I Gave At The Office

Pride season 2010 is here.   This weekend Seattle Pride is in full swing and I am sitting quietly on my own little version of "Wysteria Lane," just minutes outside of the hustle and bustle of the big city of the Northwest.  I am doing my usual Sunday mix of writing, reading, blogging, watching Sunday Morning News shows, doing laundry, and of course enjoying multiple cups of good bold rich coffee.   I've heard from friends far and wide ask me the same question which is "what are you attending this year at Pride?"   My answers are varied and depending on the friend are sometimes loony; but the sentiment and core of each answer is that I have Pride year round and this year I'm sitting out the parade, festival, bars, & usual Monday Morning gutter crawl towards home in the wee squinting shaky bourbon soaked morning.

I am far from saying I am retiring from future Pride weekend attendance; but this year I really felt like I have been there done that.   For God's sakes I have walked the Seattle Parade route itself in 6 inch heels, with the "full Betty," drag on five years in a row; I've "entertained," the "troops," in 5 San Diego Pride seasons as well and we won't regale all the shenanigans of my Palm Springs, Long Beach, San Francisco, Asheville, Orlando,DC, & Holland Pride festivals.   I will coyly plead the Vegas morality law which says that which has happened at each of those Prides will stay there.   I have given at the office in more ways, locations, and positions than one can imagine.

I will say that with the passing of my most recent birthday I reflected on the past 2 years of Pride festival attendances that they had begin to lose their luster for me.   I begin to think maybe it was an age thing.   The closer forty gets I see my priorities sharpen and my tastes for many things I once thought "fun," wane.  It is not  that I lack Pride.   I feel that it is a 24/7 365 day a year work in progress.   As I have grown older I have begun to really appreciate how my Pride has matured.   It goes beyond holding a sign in a parade or sticking a rainbow flag on your car.   I feel my actions in my everyday approach exemplify my growing respect for myself and as the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.   

The Pride parties, parades, and festivals are great fun and I believe they are essential.   If you ever experience a Pride Weekend there is no way to deny that the old 10% rule of thumb is way off.   I think it is important to have a special weekend to parade like peacocks and show off your colors, your true colors.   If for any other reason to show the world that diversity is fun, crazy, zany, and embraceable.   It is palpable, it lives, breathes, and at its most significant core promotes a heartbeat sustained by the idea that there are so many colors in the rainbow and notes in a song.    Being different, embracing diversity, living through adversity are monumental reasons in which to celebrate.

This year I may be choosing to celebrate myself and my pride in a quiet place and state of mind; but deep down in my soul that iconic Sister Sledge anthem, We Are Family, roars strong in my soul and hums steadily in my veins.   So friends do not fret my Pride is not on life support, it is alive and well, It is  just matter of fact that this year I feel I've already given at the office, maybe I will see y'all next year.   Until then I send up a big ole hands in the air to Jesus dance wave, two snaps in a rainbow formation and an honorary, girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl!   Happy Pride!

Howdy! My Name is Blanche (Remembering Rue McClanahan)

I first remember encountering Rue McClanahan as Aunt Fran on Mama's Family in the early eighties.   I was addicted to Carol Burnett re-runs and thus became obsessed with Mama's Family when it spun off into its own prime time sit com series.   Not long after Rue's character, Aunt Fran died from choking to death on a chicken bone if I remember correctly, Rue McClanahan showed up on a new risky sit com The Golden Girls.   It was risky because the prime time market in television at this time was flooded with youth obsessed shows and yuppie infused thirty somethings. So, who would want to watch four women of a "certain age," talking about the "change," and dating, and gasp, gasp, horror, horror, their sex lives?   Further more would it be FUNNY!   Hell Yes it would prove to not only be funny but be, well......Golden.   For seven seasons we embraced these funny ladies and thanks to Lifetime, WE, Oxygen, and countless other cable networks, it seems The Golden Girls could also be called The Immortal Girls.    To further illustrate their popularity across all age demographics, it seems that The Golden Girls are quickly catching up to I Love Lucy in terms of how many times it has be re-ran in syndication.   Quite an amazing feat considering I Love Lucy had a thirty year head start.

Beneath all the popularity, awards, and golden reputation this show has it was always the characters that kept me a loyal fan and still has me coming back for more.   I own all the seasons on DVD and yet when I'm flipping the channels, I more often than not get hung up on an episode of The Golden Girls and find it hard to turn the channel no matter how many times I've seen that particular episode.  

