What's Been Going On

So I've taken another hiatus. Nothing seemed to be exciting enough to blog about, so I figured nothing was exciting enough for you to read. But I've had several questions about when I was going to get back to it. And so I'll give it a shot...again.

When we last left our hero, I'd just had an eye exam. Woo-hoo. Since then, here's what's been going on:

There was Easter. Stick, Hotass and the Dynamic Duo put on our Easter frocks and took a visit to the Artist's grandmothers for the day. We cruised across West Tennessee in the "Wadebago," complete with cooler of premixed bloody Marys (what Easter is complete without tomato juice and vodka?) listening to a totally sacriligious mix CD, featuring the greatest gospel hits of Mahalia Jackson, selections from the Sister Act soundtrack, the Gaither Vocal Band, and a little "Personal Jesus" from Depeche Mode. We did an Easter egg hunt in the backyard in a 21st century manner - tracking down the egg using a handheld GPS. That picture is from our funeral home fans that we made just for the occasion.


In May, I finished up the fundraising black-tie dinner for work. My picture made the Commercial Appeal. I was grinning ear to ear surrounded by a bevy of beautiful hula dancers. The next night, Stick, The Artist, Hotass and I went to the Dada Ball, where the dress code required us to dress as "your own absurdity." Our absurdity was coming as silent movie characters, each of us in black-and-white with faces painted white and a punch of red. The Artist was a bowery boy. Stick was a magician. Hotass was a cowboy, and I was the man about town. Everyone asked us all night long when we were going to perform. Little did they know, we always perform. Just see Hotass' drunk picture in the Commercial Appeal too.

In June, there was the Memphis Pride Festival. Which isn't as exciting as most cities, but there's hope. The highlight of the weekend is that Virginia came to visit, and I got to show her around the fair city.

In July, Stick and I took a jaunt down to New Orleans just before the Fourth of July. What a great time! Stick and I haven't spent much time together, so it was a good chance for us to get to know one another. Lots of drinking and commenting as pretty boys passed us by. "Yessss" if they were cute. "No" if they weren't. Yeah, we judged but it's what we do. One of the most amusing things of the weekend were the stories we composed for ourselves. Stick was a sociology professor at the University of Arkansas, and I was a manager at Home Depot. Well until I got tired of being a peon, and then I became a district manager. But it all fell apart when Stick felt the need to tell people about his thesis on the native tribes of the Amazon rain jungle.

Nothing much exciting happened in August. However, at the end of this month, at the end of this week, Hotass and I are going back to New Orleans for the biggest gay bacchanalia known to 21st Century man - Southern Decadence. Two years ago, when Katrina slammed into New Orleans just a few days before Decadence, it seemed the event might die out. But we queers are resilient folk. We're like Cher and cockroaches... you can't get rid of us.

And so that's pretty much it... well there are other things but I hope to get around to them eventually. I'm just happy to be back

The View from Here

"You didn't tell me you were a visual cripple."

That's what my eye doctor said to me today.

The truth is I've always been a visual cripple. I've had bad eyesight since the day I was born. I've had glasses since I was 2 1/2 years old. How you keep glasses on a toddler is beyond the realm of my comprehension. I'm terribly near-sighted and even have a little bit of a lazy eye. I can't see three feet from my face without glasses. So my identity has always been associated with my glasses. They are as much as part of my face as your eyes and nose.

Dr. V was kidding. I'm not ready to be set up with a seeing-eye dog. At least not yet. And even when my right eye started turning toward my nose, I still wasn't eligible for a handicapped space at Target, even though Hotass thought I might be since I was wearing the recently-dilated wrap-around sunglasses.

Today was my first eye exam since I moved to Memphis. And, honestly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The glasses I got four years ago are still fashionable (they just happen to be warped, bent and the hinges are loose as hell) and, according to Dr. V., my scrip hasn't changed much, but here's what I learned about my vision today:

First, my depth perception is a little off. While most people have the luxury of detecting distances with both eyes at the same time, I do not. I compensate by rapidly switching from one eye to the other. It's not a big problem, Dr. V. assures me. However, he thinks I have probably been missing something with 3D movies. Because I obviously see a lot of 3D movies.

