Hi, Ellen, I'm Toni.

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, May 4 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post

I have something important to say.

I'm a lesbian.

I'm coming out now because I think it might help my sagging career, plus I'll have more
opportunities to accessorize.

One of the advantages of being a lesbian is that now I can tell lesbian jokes, like: Didja hear
about the skinny lesbian? She came out of the broom closet. Hahahaha.

I was just reading from Dennis Rodman's very fine new book, "Walk on the Wild Side,"
which appears to have been written with a crayon, and on Page 186 Mr. Rodman observes,
"Now I'm starting to sound like a lesbian, which isn't a coincidence. I definitely have some
lesbian tendencies." So you can see this thing is going around.

(By the way, for any of you hungering for other brilliant and thoughtful insights from the
multi-talented Mr. Rodman, whose writing has been compared to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's
dog's, here's something from Page 248: "Sometime in the next year I plan on going down to
the courthouse and legally changing my name from Dennis K. Rodman to . . . " (Are you
ready?) " . . . Orgasm." Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, how does Anne Tyler sleep at night knowing
that you're out there hunched over a computer?)

Anyway, by announcing that I'm a lesbian I expect to make the cover of Time next week,
and then to sit down with Diane Sawyer for the first of many hour-long chats about my life. I
will be on television so much you will think I am The Dime Lady. (How 'bout all that
coverage Ellen got, huh? And just because she revealed her sexual preference. After all the
teasing about this over all these months, Ellen DeGeneres announcing she is a lesbian was
about as shocking as Gheorghe Muresan announcing, "Please to be listening, America, I am
big, tall, bony man. Thank you.")

Unlike Ellen, I don't have a TV show where I can "come out." I have to do it here, in this
newspaper column.

It loses something. There is no laugh track. Famous people can't show up to do cameos,
bathe in the reflected light of my courage, and show their sensitivity. The closest thing I got is
my friend Gino, who showed up, took a pretzel from my desk, belched, and asked if this
means he can "watch."

You may be wondering why I chose this time to make my disclosure. I did it to avoid the
stampede of so many has-beens who are going to announce in the upcoming weeks that they
are lesbians in an attempt to get back in the limelight. Rumor has it that Suzanne Pleshette is
next, then Margaret Thatcher, then Barbara Bush.

Between us girls, though, I'm wondering if announcing that you're a lesbian can guarantee you
anything more than a momentary boost. I mean, look at how far they've pushed the envelope
on TV already. On "NYPD Blue" they have naked coupling. On "Seinfeld" they did an entire
show about masturbation, and -- here's the rub -- it was hailed as a comedy classic. Just
coming out as a lesbian won't be enough pretty soon. You will have to reveal yourself to be a
lesbian alien, or a horse.

In the "Ellen" episode, the famously self-promotional Demi Moore showed up for a cameo.
She is a heterosexual woman who was playing a homosexual man who was dressed as a
woman. What is going on here? Next we will see Demi's husband, Bruce Willis, a
heterosexual man, playing a lesbian who is dressed like a gay male triple amputee trying out
for the role of a female Swiss yodeler who is imitating a Bangladeshi eunuch who is cleverly
impersonating the doofus American actor Bruce Willis.

Too confusing. Too sensitive. I liked things better when guys were cads and girls were
broads. You know, the Sinatra years.

Did you read that Frank is getting a Congressional Gold Medal? How whacked out is that?
What will the inscription say, "To Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra, who ate it up and spit it out"?

The first recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal was George Washington. On some level
this makes sense, of course. George was the father of his country. Frank was the Godfather
of his. George was first in the hearts of his countryman. Frank was first in the pants of
anything wearing a bra.

Can you imagine Frank Sinatra getting a Congressional Gold Medal? For what, for making
the country safe for scotch and soda? Hey, I love Frank. I loved Dean and Sammy, too. But
it's not like they kept us out of war.

Frank is 81 now, and he is no longer actively giving concerts. On his last tour he tended to
forget some of the lyrics to his tunes, causing some embarrassment. You can imagine how
excruciating it must have been when Frank sang, "Strangers in the . . . um . . ."

So now the big question is what will Frank look like on his medal? Apparently, his family
prefers the young, bow-tied Sinatra -- the look Frank had in the '40s, before he started his
new career as a foulmouthed, swinish boor. But that's not the real Frank. The real Frank has
a trench coat slung over his shoulder, a hat cocked down over one eye, a scotch in one
hand, a cigarette in the other, and Kim Novak waiting in the back seat of a cab. That's the
Frank I wanna see.

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