And They're Off

Secret Agent Fred and I went out for drinks this afternoon. I stopped drinking in 1980 and only started again, rather timidly, a few years ago. I still stick with one drink, partially because that's all it takes to get me loaded and mostly because more than that and I turn into a nasty drunk. Not nice.

Anyway, we had fallen into a shabby joint called Martuni's that's marooned in a no man's land between downtown and the Castro. It's the sort of comfortably unattractive place you can stay for an hour or so complaining the whole time "This place is a dump." Decoration is squarely in the camp of fussy old queens from the Nancy Reagan school and the waiter we always get is surly. And yet, it's where we wind up.

Today they had a special "Electric Lemonade" so of course, I ordered one based on my theory that if you only have one drink, it might as well be ridiculous. Surprisingly, this turned out to be rather tasty. As I told Fred, "Looks like anti-freeze, tastes like fruit punch."

All of this bacchanal was sort of in the way of warm-up. Fred and I are off for a vacation in New Orleans next week and the always attractive Diane von Austinburg will join us there. I suppose middle-aged shenanigans will follow. Also, I'm hoping to visit with that blogger of bloggers, Jason from Night is Half Gone. I could promise to post updates from my travels (we're also going to hit Austin while we're out on the road,) but I know that's a lie, so I'll just say adieu for now and ask you to check back April 14 for all the fascinating details I can make up.

In the meantime, here's my new favorite pretend boyfriend, Sadik Hadzovic .

Remember

Gaystrology

I'm pretty sure I have no truck with astrology. After all, my own birthday is the day after that of R Man's father, and that poisonous old fart was the nastiest iceberg of toxic waste I have ever met so maybe it's just that I hope there is nothing to the notion that the heavens rule our spirits.

There may be, though, an overlooked horoscope sign: the Gay Icon. In the less than four week spread between mid March and early April we have

Liza Minelli, March 12. "Hold it together, Minelli."

Joan Crawford, March 23. "Don't fuck with me boys."

Aretha Franklin, March 25 (seen here in her short run Yes, I Skinned Big Bird, Whatcha Gonna Do About It Bitches? cabaret act.)

Diana Ross, March 26. "I'm just gonna run down to the corner for some 40's and then I'll be ready for another goddam chorus of Toss Me in the Morning."

Bette Davis, April 5. “I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.”

If only Judy Garland (June 10, bizarrely enough) were in the mix, we could rename the whole thing as Mary Month and be done with it.

In Which Standards are Lowered and then Come Back

I realize I'm treading on dear Thombeau's Redundant Variety Hour territory here, but bear with me.

Here, in 1965, the Supremes wow 'em at the Hollywood Palace with an actual live, rather than lip synch version of Stop in the Name of Love, one of mrpeenee's longtime faves. It's rather leisurely paced, but I suppose that's to be expected with an intro by Tony Randall.

Note that even though the girls have obviously been run through the Motown charm school machine (such ladylike dresses and modest little heels. And such hair!) they still seem to actually be enjoying themselves. Note also, Miss Ross's eyebrows have not yet been fully tamed and lend themselves to her goo goo googly mugging.

Then a short year later and the girls are back, tweezers having been rolled out and some of the lamest lip synching ever. Keep Me Hangin On is notable because in the third chorus (at about 1:47 here) Diana amazingly hands off the lead to Flo. It's just for one line, but still.... You'd never know it from this video because the camera stays on Diana even as she pretends to sing Ooh ooh Ooh ooh Ooh.

But do you love the tangerine and hotpink sequins? What else can there be? I'll tell you what: SHOWTUNES! Cause white people love show tunes.

In 1967, the girls are back, live again, Flo having been kicked to the curb (Bye! Let's have a big hand for Cindy!) with their pschodelica Reflections. Having conquered her eyebrows, make up now launches a full out attack on Diana's eyeliner, possibly with a can of radiator paint.

And then, more showtunes!

Focus Darling, Focus

This is my life in the shell of a nut: I just spent much too long crawling around on the floor of my tastefully decorated bathroom trying to find an ativan I dropped on the white marble tiles, which, while I think beautiful, are the perfect camouflage for a small white pill, all the while Saki the cat, agitated by a really bad youtube video of the 2009 Night of a Thousand Stevies drag show, darts around trying to figure out what the game is.

Really, the only thing missing was porn.

Yes. Yes, That's Right, Yes.

mrpeenee is of an odd age. At 57 years, I am exactly in the middle, the very median, of the Baby Boomers. We invented the world, you know.

Still, my odd age means I am (just barely) young enough to have missed out on really being a hippie since the high water mark of that golden era was 1969 when I was being tortured as a big sissy in junior high. By the time I escaped to college, all things hippie-ish were sort of stale and fading in the rear view mirror. Disco and cocaine and Saturday Night Live had all entered with a bullet and were moving up fast, but my contemporaries and I were sort of musically stranded as teenagers. What were Billboard's Top Ten songs the year I graduated high school?

1. Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree » Tony Orlando & Dawn

2. Bad Bad Leroy Brown » Jim Croce

3. Killing Me Softly With His Song » Roberta Flack

4. Let's Get It On » Marvin Gaye

5. My Love » Paul McCartney & Wings

6. Why Me » Kris Kristofferson

7. Crocodile Rock » Elton John

8. Will It Go Round In Circles » Billy Preston

9. You're So Vain » Carly Simon

10. Touch Me In The Morning » Diana Ross

Dear god. No wonder I was so glad when punk rock and then New Wave finally showed up.

Nevertheless, there were some saving graces, wildly divergent though they may have been. I loved the bass heavy funk that eventually morphed into disco even if I was way too white, David Bowie (god love her,) and the Who.

