#TBT

Originally published April 21, 2009

When I was a kid I was left to go out on my own with my teenaged cousin--to the movies, to the grocery store, sometimes to the mall if my cousin was ok with being seen with me. One day she took me and a friend out and left us by ourselves at a movie theatre so she could sneak off with a boy. While we waited outside to be picked up a man walked out of the store across the street. He had bleached hair, pastel plaid pants, and a Prince t-shirt on. I'm not sure what compelled me to do it, but I yelled the word faggot at him. I remember my friend laughing and asking me how I knew he was a faggot. I think my answer was something along the lines of a man wearing a Prince shirt. I liked Prince, I liked him because he was pretty and frilly and I knew I wasn't supposed to know what most of his songs were about.  I also knew (or mistakenly thought) that an adult man liking Prince the way I did was off somehow.  At that point in my life I don't think I really understood what gay was, but I would learn a little later that some of the people around me every day were.  I'm not even sure where I ever heard that f word. And even at that age I knew there was something inside me that knew how that man was different. Maybe I taunted him so no one would ever suspect it.

I think of him often. I remember the exact moment and what he looked like as if it happened this afternoon. I wonder what kind of life he's had, if he is/was an activist, if he is/was married, if he got struck down by AIDS which was such a headline grabber a few years later, if he ever did/does drag. I wonder if he remembers the shitty kid who yelled faggot at him, or if I was just one of many. I'd like to meet him today, and tell him that childhood friend I was with so many years ago stopped talking to me when it came out that I was a faggot. And in my head somehow that would vindicate him.  It's one of the few things I'm ashamed of.

Waitin' for the Train That Goes Home Sweet Mary...

I have a confession.  I hate weed culture.  I know I'm supposed to be one of the cool kids but I just can't get down with fashions and home decor provided by Spencer's Gags & Gifts.
Everybody smokes weed.  Every. Body.  OK, I actually prefer edibles just because smoking usually makes me cough and the coughing gives me a headache, and then I just end up in bed which is a waste of perfectly good, and sometimes expensive, weed.  My point is--that lady at the office in her 60s who still goes on girls' trips with her college friends?  She smokes weed.  And so do her Clark's sandal wearing friends.  That conservative guy in middle management who wears pink polo shirts? He smokes too, and in his day probably did his share of blow around a card table with his boys talking about what bitches they "let" give them head. And anyone wearing a beanie inside a building in April (who isn't a Jew or a Muslim) is smoking weed right. fucking. now.  So I don't care about your THC themed t-shirts or the pot leaves on your ball cap.  I get it, you're grown, so you probably smoke weed.  Which is mostly legal now anyway. I can walk around in Washington D.C with two ounces right now.  I don't need Afroman in my earbuds to do it.
I was acquainted with a couple who got married on a Thursday. They got married on a Thursday because it was 4/20.  They were both fat.  The bride always wore pigtails. And the groom had a very sketchy tooth rotting situation. So these are the kind of people who celebrate 4/20.  Do you want them to be your people?  I didn't think so.
If you really want to be out and proud about your extra-curriculars, what you really need to do is get yourself a collection of faux white guy reggae.  Because nothing says "I'm totally counter-culture and edgy because I know what marijuana is" like a bunch of translucent complected 24 year old guys from Huntington Beach wearing bajas and trying for dreads.  I got talked into going to a 311 concert once (I don't know if they're from Huntington Beach, but same schlock...) and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me.  Including the time I had to sit through Counting Crows and Fiona Apple with the flu.
I can't even get started on black lights.  So I won't.
This is why I think my favorite pot smokers are the ones who roll joints in secret in the bathroom when their toddlers go to bed.  They don't advertise--although most parents of toddlers still have to make questionable music choices.  Actually there is an exception to this.  I had a childhood friend who's weird bandana wearing step dad smoked in secret--obviously, because step dad.  I didn't know that's what he was doing, but he would sneak off in the evenings and hang out in his bedroom. One night my friend's baby sister barged in on him, and I went chasing after her. There he was, enjoying his evening toke. Startled by all the commotion, he started coughing violently and swung around to face us.  And his penis fell out of his out-dated shorty shorts.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, I hate weed culture.

