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Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins
BY
Margaret Engel and Allison Engel
CHARACTERS MOLLY is a tall, brassy, middle-‐aged reporter. HELPER is an impassive male copy clerk.
SETTING The suggestion of a newsroom past its prime
TIME 2007 and earlier
1 Scene One
(A desk with a typewriter and computer on it, along with
newspapers, books, note pads, files, pens, pencils, cups,
etc. The nameplate on the desk reads “Molly Ivins.”
Behind the desk is an old metal swivel chair on rollers.)
(The stage space is filled with empty desks and chairs,
stacked at odd angles. There is an A.P. teletype machine.)
(At rise, MOLLY is leaning back in the chair, her bootclad
feet crossed on the desktop. She’s staring off into the
middle distance. A long moment or two pass.)
MOLLY. I’m writing.
This is what writing looks like.
I’m letting some ideas steep. Which is not the same as
letting them stew. Every reporter with a brain – which
is a subset of the profession and by no means the
majority – knows that writing is seventy-‐five-‐per cent
thinking, fifteen percent typing, and ten per cent caffeine.
But have an editor pass by your cubicle and see you
not pounding away at the keyboard, he’ll stick his
stubby little neck in and say:
“What’s the matter, darlin’, nothin’ to write about?
’Cause if you got nothin’ to write about, I’ll give you
somethin’ to write about.”
And you say sweetly back:
“Why, that is ever so kind of you, but I do in fact have
something to write about, thank you, so you just go on
back to that early retirement program you call your
office and pop yourself another Pepto Bismol.”
(looks at her desk, papers, typewriter)
2 RED HOT PATRIOT
Yes, indeed, I do have something to write about…
(puts on her glasses and peers at what she’s written)
What’ve we got so far…?
(reads aloud)
“My old man is one of the toughest sons of bitches God
ever made.”
(takes her glasses off)
Well, that’s it. Hell, it’s a start. I should really think
about that line, though. Take it out on the "floor for a
spin, see if it stays upright.
(glasses on again, reads)
“My old man is one of the toughest sons of bitches God
ever made.”
(Thinks for a beat; then she types for a few seconds, then
reads aloud again.)
“I say this after second thought…”
(thinks some more, types some more, reads)
“…and I say it again after third thought.”
(sits back, mock worn-‐out)
That was exhausting. Writing is hard!
If the truth be told – and wouldn’t that be a
novelty –
(MUSIC: Guitar strumming)
it’s no small thing to write about a person, especially
when that person is a relative, exceedingly so
when he’s your father, and damn near impossible when
he’s still alive, which – fortunately or not, depending
on your point of view – is the case.
(MUSIC fades.)
My father’s gonna read this no matter what, no matter
how sick and worn out he is from this surgery or that
treatment. My father would point out that I’m marking
RED HOT PATRIOT 3
time here, using my well-‐worn rhetorical tricks to string
out sentences without saying anything. If he was here,
he’d say: “Uh-‐huh, and what’s your point?”
Well, sir. I am working on that.
(SOUND: harp glisse as visual of a newspaper library appears)
Oh, now isn’t that a pretty sight? Some people like sunsets,
a field of lilies, a baby’s face. This’ll do me fine.
One of the nicer things about a newspaper office is that
when you’re stumped on a piece like I am today and
there’s a deadline starin’ at you, every sort of resource
you’d ever want is right…here.
This is the morgue. Not the type frequented by those
who have passed over to a better world. This is where
reporters go when their memories have been hazed over
by the effects of conviviality. The morgue is where
the good stuff is kept – back numbers, clippings, photo
files, dust that smells like honey. Pretty much every
time I visited the morgue to find out the exact date of
this kickback or the actual name of that stripper slash legislative
assistant, I’d end up drifting off into a sea of
yellow newsprint describing the triumphs and follies
of towering figures long ago cut down…
(SOUND: seagulls cawing) (Visual of Molly sailing)
I did not expect that to come out of the stack. That’s
me on the General’s boat, in happier times, as they
say. General Jim is what my dad is called. We had some
good, well, moments on that boat. Of course, he was
always the captain.
(visual of Ivins family portrait)
(MUSIC: “A Summer Place”)
Now there’s the whole crew. Mother, sister, brother, the
General.
We were a very “good” family. Good schools, country
club, fancy summer camps, Europe. It was pretty
swell…mostly.
4 RED HOT PATRIOT
(MOLLY refers to the portrait.)
There I am. This is at a debutante ball or some such
virgin sacrifice. Six feet tall with red hair and freckles.
My mother said I looked like “a Saint Bernard among
greyhounds.” I was quick enough even then to know
that was not a compliment. Not that my mother meant
it unkindly. My mother tended not to think things
through, which is not to say she was unintelligent.
Mom was nobody’s fool, just seriously ditzy.
But charmingly so, ditzy as a kind of social achievement.
A lot of times recently, I wanna call her up and
ask her something, about my father, about herself,
even about me, but that window of opportunity has
closed.
(SOUND: Drumbeats)
The Ivins are…were…are…a fighting family. At least
when it comes to dinner table warfare.
Every evening at five fifty-‐five – the cocktail hour – my
dad would turn our house into a war zone. Part of
it was the lubrication, but he had a level of bile that
could be triggered by a Shirley Temple. Every word
bellowed across the china was a litmus test of what was
goin’ on in the wider world. Plus he couldn’t hear very
well, the result of standing too close to the 16-‐inch
guns during World War Two. So everybody was always
yelling at him just to be heard and he was yellin’ at the
rest of us because yellin’ was what he did.
