November 1999 Cover
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Doo Dah
By
Mitzel
A friend and I were speculating about the fate of Chile's ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet. A British legal decision ordered him to be deported to Spain to face a court
for his many crimes. My friend thought that numerous appeals would keep Pinochet in England, and that he'd probably die there. I agreed. "Let's hope he dies in the arms
of Baroness Thatcher." I painted the picture in my mind. "Yes. It would be the perfect camp Pieta!"
So I'm back to camp again, in gay life a terrain always underfoot. Why is it that camp is the sole property of gay men, and even more so the real queans
among them? It is something the straight world, and straight men especially, are incapable of-- whether being camp or getting camp.
And same, by the way, for writing children's stories. Why is it that all the men I know who make their living writing children's stories are gay, even, as in the case
of the late Arnold Lobel, married? Is Norman Mailer unable to
write any tale as sweet as those by Oscar Wilde or deranged as those by Jimmy Marshall? If Hemingway
had written children's stories-- and who knows, some just might "show" up, as so many mysterious posthumous novels have been "found" in the Hemingway Kollection on the
fourth floor in Boston's John F. Kennedy Library. I suspect "creative" writing undergrads at Northeastern University are cranking out the Hemingway poop-- anyway, if Hem had
written kid's stories, wouldn't all the little animals have to get blown away by story's end? "What Minx the cat and Poopy the Possum didn't know was that death loomed at the muzzle
of that horrible, metallic Uzi!"
So CampGrounds belong exclusively to the faggots. A HomeLand at last! Twilight's Last Gleamings! What are the high water marks of camp? The quip, used
to destroy.
Best camp moment from the 1970s? It occurred on the horrible Tom Snyder's show. He was doing a "special" on homosexuality, imagine anything so dull. And
dull it was; he had guests like Elaine Noble and Dave Kopay and others. Later in the show-- I stuck with it till the bitter end-- Tom had, as a guest, Warhol Superstar
Holly Woodlawn. Holly was on screen in full theatrical drag and high make-up, puffing on one cigarette after another-- the days when you could still smoke on TV. It
was clear Tom was outside his briefing zone. He leaned over to Holly and asked this echt-TV question: "Now, tell me, Holly, what exactly is the difference between being
a transvestite and a transsexual?" I suspect he actually wanted to know. Holly rolled her eyes, had a big drag on the cigarette, blew the smoke at Tom, and said:
"Really, darling, what difference could it possibly make as long as you look fabulous!"
Doo Dah!
The 1980s were also lucky enough to have its Supremo Camp Moment. The year: 1984. The place: San Francisco, California. The Democrats were holding
their national convention there. Jerry Falwell-- head of the moral majority, X-ian coalition, or some such group-- had winged in SF to excoriate the city, the party,
humanity. A counter-demonstration was led by The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence-- in 1999 under attack by conservative Roman Catholics. At the rally, Sister Boom-Boom,
who earlier had run for the Board of Supervisors (her campaign slogan? "Am I Supe yet?") got up and gave a rousing speech. "Jerry Falwell has come to San
Francisco bringing hell and damnation." Boom-Boom pretended to see someone in the crowd, raised his hand and waved: "Hi, Helen!"
Doo Dah!
I invite nominations for the best Camp Moment of the 1990s. I haven't a personal favorite. After the Jewish comics became ascendant in the 60s, with types
like Joey Bishop and Shecky Greene passing as "wits" on the boob tube, then the progression downward-- from the sublime humor of, say, the Marx Brothers--
advanced rapidly. Thus we have really creepy freaks like David Letterman-- guaranteed to shrink testicles from coast to coast. The problem is: will straight people kill humor?
The best Camp, of course, was the old camp, the apparently completely sincere bad taste straightola shit that was pumped out by the majority culture. This
doesn't happen much any more. People, taking after Letterman, are all ironic and self-referential.
I want to get back to Pinochet. And the occasion is the new book, in the news, about Ronni RayGun. Because I have always thought that the Presidency of
Ronni was the last, not the best, moment of completely unintentional low camp-- the dead-eyed straight dummies reading the bad script by-- and here's the interesting
twist-- perhaps by the gay ones in the clique, Howard Baker, Roy Cohn, Craig Spence, Spitz Channel, working the zombies for their own agenda. Perhaps Ronni can die in
the arms of... Ann Sothern, not a camp Pieta a la Pinochet, but something along the line of what folks in this culture like-- B actors staying true to part. It only goes to
make the role for the faggots easier, giving a slight twist to that fake earnestness to make it transparently silly, making the players the objects of jokes they never
intended, performers in a new script, and objects of a new kind of laughter, which they had not expected and often cannot understand.
**
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