Arkansans are GLBT (roughtly 150,000-300,000). Incentivize 1/2-1% and that's 15,000 – 30,000 creative but miserable closet cases moving from Pine Bluff, Crossett, etc., into the River Market / Main Street areas! Let them revive those blocks like they do failing neighborhoods everywhere else around the world!
7)Are you surprised to learn, according to the most recent surveys, that Iowa City, Austin, and Asheville have more gays per capita than the big cities? These smaller cities (like Little Rock) where everyday gays live – towns and boroughs with a mix of baby carriages, gay bars, and B&Bs – signal the continuing movement of gay people into mainstream American life. “In 10 years or so every Main Street USA will probably be too gay to measure,” according to the leading national LGBT newspaper, The Advocate.
8)Stick a Trader Joe’s in there and watch traffic jam the streets from citywide. On the same page here, Mary Beth? Kathy? Sister-? Cammack? A gold mine.
9)But wait! Order now and we’ll throw in the foolproof money-back guarantee for Main Street revitalization: FENG-SHUI!
That’s right, Razorbabies. I have trained with a Master from Hong Kong and lectured on this ancient art of auspicious placement all over the world and of course it works. Ask anybody named Chin. Here, for example is my Lo-pan pointed at the Main Street entrance to the DoneghyBuilding.
As a Feng Shui Master, you have to know where to stand in relation to the “paths” intersections, but all you really need to know is that the black sectors (as here) suck -- as does the Doneghy Building. The side entrance is a bit better.
10)So what happens with my two-pronged plan – Gay Gentrification + Feng Shui – is that Main Street gradually becomes MainStreetVillage! Not same-old-same-old chain stores and restaurants and cinemas and Marriott clones available in any Everywhere City . . . but vivid and unique boutique excitement destinations for one-of-a-kind clothing, jewelry, gifts, international foods, bars, music, theatre . . . a “Seen The Rock Lately?” joint.
(CUE MARTHA / VANDELLAS)
P.S. Jimmy? Rett? Your promised check?
I mean this in a nice way but I can speed-dial more important people than you and don’t think I won’t.
The Chinese New Year begins on February 14 – Year of the Tiger / Fixed Element Wood. (I shit you not.)
Sadly, 2010 also contains the Element Metal – thus it’s a “White Tiger” year with potentials to become ferocious and cruel. It symbolizes power and authority: good for leadership but inflexible and destructive, tending toward lousy interpersonal relationships, especially with family members and closest friends.
Can’t you just feel it already even though you’re not Chinese?
Frankly, your only hope in the Year of the White Tiger is to become a powerful authority figure or wear red. Lots of red. If it’s not your color, then red underwear. It’ll bring luck, loyalty, success and happiness.
But wait! There’s more!
2010 is a Three Year and absolutely NOTHING stays still or reliable for long.
Volatile jobs, relationships, money, health, people and situations at a distance, relatives and siblings, neighbors and neighborhoods, cars (accidents, repairs, Razorbabies), appliances (repaired or replaced), credit cards and debts, income tax issues, minor or major legal vexations and papers – it’s just one damned thing after another and nerves are stressed, communications strained and you discover you’re STILL not too old to break out in zits.
The Devil’s in the Details. But so are the Blessings.
If you stay organized and on top of details and complete your To-Do List every day, you’ll come out way ahead.
But the tendency is to get overwhelmed with unexpected emergencies, god-awful paperwork demands, pile-ups from procrastination, fumbles through scattering your energies and distracted focus, promising more than you can realistically deliver . . . and seeking escape through drugs you thought you’d long ago overcome or turning all Born Again and blaming everything on Satan.
2010’s greatest danger? Impulsive speech and action. Intemperate, thoughtless words can wreck a lifelong relationship.
2010’s greatest opportunity? Break that private creative business venture you have in mind into its component parts and patiently NETWORK, organize, to make it happen, Razorbabies.
It’s been so Christmassy these past few weeks I’m pretty much beyond blessed and party-pooped. But there’s another week to go, what with New Year’s.
Yet, given lemons, I make lemonade. And speaking of clichés . . . here are some I overheard on 2008’s Christmas circuit. They MUST be shared, Razorbabies.
_______________________
“Somebody needs to show Vic Snyder the arrow of his ways.”
“They’re great. Even if they don’t have it they’ll order anything you don’t want.”
“He’s one of those people who speaks out of both sides of his fork.”
“There is no ‘I’ in ‘Assume.’ “
“She wouldn’t hurt a hair on his fly.”
