shirley temple jesus-freak

today i talked to a crazy lady on the phone.
first, let me tell you that this happened at one of my favourite gigs- i love the radio station. what i did today wasn't my favourite part, but i love it anyway. i started at the radio station as a freelance associate producer for a talk show, which means that i go in, they give me a topic, i research the hell out of its every angle, then i write the questions for the host to ask the guest, and the possible answers and any other info that might help during the show. i love this job. i learn at least one new thing everyday i work there- it's actually how i learned that thing i mentioned a while back about buying babies for different, racially-determined rates...
anyway, i love working there- the people are all smart, it makes me smarter, and there's no customer service of any kind involved. it's the freelance gig i'll always say yes to.
but today, i was filling in for someone answering the phones. now this job is basically screening callers before they get on air: find out name+location, get a synopsis of what they want to say/ask, and enter the info so that the host's computer screen will tell him/her what they're getting into with any call they choose to take. pretty simple.
so this one lady gets to me and takes 3 whole minutes to deliver a synopsis that basically amounts to: isn't it true that shirley temple was instrumental in starting the social security system?
i put her on the list, trying not to laugh audibly. the segment wrapped and everybody else on hold realised we were done and hung up, but the shirley temple advocate was still on. so i tried to do the polite thing. i picked up, told her i was sorry, but we'd run out of time. this lady asks why i didn't put her through, so i patiently explained that all i do is screen and collect info- i'm not the one who decides who gets on air or not. then this lady says to me:
"they always do that to me. they never let me talk on the radio because they don't want people to hear me. they know i tell the truth. you just say the name shirley temple and the government starts shaking in their boots!"
as i tried not to snicker, she followed up with, "well never mind. tell them thank you anyway, because it just makes what happens on judgement day better!" and hung up.
so when she wasn't tapdancing with bojangles, shirley temple was busy affecting gov't policy. who knew?

on a related note, zed's latest batch of dvd's arrived today (she buys them cheap online, has them delivered to my d.c. address, i give them to flight-attendant-mom, who takes them home to trini, then on to london for the gremlin. we do a lot of cross-country exchange). one of them is chorus line which i've never seen since i'm not a muffin and mostly hate musicals. but if they come to me for free and they're well-regarded, i'll watch anything once, if for no other reason than the subsequent ability to fully articulate why it's shit. so i'm peeling the ridiculous number of layers of near-impenetrable plastic off the jewel-box, and see the words "special feature: marvin hamlisch; from broadway to hollywood".
now last year, i had the dubious pleasure of working briefly with the national symphony orchestra. dubious because the orchestra was good and all, but the conductor, marvin "the ham" hamlisch was an arrogant, unprofessional, offensive asshole.
at the time i decided to let it slide because it was a short, brilliantly-paid gig (i.e. they made it financially more than worth my while to put up with his overtly racist shit for 5 days) but he was horrid enough that i started avoiding him, which is not my style (which pissed me off even more).
i started to wonder if he was just a prick because they allowed him to be because he seemed so oblivious to the fact that he was, and i got the impression that everybody there considers him resident genius although i'd never heard of him. it didn't seem intentional on his part- he thought he was being funny. so imagine my horror to discover that he's the oscar-nominated composer for the joseph papp production chorus line- a musical so famous that even a non-muffin, musical-hater (not necessarily one and the same; more complementary) knows all about it. i'm so pissed! and to understand how pissed i am, please remember that i'm rarely offended in the first place, and on the few occasions that i have been, i never bite my tongue. now i wish i'd told him he was a racist asshole because seeing who he is, i doubt anybody else ever will.

and now, a quick word from our sponsors, on other holes.
last night i was doing some silly online quizzes, and one of them asked a masturbation question that offered 'the produce aisle' as one of the options. it got me thinking, and now i just want to remind all the ladies that when we eat cucumbers, we often peel them because of the nasty wax that's impossible to remove from their skin.
word to the wise: if you wouldn't put it in your mouth, maybe you don't want to penetrate any other orifices with it either...

walk good. grow your own garden.