The Burning Bush
thoughts from a cunning linguist

February 26, 2003

Chickening out of Blogging Today

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD??

George Bush's Answer:We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.

Al Gore's Answer:
I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.

Bill Gates' Answer:
I have just released eChicken 2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook - and Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken.

Martha Stewart's Answer:
No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

Dr. Seuss' Answer:
Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, the chicken crossed the road,
But why it crossed, I've not been told!

Ernest Hemingway's Answer:
To die. In the rain. Alone.

Click below for a few more reasons. There are some doozies.

Martin Luther King Jr's Answer:
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

Grandpa's Answer:
In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

Barbara Walters' Answer:
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long dream of crossing the road.

Ralph Nader's Answer:
The chicken's habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by checked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.

Jerry Seinfield's Answer:
Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"

Pat Buchanan's Answer:
To steal a job from a decent, hard-working American.

Rush Limbaugh's Answer:
I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet someone out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars, and when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

Jerry Falwell's Answer:
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's what they call it--the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side."

John Lennon's Answer:
Imagine all the chickens crossing roads in peace.

Aristotle's Answer:
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

Karl Marx's Answer:
It was a historical inevitability.

Saddam Hussein's Answer:
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

Voltaire's Answer:
I may not agree with what the chicken did, but I will defend to the death its right to do it.

Captain Kirk's Answer:
To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

Fox Mulder's Answer:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

Scully's Answer:
It was a simple bio-mechanical reflex that is commonly found in chickens.

Bill Clinton's Answer:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken, please?

The Bible's Answer:
And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

Albert Einstein's Answer:
Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken?

Sigmund Freud's Answer:
The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

L.A.P.D.'s Answer:
Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Richard Nixon's Answer:
The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

Buddha's Answer:
If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken nature.

Joseph Stalin's Answer:
I don't care. Catch it. I need its eggs to make my omelette.

Carl Jung's Answer:
The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and, therefore, synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Louis Farrakhan's Answer:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.

John Locke's Answer:
Because he was exercising his natural right to liberty.

Albert Camus' Answer:
It doesn't matter; the chicken's actions have no meaning except to him.

Oliver Stone's Answer:
The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road?" but is rather "Who was crossing the road at the same time whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

The Pope's Answer:
That is only for God to know.

Immanuel Kant's Answer:
The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will.

MC. Escher's Answer:
That depends on which plane of reality the chicken was on at the time.

George Orwell's Answer:
Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.

Plato's Answer:
For the greater good.

Nietzsche's Answer:
Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

B.F. Skinner's Answer:
Because the external influences, which had pervaded its sensorium from birth, had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own freewill.

Jean-Paul Sartre's Answer:
In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary
to cross the road.

Emily Dickenson's Answer:
Because it could not stop for death.

O.J. Simpson's Answer:
It didn't. I was playing golf with it at the time.

Ken Starr's Answer:
I intend to prove that the chicken crossed the road at the behest of the president of the United States of America, in an effort to distract law enforcement officials and the American public from the criminal wrongdoing our highest elected official has been trying to cover up. As a result, the chicken is just another pawn in the president's ongoing and elaborate scheme to obstruct justice and undermine the rule of law. For that reason, my staff intends to offer the chicken unconditional immunity provided he cooperates fully with our investigation. Furthermore, the chicken will not be permitted to reach the other side of the road, until our investigation and any Congressional follow-up investigations, have been completed. (We also are investigating whether Sid Blumenthal has leaked information to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, alleging the chicken to be homosexual in an effort to discredit any useful testimony the bird may have to offer, or at least to ruffle his feathers.)

Colonel Sanders' Answer:
I missed one?

Posted by Bush Whacker at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

February 25, 2003

You are what you eat

The e-bay Queen called and through the course of our conversation, a new word got added to the English language (or at least it's new to us):

Vagetarian.

Guess I'm on a diet.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 10:35 PM | Comments (5)

Who needs birthdays, anyway?

I have never yet known a queer not to have a crisis about turning 40. And who can blame them? What are the models for continuity? How do queer lives pass from one generation to the next? Is there an old dykes home in your community?

I've always been precocious--my dear old valley girl and partner in drag, the e-bay Queen, says we have "old souls." So my birthday freak-out comes at turning 30.

My freak-out, though, is not about being in mid-life. It's about prolonging the early life. I won't go into all the reasons, but I'll give you a taste below:

I had always wanted to finish that damn dissertation before I hit 30. If I have two days, I wonder how many words per minute I'd have to type to finish by Thursday? Hmmm.

60 minutes per hour x 18 hours=1080 minutes (until the 27th)
Dissertation =about 200-pages
250 words per page x 200 pages= 50,000 words.

so 50,000 words/1080 minutes =~47 words per minute.

What do you think, folks?

