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4-- PORT PERRY STAR -- Tues. November 20, 1984 editorial comments TX Ge lll ~~~ prea SY 7 \ | LL ~~ bi Pp j ~~ Ure?) (Ti ey) Ee ) 7S di Lgl * sg AT) > O tterbox by Cathy Robb SHE'S SO UNUSUAL If I was a man I'd be in love, but I'm not, so I'm not, but I'm close. If you know what I mean. Everyone has an idol, despite what God says in his Ten Commandments about 'You shall not carve idols for yourselves' and "You shall not bow down before them or worship them' and while not all rock fans wor- ship Billy Idol, he is an idol, mainly to millions of screaming prepubescents. _ Billy Idol is not my idol, although he sings okay, but I do have an idol and she is downright idyllic. Cyndi Lauper. Pronounced Law-per. On the surface, she's the weirdest-looking broad in the music biz today. Spikey cranberry hair, streaked with platinum, heavy, heavy make-up (we're talking eyeshadow painted on with a spray gun), and a twisted knee-bend dance step that looks like a cross between appendicitis and a bad case of hemorrhoids, have all become the Lauper trademark. And although her outlandish physical appeal is what helped attract me to her in the first place, it's Cyn- di's music, and her stage personality, that calls up my undivided loyalty. I was lucky enough to catch Cyndi as she bopped into Toronto last Monday night for one sold-out show at Maple Leaf Gardens, and let me say, I've never been more impressed with a performer. Okay, so I'm a little prejudiced. Who cares? Point is, I had more fun at Cyndi's concert than at any other music event I've ever attended. Michael Jackson, at 40 bucks a shot, included. Monday night was like a giant pyjama party, a girl's night out for some 14,000 screaming fans who danced in their seats and howled their approval whenever Cyndi made a crack about men, which was pretty often. Although she looks like a Germaine Greer just about as much as Mr. T. looks like Tom Selleck, Cyndi is every inch a feminist and made enough biting remarks about the male gender to inspire my beau to remark, "I don't know if I like this too much. Does she want me to leave?" On the contrary, most of her witticisms were directed at Captain Lou, her beefy personal advisor, wrestler and star of Cyndi's videos. "You should know that Captain Lou says he is sorry for calling women swine, and for saying they should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen ... and for being such a specimen of the human male species,' she tittered in her best baby doll voice, dressed outrageously in an overgrown lame suitjacket, red eyelids and enough tacky jewellery to keep Woolworth's in business for the next year and a half. This was Cyndi in top form, every bit as funny as the world's top comedians, a cross between Joan Rivers and Gilda Radner. She had the audience at the Gardens on their feet without singing a note, a rare treat for concert fans who are accustomed to rock stars who can't say more than "How are ya doing out there" or "Hello Toronto!' Even the renowned Jacksons couldn't muster up more than that. Their repoire with the audience was zilch. On the other hand, Cyndi had her mainly female crowd eating out of the palm of her hand, talking and laughing with the audience in a constant patter between songs. She called us "a personable bunch' and shook hands with anybody who was willing to fight their way close enough to the stage. "I've shaken so many hands tonight, you'd think I was running for mayor," she quipped. Introduced at the beginning of the show as the lady wrestling champ of the world, Cyndi did everything right. From dancing on top of the massive speaker system, belting She Bop out at the top of her lungs, to cuddling up to her guitarist and almost crying during Time After Time, she was everything everybody came to see. She went out of her way to make the audience hap- py, telling us 'I love you too' at least twice, and disap- pearing momentarily halfway through the concert to throw on a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey shirt. "I thought maybe you'd appreciate this," she grinned. The audience roared its approval. The finale, of course, was Cyndi's mega-platinum hit Girls Just Want To Have Fun, a hysterically happy encore done with all the lights in the Gardens up, so everyone could see everyone else dancing and having a great time. But the thing I love most about Cyndi Lauper is the grey matter tucked underneath all that weird hair and make-up. The lady is smart. This fact was brought home to me last spring when ! was reading an article about her in Rolling Stone magazine. On paper, without her Minnie Mouse voice, her words take on new meaning. Actually, I liked the last quote in the article so much I copied it down on a sheet of paper and pinned it on my bulletin board ---- to read whenever I feel lazy or uninspired. "Nowadays," she said, 'there's more and more choices in the world, there really are. But no matter what you wanna be, you gotta break your ass, you got- ta work hard. Do what's in your heart and don't take no for an answer." Amen. 'Biafra Re-Visited Watching the six o'clock news has become more of a gut-wrenching experience than usual over the past few weeks. ' Along with the normal menu of bomb blasts, grisly crime, assasination, revolution, calamity of all kinds and the funeral of yet another policeman, TV viewers once again are getting a close-up look at the faces of famine. The setting this time is Ethiopia, but in recent years the TV lens has poked its way into Biafra, Cambodia, Bangladesh and any number of mid-African countries to show the world the image of starvation. Those images are all too familiar: the old man barely able to stand on match-stick legs; the anguish on the face of a mother who knows her child will not live out the night; and the children themselves with bulging eyes, extended bellies, arms and legs no larger than a man's finger, children with nothing more than wrinkled skin stretched tight over their bones. They are images that shock and horrify even the most jaded television viewers used to a steady diet of blood and mayhem on the tube each day. The images tell us there is another horrible human tragedy going on in Ethiopia. Relief agencies say several million people are directly affected by starvation and the death toll is in the thousands each day. We are also told that part of the problem is getting emergency food relief to the areas of Ethiopia hardest hit by the famine: there simply are no roads. It seems strange that modern man can send rockets into space to recover disabled satellites, but can't find a way to get food over a few hundred kilometres of rcadless territory. It also seems strange that the horrendous images of starvation didn't just happen when the first TV camera arrived on the scene. In certain parts of Ethiopia, there - has been no rain for eight years. No rain, no crops, no food, starvation. Eight years, this tragedy has been building while that country underwent a revolution, at least two civil wars (still going on) and a massive build- up of weapons by the so-called Marxist regime of the day. Strange that even now while the world's attention is focussed on Ethiopia, officials with relief and health organizations are warning that the famine there is just a tip of the ice-berg. Numerous other countries in mid- Africa are facing a similar plight as drought causes crop failure after crop failure, year in and year out. The world has reacted to Ethiopia's tragedy. Food and medical supplies are starting to reach the camps. (In one such camp, the death toll has been reduced from 200 to 50 each day). All over North America, school kids are collecting pennies (they did the same for Biafra), governments are pledging dollars in aid, young people are holding *'starv-a-thons" and collecting contributions (they did the same for Biafra), office workers are giving up their lunches one day a week (they did the same for Biafra), the list goes on. Make no mistake. There is a human tragedy going on right now in Ethiopia. We know that because every television network in the world has sent a crew there to record the events and images. Slow death by starvation is a human tragedy. Possibly more tragic is the fact that this one in Ethiopia has been building, gaining momentum for years, and only now, when it's too late for countless thousands, is something being done abou it. Biafra re-visited. Ethiopia in 84. Where will it be next year, or the year after? Chad, Mali, take your pick. The tragedy is that the warnings in Ethiopia have been known for years, just as there are warnings now about a similar tragedy in numerous other countries. No doubt the television cameras will discover them next year or the year after and people will wince at the six o'clock news, wring their hands and say 'didn't we learn anything from Ethiopia?' The faces of starvation will be flashed electronical- ly around the globe, and once again school kids will be out collecting pannies. Biafra re-visited again and again and again. oid