“Oh, Huckabee’s always going off on some tango.”
_______________________
Now, party conversations with people who can’t get their clichés straight, much less who cite FOX, are pointless.
So I’ve devised a few conversation-stopping clichés of my own (beginning with, “Well . . . “) to render bores speechless before showing them my back and heading toward zippier in-depth chatter at the bar.
So far I've come up with these:
“Well, when the going gets tough the tough go away.”
“Well, never take candy from a baby moth, I always say.”
“Well, like they say, never look in a gilt whore’s mouth.”
And my personal best –
“Well, you should always come with the one you left with.”
_______________________
But, God help us, there’s a whole NEW YEAR of potentially inane gatherings awaiting in 2010 – thus a need on all our parts for a compendium of more and better “Razorbabies’ Mangled Clichés” to see us through.
Got some good ones, Hogs? We swine could use some pearls.
AP Little Rock, Ar. – Judge Ellen and Max Brantley accept the Norma BatesAuthentic Heirloom Collectors' Edition Plaque of Excellence Award on behalf of “Huckabee Haiku” WinnerHugh Mann from Norma Bates Wednesday at the award luncheon at Bates’ home.
“I regret I’m unable to accept this award in person from Ms. Bates and the readers of the Arkansas Times Blog but I will cherish it always,” Mann said today through Arkansas Times editor Brantley. “Thank you Norma and all you Bloggers, and you, my old friend Max, for being the one to personally pass this honor to me. Truly a special moment in my life of some kind.”
_______________________
Yes, Razorbabies . . . decorating for Christmas . . . hosting awards luncheons at home . . . welcoming very very old, very very dear friends throughout the holidays . . . giving rather than receiving . . . it’s all about the love.
P.S.
I promised myself I wouldn’t but I can’t help it. If you don’t know the Brantleys you don’t know their wonderful sense of humor.
As I hugged Max goodbye he whispered, “How come every time we leave here I feel like we’ve forgotten something valuable we’ll never see again?”
HUGH MANN! 2009'S WINNER AP Little Rock, Ar. -- Arkansas Times newbie blogger Hugh Mann won 2009's coveted Authentic Heirloom Collectors' Edition Norma Bates Plaque of ExcellenceAward for the "Huckabee Haiku" sweepstakes midnight Wednesday with this memorably profound entry:
“Reach out upward palm. Check waistline for stigmata. One more Autumn run.”
In a blistering online dead heat, 5 finalists from over 40 entries alternately fell back then surged ahead to cheers from 24,500+ white-knuckled voters during the grueling one-week marathon polling.
"I haven't been this excited since Kris beat Adam!" enthused Melody Puryear, Benton shut-in.
Midnight's Photo-Finish results (screenshot fails in limited blog width):
"Nobody but me anticipated this voting turnout," said Norma Bates by telephone moments ago. "I knew last year when Max and I got Little Rock's Magnet Schools involved in the A-T Blog that this day would come. Hungry young curious minds flock here in huge numbers to learn and join discussions and carry back extremely upsetting information and precociously expanded vocabularies to their colleagues, instructors, parents and pastors. Maybe the odd rabbi or imam. It's all about the children.
"The astounding voting has not been just a hands-on pro-active witness to fair and balanced electronic Democracy up close and personal for multitudes of motivated Magnet School students but adult A-T Bloggers too. And ALL the entries showed such creative talent! Pity there's no money in haikus but there IS my fabulous trophy. Only one other like it in existence.
(Please email Max Brantley your confidential shipping address. As soon as I've engraved and buffed your brass, my coveted Authentic Heirloom Collectors' Edition Norma Bates Plaque of ExcellenceAward will be at your door!)
The crack Arkansas Times jury selected these Five Finalists (in order of blog handle) from your 40 entries. “It was difficult, since the talent and creativity was so uniformly high,” said forewoman LaToya “No Relation” Greenberg with a straight face. “The rules were kinda hard for us to grab a-holt of since nobody’s Japanese.”
PICK YOUR WINNER, RAZORBABIES! *
“Big fish little pond. A dead fish goes with the flow. Fox talk PAC team gold.”
-bejeeus
“Huckabee. Palin. Our future is truly a Word that rhymes with Hucked.”
-CammackLife
“Bro-Gov ties stomach. Gives up knife and fork, Rotel. Digs grave with Fox News.”
-cruelanimal
“Reach out upward palm. Check waistline for stigmata. One more Autumn run.”
-hugh mann
“Questions being asked. Killers released on my watch. I need a fart joke.”
