Divine Bette Has One-Liners And Songs To Please Everyone

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Bette Midler, at the Tacoma Dome, last night. ------------------------------------------------------------------

There is Bette Midler the star of G-rated movies and singer of Grammy-winning ballads brimming with New Age uplift.

And there is the Divine Miss M, the trash-talking, hip-switching, hype-bashing raconteur, the last of the red-hot shameless hussies.

Both of these gals held forth at the Tacoma Dome last night, before a nearly sold out and entirely adoring throng. But it was the Divine One who dominated, crowing merrily, "So rich! So cheap!" during her opening attack, and sassing the high-rollers in the front-row seats ("S-o-o-o . . . how's every little thing in Bellevue?").

La Bette in all her outrageous glory was appearing locally for the first time in 10 years (or so she claimed). And even though she's at the tail end of anational tour, the woman put out enough combustible energy during her 2 1/2 hours on stage to send up a fleet of 747s.

At this point in her career, Midler is a full-service, one-stop entertainer. With strong musical back-up (muddied by stadium amplification) and dazzling lighting, she sings, she dances, she flirts, she mocks. And she does it all with class - even the raunchy stuff.

Svelte and dishy in a number of form-hugging outfits ("I guess you didn't expect me to look quite this fabulous!"), she spent

almost as much time firing off delectably naughty quips as she did singing old favorites from her past ("Do You Wanna Dance?," "Hello in There"), recent hits and dancing up a frenzy with her aides-de-camp, the Harlettes.

But can that girl talk trash! Pacing the stage in mincing little steps, Midler fretted about the sex life of newlywed Lisa Marie Presley Jackson ("I don't think she knows why they call it Neverland") and the enigma of Joey Buttafuco ("I still can't believe there were two women willing to have sex with him!").

Her writers must precede her, because she worked in a battalion of cracks with a local slant, too. Winking at her loyal gay fans, she observed, "The queen of England is visiting British Columbia, but all the other queens have come out to see me!" She pondered whether the local entertainment options were limited to "either see me tonight, or that tractor pull in Monroe."

There were also the inevitable jests about coffee (and a ribald (and unprintable) dig at Bill Gates.

And, of course, she's doesn't spare herself from jest. "I don't get out much anymore," she drawled. "I don't have to, I'm a s-t-a-a-r . . . "

A huge part of Midler's appeal in live performances is her bawdiness, and gleeful bad taste, a savory leftover from her days playing gay bathhouse cabarets in New York.

A spiritual descendent of Mae West and Sophie Tucker, Midler's jokes and double-entendres are often blunt and blue, but always good-natured and unexploitive.

She's gone so far on this tour as to pay homage to old-fashioned burlesque: a splashy number with a chorus of bump and grinding strippers, and a lot of corny (mostly hilarious) vulgarities excavated right out of Tucker's vault.

Yet it all leads up to Midler encoring "Mama's Turn," an emotional blowout number from the musical she starred in on TV last year, "Gypsy."

She also pulled off ultra-sincere renditions of "Wind Beneath My Wings" and her other big sentimental chart-buster, "From a Distance," in a soaring voice that turned every ballad into a mini-psychodrama.

Put the schmaltzy songs next to the scrumptiously tacky "infomercial" featuring Delores the mermaid (which reprises in every show), and the enjoyable kitschy "Ukulele Lady" hula choir (with her young daughter Sophie strumming along), and you've got a pretty schizzy evening.

When Midler joked about envying Roseanne because "she has multiple personalities, and I want some," it was tempting to point out that her big, generous act has more than enough.

But, hey - that's the glory of, that's the story of Bette. You got to take the sticky-poo with the risque, the chocolate-fudge cake with the crudities. And who's complaining?

There may be no more Judy Garland, or Fanny Brice, or Mae West among us anymore. But Midler is in the same go-for-the-kishkes genre of gal superstar. And we shouldn't have to wait another 10 years to get her back.