My Weekend Crush

For no reason in particular, here’s a little ditty on the one-year anniversary of my marriage breaking up. I sure miss Sinead. And other stuff. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Or fine-ish. But, truly, onward. Happy weekend, all.

Vacation Vixen: Forever Sinead

I’m just still thinking about her. I hope, somewhere, she is at peace.

Music Monday: Sinead Forever

I haven’t stopped feeling sad about Sinead O’Connor. She was at once the fiercest and the most vulnerable of superstars. She survived her abusive childhood. She made it out of the toxic 90s. She kept changing, searching, fighting to understand it all. She spent, by her own admission, about six years in and out of a psychiatric hospitals and struggled mightily with her mental health over the years (including multiple suicide attempts). But, as she told the Guardian in 2021:

“Clearly God thinks I’m such a pain in the arse that he doesn’t want me either. I’m a strong little fucker. I wasn’t meant to die.”

No, she wasn’t. But, alas, she has. And I will miss her brilliance, and all the messiness that followed along with it, forever.

But what lives on for all of us, I hope, is her brilliance. Not her perfection, because no one is perfect and she was obviously no exception. But how alive and how aware she was. How smart. How talented. How funny. How charismatic. And, yes, how freaking hot she was. Hey, we all mourn in our own ways. And one of the ways I am doing that is by sharing her stylish, cheeky and endlessly sultry version of Cole Porter’s “You Do Something To Me.” She sure did that voodoo that she did so well. She surely did. Happy Monday, kittens.

p.s. Also, did you clock the queer couples in that video? That’s no accident, as the song was recorded as part of one of the first major music benefits for AIDS. And it’s important to remember, this was 1990. This was before Ellen, Melissa, heck before k.d. came out. She’s been fighting the real enemy since the very beginning.

These Lonely Tears

Sinead was right. All along. She was right. Sinead O’Connor’s tragic death at age 56 yesterday should remind us all what an otherworldly talent she was, what a fearless truth teller she was, and what embarrassment we should all feel about how our culture at-large treated her for that talent, that fearlessness and that truth telling.

I fell in love with Sinead, like so many others, when her unadorned face and unwavering eyes burrowed into me with “Nothing Compares 2 U,” and she has been a life-long favorite ever since. She was, in fact, the first live concert I ever went to (Peter Gabriel was there too but, you know, whatever). I still know all the lyrics to all the songs on “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” verbatim. Her exquisite freight train of a voice could be all iron or all gossamer or somehow both at once. At times it felt like she was pulling from another dimension altogether.

Yes, everyone talks about her 1992 “Saturday Night Live” performance when she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II while imploring us all to “Fight the real enemy” in protest over the then not-yet widely uncovered rampant child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. For the so-called sin of being too right too soon, she was banned for life from SNL and NBC and became a public pariah and universal punching bag.

The Catholic Church, it should be noted, did not issue a formal generalized apology to all Catholics worldwide for its at least seven-decade-long legacy of covering up unchecked child sexual abuse until 2018 — yes, 2018! Previous apologies were all specific to individual countries around the world where they covered up sex crimes, as one does in the name of the Lord apparently. By the Vatican’s own conservative estimates, hundreds of thousands of children were abused by the Church. That apology letter came 26 years after Sinead first sounded the alarm — more than a quarter century later. Damn.

Less than two weeks after her SNL protest (which sparked insane backlash and hate and all the other bullshit people do when art makes them uncomfortable), she played a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. When she came out on stage, the amassed audience jeered and booed her for almost three minutes straight as she stood stone-faced. Then she launched into a righteous a capella version of Bob Marley’s “War” and strode off the stage.

Kris Kristofferon famously was the only other artist to come on stage to offer any comfort as the hatred rained down on her from the crowd. By his own telling, this is what he said transpired:

“Don’t let the bastards get you down,” I told her.
“I’m not down,” she replied.

Then she told them to turn up her mic, ripped out her ear monitors and fucking wailed.

The Catholic Church scandal wasn’t the only time Sinead was prescient. She protested the playing of the American anthem before her concerts. She protested police brutality and killings. She protested sexual harassment. She protested the racism, sexism, and materialism of the Grammys/recording industry. She protested fucking war. She protested injustice and suffering, seemingly everywhere.