And When You're Feelin Macho You Can Crush Em Like a Man...

I finally crossed something off my list some time ago and haven’t gotten around to telling the story yet.  Partly because I lived to tell it.  The experience was a little anti-climactic but somehow exactly what I expected.

There’s a stretch of road on the wrong side of town (P.S.  I live there) littered with dive bars that advertise meatloaf and Allman Brothers cover bands, their parking lots usually full of motorcycles and pick-ups.  I’d wanted to bar crawl my way through them forever, and I finally found someone as dumb as I am to accompany me.

Bar # 1 welcomed us with a group of grizzled old men chain-smoking and drinking Budweiser from cans and black coffee.  It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday.  From the overflow of butts in their ashtray, they’d been there a while.  I’m not knocking this life of leisure, I’m sure most of them were retired.  But it’s a good bet at least one of them was on “disability” from “wrenchin’ his back at the job-site”.  The bartender was lovely though.  She smiled at us a lot and complimented my hair.  She herself was still holding on to a home perm with the poof and claw bangs that probably got her a lot of attention at one time.  She served up my draft in a plastic cup with a fresh red manicure. 

We’d picked this place as the first stop for its likelihood of having food that did not contain fecal matter.  I had visions of a buttery, thick Kraft singles style grilled cheese with those fat crinkly fries like the kind you got at the pool as a kid.  I was sadly mistaken.  Because the lady who I assume was the cook—the disposable plastic apron gave it away—sat at the end of the bar with her cigarettes and soda making small talk and watching her stories.  I sized her up and decided I could wait. 

So there we all sat, admiring the tall boys lined up neatly and upside down (?) in the cooler, my friend and I marveling that Ice House and Coors with the gold label are still a thing.

The next stop was a little less new to me.  I’d actually been there before.  It’s the kind of place where people still slow dance on Saturday nights.  Indoor/outdoor carpeting, a bathroom that looks like sepsis and has condom vending.  Same fog of cigarette smoke, same beer selection as the first, but it was the twin brothers and cousins of the first group of men we met taking up the seats at the bar.  We were just settling in when I saw a familiar face.  A redneck gay I’d once rescued from an actual flea infested crack house at 5 a.m.  He used to serenade me with Prince songs in coke fueled fits of impending stardom.  I can’t tell you how much time I spent hanging out in his bathroom.  Someone even proposed to me in there once. I declined.
With him in charge and knowing we were in good hands, we ate fried pickles and cheese, did a few shots, got to know Debbie—who possibly worked there?  She didn’t have a tooth in her head and wore a sweatshirt with a duck painted on it.  She danced like she had zero fucks to give.  (I like her style.)   I looked at all the good ol’ boys and wondered how many of them had had a go at her in their day.   I was in the process of confirming that the answer was all of them when a sign caught my eye:  “Sexual harassment will not be tolerated but it will be critiqued and graded”

Nicely buzzed, it was on to bar # 3. A tiny little house on a gravel lot that always reminded me of the kind of place in a movie where a car full of pretty teenagers from out of town stop in bad weather just before they get slaughtered.—Oddly enough, when I later shared this experience with my Dad he told me he had a gig here as a teenager and someone was beaten to death in the parking lot.—Anyway, the boys in this bar were decidedly younger and all house painters from the looks of things.  Lots of white pants and paint splattered work boots and bad tattoos they were pretty proud of.  There was no commercial cooler here, just an old Frigidaire with a sticker that read “Smile, it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips”.  So we had to ask about the beer selection.  The bartender was immediately suspicious of us.  We’d obviously never been here before, and were clearly there to steal the attentions of all the good timin’ heart throbs she usually had all to herself.  We tried to make small talk and even gave her a compliment but with that she probably pegged us for full on bulldaggers and tried her best to ignore us from then on.
The music was loud here.  All the boys had to yell their hellos.  One of them wanted to dance and ordered us a round of Jager bombs (because we’d time travelled back to 2006) but the bartender was having none of it and called him over to her.  He came back with a sheepish “sorry ladies”.

