SELF-DEFENSE MY ASS

Brazilian: Nun's Death Was Self-Defense
Dec 9, 4:36 PM (ET)
By MICHAEL ASTOR
BELEM, Brazil (AP) - The man accused of killing American nun and rain forest defender Dorothy Stang told a jury Friday that he acted in self-defense after mistaking her Bible for a gun.

That's certainly an understandable mistake. You really have to watch out for those nuns--their Bibles can be deadly. No wonder he emptied a six-shot revolver into her.

VERB? NOUN? NONE OF THE ABOVE?

"China Clones Threatened Gazelle Species" is what the Associated Press headline said. When I read it, I thought "threatened" was the verb. I wondered how a clone could threaten a species--maybe it could overwhelm it genetically. But when I read the article it was obvious that "threatened" was used as an adjective, and "clones" was the verb.

English can be such a pain.

CHANGING NAMES

No, I'm not changing the name of this blog again. Last night I went down to the LGBT Center to be a volunteer lawyer at the monthly West Village Trans-Legal Clinic Name Change Project. We help people, almost all of them transgender, to complete the papers they need to get their names changed legally. I don't do this every month, but it works out that I do it about half the time.

Every three months the director, Tom Hickey, sends out an e-mail, asking who is interested in volunteering for which months. Then he works out a schedule with four lawyers per month. Experience has taught him that one or two will fail to appear, but he fills in, especially if only two show up. November was a surprise for him, though--all four volunteer lawyers showed up. And as luck would have it, only six clients came. I handled two of them, and left after 90 minutes.

I was scheduled again this month. When I arrived there were already several clients waiting. Then Danny Shaffer, the administrator from LeGaL, the LGBT Law Association of Greater New York (co-sponsor of the Clinic), told me I was actually the only lawyer who was there. Cynthia Kern was not scheduled--she was actually there to do some filming for Dyke-TV. The other person, whom I did not recognize, was just there to observe, so she could volunteer in the future. And Tom was home sick.

Cynthia said she'd try to return after the rest of her filming, but otherwise it was just me, and a growing group of clients. I plunged in. Fortunately none of them had any unusual cases. None, in fact, had any of the usual complicating factors, such as spouses (ex or current), or minor children. But it still took time to fill out the forms and tell the clients what they had to do next--while the Clinic assists with the paperwork, the clients still have to file the papers at the court themselves.

After three clients I took a bathroom break. When I got back I was delighted to see Cynthia had returned. Otherwise there was no hope that all of the clients would be taken care of. I went back to work, and I think I saw three more (I lost count), when it got to be close to 9 o'clock, our normal ending time. Danny said there was only one more client, and asked if I could handle her. He also said we had to vacate the room at 9, but the Center had another room we could use. I said OK, and the client, a Center staffer and I went off to the other room. Eventually we got someone to unlock it, and I did my last case.

After answering a question from Danny, I was done. It was 9:45 and I think I had seen seven clients in just over 3½ hours. I think the most I had ever done in an evening before was four. I was exhausted. I hadn't worked so hard since I retired. In fact I don't remember working that hard anytime during my last job, which started in 1998.

But at least I helped seven people get names that reflect their true gender, and that made me feel good.

STUPID SPAM OF THE DAY

"The world is getting bigger; your penis has to get bigger too."

LA BOHÈME ROLLS ON

Saturday night I attended the Metropolitan Opera's 1,175th performance of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème. I haven't been to quite all of them, but I have seen it a good number of times. It's my favorite. If anyone is unsure of whether to go to the opera, I would suggest La Bohème.

The story is pretty straight-forward (a rarity in opera). It's your basic boy gets girl, boy loses girl, girl comes back to boy and dies. (It's the basis for the story of Rent, now playing in a theater near you.) Set in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840's (the East Village of its time), its characters are "bohemians"--young, penniless artists, poets, musicians, etc., not the usual upper-class movers and shakers who customarily populated the opera stage even in the late 19th century. The music is uncomplicated, I'd even say unsophisticated, compared to most of grand opera. The critics hated it, the audiences loved it--the Met has been filling the house and boosting its coffers with it since 1900.

Filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli did the production, which the Met has been using since the '70s at least, when I first saw it. His sets are spectacular, but I was surprised that only one of them got applause this time--audiences must be getting used to them. I remember when all three sets would get ovations, plus sometimes an additional one when the interior of Café Momus is revealed. There is much to delight the eye: a little pony or donkey pulling a vendor's cart, and a beautiful horse actually trotting across the stage, pulling a carriage bearing Mussetta for her grand entrance. A troop of soldiers preceded by a marching band parades down a huge flight of steps (stairways are a Zeffirelli signature--he puts them in every possible set).

The cast was more than adequate: Mimi was sung by the excellent Hei-kyung Hong (my wife took an extra copy of the program to give to her manicurist, who is always proud of her Korean heritage). The rest of the cast sang well, if not quite at Hong's level. And none of the starving artist bohemians was noticably fat, all too common among opera singers. Both Hong and Alexandra Deshorties, who played Musetta, are beautiful, easily making their attraction to the male characters believable.

As always, Mimi died in the last act, and as always, my eyes teared up, as Rodolfo cried out her name. Yes, it's a tear-jerker, but I love it.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"With our new Viagra Soft Tabs you will be able to open a bottle of beer with your penis."

Why in the world would I want to do that?

WHY ME?

Suddenly yesterday I noticed several people reached this blog by doing searches for "caprice bellefleur." I've gotten plenty of hits from people looking for just plain "caprice," or "caprice naked," (and one for "caprice prunes!"), but never ones that were actually looking for me.

I can't figure out why people are suddenly looking for me. The searches came from all over the world--one was from Singapore. Would any of you searchers care to leave a comment and tell me why?

SPAM OF THE DAY (well, yesterday)

"You are a businessman and have no time for a long sexual stimulation."

TRANSAMERICA

Wednesday night my friend Wendi and I went to a screening of Transamerica given by GenderPAC. The invitation said it would begin at 6:00p.m. PROMPT, so we wanted to make sure we were there in time to pick up our tickets. I hurried my make-up and skipped the nail polish. We found a cab pretty quickly, and zipped down the West Side Highway (or whatever it's officially called), down to the Tribeca Screening Room in Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Center--where the guard told us we were way too early, and we'd have to wait outside. So much for rushing. Either that, he said, or we could go into the Tribeca Grill, conveniently accessible through a door behind his desk. A real tough decision--wait out in the cold, or have a drink inside.

We went through the conveniently located door into the conveniently located restaurant, went up to the conveniently located bar, and saw GenderPAC's executive director, Riki Wilchens, along with some other GenderPAC people, conveniently sitting there. Actually, they saw us first. Gina Reiss, their managing director, said hello, and asked if we were coming to the screening. We said yes, and they said they'd be getting things going in a little while. We settled onto a couple of barstools that were separated from them by a pillar, and ordered drinks. My apple martini was very good. Only $11. Plus tip. Better than standing out in the cold. I think.

We talked for a bit, paid our bill, and returned through the conveniently located door to the guard, who told us we would still have to wait outside. So we put on our coats, and joined 25 or 30 people lined up under a conveniently located construction walkway in front of the building next door. Reiss came down the line and checked the names off her list. It was clear there were a lot of people from IBM there--someone was jokingly admonished for talking about IBM business after hours. We stood around for a while, as the line lengthened behind us. Fortunately we were properly dressed for the weather. Wendi had worn her fake fur coat (she had worried she'd be too warm in it--ha!) and I was OK in pants, a leather jacket, and a nice thick scarf.

Eventually we filed in and went upstairs to the screening room. It had 72 very comfortable seats, and maybe two-thirds were used. Wilchens and Reiss made a few remarks, citing IBM for their support of the event, and the screening began.

Transamerica is the story of Bree, a transsexual woman, just about to have her final surgery, who finds out she has a 17 year-old son. She bails him out of jail and sets off on a road trip from New York back to California with him, pretending to be a Christian do-gooder, hoping she can dump him at his stepfather's on the way. He wants to go to California in part to find his father--who is sitting right next to him. On the way they visit both of their home towns, where they encounter their broken families.

The hype about this film is that the TS is played by Felicity Huffman, one of the stars of the hit television series, Desperate Housewives. In fact, last year she won the Emmy for best actress in a comedy for her role in it. Now she is being mentioned as a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination, ever since Transamerica started hitting the festivals last spring. She already won the best actress award at the Tribeca Film Festival. I'll get to the choice of her for the part later, but I will say now that she deserves all of the hype, and the awards she has and, I hope, will win for it. She makes the film.

