Billie's Holiday

In honor of the divine Lady Day's 100th, here's a little quiz.

What do Billie and I have in common?

a. Both sing a mean "Lover Man" in the shower.
b. both portrayed on the silver screen by Diana Ross.
c. Both photographed by legendary photographer Herman Leonard
d. That pesky heroin habit.
e. A and C


image via jonnodotcom

St. Sade's Day

Today, it seems, is the feast day of Our Lady of Perpetual Cool, St. Sade Adu herself.

Seems 56 or so years ago, she wafted down from heaven to make the world a little bit better.
(Thanks to fellow worshiper, Thom, for the reminder)

I think if a gun were held to my head and I had to choose but one of her songs as my favorite (horror!), I just might have to pick this one.
There are others, less obvious ones, but if I had to choose, I would have to choose this one, from the songs that first seduced my little ears.

The video is also a favorite of mine, so soignee it makes me ache. Good God, but I want to live whenever and wherever she is in this video. How do I get there???

Anyway, here it is.  I'll be playing it tonight like a cassingle you have to wind back up with a pencil because it's been played it too many times

À la recherche du porn perdu....

Sometimes, in my relentless pursuit of  porn    artistic images 
I stumble upon one that I remember all too vividly from that misty water-colored pubescent era, the time before porn. Ah memories....

 Here are a few that seared themselves into my little psyche.

Formative images, each one.  I'm sure you all have your own.

I remember this well, especially Mr. Burgundy Briefs there

And then there's this Cowboy, whose underwear looks to my adult eyes, like photoshop.  Was it painted on?

And well, gee, lookee here. Here he is again.  With a hat!

And then there's this. Oh, how often I dreamed of such a conversation to happen in my future! I mean, not enough to buy Paco Rabanne or anything, but still....

And then there's good old Jim here.  The most I ever probably cared about baseball...or dacron.

Paris

This is one of the very first paintings I ever painted.

I must have been eight or nine at the time. It is supposed to be a Paris street scene, namely, St. Germain de Pres.
I had copied a picture out of a magazine and fancifully changed it up a bit.
I was entranced by the name St. Germain, one of my family names.

It's surreal to be going to Paris, when it's a place that I've literally dreamed about for years.
The dreams are always the best ones I have...(unlike the one in which I realize I'm having a test, and I haven't been to class in a month).

In the Paris dreams, I'm wandering around the Louvre, or wandering around the city at night. It's all very cliche. There's no plot to speak of, just calm.
From early childhood, I think, Paris has always been a symbol to me for something, not sure what, but I think it's something good.



Anyway, by the time this posts, we'll be hopefully on our way. Wish us luck!

adventures in iPhoning

This past weekend, having nothing better to do, I decided to take Michael up on his suggestion of a short road trip to our state's capital, scintillating Baton Rouge. I, one of the huddled iPhone-less masses, got a glimpse into the future. And the future is in iPhone.

It sure ain't in Louisiana.

I met up with him at the chief attraction of the city, The Mall of Louisiana (pictured above...ha.) He had driven in from Lafayette. We met up with his friend Todd, who lives there. The three of us had lunch at some very collegiate place near LSU where the entire crowd seemed fixated on the World Cup.

Michael used his iPhone "Vuvuzela app" (tm) to make some noise. Really, one day the iPhone will replace everything. It needs to replace the state capitol right now probably.

Not quite knowing what to do in Baton Rouge, we ended up at the Louisiana State Capitol. It seemed the patriotic thing to do....or something like that, right?

We all went up to the top. Michael asked me to take his picture up there with his miraculous iPhone. Todd and I refused to have our photos taken. He took them anyway.

None of us had been there (the state capitol) since grade school. I fondly remember an hour long trip on a greyhound when I was in 4th grade where I watched Colleen McDermott eat three successive boogers.
It was very educational.

I'm sure it was the first tall building I'd ever been in then. It is a beautiful building, beautiful art deco, at least the lobby and the chambers are, but Bobby Jindal or Edwin Edwards or whoever the hell our governor is nowadays really needs to do something about the embarrassing state of disrepair the rest of the place is in. I mean seriously, cardboard on the elevator floors? Is this state that brokedown? Never mind.