Second, I have a mild color detection defect. I've seen more and more evidence that I might be a bit color blind, especially with trying to help the Artist pick out colors for their remodel. Dr. V again assures me it isn't a big deal, that I only have trouble with shades of green, brown and red. But come on. It is a big deal if I think I'm wearing brown pants and the rest of world sees green.

The good news is that glasses have come a long way since the ones I picked out my sophomore year in college -- the ones with blue frames and lenses the size of dinner plates. In 1992, they were fashionable. Looking at the pictures from 1992, it's painful.

I'm excited about the ones I picked out today. I've not been this excited about a new pair of glasses in a long time. So stay tuned...

Booger Drag

So Jennifer tells me that she is bored with Britney and wants to know why I hadn't blogged since the 17th of February. Honestly, there hasn't been much to blog about. I've had a pretty boring routine.

However, since nothing spices things up around the house like a good drag queen, here ya go.

Who are those booger girls? Well, you see, the first Halloween that Hotass and I shared an apartment (the one we call the Villa on the Hilla) back in 1995, we decided to throw a gender-bender party. It was nothing more than an excuse for two gay boys to put on lipstick, but nonetheless, we thought we did a good job, given the limited knowledge and resources we had at our disposal.

So the girl with the lazy eye on the left, that's Nikki Chablis. She fancied herself as a modern-day Mata Hari, defecting from behind the Iron Curtain with Soviet secrets and fashion tips. But she looked more like she got tangled up in the curtain and took a terrible spill off the Berlin Wall.

The blushing bride on the right? That's Miss Havisham. Always a bridesmaid and never a bride until Halloween. That dress was so rotten, we feared for her life everytime she came near an open flame (and there was lots of flaming that night). Like poor Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, we expected her to catch on fire and run screaming from room to room. And never once spilling a drop of her cocktail.

And that big ol' mess in the middle? Well, she was trying to be Eddie from Absolutely Fabulous (she claimed that was "LaCroix, sweetie, LaCroix," around her neck, but we all knew it was thrift store). In the end, I think she just turned out looking like Bea Arthur's Maude.

So, Jennifer, is this better than Britney?

An Intervention With Britney Spears

Britney,

I think it's time we had a little talk. I know you're a tad bit emotional these days. There's been the birth of yet another no-necked monster, and the divorce from K-Fed. Honestly, we were all hoping that break-up would happen soon enough, but sometimes you just have to let friends make their own mistakes. He was never right for you, and we all thought JT would have been a better choice.

But now we're really worried about you. What's with the shaved head? And are you in rehab or not? And who's taking care of the kids? Obviously not you.

Look at where you came from, Brit. You had it going on. Graduate of Star Search and The Mickey Mouse Club. It was a dream-come-true for every little girl who ever over-acted her way through Over the Rainbow in the school talent show.

Yeah, I admit it took me a while to take you seriously and get past the squeaky-clean, bubble-gum pop image you started out with. But it was catchy stuff, and you had some style that Christina didn't seem to have. Each single seemed a little better than the last. Oops I Did It Again. Toxic. I'm a Slave For You. Me Against the Music. And all the while you were kicking Christina Aguilera's dirrrrty ass. (You know, I used to call her Christina Got-bad-haira, but at least she's got hair now.)

You were sexy and hot. You had a fan base that was starting to extend beyond junior high girls and pedophiles, and through your association with Madonna, you could have continued to build your gay audience. Don't you see it? You were poised for greatness. Let's face it. Madonna isn't going to be around forever, and YOU could have been the one to take her place.

And you're blowing it. You have been given a great and powerful gift, and you're fucking it up.

You're having a full-on Michael Jackson meltdown, and if you keep hanging out with Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton and showing your snatch in the backseat of limos, you'll lose every bit of credibility you worked so hard for. And don't think it can't happen. Michael Jackson used to be the King of Pop, and look at him now. It's heart-breaking, isn't it? He couldn't sell a record now if he wanted to. Don't let that happen to you.