(A bell rings. Four times.)
(MOLLY looks over at the A.P. teletype machine as it
chugs out a sheet of paper.)
Y’all know what that is. That’s the A.P. wire machine. Four
bells means an “Urgent” message. Five bells means a
“Bulletin.” Ten bells is a “Flash.” Ten bells is only for
very, very important news, such as, “The President has
pronounced nuclear correctly.”
RED HOT PATRIOT 5
(A bespectacled, nebbish-‐like HELPER dashes on stage
and rips the sheet of wire copy from the machine and
hands it to MOLLY. She looks at us.)
MOLLY. I didn’t realize this gig came with a copy kid.
(HELPER exits. MOLLY calls after him.)
Do you get coffee, too, or am I shit-‐out-‐of-‐luck here?
(looks at the wire copy)
What’ve we got? Somethin’ to help me with this pitiful
thing I’m tryin’ to pound out…?
(reads)
…Hang on, this isn’t news. This is old.
(holds up the wire copy for us to see)
“Elvis Presley Dies.”
(looks at the machine)
I think the A.P. has a time-‐lag problem.
(looks at the wire copy again)
Why is a 30-‐year-‐old wire service obit comin’ through
to my…?
Wait. This isn’t the A.P. obit. This is my obit. I mean,
my obit of Elvis Presley. I wrote his obituary for The
New York Times. The Times likes to say that it follows the
Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared.” So, it’s usually ready
to go with an obit of any prominent person who might
croak. But Elvis, you will recall, died untimely. On that
fateful August 16th, 1977, the Times was not prepared.
A grave Times-‐ian panic ensued. The paper has music
critics by the note-‐load: classical, opera, jazz, even
rock; but it wasn’t exactly the kind of paper where Elvis
fans worked. Except for me. They knew I was one, see,
’cause I have this funny accent.
So I wrote Elvis’ obit for The New York Times. I followed
the bizarre Times practice of referring to him throughout
as “Mr. Presley,” as in: “Recently, Mr. Presley has
been plagued with issues of ‘caloric intake.’ ”
6 RED HOT PATRIOT
Mr. Presley also died while on the crapper, but the
Times wouldn’t go near that. The next day we sold
more papers than we had since President Kennedy was
shot.
Quickly waking up to the fact that a king had been
reigning for 25 years and they didn’t know it, the editors
sent me to Memphis for the mass mourning. I was
goin’ to Graceland.
This was the same week the Shriners and the World’s
Largest Cheerleading Camp were in town.
None of it surprised me. I know from August. Reporters never
take a vacation late in the summer. The news business
lives for the weird, the astonishing, the absurd.
Somehow, it all explodes in August.
The place was crawling with bald fellas wearin’ they
l’il red fezzes, ridin’ up and down on they tricycles
and tootin’ they little horns. I was trying to sleep in a
dormitory with a herd of teenaged girls who did handsprings
end over end down the hall to the john and
cheered while brushin’ their teeth.
Shriners, cheerleaders, hysterical Elvis fans. You gotta
love a culture that brings us all together.
(Bell rings. 4 times.)
(MOLLY looks over at the A.P. teletype machine as it
chugs out a sheet of paper. She starts towards it, but the
HELPER zooms in, tears off the wire copy and hands it
to her. She opens her mouth to speak, but he zooms off
again. MOLLY calls after him.)
MOLLY. I’ll take that coffee now!
(looks at the wire copy)
Oh, this my first piece for The Texas Observer. Ya’ll subscribe
to the Observer. You don’t? You should.
A girlfriend sent me copies of the Observer when I
was at Smith College. That’s where girls of good
RED HOT PATRIOT 7
families were sent to learn the classics. Reading The
Texas Observer at Smith was like slipping a copy of MAD
magazine into the Episcopal hymnal.
Back then, the Observer was a skinny political rag that was nonstop
furious about the treatment of blacks. The
Observer was my gateway drug. It gave me shouting
points to use against the General. Reading it, I learned
that Houston’s Fourth Ward actually existed. That’s
the black neighborhood with no sidewalks or grocery
stores. Houston’s finest refused to acknowledge it.
Once you realize they’re lying about race, everything
else follows. Everything they – he -‐-‐ ever said to me can be called into question.
He never thought that through. Should’ve.
The last summer I spent under the General’s roof was
when I came home from college and got my first job in
the library – sorry, morgue – of The Houston Chronicle,
also known as “the Chronk.” The General thought it
was low-‐class work, but that made me love it all the more,
and I loved it from Day One.
(A visual of a newsroom, circa 1963. All the reporters
are men wearing ties and white shirts.)
Now, what is wrong with this picture? That’s right,
they’re all men. Actually I am in that shot. I’m standing
behind the coat rack behind the water cooler behind
the pillar with the naked cowgirl calendar. If you
count the naked cowgirl, there are two of us.
In those days, at the legislature, the senate pages all
were young women. One day one of these young
ladies walked by, and the guy from The Dallas Morning
News jabs me in the ribs and says, “Look at the ass on
that girl!” Then The Houston Chronicle jabs me from the
other side and says, “And look at that pair of knockers!”
It was at that moment, I knew I had become one of
the boys.
8 RED HOT PATRIOT
It’s not that the boys didn’t hit on me, too, au contraire.
It is just that no editor ever looked at me and said,
“Oh, you poor, sweet, fragile little thing. We can’t send
you to cover a riot.” It was always, “Ivins, there’s a four alarm
fire at the grain silo, get your ass in there and
interview the flames!”