All in all, the place was rather disappointing. They've even covered the bullet holes from Huey Long's assassination with a big ugly case of Long memorabalia...zzzzzzzzz....what memorabilia is more interesting than a bullet hole??
Anyway, the case didn't prevent us from seeking them out and putting our fingers in them.


More interesting than the Capitol's interior was its parking lot. As we were leaving, I noticed a woman with a bouquet standing in behind a white truck. I half thought she was going to place it on Huey Long's tomb. Someone had already decorated it with a bouquet of red white and blue for the fourth. But then I noticed a bride (her daughter?) in the back of the truck, sitting uncomfortably in her gown.

"Hey, there's a gun in the truck," Michael notices.

Uh....we then left.

I couldn't invent a more perfect tableau to represent our fair state than this if I tried.


Later, still not knowing what to do, we took a trip to see Mike the Tiger, the sainted mascot of LSU. I'd never been. There was a tiger sleeping in the heat.
Very anticlimactic. Still, there were twice as many people there than at the capitol.

Again, this ought to tell you pretty much everything you'd ever need to know about this state.

We went back to Todd's house, where somehow or another ok, ok, so I suggested he do it Michael gave dramatic readings of Tonya Harding fan fiction porn from his IPhone. Yes, I'm afraid, you read that right.

There's no IPhone app for that....yet. I'm working on it.

I suggested we three each submit an entry. I haven't quite fleshed out my submission, but I know it would feature this sentence:
"Slowly she slid down her tight acid washed spandex ... even her glorious pubic bush was bleached blonde and crimped, with shellacked bangs...."


I still need to work on it a bit, but I'll get there.
oh, by the way, if you're a complete utter sicko wierdo (like Michael, not me, I swear, not me!) you can click here.

After having our appetites whetted by Tonya Harding porn, we went to dinner, (where we had home fried potato chips with blue cheese as an appetizer...very good) and I got a tour of Robin and Bryan's new home....a complete walk through by iPhone of the entire place, even the yard. It's only a matter of time that the iPhone replaces houses too, I'm sure.

After dinner, I followed Michael back to Lafayette. What else did I have to do, right?
After lunch we visited his father, his brother and sister in law, and their six children. Michael offered to send his brother some games for the IPhone. Everyone in Lafayette has an iPhone it seems. His brother declined the games. I'm guessing you don't have much time to play games on the phone when you have 6 children under 10. Go figure.

What they do need there is a contract from TLC. Seriously. They put those Gosselins in the shade.

Later we took a trip through one of Lafayette's posher neighborhoods listening to
Radio Polska Stacja Internetowe on the ubiquitous iPhone. The machine never ceases to amaze. How else would we drive through Cajun country listening to Polish disco? How did people deal in the past? The only word, however, I could understand was "EEtahloh DeeSco". Apparently Milli Vanilli is still popular in Warsaw, and is considered "Italo-disco" Who knew?

Then I drove home.

I had to stop three, count em three, times to pee. Leave it to me to drink a bottle of water and a large diet coke before getting on the road.

When iPhone creates an app to let you pee from your car, I'll get one.

From my 16 year old closet again

What do you do when you're a bored sexually frustrated 16 year old gay boy in the suburbs with a love of naked women and no money?

You try to paint yourself a (botched up) Titian (and giggle at the name)...and begin a love affair with him that still lasts.

country

This weekend I took a little trip deep into the heart of Acadiana, Grand Coteau more specifically, where people speak French and the air smells of sweet green grass
and pork fat.
Idyllic.

View from the window of my cell, taken through the window screen.



Cows, out back

Cemetery, which made me re-evaluate my position on fake flowers. Something about seeing them en masse was beautiful.

Still life with Confederate flag and solar light: even the confederates are going eco-friendly.

LSU cup/grave vase.

in other words, Louisiana personified.

Jesus of the Water Tower.


The last supper, engraved and painted in factory baked auto enamel.

The church



Tombstone from the sad days before polychrome laser-engraved Last Suppers


My room in the asylum. college. Creepy no?

Boudin



Sweet dough pies from Breaux Bridge.