Every pop princess has a history of poor decisions. Mariah Carey and Glitter. Janet Jackson and a wardrobe malfunction. Some decisions can be quickly forgotten, but others simply won't be ignored. You still have time to get off this runaway train of self-destruction, and become the powerful pop diva you were born to be.

So here's what you need to do. First, put some pretty panties on. Then, get Madge on the phone. Apologize for whatever it is that you did that made her not your best friend anymore. Even if you didn't do anything, apologize. She's a reasonable woman and she'll hear you out.

Ask -- no, don't ask -- BEG for her help in turning your burning carnage of a life around and get your bald ass on the first plane for England. The next step seems like it should go without saying, but given your behavior lately, I'll say it - don't forget to pack the kids. I think Sean Preston and the other one (I can't remember his name and you probably can't either) will get along famously with Lola, Rocco and the adopted one.

And while the kids are playing together, you and Madonna can get caught up, do some yoga, talk about life as divorcee (she's been there a time or two), detox, let your hair grow back, and you can take advice from the one who first made it okay to royally fuck up, get some really bad press and still not alienate her fans.

If you do this right, you can look back in five years and see this period as just a big bump in the road. You'll have the respect of your friends (remember, Paris Hilton is not your friend), your family, and your fans -- and most importantly, you'll have the respect of your children.

You are somebody, and you are somebody's mama. It's time you started acting like it.

Sincerely,
Skipper

Show & Tail

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Preserving the Past

So what does one do on a snow day? Well, besides watch Martha and eat grilled cheese sandwiches. One of the more productive things I found to do in the late afternoon was to scan pictures.

Think about it. Back before there were digital cameras, we actually had to take snapshots, and then take the rolls of film to the nearest drug store, wait almost a week for them to be developed, and then we stuck them in a photo album to drag out whenever we had guests. Or how about your third-grade class photo, the one where you were missing a front tooth and there was a gap in your bangs where you had tried to cut your hair yourself? Or your mom and dad's wedding picture?

Now we have boxes and envelopes and albums full of family photographs, and those hardly ever see the light of day now, because we're all enamored with the prospect of digital immediate gratification.

I have a box of photos going back to high school, and I also inherited a couple of the family photo albums a few years ago. The kind of albums where black-and-white photos are stuck to heavy black paper with photo corners. And it's scary that those photos, beside memories or the memories of relatives who were there, are the only proof those days even existed. If something happened to those pictures, they're gone forever.

So I spent the afternoon, scanning photographs if no other reason than to preserve them (assuming my computer doesn't crash again). And a quite of few of those photos deserve posts of their own.

So here you go. Skipper: The Early Years.

That's me in the sailor hat. And I wonder where my uniform fetish comes from.

Snow Day

The snow day should have been yesterday. The forecast Wednesday night was for a wintry mix, which meant that Mother Nature was just going to take all the precipitation she had at her disposal, and hurl it in the general direction of Memphis, Tennessee.

And I was just as tickled as June Cleaver with a bucketful of buttholes (no, I don't know what that means, but it's a phrase that makes me smile) when I heard the "tick-tick-tick" of frozen rain and sleet hitting the roof Wednesday night, and I just knew there would indeed be a snow day on Thursday.

In fact, Hotass even made the customary run to the grocery store to pick up snow day staples - milk and bread. I'm not sure if this is a phenomenon in other parts of the country, but here in the South, at the very whisper of the word "snow," there is a mad dash to the nearest Kroger or Schnuck's to wipe them out of every gallon of milk and every loaf of bread they have in stock. We never have snow last more than a couple of days tops, but if there ever is a blizzard, can they really fend off starvation with just milk and bread? At any rate, Hotass and I were prepared for French toast.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I didn't even have to look outside to be disappointed. I could hear traffic on Park Avenue, and it was moving way too fast for there to be any amount of moisture on the streets. I pulled back the curtains and cursed.

Nothing. Not a flake. Not an icicle. Not even a coating of frost on the car windshield.

I kept vigil near weather.com all day, which promised white stuff and ice throughout the day. But still nothing at noon. Nothing in the afternoon. Nothing in the early evening. But about eight last night, flakes began to fall. And the kid in me made snow angels in my heart.