I remember when a phone call came in about a
domestic murder in the Fourth Ward. I stood up to
go cover it but my editor stopped me. “Sit down. That
ain’t news. Those people are always killing each other.
Cheap it out.”
Cheap it out? That’s newspaper code for one paragraph
buried on the back page.
In Houston, even motorcycle gangs got better coverage.
One time the city editor sent me to interview
some Hell’s Angels. When I got back, he said, “That’s
the first time in my life I’ve ever felt sorry for those
bastards.”
(visual of Molly in leather, astride a motorcycle)
(MUSIC: Motorcycle music)
I liked those fellas. Reminded me of me. They liked to
ride fast and laugh loud and drink like a desert during
a three-‐day rain.
Every man I ever spent time with drank a lot.
(visual of Jim Ivins)
The General.
(visual of Bob Bullock)
Bob Bullock.
(visual of Ann Richards)
Ann Richards…Well, Ann wasn’t a man, but she drank
like one.
Men drink for all sorts of reasons. If you’re a Texas
man, you don’t need a reason. A reason would be a
waste of effort. But if you’re a woman, well, it’s like
RED HOT PATRIOT 9
Ann’s line about Ginger Rogers dancin’ backwards in
high heels: You gotta drink twice as much and carry it
three times as well, and you damn well better be funny.
Nobody likes a mopey, down-‐in-‐the-‐dumps drunk girl.
They want Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, wisecracks
and snappy come-‐backs.
My first job, at the Cronk, we drank at The Press Club.
Second job, the Trib in Minneapolis, we drank at The
Little Wagon. They had an open phone line to the
newsroom behind the bar, so you could scurry back if
an editor was lookin’ for ya.
Third job, at the Observer, we drank in the office.
Best of that bunch? The Observer, hands down. For one
thing, the Observer had an official office dog. Mine.
Her name was “Shit.” I always wanted a dog with that
name, so I could go out back and scream “Shit” whenever
the occasion called for it.
Shit’s only interest in life was food. Naturally, she
developed a fabulous impersonation of a starving
animal, made more impressive by the fact that she was
grossly fat. She’d pee on the rug, sit in cactus,
steal steaks…I had that dog for 15 years. It seemed
longer. When she finally got hit by a car, Shit was no
mere dead dog by the side of the road. Nope. Biggest
mess you ever saw, and I had to clean it up. With my
pal, Kaye.
(visual of Kaye Northcott)
This is the other reason the Observer was the best
of the bunch. Kaye Northcott. Man, did the two of us
get away with some murder. Two Texas gals in our 20s,
put in charge of the state’s only independent political
magazine. It wasn’t easy keeping afloat. When you’re
anti-‐war liberals in oil country, advertisers are scarce.
Our salaries made us eligible for food stamps. We stole
our pencils from the governor’s office! After every
issue was put to bed we’d have a Final Friday party. Cold beer and
10 RED HOT PATRIOT
hot food make up for a lot. But hell, we had a voice.
Kaye Northcott. What an editor.
Mutt and Jeff. Kaye’s 5 feet short, doesn’t drink, thinks
tobacco’s evil and, worse yet, she’s tidy. Which, I will
admit, did come in handy vis-‐à-‐vis that mess on the
road formerly known as “Shit.”
(MUSIC: Canned Heat)
Kaye and I traveled the state on a kinda progressive
underground railroad. Some of our best stories came
about ’cause of where our car would happen to break
down.
(MUSIC ends)
As for food and lodging, we’d get a list of the Observer’s
subscribers in whatever direction we were headed,
then when we’d get within local rates, we’d find a pay
phone, call ’em up, and they’d say, “You’re from the
Observer?! Come on over…Stay the night!” By the time
we rolled up to their front door, they’d have called the
other liberal in town, and the four of us would have one
whale of a party.
Everything at the Observer was sweat and scramble, but
it was worth it because…because so many of our readers
looked to us for help, for a connection. And we
could do that.
I loved working at the Observer. Best six years of my life.
And then I left. Why?
The glittering prize. The New York Times.
(MUSIC: “New York, New York”)
The Holy Grail of news hounds.
(visual of Molly wearing Statue of Liberty hat)
So from the Observer I did go – to the Big Apple, where
I was miserable at five times my previous salary.
The New York Times, where they didn’t allow dogs or
bare feet in the newsroom. The New York Times, where
my copy got de-‐clawed and neutered.
RED HOT PATRIOT 11
Example. Here’s what I wrote: “The fella has a beer
gut that belongs in the Smithsonian.” Here’s what they
ran: “The gentleman has a protuberant abdomen.”
(feigns sleep) Well, you know editors: They’re mice training
to be rats.
Their first move was to exile me…to the briar patch –
but it was wunnerful.
I was named chief of the Times’ Rocky Mountain
bureau, staff of one. I got to roam the West, hunting
for news. I could breathe easier out there, but the
food! I am a Marlboro and beer girl, but I did miss
eating anything green. This was meat-‐and-‐ potatoes
country. I’d a given my left butt cheek for a salad.
One time, in Montana, my steak arrived with a tiny
sprig of parsley on top, and I wolfed the parsley down
and left the meat. The waitress looked at me with what
I think was pity and said, “Goddamn, honey, if I’d
knowd you was going to eat it, I’d of washed it.”
Another time, I was covering a chicken killing festival
in New Mexico. They sit around and drink a lot of
beer, listen to music and pluck chickens. So, naturally,
I called it a “gang pluck.” I knew it wouldn’t make it
into the paper, but I liked to make the rim rats on the
copy desk spit up their coffee every now and then. My
editor in New York, Abe Rosenthal, called to read me
the riot act. I tried to explain it was a good play on
words, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“Gang pluck is an allusion to gang fuck. You were
trying to get our readers to think of the word ‘fuck!’”