I think it's time to start counting backwards--even if the therapy industry were to disintegrate in the process.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 06:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 24, 2003

The Return of the Repressed: or, notes from the bushwhacked

There is only one cliche of lesbian life that rivals the old joke about bringing a U-Haul on a second date. This is the unspoken rule that dykes be the best of friends long after they've been mutual bushwhackers.

Why is this so, when you end up being friends with your all your ex-lovers' ex-lovers and can't get a date in a town who hasn't already slept with someone you've already slept with? For that matter, you don't even need to be in the same town to be plagued by the spectres of all the bushes you've ever whacked. Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias, really must have been lesbians in drag when they croned on "to all the girls they'd loved before."

But, as you'll come to know about me, I have a theory about this, as I do about most things. And it has nothing to do with the lesbian continuum or with women being more capable of friendships that outlast lover-ships. It has to do with telling a good story. And trust me: good stories abound. I am living proof.

Wanna hear a story?

The Great Canadian Beaver

Have you ever been the maid of honour at the wedding of your ex-lover (as she was getting married to a man)? This is the best category of stories about "all the girls I've loved before." There is a veritable genre of bushwacking stories in this vein. My story, of course, is the best. Keep reading.

[Background: I was maid of honour at another wedding (definitely a lesbian no-no, I've learned). My sister got married two years ago. I wanted to wear a suit because I'm allergic to dresses. My family would have none of this. So off I went to the affiar in a skirt and tank dress, wearing (drumroll please) metallic sandals. I managed to outlast the whole affair and the drinking was beginning--a very important part of a Newfoundland wedding, you must understand. In order to dance better, I traded the metallic sandals for my trusty Birkenstocks. I think this angered the fashion gods. Picture it: the DJ is playing The Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch" and my 85 year-old grandmother is dancing up a storm to it. This is the kind of wedding it is. At this point, even the Birks are cramping my style and I just want to dance barefoot. So I leap over to the table to toss them off. I am in midleap, having tossed one sandal off, ready to flick the other. Down my foot lands on some ice that one of the kids had spilled. Three hours later, I am still flat on my back in the Emergency Room at the hospital, with only 2 out of 3 ligaments remaining in my ankle (and unlike bones, these suckers don't grow back or repair themselves). I had to stay in Newfoundland much longer than I expected and still spent the rest of the summer tits up and not having a bit of fun in the position.]

It is a few weeks after the events of the background story have taken place. I am still tits up, still on crutches, barely in physiotherapy. My phone rings. The first bush I ever whacked is calling.

She is getting married next summer, she says. Will I be her maid of honour?
"Don't you have a sister?" I say.
"Yes," says she. "But I want you. The wedding is in Calgary in a year's time."
"I can't afford to buy a plane ticket to Calgary to go to your wedding. I'm sorry."
"That's okay. I'll pay for the ticket."
"Listen," I say, "I'm still recovering from my last outing in a dress. I am not wearing any more bridesmaid dresses."
"You can wear whatever you want," I'm told.

So here she is, systematically dismantling my objections. I guess I could just have said "I don't want to," but here's the rub: I couldn't resist the story I would be able to tell. I knew the wedding would be a fucked up affair. But hell, my whole relationship with this woman has been one big fucked up affair. So I agreed.

One year later....

...I am in emotional tatters, just coming out of a five-year relationship. But I am still packing a bag containing a suit and tie to head to this Calgary wedding. I am to be met at the airport by my ex and escorted (eventually) to her parents' house where we will both be staying. I arrive, 6 hours and 3 times zones later (or earlier, I guess). We have to wait for someone else to arrive at the airport, though; in the meantime, she, the best man, and I hang out in the airport bar. What else can we do but drink, right? So we do. Then we pick up the other traveller, head to the hotel where the men are staying to drop him off, and then end up at some bar around the corner playing foozball (sp?). Soon, I am too tired to stay, and we leave.

Not long after, we are at the parents' house. My ex's family emigrated to Canada from Poland many years ago, though their English remains broken. (This will be important in a minute). They have been working class people all their lives and own a small home in Calgary--a small home whose rooms have no doors. (This, too will be important in a minute.) The mother leads us to a room just inside the front door that has two double beds: one for me and one for my ex. (You can see where this is going, I know.) We each get in our respective bed. the house is quiet and dark. My ex asks me no fewer than 10 times if my bed is comfortable enough. I assure her it is each time. But by the tenth time, I am tired of answering the question so I just say: "If you really want to know, test it out for yourself."

She does.

One thing is leading to another in the testing of the bed. In comes the mother, screaming at us in Polish, dragging the clothes off the bed, throwing the ex in one bed and leaving me in the other. Remember that I have not arrived in Calgary in the best of shape to begin with. I can just imagine spending a week in fear. My ex and her mother are embroiled in a vicious verbal battle. I am in my bed shaking and wondering what the hell is going to happen in the next few days.