Snow in Memphis is a lot like men - you never when it's going to come, how long it's going to last, or how many inches you're going to get. So after being disappointed one to many times, I went to bed without high expectations.

I woke up before seven, and I listened carefully for the traffic on Park. Silence. Silence in the way that only snow can create. No swish of cars through puddles and slush. Just the muffled sounds of Memphis under a blanket.

A few minutes later, Hotass knocked on the door and told me that schools, the courts, and University of Memphis were closed for the day. I peeked through the curtains and I squealed.

And then I jumped out of bed.

I can't remember the last time I jumped out of bed before 8 a.m.

I fired off an e-mail to my staff and boss that the Memphis office would be closed today due to inclimate weather, and I had my coffee and French toast in my comfy chair.

Alas, today wasn't like the snow days of childhood. I had my work laptop and cell phone with me so I did manage to get a little bit of work done, but I still had The Today Show, Rachael Ray (honestly, I can't stand her), and Martha on in the background.

And, in true Memphis fashion, the snow melted by noon. But I had already forgiven Mother Nature for screwing me over the day before.

Happy Potter and the Sorcerer's Bone

I have to remind myself to tread lightly when talking about how attractive the young man at the left is. He is, after all, only 17, and he is the young man that the rest of the world knows as Harry Potter.

All of England is abuzz about Daniel Radcliffe's decision to pose nearly naked for the promotional photos for a London play, Equus. In the play, he plays a young stablehand with an erotic fixation on horses who is undergoing an psychiatric evaluation after he blinds six horses with a hoof pick. And, aside from the dramatic integrity of the work, Radcliffe shows off his wee-wee in a scene of full frontal nudity.

Parents are outraged, and believe that he should remain clothed since he is a role model as Harry Potter. Apparently, he should never be allowed to step off his Nimbus 2000, and should forever be the boy wizard. Even when he's in his forties.

He says in an interview that he wants to shake up the public's perception of him. "Just shove me in a blender," he says.

So should he have steered clear of the role until he finished the Harry Potter series for the sake of the little English ankle-biters? Heck naw. Not that I've been a fan of the Harry Potter movies lately, but his decision to explore the talent more deeply has piqued my interest in the movies. So I might actually make a return to the theatres to see the next Harry Potter movie.

Which comes out this July, 10 days before his 18th birthday. And then I'll make some vile and nasty comment.

In the Past 31 Days...

...I've had one cigarette, but that was within the first ten days of the month, and I've had one puff at two different times during the month. Is the ashtray licked? At least for the moment. I'll take one day at a time and start a new countdown tomorrow.

...I've seen Dreamgirls and Smokin' Aces. Dreamgirls was infinitely more fun, more attractive and less bloody. Plus the Dreamgirls soundtrack lends itself to a full month's worth of drag moments. You try singing "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" and not breaking into a rendition worthy of the best drag queen you've ever seen.

...I've had two dates with two different guys. I saw Smokin' Aces with one, and went to Tunica with the other. One date was two years in the making, if you can believe that, and it was a gamble that paid off.

...the Pink Lady found out she is a candidate to be contestant on a certain reality show, and we helped her shoot her second application video and inappropriately destroy another German chocolate cake. The final cast will be selected by mid-February and we're hoping that she's a "loser."

...I've helped the Artist and the Chef begin their move back to Memphis, by helping move their Mardi Gras float of a bed and paint the bedroom Parisian taupe.

...I've helped Sweet Wade and assorted company fend off Bridezillas at a bridal show. Sweet Wade has started his own catering business, and catering to the whims of indecisive brides is part of the job. And serving up pomegranate fizz and macerated strawberries in balsamic vinegar with creme fraiche on a Sunday afternoon is part of my job as friend.

...I'm learning to dislike my job more and more with each passing day.

...I've decided to start yoga. In February.

2006: The Year In Review

I figure I've got a small window of opportunity to discuss the year that was before it's passe.