“Damn it, Abe, you are a hard man to fool.”
The Times hired me because they wanted to spice up
their good gray image with some pungent prose and
snappy patter, so I did what I do. And they did what
they do: They fired my ass.
12 RED HOT PATRIOT
My epitaph should read: She Never Made a Shrewd
Career Move.
(MUSIC: Guitar strumming)
I wish I could say I write and do these things because
I can’t help myself, but most of it’s just back-‐talk I
wish I’d said to my father. The French call it esprit de
l’escalier, the brilliant zinger you think of just a little
too late.
(MUSIC fades)
I’m complaining, aren’t I?
(MOLLY goes to the desk and looks at what she’s written.
She rushes through the lines we’ve heard before.)
Old man, sumbitch, second thought, third… (types) “I
have known him for 62 years, and I’ve never heard him
whine or complain about anything…He is a stoic to
the bone.”
This kind of creative angst is not my norm. I am
known for my joi de vivre, as we say in Waco, especially
the joi associated with my chosen profession. And it’s
not because we win so much of the time. Mostly, we’re
spitting in the ocean. The best you can do is puncture
some balloons, make the assholes sleep a little less at
night, make ’em look in the mirror and know they are
frauds.
(MUSIC: Guitar strumming)
I suppose those little victories are a thin kind of
blanket to cover me for not having a husband, kids,
money…pretty much all the things most people want.
I did have Hank Holland. The first love of my life. He
crashed his motorcycle. For a long time, I died there
with him.
Then there was my sweet biologist. The draft board
grabbed him before he could line up his teaching job.
He hated the war, but he must have wanted to go on
some level. We fought
about it. After he shipped out, I watched the
RED HOT PATRIOT 13
news every night – thinking I might see him. Isn’t that
crazy?
(MUSIC fades)
Then his mom got the visit. It was a nighttime fire
fight. Single bullet to the brain. That beautiful brain.
(MOLLY walks to the rear of the stage and puts up one
hand. A visual of the Vietnam memorial appears. She
touches the names.)
The Vietnam memorial. I was not prepared for the
impact. To walk down into it was like the war itself, like
going into a dark valley. Damned if there was any light.
Just death. When you get closer to the two walls, the
sheer number of names starts to stun you. It is terrible,
there in the peace and the pale sunshine.
(MUSIC: “Gimme Shelter”)
The Vietnam War cost 123 billion dollars. I’ve always
wondered how much that one bullet cost. Sixty-‐three
cents? A dollar twenty? Someone knows.
Stupid, fucking war!…Gave me life-‐long issues with
rage.
(a bitter laugh)
Thank God for that, huh? Thank God for life-‐long
rage…
(MUSIC fades)
And thank God for Texas.
Lord, but I do love Texas. It’s a harmless perversion. I
love the gritty, down-‐on-‐the ground quality of Texans,
our love of a good yarn, the piss and vinegar of our
speech, that abiding interest in kin, even unto the
in-‐laws of second cousins. I like the pleasant open vulgarity
of Texans. Take that great song from Lubbock.
Scholars believe it’s the only country-‐western title ever
written with the correct use of the subjunctive: “I Wish
I Were in Dixie Tonight, But She’s Out of Town.”
14 RED HOT PATRIOT
(SOUND: Guitar with gunshots, bar fight)
(visual of the Texas Capitol)
The Austin Fun House. I call it the “Lege,” home of
the laziest, most corrupt, most incompetent, most
entertaining bunch of lawmakers on earth. Love at
first sight. Heaven on a stick.
(MUSIC fades)
I would denounce some sorry sumbitch in the Lege as
“an egg-‐suckin’ child molester who runs on all fours
and has the brains of an adolescent pissant,” and the
next day the sumbitch would spread out his arms and
say: “Baby, yew put mah name in yore paper!”
Tell you a secret. I can speak three languages, thank
you Smith College. But when I became an “arthur,” as
we say in East Texas, I needed words with a little salt
and chile on ’em. Let me tell you why. Because I was
dealing with morons.
(SOUND: Snap of a whip)
(visual of Mike Martin)
Representative Mike Martin. He was a Capitol legend.
Mike Martin hired a cousin to shoot him, then blamed
the attack on a “satanic and communistic cult.” He
was found out, he ran away and was caught hiding in
his mother’s stereo cabinet. He always did want to be
Speaker.
Who else? Who else?
(SOUND: Snap of a whip)
(visual of Gib Lewis)
Gib Lewis.
Mangles our mother tongue something fierce.
Naturally, everyone calls his patois “Gibberish.”
Imagine trying to take notes on this: “This is adnormal.
It is unparalyzed in state history. You should not
fire people but do it through employee nutrition. I
RED HOT PATRIOT 15
want to thank each and every one of you for having
extinguished yourselves this session. I am filled with
humidity.”
(SOUND: Snap of a whip)
(visual of many goofy-‐looking Texas politicians)
Look at them all. They are a gift to my profession. Can
you believe God gave me all this material for free?
(visual of Bob Bullock)
Bob.
We saw his picture before didn’t we? Yes. During the
AA Hall of Fame. Bob Bullock. My pistol-‐packing
mad genius tour guide. Bob drove like a banshee, got
into fistfights and was a real bad alky. When he wasn’t
dryin’ out in what he called “drunk school,” he was
our secretary of state, then comptroller and later, lieutenant
governor.
