sturtle [dot] com

Falling for Jonno was a great move on my part. Not only did I get a loving boyfriend out of the deal, but I also quadrupled the size of my family, enlarged my circle of friends, and gained a much-needed appreciation for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which had previously given me headaches). I also got a cat.

I’ve never been much of a cat person. I was raised in a dog family, and frankly, I never really understood the feline allure. Nevertheless, I was prepared to give it a go with Lola. After all, when you love someone–really love them–you accept them cats and all.

That said, Lola did not make it easy. Not by a long shot.

Things got off to an inauspicious start. The effort Jonno and I expended loading Lola into her kennel the day we left New York was overwhelming. In fact, I don’t think we let her out once on the drive down, ’cause neither of us wanted to have to put her back in. (NB: This experience was ultimately responsible for the worst decision Jonno and I have ever made.)

Upon arriving at her new home in New Orleans, Lola proceeded to be downright mean to my dog, Gaston. I could understand some skittishness for a couple of weeks–months, even, given the stress of the move–but she kept at it. Lola was somewhat friendlier to the other hounds as they joined the family, but she was never sincere about it. Not that cats ever ooze sincerity, mind you.

Then, too, there was Lola’s restlessness, which was beyond frustrating. She always wanted to set up shop in the most inconvenient spots: on the kitchen table, in the middle of the bathroom floor, on a shelf full of books. Then, just as Jonno and I would relent and sigh and say, “Okay, fine, have it your way,” and move stuff to accommodate her, she’d change her mind and move someplace even weirder.

Despite all this, I tried hard to love Lola. I talked to her, sang to her, rubbed cold things on her head (something she seemed to enjoy). I snuck her spoonfuls of ice cream when Jonno wasn’t looking. And of course, I slipped back into our flooded city to get her out.

Lola hadn’t been feeling well the past few days, I could tell, but that was pretty common. Every six months or so, she’d get lethargic and lie around, just kinda moping. But then as now, she was mobile, she was responsive, she was eating, she never meowed as if she were in pain. Yesterday I picked her up and walked her around the house, and she batted softly at my face. Same old routine.

When I awoke this morning, Lola was laying in a patch of sunlight on the bedroom floor. I absolutely hate it when people, upon looking at dead friends and relatives, say things like, “She looks so peaceful,” but I have to say, Lola really did. I called her to see if she was hungry, but she didn’t budge. I walked over and looked at her to see if she was breathing. I kept looking for a very long time. (She had the ability to go into near-hibernation, which could be really disturbing.) In the end, though, she didn’t move at all.

Lola: I know you lived a lengthy life of nearly 17 years, and I know we were never the best of friends, but still, I’ll miss you.

Jonno: Let me reassure you that Lola died quietly, in her sleep. Also let me reassure you that I do not wait for you to leave town for the summer before killing off our pets. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.

And to the rest of you: Thanks for the concern you’ve expressed for Lola over the years. She may not have appreciated it, but Jonno and I certainly did so on her behalf.

Harrah’s New Orleans

228 Poydras Street

New Orleans, LA 70130

To Whom It May Concern:

As a volunteer spokesmodel for New Orleans’ gay and lesbian community, I would like to thank you for your recent interest in our demographic. For nearly three centuries, New Orleans’ port facility and laissez-faire attitude have attracted a vibrant mix of people to its warm, muggy shores. It is exciting to see that fact acknowledged by an industry that typically restricts its marketing endeavors to trailer park residents, the elderly, and newlyweds from the Pacific rim. If I may, however, I would like to offer a few suggestions that will enhance your campaign’s effectiveness among my people:

• Please redesign our section of your website to be more fabulous. The layout is as dull as a Saturday afternoon bowling tournament (on CBS, no less), and to call the copy “phoned in” is to slander the reputation of Alexander Graham Bell. I mean, gays and lesbians may often be cheap, but at heart we are a proud people; we can’t be bought for a few well-lit images from iStockPhoto.com.

• As for the casino’s environment, I for one would like to see less skankified dancers in the vaguely skanky Masquerade nightclub. The lesbians in my social circle span the socio-economic spectrum, but none really go for meth chic. And as for homos…well, you know how much we like fat girls.