So what was 2006 for me? Well, after all of my thinking and wishing and contemplating, I still don't know. Perhaps 2006 can go down as the Year of Uncertainty. It was a year of big changes. There was a new job. A new place to live. The splintering of the Gaggle, which was a lot more traumatic than you might expect.

In moments, it was an emotional year. I think I found myself crying more than the Chef ever did. I tried to laugh a lot but at the same time, there were several moments that the need to cry completely overtook me. Like the morning that HotAss and I had breakfast at Brother Juniper's, and somewhere in the middle of a San Diegan omelet, I cracked up for no good reason.

I cried a lot in 2006, and I felt sad a lot more often than I cried. Hotass could probably describe me as a perfect horror to live with because I cried or felt sad too much. Maybe I cried because they were gossiping. Maybe I cried because the elastic was shot in my pantyhose. Who knows? I cried at the drop of a hat in 2006.

But on a personal level, I can confess that most of the year was a time of a midlife crisis for me, although I'm too young for a midlife crisis and I'm too old for a quarter-life crisis. At any rate, it's a crisis of age that has not quite run its course.

For me,thirty-four is that age where you realize it's time you get your shit together (referred to as "fecal cohesion") but you're still drawn to the stupidity and the carefree times of your youth. There is an overwhelming part of me that longs for the La Vie Boheme - waiting tables at a non-chain restaurant (even though I would grow tired of working for tips in less than a day) and renting a house in Midtown, sparsely decorated with roadside sofas and Che Guevara prints (although I couldn't tell you what Che did, but they seem like they're the thing to have if you're a bohemian). But there is a part of me that wishes I had a carefree life. A big part of me.

Instead, I drive a Honda to my very respectable job that requires me to keep regular haircuts and a sensible wardrobe.

So if anything, 2006 might be the year of trying to find myself (again), and when 2007 rolled around, I realized I might still be missing. Only my face isn't on milk cartons.

So in 2006, I did NOT find myself. Nor did I lose myself anymore than I already was. In fact, I think I was probably right where I had been all along. Sitting here. Waiting. Wishing and still trying to figure out what the next step was.

Here's hoping that 2007 will be better.

It's Not About the Size; It's About the Fit.

It's not normal to be this excited about underwear. Especially not underwear obviously designed for someone 15 years younger with a broomstick waist. But I'm here to tell you...I couldn't be more thrilled about my new GinchGonch pretty panties.

At first, I wasn't so sure I could be sold on the grown-up Underoos. After all, the first salesperson told Hotass, Artist and I that he has "a 28-inch waist and wears a medium." It was difficult for the three of us not to roll our eyes and call him a "bitch" under our breath. If this little waif of a boy wore a medium, there was certainly no chance for more...um...robust men, like myself.

But, Artist purchased a pair for his beloved. Hotass got a pair, and since they're just so darn fun (and since everyone else had some), I had to get mine. After much deliberation and consultation, and knowing that there is a strict policy about not returning underwear to the store, I opted for a large. Merry Christmas to me.

New Year's Eve found the three of us with our pants down, showing off our new special-occasion underwear.

And just for the record...I had to wash my delicates in hot water and dry on high heat twice to take up some of the slack.

Tell that bitch with the 28-inch waist to eat a freakin' biscuit and that a medium would have worked just fine.

Cold Turkey

I am a smoker.

I have been for many, many years, and it is a label I have resisted just as long. But like the millions of other Americans who will be raving bitches by this weekend because they have sworn off nicotene on January 1, I too am quitting.

I started smoking when I was 18. It was the summer I was home between my freshman and sophomore years in college, and I was working a crappy job in my hometown. Just after school let out for the summer, some rednecks broke into the high school and tried to set fire to it. The library was mostly destroyed and the rest of the school had smoke and water damage. So my summer job was working on the clean-up crew, sponging down the walls and wiping soot off books and desks.

This was not a hard job. It was monotonous, spending a full 8 hours meticulously wiping down cinder block walls floor to ceiling. And one afternoon when I was leaving work, I was struck by an overwhelming craving for a cigarette. So I stopped at the QuikSak that afternoon and bought my very own pack. Marker Ultra Light 100s. Generic brand.

