Feud of the Gods

I missed what is now old news: Moby’s declaration of love to Eminem, after years of feuding between them over whether or not Moby’s music should be called “techno.” Seems the yappy rapper impressed the lily-livered sage with his anti-Bush rhetoric. I’ve been a fan of Moby’s music for a long time, but spent 2007 hopping around to Eminem and dreaming up ways that we could get together. Eminem used to offend me, too, and now I just can’t get enough of his dynamite. I think Moby is catching on, too, as he ages. Some gods are more theatrical, some more solemn. Each has his place. Britney and Kevin? Elton and Diana? Madonna and the rest? It’s just the feud of the gods.

Now Moby is more famous for his one minute on last week’s Daily Ten than he is for his baldness, unorthodox ethical life, and 20 years of innovative, exquisite music. “I love Eminem, and I decided if I’m gonna have feuds in the future they’re not gonna be with the most successful musician on the planet, who travels with people who have guns.”

Moby was not, of course, the only queer or woman to take offense at Eminem’s fag and bitch jabbery. Whole armies of human rights advocates were up in arms. So was Boy George.

Then again, Boy George and Elton John both made public their distaste for their own mother, The Madonna. Weird. It was just plain bizarre for Elton to poopoo Madonna’s live shows for lip-synching. Consider that if I am naked, dancing aerobically on the roof with acrobats and drummers, flying through the air, I may have to lip-synch here and there. But everyone knows Madonna does all the work that is humanly possible, all the time.

You would also expect a skinny white boy like Eminem to very realistically diss fags the way many cultural groups do- most certainly his demographic. It was refreshing to see Elton John get it right for once and join with Em at those infamous Grammy awards of yesteryear as if to say, “can’t we all just get along?”

I’m the quintessential fruit fly, born that way in my own way, and the view from here is this: Elton John performing with Eminem is building a bridge the way nothing else could be. Props to both parties for showing the truth: that showbiz is just showbiz. You gotta read behind the scenes. Music makes a world where Eminem and Elton can merge audiences in peace. In the Madonna era, we are the champions.

Hilarious that some of these same girls have got too big for their britches. That they dared to lash out publicly at Madonna! Oh, keep it to yourself. I mean, come on, Madonna made a world where I can spend my life in clubs with the fiercest and the finest. I can go to gay church on Sunday and watch Will and Grace with my best friends and their shih tzu Lola. I can drink frosted crantinis and still pick up men, because everyone mingles now like one big happy family. And those crantini girls? They’re a really married couple, because I live in an awesome country that affords my friends to make the same marital complications that I’m allowed. Elton was still in the closet until Madonna let him out. I mean, wow, ELTON JOHN tried to pass himself off as straight- kind of like Jodi Foster. Imagine.

So what was what’s his name? Yes, war is stupid, my silly bear. That’s why Eminem and Madonna put out powerhouse songs like Square Dance and American Life. So what was your sketch, honey? Oh, right- Madonna doesn’t do her own accounts and she should have dissed Eminem for saying ‘fag’ instead of giving torch to free speech.

Since when do we only hear what we want to hear? How little can we then know about human nature and behaviour? Besides, Georgia you’re a big girl now. You’re allowed to walk on the streets with those eyebrows without getting killed.

Here’s the deal: whatever our special subgroup, whatever our unique identity markers, we’re going to have to endure some blatantly irritating stories and insinuations, but we also get to tell ours. We MUST fight to keep free speech, not fight to censor the speech of someone we don’t like. It riles me up how much we take for granted: it wasn’t too long ago that I could not vote because of my pretty little head. I don’t have to be married or live as a man in order to paint. I might hear “bitch!” as I walk down the street. Bring it on. But don’t send me to a country where I would go to jail for showing my ankles. Come on, George, you should be going up to the guy and asking if he wants to talk about it, for crying out loud. Do you think there are ghetto kids home in from the streets, crying because Tupac said nigger?

