48 years ago, Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics to “When I’m 64,” and today, he turns 64.
Blame It on Bill Irwin
Last night, after hearing from one of my preview readers that the first chapters of my new book come off as dispassionate, I sat around a little overwhelmed, a little frustrated, & a little sad. Not because she was wrong, but because she was right, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I couldn’t work on the manuscript at that moment because I wanted to burn it, so I put on PBS just in time to catch a documentary* about Bill Irwin. For those of you who don’t know who he is, you might have seen him as “The Flying Man” who fell in love with Marilyn on Northern Exposure (oh, how I miss that show), or you might remember him from that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” video that was played to death. It’s less likely that you saw The Regard of Flight (which was one of PBS’ Great Performances series), or his Broadway shows, Largely New York and Fool Moon. But you should have.
A Buster Keaton fan can’t help but love Bill Irwin, for the obvious reasons, but this Damfino just loves that there’s someone around to make me laugh. Being the somewhat hyper-verbal type that I am, I don’t find a lot of intellectual humor very funny. Mostly I think it’s mean-spirited, actually. But a pratfall or a spittake done well gets me every time. A pratfall with a good reason behind it is even better. Hat tricks rule, in general.
The documentary ended with them interviewing Irwin himself about becoming an older clown – pratfalls and physical humor aren’t easy – and he talked about what he might or might not do as a “retired clown.” But what he said that hit me between the eyes is that being an artist is largely about what’s inside you, & looking at that honestly, and then telling the story.
The timing was impeccable. I’m not really excited about the idea, because I’d much rather hide more and show less. It’s so much easier to be pedantic, but so much more boring, and so much less useful. So I’ll forge ahead, pull out my spleen, and see what comes of it.
But I’m blaming Bill Irwin for the whole terrific mess.
* And whatever you do, don’t read that awful essay on the PBS site about the documentary. It’s exactly not the introduction you want. Honestly, the Bobby McFerrin video would do you better. I’m particularly fond of the Northern Exposure episodes, but I loved that show too. What you really want is to see The Regard of Flight, which you can buy here.
Dear Mike
Dear Mike Papantonio,
Enough with the ‘Anne Coulter as transsexual’ crap, please. I work with transwomen all the time and believe me, the trans community doesn’t want her.
But the thing is, you’re sinking to her stupid levels by insulting her that way. Whether or not she’s masculine or feminine doesn’t matter; what matters is that she’s full of hate, opportunism, and idiocy.
There are some damned cool trans people in the world, and some damned cool masculine women, neither of whom wants to be insulted by being compared to or having anything in common with Anne Coulter.
Helen Boyd
author, My Husband Betty
Rufus Does Judy
A couple of nights ago I went to see Rufus Wainwright perform Judy Garland’s 1961 concert at Carnegie Hall — at Carnegie Hall. For whatever reason I was kind of dreading going; I don’t know why, but my best guess is that the show just got too much hype beforehand. Betty opted out of going pretty early, so my very good friend and downstairs neighbor (who was a friend long before moving in downstairs) came with me. He’s both a Rufus and Judy fan. We were seated quite far away from Sarah Jessica Parker, but quite close to Justin Bond, which seemed quite a propos.
I may have been one of the only 100% Rufus fans there; I’d never heard the 1961 concert, which I suppose makes me a very bad faghag indeed. In the weeks leading up to it, I thought about listening, but decided not to. I would probably be one of the few who wouldn’t be comparing it to the original, and I kind of liked that.
Rufus has one hell of a singing voice. The songs where he could belt them out I love especially. In fact, I’ve been wanting him to do a recording of standards, because I love so many of those old songs and I love his voice. Finally, he’s taken my advice.
In a Time Out interview, he mentioned how singing “The Trolly Song” from Meet Me In St. Louis would probably be that gayest onstage moment of his life. Oh, and it was!
Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings
– as we started for Huntington Dell.
