New Music

I haven't written as much lately as I should have. There are a few drafts of posts that I have written and not finished. Hopefully soon I will finish them.

This morning I logged onto AOL to check my mail. There was a special feature today, they were having a "first viewing" of a new video by the Dixie Chicks. I'm sure everyone remembers that the Chicks were roasted some time back for being Anti-Bush. Natalie, the lead singer, told an audience in London that she and the other chicks were ashamed that Bush was from their home state of Texas. Immediately country radio stations (a jingoistic group at best) stopped playing their music. Protests were held where people could bring their CD's in and have them burned or run over with a steam roller, all sorts of silly crap. Conservative talk show hosts ran the sacred cow of patriotism up the flagpole while crying "FOUL!" The whole thing was ridiculous. Several times I called my local country station to convey my uhappiness with on air comments that were made about the girls. Even with all the controversy the girls finished off their tour and have been very quiet for a while now.

No More. Their new song "Not Ready to Make Nice" has been released. Anyone who has AOL can watch the video now, but the rest will have to wait until Monday when VH1 will air it I'm sure non stop for a few days. I have always been a fan of the Chicks and this song cements that feeling. The video, while a bit dark, is unbelievable and the lyrics are wonderful. I have included them:


Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

This song is from the album, "The Long Way Home" Release date, May23rd.

In other new music, Blaine Larsen has a new album coming out as well. I'm not sure what the name of the album will be but you can check out Blaines website for more info on him. The new song is pretty funny, it's called "I don't know what she said" and is the tale of a non spanish speaking tourist in Mexico. I can see where some people might take a little bit of offense to the song but it's all in fun and it's a fun song.

I will save the rest for another post, probably tomorrow or Sunday.

Reading List

My bedside table usually plays host to a few different books at the same time. Most recently I have been working my way through Truman Capotes short stories. I suppose I should read "In Cold Blood" but haven't gotten around to that one. A hearty congratulations to Phillip Seymour Hoffman on his oscar win for portraying Capote onscreen. My family have always been readers and thankfully my mother passed the love of reading on to my sister and I both. When I was a child I remember my mother sighing as she remarked to someone else "We never should have taught him to read, he was a quiet child until then. He hasn't shut up since he learned to read." Many of my friends probably share this sentiment...

During the evacuation I read several books, among them "Wicked" and a couple Chuck Palahniuk novels (the author of Fight Club.) I recently picked up and re-read a favorite book, "I Have a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore." Published in 1983 it was followed by the sequels "Buddies,"(1984) "Everybody Loves You,"(1988) "Some Men are Lookers," (1994) and finally "How's Your Romance" in 2005.

Ethan Mordden also wrote three other novels as well as a myriad of books about musical theatre, opera and jazz. I have never read any of the theatre books though I have spied them in Jeff's book collection.

I was introduced to these books back when I was in high school. I have a lesbian aunt who thankfully introduced me to a gay and lesbian bookstore (which no longer exists unfortunately) called "Dreams and Swords" and also to the very small gay section at the northside (read: the opposite side of the city from my little hick hometown) Borders bookstore. The first three books in the series had been published before I encountered them so I was able to read all three of them. The books are narrated by "Bud" who tells tales of he and his friends adventures in a post stonewall Manhattan. If you don't know what is meant by stonewall, please stop reading this, google it and come back later. No, seriously. The stories age with the times, the characters growing, falling in and out of relationships and are intermingled with places and styles of gay probably long since forgotten about. Some of the stories take place on Fire Island and the "magic of the pines," while others whip through parties, European travels and day to day mundane lives. Since my return to N.O. I have also re-read the second and third books.

Now these books are far from what one would term great literature. What brings me back to them year after year is representational. When I read these books at a younger age I was mesmerized by them, by the lifestyle to which they subscribed. I wanted to be these people, to have these friends, to live according to these new freedoms of the gay movement. I re-read them and find something new each time. Sometimes I escape into past desires, to places where my life has not gone and other years I have found my life in parallel, adventures in the advanced years of stonewall.

Just the other day I picked up another Chuck Palahniuk book, "Diary." This is one of the best books of his I have read. For those that enjoyed the movie Fight Club, check out these books.