The movie industry has not done well by transgender people. There are few films not based on a true story that really portray us (I consider myself one) very realistically. Boys Don't Cry is fact-based. Perhaps Priscilla, Queen of the Desert qualifies. Maybe Ma Vie en Rose, which I haven't seen. Usually we are shown just as clowns or crime victims, when we're not serial killers. I haven't seen any totally fictional film where a TG person is realistically depicted in any great depth. Transamerica is a great departure from all that.

Huffman's character is quite believable as a transsexual. There are a few things here and there that don't ring true (a person in her position would not have to be told what "GG" means). Perhaps she is a bit more femme that the average TS, but on the whole Bree is quite realistic, based on what I've learned from the TS's I've known. The only thing about her I couldn't quite pin down were her religious beliefs. The movie's publicity describes her as a conservative person, which could account for her taste in clothes (she wears skirts the entire trip) and her easy adoption of the Christian do-gooder persona. But as the film went on I saw less and less of that, outside of the wardrobe.

Part of the film's hype, of course, is that Bree, a not-so-beautiful, genetic male, is played by a beautiful, genetic female. What struck me was that Bree details a whole list of facial surgery that she has had--yet she still is not particularly attractive. I don't think she got her money's worth--the people I've seen who have had such surgery look far better. I guess the contrast makes for better publicity. (Still more about the choice of Huffman for the role later.)

But it's the plot of the film that's its weakest point. Bree's motivation for going to New York and dealing with her son, a week before her surgery, is rather questionable. The device of having characters thrown together on a cross-country road trip has been done to death. The ending is thoroughly predictable. It's the characters that make this movie worth seeing. Outside of Bree's therapist, they are real. Toby, the son, is played with proper teenage rebelliousness by Kevin Zegers, grown up from his Air Bud days. Fionnula Flanagan almost steals the show as Bree's mother.

Along the way, Bree and Toby stay with Mary Ellen, a TS Bree knew somehow--I assume from the internet. I was shocked to see in the credits that Mary Ellen was played by Bianca Leigh. I did not recognize her at all--perhaps I was thrown off by the thick Texas accent. I only knew Bianca as a singer, and lately as the Monday bartender at Lips. In fact Bianca was serving me drinks just two days before the screening! I had seen her performing in Jesse Volt's show at the Monster Bar several times since I started going there in 1999, and I knew she sang at various other clubs. (I remember how she had to interrupt one show to stop an increasingly loud argument about her at the front of the audience--she settled the dispute by saying that she was "a woman of transsexual experience.") I had had a few conversations with her, but had no idea she was an actress also.

Mary Ellen happens to be having a little party when Bree and Toby arrive--a room full of TS's (and the aforementioned "GG"). I knew beforehand that the fiddler was played by Calpernia Addams. But who I did recognize as one of the partiers, to my great surprise, was Melissa Sklarz. Melissa is the president of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats here in Manhattan, and I've worked with her on a couple of things. We are both on the Steering Committee of the NYS GENDA Coalition, and a couple of weeks ago I went up to White Plains with her for a Coalition meeting. I had also seen her on Monday, before seeing Bianca. I attended a panel discussion on increasing the term limits for NYC councilmembers at the LGBT Center, organized by the Stonewall Democrats. After it was over, before I walked the couple of blocks to Lips, I had a little chat with Melissa, who was there also. I had no idea I would be seeing her in Transamerica.

After the screening Wendi and I went to the reception at the Bubble Lounge, a couple of blocks away. We walked with Michelle Miles, who had been a keyholder at CDI when I joined back in 1998. Today she is the treasurer of GenderPAC. On the way she pointed out the building where she had lived back in the '80s, when Tribeca was the frontier as a residential area.

At the reception there were maybe a couple dozen people. Nice hors d'oeuvres were served, with free beers courtesy of Coors, another sponsor. I tried a Zima, which I had never had before. It was good enough to merit a second--which was enough to require an unusual trip to the ladies' room later on. Usually I can get through an evening without having to go--but I usually don't drink beer. We mingled for a bit. A couple of the actors showed up. One was Bianca, the other was the sole transman from the party scene, David Harris. Also there was one of the producers, Rene Bastian, I think. Duncan Tucker, the writer/director, was supposed to be there, but he was "delayed."

After a bit we were called to order and the three were formally introduced. A short Q&A followed. The producer spoke about the selection of Huffman. He agreed it would have been great if a TS actress could have played the part, but they really needed someone at least somewhat known to make the film marketable. Originally they approached actresses they thought had some masculinity, but they all declined. None wanted a role that would emphasize something they preferred to hide, I suppose. Finally they just looked for actresses who were "transformable"--ones that could meld themselves into a variety of appearances. Eventually they found Huffman, who was very enthusiastic. She did a lot of research into TS's. (Her husband, William H. Macy, the film's executive producer, has quoted her as saying she "felt the responsibility to get it right." Bianca commented that she was still asking a lot of questions the day they shot the party scene, which was well into the filming.)

I think the producers made the right choice. An unknown TS actress would probably have ensured the film would be seen by few--assuming the money could be found to make it all. With Huffman it got made, it got hype, and it got a big name distributor: The Weinstein Company picked the film up as its very first acquisition. (This is the new multimedia venture of Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the founders of Miramax, which is now part of the Walt Disney Co.) With their backing, and Huffman's popularity, Transamerica has a chance to be seen by more than a few people on each coast. If Huffman actually wins the Oscar, it could be a lot of people. And that's good in my book, because I think Transamerica shows a quite realistic picture of a transsexual who is not a clown, a victim, or a criminal.

They auctioned off a Transamerica poster autographed by Huffman et al. (getting $1000 for GenderPAC--maybe a little more). But nobody bid on a meeting over coffee at Starbucks with writer-director Tucker--perhaps people were apprehensive he wouldn't show up there, either. Or maybe they just started the bidding too high.

Wendi was getting hungry, so we ducked out at the end of the presentation. We cabbed it up to the Bistro at the Stonewall, only to find it closed for renovations. So we went across the street to the Riviera Cafe. There we noticed that the Bistro had changed its name to Gianni's. Hmmm.

After dinner we walked over to the Monster Bar for Jesse Volt's show. On the way in we ran into was Howie V., our friend the Cher impersonator, who was on his way out. He visits us at CDI occasionally. A couple of the people from the CDI open house joined us, and then I ran into Ivan Dominguez, the chair of my LGBT Committee at the New York County Lawyers Association. He bought us drinks (thanks again, Ivan), and we chatted a bit. He had to go home (couldn't bear to miss Nightline). So we went downstairs to wait for the show. Eventually it started--and I fell asleep for its second half.

--------

Transamerica has opened up, at least here in NYC. It's playing at the IFC Center, the old Waverly Theater in the Village, on two of its three screens. The writer/director Duncan Tucker is supposed to be there in person at the 7:20, 8:20, and 9:25pm shows on Saturday. And if you go to the last show you could stick around and make it a transgender double feature--the midnight show there is Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

FIVE QUESTIONS, FIVE ANSWERS

My friend Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser, has a wonderful blog, (en)gender, focusing on gender and trans issues (when she's not posting pictures of her beloved cats). In it she has a feature, "Five Questions With...," which are short interviews with various people in the trans community. She has started a series of these with people who run local trans groups, and I'm her first victim, er, subject. She asks me about my work with LGBT groups, and with Crossdressers International in particular, the compromises I've made with my wife concerning my crossdressing, and my fondness for drag queens. Read it here.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"You have heard that pouring your sperm into her tea is the best way to attract her."

Um, no, actually I haven't heard that.

AMAZING AMAZON

Saturday evening I got an e-mail from Amazon.com, saying my order had been shipped, and the estimated delivery date was December 9. This was rather amazing, since the package had already been delivered before I returned to New York on Friday afternoon.

ARLO AFTER 40 YEARS

We exchanged our tickets for La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera, so we could see Arlo Guthrie at Carnegie Hall last night. It's his Alice's Restaurant Massacree 40th Anniversary Tour. 40 years!

Apparently he has been doing Thanksgiving weekend concerts at Carnegie Hall for many years. I've never been all that much into folk music, so I was unaware. My wife saw an ad, and decided she wanted to try something different from our usual classical music. So a couple of weeks ago when we were at Carnegie Hall for something else we stopped and got tickets. All that was left were balcony seats. I'm not sure the little plane we flew on the day before got as far off the ground as these seats--but with binoculars it was fine. The sound system was quite good, even up there.

