Bye, Ruth and Mike!

My friends Ruth and Mike have moved back to NC after four years in NYC. You know what that means: time for another piece of film-making from yours truly. Ruth, Mike, we'll miss you terribly. I can't believe you're leaving me here alone with Jimmy.

Interesting Juxtapositions

You know one fascinating thing about having an online presence? Finding out what kind of hot-mess freaks visit your site and/or buy your book. On occasion I troll through my blogger stats and see who has dropped by and nothing fills me with more validation/doubt about how I'm spending my time than to see that someone in Indonesia has arrived at my blog by typing into Google the words "penis festival naked man" or that some poor soul in Wasilla landed here by searching for "sarah palin hot wax nun." (That person was probably Todd Palin.)

Anyway, as you all know I've got a book for sale up at ye olde Amazon site, and you also know that Amazon makes some helpful suggestions sometimes of things you might want to consider also buying at the same time that you buy mine or things that other folks have viewed in addition to mine. Such as, oh, I don't know, The Dogtown Chronicles, Our Life and Times with Sheep, Goats, Llamas, and Other Creatures by Doris Ober or Second Blooming for Women: Growing a Life That Matters After Fifty. (Go on, click the picture above.)

I love this. I always figured that my most likely readers fell into one of three camps: (A) friends, (B) bored Palm Springs poolboys, or (C) Victorian housewives with deep dark secrets. It's fun to find out that potential readers might also be menopausal women in need of some guidance, hippy dog lovers, tiger mothers, and, er, light cookers. Such nice people probably!

In conclusion, I can't believe people who have looked at my book's Amazon page haven't also checked out this book.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Gravity-Based Marriage Under Attack

So this is what the world o' marriage is coming to. For centuries human civilization has defined marriage as one man-one woman, on the ground. Now all of a sudden folks who are too good for the terra firma our mighty God provided for them want to subvert the dominant gravitational paradigm or whatever and get married in the air, where the laws of man can't reach them. But the laws of man come from God, and God can reach them no matter how high up in the air their devil's magic takes them.

I mean, what's next? A man on a flying motorcycle marrying a penguin on a porpoise? It could happen! It is our job as strict constructionists to feverishly regulate behavior that the Constitution doesn't say anything about, because that's what the Founding Fathers would have wanted, according to the Glenn Beck program. Because what—besides gravity, God, and our faith in our most important and unchanging institutions—is keeping us all from hurling into space and crashing-landing at the event-horizon wedding of a cross-dressing Martian and his bride, a black hole?

Gravity-based marriage, that's what.

I Think This Is the Gayest Piece of Mail I've Ever Received (and I Was Once in the Nell Carter Fan Club)

You could be forgiven for thinking that, because I'm so famous, I get letters from Bette Midler all of the time. This is not true, though. I almost never get letters from Bette Midler. So it was with great excitement that I opened my mailbox yesterday to discover "A Special Invitation from Bette Midler" addressed to me in La Bette's hard-to-reading chicken-scratch handwriting, but you can just about make out my name in the center of the letter. And yes, that text you see down at the bottom left says "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert - The Musical." Could this epistle get any more gay? I was almost afraid to open it, because the contents of a letter like this could very possibly take over your life and demand much more from you than you are willing to give. And it might explode sticky pink cottonball confetti all over your face.

So anyway, what's inside?!



Hmm. Not sure how you take a journey to an adjective. Can you take a trip to tragic? An expedition to insulin-dependent? A sojorn to sloppy? A venture to voracious? Ok, I've just convinced myself you can, because I've done all of these things. But what about this show? Will it burn down the Palace Theater with its flameage? Will it involve high-altitude injuries like Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark? And which drag queen is Bette Midler playing? (Oh, she's just producing.)

I'll totally go to this show if someone buys me a ticket.

Secret Internet Pictures: My Friends Having Drinks with Brooke Shields

I am a very loyal friend and will always respect the wishes of those who have trusted me with their biggest secrets. I've never once spilled the beans about my friend Chloe's crabs. Or the fact that my friend Punami once killed a man for his sari. And I have never, ever breathed a word about my dear, dear friend Opal's bogus palm-reading business. She's siphoned thousand and thousands of dollars out of desperate unsuspecting people without a peep from me!

Anyway, another friend of mine that I'll call Sid and her husband Nancy recently had drinks with their friend who knows Brooke Shields, and they all had a grand time. Sid sent me a picture of them, along with a message saying "Don't put this on the Internet." Obviously she didn't want to risk ruining their blossoming friendship with the woman who gave the world The Blue Lagoon and "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins." I understand this and want to respect her wishes. But I also want to put this picture on the Internet! So I reached the above compromise, and I think it's a good one.

I'm hoping for an autographed copy of 1980 Christopher Atkins, is my point.

Vestments Update: They Now Come in Green!

Like all of you, I sometimes find myself walking the freezing New York streets in the middle of winter, clad in the drab clothing I used to wear in the mines, desperate for the warm glow of some reassuring fashion. And there is no clothing more glamorous and reassuring than vestments, am I right? Which is why I was so thrilled to come upon the above window display on 7th Avenue. Have you ever seen a saucier display of liturgical garments? No, you haven't.

I can't tell you the number of times I've opened my closet door in the morning and looked in vain for a cassock-and-stole vestment combo that didn't make me weep with boredom. Not anymore. This store on "Fashion Avenue" has made my winter a little bit warmer. Because I hear they also have lycra Mormon temple garments and yamulkes made of chocolate.

Crazy Blue Furry Offers Any Tom, Dick, or Harry a "Bouncy Ride" at the Lorimer L Stop

Ah, the Lorimer L Subway Station--it's where things happen. You know how you're getting really f-ing tired of riding the subway every day but you've been forced to leave your tricycle at home and spelunk down to the L train for the past few weeks because of the snow-smothered streets? Well, sometimes being forced to ride in a diseased underground aluminum can with a slew of other human sardines allows you to witness poetry in motion upon alighting at your destination. To wit: this random blue furry bouncing around on a bench and startling me as I looked up from my Philip K. Dick book that features a book that tells the future and which probably foretold the arrival of a bouncy blue furry but I missed it. (Also the cover is blue... Coincidence?!). This furry held a sign saying "Free Bouncy Rides," naturally, but unfortunately he wouldn't stop bouncing long enough for me to get a decent picture.

So did anyone take him up on his offer? To bounce? And ride?

Not to my knowledge. But I haven't finished the book yet, so who knows?