I've been watching wrestling again. It's not just because of the election of Jesse Ventura, the tight Spandex-wrapped asses or the smooth, interlocking muscular limbs. (OK, a lot of wrestlers look like Junior Samples, but not all of them.) It's the drama. Everything else on TV is either obviously fake or obviously real. With wrestling, as with Fox shows, you find yourself saying, "No way ... he did not just ... no way" a lot. You're just never sure.
Conversely, you are never supposed to view the news like wrestling, thinking, "No way, they're faking that. She did not just say the president was impeached." But that's what I thought when I saw the news brief on Saturday morning. Of course it wasn't exactly true. Two articles had been passed by the House, that's all. But the way they made it sound, you'd have thought Congress had already stood outside on the lawn, 2:30 a.m., drunk and wearing a nightgown, and screamed at Bill to get out of the house now, and that Clinton already had sent his brother over the next day to get his CDs back.
Say ‘aaaaahh'
It really is hard to believe things have gone this far and that anyone still thinks this is about anything but sex and hating Clinton. But nothing gets this sick without coughing up some very interesting specimens. A few to keep in mind:
• Never get in the backseat with a majority of Republicans. For months America has been saying, "We like Bill, leave him alone," while Congress has plowed ahead trying to get rid of him. So while the president is on trial for being a lech, it's the right-wingers who don't understand that when a country says no, it means no. I'd rather have a president who was screwing everyone consensually than one who did it without permission. • How do a bunch of people make it to Congress, hell, how to they make it past age 40, without understanding gradations? Saying "a lie is a lie" is like treating every cold with a quadruple bypass (a sickness is a sickness). Maybe some of them are so weird about sex because of the time they took off their pants with a belt sander (stripping is stripping). • We really have turned into a bunch of slackers. How is it that Clinton has a 73 percent approval rating and yet, when an attempt is made to remove him, we are all sitting at home watching it on TV? If someone tried to steal our hibachi we'd be in the back yard with a baseball bat, but Clinton's ours, someone's trying to steal him, and we're just sitting here. Shouldn't we be marching on Washington or dumping tea into Boston Harbor or something?• Ugly women have way more power than they will ever let on. Women and homely people are often shortchanged, so you'd think homely women would be the last ones out of the gate, running backwards, in the race for power. This case proves otherwise, because what ultimately proved more powerful than the president, who is one good-looking male, was Linda Tripp and Paula Jones, who look like a bloated carcass and whatever's pecking at it, respectively. This ixnays every complainer's right to whine "It's cuz I'm a woman" or "It's cuz he/she is better looking," because if these broads can get what they want with a little determination when neither is male nor attractive nor possessed of human DNA, then anyone can.
Women's work
Come to think of it, using femininity or ugliness as an excuse should have been banned outright a long time ago. There have been quite a few very powerful, unattractive women in history. Ever get a load of Elizabeth I? That was a face so inbred, if she were alive today she'd be working the Wack-a-Mole concession at the carnival. Queen "Time to make the doughnuts" Victoria didn't let being built like a keg stop her from getting an architectural style and a tight-assed values system named after her. Leona Helmsley wormed her way into an empire looking just like The Joker. For all we know there was a damn good reason Mary was a Virgin; to the innkeeper, it may have looked like Joseph showed up with two donkeys. But it didn't stop her from doing quite well for herself. So now that we know power, femininity and ugliness can mix, a good deal of bellyachin' should cease and desist.
One thing more: Expect a backlash against all this Republican prudery, an era of uninhibited, '70s-style sexuality, hopefully coinciding with the advent of the AIDS vaccine. If that happens, the next news brief could say "Jesus is back and Bill Gates has got him," and everyone would be in too much of an endorphin stupor to care. 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. But then, aren't they all? No matter how much we're supposed to lie about it?