Also, the bizarre musical noodling of Yes. Heeheehee, so self-important and ridiculous. I've been listening to them again this afternoon, wondering who I was forty years ago and struck once again by the wonderful illustrations involved in their cover art. The world may or may not have improved, but trading twelve inch album covers for bits of memory on a hardrive still seems harsh to me.

In a Wringer. And Back Again

Since this is going to be yet another long, whingy post, I've decided to liven things up with various houseboy pictures, since that's what you're really here for, isn't it? Isn't it?

So today was mammogram day. Yay! And I actually made it to the appointment because at the last second I realized Daylight Savings Stupid Time had started and the world was an hour earlier than I thought it was. "Why does the computer have a different time than all the other clocks? Oh. Oops." Again, Yay!

Plus you need plenty of time to get from my house to MammogramLand since San Francisco's quaint street layout requires a series of major, seemingly unrelated doglegs to do so. Up around the shoulder of Twin Peaks (SF's highest point and a serious roadblock to getting to plenty of places,) down through Haight Ashbury (nexus of all things hippie and free love-ish and, now, grimy,) a quick hook through the weird neighborhood that claims to be "Golden Gate Heights" but which everyone here calls "Over Behind Kaiser" (home of San Francisco's Catholic university, one of the many, many locales mrpeenee delivered some of his many, many, many speeches on How to Start a Business, but the only one where I actually told someone in the audience "Shut up. Just. Shut. Up." Yeah, the fact that I was able to retire rather than being fired long ago amazes me too.) and then, Titlandia.

But I got there and after being processed in by the entirely brainless chicklet who addressed me as "Miss Marshall," answering a long questionnaire printed with copious amounts of pink ink and which asked me a lot of impertinent questions about my period, the whole thing turned out to be a breeze. I suppose if I was one of them gals with big, juicy Lady Bags, squishing them down flat would have been a problem, but I'm not, so it wasn't. I've had rougher tit play on a date. Or "date." Then the doctor cheerfully announced "You probably don't have cancer." Yet again, Yay! Although I would have preferred a little more emphasis on "don't" and less on "probably," but that's just how she read her lines.

I know from bitter experience with R Man's heath issues the time to press for details is while you have the doctor in your sweaty grasp and before she can palm you off on the next specialist in line. But I have to hand it to sister doctor, she was not having it. Despite my best efforts all she did was retreat further and further into weasel language: "probably" became "possibly" and then morphed into "maybe." Arrgh. "You maybe don't have cancer." Really? You went to medical school for that, did you? I could do that good with a Magic 8 Ball and a bottle of vodka.

Then, because all specialists like to spread the wealth around, she referred me on to a surgeon, and be quick about it, no messing around, chop chop. (You get it? It's a joke, "go to the surgeon" "Chop chop?" Oh, never mind.) I know I should have clarified that this was not for breast augmentation, but I just wanted to get home to Saki and my vicodin, so I let it drop.

So now, more tit work! Once and for all, Yay!

Show Us Your Tits

Fucking irony. I knew putting up a post about how fabulous I was and how I had triumphed over my old job was asking for karmic trouble, but I vaguely thought it would take longer than this. Less than twelve hours after I posted about how my old job was cracking up without me (below,) I was sitting in my doctor's office mentioning how my nipple has been hurting for a while. After he squeezed on it (ouch,) he announced, with a perfectly straight face, that I had to have a mammogram.

Have I mentioned, or at least implied in the past, that I am a male? If not, let me make clear, I AM A BOY. Boy parts, boy plumbing, pee standing up, the whole bit. So whenever I have read stories about mammograms, I have winced in sympathy, but a tiny, unworthy part of me would still think "Well at least I don't have to look forward to that." Hah. In fact, hahahah.

Also, my whole adult life I have been self-concious about being so flat chested. I always longed for big slabs o' pecs like the mens I lusted after.

Instead I look a lot like Miss Jane.

Maybe not even that good. To now go from having concave tits to googling "breast cancer, men" so very much not what I had in mind.

My research so far has turned up "Mammograms: they shove your tit between two pieces of plexiglass and mash them together. Probably hurts." Also, don't wear deodorant. OK, check. And try not to go during your period. Uhhhhhm, again, OK, check.

I know, I know, our sisters have had to regularly put up with this and I am a whiny putz for complaining, but I have no titties. What, exactly, are they going to mash down on? I suppose that's just something for the techs to worry about.

In Which the Well Runs Dry

Yet another post in which I reveal how very small I really am. Perhaps you may recall that I used to work for the Small Business Administration, before I slipped their leash last year by retiring. An important component of my job was running the classes we had for ingrate entrepreneurs. It was very much like being a producer; I would finagle small business people and other experts into volunteering to teach the classes, then organize the details, the room, the marketing, the registration, the attendees, the clean-up. More than 400 classes a year, about two classes every single fucking day. I now understand the main part of my job was worrying about those details, no wonder I was cranky.

Last week, I ran into one of the guys I had used as a teacher and without prompting, he launched into a bitter screed about how the whole thing is going to hell in a shabby handbag. Attendance is way down, since now no one is doing any marketing, no new class topics, and my former colleagues seem baffled and surly when the volunteer teachers show up.

I suppose I should be concerned that my former baby is struggling, but I all I felt was smug and gratified. We have all been there, haven't we? Slogging along in a literally thankless job and thinking "They'd be sorry if I wasn't here," but knowing, really, that we're just replaceable cogs and that things could stumble along just fine without us.

Hah. Not this time. Take me for granted much? Suck it bitches. How immensely flattering.

I think I'll take a nap with the houseboys to celebrate.