The concert was really a family affair. It started with one of Arlo's daughters, Sarah Lee Guthrie and her husband, Johnny Irion. They were OK. They were joined for one song by The Mammals, who later did their own set. I'm not sure their combination blue grass/rock and roll sound really works. The drums really seemed out of place, even with the shortish drumsticks that were used.

After the intermission Arlo came out, backed by his son Abe on keyboard, and Gordon Titcomb on a variety of instruments, but mostly on pedal steel guitar. Arlo is just as much a storyteller as a singer, and his introductions were every bit as entertaining as his songs. He described how Bob Dylan showed up on the Guthrie doorstep when Arlo was 13, before doing an excellent rendition of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." "House of the Rising Sun" and "Coming Into Los Angeles" followed. Titcomb did a song from his new album.

Eventually he got to "Alice's Restaurant," his 15 minute song/story of his getting arrested for illegally dumping garbage he had cleaned up from Alice's home, and his subsequent draft physical (yes, they are connected). Curiously, last summer I was in that home, a former church that Arlo later bought and which is now the Guthrie Center. I heard an Oscar Brand concert there, sitting right in the room where the garbage had been stored. Anyhow, Arlo sang/spoke it, with only slight updating from the recorded version, and it eventually turned into a sing-along. Most of the audience knew every word already.

All the other musicians joined him for the last few numbers, including "This Land is Your Land"--where they brought out all of the musicians' children to join in. Arlo's remaining big hit, "City of New Orleans," was done with him playing the piano.

Arlo Guthrie's music is not particularly challenging--the contrast with the Dylan song was jarring. He certainly can sing heavier songs (his rendition of "Mr. Tambourine Man" was the best I've ever heard, including Dylan's own), but he can't write them--at least judging from the ones he sang in this concert. It was a nice concert, all in all, but I'm not sure we'll be making this an annual event.

BACK IN NYC

We're back in New York. No wonder the flight was so expensive--there were all of seven of us on the flight, in a plane that seats 34 or so. Of course, there was a plus to this. All seven of us were there early, so the plane left 20 minutes ahead of schedule!

THANKSGIVING DAY

In a few minutes we'll be heading off to my sister's for Thanksgiving. There has been a little bit of snow here (I wonder how I'll clean off my rental car), but it's mostly stopped.

What I'm mostly thankful for is having my mom here. She needs a cane now, but she has come through her medical problems these last few months pretty well. She can still cook up her spaghetti just fine. Last night we had it, just like I had it 50 years ago (except she didn't put in the Italian sausage back then). Yum.

CHANGE OF LOCATION

I'm now up in scenic Lowell, Massachusetts, visiting my sister and sister-in-law for Thanksgiving. This year we decided to stay in a hotel, and except for a distinct lack of easily accessible electric outlets, it's quite nice. We control the bathroom usage, the television usage, the thermostat, and even the computer usage--the WiFi in the hotel works just fine with my wife's new laptop (and we really didn't even have to bring that, since we could get internet access through the television--it has a keyboard).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The biggest mistake the [record] labels are making is, they're letting their lawyers make technical decisions. Lawyers don't have any better understanding of technology than a cow does algebra," Leigh said.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!

We're going out to dinner to celebrate soon. Maybe I'll get a chance to blog a little when we get back.

OH MY GOODNESS! SOMEONE IN THE VATICAN TALKS SENSE!

VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."

Wow! I hope this doesn't get him in trouble with his superiors in the Vatican. They don't exactly have a great track record with astronomers. Giordano Bruno embraced the Copernican theory, and they burned him at the stake. Galileo was forced to recant, and they let him off with life imprisonment.

A SAD WEB SEARCH

Someone just did a web search for "wife of crossdressers helps" and got my blog. I was sandwiched between Shirley Ann Sometimes, whom I remember from years ago on the alt.fashion.crossdressing and alt.support.crossdressing Usenet boards, and, sadly, Jerry Leach's horrible site. He thinks "sexual addiction, gender identity disorders, homosexuality, marital infidelity and addiction to pornography" should be addressed "from a sound Psychological/Biblical basis," "holding you accountable to the Scriptures and your personal destiny as intended by your Creator" so they can be suppressed. He has set up a counseling business to get people to pay for his advice. This was after he was involved in an "Ex-Gay Ministry."

Well, he's wrong, at least about the gender identity and homosexuality. These are natural traits that some people have. There is nothing wrong with having a gender identity that does not conform to the one society has traditionally assigned to people of your birth sex. There is nothing wrong with being attracted to people of the same sex. (And there is no connection between gender identity and sexual orientation.) People may need help adjusting to these traits (mainly because of society's attitudes toward them), but there is no need for anyone to try to suppress these traits. For most people it would be a very unhealthy thing to try to do, and most likely will be unsuccessful.

It's sad that Leach's garbage will come up for a web search like this. I assume this search was done by the wife of a crossdresser, or perhaps by a crossdresser looking for help for his wife. They need to know that crossdressing is not something that can be suppressed ordinarily. They need real information from a sympathetic but knowledgable source. I most heartily recommend the book "My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser" by Helen Boyd, particularly the first 4 chapters. They recount what Helen (she is a friend of mine) learned when she discovered that the man she loved, and eventually married, was a crossdresser.

Helen also runs a message board, (en)gender, where crossdressing and transgender subjects are seriously discussed. There is a special section where only the partners of CD/TGs can post, and the wives of crossdressers are always welcome to post their questions there. She also runs a Yahoo group exclusively for partners.

Having a crossdressing husband is not the end of the world, and it should not be the end of a marriage. It certainly hasn't ended mine.

I'M STILL ALIVE...

just too busy to blog. When I do get some time, I'll start posting on my current activities. If I try to get caught up on everything I'll never get current. When I get a chance I'll post the highlights.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"Spermamax will give you so much sperm that you can open your own sperm bank."

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

"classy make over for classy crossdressers"

Oooo--this is my hundredth post!

A BUSY, BUSY WEEK (MAKE THAT TWO, oops, THREE WEEKS) III

Thursday, 10/27: Started with a conference call meeting of the Steering Committee of the NYS GENDA Coalition. We firmed up the plans for our first Regional Training/Education Session, which will be held at the Loft in White Plains on Nov. 19. Our liaison with our website developer promised that our website will be up by then (but I've been hearing such promises since last summer--or was it the spring?)

Then I went down to SOHO to a different Loft for Unveiling The Butterfly: An evening of entertainment by Asian American Women to benefit the feature-length film Tie a Yellow Ribbon. I really went to hear Wendy Ip, who has recently started to call herself Just Wendy. I used to hear her on Mondays at the Stonewall Bistro when I could make it, but she's not there any more. When I asked at the Bistro about her, they just said, "She hasn't been here for weeks." (More on this later.)

Despite my arrival a bit late, they weren't letting people in. I stood out on the sidewalk with a small but growing group, mostly young Asian women, about half in business attire, half in casual clothes. I was overdressed for the event, trying to straddle the line between this event and a more glam later one--a similar outfit to what I wore to the "Get Drag Racy" event, except this time my top was pink, and the fishnets were hot pink/black two-tones. At this point the top was invisible under my jacket, a fitted black leather one with silvery buttons and epaulettes, which someone has said makes me look like a dominatrix. But I softened it with a fuzzy pink scarf.

After a few minutes they let us in, and we crowded into the elevator. Upstairs there was a table where they took my $20, and a coat rack where I hung up my jacket and scarf. It was a big, high-ceilinged, mostly empty loft. There was a small bar, a couch and a few chairs. Bowls of snacks were scattered here and there. A small stage was set up in the corner. I recognized Wendy's keyboard (and its wheeled case lying on the floor behind the stage.) A projector put stills from the film on the wall. An opening in the wall behind a low bookcase led to another large room, which appeared to be the "backstage" (it wasn't). There was a long table with a dozen or so silent auction items--yoga sessions, a small silvery evening bag, a Leger art book, nothing I was terribly interested in. Since the way to win fixed-time auctions (including eBay) is to be the last bidder, not the first, I knew I had little chance, since I knew I'd be leaving well before the bidding ended.

I bought a drink from a disorganized amateur bartender, as the room filled up--several dozen people after a while. I knew nobody. Only two or three of the women besides me were dressed up.

At some point I realized that I was doing something unusual, at least for me. I was the only crossdresser at a non-LGBT event. I've been to many LGBT events where I was the only one, and occasionally I've been to non-LGBT events with other CDs. But this was different. No one seemed to take any particular notice of me. Did I just pass? I don't think so--I never believe I pass, despite what people tell me, and I certainly did not blend in that evening, with my overdressing. So I'm going to assume that everyone was comfortable with a CD in their midst. Which is good.