The thing is, ladies, we need Madonna to remind us, like the great Mother that she is to all, that though gay music is indeed among her inspirations, the rest of the world is still breeder. And in that world is also eroticism, and oppression, and sorrow, and beauty, and those worlds must also tell their stories. I’m very happy to be among the shiniest gems in this city, but at some point I am also one of those fine breeder specimens (with a twist, of course!) with unique needs and stories of my own.

The point is, Georgie Girl, Eminem and Madonna are both a zillion trillion kabatetrillion times more spectacular, creative, talented, smart, and more adept at perceiving the world around them than you will ever be. Yeah, it was a blow to me as well, and I just had to accept that I will never be as celebrated as Madonna! And as soon as I understood that we have to have teachers, the easier it got for me to be humble. What could we learn if we were at the top of our game? Even Madonna learns, gleans, muses over and mulls. She knows she is not the only player in showbiz, even if she is the Lady Messiah.

Besides, if I were relegated to a life of nothing but the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure, I’d shoot myself in the eye. Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Pet Shop Boys are underrated and love their glossy, detached sardonicism. And Erasure is so happy and angelic, a true flame of positive energy making. But once in a while I’m going to have to mate. And when that happens, it’s either smoldering with Nina Simone’s blues, or Led Zeppelin maxed up on volume, or, well, Madonna’s Bedtime Stories.

I knew Moby was smart enough to come around, and that he’d come to agree to disagree and offer his respect. I’m not saying you have to love Eminem just because I suddenly do. I was very much of that mindset that I couldn’t tolerate the word ‘bitch’ and hence, I missed out on a lot. Then I figured it out. I do not have to endorse a certain headset toward any group just because I am capable of listening to elements of those groups through their cultural markers like music, film, art. But I sure as hell have to give props where props are due, and allow you space and audience to say your piece, so that I can also have mine.

Sigh- the last man I seriously considered running away with, the rippling army brat slash firefighter- expressed some surprise that someone of my awesome intellectual fortitude would give a flying flick about what Paris was wearing and whether Eminem’s 20 year relationship with his foster sister/wife was going to last.

Well, I wasn’t going to go anywhere if I wasn’t allowed to read my magazines! Most people are a little embarrassed about their celebrity fixations, perhaps guilty because they cannot name a dozen Nobel or Pulitzer winners. But I’m not ashamed. Guerrilla scholar and intelligence of the world, Camille Paglia, is also very candid about her worship of various icons, including Madonna.

By following the triumphs and tragedies of our stage and screen, we are merely re-enacting the great loves and the great feuds of the gods. Like Dionysus and Isis and Ganesh and Pan, like Medusa and Imanja and Thor- our pantheon is rife with vanities, insanities, jealousies, scandals, affairs, murders, adventures, broken hearts. Human beings have a profound need to deduce their world through the scandalous sagas of the gods and goddesses.

Ancient or modern, we do now and always will weave our stories within theirs. Moby and Eminem are just classical archetypes, finding their places after a dramatic rift. The escapades and sagas of the immortals are exactly the theatres we’re re-enacting. Academics can snivel at me, and turn into their soulless diagrams of the epoch of Horus or Tristan and Isolde.

But we live our life in archetypes, and today’s paparazzi zeitgeist is no exception.

November 2007
Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net
www.literaryaddict.wordpress.com
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Scared Straight: Reading Boy George’s Autobiography

Could it be that under all that festivity, sassy saccharine songstress Boy George is just one of those sniveling, whining queens no one really likes?

So it appears after reading his tedious and self-absorbed autobiography, Straight, with Paul Gorman. I definitely admire anyone who wears extreme makeup with panache and aplomb. Georgie Girl writes as if his artistry is an inner force that has knocked the world over, but even hardcore fans can only name a song or two- the chameleon one, yeah, that’s it. It’s fine to be fluffy; it’s fine to be famous for your public persona and style, but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?

Boy George defends this lack of artistic production as a conscious, stress-relieving system that works for him. He says he’s very choosy about what work he takes on. Very selective. Sure, perhaps the joy of your life is radical clubbing and you are surrounded by intriguing fuck-ups and want to tell us about them. Terrific!