It must have been working around the smell of smoke and charred wood all day, because up to that point in my life, I had barely smoked. I had only experimented.

My father smoked. Salems. And I remember the comforting mix of cigarette smoke, coffee and aftershave. And I remember smoking butts from the ashtray just to know what it was like.

My cousin and I played a game that could be likened to hillbilly Ker-Plunk! He covered the mouth of a Mason jar with a couple of layers of paper towels and secured them to the jar with a rubber band. And then we placed a stack of quarters on the paper towels. We passed a Vantage cigarette back and forth, taking turns burning holes in the paper towels. Whoever caused the coins to fall through, lost. It was usually me, and I usually made him inhale for me since it made me hack.

The Christmas before I bought that pack of cigarettes, I was drinking fuzzy navels, and a high school girlfriend offered me one of her Virginia Slim menthols. And to this day, I still think a menthol cigarette tastes like you've lit up a stick of Doublemint gum.

Ever since that day in 1991, I've been a closet smoker. Admittedly, I've never been a heavy smoker. I can only remember a couple of times - in college - that I was a pack a day smoker. Usually I could make a pack last three or four days, especially the past couple of years.

Actually for the past several years, I've been like one of those politicians, publicly decrying homosexuality but sucking dick in every rest area along Interstate 40. I worked for one of the nation's largest opponents of smoking, but giving Big Tobacco my share of their fortune every three or four days. My excuse was "I've spent all day fighting cancer. Right now, I just want to make friends with it."

And I had probably been smoking in denial for several years. I didn't consider myself a smoker because I had rules. I didn't smoke at work. I didn't smoke in the house. I didn't smoke in my car. I rarely smoked before work. I didn't light up in restaurants unless I was with another smoker. I didn't really smoke around people who didn't smoke. Even in Memphis' bars, where the smoke is so thick you smell like a filthy ashtray when you leave, I tried to step outside when possible.

And most of the time I was okay with all that. I didn't go out of my mind with nicotene cravings. For most of the past eight or nine years, I had no problems with finishing a pack of cigarettes and going for a week or more (once I went six months) without smoking another. I could just quit.

But eventually the craving would return. And rather than resist the craving, I bargained with myself. "Hey, you finished that pack four days ago and you're just now wanting one? Treat yourself. It's the weekend."

Honestly, I enjoyed smoking. It was sort of relaxing, and it was a good excuse to step outside and collect your thoughts for a minute. But there are the obvious unfortunate side effects. I need to only think of my father who has emphysema and is permanently attached to an oxygen tank to remind me that smoking is not a good idea.

So I smoked my last cigarette shortly after midnight on January 1, 2007. And two days later, I'm still okay with it. I'll still have to contend with the real challenge which is a Saturday night at The Pumping Station with a cocktail in hand. That's when the urge hits hot and heavy, and my will power is the weakest.

Twenty-eight days is the magic number. Two down. Twenty-six to go.

I'm Coming Out - Part Deux

Yeah. It was too good to last. So I've decided to come out of retirement. Or maybe it was a sabbatical. Or hiatus. Or whatever the fuck you wish to call it, but at any rate, I'm coming out. I want the world to know. Got to let it show.

I'm coming back. I have this funny feeling that there will be lots of things to talk about in coming months. It's a new year and I'm determined to make 2007 one of the best ever. This is the year I turn 35. I want to be a much more pleasant and contented person who makes use of the gifts and talents I've been given and who appreciates the many blessings in my life. I want to be happier. I want to be whole, and it's been a very long time since I've felt that way. But that is my new year's resolution.

To feel whole again.

So I'm going to write more. And paint more. And squeeze the good stuff out of life more. And laugh more, and live more. Who knew that it would be so much work to just be and then so much more work to just be happy?

In a moment of joking last week, Hotass, the Artist and I started rewriting the Bible, and I believe there is a verse (that's the new Memphis James Revised Edition in case you're wondering) that says, "You have been given a great and powerful gift. Don't fuck it up."

That's probably one of the lmost important lessons we're put here on earth to learn.