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8:46 AM
Hee hee hee. Pamie makes my day a little brighter. Or darker. I really can't tell.
8:24 AM
 My next drag performance: ...Oh, yeah. I'm back there in Pilgrim times, over there in Salem, Massachusetts or New England somewhere. And I was walking by a town square where they were having some kind of public execution. I see that they got some chick tied up to a stake, like Joan of Arc or somethin' and as I get closer I notice it's my mother...except she looks just like Ethel Merman. And they got this big wooden vice attached to her head and they're twistin the knobs tighter and tighter and tighter around her head. And as they're twisting away, Ethel, my mom, looks around and she sees me, Ann, her daughter, staring at her from the crowd. And with tears in her eyes, tears in her eyes she tells me she loves me, except she sings it. "I love you! I love you! I love you!" And on the third "I love you," her head pops like an overripe pumpkin on Halloween night. WHY? I sob. WHY? WHY? I sob. WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? Just because she was a ballsy lady? Just because she was a belter? Just because she lived with cats and cooked with herbs? Why, before we know it the FDA is gonna destroy the entire holistic community! Of course, it's even better when you hear it performed. I wish I could say I wrote it, but it's actually Ann Magnuson who deserves the credit. She's rockin' like Dokken, and she's so timely, too, n'est-ce pas?
2:55 PM
Here's the sad truth: Jonno and I are slobs. Not like pizza-under-the-bed slobs, but still slovenly. As it is, I've gotta leave work early today so I can straighten up the house for certain Halloween houseguests. We simply have to work on our cleaning skills. Or find a cute boy willing to strap on a latex French maid's uniform every once in a while. (I prefer the latter option, of course.) P.S. Chris, I hope you're not allergic to cats or dogs or cigarette smoke. If you are, I guess I'll be dosing your coffee with Robitussin. Which can be fun, if consumed in large amounts....
2:34 PM
Okay, so I've been trying to write an article for my pal Ben (another Amy Lowell fan) and I've been trying to polish off another massive grant application (Begging: The Musical!) and I've had to teach myself how to make an animated ad banner on a really clumsy shareware program (I don't have Photoshop or anything on my work computer) and what I'd really like is a good game of kickball or dodgeball or even softball to clear my head. Barring that, however, catching up on the last couple of months of Fan Mail has provided some small relief.... Oh, yeah: did I mention that the darling of New Queer Cinema and one of my own personal darlings both have new webpages? I thought not....
2:37 PM
10:25 AM
It's hardly noon, and I'm already full of rage. Sad isn't it?
12:33 PM
Huzzah! Birthday pics, posted by the birthday boy himself. There's even one of me ... somewhere. (FYI: click the "index" link along the top of the frame for a thumbnail view.)
8:25 AM
Another posting to the Miscellaneous section. This time it's an essay on the homo fascination with Halloween--timely, no? I wrote it for a magazine, so technically they own the copyright, but I doubt they'll care if I post it here. Enjoy, if you must.
11:34 AM
I can't help but cringe when I hear the words "gay lifestyle." The term "lifestyle" implies a sort of trendy social movement comprised of individuals blessed with a significant degree of free will: Californians living the surfing lifestyle, for example, choose to surf morning, noon, and night, but many grow out of it as they get older. Same goes for hippies, junkies, and even Presbyterians. It's a little offensive to hear cocksucking described in this manner--like it's a trend or a phase. I mean, despite all the hoopla surrounding ex-gay movements, I've never met a fudgepacker who's just gradually stopped, er, packing fudge. Of course, I'm still not sure exactly what "gay lifestyle" implies, but if I let my imagination run wild, the phrase does bring to mind several frightening images: a completely gay shopping mall, where the background Musak is nothing but Madonna, Mariah, and show tunes; a special pride issue of Martha Stewart Living, featuring Pottery Barn porch swings festooned with rainbow-colored ribbons; and a man-made island about the size of Nantucket located 15 miles off the northern coast of Morocco with an all-gay government, a booming haircare industry, and an annual island-wide holiday commemorating Joan Crawford's birthday. Interestingly enough, however, I'm much less resistant to the idea of an Internet lifestyle. Pass the DSL, please...