-perrobravo
* VOTING PROCEDURE
One vote (it’s anonymous) per page-view for your favorite Haiku!
Enter early and revisit voting page often, like speed-texting “American Idol” but FREE!
All are eligible to vote, whether registered A-T Bloggers or not. Women, men, children, friends, family, co-workers, strangers, living or deceased!
You have till midnight, Razorbabies (WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9), to choose your “HUCKABEE HAIKU” WINNER!
(Though truly everybody who entered is a winner and it’s honor enough to be in the same company and it’s not who wins or loses and you’re really blessed and so on.)
Capture Mike Huckabee in your own award-winning Huckabee Haiku!
Somewhere below is the Winner, Razorbabies!
The winner with the WOWiest Huckabee Haiku – adjudicated by the Arkansas Times’ crack Staff (plus an actual Judge!) – takes home the cherished “Norma Bates Plaque of Excellence” or whatever.
A-T Blogger CammackLife won the priceless rare-wood and brass plaque heirloom (personally signed by me) for last year’s “Caption This” contest – the only human being on the planet so honored!
Will it beYOU in 2009? Entries are closed!
“Huckabee Haiku” rules are simple. (If you don’t know how to create a Haiku, go here.)
Enter as often as you like! Tell your friends around the country! They can register on the blog for free, contribute their Haikus and vote too (early and often)!
Contest's OVER!
The A-T staff – plus actual Judge – will select the Top 5 haikus.
Then YOU, Razorbabies, will vote the Winner in early December!
I (left – candidly captured by Jason Masters on my way into Wal-Mart) will award your prize!
Yes, I personally contacted Mike (very very dear, very very old friend and former Baptist minister) to ask if he was down with the "Huckabee Haiku" contest.
He chortled.
"Sure! I just hope they don't crucify me or whatever."
TAKE TWO ASPIRIN, ROBOCALL ME IN THE MORNING . . .
Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln contemplates bleak future, hard choices, in face of re-election campaign diagnosis.
LINCOLN JOB PERFORMANCE PCCC POLL: Sen. Lincoln has 41% favorable, 49% unfavorable rating. (Independents: 38% favorable, 52% unfavorable.) 38% think Lincoln is in-touch, 47% out-of-touch (Independents: 39% in, 47% out). 35% say Lincoln is effective, 51% ineffective. (Independents: 35% ineffective, 50% ineffective.)
I not only can’t stop the music, I can’t swallow this homoerotic Republican two-step.
“Blanching With the Stars” is bad enough, but wrapping my mind around the “ageless” butchness that is Mike Huckabee’s campaign-trail buttboy – Chuck Norris – well, I had to call MEMS and check into Bridgeway. Because . . .
Wasn’t this supposed to be “butch” in the 70s? The faded denim? The stare? The unbuttoned shirt? The cap pistols? The basket? (No straight woman would've fallen for this look for five seconds, it's so insecure.)
Just asking, ‘cause I came along a little later – when “YMCA” was just an innocent disco hit and not code for a gay orgy of horny young Christian men got up in cowboys-and-indians drag hooking up in cheap hostels around the country.
Conflating Village People masculine iconography with Presidential elections rubs me the wrong way, so to speak.
Yet, there’s THIS.
A failed southern Baptist minister / governor presidential candidate making goo-goo eyes with a forgotten former B-movie action “star” duoing “Love Me Tender?”
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Razorbabies.
Janet? You and the kids up for an ex-gay intervention?
We get it, Blinc, my darling. And no doubt Doctor (Dinc, to intimates on the circuit) loves the new you.
But too much has been leaked too fast after too long, about you, and this reads too little, too late, too de$perate. (We know your coffers are bulging but we didn't envision this.)
It works, in a sort of Bob-Mackie-meets-Julie-Andrews-in-a-Galaxy-Far-Far-Away way. Especially the stage makeup and lightened do.
Still, Blinc, I would personally sue my political consulting team for refunds of taxpayer monies on this ill-advised ploy. It ranks up there with Sarah Palin naming all her men after Tonka Toys.
Yet there IS one way out and you can thank ME for it.
Claim you’re dyslexic and thought Halloween fell on October 13th.
Here’s Nobel Prize Winning President Barack Obama (offspring of an interracial marriage that was illegal, for “traditional” “religious” bigotry, in mostly southern states when he was born), addressing the Human Rights Campaign yesterday in 2009, on minority (LGBT) equality in America.
