david sedaris and the sausage makers

gross and greasy

A couple of weeks ago, I went and saw David Sedaris at the Orpheum, who has been my favorite writer ever since I read Me Talk Pretty One Day in 2004 while waiting tables at Superior Grill. I was a very inattentive server.

At the end of the reading, he got a question from the audience asking if he had ever been “cancelled” and what he thought about cancel culture. His winding response somehow led him down the road of “his friend Blake Bailey,” another writer who got cancelled hard when several of his former students, many from Lusher right here in New Orleans, accused him of grooming and inappropriate sexual behavior. My head started to explode a little as I drew in my breath and whispered no no no no no no no no as Sedaris kept going about how his friend had to move back to his mom’s house in Oklahoma because supposedly he put his hand on someone’s back. But putting your hand on someone’s back isn’t illegal, soooooooo……

He didn’t do anything illegal.

Ok, fine. But what makes something illegal?

An action is illegal when it breaks the law.

Ok, fine. And who makes the laws?

Well, out of 149 total legislators in Louisiana, 121 (or 88%) are male, so I think it’s safe to say that men make laws here in Louisiana.

Which makes sense when you consider that one of the most common phrases you’ll hear in the Louisiana Legislature, second only to “let’s just put constitutionality to the side for a minute,” is:

Nobody likes to see how the sausage is made

It always makes me vomit a little whenever I hear that sentence coming out of the greasy mouths of thee very sausage makers. Greasy, because they are also the sausage eaters. The very same men who make the laws like to raise up their hands, recently lifted from the small of my back, and say “hey, man. Not my rules!”

But they ARE your rules. You are the makers AND consumers of said sausage. You who make the laws then hold up the law (or lack thereof) as an impenetrable barrier to shield you from gross and greasy  behavior.

LAW AND ORDER! They shout as they craft the law to fit their order.

“My behavior was deplorable, but I did nothing illegal,” said Blake Bailey in an email to one of the women.

One of the most universal male responses to the #metoo movement (at least in my very small existence, although I’m pretty sure many of you can corroborate) was the retort: “I don’t even know if I can open the door for a woman anymore!”

Made in that whiny tone that bordered on a joking cadence so they could quickly retract if the receiver wasn’t having it or press forward if they found a sympathizer. Because how unfair was it that this new world order was now inhibiting their chivalry! Because surely the ambiguous openers of doors could not be confused with the clear violators of decency.

Not all men, this retort allowed them to say without actually saying it.

In the heyday of the #metoo movement, one of the men I worked with said the tired ass door line to me and quickly found out I was of the not having it variety. So then he doubled down, taking the laugh out of his voice so I knew he was taking it seriously, “Ok, but how am I supposed to know what I can and can’t do?”

“Just don’t be a fucking creep,” I said to the man who signed my paychecks. “It’s not that hard. Just ask yourself, am I being creep? And if the answer is yes, then stop.”

“Wow,” he said. “You really need to get­—” he was stopped by the warning lift of my eyebrows “—drunk,” he finished.

It seems the sausage makers only need clearly defined rules when they’re the ones defining them.

My point is we need some new sausage makers with some fresh ideas in town.

A few days ago, I went to the grocery store with my neighbor who was on a quest for hot dogs. Comfort food, he called it, as he stood in front of the wall of dogs, undecided. I regarded the wall with him.

“Can we get the Oscar Meyers and shove them onto our fingertips?” I asked him.

Which seems like a weird request, but I had just seen the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once that spanned infinite parallel universes and the best universe BY FAR was the one where everyone had hot dogs for fingers and played the piano with their feet and two women were in love and showed that love by lovingly placing their long, flacid, hot dog fingers into each other’s mouths while spinning in a circle and THAT’S the kind of new energy I’m talking about. Making some new rules that may seem grotesque at first (equal pay is sooooo gross amiright), but only because they’re different from everything we’ve ever known. And in the end, who knows? We could end up with a beautiful, equitable, new world order. It’s at least worth a shot, since in every other alternate universe the same two women kept killing each other and in this State, women keep getting murdered.

And besides, I DO want to see how the sausage is made. And judging by the fact that you’re here, you want to see it, too. I don’t need some dude patting me on the head saying, “This doesn’t concern you, little lady. It’ll just bore you anyway.” Those dudes are greatly underestimating my ability AND willingness to consume vast amounts of low-grade quality pork products.

Just this week, I watched Rep. Edmond Jordan try to pass restrictions on qualified immunity for police officers for the third year in a row. Qualified immunity is what protects cops from liability when they are accused of using excessive or lethal force or violating someone’s constitutional rights. Through qualified immunity, cops are shielded even when they break the law. Even when they murder.

Rep. Jordan’s first effort to pass this bill was in the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd. He gave his closing argument in House Civil Law and Procedure Committee with the Black Caucus standing behind him in support. The bill was killed that day in committee and many members of the Black Caucus openly cried.

His second effort was in May of 2021. He got it out of Committee, but it looked like it was going to die on the House Floor along party lines. That’s when Rep. Jordan came down to the well and gave a speech, tearing up, saying that he wasn’t just doing this for his kids, but for the kids of all his colleagues in the Black Caucus. It passed only to get killed in Senate Committee.

This week was his third effort. Rep. Jordan showed up once again with all the patience and all the passion he had shown the previous two years. But this time, the sheriffs came out in opposition and several police officers said they would quit if they didn’t have qualified immunity as protection. The bill essentially died in committee when Rep. Jordan voluntarily deferred it and the Committee Chair promised the Sheriffs and his Republican colleagues that he wouldn’t schedule it for a vote again.

The makers and consumers of the sausage, once again holding up the law as a shield from gross and greasy behavior.

But we’ll keep watching. Because we know that our laws are supposed to create structures to make our society better, not provide cover for the bad apples and the creeps of the world.

In the end, my head did not explode in the Orpheum Theater. Sedaris’s answer on cancel culture thankfully came full circle and he concluded with, “If you’re going to do something creepy, I guess you deserve to live in your mother’s basement.”

You see? David gets it.

It’s not all men.