The Price of Being Molly
Once upon a time, Molly Ivins was an outsider—a crusading political columnist with a sharp wit. Now she’s an insider, and what’s happening to her life isn’t always funny.
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At the elegant, crowded restaurant, Ivins is feted by friends and ogled by the patrons. She floats her religious wars bit over the meal and is rewarded with another quip for her column. When a friend cracks, “Why should the Bosnians have all the fun?” Ivins swiftly appropriates it.
After lunch, Ivins races downtown to the Hyatt Regency, where she appears on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. The host is a balding, bearded man named Robert Siegel; the topic is humor at the convention. Ivins shares her guest duties with New York Times reporters Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich and comedian Al Franken, who is participating by phone. Ivins’ role, naturally is to be a professional Texan.
“You are our native Texan here,” Siegel begins, “so I assume Houston strikes you as a reasonably normal place.” Ivins, who has mad her name by making Texas a very abnormal place, knows what to do. Her syllables soften as she explains why convention delegates aren’t out jogging (“Republicans do not exercise in the public parks”) and Jokes about Phil Gramm’s political alter ego, Dickie Flatt.
Siegel remarks that in Gramm’s keynote speech he had referred to “my mama” instead of just “mama,” which he understood to be improper southern usage. “It’s just ‘mama,’” Ivins concurs. “I wonder if the Republicans have to close up the mama gap.”
Maureen Dowd wants to know why so many Houston events have been decorated with baby elephant shrubbery: “Why do they have this topiary fetish?” Siegel wants to know about Lubbock: “What is it about Lubbock, by the way?” Finally, it is time for the inevitable question: On Ivins’ Top Ten List of Things Journalists Ask About Texas, this is number one. Dowd, at least, poses it ruefully: “Is George Bush a Texan?”
Ivins hunches toward the microphone and, like a sandwich chef at Sonny Bryan’s, starts to slather her words together. “Damn near everyone who died at the Alamo was from out of state,” Ivins admits, only it sounds like “Damn-near everwon whodahd atthealamo wuzfrum outtastyte.” Then she gives her stock response: “Real Texans do not use the word ‘summer’ as a verb. Real Texans do not wear those navy blue slacks with little green whales all over them And no real Texan has ever referred to trouble as ‘deep’”—long pause—“’doo-doo.’”
Ivins does the show on automatic pilot, using lines she has used so many times before, validating the tired notions outsiders cling to about Texas. Not until she gets back in cab does she let the professional Texan facade drop. “Bush hasn’t lived here for twenty-six years,” she says wearily. “The connection has become a little attenuated.
Such is the price of being Molly Ivins—too much time spent on mindless pursuits and endless promotions. Her heroes are journalists like William Brann, the nineteenth-century Waco editor known as the Iconoclast, who was assassinated for his acerbic writings. But Ivins’ own great work remains unwritten. The year before last, she took a leave from her columnist’s job at the Dallas Times Herald to write what she christened The Big Book. It was conceived as a way to explain the effects of governmental actions on ordinary people—what happens, say, when a bill passes from the Texas Legislature into real life—and it would be told in Ivins’ sharp, irreverent style. But devoid of her daily deadline, Ivins foundered. Eventually she returned to the Times Herald, sporting a T-shirt that warned, “Don’t Ask About the Book.”
But the Herald proved to be no retreat. After lingering for years, the 112-year-old paper finally expired, and Ivins found herself on the unemployment line, accepting, as she says now, invitations from “everyone from the Marfa masons who wanted me to speak.”
At the same time, the project Ivins had christened The Little Book—otherwise known as Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?—was taking on a life of its own: It hit the New York Times best-seller list and dug in for 27 weeks. In other words, The Little Book was turning into A Very Big Book. Unfortunately, payment for The Little Book was contingent on some portion of The Big Book; hence Ivins found herself broke and out of work, even as she was making those requisite appearances on Leno and Letterman, denying rumors that shoe would replace Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes, and advising actress Judith Ivey on playing a Molly-inspired character on Designing Women.
The serious work would have to wait. The new job with the Star-Telegram and a renegotiated book deal—Ivins is now committed to doing a second collection of her pieces while she works on The Big Book—have erased her memory problems. But fame and financial security have once again interrupted the ambitious project that might satisfy those inner demons and prove that Ivins is, indeed, the definitive voice of Texas.
Back at the Astro Dome, Ivins is wowing Jeremy Paxman of the British Broadcasting Company. She declares that “in absence of a flying pig,” the Republican nominee will be George Bush. She talks up Hilary Clinton, trots out Pat Buchanan’s speech (“Religious warfare, what an idea!”), and analyses Bush’s chance for reelection. “Frankly, she says, “I think he’s dead meat.” This cracks up the Brits in the control room. “She’s very good, this woman,” they say to each other. “She’s fahntahstic!”
Ivins gallops back to the Astrohall to finish her column, then grabs another cab to meet with some editors at People, who are also charmed with her religious warfare line. Later, at the Star-Telegram pressroom, she downs a brownie for dinner and catches Marilyn Quayle’s speech on TV. When the camera pans on Quayle’s daughter, Corinne, Ivins deadpans, “Is she the one who has to have the baby?”
Then it’s off to another TV show—for ABC news, with humorist P.J. O’Rourke. As Ivins makes her way through the convention crowd, it is clear that everyone knows her. A security guard screams, “Molly Ivins, mah favorite columnist!” Other journalists, who have either worked with her or written about her, come up for a quick embrace: Los Angeles Times editor Shelby Coffey, the former editor of the Times Herald; Alexander Cockburn of the Nation; Calvin Trillin of the New Yorker; and Murray Kempton of Newsday (“I liked you when you were semi-successful!).
The only event of the evening that completely commands Ivins’ attention is Barbara Bush’s speech. For this, she takes a seat in the press box adjacent to the stage. To her left she can see the First Lady on the podium; straight ahead she can see the surging crowd and an enormous TV screen aglow with shimmering white hair. Ivins straightens her spin as the steely Mrs. Bush dons her grandmotherly mask. She rolls her eyes when Midland is described as “a small, decent community.” But when Mrs. Bush hushes the floor with her symphony of selflessness and sacrifice, Ivins is galvanized. “However you define family, that’s how we define family values,” the First Lady tells the crowd. “For us, it’s putting your arms around each other and being there.” At the end of the speech, Ivins’ grin is as wide as a West Texas sky — and not because this unmarried, unruly liberal has bought a ticket on the family values train. “This is really and effective piece of political theater,” she declares. “Just ace.”
With eleven o’ clock approaching, Ivins hustles off to one more appointment. On the way, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas snags her arm. “Molly,” he asks smugly, “what Texas colloquialism do you have tonight?”
“Dead meat,” Ivins mutters and pushes past him, making her way to another show.
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