I’ve never feared for my vaginal safety before, but a bit of an uneasiness set in with me here.  There was something sinister at this sausage party.  Like the not so calm before the storm.  Why had we been surrounded by men all day?  Where were the women?  (They were probably all at Olive Garden on fancy dates with guys in car clubs.)  So we finished our bucket and left forever—but not before discovering there was no lock on the ladies’ room door.  But there was a brick to use as a doorstop.  Or maybe a weapon?

The fourth and final bar led us to a shopping center, abandoned aside from a flea market that sells only socks and iPhone cases, and a Family Dollar.  Other than a table of blue hairs who all turned to look when we walked in the crowd here was more like what happens in real life.  A mix of young and not so young, boys and girls, people were eating real food on plates, the music was good, there was pool and darts and bar stuff.  Granted everyone looked like they were about 10 years behind, but this was a place where I felt like I could find some trouble and get properly drunk.  And that I did. And probably made some friends.
At some point I turned and saw a gigantic, full wall sized confederate flag that I’d missed on the way in. I’m not sure why that was my que to leave, but I decided it was time to go (before I ended up in a room at a Best Western smoking Camels and drinking Pepsi from a 2 liter bottle with someone wearing only a Mossy Oak t-shirt asking me if I needed a cuddle buddy—wait, what?) and I was home safe and sound by 10:30.  P.M.  With nothing really to tell.

#TBT

Today is Transgender Day of Visibility (or something?).  And I've seen it all.  Here's a throwback to prove it. It's not PC, but real deal life rarely is...

I took a day trip to visit my favorite tranny prostitute. When I got to her place about noon, she was banging out a trick in the front window of her library. Some neighbors had gathered across the street to listen to her talk shit and watch the scene. I thought about setting up camp with them, but all her material is old to me so I let myself in and helped myself to her medicine cabinet. When her work was done we had a margarita lunch and headed down to the beach to make people uncomfortable. We offered a number of men the opportunity to show some penis, cat called all the daddies, and made sure to praise the girls that were givin' fish. A few ladies suspiciously eyed my bathing suit no doubt wondering if everything they saw was God given. My friend discovered a man in a wet suit with push for days and left me to my own devices while I gave eyeballs to a dyke standing outside a cheap novelty store.
I'm glad my nasty fish cut it short to attend her evening church services and get to choir practice--all in all it was a relaxing day, nothing too eventful, and it went on just long enough to remain enjoyable.
I hope you're givin' it to that congregation tonight in that YSL dress, bitch...

The Weekly Walk With Me

I was probably about 12 when I discovered Patti Smith via the Easter record. A lot of people will poo- poo this record because it was her most commercial thanks to 'Because the Night', which has a murky history all its own--written by Springsteen first, discarded and given to Patti, Patti rewrote it and recorded it first, then Springsteen would perform Patti's version for the rest of his career. But sometimes commercial is necessary.  If it hadn't been for Easter's success, it probably would've taken me much longer to hear it, see it, learn it, pick it apart.  And fall in love with Patti Smith.

Six Things I Love About Easter

6. The cover.  Here was this woman in a simple, almost bible-slave-ish muslin dress. Simple, effortless. Is she posing, or putting up her hair?  She's not pretty, doesn't seem to want to be, but the pose could be an attempt at sexy. But then there's the armpit hair.  For a 12 year old girl learning what girls are supposed to look like, begging her mother to shave, it should have been off-putting.  It wasn't.  It seemed completely normal and obvious, subtle.  And every female artist I've seen since then showing off her armpit hair always seems to be trying too hard to "shock" me.

5. The liner notes.  Photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.  Yep, that one.  I would later learn that Patti and Robert were in fact lovers, but before I knew all that it was strictly the photographs.  There was no sheen, no sexuality. Just the opposite actually.  I was so confused by what this was. Here were these paragraphs of religious references and imagery paired with photos that invoked something sinister and offensive for some reason I couldn't quite figure.  I felt like I was doing something wrong by unfolding them, as this were a centerfold in the hands of a teenage boy. I had to hear this record because of those liner notes.