Eventually I found Wendy. She showed me a plate of egg rolls, which were actually quite good. We had a long conversation, with more drinks and egg rolls, waiting for the program to start. She also knew no one else there, except for the film's producer who had invited her, and he was quite busy running the event. So I pretty much had her undivided attention. (She did know some of the other musicians, but they hadn't arrived yet.)

I had seen Wendy only once since last June, performing at the Bistro, so there was quite a bit to get caught up with. First I asked her about her boyfriend status. She had been in this long, on and off relationship with a guy that ran very hot and cold--so cold that she had to call the police to get him out of her apartment, more than once I think. Even when I was seeing her perform regularly I never knew from week to week if they were together at the time. She told me that it was all over with him, and that she was going to marry her UK manager--"He's the one." He's going to move here. The engagement is not yet official (they have no money for a ring). Wendy also said that her old boyfriend was calling and text messaging her several times a day, asking her out, saying it couldn't be over, etc., etc. I wish her well, but I have a feeling her love life will not be sailing a smooth or straight course.

Then I asked her why she was no longer performing at the Bistro. She said it was due to a "three-way sexual harassment" problem, I think her words were. She said one of the bartenders was harassing her (and I thought they were all gay), so she sent a complaint to the manager. Another woman who worked there heard about it, and wanted to see Wendy's complaint, because she had already filed a similar complaint against the bartender--but he had filed a counter-complaint charging her with harassment! The management had rejected both of those complaints. At that point Wendy just decided to quit. The gig had never worked out the way it had been originally planned: a lesbian-oriented night, with a lesbian bartender.

I've never been overly fond of the Bistro. While most of the staff there are quite nice, I sometimes sense from a few an undercurrent that says crossdressers are not, shall we say, their favorite type of customer. When CDI has tried to arrange an event there, people aren't in, calls aren't returned. Nobody ever says no, but nothing ever happens. The Wednesday night entertainment--old show tunes and standards--is not particularly to my liking. I go there only because my friends want to. With this latest brouhaha, there's one more reason not to go. Two actually: the sexual harassment, and the absence of Wendy.

Eventually the producer of the film got up to the microphone, quieted the crowd (somewhat), and made a few remarks. He introduced the director, and then showed a brief clip of the movie. It could be interesting--three young Asian teenager/women in white America. They're still trying to find the money to finish it--hence the fundraiser.

Then the entertainment started. First was a Yellow Rage, a pair of young Asian-American "female spoken-word poets." Their "poetry" was so filled with vulgarity it lost any validity as criticism of the way Asian-American women are viewed, as far as I'm concerned. If I want to hear vulgarity, I'll ride the subway.

Next up was folksinger Annie Lin. She's got a nice voice, but the sound system didn't deliver it clearly enough over her guitar, so I really couldn't say how good her songs are.

Then it was Wendy's turn. After they hoisted her keyboard up on the little stage, she did about four songs, including "Just Wendy" and (I think I remember) "Take Me Away." I'm pretty sure I had heard all of them before. She was as good as she always is (I've never heard her sing badly). The people seemed to like her.

After she finished I went and congratulated her and said good-bye--I was already running late for my next event--Kevin's Birthday Party. I'm not really sure how Kevin knows me. He's worked at a couple of places I go to. He has worked at Lips on the weekend--but I've never been there on a weekend, and I don't remember him from there. He's also a bartender at the Townhouse, an upscale gay bar I've been to with friends a handful of times. (I think some of the clientele is none too happy to see crossdressers there, so it's not exactly at the top of my list of places to go to.) Maybe I met him there, but I really don't remember. Anyhow, the last two years he's invited me to his birthday party.

This year it was at the O.W. (for Oscar Wilde) Bar, across the street from the Townhouse. O.W. is a less fancy gay bar, with regular drag entertainment. The "Girls from Lips" were scheduled to perform, and I'd made arrangements to meet Ginger at Lips, and we'd go up to O.W. together. But I was running late, so I went to O.W. directly, and I actually arrived a few minutes ahead of her, and the rest of the "Girls." Most of them I see regularly, but some, like Paulina, I hardly ever see, since she only works at Lips on the weekends.

One of the people from the O.W. staff asked me if I was going to perform. No, thank you. I've done exactly one lipsync number in my life, and that is enough for the rest of my life. I did it at the Monster Bar as part of a birthday celebration for Jesse Volt (is there a pattern here?) a couple years ago. It was a lot of work to learn the song, which you still have to do even if you're not really singing it. Between that and the stage fright, it wasn't a whole lot of fun. Afterwards Jesse said that now that I had heard all the applause I'd get the bug and want to do it more, but I just said we'll see--while thinking thank goodness that's over.

Laid out in the back room there was some decent food (pasta, salad, veggies and dip) and someone gave me a couple of free drink tickets, and I stood and talked with some of the Girls. Kevin breezed through a couple of times, on his way to and from the smoking patio out back. Ariel Sinclair asked me how I did my cleavage--I was amazed (and flattered) that a professional drag performer like Ariel would want my advice.

Eventually it was show time, and I found a seat at the bar. Unfortunately there were a few people standing between me and the tiny stage, so my view was somewhat obscured. First up was P.J., a very diminutive performer I'd never seen before. He did Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach, I'm in Trouble," dressed in a home-made nun's costume. He pulled some sort of doll out of it--I couldn't really see, but those who could roared with laughter. There were three or four other numbers, interspersed with little "interviews" with members of Kevin's family. One of the numbers was a trio they do (or used to do) at the Sunday Brunch at Lips, which I had never seen. But my favorite was a lipsync duet by Rajene and P.J.: "I've Got You, Babe," by Sonny and Cher. Cher is a speciality of Rajene's that I've seen her do many times. P.J. came out in an excellent Sonny costume, with a furry vest, and an accurate wig and mustache. Now the real Sonny was a bit shorter than Cher, but Rajene is very tall, and P.J. barely came up to her chest--he was actually singing to her navel. It was hilarious. And somehow, by the end of the song, the mustache ended up on Rajene.

The show ended, and it was time for me to go home (or, more accurately, to go back to CDI and change so I could go home). I said goodnight to the Girls (most of whom were ready to party a lot more), and found a cab.

MY BROADBAND IS BACK. YAY!

The nice man from Time Warner Cable just finished restoring by broadband service. All it took was 2 new splitters. I just wish it had taken little less than 10 days to do it.

So now all I have to do is to hook up the router (Time Warner does NOT support routers, as they kept telling me) and restore both my and my wife's computers to pre-dial-up mode.

Oh, yes, I also have to restore the dining table leaves and the card tables to the closet where they were blocking the cable connection panel.

MARATHON CONFESSION

I live a block from the NYC Marathon route. I know when the leaders go by because I can hear the helicopters overhead. But I watch it on television. The finish of the men's race sure was exciting.

A BUSY, BUSY WEEK (MAKE THAT TWO WEEKS) II

Wednesday, 10/26: The Crossdressers International (CDI) Halloween Dinner, at the Lips Restaurant. I went as a cheerleader. I was going to go as Little Red Riding Hood, until I saw Alicia's Little Red Riding Hood costume. No way I could compete with that. My costume was almost a disaster--I had forgotten the skirt when I packed my suitcase to go to CDI (and I had worked so hard ironing it, too!). Fortunately someone had put a skort on the free shelf, and it fit. It wasn't the right color, but I made do.

At least I didn't forget my pom-pons.

We had 25 members and guests at the dinner, taking up a good third of the room. The prix fixe menu (which they called "prefix") had a small but fairly wide assortment. I had the salad, salmon and flourless chocolate cake--all quite nice. Our waitress was All Beef Patty, who somehow managed to serve all of us quite quickly. Of course at Lips the food is actually served by the bus boys (that doesn't sound politically correct), while the waitresses take the orders, deliver the drinks, and collect the money--which is still a lot, since they also do a show periodically.

Wednesday is "Bitchy Bingo" night at Lips. The patrons play Bingo while the "Show Hostess," Ginger, and the Lips owner, Yvonne Lamé, insult each other while calling out the numbers. They really went at it, a little too long actually--some of the people in our group got restless, if not also uncomfortable with some of the remarks.

After a couple of games of Bingo we had the CDI costume contest. Ginger introduced each of us, and the rest of the patrons applauded for their favorite. I made the finals (though I think Ginger, whom I know a little, was a bit generous in judging the amount of applause I got). The winner, to no one's surprise, was Alicia.

Some of us continued the evening with some dancing at the Monster Bar. A few even stayed long enough for Jesse Volt's drag show. Jesse called me up to the stage to show off my costume for another crowd.

