News Flash - Iowa is Hipper than California?

Sad, but true - California is way behind the curve these days. Oh, we may have led the way once, as the birthplace of movies, right-turn-on-red, flower power, and electing movie stars as governors, but we are hopelessly out of date when it comes to real cultural progress. It was bad enough when we were shown up by old fuddy-duddy New Englanders like Massachusetts and Connecticut. But now one of those mid-western, heartland red states we've always thumbed our noses at has shown us who's really up to date. And Iowa? How can the state immortalized for disapproving of pool tables (in The Music Man) legalize gay marriage before the really hip states?

It's gotten to the point where California and New York are trying to prove which is closer to getting there - here in Calif. we claim we sort of had gay marriage, but we're waiting for the court decision on Prop 8, the state referendum we insist was skewed by out-of-state Mormons throwing their money around; meanwhile, in Albany, legislators are bragging that their state was the first one to sort of get a gay marriage bill started without a court mandate, even though it hasn't passed the state assembly yet. While they bicker, betrothed gay couples will be leaving San Francisco and Jones Beach for such hotspots as Waterloo and Des Moines (or maybe Bridgeport, Connecticut) for their destination weddings, and stay tuned for leather bars and lesbian coffee houses to proliferate in Burlington and Montpelier. (And how's this for pathetic - I had to look up Vermont cities online, I couldn't even think of any!)

I actually feel sorry for those Defense of Marriage folks - it's one thing to rail against the cross-dressing commie pinko weirdos in the Castro or Miami Beach, or for Sarah Palin to insist she supports 'real Americans', not the effete liberals who live in California or New York (which I guess are no longer part of America?) But it's a lot harder to rant about the lack of traditional values in Vermont or Iowa. Meanwhile, none of their predictions has materialized, or at least I haven't heard of any Connecticut bluebloods petitioning to marry their dogs or Vermont maple trees turning gay.

What's next, folks, will South Dakota and Kansas be next? How can California possibly maintain its image as the nation's weirdest state? (Although when it comes to marriage, Utah still has that polygamy thing to live down . . . . ) Come on, folks, we have to get it together quickly, so that California is once again ahead of the curve - I mean, everyone else has right turn on red, there are indie music festivals in Kentucky, and in San Francisco's once bizarre Castro neighborhood, a proliferation of suburban-type families are living happily among the cross-dressers and "Hot & Hunky" hamburger stands.

If we don't restore our reputation soon, we'll end up being outdone by dozens of other states - and it would be truly humiliating if Utah legalizes gay marriage before we do.

Sarah's ba-a-a-ack

The election is over, I celebrated sharing the historic moment with my kids, and shed a quiet tear because my days of fun & fame, imitating Sarah Palin, were through. Or were they? This morning, as I squeezed in a brief workout in front of the Today Show, there she was, in one of several exclusive interviews, deftly handling such hardball questions as "Did you feel bad when people said mean things about you?" Honestly, I thought Matt Lauer was a bit tougher!, but even he raved about how open and candid she was, not to mention so down to earth that she actually cooked dinner for her family.

Yes, I'm skeptical about some of the stories coming out recently from disgruntled McCain staffers (I don't really think Trig was Elvis's love child, but geez, her interview performances do make me wonder if she really thought Africa was a country, not a continent) - but what is indisputable is her absolute, pure belief in herself as infallible, and that's scary. At least in interviews, Palin hass no regrets; she believes she made no mistakes, and states that they would've won except for that darned economy, you betcha, and that blasted mainstream media which deceived voters into believing that McCain was at all like Bush (notwithstanding McCain's voting record).

Frankly, I envy her sense of self-confidence. I second-guess myself when I tell my kids to do homework or when I'm trying to decide how irate to be on the phone with the cable company, and I feel terrible when I forget someone's name or forget to pick up dog food. I can't imagine how I'd feel if there were thousands of youTube clips of me parading my ignorance and inability to form a complete sentence! So maybe I can learn from Palin's blithe conviction that she's always right, and act like I have a bit more faith in my infallibility.

My inner intellectual/liberal/leftist-socialist/feminist is appalled that she represents women on the national political scene, but at least my inner comic is thrilled that she's still out there providing me (and every other political humorist) with fresh material. (I've already learned to turn issues with my husband & kids into comedy fodder!)