A specialty of Grand Coteau called Gateau Na Na, a sort of tart with a buttery crust and praline filling, that I'd never had before. I think the sugar content must have affected even my camera.

Victim of Boudin, c. 1861

K and B

So, seeing BrooksNYC's profile picture the other day made me wax nostalgic.

I doesn't take much.

I remember hating K&B (a once ubiquitous chain of New Orleanian drugstores, before Rite Aid etc, much like the nutria, invaded and destroyed its natural habitat)...but mainly because of that color.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, that
Of course this guy didn't win. Too arcane? Not gay enough? Too subtle? Too old?
Who knows.

My attitude with time has softened into nostalgia. That's how it often happens.
That purple and white, however, I still can't get behind.

Back in the day, you could, of course, buy anything you wanted there, from pencils which I (mortifyingly) had (clearly low on the school supply totem pole)

to vodka (which I did not have, but which would have been clearly been high on the school supply totem pole)





I remember the K&B at the mall, the big one. It had lunch counters, each table with its own little jukebox. The waitress would walk down an enclosed aisle to serve all the tables abutting the low wall. You could get a hamburger and fries....in a drug store. Can you imagine wanting to eat in a drug store now?
I barely want to get a pack of chips in one now.

cherchez

I don't remember most of my elementary school classmates' names. I barely remember my teachers. I do, however, remember about five minutes of an early evening in the fall three decades or so ago.

I was walking down the darkened hall, hurrying to the safety of my bedroom.
The radio in the room next to mine was turned on. Passing the doorway, I heard a peculiar, tinny voice. I stopped.
It was this song:

I was hypnotized. I sat down in front of the radio, and drifted off to some other world, the 1940s through a disco prism.

I got up and didn't know what to do. No one announced the name of the song. It was gone. No matter how often I listened to the radio, I never heard it again. There was no one to tell about this discovery. I wouldn't have known what to say even if there had been.
My peers would have thought me weirder than they already must have.
The song was stuck in the back of my head, however.

Sometime, about eight years ago, I found out the artist's name (Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band), and in the intervening years I've found out more about them. I've found a couple of interesting articles about them, like this one. I learned how some of the members eventually split off to become Kid Creole. I've even listened to some of Cory Daye's own music.
(I see that a number of artists, most famously: M.I.A. Ghostface Killah, Miss Kittin, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, were somehow or another influenced. )

Anyway, when, thanks to the internet, I found the song again, I remember being surprised. It was not nearly as "different" as I remembered it being. If I'm honest, I didn't really even like it much any more.The other night, however, I found this video and bookmarked it. Since then I've kept replaying it. It's a glimpse of a lost world, maybe several lost worlds...nostalgia built upon nostalgia built on more nostalgia.
I think I've finally grown to love the song for real now, where I once just had a childish infatuation.

Anyway, finally, this past week I got a copy of the cd in the mail, and have been playing it every day to work, and fallen in love with this:




(thanks to the fabulous michael guy for prompting this rerun)

I bought a pillow

That, sadly, is the most excitement I've had in the past few days. It was pretty, it was on sale, and

I've always had a thing for peacocks (go ahead, cue the jokes).

A few months ago at the zoo, in fact, I took my first digital photograph ever....of, you guessed it, a peacock, a particularly nasty one too.


Immediately after I snapped his picture, he rushed forward and tried to peck my leg. That's what they do, it seems. There's a metaphor there, I'm sure.

Anyway, too bad it was the zoo, or he'd be decorating my couch right now...and not that pillow. That's all I'm saying.

The pillow also reminded me of one of my favorite rooms of all time, Whistler's famous Peacock room, which I've long dreamed of seeing in person. I figure if I start with the pillow maybe I can work my way up, right?

It also reminded me of 5th grade, when our pretty new art teacher, Miss Martin, (from some foreign land called "Connecticut" or something) initiated us into the mysteries of papier mache.

Our assignment was to create a "favorite animal".

Amidst the sad lumpy teddy bears and boring kitty cats, the crosseyed puppies, the pedestrian turtles....and an elephant that looked like a giant turd with a tusk...

was mine---a near life sized peacock, painted up in iridescent acrylic, lacquered with about twenty two coats of polyurethane, complete with three dimensional wired tail feathers.

