Romana and me

I’m confused by all these people who tell me that I am an insulting person, that I’m arrogant and condescending, trying to use my intellect to put people down.  I am not aware of being as nasty as they say I am.   I don’t remember wanting to put anyone down.  And I would think that if I wanted to insult someone, I surely would remember it.  But a recent conversation with Morgan gave me a new perspective.  I can honestly say that it’s all a misunderstanding.  

When I was growing up, the only real role model I had was W.C.Fields.  For you young whippersnappers out there have no idea who that is, W.C. Fields was a popular humorist in the 30’s.  There was the Marx Brothers, there was Burns and Allen, and there was Fields.  On screen, Fields’ character was the culmination of everything bad a person could be.  He was a heavy drinker.  He was a con man and liar.  He hated nearly everything.  He once said, “Anyone who hates little dogs and children can’t be all bad.”  Fields was the only comedian who could kick a kid on screen and get away with it.   People loved to hate this horrible person.

The thing is, it was all an act.  OK, he did drink as much as his screen persona did.  But other than that, Fields was an affable and pleasant man.   Problem was that his on screen persona was so popular that it was difficult to find him out of character.  He was rather like Stephan Colbert in that respect.  How many of you have ever seen Colbert when he wasn’t playing the clueless right wing pundit? 

Lots of comedians have not so nice characters.  It’s the nature of comedy.  You don’t get laughs by showing someone else is an asshole or an idiot.  You get laughs by making the audience think YOU are an idiot or an asshole.  Why do you think that someone as erudite and intelligent as Rowen Ackinson would go around being a hapless buffoon like Mr. Bean?   Or why Don Rickles could make a career out of calling people hockey pucks.  These are all characters, highlighting the worst characteristics of humanity in order to make us laugh.  And we do.

I have my own irascible character, Romana the time lord.  Romana is indescribably intelligent and wants to make sure that everyone knows it.   She does not tolerate anyone who isn’t as smart as she is….which to her is nearly everyone.   Romana has no opinions…just facts.  She even found the Doctor to be a tedious bore and is not shy to say so…frequently.  She is a horrible elitist, infuriatingly condescending, and profoundly narcissistic.

I mean, you didn’t think I REALLY thought I was a 700 year old time lord did you?  Sure I make a lot of jokes about regeneration and am working on a book about temporal transmat theory, but sheesh.  I’m not a paranoid schizophrenic like other people in my family.    

For all her faults, I love Romana, much like Fields loved his ne’er-do-well con man.   And like Fields, it’s hard to find me out of character.   But here is what you’ve got to understand…I am NOT that character.   Anyone who knows me knows that I am easy to get along with.  I am generous to a fault…a BIG fault.   I would rather just suck it up than tell someone they were insulting me….or I would just not associate with that person any longer.   And I certainly wouldn’t criticize someone for not having the advantages of a good education that I had.  

Morgan told me that I shouldn’t do that character off stage because life is not comedy.  Oh, that poor dear child.  When you have been a comedian for long enough, you are NEVER off stage.  It’s like a reflex you develop.  All human interactions become a potential to get a laugh out of someone.  It’s the price we pay for getting hooked on that drug known as performing.  

“But,” says Morgan, “you say you’re only doing it to be funny.  I can tell you, it’s hardly ever funny.”   Alas, it is true.  Not all my jokes and jibes get laughs….in fact, most of them do not.  But then, even Robin Williams isn’t funny all the time.  For the 10% of his jokes that work, you never the 90% of jokes he tried and bombed on.  The trick is to keep trying stuff and sifting out the ones that work from the ones that don’t.

“But,” Morgan continued, “people can’t tell when you are being yourself and when you are in character….”  This is a valid observation.  Therefore, here is a rule of thumb.   If you EVER hear me say something condescending, you can bet that I’m doing my character.  If I ever insult you and it’s clear I knew what I was saying…..in character.   If you ever feel like I’m using big words to belittle you….character.

Now then, can’t we all just get along, you pea-brained talking monkeys?

Open letter to my brother, Rob Winburn

OK Rob, here's the thing.  You and I can't have "discussions."  We are coming at things from completely different paradigms.  I'm coming from a framework of reason and you are coming at them from the point of view of faith.  Now before you get your panties in a bunch, please note that I am not insulting you or your religion.   I am merely pointing out the differences in our epistemological methodologies.  

 A reasoned approach considers evidence before making a conclusion.  And that conclusion is not fixed or absolute.  If more evidence comes along that runs counter to it, the conclusion must be modified to fit the known facts.  

Faith based truth, on the other hand, starts with a conclusion.  That conclusion is absolute and immutable.  Any evidence that comes along is judged to be valid based on whether it supports the conclusion.  If the evidence supports conclusion, it is good evidence.  If it does NOT support the conclusion, it must be invalid…because the conclusion cannot be wrong.