4:07 PM
Well, Tim, maybe he's from New Orleans. When it comes to accents, there's not a hell of a lot of difference between ours and the one you'd hear in the Outer Boroughs: A few words on New Orleansese: in a city whose very name is pronounced in nearly 100 different ways by its citizens, all the way from the filigreed, nearly five-syllable "Nyoo Ahhlyins" to the monosyllabic grunt of "Nawln'", it takes a very sensitive ear, not to mention years of practice, to pinpoint the incredible binds the native speaker encounters, those specific words where the slow tongue gives up and makes a leap of faith. For those who have never heard it, you must begin by imagining Brooklynese on Quaaludes. --via Chuck
6:46 AM
[Ed. note: I hope you had your coffee this morning...] Like my boyfriend, I also logged quite a few grad school hours trying to pin down queer sensibility. Obviously, it can't just be defined by sexual preference or even sexual activity: football players slapping one another on the butt and gay-for-pay porn stars fucking around on screen have very little to do with queerness (although they do represent interesting fissures in the binary hetero/homo system). Likewise, on the erstwhile Ellen, even after Ellen came out on-screen and off, I wouldn't say the show had a particularly strong queer sensibility.... Were I ever to write another 30-page seminar paper on the subject (and let's hope I don't), here's the way I'd argue it. Homosexuality (e.g. a love of kissing boys) is innate and learned; it is both genetic and a result of socialization. Queer sensibility (e.g. an appreciation of Dame Edna), however, is something we develop over time. In my case, it began when I accepted the fact that I was different from the other guys. For years I tried hopelessly to fit in, to no avail. Then I discovered John Waters (on USA Night Flight) and saw how hip it was to like him and the lights finally came on: why bother feigning interest in stockcar racing any longer? I dropped the beer/pussy/football routine like a wheel of hot brie.  To my mind, my appreciation of Waters and Divine and Pee Wee's Playhouse and beehive hairdos and Christopher Durang put me intellectually and culturally head-and-shoulders above the straight boys: I got the jokes they didn't get, I saw beauty and humor where they saw only strangeness. I laughed, they could only shake their heads. Ultimately, it's that sort of mental/aesthetic one-upsmanship that most typifies queer sensibility to me. Lo and behold, Sontag agrees. In "Notes on Camp," she argues that the queer sensibility is key to the wide(er)spread acceptance of homosexuality. Just as Jewish intellectualism (grounded in a strong history of Talmudic study) has provided Jews entree into mainstream culture, so "Homosexuals have pinned their integration into society on promoting the aesthetic sense." In that article, of course, she's focused on camp, but her statements obviously apply to more than just that. In fashion and the arts, we're always one step ahead of the pack, our inside jokes are the very source of hipness. It's this state of being "in the know" aesthetes that's at the root of our queer sensibility. It's our secret language. (In pre-Stonewall Britain, polari was a very literal manifestation of this phenomenon.)  Now, it could be argued that all minorities use a sort of secret aesthetic language--in black literature or Latino art, for example. I'd argue, though, that the queer lexicon is the most highly developed of these, if for no other reason than that most of us can pass; I mean, just to look at me, a stranger might not know I liked to kiss boys (well, unless he saw me sucking cock). In fact for most of us, until we came out, passing was a way of life. So in response to our typically hostile environments, we've developed a litany of hidden meanings that allows us to communicate with one another without blowing our cover. For me, learning this secret language--watching Miss Yvonne do her schtick and recognizing a humor in that performance that my parents and siblings couldn't see--kept me sane. Summary: Ability for homos to pass in mainstream cultcha --> the development of secret lingo and hidden meanings (which feed into the queer desire to be different/aesthetically superior to hets) --> memorization of every line Joan Crawford and Mink Stole have ever uttered. Does any of that make sense? That's as articulate as I can be this early in the morning.... P.S. Little or none of this applies to lesbians. That's an entirely different ball o' wax.
8:10 AM
File under Obvious, But Bears Repeating: It feels strange logging onto the Ebola Fan Club when there's an actual outbreak of Ebola going on. Of course, the same could probably be said during random outbursts of Ricola and the Hezbollah, too.... Or not.
6:11 AM
3:23 PM
Such a very weird review, don't you think? Clearly he had a good time, but he had to be drinking more than Abita.... I guess when you're married to a talented photographer and best of friends with another big art gun, you develop a need to express yourself....
12:30 PM
The highlights of my day... * Fixing a moderately complicated plumbing problem with only my bare hands, the world's tiniest flathead screwdriver, and a well worn pair of Revlon tweezers. (And they say plucking isn't butch.) * Finishing a grant application I've been promising to turn in for a couple of months. * Playing The Sims and having Michael Bachelor sex up everyone in the neighborhood, male and female. I've still not been able to get a partnered person to dump their spouse and move in with me, but I'm working on Mortimer. Will Bella ever speak to me again? (If you don't understand a word of what you just read, I'm profoundly sorry. For myself.) * Loving that adorable curmudgeon of a boyfriend of mine. Other things... * There is absolutely nothing on television this evening--not that I spend much time in front of the tube, but I like having my options, you know? Good thing Jonno and I have plans to catch a movie--thanks, in part, to a certain webmistress' glowing review. * One TV show in which I am a little interested is the new John Goodman piece, Normal, Ohio, on Fox. Apparently, the big lush (who's got a big-ass house out in Old Metairie) is playing a big homo on the small screen. First we were niched for the clothing market (International Male, Tzabaco), then film (remember New Queer Cinema, my darlings?), and now television! Expect a bonafide 24-hour queer cable channel within the next year or so--if it's not already running by the time this post goes up. P.S. Yes, I think John Goodman's kinda sexy in that big, klutzy, bearish sorta way.