A BUSY, BUSY WEEK (MAKE THAT TWO WEEKS) I

So busy I really didn't have time to blog. But I'll try to catch up--if I can remember anything. It's been so long.

TUESDAY, 10/25: I started with a panel discussion at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (ABCNY) entitled Education Interrupted: Strategies for Confronting Discrimination, Harassment, and Bullying of LGBT Youth. It was co-sponsored by the New York County Lawyers Association LGBT Issues Committee, which I'm on. One of the more interesting facets of the panel was that two of the panelists are currently or recently LGBT youths themselves--one is a high school student, one a recent graduate, now in college. Two of the other panelists were Pauline Park, the head of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), and David Mensah, Executive Director of the Hetrick Martin Institute.

There were a lot of interesting statistics that came out over the two hours. For instance, 6.5% of NYC high school students identify as LGBT (and 9% of the teachers). Also, between 40 and 50% of all of the homeless youth in NYC that go into foster care are LGBT.

Right now what is happening is that students are coming out before the community, including the schools, is ready. Gay and lesbian characters are portrayed sympathetically on television, there are out gay and lesbian entertainers, athletes, even politicians (more lesbian than gay), so young people come out of the closet much earlier than they used to.

I think the main message that expressed by the panel is that the best way to confront the discrimination, harassment and bullying of LGBT youth is to educate all of the teachers. It's not enough to send the principals to a brief session. There are a lot of teachers out there who want to stop these things, but are paralyzed: they don't even have the language to accurately report what they see.

One thing I found a bit curious: not one word was mentioned about the efforts of GenderPAC to combat bullying and gender stereotyping. Perhaps it's just because their efforts are aimed more at college students (with a growing program for parents). But I'm wondering if there might be a little inter-group jealousy going on--the moderator was a staffer from GLSEN.

I saw my friend Donna there, who is on the ABCNY LGBT Rights Committee, the other main co-sponsor of the panel. But she wanted to go straight home, so I decided to go to the Pill Awards at the Splash Bar. My friend Clover Honey was one of the judges, and was also doing a "Joan Rivers" type of Red Carpet fashion reporting for Under the Pink Carpet. I knew I would be too late for that, as the Awards overlapped the panel discussion by an hour, but I hoped to catch some of it.

I got a cab on Sixth Avenue, even though it was going in the wrong direction--it always seems to be easier there than on Fifth--and went down to W. 17th St.

I managed to find the coat check (I think it was in a different place the last time I needed to check something, though both are in the basement. I went back upstairs for the festivities. Actually the first thing on my agenda was to dive into an apple martini, which I made disappear in very short order.

After I got my second apple martini I tried to figure out what was going on.
Clover's e-mail said the Pill Awards were "Video Awards for the Best of Season 3 of cable's ADD-TV," but I had no idea what ADD-TV was. Attention Deficiency Disorder television? I still don't know, and I really don't care--you can Google it yourself if you're that interested. They showed the nominees for various awards up on three large video screens--almost none of them were the least bit familiar. The awards were interspersed with musical performances. A couple of women did a rap number (I'm not particularly fond of rap.) Later Kevin Aviance did his new song, unaccompanied, since his background music failed--that was good.

I looked around for Clover, or anyone else I knew. As frequently happens, some guy came up and greeted me, but I had no idea who he was--probably someone who had seen me in Jesse Volt's show at the Monster Bar. Eventually I saw Cashetta, way at the other end of the room. A bit later Milan and Peppermint arrived. They zipped by without noticing me. Peppermint disappeared, but I did catch up with Milan, who complimented me on my memory, for what I wrote about our visit to HMI.

At some point ABBAlicious won an award, and Cashetta was one of the acceptors. I do have that album, where a number of drag performers who can actually sing did their versions of various ABBA songs.

The final performer was Janice Robinson. Someone said she was a legend. I'd never heard of her.

By the end of the show I'd had three apple martinis (each one a dollar more than the previous one) and a handful of pretzels. Clover just wanted to go home, so I went up to East of Eighth to have a little dinner. They have a new menu (I hadn't been there since June). They call their appetizers "small plates" now. I had the duck liver paté small plate. It was excellent. For $8 you get two large slices of paté, with the usual accompaniments--perfect for a light meal.

KERMIT IN THE AARP?

Kermit the Frog has turned 50 years old! I had no idea he was so old. He's aged very gracefully.

Actually, he has only been a frog for 36 years, having been a sort of lizard in his early days. I'm not sure how that fact would affect the evolution vs. intelligent design debate.

Kermit has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I frequently quote him, saying: "Time's fun when you're having flies." I can still see him shuddering when someone mentioned eating frogs' legs.

So, Happy Birthday, Kermit! I guess I have to make that Happy Belated Birthday. Apparently he was born on May 9, 1955.

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY (WELL, SATURDAY)

list of america male rock stars soloists from the 70's and 80's put this blog at the top of the list! This is rather amazing, since I haven't written anything about male rock stars that I can remember.

Of course, that was just a Microsoft search. Google doesn't find me at all with these terms. Is it any wonder I prefer Google searches?

I'M STILL ALIVE (BUT MY BROADBAND ISN'T)

I haven't been able to post much recently, due to my being very busy, and my losing my broadband internet connection intermittently. Time Warner Cable was supposed to come and fix it yesterday afternoon, but they did not show up. I won't bore you with the argument I had with their customer service representative, but I now have another appointment for next Wednesday. I'm not happy.

And now, the outage is continual. So I'm on dial-up. Even at 49.2Kbps, it's a real pain.

UP AND DOWN, UP AND DOWN

For the last three days my broadband connection through Time Warner Cable has been failing intermittently. Yesterday, after my third call to them in two days (I really hate that voice-recognition, talk-to-a-computer system) they scheduled an appointment--for Friday afternoon. I am not looking forward to another 4 days of this. And that assumes they're actually able to fix it on Friday.

CLEMENTINES ARE BACK!

Fresh Direct has started carrying clementines again--the first of the season (the first reasonably-priced ones, that is. The Food Emporium has had them at $15/box for a while. No, thank you.) Though they warn that at this time they may not be as sweet and juicy as in mid-November, the ones I got are plenty juicy, and fairly sweet. Yum!

Oops! I see they're already out-of-stock. I guess I'm not the only one who likes them.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"If you think your penis is good only for visiting the bathroom, Maxaman guarantees that you can use it for more pleasant purposes."

BEAUTIFUL MOSAICS

An artist friend of mine has opened a business to sell custom-made mosaics. They are just beautiful. If you are looking for some art to decorate your home or business please check this out: DKM mosaics.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"Impress your woman with your animal instincts!"

C'MON CLAYELLE!

I listen a lot to WQXR, New York City's classical radio station. Their announcers (classical stations don't have disk jockeys, they have announcers) introduce musical works with titles, composers and performers in a number of different languages. They all seem to have very good Italian and French accents, and Spanish also, I think. Some do pretty well in German, also. But whatever the language, they handle it.

So I was rather surprised yesterday to hear weekend announcer Clayelle Dalferes say, "Alternate side parking regulations will be suspended Tuesday and Wednesday this week for religious holidays that I can't pronounce." I thought she was referring to the holidays marking the end of the Islamic Ramadan, but that's not until next week. This week it's the Jewish holidays Shemini Atzereth and Simchas Torah.

I understand that Clayelle might not have had to learn their pronunciation growing up in Lafayette, Louisiana ("The Capital of Cajun Country"). But she's been working as a radio announcer in New York City for well over a decade. It's really time she learned to pronounce the religious holidays.

Clayelle, your homework assignment for this week (you wlll be quizzed this weekend): "Idul-Fitr."

Another very busy weekend (w/whirling dervishes)

This week the festivities started off Friday evening with dinner with another couple at Chennai Garden, a vegetarian, kosher, South Indian restaurant--not that the kosher part mattered, it being Friday evening. We had to wait a while for a table, and just as long to have our orders taken, but it was worth it. Though none of us had their signature-dish dosas, the curries and such we did have were excellent. Who needs meat?

Saturday evening commenced with a 5:45 repeat viewing of "Good Night, and Good Luck." The friends we were seeing that night hadn't seen it, and we wanted to go again because we had missed too much of the dialogue at the New York Film Festival screening. The movie was just as good the second time--better in fact. Not only could we hear the dialogue better, we could have popcorn.

Among the trailers preceding the film was one for Transamerica, starring Felicity Huffman as a pre-operative male-to-female transsexual escorting her son on a road trip across the country--he being unaware of whom she is. I missed this when it was at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. The trailer looked great. I'm looking forward to the opening in December with much anticipation.