Unfortunately, these two different paradigms make discussing differences in opinion impossible.  I get frustrated because I provide evidence that your conclusion is wrong and you just dismiss it.  You get confused that I just can’t see that your conclusion is correct and view any challenge to that conclusion as a personal attack against you.    In fact, you probably think that I’m insulting you right now, don’t you?

The result of this fundamental difference in our world views is that is that we butt heads , wind up just getting angry, and unfriending each other.    

Therefore, I will try very hard not to be drawn into any more discussions with you.  Go ahead and rail against the president all you want.  I will not comment on it.  I’m not going there anymore.  I can only hope that if I say something you don’t agree with, you just shake your head that your sister is insane and not try to draw me into an argument.     

42 things you probably didn't know about me.

1.       My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic who raised my sister and me alone.  It wasn’t that bad really.  You learn to slip through realities on a dime.

2.       I won my first writing competition when I was in 8^th grade.   I used my whopping ten dollar prize money to buy a book on Freudian Psychology and a comic book.

3.       I sucked my thumb until I was nine.

4.       When I was going up no one knew what transgender meant and just assumed I was gay.  My entire life, everyone thought I was gay.  My friends all thought I was gay.  My teachers thought I was gay.  All those men I had sex with just ASSUMED I was gay.

5.       Although I knew I wanted to be a girl from the time I was four years old, I didn’t actually figure out that I was a transsexual until I was 54 years old.  The problem was that I also knew that I liked girls and even psychiatrists told me that if I liked girls then I could be a real transsexual.  Real transsexuals thought like girls and girls only liked boys. 

6.       I have always been two years older than my sister, but because I always looked younger than I really am and because she is a bossy bitch, people always thought she was the older sibling.

7.       Although I became sexually active in the 70’s, I have only had sexual relations with six women. 

8.       I did try sex with a man once but it was a complete disaster.  All I could think about was “great.  Now I have two penises I don’t know what to do with.”

9.       My life eerily parallels the book “The World According to Garp.”  My mother WAS Jenny Fields.

10.   I fell madly in love with Linda Ronstadt when I was 20 and my passion for her has never wavered in 38 years.

11.   I am still ridiculously in love with my first ever girlfriend.   We found each other again through Facebook and became close friends again….actually too close.   For various reasons, we both agreed that it was best to never see each other again, although doing so initially devastated me as much as our original breakup 40 years ago.  We have an unusual relationship now.   We are still Facebook friends, but we don’t communicate at all.  She doesn’t text me or comment or like any of my statuses and I do likewise.    But I not forbidden from reading her statuses, which I usually do with a silly grin on my face.

12.   I have two children and six grandchildren, although I am not allowed to attend family functions for several of my grandchildren.

13.   When my kids were little, their mother broke up with me.  She then went a little funny in the head and brought up my being trans as evidence of my being a danger to the kids.  When that didn’t work, she accused me of molesting them.  That worked like a charm and although I actually won sole custody of my children, she got the court to force me to give up my parental rights and then disappeared with them.  I did not see my children again for ten years.

14.    Today my children call me Dad and my grandkids call me Grandfather.  Those titles were too hard fought for to give them up for something as inconsequential as changing my sex.

15.   My four year old granddaughter in particular has no problem understanding that I’m a girl now but I used to be a boy.  She sometimes asks me to use my “boy voice” and when I do, she laughs uproariously.

16.   Every woman but one who I’ve had a serious relationship with has been totally nuts.   Thanks Mom.

17.   To this day, I seem only attracted to wildly unstable women. 

18.   I’ve been told I was extremely attractive as a man.  I could never see it.  I’ve always had a difficult time getting women to date me.    I didn’t have a single girlfriend during my college years. 

19.   I am an unabashed amazonophile. 

20.   The most money I ever made writing was the screenplay I wrote for a porn film back in the day when they were filmed and had a script.

21.   The only man I had sex with was a female impersonator who looked amazingly like Reba McIntyre.  Since he was always in drag when we had sex, I’m not sure if that counts.

22.    I played Oberon from A Midsummer’s Night Dream when I was in high school.  It was a great show but being labeled the “king of the fairies” did not help my reputation any.

23.   I was terrible at sports.  One time, when we were playing football in PE, my teammates thought it would be fun to make me the running back…against my fervent protests.  They put me in the line…or behind the line….whatever….and gave me the ball.  I proceeded to run down the field as quickly as I could.  Whenever one of the opposing team got near me, I turned and loudly screamed at him.  It freaked them out so bad that no one even came close to grabbing my flag and I ran 80 yards to a touchdown.   It only worked once.

24.   I am the walrus.

25.   I was married to my third wife for 20 years.   I am still very much in love with her, although she despises the air I breathe because I killed her husband.  I guess I sorta did.

26.   Feeling female makes me happy.  Because of this, I sometimes deliberately do something girly when I’m feeling down.

27.   Alternatively, when I am sad I am always male.  I call it being in “James” mode.  I can’t do my incredibly drag king act any longer because putting on boy clothes again puts me right back into James mode.