4. The reaction from my Dad.  Easter was released in 1978, and here I was 11 or so years later asking my father what he knew about the Patti Smith Group. The look on his face was sort of asking "who do I know with a Patti Smith record, where did she hear this?"  I will always be sure that I also saw a little bit of terror, but he was never one to censor music for me.  It was that look that told me this was something I should pursue. There were no used record stores then, and no internet, so I couldn't go out and scour the racks for more records.  I couldn't google and find out all there was to know about her, hear more of the catalogue, order it up with a push of a button.  So it took some effort to learn what I could and try to find more.  I probably haven't had to put that much effort into anything since.

3. Rock n Roll Nigger.  There is nothing I can say about this song that hasn't already been said.  It's been picked apart and analyzed.  The pros and cons broken down--more so in recent years than when it was released.  As a kid I was horrified.  Here were these words being spat out by a woman, words that I'd been taught shouldn't be said at all-by anyone.  It was angry and raw and guttural and masculine.  Is it racist?  I don't think so. But I'm white so maybe it's not for me to decide.  For the record, this song did not change my life the way most people will claim.  But it did make me think about words, and how to say them, and how to use them, and it validated how I thought about them in a way.

2. My copy cost $6.00.  I had to listen to the schmuck who sold it to me try his best to act like he knew all there was to know about the records in my stack.  He tried to sell me an old Time magazine because it had Bowie on the cover.  He explained what Instagram was as if I were mildly retarded because I told him I didn't use it. He smirked and asked "what was up" with me buying Easter and skipping over Horses.  And then had the nerve to ask if I knew what Horses was.  I wanted to walk away without giving him a dime of my money, but I gladly stole his near-mint copy with complete liner notes for $6.00.

1. My copy has this autograph.  I. Live...

And Living Proof that Sometimes Friends Are Mean...

I’m not really sure what Good Friday is, but I do know I’m gonna dance myself clean this weekend. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had a proper bender.   I’ve been having some work done—ink, not eyelids—and attending committee meetings for “fun”, in an effort to be a contributor to society who gives of her time and her talents.  I also did a sit-up last week so I’m still recovering from that.  Not to mention how exhausted I am from risking injury and reputation to save a life yesterday.

There I was having a nice read and a ginger ale on a sunny patio.  I was totally alone except for this squirrelly little wire-haired man on the opposite end.  (Probably because most people work for a living on Thursday afternoon.)  The wind picked up so fiercely it started to move my cocktail ginger ale, and suddenly I heard a horrid screech of metal and an awkward man-cry.  A table umbrella had flown at my nerd friend, knocking his table over on top of him. 

Normally in this situation I would pretend not to notice and keep reading as if a tornado wasn’t happening around me.  I don’t get involved. I don’t help strange little old people across the street; I rarely even look at traffic accidents.  I just keep it movin’.  But I was having a pretty serious moral dilemma here.  I was the only other person on the patio and I didn’t see anyone from inside rushing to help…  So I (reluctantly) went over with a half-hearted “you OK?” and helped scrape the bits of shrimp and corn out of Napoleon Dynamite’s hair.  I righted tables, picked up chairs.  Cranked down umbrellas, collected bev naps.  I would’ve offered him my stylist’s card, but I didn’t want to seem overly selfless. Anyway, it was the highlight of my day, seeing someone’s life in shambles like that.  Not life-threatening or permanently catastrophic—just those 10 minutes or so of ruin. 

And so, to all you detractors who think I couldn’t survive in the wild or be of any help in your post-apocalyptic community, or that I’d snap my gum, roll my eyes, and saunter away if I ever found myself on ‘What Would You Do?’, I am a good fucking Samaritan, and I shouldn’t have to wait till last to get picked for your disaster team.  You’re welcome. 

The Weekly Walk With Me

Love it or hate it, mainstream radio is like a certain comfort food.  Just like Memaw's daytime stories, you can turn it off for five years, come back, and still recognize the main characters.  It doesn't even have to be throwback Thursday.  Which always makes me wonder what will happen to golden oldies one day, and on what sort of format will the eighties be played?  Until then...

10 (and then some) Radio Songs That Make Me Lose My Shit In The Car

Anything by Kanye. With the exception of Love Lockdown. That one's not really a rager. And I always find myself rapping the vulgarities over the radio edits. Yep-I just said "rapping".

Anything by Erasure. Anything.

All those Jay Z singles from that old Vol. 2 record. Just because it's fun to still hear them on white radio.