Connecting the sects.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Mass culture in the US

On cue every year, thousands of lesbians of all ages flock to Palm Springs for the Dinah Shore Golf Classic. As the green oasis sucks the nearby aquifers dry. the women celebrate amidst hundreds of thousands of chat-chomping college students in jeeps and humvees. armed for spring break with high-powered water rifles.

It could be a lethal clash of cultures. But the two sects hardly intersect, since the lesbians shut themselves inside huge, hermetically sealed hotels, gated and designated for fun and sun worship--all by the grace of Tanqueray. As the spring sun drifts toward the west, they turn their lounge chairs and prayer towels in sun-dialed, choreographed ritual.

The annual lesbian purification by chlorine and Coors commemorates the goddess Dinah Shore, patron saint of GMC. She was the first woman to break the tinted glass ceiling of car sales when her dulcet voice lured people into buying Chevrolets to see the U.S.A. Even though she left her vehicle a couple of earth years back, the rite continues.

Since Rancho Santa Fe everything seems like a cult. The Dinosaur Desert Classic, the Tennessee Lady Vols, Pat Summit and her blue eye shadow and Rajneeshy orange, AA, the Twelve Apostles, AOL.

Californians aren't taking it well. The newspapers are filled with whining whyme's: "Jim Jones and O.J. and Lyle and Eric and the riots and Bob Dornan--and now this?!" And psycho ceramics are all the rage. These crackpot theories claim, "It's the weather; it's the water; it's Jerry Brown." One guy, head of Way Out Productions, a missing-persons search firm, record label, long-distance phone company, and talent agency, said, "It's the flavor of the day, the X-files waiting to happen." He's already pitching America's Weirdest Home Videos.

Dan Rather, at least, was in heaven. He made more connections than an NRA lobbyist at the Republican convention. He tried so hard because he had to play catch-up, since his network was not the first to throw its MASS SUICIDE logo and creepy music up on the satellite feed.

As if connecting all those dots would make a...