I didn’t see it so much as a gay seance (as the TONY journalist put it) but almost like a finishing touch to an era of gay awareness, and hopefully the beginning of a new one. As my friend said, on our way home, “The next generation doesn’t need Judy the way we did,” and while I think he’s right, I also think it’s a shame. We wondered too if there were as many gay men there that night in ’61 as there were tonight, and then wondered if maybe the only difference might have been that more of them are known to be gay now.
I’m glad at least that Rufus will be around to introduce this new generation of gay men to these songs he grew up singing, because some of them are not only touching, but sexy, and triumphant – and just remarkably pretty melodies with perfect lyrics. From what I hear, the event was filmed, so I expect both a movie version of the concert (probably with footage from both performances) and a CD of the music. Hopefully, anyway.
Other reviews can be found in my Rufus Wainwright thread on the boards.
Study: Aeneas
I took a series of my lovely, patient Aeneas recently, & I’ll be sharing them over the next weeks.
Here’s his right eyeball, for starters.
Tiger Balm, Cat Balm
A word to the wise: if you should ever have an ailing shoulder, knee or wrist, please take care to wash your hands thoroughly before playing with yourself.
Please Donate
If you can, please donate to help us keep doing what we do. Thanks to all of you who have contributed in the past.
Just Because
I took this the other night, and I’m quite pleased with myself for having taken a photo of Betty that Betty likes. It’s a rare deed. That and dang she’s cute.
"Man Laws" Ads Force Woman To Hunt Down Ad Execs – Story at 11.
As if Anne Coulter hadn’t pissed me off enough, I ended up seeing coverage of the crap she’s spouting inbetween offensive commericals.
(1) The Tostitos commercial, where three guys are looking out the window eating Tostitos and commenting on the work gang below, and how three guys standing around and one guy working wouldn’t cut it in the corporate world. They pull back the camera to reveal a woman working feverishly on a laptop, who then announces, “I got it” and while the guys are high-fiving, she smiles weakly.
Fucking hysterical.
2) Then there’s the “Man Laws” of Miller Lite, which, I kid you not, has been written up by The New York Times as an attempt to atone for the “catfight” commercial they did a couple of years ago.
Are they shitting me? One of the “Man Laws” is that men only clink bottles toward the bottom, as otherwise their saliva might mix and Burt Reynolds claims that would “qualify as a kiss.” WTF?! How exactly is this supposed to be better than two women wrestling over “tastes great / less filling”?!
I can’t even talk about the “you poke it, you own it” one.
Betty is watching the NBA finals, too, which means I’m going to hear this crap every freaking time a game is on. Did someone say Worst of Both Worlds? Except this is like worst of all worlds, now: Betty en femme, drinking beer, watching sports, while sexist, idiotic commercials play. Woohoo. I’m loving life, really.
1st Preview of She's Not the Man I Married
I thought I’d put up a little preview of some stuff I’ve been writing for my next book. You know, just for fun. I can’t promise anything I put up here will end up in the final, though.
This excerpt is taken from Chapter 1 – Girl Meets Boy:
There’s an old standby in the crossdressing community, a line that crossdressers tend to use on their wives, that goes: “But I’m the same person underneath.†The wife, who is standing there looking at a person who sounds like her husband and who might look like him somewhere under the wig and breast forms and press-on nails, tries to parse what exactly that’s supposed to mean. She’s suspicious that her husband is trying to blow smoke up her ass, the same as a husband who might come up with an ingenious reason why he had to spend his weekend fishing instead of shopping for new sofa upholstery. She might look at him, adjust his wig, and then sigh and take him shopping.
Others just balk.
Some women are just smarter than me, I think, and when they first heard that line, they ran for the hills. Likewise for the ones who hightail it when they hear their husbands say, “I’ve always imagined what it would be like to have breasts,†or “When I was young, I always wished I was Susie Perkins.†They call a lawyer, they get custody of the children, and they wish their future ex-husbands well, but want no part of it. Not me. I didn’t believe in gender; gender wasn’t important.