My Biggest Fear: Is Baltimore forgetting Divine?

I am serious.  Is Baltimore forgetting Divine?

It's a question that I ask myself all the all the time.

When guests come to "Bawlimore" I ask them, "would ya like to meet Divine, hon?"

The with it guests are always up to it.  The straight guests are like, "Huh?"  The cemetery where "Glen Milstead", "DIVINE" is buried is right off the traffic circle in downtown Towson.   If it weren't for the pine trees, she'd have an unobstructed view of Macy's.

Granted Divine is an acquired taste.  Either you have had that buxom beauty up on the screen, or you haven't.   And I am not talking about Hairspray Divine, I am talking about Pink Flamingo's Divine.

Outrageous, Divine.

Last month I took a neighbor lady to see the grave and she had no idea it was this close.  She's a bit warped like Cookie, too. When we got to the burial spot and parked the car my friend looked at a sign on the other side of thane and said:

"There was a child's amusement park here?  I have lived in Baltimore my whole life and I never remember being brought to an amusement park here.  The Enchanted Forest, yes, but not here."

Huh?

"That sign, 'Babyland'", she says. 

Number one, Divine was laughing in heaven over my friend's comments, and then I had to go and ruin it and explain "Baby land is where they bury infants that died very young."

"You must think I am a monster.   I have never heard of that!  So it's like a playdate for deceased babies?"

Yeah, you could say that.  And we walked to the grave.

But younger and younger people are coming along and they are not into Divine.  Mention Devine to a freshly minted 20Something and you get this flat look.

"So she was intersex?"

Fuck NO new age turd heads!  Divine was Divine.  Harris was a gay man who became DIVINE.

The way I see it, five people have put Baltimore on the map:

1) Frances Scott Key, who wrote an unsingable song that we called the National Anthem;
2) Edgar Allen Poe, who set the standard for gothic poetry in the U.S.
3) Johnny Unitas, because next to Paul Brown's contribution to pro football, Unitas is one of the all-time great players in the sport.
4) John Waters - a filmmaker of great vision and an eye for things like...
5) DIVINE.

Now, I am sure there are others, like Spiro T. Agnew, that we would like to forget, but damn it, there is no MONUMENT to Divine down on Inner Harbour, aka tourist central.

And we need one, and it needs to be edgy, like the city and it needs to look like it says "Fuck you motherfuckers, each and every one of you, damn it."

It needs to be in bronze.  It needs to be BIG - I'm talking no less than 20 feet.  And it needs to have a gun pointed at the city because, well, Baltimore and guns go together like bread and butter.  And it needs to look EXACTLY like this iconic image:

Now, this is real Baltimore, Hon.

This is what people are talking about when they think of Baltimore.

This is what is going to bring them into the city.

Why?

Because it is fucking, Divine.