Happy New Pelosi!!
Just try to picture that bearlike slab of a Dennis “We didn’t want the appearance of gay-bashing in the Mark Foolery case” Hastert, former Mister Speaker, inviting all the kids in the chamber up to the podium for his swearing-in. Well he couldn’t and you can’t. It was pandemonium! Madame to be Speaker Pelosi trying to raise her hand in the oath portion of the ceremonies and knocking her grandson in the head; disembodied hands reaching into the frame trying to wrestle the boss’s script from the granddaughters; grandsons trying to grab the gavel from Grandma Pelosi to try it out. Hey kids! It’s time to play the House version of Wack a Mole. It really is. If the next 99 of the first 100 Hours of the Democrats back in control of the House are like the first wild glorious hour, I’m hoping that old Newt Grinch’s “Contract on America” will finally be cancelled.
In the coming days watch as the media midgets stumble over themselves trying, for the first time, to cover a woman in power. Watch for men whining. They better get used to it.

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I’m practicing celebrity abstinence in the fortnight between Solstice and the New Year – i.e. no People, no blogs, no ET. I need to detox. Pardon my paraphrase of that Britney Spears before she started seeing Paris Hilton: oops, I did it again. I’m so mad at myself. I fell for it. I forgot that despite the mid-term election, the Iraq Study Group Report, democracy whatever, your president George Bush does not give a shit. Oops. When Bush was first Supremely selected, by the guys and gals in the black robes, not the one who has a celebrity birthday on Monday, the story goes that a gay man went through the Inaugural receiving line and told Bush that he was very upset by his homophobic positions and positioning during the campaign. Bush smiled and through clenched teeth, said, “Why don’t you tell someone who cares?” The people have spoken. The people have been ignored. I was thinking democracy. They’re thinking third term. I forgot. In the space I’ve cleared out from my celebrity detox, I’ve resolved to think about what very targeted direct action will snap this Bush’s head around. Or off. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

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People ask me all the time if I’d ever run for president. My last name and all. I would always say I’m just not that competent, smart or diplomatic enough. Who knew I’d be perfect for the job? But if I were president, I’d make it illegal to campaign for any political office more than two weeks. I’d black out all television programming during that time and the only thing on TV would be political debates, campaign highlights and bloopers, reviews of the constitution, proposition explanations and personal promos. No sports, no soaps, no reality shows. All air time would be free. Basic and cable. Voting would be mandatory and the polls would be open for six days. We all need a rest on that seventh day. Instead of motor voter, we’d have remoter voter and you could vote with your TV remote. The technology is there now. If I can vote whether or not some freaky voiced singer can be voted off the island, or if Lindsay Lohan should lay off the sauce, I should be able to select my candidates. If we did this, we would save 1.2 billion dollars which was the cost of this year’s midterm election ad buys. That would cover the student loan amnesty which would be my next order of business. Vote for me, Hilarity Clinton, in 2008!

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The first 15 minutes of Jon Stewart have saved what’s left of my political mind many a night. I watch and I sleep a little better. So I was excited to watch Stewart emcee Comedy Central’s “Night of Too Many Comics”. Wrongo bongo. There were only two women comics – Amy Sedaris and Amy Poehlert – both allowed to sit pretty at the phone banks and both misidentified. The only other woman was Kristin Chenoweth, a fabulous Broadway singer and comic actress who did a number with the insufferable Martin Short. She sang about three bars, he clocked her, she fell to the stage and stayed there for the rest of the bit. It should have been called “Night of Too Many White Male Comics”. I couldn’t sleep that night.
The next morning I read Bob Herbert’s wonderful column, “Why Aren’t We Shocked?” in the New York Times, “Degrading women is the rule, not the exception.” For days the press is agog and aghast about a Florida representative’s inappropriate advances to Senate pages and practically yawns through men’s new open season of rounding up schoolgirls and shooting them down. There’s only one woman on the Supreme Court. If you look at the sports pages, no women ever play sports. According to the obit page, not many women even seem to die. “Boy crisis”? my feminist ass. Wars everywhere, nuclear threat unleashed, environment deteriorating. If this is the best that guys can do, then it’s time for them to get out of the way. The only reason Hillary Clinton could not get elected in this country is sexism. Pure and simple. I tell people I’m for Hillary. Then I like to bust their craven, unquestioned sexist chops. Try it. Mae West’s said it best, “Most men want to protect me. Can’t figure out from what.” Challenge the dominant paradigm. Get hysterical. You’ll feel better.

