Oh Get Out of Here You Crazy Fool...

My usual flipness gone, I am very sad today. Miss Alice Ghostley passed away.

A veteran actor, Miss Ghostley was a cast member on many television shows over the years. She played Aunt Esmarelda on "Bewitched" as well as the role for which most of us will remember her, the wacky Bernice Clifton on "Designing Women".



Bernice, the sometimes crazy, sometimes lucid friend and client of the Sugarbaker Design Firm. In episode after episode (24 in all) she entertained with her wacky views of life and with the occasional song.

Aside from her recurring television roles, she has appeared on the small screen since the late 50's in such shows as "Car 54, Where Are You," "Love, American Style," "Maude," (and again years later as Stan's Mother on 'Golden Girls' with Bea Arthur)and "Evening Shade".

Miss Ghostley also appeared in films such as "The Graduate" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" as well as the teacher of Auto Mechanics in "Grease".

She passed away at her home in Studio City, California.

Read her NY Times Obituary. Her long history of television and movie appearances can be viewed at IMDB

Despite my sadness at her passing there is one small piece of joy. She was on my list at Rotten Dead Pool. That's 2 out of 10 in as many months.

Boo Hoo

"I have children so I need the entire world to bow down and kiss my ass"

Okay it's not a direct quote but it's a sentiment I hear expressed often by people who have children. The latest whine is aimed at Southwest Airlines decision to move the pre-boarding time for families to a space between the A and B boarding times. OUTRAGE! How dare an airline not kiss the ass of a family traveling with (usually) un-ruly children. What is Southwest thinking treating their customers who aren't traveling with kids as important.

Blogger comments from parents are filling up sites with their fuming, "This is the last time you'll get my money Southwest." To which I reply, "Good". I want an airline to come right out and say it, "We don't want your screaming children on our planes." As much as these parents bitch about how the airlines aren't bowing down to their uncontrolled procreation I would like to bitch about how annoying people with children on planes can be. You're half-hearted apologies and "He's at that age" comments about your squalling toddler kicking my seat bring me no solace. Your seven year old turned around in his seat staring at me for two hours while you sleep only makes me wish you were sterile. Listening to your four year old sing along with a big blue dog only makes me wish I had a pit bull handy. Parents cry, "It's difficult to travel on a plane with children!" Here's a novel approach, drive. You can get in your own car and drive wherever you want to go without the added hassle of being so mis-treated by the airlines. "But," you say, "I have the right to fly just like you do." Sure you do, but demanding extra rights because you chose to bring another life onto the planet is not your right. If you insist on flying then here's a piece of advice. Get there on time. All airlines offer pre-check in up to 24 hours ahead of time. If you need to be the first one on the plane because you have to herald your child's 27 toys to keep them occupied for the 2 hours flight then it's up to you to plan ahead. I know it's a novel approach to parenting that you be prepared and responsible for your own children, but try.

Infants are especially an issue. I understand that at times it's necessary for a parent to fly with an especially young child. When I fly I have to chew gum to keep my ears from popping like crazy, a very painful experience. It's just cruel to subject a child to this who can't tell you that they are in pain. Then of course they cry and nobody can enjoy their free cookies and half a glass of water. Recently an airline employee was criticized for suggesting that a woman give her child a dose of childrens benadryl to encourage sleep. The little passenger was repeatedly saying "Bye Bye Plane, Bye Bye Plane" which made the flight attendant a bit upset. Granted it's a child but that behavior could make anyone boarding a flight a little jumpy. The reply from the outraged mother who, according to her own statement, "felt helpless"? "I'm not drugging my child so you can have a better flight!" I'm not suggesting that airlines make it mandatory that you give your children sleeping agents but in a perfect world... They make you drug your dogs and cats still don't they?

I would gladly pay extra to fly on a flight that was guaranteed not to have anyone under the age of 18 on it. No screaming infants, no crying toddlers, no gabby pre-teens. If the airlines do let them pre-board I say put them all in one area together. Let every flight they take be punctuated with the screams of the mess they've created for themselves.

Now I'm not down on children across the board, don't get me wrong. I just think that if you choose to have children you shouldn't expect the rest of the world to be your co-parent.

