News from Austin.

I'm hiding out at Diane VonAustinberg's for a few days as part of my 2013 World Peace and Enchilada Tour, which will also include a flying visit to my family in Houston and a longer one to New Orleans as a reward for putting up with the flying monkeys that comprise my beloved relatives.

Diane is,of course, the consumate hostess, aside from trying to kill me on her treadmill by luring me up on it backwards, like some crazed OK Go video.*  We had delicious Mexican food tonight and look forward to tearing it up in various thrift shops tomorrow.  The thrill of other people's discarded crap!

*DVonA says:  I did nothing to lure Mr. P onto the treadmill ("I'm really getting quite good at this" he says, just before slipping off the end. "Except now I'm sort of dizzy.").  I have done nothing but give him excellent directions to my house, which he ignored and which resulted in him taking an hour-long tour of the Texas hill country. Now, back to Mr. P.

Lies, all lies.  Although I am sort of dizzy.  Maybe I should go lay down.  Also, when I demanded candy to assist in the creative process, Diane denied having any and offered dried apples instead.  How am I supposed to sling wit and wisdom with dried up apples?

Possibly more travel bulletins as they occur.

Wakie, Wakie.

About 3:00 AM the other night, I was drifting in that very pleasant twilight that combining a clean conscience with vicodin leads to and was heading towards snoozumsland when a dark figure appeared in my bedroom door and announced "PSST. Psst. Psst. Psssssst."

After I had finished screaming like a small, scared girl gifted with oversized lungs, I realized it was a drunken Secret Agent Fred.  Fred and our friend Stuart had last been seen hours earlier at some grimy Castro area bar and I had thought he was going to go back to his own house since a) that's where he and Stuart were staying and b) that's what he had said they were going to do.

Back in my boudoir, we traded bon mots consisting of tipsy giggles on Fred's part and threats of immediate, painful mayhem on mine.  I sent him off to his bedroom and lay seething in bed wondering how my cat Saki can leave everyone who comes to Thanksgiving dinner bleeding but can't guard me from one drunk poofter.

Fred was apologetic, sort of, the next day, although he did lean still towards the giggly, and asked why he had woken me.  I reminded him that after I had explained I was going to find a baseball bat and cave his skull in, the conversation had just petered out, so now we'll never know.  Pity really.  I mean, when the cops arrest me for manslaughter, isn't that going to be one of the first question they ask, too?

Fred wound up sleeping for 36 hours during which Stuart, who is visiting from Baltimore, moved out of Fred's place and into a schmancy hotel here because he had no idea what had happened to Fred and had started entertaining visions of visits to the morgue, poor thing.  Also, Fred lost his phone, AGAIN, during his drunken spree which almost makes up for scaring me, but I still plan on dropping Saki on his head the next time I find him unconscious.  Sleep with one eye open, bitch.

Why can't something like this appear late at night in my bedroom?  With a can of cashews?

Hoofing It Down to the Land of Dreamy Dreams

Secret Agent Fred and I have decided to invade New Orleans for Mardi Gras, 2014.  I know the last time I went there for Carnival, I swore I wouldn't go again because visiting the madness is so much less fun than actually living there for it, but I've reached an age when repeating my mistakes is a charming quirk, so here we go.

First step: make hotel reservations, which is not easy during the highest of high seasons.  Second step: wonder if simply buying a house there wouldn't be cheaper, considering what hotel rooms run during Mardi Gras.  Third step:  start sopping for shoes for my costume.

Footwear has always been problematic for me and my costumes.  I get all the other pieces together and suddenly my Converse tennis shoes are just not cutting it.  Even if I don't do drag, I might still want to wear high heels, cause they're so gay.   Still, you'd be surprised how puny is the selection of ladies size 15 pumps.

And how ugly they are.

I'm thinking about boots and am willing to consider input from you guys.

The fucsia, third from Right, are particularly fetching

Brooding about my feet just reminds me of a long ago Southern Decadence when I was back there for a visit and had to rustle up something in a hurry.

My friend Rich let me borrow his red wig (I know not everyone can pull off that Titianesque shade, I'm just lucky that I can really rock it)

and that tired old Merry Widow bustier has long been my go-to for a quick get up, but even with fishnets, the whole thing sort of skids to a sorry halt with those white mules, which Rich described as "Nancy Nurse on vacation."  Bitch.

That same giddy afternoon included a tragedy when another friend, Cow Queen, accidentally knocked off my wig (at least, he claims it was an accident) outside some not-very-nice bar on Rampart Street.  I certainly was not going to take that and so, CATFIGHT, which thrilled onlookers no end.

Later he tried to suck up, but between a wig on the sidewalk and those shoes, I was just mortified.

That's why I'm leaning towards boots, boots with which I can kick the shit out of somebody.

What do you think?

Out of the Darkness

So I meant to post on Wednesday, Sept. 25 that it was the fifth anniversary of my wedding to R Man, but before I could get around to it, the power went out, so instead Secret Agent Fred and I wandered around the house, lighting candles and tripping on things.

I was going to whine about living without R Man, but you know what?  I don't want to.  I'm doing better now than when he died then and I expect to continue that way.  Instead of writing some droopy, sad little post about missing R Man, I went to bed early.

