For most of my life, I’ve been accused of being too serious. Accused that I have a sense of humor so dry it could make New Orleans arid. Told that, in fact, I’m not funny at all.

Every so often, I see truth in these assertions–especially when Dr. and Mrs. Eek get fan mail:

Hi Folks!

What a neat web site you have! I just knew there were some not-so-straight-

laced-bible-belters who lived among us here in the valley. And I’ve lived

here most of my life and didn’t know about the coal gasification plant!

I live down at Prairie Creek. I’d love to meet you both sometime.

Anyway, kudos on the web site,

(Name Omitted to Protect the Sarcasm-Challenged)

I mean, it’s 2001. Doesn’t everyone have a highly developed sense of irony by now?

I’m still not sure why I was asked to write this article (for a print mag that shall remain nameless). I mean, have any of you been to Pride in New Orleans? It’s about as festive as a political rally in support of child pornography. In Algeria. During Ramadan. But not quite as visible.

Still, it’s written. And that means it’s a post waiting to happen. Knock yourselves out.

Wah. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. And double wah.

Goodbye, Pamie….

Don’t ask me how I came across this sad page. (Though frankly, the next one seems far more disturbing.)

A Recap of the Paft Several Days
Being in Reduced Form a Summation of Events Having Come to Pafs Since This Paft Sunday, The Tyme at Which the Sturtle Had Composed His Moft Recent Entry to This Journale

The Goode

1. I had a delightful date with the Boyfriend Tuesday eve.

2. Upon the delightful date in question, the Boyfriend and I saw Moulin Rouge, which I enjoyed for three very specific reasons:

2a. The film’s art direction was thorough and unique; it was so very over the top that it became quite literally fantastic. In contrast, consider some other recent, dismal, celluloid crap like Boogie Nights, which was also driven by its art direction, but haphazardly; the art director kept waffling between camp (note the abundance of Farrah/Bruce Lee posters) and realism (note the cocaine and the buckets of prop blood).

2b. Moulin Rouge serves as a magnificent harbinger of post-camp–possibly post-irony, or at least a new sort of not-so-cynical irony. All those magnificently silly love songs could have been camped up to the high heavens, but with the possible exception of the “Like a Virgin” number, they were done earnestly, very straightforward–no wink at the audience, no backing away from the emotional weight of the text. Perhaps it’s okay to have feelings again…

2c. They inserted a joke about Ewan McGregor’s legendarily “huge talent”.

3. Hedwig sounds great. Our band rocks.

4. We’ve got recently acquired a number of new cabaret performers.

5. I spent a wee bit of time with Ralph, whom I’ve otherwise neglected.

The Badd

1. Too much rehearsal and not enough sleep makes Sturtle a cranky boy. In the immortal words of Jim Backus, I need a vacation.

2. I’m experiencing a serious case of writer’s block on this one piece I’m penning for the cabaret. I guess I’m just not inspired. If any of you have a short, say, five minute comic sketch that might be appropriate for a cabaret set in Paris during the Roaring Twenties, send it on. (FYI, the piece I’m working on now is between a wisecracking flapper girl with swell gams and a skirt-chasing rube.)

3. I don’t have the opportunity to read as much as I’d like.

4. I was never–nor will I ever be–a professional golfer (can’t take it seriously), gymnast (too uncoordinated), or pianist (stubby fingers). Tennis, however, isn’t entirely out of the question.

5. The future’s very bright, but I’ve lost my cheap shades.

It’s funny: even the Chelsea fags I know sneer at Chelsea fags. Like, no one actually believes they themselves fit the stereotype. Same way with Circuit queens. “Oh, yeah, I’m going to Pensacola for Memorial Day weekend,” says a buff, waxed, tanned, tribally tattooed friend, the earphones dangling around his neck pumping a tinny Danny Tenaglia megamix. “I mean, I’m not into that whole Circuit scene, but it’s a good party.”

Fact of the matter is, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who identifies with those stereotypes. Everyone’s always criticizing them, and now the New York Times–in concert with queer crooner/slender-bender Rufus Wainwright–has contributed its two cents.

My point is, by the time the Times starts spouting opinions on something like this, isn’t it ipso facto old news? It reeks of staleness, like a Monica Lewinsky joke. Which, of course, just confirms what I already knew:

1. The Chelsea fags have become the 21st century equivalent of the West Village piano bar queens, content with their tats and their gym memberships and their marketing jobs and their home lives and their cats and their homes on Fire Island.