Another book on my bedside table is called "One Dead in Attic." It's a collection of the stories written by Chris Rose, a columnist for the Times Picayune. Previously I have written about how much some of these columns meant to me, reading them on NOLA.com helped tie me back to the city. The book is available at various stores around the city, though not on Amazon.com. The title of the book, one dead in attic, refers to the spray painting on most of the buildings throughout the city. The familiar X with the date, time and agency who performed the search. In the bottom of the x is the number of bodies found. In addition to this there was often a mark from animal rescue groups and various other notations. There was a house that was marked "One Dead in Attic." On the back of the book is the following dedication:

This book is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Coleman.
He was a retired longshoreman, a storyteller, a guy who liked to
spend time with family and friends. A New Orlenian.
He was 80 years old when he died in his attic at 2214 St. Roch Avenue,
in the 8th Ward, on or about August 29th, 2005. He had a can of
juice and a bedspread at his side when the waters rose.
There were more than a thousand like him

Okay, so everybody was right...

You Are 68% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care. Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Let's back up....

Between mine and my fathers health situations, Mardi Gras and my not smoking (which is probaby the real culprit here) I have been a little spacy. I have written about my bitches and complaints but I have something really great to write about now.

The Sunday before the last week of Mardi Gras gets rolling is the best parade of all, Barkus! Every year there is a theme and this years theme, fittingly, was the ultimate in queer natural disaster, The Wizard of Oz. Give it a little twist, make it the Wizard of Paws and you've got yourself a parade. Jeff and I had talked about walking our two boys but there was no way I could walk the whole route so soon after leaving the hospital. I took a chair, found my friends Michael and Dillon and settled in for a great show.

It's really a fantastic parade and because it's so early in the parade schedule the attendees are all locals. It's not limited to dogs though, I saw two miniature horses and a few birds this year. Going along with the theme, a friend of mine saw me and said "shouldn't you be dressed as the tin man..." Get it, without a heart, Ha Ha!

Anyway, it was a great day, there were great costumes but this fellow here is absolutely the cutest cowardly lion ever...



Okay, so here's a couple more special pups and such





And a special horsie!

And We're Off...

There is a lot of ground to cover, so I should just plunge right ahead.

I am sitting here in my living room at the moment, Lifetime television in the background and two sleeping dogs probably having taken over my entire bed. 900 miles away in Indiana my fathers family is gathered in a waiting room of a hospital. They have been there since early this morning when my father went in for surgery. In early January, days after I returned to New Orleans, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. A biopsy followed and the determination was made to remove a portion of his lung. It has taken time to get a surgery date as they have to get his medications under control. In November he had a heart attack, his second, and had two stents with his catheterization (compared to my measly one.) The doctors put him on blood thinners which he had to stop taking to have this surgery. There has been concern about the scar tissue left from his open heart surger back in '98 or the possibility of another heart attack or a stroke. He already had a stroke a little over a year ago. He's mostly recovered though if he tries to speak too quickly he fumbles over the words. This was the case this morning at 4:30 when I called him before he headed off to the hospital. Both of us seemed to be fumbling for words without either of us saying that this could be the last talk we would have. I was still at work and my maudlin mood shifted quickly when I went back inside. Security was removing a very belligerent tourist and so I had to jump to and get the doors ahead of them open so the pack of them could herald the man outside. A cop showed up pretty directly and handcuffed the man, digging through his pockets and finding several little plastic baggies containing a white powder in a leather pouch. Life in New Orleans...

My sister just phoned to tell me that my father has made it through is surgery. Right now he is in recovery and will hopefully soon transfered to ICU to begin his recuperation. I plan to travel to Indy next week to visit him and the rest of my family and friends. My nerves are not yet soothed, my father has a long recovery road ahead of him.

The best way I can think of to take my mind off things is to talk about inane subjects and I have a few to cover...

MARDI GRAS

Mardi Gras has come and passed. It was a very local holiday, the tourists unable to find hotel rooms. Our federal occupation continues and FEMA held their hotel rooms until March 1st, giving their employees a free holiday on the taxpayers. I walked the quarter from Esplanade to Canal (my yearly tradition) and not one time was I forced to stop because the crowd was too thick. Parking was a nightmare, cars on the neutral ground and the sidewalks. The quarter was busy at night but not as much as usual. People weren't really drinking that much.