• I would also suggest some tolerance training for your New Orleans staff. Last time I visited the casino with a group of fellow cakeboys, we were thoroughly ignored by the bartenders. Perhaps you should inform that thuggish band of booze-slingers that the only thing homos love more than a good cocktail is tipping cute boys. And for heaven’s sake, please ask your hot, burly security officers to stop staring at us unless they’re prepared to do something about it.

• Targeting the gay and lesbian crowd is a great start, but what about the rest of the GLBTQ gumbo? For example, have you even considered marketing to trannies? I know for a fact that they’re totally up for taking a gamble–whether it’s with psycho bi-curious johns or drugs found on the sidewalk–and I doubt anyone else is marketing to them. You could be the first! Add them to the marketing you’re already doing in Malaysia and the Philippines, and you could double your traffic. (Seriously: they’ve got a lot of trannies over there.)

I do hope this advice has proven useful to you. The ways of my people are mysterious at times, shrouded in primeval mist like the novels we prefer to read, but in time, you will learn to think as we do. If you’d like further advice on this topic in exchange for a substantial six-figure salary, I am all ears.

I thank you for your time and attention to our sexy community and remain,

Sincerely yours,

Richard

“If you want to have cockfighting, then have cockfighting if you go there for a social experience,” said Rep. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, who handled Lentini’s bill on the House floor. “But there should not be wagering in front of 4-year-olds.”

— NOLA.com

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time again:

St. Johns Eve 2007

June 23rd, 7:00pm

Sallie Ann Glassman and La Source Ancienne Ounfo celebrate St. John’s Eve with their annual ceremony on the footbridge over Bayou St. John (near Cabrini High School).

Vodou Ceremony: Wear all white and bring a white scarf or rag for your head (It will get dirty.)

Offerings: Bring an offering for Marie Laveau. She likes flowers, blue and white candles, hair ribbons and hair dressing supplies (She was a hairdresser.), Vodou-esque items (Voodoo dolls, potions, gris-gris bags, etc.), or images of Marie Laveau.

Of course I can’t go (as usual), but somebody oughta–and take pictures or something! The last guy who took my advice on this parlayed it into a freakin’ movie, people….

Ordinarily when I use the word “trainwreck”, I’m referring to our mayor or the governor or one of my mother’s culinary catastrophes, but in this case I mean a real trainwreck. Although if my mother were ever to leave one of her casseroles on a train track, this would likely be the result, too….

I am not a movie director. I am not a screenwriter. I am not a scholar of the televisual arts. But just for the record, I think the series finale of The Sopranos was as close to perfect as one hour of TV can get without the aid of Louise Lasser.

On a purely visual level, it was stunning. The lighting was breathtaking, blown out and toned to an ice-cold cyan. The settings were largely unfamiliar and intended to throw us off balance: barren backyards, a wintry beach house, the curiously stuffy office of a saucily dressed therapist. And the locales were dreamy, too: the Bada Bing, cavernous and devoid (for once) of strippers and oglers; a cheap motel room, horizontal, emotionless, flat as a pancake; and most notably, a garage so cold and so chock-full of oversize, alien car parts that it looked like the newest Soul Calibur arena.

I could go on and on about the weirdness of the plot, the unfolding and refolding of plot lines, the continuation of David Chase’s addictive, trademark mixture of the grotesque (mob violence) and the mundane (family life and cats). But I won’t go on and on. I just want talk about the things that made my heart race and my eyes sting in the show’s last five minutes:

• The colors, or absence thereof: the film’s green and brown tint made the scene at the diner feel as nostalgic as a 16mm film reel and as surreal as a Magritte painting.

• The music: I may be showing my age, but I really don’t think you can ever go wrong with Journey.

• The normalcy of it all: with young couples and truck drivers and other families around them, the Soprano family looked like just another bunch of people in a sea of people, with their own set of problems and accomplishments. Given the extraordinary things we’ve seen some of them do (e.g. Carmela strapping on an automatic weapon in season one), that’s kinda remarkable.