For all that, Sinead became probably the first modern celebrity to be canceled — well before we had ever heard of the term cancel culture. Still, through it all, she was stunningly clear-eyed and painfully self-aware. She has been excruciatingly honest about her own many mistakes and struggles, from her PTSD stemming from childhood abuse to her bipolar disorder and everything else. I worried for her when I heard about her 17-year-old son’s suicide last year, I really did. Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling.

But she expressed absolutely, positively no regrets whatsoever about the act that supposedly ended her career.

In 2021 she told The Guardian when they asked if her act of protest against the Catholic Church had defined her career:

“Yes, in a beautiful fucking way. There was no doubt about who this bitch is. There was no more mistaking this woman for a pop star. But it was not derailing; people say, ‘Oh, you fucked up your career’ but they’re talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antigua that the record company dudes wanted to buy. I fucked up their career, not mine. It meant I had to make my living playing live, and I am born for live performance.”

Instead she called herself a protest singer, and that is what she will remain for eternity. Read her interviews, any of them, and you’ll come away deeply impressed and likely deeply moved by her intellect, her openness, her vulnerability and her conviction. Plus she was damn funny, too. So Irish, being able to hold untold tragedy inside her while still being charismatic as all get out.

Also, just to be deeply, shamelessly superficial for a moment, she was so breathtakingly beautiful. All that bravery and fierceness packed into this tiny package of raw energy and pure heart. And, of course, her hair or lack thereof. God, she was hot. So fucking hot.

Also, that thing flapping in the back pocket of her ripped jeans above her stomping Docs during her first-ever primetime American TV performance? It was her infant son Jake’s onesie. She wore it as a fuck you to record execs who had told her motherhood wasn’t good for her career.

Oh yeah, and she was queer. Her sexual fluidity, her search for spirituality, her endless quest to understand herself and our collective humanity was worn like a badge for anyone to see. Her refusal to be the pretty pop star they wanted her to be made her a threat. See how much society hates women who won’t conform. That bald head. Those unapologetic opinions. That unrelenting voice.

They pilloried her for it all. But she seemed made from the stuff of the witches they could not burn. So her sudden passing leaves a void, leaves the world a little less brave, a little less honest.

I pulled out all of my old Sinead CDs (yes, I still keep my CDs, heck — I still have some tapes!) yesterday to listen to them again and again. I also went down so many YouTube rabbit holes — as you can no doubt tell. So many live performances still reverberate like little earthquakes. So alive, and so aware of all the indescribable beauty and unexplainable cruelty of this world. If they hated me, they will hate you.

It’s true, we humans only have one ending, and it’s coming for us all sooner or later. I wish it had been so much later for Sinead. I wish she died of righteous old age still raging for what is right and using her instrument against what’s wrong. But may her memory be a blessing for every victimized person, for every brutalized person, for everyone who has ever been an outcast or cast out. May her music watch over all of us who deserve grace, and even for those who don’t. Except Andrew Dice Clay, because fuck that guy.

Thank you, Sinead. I will love you and your music forever and beyond. Rest in power, and hopefully finally peace. Truly, nothing compared to you. Who knows if anyone will again.

Sinead the Outlander

One of the things I’ve kicked myself a bit for recently is getting rid of my Showtime subscription before I remembered to watch their Sinead O’Connor documentary. But I was rather pleased to see that she’s still making waves – this time as the singer for the Season 7 credits of “Outlander.”

I watched the first twoish seasons of “Outlander” with great interest. But then I fell off a bit, as straight historical romances aren’t really my thing. (see also: Bridgerton). Now, you throw in a Gentleman Jack instead, and, well. I do think “Outlander” is well made and its stars are extremely charismatic. (Also, what have they been up to for the last four seasons? Did the Scots win? Kidding) So I hope the show is still good going into its seventh season.

Anyway, storylines aside, I’ve always liked the use of the haunting “The Skye Boat Song” as the show’s theme. And in Sinead’s capable hands it’s definitely next level. Almost makes me want to watch again.

Music Monday: Sinead Edition

Should I just make my Music Mondays a series of the best breakup songs and really wallow in this thing or what? Anyway. So as part of my preemptive cost cutting because of My Little Life Implosion, I canceled my Showtime subscription. (Don’t worry — I still have access to screeners, which means Pre-Ls are still on the table for now.) But, I forgot to watch the new Sinead O’Connor documentary before I shut it down. So now I’m sad I didn’t get a chance to soak in the shattering genius of Sinead some more. Singularly talented. Right about the Catholic Church. And looks stunning moping around Paris in a winter jacket. My great hope for her is that she finds peace and happiness in her life. She has earned it. We all have. (OK, not people who still vote for Republicans, but the rest of us have. Did I mention, you should definitely VOTE for Democrats - as imperfect as they are - Tuesday in the midterms.) Happy Monday, kittens.