6:51 PM
Um, okay, like does this guy look familiar to anyone? I mean, I could be wrong and all, but I think he looks suspiciously like a certain boy-band homo-in-waiting (whose pic was recently snapped on the dancefloor of Oz as he shook his post-concert ass ).... You know, I think it'd be great for little Lance to come screeching out of his walk-in closet--not only for our sake (a highly visible--if artistically questionable--role model for tomorrow' homosexuals), but also for his own. I'm sure the first real lover he scored would put an end to certain promotional campaigns that'll inevitably come back to haunt him. Of course, it'd also be fun to watch as hundreds of thousands of squealing prepubescent girls' faces twisted into expressions of confusion, disbelief, anger, deep sorrow, back to anger, despair, and finally morose acceptance. Crushing children's fantasies--it's what makes life worth living.
9:55 AM
Jeez, I've FINALLY caught up with my work--thanks largely to the recent hiring of a new staff member who's taken over some of my duties. I think I'm going to relax now.... In the meantime, you might enjoy a new story I've posted in the Miscellaneous section. I think it's kinda funny. Maybe you will, too. Or maybe you won't. Feh.
4:39 PM
Brasilia. Beatrice Dalle. The Belle Stars. Holy Smoke. What do these things all have in common? Ample resources and seriously squandered opportunities. Poor Kate Winslet. I'd have only needed to hear two words before I ran screaming from Ms. Campion's office: "Harvey Keitel." This evening Jonno helped remind me of something that I'd nearly erased from memory: back in high school, there was a kid one grade ahead with exactly the same name as me. Now, ordinarily that wouldn't have been so bad, except this particular Richard (everyone called him Richie) was slightly insane and extremely homosexual and claimed he had Rod Stewart's baby in a shoebox buried in his backyard. In case you've forgotten, our story is set in Mississippi. Ergo, Richie was not the most popular kid in town. (Of course, I doubt his plight would have been much different had we grown up in San Francisco.) So every year on the first day of classes, I'd have at least one teacher who'd never encountered either of us. Since his reputation preceeded him, the profs would ask me hesitantly, "Are you Richie?" And with all the vehemence of a teenage faggot trying to hide his love of uncut cock, I'd state with a mildly haughty toss of the head, "No, I'm Richard, actually." And I believed it; I believed in our mutual exclusivity. So far as I was concerned, Richie and I had nothing in common.... I like to think I'm older and wiser now. At the very least, I'm older. When I go home and see Richie at the Hattiesburg gay bar (as I sometimes do), I should be able to walk over to him and laugh and buy him a drink, but I don't. And I probably won't. My inner hippie tells me I need to apologize to him, but really, how conceited is that? Richie probably doesn't even remember who I am, and he seems to be getting along just fine without hearing the words "I'm sorry" fall from my lips. Why bother? Sometimes I hate the 60s and the touchy-feely crap that followed in their wake. Hackneyed sentimentality. I mean, I'm no Kathy Acker, either--just cynical.
10:35 PM
I agree, Steve: teenpopbimbogoddessmonsters suck. However, I do give props to Vitamin C, if only because Colleen Fitzpatrick was the whiny and moderately evil Amber von Tussle in Hairspray. Sure, it's a flawed movie (frankly, my interest in John Waters tapered off after Polyester), but I can't help smiling when one of Mr. Waters' hand-picked freaks (e.g. Divine, Mink Stole, even Rikki Lake) makes a ripple in mainstream cultcha.
8:17 AM
...so then he just dropped his pants and started touching himself--right in the middle of the street! Good God almighty, Mabel, I near about had a stroke at the feet of Naomi Jeffcoat--and she never would have let me live that down, let me tell you. After that tabasco incident at the Easter bake sale, I absolutely refuse to trust that woman! Now don't go getting me wrong: I adore the pastor, but sugar, that Naomi never has been nothing but trouble... Are you listening to me, Mabel? ...Well, all right then. I never heard you so quiet. What's got into you? Is Ed at it again? Mabel, I tell you, you got to keep that man away from Dr. Chisolm's office. He's gonna kill you one of these days--along with half the church choir! He ain't right! I just wish you'd been out back with us the other night after the service. Why, out of nowhere he just starts in on Shirley P., and you know how fluttery her heart is these days... Oh, gotta run. Almost time for The Simpsons. I'll talk to you later dear. Give Ed my love...