Exiting the theater we braved the rain and walked the few blocks to the Park Avenue Cafe. It really is on Park Avenue, though the entrance is around the corner on 63rd. I was a little surprised at the location--I didn't think there were any restaurants on Park Avenue that far uptown.

The decor is hard to describe. It is clearly an upscale restaurant, but not at all formal. A rack of champagne bottles filled a niche, but there were shelves of cookie jars and children's blocks on one wall. A humongous but beautiful arrangement of dried fall plants dominated the room we were in.

The clientele was very Park Avenue. Most of the people were expensively yet conservatively dressed. Most of the men wore jackets, but few wore ties. My blazer fit right in, I thought. And I think as 50-somethings we were definitely below the median age.

On the tables were little cards explaining a special deal they were promoting. After 8:30 pm, seven nights a week, you can get a three course meal just by paying your age. Everything on the menu, including the specials, is included. Now the entrées alone go above $30. Add in an appetizer (up to $18.50 for the foie gras) and a dessert (they're all $11.50), and you've got a real bargain if you're much below 60. There is a $25 minimum, and of course it doesn't include drinks or coffee, which can really run up the bill--even a soft drink is $4. And don't forget the tax and tip.

Unfortunately for us, it wasn't after 8:30. Also, I had had plenty of popcorn, and didn't want an appetizer. (And we aren't that much under 60, alas.) On the recommendation of the waitperson I chose the jumbo prawns with grilled asparagus, prepared with tomato confit, fennel seed sausage and lemon-lime salt, which was excellent. The pineapple and berries I had for dessert was first rate, as were the fancy vodka cocktail and even the bread bucket.

Outside of the fact that they lost our reservation (but had no problem seating us), and the slightly befuddled coatchecker, it was a thoroughly lovely experience. If you want an upscale dinner I recommend it--especially if you're young enough to really take advantage of the "pay your age" deal.

Sunday was a matinee Lincoln Center Great Performers concert--except that it wasn't at Lincoln Center. It was at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola at Park Avenue and 84th St. It was a very appropriate location for Music of the Spirit: Sacred Bridges, a concert of psalms. We were fortunate to have seats in the third row.

It was performed by the combined forces of the King's Singers and Sarband--the latter making its New York debut. The King's Singers are another male a capella group, the third such I've heard in the last four months. This one is only half the size of Chanticleer or the Russian Patriarchic Choir, but six voices is all they need. They are British, and sing in the English cathedral choir style, with two counter-tenors keeping things very high.

Sarband is, well, strange. It includes four instrumentalists and one singer, all in the Arabic tradition. Their goal, according to the program, is "to show all possible connections between European music and Islamic and Jewish musical culture." At this concert, at least, they did this by frequently using their Arab instruments to play Western style, with a Western scale, only full- and semi-tones. But sometimes they played in the Arabic style, with its quarter-tones.

Preceding the concert was a lecture by Richard W. Corney, a retired Episcopal priest and seminary professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. He outlined the history of the psalms, how they came to be translated, retranslated, and set to music. Actually that should be reset to music, because they were sung in the original Hebrew--but the music was lost long ago. I stayed awake through quite a bit of his talk.

The concert itself consisted of a series of psalms, or verses of psalms. Some were in Hebrew, with music composed by Salmone Rossi (1750-1630), except for one that used traditional Sefardi music. These were sung by the Kings' Singers. In between them were psalms either all in French, or French and Turkish. When they did the latter, the Kings' Singers would do a verse in French, then the Sarband singer would do the same verse in Turkish. The French parts were composed by Claude Goudimel (c. 1515-1572), or Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), both based on the Genevan Psalter of 1562. The Turkish ones were composed by Ali Ufki (né Wojciech Bobowski) (1610-1675?).

Sometimes Sarband would accompany the Kings' Singers, sometimes they sang alone. A couple times the Sarband singer joined with the Kings' Singers. There were all kinds of combinations.

The whole thing worked very well. The Kings' Singers are excellent, and Sarband seemed quite fine, though I really have almost no experience with Arabic music with which to judge them.


Oh yes, the whirling dervishes. For a few minutes early and late in the concert the musicians were joined by a pair of Mevlevi whirling dervishes. They spun to the music in their religious ecstasy, their white skirts flaring out. I don't think I have ever seen even a film of dervishes before. Somehow I expected them to spin much faster, but it was at a moderate, graceful pace.

The only thing marring the afternoon were the hard, narrow pews we had to sit on. The next time I go to something there I'll try to remember to bring a cushion.

A REAL DRAG RACE

On Thursday I went to "Get Drag Racy," a little benefit the Imperial Court ran for God's Love We Deliver (GLWD). This was the "kickoff event" for the Race to Deliver, the November 20 New York Road Runners fundraising event for GLWD.

Before I went though, I had a problem--what to wear. I knew that there was no way I could come close to what the queens of the Court would be wearing, so I settled for classy--well, sexy classy, with a hint fabulosity: a cleavage-highlighting top and a leather skirt, both black, with a wide silver belt made up of those big studded segments they're wearing these days--except my segments were hearts, not the usual circles. But the real fabulosity was my pantyhose--rainbow fishnets.

The event was supposed to be at Home, but for some reason they moved it across the street to Crobar. So now I can say I've been to Crobar--which seemed to be a pretty nice place. I'm not to sure how easy it would be to get served at the bar if the place were really crowded, but at $13 for an apple martini, I'm not sure I'd want to be served all that quickly. (That was before I discovered that Absolut was a sponsor of the event, and drinks with their vodka were free.)

The Crobar decor is nothing special. (Someone told me the VIP room is very nice, but I'm not a VIP, so I can't really say.) The three story height makes the place seem more spacious than it actually is. The music volume was kept at a reasonable level, though I suspect on a regular night it is a lot louder--sitting at the edge of the dancefloor is the largest subwoofer I've ever seen indoors.

I knew no one there (outside of the drag performers participating, which I'll get to.) I recognized some of the Imperial Court big wigs (figuratively and literally). None of the few people on the Court that I know personally showed up. I did have a nice conversation with one guy though, who did know all of my friends on the Court.

But basically I just walked around, drinking the free drinks, one after another (Absolut Apeach and tonic is great!), waiting for the real festivities to begin. I saw one guy in a skirt. It was a little like a "utilikilt," but he said it was custom-made. It was completely pleated, and featured an external pocket of the same red tartan material in the center at the front.

Eventually things did get going. The e-mail invitation I received described the event as "celebrity drag queens race the clock - and good taste - to turn brawn into beauty." The idea was to assign one drag queen to each of the "brawns" and dress them as drag queens. They started with the make-up, at a table supplied by MAC cosmetics (curiously, all of the make-up artists they had to assist the queens were men). Then a table for bras, and bra stuffing. Then dresses, then wigs, then accessories.

The drag queens I knew: Candis Cayne, Flotilla DeBarge, Ariel Sinclair (whom I had talked to briefly at Lips on Monday), Sweetie, Sherry Vine and Gusty Winds. I had never actually seen Candis before. She is as beautiful as her pictures--only thinner. But I've seen all the rest of them performing, and all but Sweetie know me at least by sight.

The "brawn," though, was another matter. I think most were DJs. There was one woman, a "personal trainer to the stars" named Kacy Duke. A couple of them had beards, which didn't help their chances of winning.

They started off two at a time, and in 10 minutes or so, it was all over. They handed out some prizes, but I have no idea who won what. Did I mention there were free drinks? By the time the race started I was smashed.

I didn't linger afterwards. I managed to reclaim my jacket from the coatcheck, go out and jump in a cab, and go up to Lips, as the alcohol continued to do its thing. I had a grilled asparagus appetizer, and a diet coke, and said something very stupid to Frankie Cocktail, the bartender. Did I mention I was smashed? Ariel Sinclair arrived from Crobar, and we sat at a table for the show. I must have slept though it--I have almost no recollection, other than that Jason did something as Liza Minelli, and Jesse Volt came to our table after it was over, to show off her new Cher outfit, which did look great. I presume Ginger and Frankie performed also, but I really have no memory.

I hung out for a while, as they started to close up. By then I was sober enough to find another cab to go back to CDI to change back to male mode ("de-Caprice," as I call it).

I'm really going to have to watch those Absolut Apeach and tonics.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"You shall appear even more hotter with a dazzling chronometer!"