Eventually all quiets down. Half an hour later, my ex whispers an apology. In comes the mother again--another Polish screaming match.

I am ready to go back to the airport.

But instead, the next day, I am shipped to the house of one of the other bridesmaids--a Christian pro-lifer. I even get my own sign over the bed I will sleep in. I am neither Christian, nor pro-life (though I am a recovering Catholic, which will also become important in a moment). I worry this could be another hell, though I am also strangely relieved to be in this Calgary suburb that looks like the set of the Truman Show with amicable Christians.

Several days later, the wedding takes place. In my suit, which the the mother actively despises, I am the candidate to be the chauffeur for the bride and the bridesmaids. My ex, ever the organized one, is in the car on her way to the church, when she realizes she has forgot to compose the petitions (prayers of the faithful in the Catholic Church). [The typical prayer/petition is something like this: "For the desceased memebers of the Smith and Jones families": (the congregation responds) "We pray to the Lord" or "Lord Hear Our Prayer." At weddings, people conventionally pray for the couple to have children, long life, all that sort of thing.] As with most things, my ex occupies conventions in very curious ways. No conventional prayers for her. Her husband wants her to write a prayer, asking that the New York Yankees win the pennant this year.

So she does.

And she wants to write a prayer giving some tribute to Canada.

So in the middle of the wedding, my ex's sister, stands up in a conservative Polish Catholic Church and asks the congregation to pray for the "Great Canadian Beaver."

Three guesses as to who that was. (And the first two don't count.)

Need I say more?

Posted by Bush Whacker at 07:35 PM | Comments (2)

February 23, 2003

Queer Sex: Dilemma I

Ok, scenario:

You're whacking the bush of a woman who is a good friend of your close friend's boyfriend (with me so far?). And you know that the relationship of the friend and his boyfriend is a bit shaky. They had agreed to be in a monogamous relationship, but you know from both the friend, the boyfriend, and the woman that there has been at least one infidelity. (You suspect maybe more than one, in fact, though you have no "hard evidence.") You then discover from the woman that the friend's boyfriend may not be practicing safe sex--but you hear this info 3rd hand (she has heard it from her roommate, who had a conversation with the guy). So you don't know the context in which that info was conveyed. What you have is shaky evidence, hearsay testimony, and a request from the woman not to tell your friend what you know.

Do you:
(a) break the confidence and tell the friend anyway, ensuring that you include all of the caveats about (shaky evidence, 3rd hand info, etc)--all because you're worried about potential bodily harm?
(b) let the situation unfold as it is
(c) confront the guy and ask him yourself
(d) get someone else to do the dirty work for you (i.e. get the woman whose bush you're whacking to talk to the guy and find out what he says is happening before you decide to confront anyone)

The ethical questions are mind-boggling, the levels of responsibility multiple. One assumes that the friend is responsible for being taking care of himself and being careful. But then again, he is in a trust relationship--and if he doesn't trust the guy, the thing really is over. On the other hand, we do live in pretty non-monogamous times--and queer life has always been lived in ways that don't adhere to heteronormative standards of intimacy (people have affairs and relationships do survive). Presumably the guy who's fucking around has a responsibility not only to be safe, but to disclose unsafe behaviour to his partner. But whose responsibility is it to intervene when this does not happen?

My solution to the above is option 4--for the time being. Find out as much information without rocking the boat without actually rocking the boat. Then rock the boat as needed. There are some kinds of information that must be disclosed in spite of confidences--simply for the safety of others. But one must be sure of disclosing information, not just idle gossip.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 09:40 AM | Comments (1)

February 22, 2003

On being a blogging bush whacker

Well, here goes. And it's all Maurice's fault (so you can blame the naughty bits on him). The vital stats:

Q. Why "bush whacker"?
A. Because being a "lesbian" requires a U-Haul, 2.5 dogs, and more flannel than I care to think about. Moreover, to quote one bush I've whacked, "lesbian is such a 'silly word.'"

Q. Why write about bush whacking?
A. There are just not enough public, intelligent bush whackings for my taste. If this isn't your taste, try some other site on Burning Bushes. Moses awaits.

Q. Why "The Burning Bush"?
Short answer: This is Maurice's fault, too. He laughed too much when I suggested the name. I couldn't resist.
Long answer (in multiple sentence fragments): (1) Because it's self-consciously sexual and I'm not Puritan enough to be modest. (2) Because it might burn the asses of a few Puritans. (3) Because we live in a secular world, so why not take advantage of it? (4) Because burning can be the result of being either pleased or pissed off. (5) Fill in your own reason.

Welcome. Stay tuned.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 06:42 PM | Comments (3)