Penny Starr: watch your back.

I was getting caught up on last year's art controversies in the LA Times this morning, when a piece about the Catholic League's role in Smithsonian's ill-considered move to pull David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly from the "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" show back in December (the Head of the Smithsonian, C. Wayne Clough continues to stand behind the decision, telling the New York Times "it was in the interest of protecting the exhibition as a whole, as well as protecting the Smithsonian’s larger educational mission and its ability to make a strong case to Congress for federal support.") caught my eye. 

That's where I came upon it:  Penny Starr.  My drag name.



You can imagine my horror (and chagrin) when I discovered who was using it, and for what nefarious purpose.  No, Penny Starr is not another diva on the drag circuit (in which case I could stab her in the face and be done with it), she's a right-wing columnist at CNS — the Conservative News Service!  OK, same diff. 

Truth be told, she looks like a drag queen and she quacks like a drag queen.  Not sayin', just sayin'.  Those "conservatives" are very kinky. What they are interested in is preserving the sanctity of the closet, because secrets and lies get them off.  Understand that, and everything on the right makes perfect sense.

I suppose I could still use it.  It's not like she has a corner on the Penny Starr market.  There's Penny Starr of the Millionaires, and Miss Exotic World First Runner-Up Penny Starr, Jr. (the “Pe-Tite Barnum of Burlesque”, according to the LA Weekly), to name just two.

But this Penny's star is on the rise.  She is also host, apparently, of The Girls, "a conservative version of The View".  There is a tenth level to Hell after all.  What a relief. 

All I can say is, in drag speak, "The Girls" means something else entirely. 

So here's what we'll do:  Your girls.  My girls.  The Ramrod.  This Friday. 

Whoever comes out with a face gets the name.

Deal?