Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins

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.


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.


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?


(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.”


(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.”


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

Documents

Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins