Careful, or
Maxine Lapiduss will sing about you too

You may not be able to get to Maxine Lapiduss's newest comedy venture--Mackie's Com-Varie-Ality Show, playing in Los Angeles on December 5, 6, and 8 at Hollywood's M Bar--but attending means you'll see her "showstopping lesbian love lament" to the Secretary of Her Tortured State, Condoleezza Rice. The number, simply called "Condi," would make the president jealous if he ever found out. Lapiduss, the writer, singer, and stand-up comic, spills about the story behind her hilarious ballad as well as her disdain for the Bush camp.

Where did the idea for your variety live show come from? I have been a performer and a stand-up and a writer for a long, long time. I started as a stand-up and a singer. There was a show I did in '97, and it was also a variety show. It got great reviews.

I did a love song to Kate Hutton. She was the Caltech [California Institute of Technology] go-to gal for earthquakes. She's a seismologist. She looks like Urkel. They get her up at 5:30 in the morning to talk about this stuff. They wake this poor woman up and she has this salt-and-pepper hair and she looks like they just got her out of bed. [And then she has to] talk about earthquakes for the news all over the country. So I wrote a love song to Kate Hutton. I think she's just so important to California's history, and she's a great representative of our state.

Do you really have a thing for Condi Rice? I have a thing for the fact that she needs to be out of our government as soon as possible. I saw a poll in Vanity Fair with a bunch of men asking who you'd most like to have dinner with. She was number 1. I just thought it was interesting. Men have this fantasy about her that she's just this weird bondage chick and she's this wild woman. She's just so brilliant and astute.

But what the hell? If she is so smart, what is she doing with these bozos? I think she needs to be out of power as soon as possible.

So when I was putting this show together, I figured, Who could I lampoon in an affectionate way? She's so evil and she needs to be stopped, she and this administration.

What would you do if she called you up and asked you to hang out with her? She would be first on my list too. But my questions would be "Who hypnotized you? Who brainwashed you?" She could be using her powers for so much good instead of so much evil. It's a mockery. This whole administration, they just keep lying through their teeth.

The writer and comedian in me wanted to do what I can to skewer her.

You cowrote "Condi" with Mark Waldrop, who wrote the musical When Pigs Fly. He wrote the lyrics and the book to When Pigs Fly, and he collaborated with this amazing gay icon, Howard Crabtree. They were in the cast of La Cage aux Folles. They used to make outrageous costumes, but [Crabtree] was also brilliant and comedic.

He and Mark started to collaborate on a few shows. One of them was Whoop-Dee-Doo. And when they did When Pigs Fly, it was a hit. I actually saw When Pigs Fly five times, and when it came to L.A. I invested in it.

In that [show] Mark wrote the song "Newt," which was about Newt Gingrich and Strom Thurmond and some other icon I can't remember. It was this wonderful gay actor, Jay Rogers, singing a love song about this horrific man.

So when I was writing my variety show, I literally cold-called Mark--I never met him before--and said, "You don't know me, but I want to do this song for a variety show about Condoleezza Rice..." And I gave him these sad lyrics that kind of showed him where I was going, and he went from there.

So we collaborated, and he wrote the music and the lyrics, and we got this guy Tom Boswell to arrange it. Then we got this great guy--Steve Orich's written all these arrangements [in] Jersey Boys and lots of musicals, and he worked it out for his seven-piece band.

We knew it was funny, but when we did it, people went crazy. I think people are so fed up with this government, so they loved it. It was a real showstopper.

Is there anything else coming up for you? I'm actually doing a comedy film that's in development with Mark Gordon's company. He's done a lot of big movies like Speed, so I'm doing a movie with him, I hope. And we're also doing the comedy show again at M Bar on January 17, 18, and 19. So we're trying to get the show groomed for an L.A. run and a New York run and hopefully a tour.

To see Maxine Lapiduss's Web site, click here (link will open in another window).