There is nothing I love more than a tragic love story: tales of star-crossed lovers, fairy-tale narratives of couples road-tripping it, trying to escape parents and mental hospitals — these things complete me.
And I love a good argument — sung, acted out with hats and a cane.
Would not life be oh-so-lovely if it were a cabaret, a musical? There are some setbacks to this scenario: being forced to listen to cheesy, bad or ridiculously long songs; costumes as clothes; yellow brick roads that lead to The Cheesecake Factory.
But what if you could pick and choose: cross the street if you don’t like what you hear, turn the corner if a note piques your interest, ignore the impulse to follow a yellow brick road? Poverty is exciting, even alluring, when pickpockets are involved.
How magical would this life be if, upon learning that your true love is utterly out-of-the-question, you could whimsically and earnestly sing, There’s a place for us, Somewhere a place for us … There’s a time for us, Some day a time for us … Yes, there might be a rise in gang population, but who doesn’t love a good dance-fight: When you’re a blood, you’re a blood all the way …
Then again, who wants to hear erstwhile South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford sing, whilst giving a modern dance performance, This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story / A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day?
It might be fun at first, but I’m sure it would get old fairly quickly. At the end of the day, listening to Sanford’s breakdance/rap, “I Will Try To Fall Back In Love With My Wife,” would be tedious and uncomfortable.
I kid, I kid: I would never tire of it.
I am having trouble getting over the fact that a straight, married man (redundant, I know) describes his extramarital affair as a love story, a family man who throughout his political career voted “no” on civil unions, “yes” to define marriage as “one man, one woman,” and “yes” to ban adoptions by gays in D.C.
Sanford also voted to impeach former President Clinton for, among other things, his lack of “moral legitimacy” (re: Oval Office hummer).
Sanford, however, managed to surpass Clinton in terms of moral legitimacy deficiency: He lied about his whereabouts to his staff, going to Argentina, not the Appalachian Trail, because he wanted to do something “exotic” to unwind after losing his fight over federal stimulus money.
Meanwhile, South Carolina’s jobless rate is at a record high.
(I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my issue with Sanford is not that he had an affair, just as I didn’t care Clinton had one. Those are private transgressions, with painful consequences that do not affect me.)
Speaking of musicals, who wants to watch Perez Hilton, wearing Miss America’s tiara and sash, sing the beautiful agony of regret in his heart-wrenching performance of “Sorry About Faggot”?
Hilton, the blogger who lambasted Miss California for opposing gay marriage, tweeted of his alleged assault by Will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas) and a security guard the early morning of June 22. (This begs the question: Why use Twitter when you have a phone?)
Hilton called Will.i.am a “faggot” and a “thug.”
I don’t know much about Hilton, but I have always admired people who have the courage to be unpopular in lieu of being silent. I’m glad a relevant question was finally posed in the Miss America pageant.
On his website, Hilton’s “apology” begins with: “From the heart: ‘Words can hurt’ …” I wouldn’t have questioned his sincerity had he not stated their origin, had he not then bracketed them in quotation marks.
His explanation for using the slur “faggot” is: “I wanted to hurt him [Will.i.am] with the word I chose …”
Unacceptable. I will now promenade to, “Where Do I Begin?”
Hilton says nothing about his use of “thug” and its consequences; he doesn’t apologize for this racist slur.
“Is He Really So Thick As To Not Realize His Hypocrisy or Does He Just Not Care?” is the newest Sanford-Hilton musical.