MERCI BEAUCOUP

I have just returned from a cocktail party at the French Consulate. I'd like to thank the taxpayers of France for the excellent champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

BUSY WEEKEND II

Sunday afternoon I was back at Lincoln Center, this time for a performance of Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Bluebeard) at the New York City Opera. The City Opera is the "other" opera company at Lincoln Center, number two to the great Metropolitan Opera. It often does operas, such as this, that would fail to find a large enough audience at the Met--which needs 3800 backsides to fill all the seats in its hall. The tickets are half the price of the Met's. Usually, though, you only get what you pay for--if you're that lucky.

The music was by Paul Dukas, the French composer of the most famous piece of cartoon music not associated with Bugs Bunny: The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Walt Disney cast Mickey Mouse as the apprentice in Fantasia, and Dukas' music will live therefore forever. It probably would have lived on anyway, at least at pops concerts, because it is a cute little piece.

But, the 1907 Ariane et Barbe-bleue is not. Richard Wagner was a great enough composer to write operas where there really aren't any melodies, but Dukas was not. It also helped Wagner to have characters whose motivations were clear. Ariane's was not. I've read all kinds of things about her--it was curiosity and/or greed that moved her to disobey her husband and use the forbidden key, or that she wanted to liberate his earlier wives whom she thought (correctly) were still alive. As far as I can tell in this opera it's all of the above. (The libretto was written by Maurice Maeterlinck, the winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Literature. I am not surprised that this work was not listed on his official Nobel biography.)

Instead of fleeing after Ariane frees them, the earlier wives stay. They've been locked up in a dungeon, but they do not run at the earliest opportunity. They even tend to the wounds of Bluebeard, the man who imprisoned them.

So it boils down to one of your stupider opera plots. People do things for a bunch of conflicting reasons, or for no good reason. Even the scenery started acting for no good reason--a rotating wall, used to shift from scene to scene, started turning continuously at the end. Stupid plot plus tuneless music does not equal a good time at the opera for me.

It wasn't helped by the performances. The key role, of course, is Ariane, who is on stage singing for almost the entire opera. (Despite being a title character, Bluebeard is a minor role.) The Austrian Renate Behle belted out Ariane, as someone put it, as if she were Brunhilde. Perhaps Carol Vaness would have done better--this was to be her role before she got in a car accident last summer. But she would still have had to contend with the conducting of Leon Botstein, the music director of the American Symphony. More than one person said his interpretation was Wagnerian, when it should have been French.

But I survived. There was some time left before dinner, so we braved the wind and walked over to the New-York Historical Society, to see the new "Slavery in New York" exhibition. It was the last day they would be showing an original manuscript of the Emancipation Proclamation--not that it really had anything to do with slavery in New York. Slavery had been abolished here nearly 40 years previously, and the Proclamation only covered the slaves in states that had seceded anyhow.

But the manuscript was there, on loan for a few days from the New York State Library in Albany. Protected by thick glass and a pistol-toting woman state trooper (Nobody looks good in one of those Smokey-the-Bear hats), Abraham Lincoln's clear handwriting, with Secretary of State William Seward 's penciled modifications, could be seen for half a minute or so by each of the many people lined up. It was interesting that Lincoln used the cut-and-paste method. There were two sections of previous laws dealing with the freeing of slaves, that he had cut out from somewhere and pasted into his manuscript.

There wasn't much time left to see the real exhibition. I barely finished the first two rooms. Fortunately it will be there until March, because I do want to go back to finish it. It is filled with a lot of multi-media works, and seemed to be very well done, from what I saw.

Eventually it was time to go, as we had dinner reservations at Nice Matin. We were lucky enough to get a table at the far end, because it can get very noisy near the bar. I had about the best sweetbread appetizer I've ever eaten. It came with a very spicy sausage, which complemented the bland meat. The whole thing was served over a bed of lentils. My grilled halibut was good, but nothing out of the ordinary. The berries and cream, as well as the coffee, were excellent. And instead of wine, I had a bottle of Lindeman's Lambic Pêche beer. This was the first time I ever had the peach-flavored one, and I found it even better than the raspberry flavor.

Then it was home to watch the second episode of "The Murder Room," the detective Adam Dalgliesh story by P.D. James, part of the PBS Mystery! series on Channel 13. I'll never be able to watch Siân Phillips in any role without seeing Livia from "I, Claudius," though.

BUSY WEEKEND I

A busy weekend it was. It started Saturday evening with a concert of the New York Philharmonic, led by Marin Alsop. She is the controversial "first woman music director of a major American orchestra," as I keep reading. I'm not sure what qualifies the Baltimore Symphony as a major orchestra (possibly that it employs its musicians year-round). It's certainly not one of the "Big 5"--New York, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and I've never heard it included even among the second tier, like Los Angeles, Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Atlanta.

But she was appointed music director there a few weeks ago, and the musicians immediately put out a statement saying they didn't want her, she wasn't qualified, etc., etc. I think they were miffed at least as much about not being consulted as by any real concerns. She held a meeting with them before accepting the appointment, worked things out.

Her program here started with James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, a 1990 work that is based on story of the torture, confession and execution of a woman accused of witchcraft in 1662 Scotland. Alsop is known for bringing a lot of new music to audiences, not always what the more traditional listeners are happy with--and I'm one of them.

She preceded the performance with a brief explanation the work. It's rather unusual, but not unheard of, for a conductor to do this (Leonard Slatkin does it quite a bit). But what I've never heard of was having the orchestra play excerpts to illustrate the conductor's comments at any concert aimed at adults.

Alsop's comments did help me understand the piece. It combines both the old (early church hymns) with modern dissonance--simultaneously, as she illustrated beforehand. The dissonance almost totally obscures the hymns. As a whole, the work does effectively convey the horrors of religious intolerance and persecution. But it's not something I'd care to hear again. It's not a pretty piece of music. Once is enough.

Next on the program was Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto, with Midori as soloist. I may have heard the concerto before, but I don't particularly remember it--and Prokofiev is one of my favorite composers. It wasn't one of his better pieces, and Midori's playing didn't help it any--it almost seems like she was just going though the motions.

She wore a muted sleeveless print dress that neither added nor detracted. But at least she seems to have found something really adult--she stayed in girlish dresses far too long after she left her teens. On the subject of clothes, Alsop wore a black pantsuit. The only color was the red of her blouse, extending beyond the jacket sleeves--the neckline of the jacket was so high the blouse was otherwise completely covered. It seemed a bit informal, but not jarring. The only problem was when she leaned forward when conducting--the outline of her bra was clearly visible through the thin material, which was distracting.

After intermission (they've installed additional stands to sell just wine and champagne, which speeded things up for everyone. They also have a nice new chime recording to summon the audience back into the auditorium.) they did Brahms' First Symphony. It's a popular work I've heard a number of times. Brahms wrote it as a tribute to Beethoven--one of the themes is quite similar to one in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Some people have even called it Beethoven's Tenth, but it's not that similar. For one thing, I don't get the feeling of tension that I do from Beethoven's work. Beethoven's music seems to be pushing the envelope of something most of the time. It frequently seems about to be going out of control (though it never does). Brahms' seems to be content to stay within the envelope--usually with great beauty to be sure, but nevertheless always well in control.

Alsop has a recording contract (which might explain part of the reason the Baltimore board wanted her), and is doing all four of the Brahms symphonies (with the London Philharmonic), so she is quite familiar with the music. I thought she did a pretty standard interpretation, except a couple of times a wind solo seemed significantly louder than necessary.

Alsop was the student of Leonard Bernstein, though she does not exhibit any of his excessive movement on the podium. Her feet never leave the ground. Her conducting style is clear and precise. No musicians should ever have cause to complain that they couldn't figure out what she wanted from them.

It was an OK concert, all-in-all. Then it was off home, because we'd be back at Lincoln Center for the next installment of the weekend's activities a mere 15 hours later.

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

"disposable choir robe costumes"

This blog was the top of the list!

Runner-up: "doubled sided tape for evening dress"

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

"Stallone to Star in Sixth 'Rocky' Movie"

(Oy. He's 59 years old.)

SPAM OF THE DAY

Every man must have a sex! MUST!!!

AN INSPIRING HOUR AT HMI

Tuesday afternoon I had an inspiring hour speaking to, and listening to, some LGBTQ teenagers trying to find their way to adulthood. I took part in a panel discussion at the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), part of its "Trans* in the City" program. HMI is a Greenwich Village organization dedicated to helping LGBTQ youth.

I had been invited by Veronica Vera, the head of Miss Vera's Finishing School For Boys Who Want To Be Girls. Veronica had been asked to put together the panel. She decided to ask a variety of transgender people who have been involved with her academy. With me on the panel were Patti Harrington and Dwayne/Milan. Patti is a woman of transsexual experience. "Milan" is the drag persona of the actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, songwriter, show producer, etc., etc., Dwayne, who has been playing in high heels since he was a child. And I am a male-bodied person of mixed gender--a straight crossdresser. Accompanying us was Mariette Pathy Allen, the photographer/author of The Gender Frontier.