Oddly, I was ridiculed. Apparently nothing screams "fag!" like a peacock.
Whatever.

Somewhere in the intervening years it dry rotted and had to be thrown away, despite the twenty two coats of polyurethane. There's a metaphor somewhere in there too, I'm sure, but I'm too tired to care.

"bells will ring...."

Hearing that Ellie Greenwich has died today, I'm reminded of one of my favorite songs of all time, one she co-wrote.

I was just a toddler really, maybe three. Next door lived some older girls, sisters, nine or ten, dazzlingly sophisticated to me. Their mother still had ratted hair, though it had been out of style for at least five years by then. Their father was skinny and wore pomade.
They had barbies and easy bake ovens. I wanted to be like them.

One day, a hot summer day, I remember the girls were having a terrible fight. One of them was standing on the hood of their parents' car, hurling old 45s at the older sister's head. The sunlight gleamed off the flying vinyl. Their mother's prized 45s crashed to the ground in a hail of black plastic. I shudder to think what awaited those girls after that. Somehow I think those barbies might have been baked in that Easy Bake oven.
Who knows. Who cares, really?

What I remember most about that day is that after they'd been summoned in by their bellowing mother, I picked up the one 45 that had not been broken. It was old and scratched, but when I took it home, it still played. It was the second record I ever owned (and it was stolen from the trash).
It was New Orleans' own Dixie Cups singing "Chapel of Love".
It's all so prophetic.

Charlie and Ted and (not) me

This is Charlie Cox. I'd become smitten with him a while back .
I'd seen two of his films and he was pretty much the only thing keeping me watching either.

Since then, I've done some mental archeology and realized (part of) the attraction. He reminds me of someone.

Once upon a time, in ENLS 418-The Later Romantic Movement in Britain, I spotted a boy. As was my m.o. in those days, I scoped out the cute boys the first day of class. It helped me determine whether to drop or add. Turns out the professor was cute too.
Jackpot!
Also typical of my m.o. at the time was sitting in the back row of class. My life was a dynamic tension of pathological shyness and a need for attention. It still is.

Anyway, on the first day, I got there very early and sat as usual in the back right hand corner of the room, six feet away from the door. Easy exit. Maximum distance from professor.

Each day, however, I'd move desk by desk closer to the boy, like some sort of stalkerish chess game. Within the first week I was sitting right next to him. Within the next day I'd shamelessly made contact.

He was sweet and charming and his name was Ted. He was from suburbs and so was I! He loved Shelley and so did I! He needed a pen and I had one!

He was also straight as straight could be, and had a bit of the b.o.

Mo + M.O.= b.o. is how I guess I could sum up this tale of woe. (ok, I'll stop)
But whatever, he kept me going to class every day promptly, and I got an A, so it all worked out in the end, right?

Anyway, Charlie up there reminds me of him a bit: the pale skin, the dark long hair, that flyaway chest hair, those dreamy eyes. Ah...

Hi, I'm sorry I can't come to the blog right now. Please leave a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.


So, because I'm such a shameless attention whore, I'm presetting this post for my birthday.
Yes, that's right.
Anyway, it's always a pretty sucky time for me, and this year is suckier than most, so any cheering up greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Pic, of course, from the ever wonderful cake wrecks

wacky packages

Back when I was a kid, on summer afternoons when my mother was boring me with her droning soap operas, I would take a walk. Even the blinding heat was better than "The Guiding Light".
I'd walk all the up the street...up to the corner...through the back side of a now destroyed apartment complex...past the huge rumbling industrial washateria...along the drainage ditch...(looking for turtles and crawfish, sometimes catching a few)... avoiding the nutria and snakes....carefully pulling myself up where there was a hole near the concrete embankment (snakes there)...up and across the busy highway bridge...back down into the ditch side...off through the parking lot...and finally into the air conditioned convenience store.

I was in hot pursuit of Munchos, Slim Jims, Ding Dongs, yo-yos, Pop Rocks....and these:
Wacky Packages. They were stickers that came courtesy of gum. The gum, needless to say, was an afterthought. These are what I have left, found the other day in my childhood closet.
Pardon the flash.

