The Girl's Got Balls
"She's big and she's proud . . . and she knows what the world is about." -- from "Ladylike," Storm and the Balls"TV shows. Presidential elections," I say angrily, kicking my feet out of bed after we switch off the set. "Why do I get involved?"
"They're all rigged," my husband says.
He may be right, but this doesn't help. It's been a brutal television week for me: first Andre Agassi's third-round loss in his final appearance at the U.S. Open and now Storm Large's elimination from CBS's Rock Star: Supernova. I'm not much of a joiner, have never been one for team sports, except for a random blip of devotion to the Portland Trail Blazers back in the era of Clyde "the Glide" Drexler and coach Rick Adelman, before reports of players' misdeeds (Ruben Patterson, domestic assault and attempted rape; Damon Stoudamire, multiple drug infractions; Rod Strickland, drunk driving; etc.), earned them the nickname "Jail Blazers." But when I care about someone, I'm damn loyal, and since I discovered Storm Large (her real name, as far as I've been able to determine) several weeks ago, I've become a frickin' golden retriever.
Being a sporadic TV-watcher at best, I missed the first weeks of the show. But after reading an interview with Storm in The Oregonian (she's a fellow Stumptowner), I tuned in late in the season, in time to catch her performances of a handful of covers -- including smoking versions of "Suffragette City" by David Bowie and The Beatles' "Helter Skelter." But it was her original song last week, "What the What Is Ladylike?" that, literally, rocked this mama's world.
Loud, in-your-face, and dripping with sexuality, "What the What" is an anthem for freethinking, ballsy women everywhere. "What the what is ladylike? If ladies like to do what the what they like. Just like you, yeah, just like you. Look out, babe, here comes another one . . .She's great and she knows how to wear the pants -- and the rest of your clothes." (This is my best guess at the "clean" lyrics performed on-air, not yet available online; it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how the "explicit" version goes.)
A six-foot bombshell with breast implants and a body that would disappear if she turned sideways (barring, of course, the boobs), Storm Large is, on paper, the kind of woman many women would be prepared to, while maybe not hate, at least circle warily. But when told on-air by Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee that he wanted to "see more of [her]" (and he wasn't proposing that they date), she was quick and smart with her comeback: "Tommy? Six letters: G-O-O-G-L-E." Following a local journalist's premature announcement of her upcoming engagement (which dismayed Storm and her sweetheart, as well as their families), she has publicly admitted her desire to marry her boyfriend, Davey Nipples (formerly of Everclear and Sweaty Nipples). In an online forum, one fan recently commented on her appeal to both men and women: "Storm Large: Making straight girls feel kind of gay since 1969." At the risk of giving my mother-in-law a stroke, I have to say, I completely get it: not since Alanis Morissette has a female artist left so many heterosexual women feeling empowered, sexually and otherwise -- simultaneously thinking: a) I want to be this girl's BESTEST FRIEND, b) if I were a man, that's EXACTLY who I'd want, not just sexually but in every way, and c) she makes wearing her sexuality like a second skin look so easy, maybe I can do the same. I ask you: What the what's not to like?
So feminists, everywhere, UNITE! One day, Lee and new Supernova bandmates Jason Newsted and Gilby Clarke may realize their grave error in letting this package of talent and power walk away. Until then, you can support Storm and the Balls (her band at home in Portland) through your purchase of "Ladylike" (hear it first at her MySpace site).
It isn't possible reverse the last two presidential elections -- or to change the outcome of this week's Rock Star: Supernova. But we can throw a little love Girlfriend's way, help change the world one song at a time. You do what the what you like, but for this Storm watcher, it's definitely the ladylike thing to do.
Shari MacDonald Strong is the Creative Nonfiction editor and "Zen and the Art of Child Maintenance" columnist for Literary Mama. Her essay, "On Wanting a Girl," appears in the anthology It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters. She writes a column for Mamazine and has also written for a number of publications, including a recent stint as guest blogger at Leslie Morgan Steiner's "On Balance" WashingtonPost.com blog. Shari writes a blog from her home in Portland (Stormtown), Oregon, where she lives with her husband, Craig Strong, and three small children.
posted by ShariMacD @ 8:34 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Shari,
Great post! We are definitely hating the fact that we missed the final Storm show on Rockstar. Hopefully we can catch her in PDX sometime soon.
Give our best to Craig and the family!
Tony and Jen
the question is: did tommy lee know what she spelled?
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