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Starting next Monday, this column will appear under the byline Gypsy & Willy. In case you don't know, Gypsy is my wife of over two decades and the woman with whom I share fifteen children. Ever since I began this column...now nearly four years ago in January, 1995...Gypsy has played an important role in its development. Early on we decided that, while we would help one another with our respective sites, each of us would take full credit for our particular offering. Thus, the column Gift of Youth appears with just her byline and this column with mine...both as Bruce Madison, the pseudonym I adopted at the outset, and as Willy Chaplin since I "came out of the closet" with the column entitled The first day in the rest of my life... wherein I revealed that Bruce and I were one and the same.In a subsequent column entitled Pussywhipped...and PROUD of it!, I detailed both my feelings about the female intellect in general and toward Gypsy's in particular. Among other things, I revealed that I had discovered that when I argued with Gypsy (and many other women) I was more often wrong than right. Rather than make me feel stupid, it made me profoundly reconsider the role of women in my life and in the business of society. For one thing, it made me wonder whether patriarchal political control is an even bigger mistake than it appears to be.
However, I realized that, in any case, I personally did not have to go on believing in my own masculine superiority. This decision has never let me down. Not only did it immediately double the number of potential teachers in my life, but it also increased the quality of the instruction. In short, in case you haven't already guessed, I believe the world would truly be a better place were it run by women.
So, I have come to increasingly depend upon the counsel of women, especially Gypsy, with whom I spend the vast majority of my time. And, when we disagree, it usually turns out that she was right, I wrong. For example, when Monica Gate broke, I was one of the stupid males who immediately predicted...in print, no less (see: Honestly!)...that Bill Clinton's reign as president was about to end, "within the month." I authored this marvelously incorrect prophesy without first consulting Gypsy. However, when I told her about it that evening, she said "No way! You have to be kidding!"
I was by no means kidding. I said that if it were just about sex, nothing would happen. But, this was going to be about perjury and obstruction of justice, witness tampering and massive conspiracy, I maintained. Serious stuff.
"Nope." she countered. "It's just about sex and hardly anybody thinks otherwise."
The source of her wisdom was the clientele of the restaurant at which she works as a waitress. She is a very talkative person and had already gleaned...on January 26, 1998...in conversations with her customers...what has since come to pass. That is, that there was no way that revelations about kinky sex acts by the president were going to result in either his resignation or his impeachment. The American people, she went on, were going to strongly resist any movement in this direction. Remember, this was BEFORE those revelations took place, at least in complete Starrian detail.
What's that, you say? Congress is about to consider the Lyin' King's impeachment and the outcome is by no means certain? Just ask CNN?
Ri-i-i-ght!
Sorry, I would rather rely upon the folks at Gypsy's restaurant. Few of them are rich, none are famous. But all, like Gypsy and I, are farm belt rubes who pay a lot more attention to what is going on than the wise guys at CNN and the New York Times give us credit for. So I'll put my money on Billy Bob's finishing out his term and going on to author best selling novels (about guess what?) to pay his legal expenses.
The upshot of all this is simple. Gypsy sits and discusses politics with me for hours each week. She gives me more than half my ideas for columns. I do the actual writing, but she always (since that fiasco in January) reviews my columns before they go "live." In short, she is a genuine partner...perhaps even the senior partner in many ways...in the enterprise of getting out a weekly political column.
Therefore, henceforth, all political columns under the title How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This? will appear under the byline Gypsy & Willy. My autobiographical columns will still bear the names Willy Chaplin and Bruce Madison since Gypsy and I didn't know one another during most of the events described.
Otherwise, I can no longer abstain from giving credit where credit is due. I hope you all approve, but if you don't...eat my shorts!
Talk to you later...
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