Babs, Obliged—or, What do you like to do when you're taking a dump?

So this post was originally going to be a PoopGroup survey, asking what PoopGroupers like to do when they're taking a dump. I like to sing. I have always liked to sing while I poop. When I was very young I used to sing Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. And then I segued into musicals. My favorite track from a “Best of” Andrew Lloyd Webber album was Barbara Streisand singing "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Sunset Boulevard, which I later learned was the opening number from her big 1994 Las Vegas concert. I sang that song many, many times while pooping, especially during my Sunset Boulevard phase. Now I sing a lot of Rickie Lee Jones, Kate Bush, Amy Winehouse, Pink Floyd—whatever else I’m into at any given moment in time. I never read on the pot. I just can’t think that far ahead.

But while I was wondering if there are any really strange poop hobbies out there, I came across this, which is a collection of photos taken at a dual CD signing for Idina Menzel and Betty Buckley. (Warning: extreme digression here.) Very strange pairing, right? Idina—whatever, she looks good but she was never one of my favorites in Rent (and I heard a song from that album that was heinous). Betty, however, has always been a source of fascination because I knew that she followed Glenn Close when Glenn finished her run in Sunset Boulevard. She’s also a Broadway diva and all gays fall hard for them. So, compounded by my other Sunset Boulevard recollection (above), I was prompted to turn to one of my favorite pastimes, YouTube. I watched this (skip ahead to 3:52):



I had never seen any of it before. I didn’t even have the know-how to watch the Tonys back when I was obsessed with Sunset—in fact, I don’t think the Tony’s were broadcast in Idaho at that time (this is pre-Rosie O’Donnell show). Clearly this stuff is camp extraordinaire, though the camp part fell deafly on my ears at the time. (When I was eight, I would lip-synch to Barry Manilow, Also, the first thing I ever learned by heart was “The Greatest Love of All,” which I used to sing in the backyard with a garden hose as a mic.) So I was totally thrilled to find this—it’s awesome! In addition to being really bad.

My next, fevered search was for the aforementioned 1994 Babs concert. Is it just me or is it absolutely remarkable that I can find this on YouTube? I was ecstatic. And I’ll let you decide for yourself, but my feeling is that Babs does it a lot better than Glenn Close.



My boyfriend Andrew and I were reenacting some of the better parts in Sunset Boulevard and I was telling him how in the Babs concert she changed some of the lyrics for her version of “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” I contested that in the Babs version she said “I don’t know why I’m frightened/I know my way around here/The bamber lights, familiar sights/The sound here….” I concede. It’s “the band, the lights,” duh. Bamber is not a word. This is similar to the Stevie Wonder song I used to love, “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” which I thought was called “I discalled,” as in the verb “discal,” which is not a verb and moreover not a word.

Anyway, what we have here is a gay childhood reenacted, but for the first time in Technicolor! I have a better sense now of what it must have been like for all those people who grew up with the radio medium and were suddenly introduced to TV.

Related: what do you like to do when you’re taking a dump?