Given my love of The Golden Girls it would be hard to say which character I loved more.   The past few years we have lost all but one of those funny ladies.   Estelle Getty (Sophia) was the first to go, then last year Bea Arthur (Dorothy) left us and just recently Rue made her final bow and exit as well.   So as much as a grieve for my girls that have gone on, they live on, thank God on some TV channel somewhere in the world daily; but also the beloved Betty White has, at the age of 88, hit her stride it seems, beyond enjoying a renaissance of sorts in her career she has become hip and known to a whole new generation which has reportedly given an astronomical jump in the number of cable stations buying up rights to the syndicated episodes of The Golden Girls!

Yet, one Golden Girl hit a home run in my heart from the very first episode and that was Blanche, so brilliantly played by Rue McClanahan.   Rue herself had remained busy after the series ended doing theater and TV movies and various guest spots on popular shows.   Rue had also begin to hit a comeback in the last two years as well.   Her memoir, My First Five Husbands, became a best seller, she received kudos and critical praise when she joined the Broadway cast of Wicked, and finally she re-entered the world of TV sit coms when she accepted the role of Peggy Ingraham in Del Shores' Logo Channel cult hit, Sordid Lives.   Playing along side Caroline Rhea, Ann Walker, Bonnie Bedilia, Beth Grant, Leslie Jordan, & Olivia Newton John Rue once again turned up the heat on how society might expect a seventy something year old grandma character to behave.   The series has been on hiatus awaiting some legal issues to be resolved; but Rue made an indelible and hilarious mark with her talent and comic timing in the first season.  

But getting back to Blanche, I feel like I have to sort of come clean and do a sort of "AA minute," here:  HI, my name is Kitty and I am Blanche.   My drag personae Kitty Davis was heavily influenced by Rue's Golden Girls' character Blanche Devereaux.   In fact before I finally became Kitty Davis, I was Blanche Davis and then Kitty Devereaux.   I saw Kitty as a culmination of many strong female heroines and characters but felt like Kitty was best summed up as a hybrid of Blanche Devereaux (Rue from Golden Girls) and Suzanne Sugarbakker (Delta Burke of Designing Women).   Blanche continued to follow my private life for all of my twenties and most of my thirties as many friends openly nicknamed me as Blanche given, (allegedly), my sexual adventures, again.........allegedly (wink wink)!

So I will always remember Rue's pitch perfect Southern drawl, sizzling saunter, and smoldering swagger.   Though I never met her I always felt close to her, lucky for us Blanche will live on thanks to cable and seven seasons of comic treasures and Rue, what else to say.......but thanks for being a friend.

BP= Bullshit Politics

I wonder how this country ever gets any law passed or any thing done.   From confirmation hearings to the latest congressional hearing investigating the BP Oil disaster in the Gulf Coast I have come to the conclusion that at least for me this confirms that these hearings are nothing more than a gathering of talking heads saying the same redundant sound bytes one after the other.  

In a courtroom when a witness does not answer a question they are usually considered a "hostile witness," meaning they are being uncooperative and stand a chance of being found in contempt of the court and/or committing perjury.   Yet, somehow, on the "Hill," (DC), witnesses get away with redundancies like:  "I don't recall;"  "I never saw that communication;"  or my favorite response after some whispering with a counselor and a covered mic the witness will respond, "I cannot answer that at this time."  

I often wonder how any man or woman with a conscience can deliver such inane, limp, & asinine "testimony," like Tony Hayward did this past week and walk away from it seemingly prideful.   I guess when you are getting paid over $ix Million dollars in annual compensation plus millions more in stock and benefits, maybe it is easy to play stoic and in the end render such empty rhetoric.

It would be easy to just to beat up on Tony for his testimony to nowhere; but what about those congress members pointing the fingers.   It struck me duplicitous that the men and women conducting this hearing were lambasting Mr. Tony for his "don't know," answers and his very apparent prepared general statements when they give the same circuitous blank answers whenever you see them being questioned on a Sunday morning news program.   Somewhere along the way America has lost its integrity and soul and especially the men and women who allegedly "represent," us in the government.   Everyone of those members questioning Tony (Republican and Democrat alike) have all received donations from "Big Oil."   I dare say the whole damn hearing was just a show to make the American public at large feel like government was at least "doing something."   I cannot help but wonder if the organization of this hearing went like this:  "Hey, Tony we need ya to come up to the Hill so we can look like we are giving you a public whipping........ all ya got to do is to continue to look like the schmuck and provide no real answers and we will get a little testy with ya, then we will all go have a nice lunch, give the people a little show then go home, what do ya say?"  

B.P. may stand for a corporate brand of petroleum products; but for me it will always mean bullshit politics, which I understand is saying nothing new; but if we take it to a larger picture I feel like this oil spill is just a big metaphor and wake up call for the real clean up work that needs to be done in this country.   Our Country's integrity has had a black, mucky, sticky residue eating away at it for some time now and that icky sticky substance is politics.