On this day in history three of the great American women of the last hundred years were born: Ethel Merman, Susan Sontag, and yours truly. No need to send me a present, I don’t want anything and hate having to feign enthusiasm when opening gifts anyway. But if you want to bake me a cake, that’s fine, just wash your hands first. And no chocolate cake, please. No ice cream cake, either, because there’s just no reason for that. Oh, and no cheesecake. Cheesecake is fine if you’re on The Golden Girls, but until I’m in my sixties and have my own lanai, I’m staying away from it.
On second thought, let’s nix the cake idea altogether. Cake is overrated, in addition to being the name of a so-so band. The only thing it really has going for it, at least in my book, is its importance to the immortal Hole lyric “I want to be the girl with the most cake.” So let’s let Courtney have her cake, and we can have cookies and toast my parents for not aborting me or putting me up for adoption. That was very generous of them and something I’ll take into consideration when the time comes to choose their nursing home.
In honor of Ethel Merman’s birthday — she’d have turned 101 today — here’s a clip of her singing “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” from the film of the same name. When I was a kid I used to torture my dad by watching it every time it was on AMC, and in retrospect I probably owe him an apology for that. It’s a horrible movie, and 55 years later it’s still impossible to imagine why anyone ever thought it was a good idea to cast Mitzi Gaynor in anything, but I was fascinated by Ethel — and by Marilyn Monroe’s “Heat Wave” performance. Two early signs that I was a lesbian, but it would take a little while longer for me to realize that.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.