The humor is rather lost on me today, I'm afraid, though I remember being endlessly amused by that "Scary Lee" package. Now I (we all?) live in a world that seems absolutely smothered in sarcasm.
But way back then, even sarcasm seemed somehow naive, you know?

un-kept

Once upon a time, when I was all of 24 or so, and even more naive than I am now (if that's possible), I placed my first personal ad. This was in the days before the internet, and all communication was conducted through a local paper and a phone answering service.

I could fill a lifetime of embarrassing stories about myself from these experiences, but there's one that came to my mind tonight. I'm not sure why.

He was a perfectly ordinary looking middle aged man, nothing horrible about him, nothing particularly attractive. His personality was much the same.

I remember meeting him at a restaurant in the French Quarter. I don't remember which. I remember that he insisted on paying, despite my objections. He seemed charmed by them in fact. I'd never had anyone pay for my meal, and it felt wrong. I didn't want to lead him on. I had purposefully ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, a salad which had some sort of cranberries in it. I remember the dried cranberries in my salad but not what he looked like.

He was just a little more than twice my age then, I guess.

After dinner we walked back to his "pied a terre", I suppose you could call it. He was from California somewhere, L.A., I suppose, but did business here often, so he had purchased a small carriage house in the French Quarter. I remember framed Audubon reproductions on the walls and a tastefully dull plaid sofa in forest green.

Of course you're all thinking you know where this is leading, but, alas,
I'm not that kind of girl.
Sorry.

No, we sat on the dull green plaid sofa and talked. I'm sure I asked him all about his job. I'm sure I was dutifully attentive. I'm sure he talked and talked and talked all about the intricacies of Whatever Inc. I can't remember. He asked me about my ambitions. I told him that I had just started grad school, that I'd hoped to be a writer or a journalist or something equally ridiculous. It sounded like something I ought to say.

Most of all, I remember that he seemed very lonely, and that I felt bad for him.

Somewhere in our conversation, he suddenly offered me a proposal.

He insisted that he would set me up in a house. He showed me photos of the house. It was a beach house in Malibu, no less. It wasn't particularly lavish, but still. It would be all mine. He'd support me and I'd be able to "write." He explained the deal enthusiastically. I was equal parts flattered and horrified.

Before my head could get too big, however, he told me about his former "protege", sighing about how "good looking", he'd been, but how temperamental and "not nice" he'd also been. I realized that he wanted to skip the looks for "nice" now.

He proudly showed me the pictures of his former kept boy. In a crystal frame was what seemed rather like a second rate male model from a 1980 Sears catalogue, all bushy moustache and tanned physique. I felt very plain.

I'm sure we had more small talk after that. I'm sure I told him how "flattered" I was and "thank you" but how I didn't think "that would be right."
I don't remember.
I know we parted genially, and I assured him that it would be "great to have dinner with you again if you come into town."

Of course, that never happened.
Anyway, I hope he's all right, where ever he is.

the blacker the berry, etc.

Picked the way we used to when I was a kid, along the barbed wire fence, in blinding heat, always on alert for snakes or the occasional rogue bull,
probably dusted with DDT.
But who cares.
Nothing much in this world tastes better.

randomocity

Miss Janey tagged me, and TJB threw down the gauntlet, (who you callin' a punk, punk? Huh, huh?) so here are twelve, count 'em twelve random facts about yours truly.

The fine print here: 1. Link to the person who tagged you. 2. Post the rules on your blog. 3. Write six random things about yourself. 4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. 5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. 6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1. My paternal great,great grandfather was famed for shooting a guy in a bar fight, scooping out his eyeballs with a tea spoon and filling the sockets with sand, as told to me by my much beloved grandfather (who spent a spell
in jail himself) when I was just a wee tot.

2. I started out college intending to major in architecture.

3. I failed remedial college algebra...twice.

4. I spent my high school study halls doodling fashion designs.

5. I was recruited by the coach to play football in high school. I declined, citing absolute ignorance of the rules.

6. I was vegetarian for two years. It wreaked havoc on my hair, so I stopped.

7. I've been asked by two sets of lesbians to father their children. Alas
(?), neither quite panned out. One couple separated, the other got
another cat.

