Summer Reading: Siestas, Fiestas and Drag Queen Hookers?

How's about we all read this for fun after Kiki finishes up with all the bildungsroman he has to read for his class.

It sounds similar to the book I'd really like to write about Dublin, except it has more of a racial/tranny twist. I'm very skeptical of men who write women main characters, but I'm curious enough.

Hedwig Is Alive and Well and Living in the Ukraine

Why do Europeans get to have all the fun? While our AmIdols bend over backwards to deny that they, um, bend over, the annual Eurovision Song Contest provides an endless parade of boyish girls, girly boys and trannies of all stripes, some of whom, like our friend Verka (above), end up placing as high as SECOND. (Meanwhile, grand prize winner Marija Serifovic is a chantenuse who looks like she regularly hangs with the ladies who lunch on The L Word.)

Across the Atlantic, these same folks would be relegated to the mean-spirited freakshow that is the early rounds of AmIdol. Is it any wonder the Scissor Sisters sell millions of records overseas but can't garner more than a "cult" audience here? Call it homophobia if you like, but it seems to be more of an aversion to all things remotely fabulous -- just look at how toast-bland some of our most-popular divas have gotten.

For more info on the insane drag-off that is Eurovision, look no further than GoFugYourself...

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_fug_yourself/2007/05/its_that_time_o.html

Don't Call Me Twink, Faggot

I hate labels. I'm not going as far as Michael Stipe by saying labels are for canned goods or whatever the fuck that has-been said in the 90's while he danced around the issue of his sexuality. Here's the exact quote. I can't believe he avoided it for so long. He has a responsibility as a gay artist to let people know. To say, yeah, I'm gay, so what. Instead, I had to hear his wah wah-ing about the environment and Tibet. And remember when he won all those MTV music awards for 'Losing My Religion' and he had a different shirt on for each award. Like one shirt read "Pro-Choice" and another one read "Rock the Vote". Not one of those 12 shirts said "ActUp" or "Queer" or "Bald Ugly Faggot". Nothing. Labels are for food.

I'm a gay man. It's who I am. I'll say it. But will I say I'm a twink or a straight-acting gay? No.


I remember being in some bar and this dude who looked a lot like Gary Coleman came up to me and called me a twink. (He actually said something more offensive like "hey twinkie, I want to suck the creamy filling outta you"). I didn't know exactly what a twink was but I had an idea (well, visuals from gay porn sites). Either way, I didn't want to be called a twink. I didn't want to get lumped into that category of gay. I've done my research and twink I am not. If we follow the rules of the definition, twinks are under the age of 21. They are slender (ok), slightly muscular/athletic (hm), and have little to no body hair (well, that's not me unless you count the pathetic patch I have on my chest as little to no hair).


Then there's the whole straight acting controversy. Lance Bass said this is People Magazine last year:

"I want people to take away from this that being gay is a norm," Bass said. "That the stereotypes are out the window ... I've met so many people like me that it's really encouraged me. I call them the SAGs — the straight-acting gays. We're just normal, typical guys. I love to watch football and drink beer."

Yep, the stereotypes are out the window. Straight men watch football and drink beer. It's true. They do.



Maybe watching football and drinking beer is code. Watching football really means sucking cock and drinking beer means fucking ass. How subversive.

Lance Bass is trying to win over a straight crowd with his coming out by telling them: "Hey, I'm just like you." But he's not. He's not straight. He may drink beer and watch football, but he also eats ass and I'm not sure I know any straight dudes willing to do that. Shit, it's tough to get a straight man to eat pussy. Am I right, ladies? Let's not give straight dudes another hole to avoid with their tongues. Am I right, ladies?

Gay men need role models. We're raised in a heterosexual world where we need people to say I'm gay and it's normal. Lance should have said: "I'm just your normal, typical gay. I love to watch football and drink beer." And those that are hip to the code will know exactly what he means.

Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan

Julie Andrews, Babs Streisand, Linda Hunt, Hilary Swank have all been nominated for (or have won) Academy Awards for playing men or women pretending to be men. Cate Blanchett, I'm sure, will be another one.

We all perform gender. Some of us 'do gender' better than others.

Just another gay Sunday morning

This morning, while avoiding delving into the tedious task of writing a looooong overdue seminar paper, I got introduced to two important figures in gender bending through the wonders of television.

First, a profile on tennis champion and specialized surgeon Renee Richards on Sunday Morning.

Second, a documentary about Charles Busch, drag performer and playwright extraordinaire.

I'm ashamed to admit neither of them had been on my radar screen until this morning.

I also watched John Waters on Henry Rollins's IFC (or is it Sundance?) show last night. Love them both.

Cable is ruining my life.

But back to the gender benders. BFF asked me why I have such a fascination with transgenderism and transexualism. I think she might suspect I'm a closet case. But I actually do think of myself as a drag queen. I find men who perform as women with reverence to be playfully liberationist for all of us who identify, or perhaps struggle to identify with our feminine natures. Male dipshits on sitcoms who dress as women to make fun of women have the opposite effect. What drag does better than anything else, is show that gender is indeed a performance. Language doesn't help us with this. In French there is only one word for woman, female, feminine--at least in English we have the three words. There is a difference between sex, gender and sexuality. There can, and often is, overlap. All of us deserve to think through the complexities of who we are in these terms, especially within a culture that denigrates the feminine.

And as much as I love drag queens, I'm concerned that the gender bender figures who are gaining positive attention and getting accepted by a mainstream audience are/were born into male bodies. Where are the women transitioning into male forms? Where are the beloved butch dykes? They're out there, but they're not getting press. Why are drag kings harder for us to swallow, so to speak, than drag queens, especially if my cultural-hatred-of-the-feminine argument stands? Is it fundamentally biological (and believe me, I hate to bring the argument into this territory, but bear with me) . . . is it the 'how-dare-you-subvert-your-procreative-nature'? Or is it the harder to pull off performance of it all? It's perhaps easier to worship a glamorous figure who is indeed performing on a literal stage, a la Charles Busch or Ru Paul, and harder to be drawn to someone we expect to perform a glamorous role in life who is choosing to fade into the background. Or, do we believe in a kind of essentialism for men that we don't for women? That somehow, you cannot perform masculinity the way you can femininity, so butch dykes are ultimately frauds? Aha, perhaps I'm winding my way back to the hatred of the feminine here. . . .

Help me out, ya'll. What says you?

One of Kiki's characters comes out:

Dina McGreevey talks to Oprah. Airs Tuesday. Can't wait to hear what you've got to say about this one. . . .

By the way, I hate Gawker.

Hooray for tranny journalists!

From Mike to Christine.

So this LA Times sports reporter has begun her public transition in a very public way. God, I love California.

I hate, however, that journalism doesn't quite provide the forum necessary to really address these issues with as much complexity as they deserve. Or perhaps I'm just not giving readers enough credit.

I appreciate that Mike hints at the relationship between identity and writing--that since he's begun his transition he's brought more energy to his writing and suffered less from writer's block. But I want more depth in that area. I want a discussion about how even when he's writing about sports, he's creating himself on the page, and for all these years he's created a made up character. Now, or soon, when his byline changes to Christine Daniels, she'll be creating a more truthful character and reinforcing a self she doesn't have to do battle for the sake of cultural normality.

What do you think?

*thanks to Sid for the link! and I strongly encourage you to visit her most recent, brilliant rant on Russell Simmons.