With all of the anti-gay sentiment being spewed by that moronic Republican Senator Rick Santorum (which my spell-checker says should read sanitarium ), whose salary is paid with my tax dollars, I think it is very refreshing that First Tennessee Bank downtown isn t ashamed to have a great big rainbow all lit up on it at night. Since the rainbow is the universal sign for gays and lesbians (found regularly on bumper stickers, t-shirts, parade floats, porch banners, and elsewhere), I think the bank is to be commended for this innovative move. There it is. Right in the heart of downtown. On one of the city s tallest buildings. A big ol gay rainbow. Now, that is cool. I ve always said that Memphis is a very tolerant city, and this just helps prove my point. Congrats to the bank! Now on to other matters. Because I refuse to watch national television news about the war in Iraq because the American mainstream press seems to be on the White House payroll, I have only briefly encountered this new card game some genius has drummed up, with the faces all of the evil villains we are after shown on poker cards, like this is some kind of game we are enjoying. Get out the cigars? Again, are my tax dollars paying for this lunacy, because this reeks of George W. Bush s dead or alive stupidity. I am not one of those people who really worries and whines much about how my tax dollars are spent because in the grand scheme of things it really doesn t matter. You just pay them and then at some point you die and it s all over until you come back in your next incarnation. You are aware, aren t you, that you are just a mass of atoms, just like a telephone pole or a thigh buster. And when you come back you ll be another mass of atoms. We re all made up of the same thing, which means we are all one. I, for one, wouldn t mind coming back as an Italian soccer field. Or as someone with a full head of hair. Or as someone without a gut. Or as a squirrel. I think squirrels have it made unless of course they get hit by car or eaten by a cat, which is rather unpleasant. But even when that happens, the squirrel just gets to come back as something else. Hell, Elizabeth Taylor may have once been a squirrel. Or a chicken, the way she seems to love that particular bird all fried up. I just hope we get to choose what we come back as just to ensure that I don t come back as, say, Noelle Bush s drug & alcohol counselor. Can you imagine that job? God, love her. I have this feeling that Geoff Calkins (the best sports writer in the world) and I are going to come back as raccoons (there s a story behind all of this, but it s too long to print here). If we do, I hope the Flyer is still around with its Best of Memphis poll and that he and I tie for Best Raccoon. We ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, here s a brief look at some of what s going on around town this week. Tonight, there s an opening reception at Memphis Botanic Gardens for an exhibit of landscape paintings by Marcia Gibson-Watt. At The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Terrace CafÇ in May offers lunch in the gardens every Thursday and Friday this month, complete with fine china and cloth napkins (just like my house). Pat Register is playing tonight at Sunset Atop the Madison on the rooftop of the Madison Hotel. And by all means, if you haven t made it there yet, go visit The Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
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