8. I am an only child but have 37 first cousins.

9. I like the smell of diesel. It reminds me of trips into the city.

10. I spent much of my childhood in trees.

11. I don't like horror movies.

12. Two of my favorite Christmas presents came from my paternal grandfather (up there).
a. The pony (however brief):

b. a stack of rough brown paper tablets (from the paper mill) as tall as my 5 year old self.


13. I don't do well with rules, so anyone who wants to be tagged, you're it.

cherchez...

I don't remember much of my tenth year of life. I don't remember most of my classmates' names. I barely remember my teachers.

I do, however, remember about five minutes of an early evening in the fall.

I was walking down the darkened hall, hurrying to the safety of my bedroom.
The radio in the room next to mine was turned on. Passing the doorway, I heard a peculiar, tinny voice. I stopped.
It was this song:



I was hypnotized. I sat down in front of the radio, and drifted off to some other world for those few minutes. I got up and didn't know what to do. No one announced the name of the song. It was gone. No matter how often I listened to the radio, I never heard it again. There was no one to tell about this discovery. I wouldn't have known what to say even if there had been.

The song was stuck in the back of my head, however.

Sometime, about eight years ago, I found out the artist's name (Dr. Buzzards Original Savannah Band), and in the intervening years I've found out more about them. I've found a couple of interesting articles about them, like this one. I learned how some of the members eventually split off to become Kid Creole. I've listened to some of Cory Daye's own music. I've discovered that a number of artists, like M.I.A. Ghostface Killah, Miss Kittin, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, were somehow or another influenced.

When, thanks to the internet, I found the song again, I remember being surprised. It was not nearly as "different" as I remembered it being.

If I'm honest, I didn't really even like it any more.

The other night, however, I found this video and bookmarked it. Since then I've kept replaying it.
It's a glimpse of a lost world, maybe several lost worlds...nostalgia built upon nostalgia built on more nostalgia.
I think I've finally grown to love the song for real now, where I once just had a childish infatuation.

Rodeo Drive

Driving southward on the expressway I noticed a bill board, similar to this, but with the addition of woman's face smiling from it:




It took me a few minutes before I realized it was not advertising the Annual Grand Isle Tampon Rodeo.

In my defense, I remember wrestling those things out of the nets many times when I'd go crabbing.
They do put up a good fight.

International Re-Male

I'm not sure why, but for some reason, (I think it's because I subscribe to Men's Vogue, and someone is clearly on top of their demographics), but a brand new International Male catalog has found its way back into my mailbox. Completely unsolicited, I swear.

Of course, back in the day, I had less pride and more desperation. I'd see the ads in Rolling Stone, seductively calling me.
Who could resist?

"International."
"Male."
Two things I wanted to be.

I was mortified afterwards, but, hey, you did what you had to do. It was A Different World (from where you come from) then.

They pretty quickly stopped sending them, however. They realized I wasn't going to buy anything. They knew what was up. Even back then, I knew the clothes were ridiculous, but who was looking at the clothes? It was proto porn, and they knew it.

I hadn't seen a one in decades, until it showed up in my mailbox.

Glancing through my brand new 2008 edition of the International Male catalog, past the poly-metallic satin shirt/tie combos, past the nehru jackets and pinstripes, past the nouveau pirate shirts, past duster coat after duster coat after duster coat, past the formal gauze overalls, I was stopped cold in my tracks.

It's a photograph that I know, a photograph I've memorized from nearly 20 years before. I would recognize this Marcus Shenkenberg-at-half-price anywhere:



Of course, the entire catalog can transport you to 1990. That's its beauty.
Compared to the other "fashions" this is pretty standard, nothing too avant garde or flamboyant. It's an IM classic it seems.

I note that the underwear section has shrunk, oddly enough. Even the models' crotches have shrunk, and they're shot headlessly, and almost torso-lessly.

I mean what's the point? They've taken everything that was pure and beautiful about the catalog and destroyed it.
It's very sad.

I was just about to toss it in the trash, when I read that the company is set to fold soon. This might just be one of the last catalogs ever. Not a surprise, of course, but still kind of sad.

But then recycling photos and going soft on the underwear shots are just not good strategies for any business, are they?