2. The new homo hipsters–the anti-clone rebels like Mr. Wainwright–are reputedly the East Villagers, sporting slightly different tattoos and membership cards for more “authentic” gyms, toting iMacs for their web design work, and dancing to rock-and-roll instead of 4/4 techno

3. Because points 1 & 2 are confirmed by no less than the Gray Lady herself, it follows that the East crowd itself is growing/has grown tiresome, too, which means it must be time for a reductive musical about their tastefully squalid lives–oh, wait, it’s happened already: Rent…. Perhaps a new one’s in order, though–one with a West Side Story, Sharks vs. Jets showdown climax on the sidewalk in front of Big Cup, with a slightly buffer, inked-up Rufus caught on a payphone in the middle. I got the book–who wants to take a stab at the lyrics?

The perfect blend of baked goods and politics: where do I sign up?

Of course, they would be based in San Francisco….

Haikus for a muggy afternoon:

The blood in my brain

drips like leaves after a storm.

Who’s got Tylenol?

To the person in the car outside my office window:

Cher is not my friend.

Cher is no one’s friend.

So turn that crap off, Mary.

Cold coffee is fine

but warm Coke always sucks ass.

Bring it on, Jean-Luc.

(In the manner of Hattie McDaniel) Lerd, lerd, lerd today, chile…

Or, alternately…

(In the manner of Bella Abzug) Oy, such a weekend.

A combination of good weather, limited work/rehearsal duties, and plenty of lazy time made the weekend pretty near perfect. The capper? Two–count ’em–two drag shows that restored my faith in the art form.

Most drag shows…well, to say they’re boring would be kind. To say that they’re half-assed, hackneyed, public demonstrations of manic insecurity, served at room temperature with a side of cold beets, that’d be more to the point. I’m serious. I don’t mean to be all Dorian Corey or anything, but there’s something lackluster about drag now, n’est-ce pas? It’s no longer showgirl glam, it’s more like a bunch of 14 year old closeted nancy boys dressed up in mommy’s camisole pretending they’re Mariah/Whitney/Celine. Ugh.

Saturday, however, I got a good dose of oooooold skool drag–the kind they used to have in the separate-but-certainly-not-equal black gay bars in Mississippi when I was a wee lassie. Grande dames cutting up–no trannies, just a bunch of screamin’, over-emotin’ queens singing songs from Doris Day and Patsy Cline and–Heavens to Betsy!–Dreamgirls.

But the best part of the evening was the tipping ritual. These girls stayed onstage and worked their little Lee Press Ons to the nub and made us get up and bring the tips to ’em. Every time someone new came on, there was a mad rush to the front of the stage, with dozens of queens holding singles like dirty diapers. And I thought to myself: what a strange ritual this is. If someone who’d never seen a drag show walked into the room, would s/he understand why on earth a bunch of otherwise sensible sissies are practically throwing money at a bunch of hard-lookin’, beat-to-Jesus drag queens who are, at best, simply cavorting in time with the music and mouthing about half the song’s words properly? I dunno if I understand it completely myself… Still, it was fun, and the energy of the performers and the crowd was nice.

Last night, we crossed to the other side for the quasi-monthly drag king show (put together in part by our very own Alana) at the Shim-Sham Club. No Whitney. No Britney. There was, however, a particularly charming Madonna number, a couple of diddies performed by a striking red-haired chick I don’t know, and, the best bit, an N*Sync routine. It was cute and sexy and fun and packed with screaming grrls and queens and straight folks and it’s how more drag shows should be. Props to the ladyboys.

Now, of course, it’s back to the daily grind. Ugh. Must. Have. More. Diet. Coke….

‘Abortion ship’ arrives in Ireland? Well, if that’s not a sitcom in the making, I don’t know what is:

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,

a tale of a fateful trip.

That started from this papist port,

aboard this rusty ship.

The mate was a bonny, brawny lass,

the skipper an MD.

Five hundred gals set sail that day,

for a minimal fee, a minimal fee….

(shout from poop deck: “Goddess bless Socialism!”)

The weather then got bloody rough,

the creaking ship was tossed.

If not for the courage of the fearless crew,

the Aurora would be lost, like that freakin’ albatross.

The ship took ground on the shore of the well-charted Isle of Man,

with Anne Vanderhoot, and Inga, too,

the Governess, and her charge,

the Shepherdess,

a lass, Siobahn, and a leprechaun:

Abortionists in exile.

What’s the title, though? “Abortionists in Exile” is far too many syllables for primetime. Perhaps “The Isle of Woman”? Oh, wait, of course: “Manx Minxes!” With lots of showy musical numbers involving those precious little tail-less cats.

[Ed. note: I seem to have gone completely insane.]