The $150,000 wardrobe makeover

Some women fantasize about a hot night with Patrick Dempsey, some women's fantasies involve pool boys or german shepherds, but give me a $150,000 shopping spree any day! In case you're from another planet, that was the amount spent by the GOP on Sarah Palin's wardrobe makeover. (In case that sounds extravagant, remember, it did include accessories as well as a couple of outfits for her family members.) (Which still sounds extravagant to someone like me, whose idea of a splurge is buying something at Old Navy that wasn't on sale . . . ) People on both sides of the political spectrum can argue about 'shopping-gate' til they're blue (or red, depending on party affiliation) - everyone does it, it's a travesty, she needed clothes for different climates, it sends a bad message in a recession, they're donating all the clothes to charity, it's hypocritical to claim to be a WalMart hockey mom when you're wearing Valentino and Manolo Blahniks - but for me the real issue is envy. I would love someone to take me to any store and spend $150,000 on me (hell, I'd be happy with $150!)

The scale of this spree does raise the idea of diminishing returns. It's like wine - I can taste the difference between a bottle of two buck chuck and a $10 bottle, but once you start going from $10 to $100 a bottle, I can't really tell much difference. Likewise, my similarly uneducated fashion palate can tell the difference between a $10 Jaclyn-Smith-For-KMart dress and a $100 dress from Nordstrom, but I don't see a lot of difference between the Nordstrom outfit and the designer one, except that the designer outfits are often weirder-looking. Moms like me are expert bargain hunters out of necessity; the GOP could have hired me or my friends to do the wardrobe makeover for considerably less money and still have Palin looking camera ready. (I just spent $150 at Target and got myself a nice looking sweater set, a purse, 4 pairs of pants for my younger son, 2 dress shirts for my older son, a sweatshirt for my husband, and some groceries!)

I have plenty of other reasons to be incensed about Palin beyond the superficial clothing issue, but at least her shopping spree has given me a great new fantasy. Now, when my husband and I are trying to squeeze in a quickie before the kids get up in the morning and I have 2 minutes to get myself in the mood or lose the opportunity, I'll just think about a GOP strategist taking me to Neiman Marcus, and I'm set!

New To YouTube

It's not hard for me to feel behind-the-times, what with two sons (12 and 15), a computer I don't understand, and technological innovations coming at us at record speeds. But nothing has confused me more than internet-based social networking, sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. On top of not really understanding how to use them, I find myself wondering how people have time to do anything else, they seem to be spending so much of their lives creating, maintaining, and updating their pages and commenting on everyone else's. So their updates tend to be self-referential - you can look on a Facebook page and learn "I'm currently updating my Facebook page". I'd rather sleep . . . .

Every now and then, one of my boys will show me what he thinks is a hysterical YouTube video (which usually involves inappropriate humor or some random guy dancing like an idiot). I don't usually get the jokes, but I am bewildered, and somewhat weirdly impressed, by the effort that goes into these works of - not creativity, but at least self-expression. I never thought I'd join the throng, but a combination of events, what my woo-woo friends call synchronicity, got me on board. 1) With my hair up and my glasses on, people keep telling me I look like a certain formerly-anonymous-yet-suddenly-universally-famous-Alaskan-governor. 2) Watching said governor's performance in the VP debate had me fuming, and itching to do something. 3) My 12-year-old came home from helping a neighbor clean out a garage,having been rewarded with the head from an old life-sized moose costume. When weird events like these coincide, there is no alternative but to write, film and post a youTube song parody about Sarah Palin. So I did.

Now I've used YouTube before, in an attempt at self-promotion, posting demo videos and clips from my live shows. And it's been helpful, in that I can email potential clients a link to the clips, rather than having to send DVD demos at eight bucks a pop plus postage. But those videos couldn't compete with 'weird guy dancing' or 'frat boys throwing up', so I was getting used to, oh, 15-30 hits for each. However, the Palin video must have hit a nerve, because as of this moment (6:30 p.m., PST, Friday) I'm up to 1,117 hits, and it just keeps spreading. Total strangers are emailing me saying they liked it, and suggesting places to post it.

This may all blow over soon, or it might lead to being discovered somehow and becoming an overnight success after 28 years, who knows. But in the meantime, it's fun to play with (I learned you can post text on videos, in cartoon-like balloons!), and now I'm giving those crazy dancing frat boys a run for their money. If nothing else, I finally found something to do with the stupid moosehead - and I'm much less angry about Palin now that I'm reaping some rewards and having so much fun!