One thing about New Orleans that's different than most places is that you have to be more responsible for yourself. Bars don't close and getting another drink is rarely difficult. Knowing all of that you have to imagine how drunk one would have to be for me to cut them off during a holiday. Only one person achieved that status during Mardi Gras. I cut him off and his response was to drop his pants. I thought for a moment that he was going to pinch a loaf standing there, he had that face, you know, tightly closed eyes, straining neck, veins in the forehead. I cannot imagine what my response would have been. I once dragged a person down a flight of stairs for pissing on the side of my bar, so taking a dump would probably get you killed. Like most drunks he didn't understand that he was not going to be served and repeatedly asked me for another beer. Finally I told his friends they could take him out of the bar or I was going to remove him with the help of a police officer. They wisely took him home, thus saving his life. On the note of people needing to be arrested, I had three separate friends tell me that they were either detained or arrested by the police during the holiday. They were all let go pretty quickly, allowed to bail themselves out or released on their own. Normally when you are arrested during a holiday you have to stay until the courts resume which is sometime on Thursday afternoon. I haven't seen the number but I will bet that arrests were down this year.

A NUMBER ONE, KING OF THE HILL

So I think everyone has a mental list of things about potential mates that are unacceptable. For example, non-smokers often won't date smokers, general things along those lines. My list is more specific. High on the list is flip flops, something I have railed against in these pages before. Recently I have been tested on this one. There is a boy, a beautiful boy named Ben who I think is so hot and he wears flip flops. Always. I've never seen him in shoes. Though I still think it's disgusting I try to put it out of my head that he is wearing them. Another of my biggies is lip gloss. Now chapstick, carmX, that sort of thing I have no problem with. Lips get dry, they need nourishment. What I can't take is lip gloss, especially when it's put on with a wand. I have a general dislike of seeing people put on make-up. A woman who puts on lipstick or powder while sitting at a restaurant makes me cringe. If you're going to go that far you might as well kick off a heel and give yourself a pedicure right there in between salads and entrees.

At the top of this list however are fans and flags. The fans are part of a larger dislike; the type of people who carry fans. These are also often the same people who would wear lip gloss that you put on with a wand. I can't stand the fan crap. I don't know if it's the noise they make when they snap or how absolutely ridiculous people look walking around with them. More than once I have taken fans away from stupid little boys and either thrown them away, broken them or simply kept them until the person left. Flags are another one and I don't think I really have to say much about them. Outside of circuit parties there are no normal people who carry around flags to spin them on dance floors. Thank god.

I have rambled on enough here, a few more quick notes. I was very sad to see Dolly lose her Oscar. She lost for "9 to 5" as well. Losing to a song from Hustle and Flow was a double whammy. I guess Dolly should call Randy Newman to see how he's coped all these years.

If you are a fifty something man I think prefacing every sentence with "dude" is a bit much. This is especially true when you also include the word "Yo". "Yo, Dude, Knock It Off."

Enough bitter rambling for one day...ciao for now!

briefly...

I am working on two posts, both are in draft form and will likely be published tomorrow. Thanks for your patience!

Oh, but in the meantime, can I just say a couple things. First, I am sick and tired of hearing about the children, natural or otherwise, of celebrities. Even more so, I am seriously sick of hearing women's pregnancies referred to as their "bumps." Who started this? Is this a black eyed peas thing? Am I once again out of the loop of the hip crowd? Since when is a fetus a "bump"? I would imagine that many children were the result of a bump (of powder) or from doing the old bump and grind. Once a woman is pregnant though I think referring to the fetus as a "bump" is just gross.

Second, Brokeback Mountain didn't win the oscar. Get over it. Crash won for a very simple reason, half the actors in Hollywood were in the movie. It's not homophobia (remember Philip Seymour Hoffman winning for portraying a gay character?) It's not a plot by the christian right (remember, Jews run Hollywood.) Brokeback lost, it's over, quit your crying...