Once, drunk, he crawled into the back seat of a
stranger’s car and passed out. The driver starts up
without noticin’ him. When they hit Interstate 35, Bob
comes to. He pops up…
(SOUND: screeching brakes)
and says, “Hi! I’d like to introduce
myself. I’m Bob Bullock. Your secretary of state.”
Bob could wrap his big ol’ paws around that Capitol
and force those lazy, greedy bastards to do something.
Afternoons, about 4:30, I’d get a call at my desk.
“Molly, you goddamned better get your effin’ ass over
here if you want me to talk to you.”
Which meant it was drinkin’ time with Professor Bob.
What a teacher! His textbook seemed to
cover the whole state. He knew every single budget trick
those rodeo clowns ever tried.
Once I ventured to ask Bob why there had
never been any reports of gay-‐bashing in
16 RED HOT PATRIOT
Midland, home of the oil rich and such. I figured
there must’ve been at least a few incidents that got
covered up. Bob set me straight. “Honey, there’s no
gay bashing in Midland ’cause there’s no gay who’ll
come out of the closet for fear people’ll think he’s a
Democrat.”
(visual of George W. Bush)
Oh, fuck. It’s him, isn’t it? I must’ve said the magic
word. What was it? Midland? Gay-‐bashing? Ignorant?
(visual of George W. Bush with Bob Bullock)
Shrub – I thought up that name! – was brought up in
Midland. W. was the one Republican governor Bob
thought he could work with.
And he did. He taught Shrub things – just like he did
me – and so helped make him a success and a political
star. Thanks, Bob.
I knew George W. back when we were in high school
in Houston. We ran in the same social circle. After college,
he started to live the life of his parents. I couldn’t
get away fast enough.
I despair of the press ever seeing through him. It’s
incredible that they keep reporting that he can speak
Spanish. No one ever notices that he always says the
same two sentences and then they cue the mariachis.
The man is not bi-‐lingual. He is bi-‐ignorant. Instead of one
thousand points of light, we got one dim bulb.
Jokes are very important to me, a fact you may have
gleaned by now. But they are a means to an end. When
people laugh, they open up their ears and hear you.
(SOUND: Tick, Tick, Tick…)
(visual of 60 Minutes-‐style stopwatch)
But they didn’t listen too well when I got that gig on
60 Minutes. People laughed at my jokes. They just ignored
what I was talkin’ about. The TV folks were afraid of my politics.
They wouldn’t let me be me. They even tried to
RED HOT PATRIOT 17
gussie me up for the camera. I always said Ann Richards got
elected governor of Texas because of her hair. ’Cause
the higher the hair, the closer to God. But that look
didn’t work for me. Those bright TV lights can blind
you. Make you think people are actually payin’ attention.
I thought jokes could keep outrage alive, but maybe
they just keep it at arm’s length…
(Bell rings. Four times.)
(MOLLY looks offstage right. Then she looks offstage
left. Nobody. She sighs, stands and starts to the teletype
machine, and –)
(The HELPER zooms on, tears off the wire copy and
hands it to her.)
MOLLY. You’re a tricky little pisser, aren’t you?
(HELPER zooms off again. MOLLY looks at the wire copy.)
This is about John Henry Faulk. One of my heroes.
(visual of John Henry Faulk)
Our greatest Texas storyteller. The networks didn’t
like his politics, either.
If you want to know why I am
burning’, it’s because John Henry lit the match. John Henry got
blacklisted in 1956 – it was in the McCarthy era – but he did
not go gently into that dark night. He promptly sued the sons of bitches,
won a huge libel award and was honored up to his eyebrows
by freedom lovers everywhere. He never saw any of the
money, and learned you can’t eat honor. Rest of his
life, he made a slim living as an after-‐dinner speaker.
(visual of two little boys as a Texas Ranger and a sheriff)
Johnny was seven years old and a captain in the Texas
Rangers. His little pal Boots Cooper was the sheriff. I
can see those two boys loping down on their brooms to
the henhouse at Johnny’s farm. They were told to get
rid of a chicken snake. Now I myself have never been
nose to nose with a chicken snake, but I took his word
that it will just scare the living shit out of you. That
snake reared up. Scared the boys so bad they tried to
18 RED HOT PATRIOT
leave the henhouse at the same time, doing considerable
damage to both themselves and the door.
Johnny’s momma called out: “Boys, now you know
perfectly well a chicken snake cannot hurt you.” And
Boots said, “Yes, ma’am, but there’s some things’ll
scare you so bad, you hurt yourself.”
Immortal words. From a seven year-‐old.
Funny what fear will do. We get so rattled by some Big
Scary Thing – communism or crime, or hell, even sex –
we think we can make ourselves safer by giving up some
of our rights. John Henry said, “When you make yourself
less free, you are not safer. You are just less free.”
When John Henry died, I vowed to keep speechifying for
the ACLU and all of his other fightin’ groups. For
nigh on fifteen years, at least once a month, even in
the throes of a massive hangover, I have staggered
onto a plane and arrived sometime later at Fluterville
or Lard Lake or some such desperate place where citizens
need help.
I say unto you, you do not know what courage is until
you have sat in the basement of a Holiday Inn in
Fritters, Alabama, with eight brave souls who are fixing
to form a chapter of the ACLU. Usually it’s led by a
lone librarian who has been driven to this extreme
by some local pinheads just itchin’ to trash the Bill of Rights.
There is not one thing wrong with the liberties set
forth in the Declaration and the Constitution. The
only problem is, the founding fathers left out poor
people and black people and gay people and female people.