Yep. He’s alone up there. DOMA, DADT? Be patient, Razorgaybies. You, your families, your friends, your mates, shall overcome . . . "some"-fucking-day.
The Nobel Prize Winning President’s “reason” for not lifting a finger on his hollow campaign promises to LGBT Americans? More of this:
WHY (it turns out after his election) does Obama NOT support gay equality? “As a matter of Christian principle, he has said,” quoth the NYT.
_________
“Welcome to Wal-Mart. Burquas? Aisle 4, honey.”
_________
Look. I’m glad it’s Obama instead of Bush / Cheney redux too.
Maybe Obama’s got a secret plot to let Republicans hang themselves as the Obstructionist Party and the Party of No during the first half of Obama’s administration. Let them show their cards by offering NO solutions on every issue: just bratty (dangerously well-armed and Godly-motivated, but still bratty) nihilism.
Maybe that’s Obama’s subtle, sober, plan all along. Once the Republican Party bottoms-out and the loving American Family intervenes to enroll them in a long-term 12-Step lockdown at Betty Ford, Democrats will demonstrate actual leadership and DO something. ACHIEVE something. Like Social Security and Medicare and the Civil Rights Act in days of yore.
Until that day when Obama’s and the Democrats’ brilliant secret scheme is finally unleashed, thereby regaining America’s crowned position as Leader of the (Truly) Free World, there’s always this:
Call it woman’s intuition, but I’m all hinky about Obama and the Democrats. There’s a bad joke in here somewhere involving hot-air, balloons, pilots and “Blow Me,” but I’m not going there.
Because equality for all adult Americans, free from state-sponsored religious bigotry, regardless of which party’s administration is in charge, is no joke.
Maybe I was going too fast at night, or all deers look alike.
Wait a minute. I'm flashing back to "Bambi." Mommy deers don't have antlers, right? (I'm a city girl. Don't know from antlers.) So this CAN'T be Blanche, right?
Anyhoo, as both driver and voter, I swerved at the last minute from whichever look-alike deer it was and only ran over a blue dog that suddenly leaped into the otherwise empty oncoming lane.
I stopped to see if I could save it, but it turned out to be a metaphor for rabid reality.
A bizzy buzzy whiplash whirlwind week in The Rock, Razorbabies!
Parties, clubbing, live music, Sticky’s, Whitewater, weddings and receptions at Next Level, Jam Night and Ramona at the Afterthought, In Demand at Jazzy’s, fall frocks UPSing to Chenal from my recent Manhattan shopping jaunt . . . a shame the LGBTs have ruined Sunday with their inclement immoral gay weather (thanks for the heavenly tip, Rev. Falwell) but at least it’s not a gay hurricane or tornado or earthquake this time.
So I’m confined to my library where I’ve started Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” on Stanza on my iPhone, growing more philosophical and melancholy with each chapter, till finally, logically, I come to ponder our politicians and representatives.
Is THAT a segué for your ass, Razorbabies? Frankenstein to Functionaries?
What is the POINT of elected Razorbaby Representatives in The Rock or DC?
To LEAD Arkansas – by their intelligence, education, commitment, investment and compassion – OUT of Last Place in Nearly Everything except obesity, divorce, education, health, bigotry, good-ol’-boy corruption and tacky fashion and grooming decisions?
(I, as one woman, albeit multi-lingual, educated stateside and abroad, globally-trotted and inherently fabulous, can only do so much.)
Or are our Razorbaby Representatives elected to suck and sock away as much as they can, as long as they can, from special interest lobbyists to preserve Arkansas’ bottom-of-the-barrel do-nothing form-another-study-committee comfort zone by pandering to, uh . . . obesity, divorce, education, health, bigotry, good-ol’-boy corruption, tawdry fashion / grooming decisions and our perennial image as “Red Carpet” Rubes no matter the occasion?
Re-election (preserving the status quo), instead of Leadership (improving the status quo), seems today’s targeted political skillset.
They’re all nice people, our Representatives. I’m all country-club-cocktail-clinky with them. Some more clinky than others.
But name ‘em. Name the biggies. First names that come to mind.
ANY of ‘em Leaders? Appealing to our better standards? Lifting Arkansas out of its historic rank? ANY of ‘em showing us the way – as opposed to polls and lobbyists showing THEM the way?
Uh . . . uh-uh.
Really, what’s the point?
When even our elected “leaders” (in Arkansas and around the country) are owned by corporate conglomerate lobbyists? America’s political and international climate looks bleak.