We were asked to arrive a half-hour early, so we could hang out in the lounge area, being a living advertisement for the panel. The "youths," as they're called by the HMI staff, were talking, playing, snacking, acting their age. A boombox was blasting, and sometimes one would do a solo dance for a few seconds. The four of us (Patti was late) tried as best we could to talk to the kids (as I'm going to call them) around us. Well, the other three did. It wasn't just that I'm shy around strangers. Despite the fact that I'm basically old enough to be their grandparent, I was totally intimidated, because in my eyes these were the cool kids--the same kind of kids that I could never approach when I was a teenager. Some things never change.

We were ushered into the room where our talk was to be held, and we rearranged the chairs into a circle. Several kids, along with some adult HMI staffers, drifted in--though even the staffers looked pretty young to me. Patti finally arrived. I thought the turnout was rather small, but it was explained that a lot of the kids have paid internships after school. Later we were told this was the biggest turnout they had had for any of these.

Veronica gave a brief introduction and shared some of her personal history. I was the next to speak. I told them a little about myself for a few minutes. One of the older kids asked a great question about something I had neglected to mention: was my wife a man or a woman? Veronica had asked us to think of three turning points in our lives to talk about, and I listed these: my realization that my crossdressing was motivated by gender identity as well as by sexuality; my presentation as a woman outside of my home for the first time; and my decision that there was nobody in the world from whom I absolutely had to keep my crossdressing a secret. The last was necessary for me to appear in a TV documentary about Miss Vera's school that we did in 2000.

Milan (as he is more familiar to me) spoke next, talking about his origins in South Carolina, walking around in his mother's shoes and wigs when she went off to work. He then went on to detail his college experience (MFA, minor in African-American studies), and his career in show business. Among many other things, he's played Thad in a touring company of Hairspray. He explained how he started doing drag on stage, and passed around a small portfolio of his pictures in various personae, including his one as a member of DaLipstyxx.

Lastly Patti told a bit about her journey to womanhood, and surprised me by saying that she now also wants to change her career--she wants to go to law school and become a lawyer! This is just the opposite of my journey, from the law to computers.

Then the floor was opened up for the kids to talk. There really wasn't time for more than a couple of them, and both were looking for career advice. One very sweet young woman said she wanted to be a photographer, but was worried that being trans would hold her back. Mariette was right there to give her advice--she told the young hopeful that she knows a number of photographers who are trans, and being trans will not keep her from success, if she has the skills.

A young man then told how he wanted to do modeling, but a photographer rejected him, saying he was too feminine. Milan, who had had a little experience in the area, told him that male models of all types were being used, not just the super-masculine ones. He also advised him to get a friend to photograph him with a more masculine image, to show that he could do this when required.

I said before it was inspiring, and it really was. These kids were trying to integrate the trans-ness, or at least their questioning gender identity and/or sexual orientation, into their lives. When I was their age I suppressed all such ideas. I had to--such things were unheard of back in the 60's. There was nobody to talk to, no internet to provide information, and certainly nothing like HMI. I walked out feeling very happy for these kids. The road ahead for them won't be easy (and we told them that), but at least they do have a road.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY

When is it going to stop raining??? (Obligatory Noah's Ark joke:) I think I saw pairs of animals going into Central Park, lining up to get into this big boat thing.

BLOND, JAMES BLOND

The producers of the James Bond films have announced the next actor to play the super-suave British Secret Service spy--coincidentally(?) with the introduction of the real Secret Services's website.


He is Daniel Craig, an English actor whom I have seen in only one film (Road to Perdition)--but I don't really remember him.

I've gotten used to the succession of actors taking on this role, though it's always difficult for them to get close to Sean Connery's original portrayal. Lately Pierce Brosnan has done a pretty good job of bringing the character back to the one in author Ian Fleming's books, which were a big feature of my teen years.

What I'm excited about with this announcement is that Craig's first Bond film will be Casino Royale. This was Fleming's first book in the series, and second in quality only to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in my view. Fleming, then an unknown author, let the film rights go, and what eventually came out was the 1967 spoof, starring Peter Sellers. It was done to capitalize on the tremendous James Bond craze of the time, and bore almost no resemblance to the novel. It was a big budget mess (with 5 directors!), though at times it was quite funny--particularly Woody Allen's portrayal of Bond's nephew, Little Jimmy Bond. It also had fantastic music by Burt Bacharach, including "The Look of Love." But it wasn't a real James Bond movie.

Fleming's novel deserves a serious film treatment, which is what the producers say they are going to do this time. I hope so. I've been hoping for this for a very long time.

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

Somebody found this blog searching for "caprice prunes."

It seems that Caprice Bourret is said to eat 10 prunes a day. I guess that means that a supermodel can also be a regular woman.

ONE PROJECT COMPLETED!

I finally have finished setting up my wife's new computer. Her old one was underpowered and overwhelmed, terribly slow, frequently giving "out of memory" messages, when it wasn't completely crashing. She took it to a PC expert guy in the neighborhood, but he wanted nearly $500 to unclog it and add a little memory--and it still would be underpowered. So we decided to buy her a new one.

I had two main problems setting up the new one. The first was connecting it to the internet. Both the old and the new computers are notebooks, and the way I connected up the old one originally was to use a NetBlaster and Cable Free PC card from Sohoware, which I connected to a router from the same company.

When we moved to our new apartment I had the electrician run a Cat5 cable between our offices, but I never got around to actually using it. That would have meant getting a NIC PC card for her computer. Since my wife never complained about the connection speed (probably because the whole computer was so slow), it never got very high on my priority list.

Her new computer has a built-in NIC, so all I needed to do was to connect the router to the wall socket in my office, and the computer to the wall socket in her office. But when I did this it didn't work. I had already tested the NIC in my office and it's fine. I tested both cables. They're fine. Something in the wall isn't right, apparently. Maybe I'll call in our new electrician to look at it, one of these days.

So I went back to using the wireless connection. First I had to find the driver software for the PC card--which, to my amazement, I actually could. I installed it, but got an error message. Fortunately I could take the computer into my office and connect it directly to the router. I went to the Sohoware website, where I found there was a new driver for Windows XP--with all kinds of warnings that they didn't guarantee it would work. Wonderful. I downloaded and installed it. No go. Then I guessed there might be a conflict between the old and the new drivers, so I uninstalled both of them, and reinstalled the new one. Success!

The other main problem was transferring all of the old files to the new computer. The last time I got a new computer I used the PC Replicator software from Alohabob. But I couldn't use it this time, because the new computer does not have a parallel port or a serial port. I had a null modem serial cable, so I tried using it with a USB-serial adaptor, but that didn't work. Finally I went out and bought a new version of the Replicator (Ultra Control), which comes with a USB bridge cable.

I still wasn't out of the woods, though. I installed the software on both machines, checked to see if there were any updates (there weren't), and plugged in the cable. I followed the instructions, shutting down all the other programs running. Then I started the Replicator's scan of the old PC, and got the blue screen of death. Great. I restarted the machine and tried it again (this is not as crazy as it sounds--there might have been something clogging things up from when I installed the program). This time it did start to scan, but after a few minutes it crashed again.

Well, it was some progress, but I decided to try something a little different. This time after I rebooted I did not shut down the other programs running. I just launched the Replicator, and it worked! It completed its scan. It found 10,431 files (1.68 GB) to transfer. I went through the list (it was well organized, I didn't have to look at every single file name), and eliminated a few I knew shouldn't go.

But there was another problem. There was incompatibility of user names. On the old machine, running Windows 98, no user name was ever specified, so it was "Default." But on the new PC, running XP, a user name was required. It said that it wasn't necessary to have the same user names, but that some things wouldn't work right on the new computer because of it. So I went back to old PC, and after all this time, created a user, with the same name as the one on the new PC. Then I transferred all of the "Default" things to the new user name.

Then I had to rerun the scan of the old computer. This time no incompatibilities were found. It estimated an hour and 13 minutes would be needed.

It actually took a little less than that. Everything transferred. Suddenly the wallpaper from the old machine appeared on the new one. I checked everything I could. The only problem I could find was that the e-mail was put under a different identity from what had come in during the last few days. I figured out how to merge them.

So unless my wife finds anything else wrong, I think I'm done there (well I do have to take the empty carton down to the basement). Now on to the next project: updating the Crossdressers International website.