Michelle Shocked On CNN

There’s an old show biz saying that states “any publicity is good publicity … as long as they spell your name right.”  However, we’re not sure Shocked would agree that she’s been getting good press as of late.

Shocked suddenly found herself in the news following her March 17 appearance at Yoshi’s in San Francisco when she expressed what appeared to be her views on gay marriage.

“I was in a prayer meeting yesterday,” Shocked told her audience. “You got to appreciate how scared, how scared folks on that side of the equation are.  I mean, from their vantage point, and I really shouldn’t say ‘their’ because it’s mine, too.  Uh, we are nearly at the end of time.  From our vantage point … we’re going ah … I think Chinese water torture is going to be the means.  Once Prop 8 gets instated and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the homosexuals, I’m pretty sure that that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back.

 “You said you wanted reality.  If someone would be so gracious as to please tweet out, ‘Michelle Shocked just said from stage, God hates faggots.’”

Repercussions from her impromptu speech were felt almost immediately with the venue cutting her appearance short.  Within 48 hours almost every stop on her current tour was canceled. 

One of the canceled shows was a March 28 appearance at Santa Cruz, Calif., nightclub Moe’s Alley.  Shocked, with her head covered by what appeared to be a white cap and with tape stretched across her mouth with “Silenced By Fear” printed on it, performed outside the venue on the night she was originally scheduled to appear.

Shocked’s latest attempt at spin control occurred April 1 when she appeared on Piers Morgan’s CNN program.  Rambling at times, Shocked did what many people tend to do when suffering bad publicity – she blamed the messenger.

“I know that it’s a stalking trade for a lot of the media to present things like that’s how it really is,” Shocked told Morgan.  “But I don’t think the audience was ready for the consequences of that, and I surely have not been happy with it.”

Shocked did eventually offer up an apology of sorts for her remarks in San Francisco.

“I admit I made a mistake, Piers,” Shocked said.  “If I had the chance to do it again, I don’t think I would have taken the audience up on their choice. I had presented an entire performance, and I framed it as ‘truth,’ and then I came back out for an encore, and they requested ‘reality.’ What has consequently taken place ever since then is my manifestation of how little I think of reality.”

Whether Shocked will be able to bounce back from the current controversy stemming from her remarks at Yoshi’s is yet to be seen. However, one thing is for sure – media covering the aftermath of her San Francisco appearance have, so far, spelled her name correctly.  Now we’ll see if that old show biz axiom still holds true in the 21^st century.