Sort of. There’s lots of stuff about the clubs and the weirdoes inside them, but instead of getting the feeling that Boy George is a very funny, friendly girl, you’ll just hear about how well-adjusted he is versus all the others. Factory freaks were far from “well-adjusted,” and it seems George wants to come across at the same time as a post-Warholian diva. Problem is, the art and the personality are both lacking.

Finally, half the book is anti-Madonna simpering, which is hardly good for anyone’s image. It used to be fine for your mother and mine to dismiss her as nothing but a half-naked tartette, but since she ruled the world with her mastermind magnificence, dissing Our Lady is really rather silly, even if she’s not your cup of tea. Leaving well enough alone would be the wise idea for George, given the obvious contrast in success and innovation and spirituality and performance ideas between the two. But Georgie can’t look up from his navel long enough to realize Madonna rules the world, or at the very least, has accomplished something.

However, this doesn’t faze him: “I’m not one of those people who respect success for the sake of it,” he writes. “Arms dealers and warlords accumulate fortunes but I don’t respect them.” Oh, yes, right, the tyranny of the breast.

Or this: “People always say she’s a brilliant businesswoman, but trust me, at that level of income she hardly does her own accounts.” I bet she does, George, I bet she actually hand selects each and every advisor, investor, accountant and runs the show thoroughly, but whatever, darling. You go back to your corner of the room now.

Oh, yeah, he says either she’s predicable or else he’s a mystic, and that she’s just an abandoned little girl wanting to be loved. You know what? So am I. So is everyone. And I’m not strutting the globe in the coolest boots ever and spreading the good news to every nation under the sun. And neither, George, are you.

It gets worse, though. You’ll want to leave your radical ‘80s childhood in tact, so skip the whole thing before the illusions burst and leave you with nothing. Apparently George is a better artist than Eminem, so he recorded a song called Swallow Me, where he rapped about the “great white saviour of hip hop.” You can be sure I’ll be downloading this one for a good laugh- good thing he mentioned it, otherwise I would never have heard of it. Anyhow, here he whines on about how easily Eminem throws around the word ‘faggot’ and how since Eminem got popular, he’s had to endure people shouting ‘fag’ at him more frequently than before.

First of all, sister, if you show up anywhere in swaddling neon scarves with lipstick on your forehead, someone’s gonna pipe up with the f-word. Second, can our rainbow nation please develop a thick skin and a funny bone? People are gonna dismiss faggots and women from here until the end of time, and I’m gonna roll my eyebrows, not roll over and die when I hear it.

We’ve come a long way, baby. Give me a bleeding break, my friend. The world is more faggot-friendly than ever before. It’s true that when I grew up, I was ostracized for hanging around with queens from art school and listening to Culture Club. But now Dan Savage, lover of Ashton Kutcher in the tightey-whitey, is sex advice guru to all men. It’s the age of the metrosexual and the sensitive male. It’s post-Will and Grace, and yes, dear George, it’s a culture taught by Madonna that gays are people, too. It’s the age where gay marriage is finally allowed, and changes are happening all over the world. For the very first time in history, the fag has a few rights, and more are coming, and ladies are allowed to vote, too!

Still, he digs the grave deeper siding with critics who lambasted Madonna for standing up for Eminem’s right to free speech, when she should have been attacking Em’s shock-cock values. I have about a zillion queeny friends and all of them agree that Eminem is a cherubic hottie, and no one, including Elton John, is afraid he may attack them for being queer. It may or may not be stage personality in good taste, but I’m not even going to bother going after rap for what it says about women. I’m going to say what I want about women, and listen real good to Madonna’s message, and leave it at that, because some things are just stories. Lest we forget, it is free speech, however disarming, that let Will and Grace on the air, that let us talk about taboos, that lets us get away with outrageous talk and dress, that lets us address sexuality and religion and make sense of things. If poor white trash is not free to speak, then neither are poor white peasants like myself or apparent aristocracy like Boy George.

So yawn. I could hardly stay awake to endure another supposedly outlandish opinion. All I could think was “Who are you?” and mourn that my beloved favourite sultry trannie song will now forever flash through my head as The Whining Game. Now that is something to cry about.