2003-05-06 8:04 a.m.
the broken heart is new

I'll confess, I haven't thought about Janeane Garofalo much lately, especially as a stand-up comedian. It's not that I don't think she's talented (she is) or that she's funny (she damn well is)...I just haven't seen her lately, in film or on stage.

Turns out there's a reason for that, the same reason she's back on my list of heroes: she's been speaking out a lot against the war on the media outlets, and that's seriously affecting her bookings. Clubs aren't booking her based on political views, and some gigs, she's gotten booed and had stuff thrown at her for doing politics in her act. Well, not just any politics...we're talking that fevered, strange, bug-eyed monster...progressive politics.

I love how "progressive" means "weak-kneed, bleeding-heart liberal" in the eyes of the GOP...anything that doesn't suckle at the teat of corporate/energy interests, anything that wants the future breatheable as well as shielded by an ozone layer, full of equal rights, reasonably fair trade, and the opportunity to be a Muslim without having to worry about the U.S. lobbing bombs at you. We're weak for not wanting a war. We're weak for hating an administration that has only its own interests at heart, and tackles the "issue" of our crumbling economy only when it suits them politically (and then only to propose asinine tax cuts that will benefit the top 2% earners in the country). We're weak ? and might I add unpatriotic ? for speaking our minds.

Yes'm, I am. But you better watch out...even the weakest guy'll give you a bloody nose if he sucker punches you, and how'll that look on prime time?

But Janeane, she hits the mark (from The Progressive):

Why are you speaking out against this war in Iraq?

Janeane Garofalo: I'm so public about this because I've been asked to do so and because I painfully felt that the anti-war movement was being ignored. So it was a combination of those two things. If I thought the anti-war movement was getting proper coverage in the mainstream media, I would have said no. You don't need actors to make this a mockery.

But as it became abundantly clear that no one was getting on TV talking about this, and when I was specifically approached by the founders of Win Without War and some people at MoveOn.org, I said yes. And I wasn't reluctant about it. I can't stand watching history roll right over us. It's like they're asking you to bend over, put your head in the sand, and put a flag in your ass.

Have you gotten a lot of hate mail?

Garofalo: Oh shit, yeah. I had to change my home phone number. A lot of the hate mail I get is clearly misogynist. I am a proud liberal, feminist woman, and the hate mail I get for those three things is not about me. It's about those signifiers, and about what the right in this country has managed to do to perpetuate anger over what they mean.

Then there is a lot of the hate mail that says actors are too wealthy to understand what's going on. The actors live in Hollywood, all this kind of nonsense. Do they realize how wealthy the Bush family is or the Cheney family? The Ashcrofts? Bill O'Reilly? Tom Brokaw? Do they realize that if you are talking about the Administration now, Bush and Cheney in particular, the life of privilege, wealth, and elitism they have lived? If you are going to talk about somebody not understanding the common man, then look no further than the Beltway.

But we need dividends tax-free to stimulate the economy. But we need the estate tax repealed so future generations of trust fund kids can skip out on their tax debt on their way to a higher education they didn't earn (like our esteemed president). Of course we do. We don't need those education dollars, those AIDS-research dollars, those homeland security dollars, and CERTAINLY not those campaign finance enforcement dollars.

I'm sure a lot of this is vague, irrational ranting. I just don't know what else to do.

I get accused often of not getting in the game, not trying to make a difference. I protest, I sign petitions, I debate to the ends of the earth with people around me (and often just shut up so I can hear other people's rants unhindered). Maybe I feel that when I decide to get in the game, I want to be well-informed. I know I'd go back to school first, learn about politics on a theoretical level before I try to deal with it practically, learn some ideals before being handed the reins (or even the riding crop) to the shitstorm that is the United States government.

I'd want to be an informed leader. Lord knows we don't have one now.

Something else she said stuck with me:

Do you have plans to tour again?

Garofalo: No. I was on tour for a year and a half. I always do it locally, but I have no plans to travel at this point, in part because nothing's funny to me.

Why is that?

Garofalo: There's been such an assault on democracy here, and the mainstream media is complicit in it. We are living in neo-McCarthy, post-democratic times. Democracy is being criminalized. Democracy is being ignored.

Millions of people around the world were marching for peace before the war actually happened. This was historically unprecedented. And it has been basically ignored and marginalized by the mainstream media. The President has openly said that he doesn't make policy by focus group. First of all, eight million people are not a focus group. And he sure does make policy by focus group, and it's called the Christian right. I never imagined this would be my life.

I never imagined that I would never care about dumb things anymore. I never imagined I'd be a person who could transcend that kind of nonsense. But beyond that, I never imagined I would be penalized for speaking out in favor of social justice. I never thought that anyone who spoke out for peace, and diplomacy, and social justice would be pilloried.

I'm frequently depressed, just have a general malaise. And I don't mean a malaise of indifference, I mean a malaise of sadness and fear. I've always been alarmed by some of the things that the mainstream media does and by what the government does, no matter who's in office, but the broken heart is new.

I remember that feeling...it's the one I had in the days and months following 9/11, watching Bush order the relentless bombing of Afghanistan, and again these past months, watching war reports pour in unabated by "embedded" journalists who reported the events as long as the military was happy with the coverage.

I remember that feeling, and I can't help but wonder if that's how people felt in my place in the 1960s, during Vietnam.

(Hope she's getting enough work to pay for her Lower East Side Crib...she deserves it.) Did I mention that I've seen her walking her dogs down on Houston? She's really tiny and unassuming.