How to Donate To My Little Life Implosion Fund:

Venmo: @Dorothy-Snarker
Paypal: idgie2@hotmail.com

p.s. Continued thanks. I am slowly getting back to everyone who reached out with support.

Nothing Compares to the Truth

I don’t know a lot. But I know that Sinéad O’Connor was right. But, alas, Sinéad O’Connor was also first. And the first to cast a righteous stone all too often get stoned themselves for being right. Thirty years ago, when Sinéad tore up the picture of Pope John Paul II while on “Saturday Night Live” to protest the Catholic Church’s unfettered sexual abuse of children, she was right. But she then became perhaps the first modern celebrity to be “canceled” for expressing her truth. Back in 1992 she was pilloried, and worse, for stating what we all today know. The Catholic Church systematically covered up the sexual abuse of children by its priests and others for decades — if not much, much longer. I’ve always loved Sinéad. And while she has struggled with mental health issues over the years (and who wouldn’t after the public evisceration she had to endure), she remains a righteous voice rising above the din of naysayers. I hope this new documentary reminds a forgetful public that, all those years ago, Sinéad was right.

My Weekend Crush

Sinead O’Connor exists among the most vindicated people in pop culture history. Reading the fascinating New York Times profile of Sinead from earlier this month I was reminded of why I have always loved her as an artist. She is unabashedly herself. And she knows what she wants, even if what she wants has changed through the years. May we all change and grow and embrace those changes and take no shit and live how we want to fucking live. Like, yeah, buy uncomfortable chairs if you don’t want guests to stay long. And, yeah, the Catholic Church has truly been a real enemy over the centuries and no one should be afraid to say that. And, yeah, Sinead O’Connor still has one of the most complexly beautiful voices and refreshingly righteous attitudes in all of music. And, yeah, I hope through everything she is happy. At least, if nothing else, she remains unapologetically herself. (Like, peep her posts in the profile comments section, which are just so wonderfully human.) Nothing compares to her, always and forever. Happy weekend, all.

Something Compares 2 This

In the past two months I’ve thought more about Miley Cyrus than I ever thought I’d think about Miley Cyrus in my entire life. It’s not that I ever had anything against Miley Cyrus in the past, or for her either for that matter. It’s just that she wasn’t in either my age or interest bracket. But now, of course, she’s everywhere. And people are saying everything about her. And it makes me think. All this chatter and clucking about a young woman and how she presents herself. Haven’t we been here before? Haven’t we had this conversation before?

If it wasn’t Miley, it was Madonna. And then Britney. And let’s get back into our way back machines and say – oh, I don’t know – Cher? Sure the specifics may be a little different. One humps a stage in a wedding dress while singing about virginity and another French kisses a sledgehammer while singing about breakups. But the tenor of the conversation is the same. Look at this poor, misguided, crazy, ultimately “slutty” young woman. Tsk-tsk.

Now, I don’t condone tongue-kissing construction equipment or twerking against men dressed like Beetlejuice nearly twice your age. But I don’t find either all that scandalous, really. I thought Miley’s MTV VMA performance was a mess, because artistically it was a mess. Foam fingers and giant teddy bears aren’t exactly Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” And I thought her photoshoot with fashion’s resident pornographer Terry Richardson was predictably gross. Seriously, why do people keep posing for that dirty old man?

Then there was the “feud” with Sinead O’Connor, because you aren’t truly a notorious celebrity until you’re involved in a celebrity feud. I have always loved Sinead, and I liked a lot of what Sinead had to say about not allowing the industry to use your body to make itself rich. But I also disagreed with her assertion that women should only show their bodies in private. And it’s here where I started to think, really think, about Miley Cyrus. This question of what is proper and what isn’t proper for young women’s bodies is at the heart of all of this.

I believe women’s bodies should not be used as sexually objectified to sell everything from burgers to cars. But I also believe women have the right to use their bodies how they please. The key is choice, power and intent.

A woman shouldn’t have to take her clothes off to sell a record or a movie or herself. But if a woman wants to take her clothes off to express herself – well, go crazy, girl. What I find interesting is how a woman taking off her clothes can still get our tongues wagging. We’ve all seen it before. Hell, we’ve all probably seen pop star ass cheek in the last few minutes. If it isn’t Miley it’s Rihanna or Ke$ha or Lady Gaga.