It is possible to read the history of this country as one long
struggle to extend the liberties in the Constitution to
everyone in America.
It is the ordinary folks who are gonna save us. I find
heroes all over hell and gone, just like that librarian
– Americans who are tough, sassy, brave, smart. They
RED HOT PATRIOT 19
get pissed-‐off, they fight like hell, they start all over –
whatever it takes.
It is so damn uplifting that I put the ACLU and the
Observer in my will. My legacy will be helping folks be a
pain in the ass to those in power.
I kept John Henry’s picture above my desk, always.
I think John Henry and my father were very similar
men, actually, if you ignore their diametrically opposed
political viewpoints and general outlook on life.
(MOLLY looks at the wire copy in her hand. Then she
looks at us, faux bemused. MOLLY finds a folder in her
desk, adds the obit, picks up another folder and walks
away from the desk.)
It strikes me I may have given the impression that my
primary contribution to the journalistic field has been
in the art of the posthumous assessment. Hell, no, I
hate writing obits. Of course when one has reached
an elevated status such as befits my rarified
hoo-‐haw, one no longer writes anything as lowly as an
obit. One pens “appreciations.”
(MUSIC: Guitar strumming)
Bob. I didn’t want to write an appreciation of you, Professor.
I was too mad at you for making Shrub look good.
Hell, I owe you so much.
Annie…writing’ about you. That was a hard one,
too. (beat) The ACLU got mad at Annie once about a
Christmas manger scene set up at the Capitol. But Ann
said, “Oh, why don’t we just let it be. That’s probably
as close as three wise men will ever get to the Texas
Legislature.” I loved her. What a heart.
(visual of Molly’s mother)
And my mother. She died last New Year’s Day at a
Hoppin’ John party, right in the middle of eating
black-‐eyed peas. Here’s what I wrote: “My mother,
who was a lifelong Republican, could not stand Nixon.
Not because he bombed Cambodia. No, for her, it was
20 RED HOT PATRIOT
his bad manners. When a man tells the waiters at the
White House to pour cheap wine for his guests but
serve him the good stuff, well, that is something my
mother would not forgive.”
My mother was sorta ambivalent about me.
My dad’s more clear-‐cut.
I hate his world and he hates mine.
I wrote about my mother every now and again, but I
never once wrote about him. Not in years of columns.
Til today.
(MOLLY looks across the stage at her desk and calls –)
How’re things goin’ over there? Ya’ done yet? Pace
yourself. Don’t strain your thesaurus now.
(MOLLY shakes her head and sighs.)
If I was my own editor, I’d’a fired me by now.
(MOLLY goes to her desk.)
It is so fucking unfair not to be in control and still be
in Texas.
I do not mean that.
Let me try it again.
It’s so unfair, but at least I’m in Texas.
See, I can edit myself when I want to.
(MOLLY lights a cigarette, sits in chair, listening to music and smoking.
MUSIC: “Memories of East Texas.” MUSIC ends.)
There have been times, Texas, when I have run from
you. I wanted to go somewhere people talked about
something besides the weather and football.
I went from New York to Denver to Boston to Paris –
the one in France – and I learned that folks everywhere
mostly talk about the weather and football. So I ducked
under the moonshadow and came back to Texas.
Continuing on my life’s goal of working for every news
operation in my sovereign state, I took a job with The
Dallas Times Herald. They promised I could write whatever
I wanted.
Here’s what happened.
RED HOT PATRIOT 21
I was writing about Jim Collins, a Republican congressman
from Dallas, who was reaching such fresh
heights of human stupidity that I wrote, “If his I.Q.
slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”
(SOUND: Many ringing phones)
The paper got some phone calls.
(visual of billboard “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can
She?”)
So they slapped up these billboards to support me and
the First Amendment. I’d like to think James Madison
would have been proud. See, Texas ain’t all what
people think it is. Just mostly.
Personally, I always root for the Speaker of the Texas
House to go down. I do not wish him ill; it’s just a
matter of political tradition. Six out of the last seven
House Speakers have been indicted for one thing or
another, the exception being the one who was shot to
death by his wife. She was indicted but not convicted,
because in Texas, we recognize public service when we
see it.
The deceased was a Democrat, as was every Texas
speaker until recently. See, Republicans are a fairly
new phenomenon, because in the old days, children,
there were no Republicans in Texas.
Young people used to call home from college to
report to their parents when they’d actually met one.
All we had were conservative Democrats and liberal
Democrats. Back in the day folks would bring Granny
and the kids, lay out a picnic and settle down to hear
a Democrat explain in plain words the wrongs of Jim
Crow, of McCarthyism, of communism, of the oil companies
and gutless politicians. Then we became waterlogged with Republicans.
On accounta LBJ finally doing the right thing on civil rights.
We lost the South for three generations. And countin’. It’s called
22 RED HOT PATRIOT
backlash.
(MUSIC: “Happy Trails.” Visual of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat)
And along came the Gipper. And his shiny new Hollywood Morning in America.
I know Ronald Reagan was a likeable guy and he took
a good picture, but Ronnie’s magic moments were so…
special. Recall, if you will, the immortal remark he
made to the Lebanese foreign minister after that gentleman
had finished a half-‐hour lecture on the tangled
politics of his country. Said the Gipper: “Y’know, your
nose looks just like Danny Thomas.”
(Visual of Reagan morphs into George H. W. Bush in a
cowboy hat.)