9:01 PM
I'm back where I belong. I hope John Brown's car is, too. John, you see, was kind enough to take me out on the town last night. After a leisurely dinner (made slightly more leisurely by the fact that we were waiting in vain for my friend Kellum to show up), we wound our way to a bar called Mary's. Of course, Zod--the one friend in Atlanta I've been unable to reach by phone--and his boyfriend Todd were the first people I saw when I walked in the door. After the requisite screaming and good, honest hugs, we grabbed drinks, slunk to the back of the bar, and chewed some serious fat--meeting quite a few folks from John and Zod's non-overlapping circle of friends along the way. Wonderful, warm evening. Good buddies. Nothing better. (I am painfully aware that I just described the world's sappiest gay beer commercial. Sorry.) Anyway, being the responsible-to-a-fault kinda guy that I am and knowing that my flight left early in the morning, I had to call it a night around 1am. Rounds of hugs, kisses, then John and I stepped out into the parking lot. And, verily, we discovered that some tow truck-driving cretin had tried to cramp our style by hauling off John's adorable little car. If you're reading this, Mr. Cretin, it would perhaps behoove you to note that neither of us were phased in the least. We simply stepped right back into Mary's, intent on calling a cab, but Zod and Todd insisted on giving us a ride. In Todd's truck. In Todd's cute but compact little truck. But no matter. Being from Mississippi the vehicular specifics were of little concern to me. Todd and John took the front, Zod and I grabbed our cigarettes and a cup of bourbon (to keep us warm) and lay down in the back (riding semi-drunk in the bed of a pickup is surely illegal, or at least very suspicious), and very shortly we were on the interstate headed back downtown. The night was cold but the sky was beautiful. The undersides of overpasses were sudden and startling and very, very funny. Fifteen minutes after we'd begun, I bounded from the back of the truck onto the cobbled pavement of the motor court of one of the most expensive and overrated hotels in Atlanta (hey, I wasn't paying for it), hugged everyone again, dashed upstairs, and crept into bed glowing from a really good night. Except, I guess, for the fact that John Brown is probably out a hundred bucks. That sucks. But apart from that...
2:33 PM
Hey. I leave for Atlanta tomorrow. You ho's out yonder drop me an email and lemme know your schedules. I gotta plan my Pernod intake, you know.
3:15 PM
So, Jonno and I were walking down West 23rd Street in New York, very near the corner of 9th Avenue. It was a pretty day--not particularly sunny, but not cloudy either, nice temp--and I'm not sure what possessed me (the weather? too much coffee?), but I suddenly took Jonno in my arms and started waltzing across the sidewalk. It was a cute, loving gesture, but Jonno would have nothing of it and pushed me away. I don't think his rejection had anything to do with a fear of dancing like a maniac in public--those of you who remember Jonno's Girlina-inspired flashdanceathon at Voodoo on Decadence Sunday know he ain't afraid of cuttin' up. He probably just didn't like the song I was singing in his ear as we danced: it was the Musak version of "Physical," taken straight from a current Ameritrade commercial. As punishment for my bad choice of music, the next thing I knew Jonno and I found ourselves in a small backyard in New Orleans doing aerobics in our street clothes with a large group of strangers. The group was being led by an ex of mine who never really struck me as the aerobics instructor type, but I guess you never can tell these days. The tunes were much better than in the previous segment: we were sweating to Bio's high-tech theme song from Bust-a-Groove. The scene was still a little strange, though, 'cause the song was being played live by the Treme Brass Band. Nevertheless, I was doin' pretty good keeping up with everybody, but I was dancing very close to a window-unit air conditioner and was in continual danger of jumping up too high and giving myself a concussion. I guess consuming large quantities of nearly raw meat before bedtime isn't a very good idea.
7:53 AM
I went searching for couple of things in my "important box"--the one I use to keep old photos, subway maps from long-ago vacations, decade-old tax returns--and happened across my college journals. I'd almost forgotten they were there. It's a little painful, looking back; lots of silly observations and stuff. But surprisingly, some of it's pretty good, too--even a couple of the poems. Of course, today these notebooks are most interesting as a sort of time capsule. It's funny how the images I used then (I was a big fan of the Imagist movement, especially the work of cigar-smoking, combat-boot-wearing Amy Lowell) can remind me of exactly what I was thinking when I wrote some of these pieces. I won't bore you with any of it now, but maybe later. And oh, yes, Chad, I'm flattered, although I don't really see the resemblance.
8:12 AM
A little trivia for compugeeks who adore Southern literature (and I'm sure there are at least two of ya'). Funny how it all ties into Jonno's new-found favorite short story....
8:26 AM
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