How is any of this still scandalous? It’s more interesting at this point when people keep their clothes on, quite frankly. But I’m also not in the business of shaming those who take them off. I super, duper appreciate naked ladies. Because, duh, The Gay. Still it’s a balancing act made even harder by the inherent imbalance in representations of the female and male bodies. Men’s bodies simply aren’t used as currency as women’s are, nor are we nearly as accustomed to seeing them naked in popular culture. If they were these questions of choice and power and intent would be much clearer.

But back to Miley being Miley. If this, this chronic state of sticking ones tongue out and showing off ones labia majora, is really the expression of her inner self then I’m happy for her. We all grow up. Hannah Montana was just a fucking TV character. Get over it. But there’s always that creeping suspicion that this transparent drive to abandon her Disney days is fueled by our inescapable cultural obsession with the commodification of female sexuality. I suspect, in the end like so much in life, it’s a mix of both. And I suspect she doesn’t fully know which is which at this point.

What I do know is I like both “Wrecking Ball” and “Nothing Compares 2 U.” And, surprisingly, the now viral mashup of the two songs is strangely sublime. My enjoyment of these songs has nothing to do with what the women are or aren’t wearing in their videos. I simply like the music.

It’s been seven hours and 7,304 days

This week marks the 20th anniversary of Sinéad O’Connor’s breakthrough album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.” This news makes me feel a lot of things, nostalgic and old are the two of them. Crap, my copy of this CD is 20 years old? But what it really makes me feel like is those two lonely tears that fell defiantly down her face in “Nothing Compares U 2.”

Of course a tear can signify many things: joy, loss, grief. For Sinéad what I primarily feel is loss. Because on this is one fucking amazingly talented woman. And she is nowhere to be found on the musical landscape right now. It’s hard to quantify what makes Sinéad so spectacular. Her voice, of course. Her rebellion, naturally. And her honesty, to a fault.

Some of the reason she has disappeared from our collective conscience are of her own doing. She was kooky. She was a priest. She was a lesbian. She was not a lesbian. But others are of our own doing – or undoing, as the case may be.

While others may feel differently, I’ve never harbored any ill will toward her tearing up of the picture of the pope. First, it’s a picture. Second, she had a point. The church was covering up sexual abuse. That she was before her time in sounding the alarm should be commended, not condemned. But I am not here to talk about politics or religion or belief systems. Instead, I want to celebrate raw talent.

Because that is what Sinéad is best at, being raw. She shines when she opens her mouth and lets the truth wail out, be it uncomfortable or tragic, joyous or confessional. While “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” is her most famous album (and a real beauty that still holds up, two decades later), those of you who stopped paying attention to the striking bald lady with the big beautiful eyes and even bigger voice shortly after it missed her next great album: “Faith & Courage.”

Released 10 years ago, it is a more hushed but no less truthful snapshot of an artist in full. This album is gorgeous. Her voice, the lyrics, the melodies. Gorgeous. And if you think her lesbian conversion was just a publicity stunt, listen to “Emma’s Song.” Something there was real, even if it wasn’t handled well outwardly.

Sinéad spoke with Entertainment Weekly briefly about her 20th anniversary and revealed that she is releasing a new studio album soon. I think I’ll give it a try. Because, above all else, that lady can just flat-out fucking sing. And we should never forget that.

Also, if you’ve never heard Sinéad cover Cole Porter’s “You Do Something to Me,” consider this my St. Patrick’s Day gift to you.

Nothing compares 2 her

So, Sinéad O'Connor will be on Oprah today to talk about her battle with bipolar disorder (hat tip, Sangmo). Oprah and Sinéad? That’s such a strange combination, I’m having a hard time even envisioning it. I ruminate more on the strange and wonderful creature that is Sinéad over at AfterEllen today. But I didn’t get a chance to share this video I dug up of her performing Cole Porter’s “You Do Something To Me” for the 1990 AIDS benefit album “Red Hot + Blue.” I distinctly remember watching the TV special and loving Sinead’s sexy, surreal take on the number so much that I taped it. Yes, back in the days before MP3s and CD-RWs and Google and YouTube, I held my little Panasonic tape player up to the TV, put in a fresh blank tape and pressed record. I bet I could still find that tape somewhere, if I looked hard enough. Good thing I don’t have to. Enjoy.