Minor Milestone

Those of you who regularly read my blog are probably aware that I had a minor heart attack in 2006. Before that I had smoked very regularly for a number of years but the heart incident made me stop. For a while I stopped. It was just a few months later when I found myself having the occasional cigarette. Occasional lead to multiple to many and to being a full time smoker again. In March of this year I decided that I had to stop, prompted by a couple of things. A, my health, quite simple. B, I had concluded that I was not capable of being a casual smoker. I know people who can smoke only when they go out or once a month or whatever; I am not that person. I can't smoke casually. C, though by mutual agreement with my roommate I didn't smoke in the house, my boyfriend was going to move in with us for the summer. He's very anti-smoking so it was a good reason timing wise to quit. I had been slowing myself down in preparation to quit on my planned date. That day was six months ago today. It's been difficult at times and I know by no means do I have my addiction beaten. I've put on 10 pounds which is enough by itself to make me smoke again. I still get cravings at times, especially if I have been out having drinks. Those moments are short lived and usually overcome by taking a deep breath and reminding myself that I am not a smoker and cannot be a casual smoker. So anyway, that's all, just blowing my own horn, hooray for me.

Seriously, they are dropping like flies...

Brett Somers Wikipedia Page.

This notice was on the official website of Miss Sommers.




Life without Charles Nelson Reilly must have proven to bleak.

Here are a couple YouTube videos of Brett, one from Match Game and a funny scene from Mary Tyler Moore.

Miss Jane Wyman R.I.P.

I bet Nancy Reagan is really nervous right about now.

I won't be nuts for you!

This is a scene from a movie Barbra Streisand made in 1987 called "Nuts". It was pretty much panned but it's a great story and a wonderful cast. It's Babs as a prostitute having her day in court to see if she's stable enough to stand trial. There is another scene where the prosecutor is trying to get her to admit she's a prostitute on the stand. They're going back and forth, all the lawyers talking over each other and she pops in with a rundown of her charge list: "I get four hundred for a straight lay, three hundred for a handjob and five hundred for head..."

At the point in the movie of this clip, all of her past has been re-hashed in front of everyone in the courtroom. The head doctor from the mental ward is testifying that in spite of all the testimony he still believes her to be unstable. Babs isn't pleased. Watch on...

Declaration of War

Over the weekend some little queen gave me a napkin with a song request. It was his second request for Britney Spears songs and he wrote on the bottom "It's Britney, Bitch!"

Here and Now I am declaring war on this phrase. I stood by without much complaint through "talk to the hand" and even "I ain't mad at ya!" but "It's Britney, Bitch!" I just can't handle. Anyone who utters this phrase at me should just expect a face full of hostility cause I'm loadin' both barrels.

Anyway Screw Britney Spears, she's filthy white trash from Kentwood, LA. There I said it. If her behavior the last few months hasn't shown her true colors then her trainwreck performance at the MTV music awards last night should be enough. She's a minorly talented but formerly well handled bimbo who frankly has seen her best days go by already. She's had her time in the spotlight, it should be over now.

The end.

"Knock Three Times"

I don't know the person who wrote or performed this but by god is it funny. Thanks to my friend Gwen for posting this on MySpace. It's brilliant.

Square States, Ho! Oh Yeah, and Larry Craig.

So Southern Decadence is at long last over. The beer and cocktails and shots consumed, blow jobs and rim jobs and anonymous encounters (and probably more than a few subsequent trips to discrete doctors) along with old friends re-acquainted. The party's over for another year and people have returned to their square states. Decadence for me is filled mostly with work; like most bar employees I worked a seven day stretch, fortunately mine wasn't more than 9 hours any one day (of work anyway) and I had a little time each day to visit with friends.

(I had some comments to make here about the size of crowds, policies and the such but since I feel that my blog has been recently compromised I am going to avoid such things for a bit - bear with me, my usual criticisms and witticisms shall return when I am done licking my wounds)

My usual main annoyance during any holiday and especially Decadence is the dancers. I have to give a shout out to friend Christopher who has now officially hung up his go-go shorts and retired. Over the years he's always been a good dancer meaning that he actually dances. He's not sucking face or god knows what else or sitting down on the bar doing nothing but be in the way. Christopher is almost never in the way; He pays attention to what goes on below him (though how he sees us with that large bulge in his pants is beyond me) and moves as we need him to move. He was popular with our patrons and with all the staff and he'll be missed. Hopefully we'll see him for visits to the city from time to time. It was also good to see Adam Killian, who is as vigorous of a performer as I've ever known. He's great to watch and he always brings hot boys with him. One of the boys he brought this year (whose name I do not know, I never saw him speak to anyone who worked there) was a handsome guy and very muscular BUT he was wearing FLIP FLOPS. ON THE BAR. Flip Flops. That awful sound of the non-shoes slapping on the bar was annoying, not to mention that I had to look at his toes which were curled up to keep the damned things on. Fortunately there was another boy with them (Brad I think) who was a little shorter (Which I love), super hot looking with a beautiful smile and body who was uber friendly. The other dancer may not have even had teeth as I never saw him open his mouth to smile. Even though the sour puss and his bare feet (and seriously swollen ankles, I swear, cankles) were a minor nuisance he was nothing compared to the "star" performer. I refuse to publish full names anymore so a description will have to do. His last name is Hunt. He proudly sports his 13 inch penis which sits atop scrawny legs and just below a powder white torso covered with a smorgasbord of tattoos including one of a baby's face. I'm not sure about other peoples porn desires but I don't think I want to see some cherub like face while one guy is being impaled by a giant rod. It's disturbing. I couldn't see anything attractive about the guy, a sentiment that seemed to be shared by everyone around me all weekend long. Then there was Four Square. This is not his real name but it's my nickname for him. He has one dance move that looks like a cross between someone shoving a corncob up his ass and a naked game of four square. Arms up at his side, shoulders hunched and his little jazz squared ass stuck out like a chimp at a zoo. I hope he doesn't fuck like that. He kicks over drinks, then stands there in the mess while you try to clean it up. Whenever someone approaches the bar with money out to buy a drink he is there like a shark, looming over the person, many of whom give him a dollar to get him out of the way so they can order a drink. Definitely not one of my favorites. In a bit of good news we may have seen the last of another dancer, my absolute least favorite ever. You may have heard me mention the thigh slapping, calf tongue penis looking dancer before and my intense dislike for him. I heard through the grapevine he wasn't planning to dance for us anymore and I was so upset that I did a little jig. I think he just turned 50 or so anyway so it's probably time to hang up the penis pump anyway.

