226. VULVA LANDSCAPES AND FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY

From the Archives. (May 2006) Tee Corinne, author of the Cunt Coloring Book, is dying of cancer and needs some money. Susie Bright is holding a fundraiser for her but, well, I ain’t in California, so I sent in my donation through paypal because, as Susie says, Tee is the beginning of lesbian erotic photography.

Wish I could claim credit for my title, but Susie used it in Nothing But the Girl to describe Tee’s contributions to the lesbian community, so credit where credit is due for those vulva landscapes (which is about the only thing that would make me switch my painting style to landscapes).

Meanwhile my dear friend Tuscaloosa called to say she won a big writing prize and that a big-name press contacted her with a book contract.

This means that Tuscaloosa and I must hole up and write, but fast!

Meanwhile, with everything going on in the world, Yahoo! wants me to know that Jennifer Aniston is house-hunting in Chicago.

Meanwhile, Bush (the Texas touter of manufactured evidence and terror alerts who employs fear to convince working citizens whose wages continue to fall under his administration to wrap the American flag across their cross-adorned chests and slap yellow ribbon magnets on their cars and send their children off to die in an unnecessary, ineffective, and budget-breaking war against a population that didn’t even produce the terrorists who destroyed the twin towers) now has a six-year history of saying whatever he thinks will most effectively manipulate people regardless of the truth behind his claims.

He recently announced his plans to militarize the Mexican border, for example, but also told Mexico’s president that he does not plan to militarize the border.

Bush took his lying to new lows in a recent immigration speech though, when he said (with an um straight face) that “we cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger or playing on anyone’s fears.”

Now I am SURE that the terror alert went up and telephone calls got traced when Jon Stewart commented on the ridiculousness of this statement by adding “that’s what terrorism and gay people are for.”

And what are we to make of this president’s assertion of a unified country when his administration has made it blatantly clear that it could give less than a shit about the mass of our citizenry?

Why doesn’t he just proclaim the truth: Y’all peons can just fend for yer selves coz I am giving my SEVENTY-BILLION-DOLLAR tax cut to my prep-school pals..

Budgetary brutality. Distributional bias. Fiscal irresponsibility. Oh my fucking my!

Molly Ivins notes that people who earn over $1 million annually will receive a nearly $42,000 tax cut while the average schmoe will receive a whopping $20.

With all this going on, I was only minorly surprised when a progressive legislator told me that she and her hubbie are going off the grid and joining a self-sustaining commune because they believe that we will reach an apocalyptic moment before the next election.

Well, I hope you have a lot of guns, I replied, since everyone will be coming for your goods after the big collapse.

Meanwhile, I guess I’m just fiddling as Rome burns, since I spent part of yesterday playing my long-neglected piano.

I am currently fascinated by the berceuse, which Jocelyn the tenor sings outside the cave of the eagles in Act II of Godard’s opera Jocelyn. The melody in the second section is especially wonderful, although my out-of-practice fingers just don’t do it justice.

I also went to a private garden's open house and purchased a few native plants that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere. This means that I need to quit typing and get off my ass and make a new plant bed, since it is already 11:30 on Sunday morning and my weekend is disappearing fast.

LISTENING TO: REM’s “Gardening by Night”

READING: Technobarons of the Twenty-First Century: Why Telephone and Cable Companies Want to Take Control of the Internet

BEST OF SPAM: hymen errand