Then this afternoon, I took Saki down to get his claws clipped on Castro while I went across the street to get my own nails done at Handjob.  I don't know why he pretends manicures are so traumatic, I like them.

I have no idea what's going on in the photo above.  I just find it amusing.

A Quiet Evening

Secret Agent Fred appeared and we went out for drinks and vicodin at the Glass Coffin, drinks served by Fred's friend, the luscious Speros.

Tragically, this does not begin to show the beauty of Speros.  If you add the circumference of his biceps, they would probably exceed his tiny little waist.  Bitch.

I had just picked up the Vikeys so they were fresh, the weather was warm and cute boys were swarming all over the Castro.  A good time was had by all.

We wandered home and sat down for a game I like to call "What Does the Internet Have to Say?"  Each of us takes turns showing the other what fresh hell the web has proffered us lately.  Fred had me watch several videos by a hip hop duo from South Africa called Die Antwoord who rap in some gibberish mix of English and Afrikaans and, for all I know, Morse code.  It is not entertainment geared towards those of us amused by Noel Coward.  Nevertheless, I still thought it was pretty funny, mostly because of these incredibly white South African kids flashing gang signs and attitude and fashion that would have been perfectly at home in Compton, circa 1990.

Fred taking a short, unauthorized nap on the floor of the mrpeeneee International Command Centre and Communications Department. 

For my part, I introduced Fred to the genius of Slow Ass Jolene, the Dolly Parton classic slowed down considerably, which comes out sounding astonishingly like ballad singin' dude, perfectly in pitch, even the harmonies.  It is amazing.  Even if, or especially if, you don't like Dolly, you should listen to it.

Also, I can't remember where this came to my attention.  If one of you guys posted it first, I want to say thanks and apologize for not sharing credit.

After that, naturally, the evening devolved into a porn fest.  Fred shared A Bearded Boy , some slightly deranged gay lad who is nasty and cheerful as all hell about it.

Spooge happens.

Subsequent unguided and possibly unhinged wanderings from one site to another turned up what we both voted as the winner of the evening:

I have no information about him, I can only imagine this shot shows him locking the door against the clamoring throngs outside.  Who can blame them?

Caperless

I like heist movies, like The Thomas Crowne Affair, or The Italian Job, or Rififi, or Inception, any complicated caper that involves split second timing and completely unbelievable coincidences and high speed car chases through a mid-town Manhattan with amazingly light traffic.  Or a naked Jason Statham.  Especially a naked Jason Statham.

So I settled in to watch Now You See Me happily enough and after it was over thought "What the fuck was that?  Can I have my ninety minutes back, please?"  Turns out, no.

I understand all of this genre requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief (again, Manhattan car chases with no traffic.  Yep.  Okay.) but Now You See Me takes this to another plane, sort of a willing assumption of simple mindedness.  The obligatory car chase turns out to have absolutely no purpose in the movie.  There is no reason the crooks indulge in it, it does nothing for the plot (or "plot") and the reveal of how the crooks structured it is just ludicrous.  It involves Woody Harrelson driving a city bus full of commuters who apparently don't notice there is a car attached to the bus.  With a convenient dead guy in it.

It's all very slick and the cast is nice looking

Dave Franco, James Franco's little brother, who simply disappears for a big chunk of the movie.  Maybe he found something better to do.

Mark Ruffalo, who was cute, in a fresh-out-of-rehab sort of way.

but let me emphasize the main adjective here is "ludicrous."

One of minor points I found the most irritating turns on the cops being able to find a hotel room in New Orleans at Mardi Gras because they have an Interpol chick who speaks French and, naturlement, being able to do so is a big plus in the Big Easy.  I lived there a long time and ran into plenty of natives who apparently could not speak English, but not because they were Francophones.  I know it was a French colonial town, but so were St. Louis and Detroit and nobody expects them to roll out fluency in French.

And no naked Jason Statham.  I mean, really, what's the point?

Ironic Hair

Polk Street is an odd San Francisco thoroughfare.  It runs through several very schmancy neighborhoods and yet it manages to be shabby.  Castro is the more well known gay center, but Polk was the original gay ghetto.  We lived near it and I got to know it well enough to realize every block had a liquor store, a dry cleaner, a cheap diner and a gay bar.  Every block.  A very short hop down from the center of what was the rentboy stroll is the front door of City Hall.  It's San Francisco, there's not a lot of room to spread out.

But the last decade of skyrocketing rents has routed pretty much every bohemian or louche or plain old funky neighborhood and Polk Street is no exception.  Almost all the old gay hustler bars have given way to guys with oversized glasses and teeny tiny hats drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.

It's Hipsterland: expensive, ironic and grimy.

Pretty much I don't care, they got to go someplace, I suppose, but this week my barber called to say his back had given out and I needed my hair cut and somehow I wound up at the People's Barbershop on Polk at Bush Street.

A temple to hipster's fetish of guy-ism with a hearty dash of steampunk thrown in for decor, if it was any more hip, I would have been issued a monocle and a wool vest.  Who am I kidding, if it was any more hip, I would have been barred at the door.

So now I have a $60 haircut I don't like.  The sides are fine, but the top has sort of a poufy roll which, considering how little hair I have to work with, is pretty amazing.  I look sort of like Julie Harris in Member of the Wedding, but not as attractive.  Or butch.