“We ALL niggaz NOW!” as a dear black girlfriend once blurted out on line in front of 50 sullenly waiting customers at the Sunset and Vine B of A, god love her.
That's the point.
EVERYBODY's owned now.
Or maybe it’s just temporary. Today’s bitchy uppity inclement LGBT weather.
Maybe tomorrow it'll be sunny again. America will rise from 37th in global health care (with universal insurance, equal civil rights for ALL Americans) and President Obama will help restore the United States' position as Leader of the Free World.
Maybe.
But I’ve gotta tell you: you learn in Psych 101 that when words don’t match actions you’re dealing with a liar. Actions do indeed speak louder than words.
Gets harder, every fund-raiser, to clink cocktails and look our Razorbaby Reps in the eye with my hopefully disguised excruciatingly charismatic contempt.
It’s not what I thought either, thank god. Because THAT would’ve twisted human religious history into a Kabbalah-Catholic Mobius Strip bigger than “The DaVinci Code!”
But no. It’s just another 51-year-old cougar rock star retaining fabulous trainers, nutritionists and surgeons to help her snag . . . well . . . Baby Jesus half her age.
Can you BLAME her?
We’re talking Jesus Luz here. The male model. NOT the Son of God.
STOP! Razorbabies. It’s working for Demi and Ashton . . . and HER trainers, nutritionists and surgeons.
Love finds a way.
Nobody ever said Jesus came cheap.
Of course, Demi's career's sorta petered out (you should forgive the expression) since Ashton so we wish Madonna and Jesus all the best.
Durango, Durango. Yours is not the first request I’ve received, as an internationally renowned stylist, to suggest makeover tips for Senator Blanche Lincoln.
(I’ve been contacted officially AND privately by staff – Elizabeth, Katie, Brandon, Stan and Meg – and family and friends. At this moment, they’re trying to work out how to bury my fee in “highway improvements” for PhillipsCounty or something.)
My heart has always gone out to Blinc, as intimates know her, because it’s all so simple! Yes, first impressions are important. Public appearances are crucial to politicians. But it’s basically a two-pronged approach, and I mean “prong” in a nice way.
Grooming and wardrobe. That’s it.
Blinc’s wardrobe is fine for an Arkansas politician. Clean, tailored, self-effacing, dull. Yes, she looks better in pastels than in primaries, and washes out in blacks and browns, which she should eschew. But her wardrobe is “timeless” (meaning she could’ve bought it at Penney’s 20 years ago or yesterday at Target). Safe.
No, Blinc, your Image Impasse is Grooming. Hair and makeup, specifically.
RULE #1: NEVER leave home for ANYWHERE looking like THIS.
Elections and re-elections are all about appearances, Blinc, and you are NOT third seed at the Dinah Shore Palm Springs Golf Classic nor Billie Jean King’s new BFF at the Los Angeles Women’s Tennis Tournament, if you’re keeping up with me here.
You’ve beautiful classic bone-structure that could benefit from a simple 5-minute “softening” makeup regimen from your Mary Kay rep (imagine the rural appeal of THAT!) and a lighter more feminine coif.
Yes, the hair’s more feathery yet not so au courant you’re suspected of thinking you’re BETTER than we. It too is “timeless” since it was new 30 years ago and is still fashionably southern in the circles you run in.
It’s only a beginning, Blinc. And I know you hate makeup and beauty salons.
So let me put it this way: Five minutes a day “The Mary Kay Way” and something other than a Cleveland Browns practice-helmet for a “hairstyle,” your con$tituent$ will keep you in office in perpetuity.
You're welcome.
P.S. Your political integrity is entirely up to you.
It seems every time I turn around there are all these socialist homosexuals!
I thought they were supposed to be just 5% of the country!
I can’t THINK about anything other than full flaming socialist same-sex equality and marriage! Global warming? Health insurance reform? The economy? Phony wars? Not when there’s a socialist gay takeover!
Thank god Rep. Steve King (R-IA, the CornCobState: not to suggest early molestation by a rural man of the cloth) finally confronted the elephant in the living room!
“Not only is it [homosexual equality] a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis,” claims King.
It’s all so frighteningly OBVIOUS when you look back on history and the evolution of same-sex socialism, Razorbabies! Use your gaydar!
I happen to be in Manhattan at the moment and today a dear friend at lunch referred with impeccable logic to the GOP as the “Gay-O’-Phobe party.”
HERE’S the brief yet FULL analysis of Rep. King’s position.
A Damsel in Distress
.jpg)
.jpg)
I 
finally confronted the elephant in the living room!