• The menace of it all: the camera lingers on the man at the bar, shows him looking for the unfamiliar restroom. Could he have been brought in for the hit? Then there’s the group of young men who hover not far from the door. What’s their story? And best of all: Meadow’s arrival, alone, in her car, on an empty street on a cold night. The way it’s cut, with the background music underscoring the urgency of it all, we’re on the edge of our seats wanting her to park the damn car, get in the restaurant, get to safety before something happens. Then the ante is upped: we understand that when she sits, she’ll be positioned between Tony and any potential trouble. The man goes to the bathroom as she’s walking toward the front door. She enters, but is she too late?

• The ambiguity of it all: the episode’s only shortcomings arose when things got too clean, too literary. Killing Phil, for example, was probably unnecessary, and we definitely didn’t need to see Tony in the backyard, looking in vain for those goddamn symbolic ducks. The messiness of the Uncle Junior storyline, the Janice storyline, and of course, the very last second…. It’s all so real and complex and gooey. I mean, if my life were a miniseries–and no one’s saying it isn’t–I can’t think of a clean, clear moment to wrap it up. Whose life works like that?

P.S. All those pussies debating what the blackout “means” have clearly missed the point.

Growing up in the conservative, cut-and-dry pine belt of south Mississippi, you might think I didn’t have much access to “weirdness”, but you’d be wrong. There was plenty of oddball culture around–you just had to know where to look.

Apart from basking in the general eccentricity that has made the South a literary staple, I could always scoot over to the mall to pick up the latest copy of Interview magazine. It wasn’t “weird” per se, but back then, it was at least edgy and alternative. The selection was far better on television–my personal fave being a show on USA called Night Flight, where I first saw Breaking Glass and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains and countless documentaries about Malcolm McClaren.

And then there was PBS.

PBS was founded, in part, to present arts and educational programming, and over the years, that mission has given PBS license to broadcast some seriously bizarre crap–like Alive from Off-Center, which would’ve given my daddy a conniption fit if he’d ever bothered to flip away from his endless loop of Sanford and Son reruns. Even better was the low-budget, DIY stuff like Hodgepodge Lodge, Vegetable Soup, and a VERY strange high school science program that featured blue-skinned, scantily clad astronauts. The name of that last one escapes me right now, but I’m pretty sure it was put out by nutjobs in my home state.

By far, the weirdest, most fascinating, most WTF program on PBS was Sew What’s New, featuring a fabulous creature named George Trippon. Nattily dressed, sporting half-glasses and a gold (sometimes pearl) safety chain, he taught women (and a few men, I’m guessing), how to sew, while sharing remarkable stories from his Hollywood days–stories, of the “So one day, Tallulah and I were having lunch at the Brown Derby” variety. Here’s the only clip I’ve been able to find of the man in action:

Oh, Frank. *sigh*

I’ve been thinking about you lately, and I don’t know why.

You’ve missed so much–especially in the past couple of years. Things can get depressing here, what with the political scandals and the crime and that idiot down at City Hall that makes me think like someone from my father’s generation. But then along comes a day like today–beautiful, warm, some would say hot–and you forget all that. In part because your brain is baking in the sun and can’t be bothered with much other than breathing and sweating and the involuntary junk, but also because…well, I dunno. It’s kinda primal. Like, just now: the warmth on my forearms and the back of my neck as I walked home for lunch was enough to make me wanna rip off my shirt and dive straight into the Mississippi. Or at least a pool. (I’ve never been as strong a swimmer as you.)

That doesn’t really address the issue of why you’ve been on my mind. All I know is that if I were ever that spontaneous, and if I ever did take such a plunge, I could only hope that you’d be there when I came up, ready with a beer and a joke. That’s not suicidal talk, just how I remember you. You were a frustrating, terrifying, but very welcome distraction.

I’m sorry. I know I sound whiny and self-pitying like that annoying A. J. Soprano (another thing you’ve missed). Maybe I just need some coffee.

This man was working on the Uptown streetcar line today–all alone, mind you, but working nonetheless. And maybe because I was tired, or maybe because I was woozy from having blood drawn, or maybe because I’m a sappy pantywaisted cakeboy, but for some reason I got a little choked up. I rolled down the window and yelled "THANK YOU!" I don’t think he heard me, but it’s the thought, right?