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This week we celebrate National Coming Out Day. Started in 1988, it is a day on which you take another step in coming out. After eighteen years of Coming Out Days, I’m almost out of come outs. Every year I come out to my older brother. It doesn’t help my totals but it is good practice. Since I moved to New York City from Provincetown, there is a wider pool of random people to come out to. This year I’ve got my sights set on the unflappable guy at my tiny dry cleaners. Starch? No starch? I’m gay. But after witnessing last week’s Mark Foley flame-out and the vertiginous spinning from both parties, the crisp, clean honesty of unambiguous coming out is more important than ever. We have seen the corrosive, confusing effects of the closet on those in and out of it. When we come out, we are no longer willing conspirators in talibanic, puritanical sexual repression. The good news is that sometimes messy coming outs can change the House of Representatives! But does anyone thank us gay people? Nooooooooooooooo. See you OUT there!

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Whenever I’m in danger of political paralysis – and believe me that’s just where they want us – I have to laugh to save myself. As you know I’ve been talking about being a faith-based comedian for the last, oh say, six years. It’s time to make it a part of your daily non-violent political practice. The sit-in was a brilliant political strategy of the civil rights movement. The die-in was a brilliant strategy of ACT-UP. It’s time for the Laugh-in. Next time you hear of a pompous lecturer coming to town, have dinner with four or five friends, pick numbers one through five and then go to the event. As yet, security is unable to detect your dangerous weapon. Don’t sit together. About five minutes in, at some outrageous statement you hear, the first of you should let go with a whooping large, bend at the waist laugh. Really laugh for a bit, then with a wave of your hand that you are recovered. Five minutes later, the second co-laugher should let it rip. Apologize politely. Repeat. It really gets them off their game. It feels great. You’ll be surprised how many people will join in.

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Ann Richards dies and Dick Cheney lives – there is absolutely no justice in the world. Dick, who lies out of the side of his mouth lives. Ann Richards, who brought real salty Texas talk to the national stage dies. In her keynote address to the 1998 Democratic Convention in Atlanta she described Bush I as “Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Those words coming out of the mouth of a white haired older woman [not his mother] did almost more to fire up his vindictive son, George II, than the Time magazine cover discussing his Dad and the Wimp Factor. We are still living through their bizarre father-son psycho-drama. Go to therapy and leave us out of it. But thanks to Ann for her courage to give as good as she got, for talking about her alcoholism and for always being there for people of color and for gays and lesbians.

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Karl Rove is fixing to use that darned Mad Vow Disease again to get out the vote.  Many states are putting the Gay Marriage question on their mid-term ballots. Though some of your finer Christian fundamentalists, both of them, really are nutted up about the sanctity of same-old-sex marriage, the twice and thrice married are not wearing their hypocrisy well this time around. 
 
Let’s refuse to be used.  We will not be the wedge issue again.  We are not your father’s wedgie.  We will not be the butt-thong between the cheek of church and the cheek of state again. 
 
Speak up.  Talk to your family. Your friends.  Your teller, your oil change guy, the woman on the treadmill next to you.  If anyone says gay marriage, say Katrina. Say it again.  Gay marriage – the pointless whimsical war of W.  Gay marriage – an inconvenient truth.  Gay marriage – Guantanamo.  Gay marriage – Abu Ghraib.  Gay marriage – women’s choice. 
 
I would not put it past Karl Rove to have revived the Jon Benet Ramsey story.  But I live with a conspiracy theorist.  No wait, that one was mine.  LIke the marriage issue, it is Operation Distraction.
 
After you get back from your Labor Day vacations – find something to do for the mid-term elections.  Make it local.  Something you care about.  Something not on line.  Get your feet on the street.  Put a sexy thong over your gas mask, dust off your bull horn and make some noise. 

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