12:53 a.m. - 2007-02-01
In Memoriam: Molly Ivins
The moment I found out the George Harrison died, I called my sister, who is not my sister by blood but whom I adopted due to her penchant for gender bending plays, which I share. I was not the first to offer my condolences. She'd gotten calls from nearly everyone she knew, because everyone she knew was well aware that, at least for her, The Beatles were much bigger than Jesus, and George was her favorite. When--and, by all that is sacred in this world, may it happen no sooner than 50 years from now--Tori Amos finally shuffles off this mortal coil and into whatever afterlife awaits people who are half fairy, half alien, I know my phone will be tied up with people asking how I'm doing. The same will go for Ani and Dar, for Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, and all the other artists whose work I consistently turn to for inspiration.
It surprised me somewhat that I got two text messages today informing me of something I already new: that Molly Ivins, proud Texan liberal with a sense of humor quicker than a sharpshooter on aderol, passed away today, from breast cancer. I mean, it wasn't as though I had her at the same altar as Tori or Terry. And it kinda sucked being reminded of the fact that she's gone when I was undertaking the impossible task of finding tofu in an East Austin HEB, something that Molly would have laughed at even if no one from outside of Texas would have (HEB is the local supermarket chain, and East Austin is inhabited by my people, most of whom don't understand why you'd curd a bean when you can just fry it in bacon grease the way God intended). But when I thought about it, it made sense that I was someone that people would call upon hearing that Molly Ivins was dead. She's been my sig line on my email more than once, most recently this past semester, when my professors and my students, regardless of their own political affiliations, read her words in my message: "War is always self-evidently a disaster."
I think Molly would be happy to know that a few of my students, LA area Latinos all, really loved my quotation from her. One even wrote it write back to me in a message of his own. A person may die, but their language lives on.
I never met Molly Ivins, although I could have and should have. She was the aunt of a boy in my high school class, and she came to speak at our school. I can't remember why I missed her. I like to think I was on some college visit and not just faking sick, which I was quite adept at by the end of high school. I cannot imagine what she said to the kids in my high school, considering that she was a proud liberal Democrat and they were, for the most part, the children of the wealthiest, most conservative families in Central Texas. How wealthy and conservative? Well, let me put it to you this way: do you remember when Dick Cheney shot some guy last year? On a hunting trip? In Texas? Well, when I saw the name and picture of the woman who reported the incident I remember gasping with a mix of amusement and mortification: she was the grandmother of one of the girls in my high school. Not just any girl, either; the heinous cunt who outed me my senior year. A Regina George if there ever was one. That's what I had to deal with, folks. People who not only went on hunting trips with Dick Cheney, but played host. If only they'd given him more bullets, he could have thinned the herd some more.
Whatever she said, I'm as sure that she was hilarious as I am that most of her jokes sailed right over the heads of most of my classmates. The last time I wrote about Molly Ivins in a diary, I wrote about the fact that she had a wit dryer than an El Paso sandbox on an August afternoon. It is a necessary survival tool for someone who believes in racial and sexual equality, the separation of church and state, the control of business in the name of the working people, the freedom of expression, and all of the other ideals that are about as Texan (at least these days) as a ski slope. Mention something like your support of gay marriage in the wrong crowd--Hell, mention your support of interracial marriage in the wrong crowd--and you may encounter someone eager to engage in the time honored form of rhetorical argument known as beating the shit out of you. A liberal Texan, like a liberal Alabaman or Mississippian, learns when to voice their true feelings about Republican values and when to simply say, "No, I'm excited to vote for Bush! Who'd trade peace in our time for that amount of entertainment?" Fool your friends, fun at parties!
Not everyone gets that we're kidding, that we employ sarcasm and hyperbole for satiric effect even when were ordering breakfast ("No, I couldn't possibly accept extra butter and syrup on my waffles, I have that marathon this afternoon" or "Can I get bacon and sausage with that? Actually, can you just bring the whole pig with an apple in it's mouth? A caramel apple"). This got me into trouble in California more than once. Someone was talking about whether or not they would make a request of a professor, and I said, "I don't know, he's such a grade A asshole." In saying this, I meant, "This person is so nice that having that worrying about making the request is pointless." Not realizing that I was employing irony, everyone stared at me like I was, to use one of my favorite Mollyisms, a hooker applying for the Divinity School at Southern Methodist University.
It took me a less than a second there to decide if I wanted to use the term "Mollyism" or "Ivinsism." Besides the fact that "Ivinsism" sounds like a degenerative illness, Ms. Ivins was someone who had, "Please, call me Molly, just don't forget to call me when the tamales are ready or you'll have three of 'em shoved where the sun doesn't shine, and I don't mean Natural Bridge Caverns" written all over her, on every tooth of that everything's-bigger-in-Texas grin. As capable as she was of making remarks so hilariously venomous that rattlesnakes tended to put down their maracas and take up macrame (yeah, these epic similes are getting harder to handle than a Longhorns cheerleader on Jose Cuervo and Redbull), there was a warmth about her that you could feel even if you were in the back of the auditorium. This was a woman in love, and like any woman in love she could bitch for hours and make a couple of dozen jokes against the object of her affection, but she would be good God damned if she was going to give up, if she was going to let resentment and despair triumph over laughter and hope. This woman loved America, and Texas, its conjoined twin, smaller than America but loathe to admit it: America concentrate, just add water. Couldn't tell you why she loved it so fiercely, but I guess she figured that if you can love Texas, you can love anything. She is quoted in the Houston Chronicele as having this to say about our shared home: in March of 1992, "I dearly love the state of Texas, but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part, and discuss it only with consenting adults," and in September of 2002, "I love Texas, but it is a nasty old rawhide mother in the way it bears down on the people who have the fewest defenses."
I happen to agree on all counts, and even though, as a Mexican and a queer, I've kept an eye out for that rawhide all my life, because even if I didn't know how much it could sting my family could show me their own scars, in so many ways I also dearl love the state of Texas, although I admit to spending most of my teen years dreaming about how I would one day leave and head for San Francisco (hahahaha-ugh). I love driving through the Hill Country on my way back from California. I love the way the sky looks so much bigger here. I love how many stars I can see. I love the smell and taste of the air. I love the way people smile and say good morning to you even when they don't know you. I love that I can get breakfast tacos any hour of the day or night. I love Amy's Ice Cream and Thundercloud Subs and Book People and Mozart's Coffee and Luby's and Jim's and Catfish Parlor and Madras Pavillion and Simi's Indian Cuisine and the Alamo Draft House and Hui's Chinese and all the other things that I just can't get anywhere else. I love the friends that I have here, who make me feel so fucking loved. I love my family. And even though I'm a vegetarian and proud, I LOVE the smell of barbecue.
Tonight, though, the stars are not quite as big and bright. The barbecue just ain't got that pep. The bluebonnets aren't out this time of year, but if they were, they'd have the blues. Texas has lost one of its finest daughters. Every ancho, chipotle, and chile pequin is just a little less spicy, for lack of inspiration.
That's just for tonight, though. Molly wouldn't begrudge us a good cry, but she'd damn well expect us to wake up tomorrow morning, scratch our asses, and get to work. She'll be watching us, you mark my words, sharing a bottle of whisky with Ann Richards, no doubt. She'll cheer us on and coach from the sidelines, with so much hollering and cussing that the angels will be pissin' their robes with laughter. She'll also be laughing at us, and we'd better be able to laugh at ourselves when she does, or we'll look right stupid. And we already have a president to do that for us.