28.   James was not a bad person….just a very sad one.   Before I accepted that I was indeed a transsexual, the day didn’t go by that I didn’t think about killing myself.

29.   I weight trained for a year recently.  I got good at it.  I could lift 720 pounds on the linear leg press machine and 200 pounds on the abdominal rotation machine.  But at the same time, I couldn’t get out of my bed in the morning.

30.   I once ran a 10k in 51 minutes. 

31.   I can now run 10k in 90 minutes.

32.   I have never smoked marijuana in my life.  I am hideously allergic to it.  Even a small whiff of someone else smoking can make me sick to my stomach.

33.   I’ve only been drunk twice.  The first time was in college.  I was sick for three days afterwards.  The second time was a new year’s eve when I was alone and drank an entire bottle of champagne by myself.  I wound up drunk texting an old flame. 

34.   I’ve never experienced real girl sex and probably never will.  I did make out with a lesbian once recently.  It was the most amazing sexual experience of my very long life.  We will never have a relationship, but I will always think of her fondly as my first.  Wow, I’m one of the few people who can honestly say had two first sexual encounters.

35.   There are a lot of lesbians who don’t hate men.   Fortunately, I’m not one of them.  I can tolerate most men, but the more masculine a man presents himself, the more I want to destroy him.  I can’t watch a football game without wanting to take a Samurai sword and going all Michonne on all their asses. 

36.   I’m allergic to male pheromones.  That’s one of the reason I hated myself so severely when I was a man.  My own body was producing that crap.  I was in a meeting at work once and was surrounded by men in a very small and hot space.  I actually had to leave the room.  The smell of “man” was intolerable.

37.   I go through 2.5 pounds of raw spinach in a week.

38.   I’ve written two novels and a play.  The books were published and the play was produced, but I haven’t received a dime in royalties for any of them.  FML

39.   While I am a devout worshipper of the Goddess, I am in fact a terrible Wiccan.  I don’t believe in reincarnation and I don’t do spells.  I don’t even pray.  Religious work for me is trying to adjust my wants with what She wants for me. …and fucking Her of course.

40.   I’ve had fireball battles with other Wiccans and can fly…sometimes.   I don’t seem to be able to go higher than a few feet though.

41.   My mother was Scottish and when I was a kid, I had kippers and eggs for breakfast every day….every God-damned day.

42.   I’ve told several people that I’m a 700-year-old TimeLord, but I need to confess that this is a lie.  I only say that to make me sound like I’m much more important than I really am….(I’m really only 300 years old.)

Sisterzz Twisted Halloween Show 2013

Several weeks ago I reported on what seemed to be an evolution in an art of gender illusion away from the olio format and towards something approaching theater.  Last night I witnessed the next step in that evolution with the Halloween show presented by “Sisterzz Twisted.”   

Traditional drag shows (both kings and queens) consist of individual lip syncing acts in which the performers collect tips from the audience in the middle of their performances.  There might or might not be a finale in which all the performers lip sync to an ensemble piece.   Last night’s Sisterzz Twisted show on the other hand consisted of four vignettes  (single scenes) in which most if not all the troupe participated.   There was the obligatory lip-syncing to popular songs, but the individual songs became part of a larger story.   Instead of interrupting the performance to collect tips, the audience was encouraged to wad up their dollar bills and throw them on stage.     

True to the burlesque roots of all drag shows, the acts had plenty of sex and comedy.  The humor in particular was fresh and innovative.  I loved the way they played with gender roles, be it male monsters in Beyoncé like stockings and heels singing “Single Ladies” or a trio of women portraying fabulously effeminate male dancers.  At one point a quartet sang lovingly to what can only be described as a bizarre Jabba the Hutt like creature.   No one ever explained what this thing was or why it had such an appetite for members of the quartet, but we didn’t really need an explanation.  We were all too busy laughing. 

A callout to Peter Steele .  His world weary Devil, the only re-occurring character of the night, was delightful.  Not only did Mr. Steele perform live (no lip syncing) but in one of the rock and roll acts, he demonstrated his considerable skill at the drums.

I was troubled by the length of time taken between acts.  They called these intermissions “dance breaks” and as Cash Inn Country is primarily a dance club, I suppose that the down time could be excused.   Still, fifteen minute entr’actes  seemed a bit long, especially with the stage hands  going about their work to change the sets so lackadaisically.  

This is a great show and at the price of absolutely nothing (other than the completely voluntary and aforementioned tips) it is well worth the price.   The good news is that they are having an encore performance tonight at 8pm.  You will not be seeing the creative costumes of the Halloween audience, like Quailman, Max in his wolf suit, and a sexy vampire time lord, but If you’re not busy this All Hallows Day, you should treat yourself to see this show.  You will not be disappointed.

P.S.   I told one of the performers after the show that if I got the phone number of the Scotsman I’ve had a crush on for some time, I would give the show a good review.  Never got that number, but here’s the review anyway.