I went to the parade on Sunday afternoon with several other guests from a pre-parade party at my friend Dillons house. It was very hot and crowded but we managed to snare a spot near the Verti Mart. I even broke my long standing personal rule to not purchase things at the Verti-Mart because it's incredibly dirty. There is no use in pointing out to me that I am a regular customer of the Quarter Master which is just as dirty. The world comes down to two types of people, Verti-Mart people and Quarter Master people. Pub or Oz, Judy or Barbra, David Sedaris or communist. My water purchased I stepped outside just as the parade began. The first thing I noticed was that there were several people dressed as Guardian Angels. I totally thought it was a costume but for some reason they were serving as some sort of security. In all the years I have lived in New Orleans I've never seen a parade that didn't have a band. I'm not sure why they didn't have one, perhaps there wasn't one available. I was expecting loud whistles and a band and screaming but it's was off an running without a bang as they say. I only saw two of the Grand Marshall's, missing Mr. Martinez. I'm always amused by the creativity of people who work current events into these parades. There was a group of Wendys (for David Vitters wife and one of the sex workers involved) as well as the red pigtailed daughter of ultra conservative Dave Thomas. She was carrying a big red cross emblazoned with the words "Wendy Saves". My favorite though was a large red white and blue political sign that read "Larry Craig for President, he'll tap, tap, tap his way into your heart". Now that was funny. A co-worker told me later that they did have music later in the parade, not from a band but that there was music. I missed most of the official stuff, I caught a few minutes of the Lady Bunny show and one of the Shirley Q. shows. I had a couple drinks late one night with Chi-Chi and Lady Bunny and a very nice short conversation with them. I also had a funny incident with another porn star. His last name is long and he isn't kidding. One of my co-workers approached me and said ".... Long just slapped me in the face with his penis, kiss me right here" and my response was "hey, I want some of that action, where's he at?" So we took off upstairs to where the guy was on the balcony and he was more than happy to oblige me with a few friendly smacks from his massive endowment. I immediately had to text Matt in San Diego to tell him of my sordid encounter and got back the desired "fuck you fuck you fuck you I hate you" and a threat never to return my copy of a porn this guy appears in that Matt "borrowed" on a visit last year. Matt texted me last week to tell me that he was a few feet away from another porn star I love (Everett) at a mexican restaurant. I got more action but I would have loved to have seen that one. As Matt described it to me "I'm five feet away from Everett. I'm four feet away from Everett's cock." Priceless.

On to Other Items...

Larry Craig. Yes. He was mentioned a moment ago and I have to say that I missed the close connection we Orleanians have to this Senator. I didn't realize he was the same senator who made the comment after Katrina that

"Fraud is in the culture of Iraqis. I believe that is true in the state of Louisiana as well."

as well as some other comments about why New Orleans should be re-built since it's a low lying area. Idiot. I love every time one of these republican moralists gets nailed in a sex scandal. It just puts a smile on my face and a song in my heart. FindLaw.com has a great article that includes the official arrest documents. They also have a blurb about another similar scandal with Craig that happened back in 1982. There was a former congressional page who made allegations that there were members of congress who were giving drugs and propositioning sex with the minor pages. BEFORE he could even be named Craig put out a statement that he wasn't involved. What's the phrase, me think he doth protest too much. It did bring back a long forgotten but fun little joke. Why don't congressmen use book marks? Because they like to bend their pages over.

I have more to write but my fingers and eyes and brain are tired. More soon.