The Gipper passed the football to Poppy, George Bush
the Elder. Poppy said, when reminding us how close
he was to Reagan: “For seven and a half years we’ve
had triumphs, we’ve made mistakes, we’ve had sex. Er,
setbacks, we’ve had setbacks!” This from the same fella
who said of Walter Mondale, “I’ll put my manhood up
against his any day.”
Somewhere, Dr. Freud is doin’ a spit-‐take.
(Visual of George H. W. Bush morphs into George W.
Bush in a cowboy hat.)
Then Poppy passed his putter to George Junior. Junior – well, actually
his minders, Karl and Dick – took his daddy’s crony capitalism and
made it bigger and badder.
I spent six years watchin’ Dubya play governor. I talked
myself hoarse sounding the alarm on him, column
after column. After he became president, my friend
Lou Dubose and I even wrote a book about him. Then
W. was re-‐elected. We had to write another book. We
were tempted to say: “If y’all had read the first book,
we wouldn’t’ve had to write the second one.”
Those of us who knew Shrub when he was governor
were very seriously not amazed by what he did in
Washington. We remembered when he said: “I’d like
to have the opportunity to show Washington what to do
RED HOT PATRIOT 23
with a budget surplus.” Well, did he ever!
He disappeared that in record time.
Next time I tell you someone named Bush should not be
president of the United States, please pay attention.
Remember what we got after 9/11?
Anxious and patriotic Americans waited to be led by their
President. What did Shrub do? He told the American people
the greatest contribution they could make was to go shopping.
The Shrub provided endless material. He also provided
gravestones for thousands of people with families who
loved them. And we’d better not mention the 255,000 Iraqis
we’ve killed. It’s damn hard to convince people you’re
killing them for their own good.
Don’t know if you noticed this, but from the beginning
of the Iraq war, anyone who spoke up and said,
“This is like Vietnam” had right-‐wingers land on them
and screech: “THIS IS NOT LIKE VIETNAM.”
Of course it is. We just haven’t wasted 57,000 American
lives – yet.
This is the second war on my watch based on a lie. A war fabricated
to make money and to make careers. Including the press.
Where is the outrage?
O.K., I am a liberal, and proud of it – fish gotta swim and
hearts gotta bleed. Why do conservatives think people
who don’t make serious dollars aren’t serious people?
Why do we let the right wing claim patriotism and religion
for themselves? Liberals need to take pride for
building the safety nets. We created Social Security so
Grandma would have money to live on – and believe me,
she paid in every dime!
We got the kids out of sweatshops.
We should be puffing out our chests and finding converts
by the score. It’s as obvious to me as balls on a tall dog.
Personally, I like Americans. I think we are quite nice.
We’re the people who get spray tans and buy striped
24 RED HOT PATRIOT
toothpaste! Seventy-‐seven percent of us believe that
Alexis de Tocqueville never should have divorced
Blake Carrington! We think the last words of “The Star
Spangled Banner” are “Play ball!” Huge numbers of
us believe in flying saucers, horoscopes and pyramid
power. A nation undeterred by reality – no wonder we
went to the moon! And to Iraq.
So how do liberals cope? Like everyone else – we party.
Especially on the 4th of July. Good Texas liberals have fun by
gathering up a mess of beer, guitars, dogs and good folk.
(MOLLY takes a six pack of beer from a desk drawer.
She sits down like a picnic.)
We plonk ourselves somewhere outdoors, where we
get sunburned and bitten by mosquitoes, chiggers,
and all four kinds of poisonous snakes found in North
America. This fits into the great rule of Texas liberalism:
No matter what happens, it needs to make
a good story for the campfire.
(MOLLY pulls the tab on a can of beer and holds it aloft.)
Happy Fourth, beloveds!
(SOUND of fireworks)
(visual of fireworks)
(MOLLY looks at the beer can.)
Alcohol may lead nowhere, but it sure is the scenic
route. It let shy little Molly become a whirling dervish
of fun. It steals from you, though. I have let dinners
burn up from drinking. I’ve made a fool of myself calling
friends and babbling in the middle of the night.
And I’ve wasted so much time hating myself for it the
next day. My friends started hating it, too. They got
tired of The Molly Show – the drunk version. So there
was a little intervention. Telling me they didn’t love me
drunk was about as tough an assignment as a friend
can have.
I thought I needed alcohol to write funny.
(MOLLY gathers up beer cans and puts
RED HOT PATRIOT 25
them on the desk.)
But in any condition I could always recite the
Declaration of Independence. By heart.
I think it’s high time we changed our national symbol
from the eagle to a red, white and blue condom. A
condom allows for inflation, it halts production, it
destroys the next generation, and it protects a bunch
of pricks. Plus it gives you a sense of security while you
are actually being screwed.
(Bells ring. 10 times.)
(MOLLY looks offstage. No HELPER. She looks at the
teletype machine. It stops ringing. She approaches it tentatively.
She slowly tears off the wire copy and reads.)
Apparently, he…couldn’t stand the thought of getting
sicker and not being in charge. He didn’t want to face
the pain.
Yeah, well, who does…
(MOLLY laughs, a bitter but admiring laugh.)
You gotta hand it to the old bastard. The last round,
and he won again.
(MOLLY looks at the typewriter.)
He’s supposed to read this column tomorrow morning
and learn that I forgive him for...
I began this column at 8:20 this morning. Here’s how
it ends.
(types)
“Am I supposed to tell you that he was a great father
and a loving human being? He wasn’t. He blew his
brains out, and I…”
(MOLLY breaks down. Visual of her column, which
shows the last line: “…as his child who most bitterly disagreed
with him, I tell you that this was a man.”)
(pause)
(Bells ring. 10 times.)
(MOLLY looks at the teletype machine, as if afraid of it.)
(The HELPER enters. He brings MOLLY a cup of coffee.)
26 RED HOT PATRIOT
MOLLY. Thank you.
(The HELPER walks to the teletype, reads copy, tears it, puts it on
Molly’s desk and exits as he entered. MOLLY does not read the copy.
She sips coffee.)
Just the way I like it.
(Visual of Molly in a newsroom appears and turns into a negative.
Molly feels the image coming up behind her.)
It appears I have not been paying attention.
If I had, maybe I could have skipped being cut up and
poisoned three times.
I’d like to use the excuse that I have been too busy
manning the fort.
Truth is, I just didn’t take care of it.
When I got the damn mammogram it turned out I
also got the damn disease.
Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun.
(visual image of Molly fades.)
Didja know most insurance policies only cover one
breast? That’s right – this one’s an orphan! They only
pay to cut off one! I’m fightin’ that.
First they mutilate you, then they poison you, then
they burn you.
I have been on blind dates better than that.
I’m one of those people out of touch with my emotions.
I treat my emotions like unpleasant relatives – a
long-‐distance call once or twice a year is more than
enough. If I got in touch with them, they might come
to stay.
My friend Mercedes was with me right before I had a
breast cut off. “You need to deal with this. You need
to cry.”
So I did.
And my emotions were awful.
On the bright side, I have figured how to get bubbas
to join the breast cancer fight. Tell ’em: “Men, we have
a serious problem today. We are losing tits.”
RED HOT PATRIOT 27
I am sorry to say that cancer can kill you, but it does
not make you a better person. I was in great hopes that
confronting my own mortality would make me deeper,
more thoughtful. Many lovely people sent me books
on how to find spiritual meaning in life. My response
was, “I can’t go on a spiritual journey – I’m constipated.
Help, I’m "flunking cancer!”
(visual of Molly pulling off a wig, revealing her bald
head)
I did laugh a lot. When I got my first hair back, it came
in right next to my mouth – that nice little mustache
I’ve always hated. That God – what a sense of humor.
See, I am an optimist to the point of idiocy.
(SOUND: a dog barking, far off. MOLLY runs towards
sound, to the back of the stage.)
What the hell?
(SOUND: Dog barking. Slight bit closer.)
…Shit?
(MOLLY stands and looks around. DOG BARKING off
stage right. MOLLY runs toward the sound.)
Shee-‐yit! Where are ya’, girl? That’s my old dog!
(as it hits her)
Shit.
(Lights change.)
(HELPER enters and pushes the desk offstage. The A.P.
machine glides offstage at the same time. MOLLY watches
them go. HELPER faces off with MOLLY, who is holding the
back of her chair. HELPER takes the chair from MOLLY and exits with it.)
Well, cowboys and girls…Uhm…
Heck fire.
(SOUND: Ding, followed by surreal crystal tone)
(MOLLY watches the HELPER move her desk and typewriter
to join the pile of desks in the back.)
(SOUND: Guitar strumming.) (Lights dim.)
You know where I’d like to be right now? In a canoe
goin’ down the North San Gabriel River. On the water,
28 RED HOT PATRIOT
counting stars around the campfire…
O.K. beloveds. Not much time left.
Once ’pon a time, we had a newspaper
editor in Waco named William Brann who hated three
things: cant, hypocrisy and the Baptists. He said, “The
trouble with our Texas Baptists is that we do not hold
them under water long enough.” Brann left us when
he was shot in the back by an irate Baptist. As he lay
dying on the sidewalk, he drew his own gun and shot
his murderer to kingdom come.
Well, that’s one way to get outta town. But I need more than that.
I need a trumpet call here. I need people in the
streets, banging pots and pans. Do not throw away our
legacy out of cynicism or boredom or neglect.
You have more political power than 99 percent of all
the people who have ever lived on this planet.
You can not only vote, you can register other voters,
put up signs, march!
All your life, no matter what else you do, you have
another job.
You are a citizen.
Beloveds, politics today stinks, it is rotten.
These are some bad, ugly and angry times, and I am
so freaked out.
What happened to the nation that never tortured? Where have we gone?
How did we let these people take us there?
Hate has stolen the conversation.
The poor are now voting against themselves.
Politics isn’t about left and right; it’s
about up and down. The few are screwing the many.
Not that hard to figure out how to fix things. Stop letting
big money buy our elections. Here’s the score now:
Every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling,
hair-‐splitting son of a bitch in office spends half his time
whoring after special interest money. If folks got elected by
ordinary citizens again, they’d have nobody to dance with
but us, the people. That’d bring me hope.
You know what else brings me hope? The kids who
camp out on my couch when they come to town. RED HOT PATRIOT 29
Singin’, organizin’, agitatin’. They keep me from
being alone. They are my monuments.
Every time some kid who’s called a wetback, a towelhead,
a fag or a plain old hell-‐raiser lifts up
her head and dares to fight the hatred, I’ll have my
monument.
I’m claiming all future freedom fighters as my kin.
Freedom and justice beats having my name in marble
any day.
Celebrate the sheer joy of a good fight.
…Boy, I sound like The General, don’t I?
Well. It’s my last column. I’m allowed.
I know what people are gonna ask when I’m gone.
They’re gonna ask, “What would Molly say?”
I said plenty. I shouted out loud for 40 years. I led my
own troops, Dad.
“What would Molly say?”
Well, hell.
What do you say.
(blackout)
End of Play