Th-th-th-th-that's all folks

I could not think of a more fitting place to have the swan song to my comedy career than at Gunner Daimon Gatlyn's fund raiser for ....well, for whatever MI title he doesn't already have.   The one set I was expecting to do went very well.  Lots of appreciative compliments both on the act and how awesome I looked.  (Not sure which compliment I appreciated more.)  

The second, unexpected set did not go well and I cut it short.  I should have known better.  One of the rules I learned over the years is that after 10pm, the audience will not respond to an intelligent set.  They are usually so drunk by that time that the only thing they will laugh at is how often you say the word "fuck."   I once testing this hypothesis by doing a set after 10pm entirely in Middle English heroic couplets.  The difference was that I ended every line with some form of profanity.  I absolutely killed.

But it was particularly fitting that my last appearance on stage should have ended with the audience not really listening to me.  The words of Eliot came to mind:

This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

Schadenfreude

I had to pick Kenny up from school the other day. When I showed up, the nurse was confused. She was expecting a Jimmye Winburn to pick him up. I told her that I was Jimmye Winburn. More confusion. She asked if she could see my ID. I presented it to her. She looked at her computer screen and now looked especially confused. "Oh, I'm sorry. We have you down as Kenny's grandfather." 

"Yes," I said. "I AM his grandfather." 

Her confusion turned to pained perplexity. 

I let her delicious confusion stew for a bit before releasing her from her torment. "I'm transgender."
"Oh!" she said, "I am so sorry. So Sorry."

"It's OK."

"I am so sorry."

When you're trans, you take whatever schadenfreude you can. I am SO going to hell.

I'm out

I have been asked if I am actually retiring from comedy.  I can say now that I am. 

With very few exceptions, the comedy world has made it abundantly clear that my presence is not welcome.  And since the vast majority of comedians are terrible people that I wouldn't want to hang out with anyway, I am not really losing anything. 

There are other trans comedians...sure.  Some of them have even managed to thrive in the community.  I can't...or I just don't have the moxy... or too old... or simply too tired.  I'm tired of being played off the stage in the middle of my act and having the host tell people that the performer up after me is a "real woman."  I'm tired of a host stopping me in mid act and saying that no one wants to hear five minutes of body stuff after he just did fifteen minutes about farting.  I'm tired of getting helpful advice that I should do something other than trans comedy because it makes people uncomfortable.  (i.e. it made HIM uncomfortable.)   And I'm tired of being passed up for gigs...even for shows that feature other LGBT performers... because I "just don't fit in." 

A while back I unfriended most of the performers I knew on Facebook.  They had clearly only friended me to be able advertise their shows anyway.  I may have to unfriend a few more soon and for the same reason.  If you are a performer and have never commented on any of my stuff,  you will soon find yourself with one less person to invite to your show....not that you would notice.   I doubt if any of you have even bothered to read this blog entry.  

Another trans performer once told me that every time I go up on stage and do my transgender shtick, I make life a little better for all of us.  I followed that advice for five years and just got a lot of heartache for my trouble.  Doesn't matter.  The schmagekkes have won.  I'm out. 

I am so out that I don't even want to SEE any more comedy or drag shows.   Don't bother inviting me.

This is the healthy thing for me to do.

Finally, this is my advice to other comedians who are trans but have not made it part of their act.  STAY STEALTHY.  Do not come out.  All you will do is make trouble for yourself. 

A manifesto of sorts

Please bear this in mind when you are conversing with me:
1) I do not "like" men.  In truth I can barely tolerate them.  I spent fifty years and a lot of money trying to escape having to see a penis every day.  The last thing I want is to bring another one into the picture.  So guys (cis-men, trans-men, pseudo-men, demi-pseudo-trans men, and everything in between,) fucking give up.  I'm not going to date you no matter how attractive you think I am.
2) I am not your damned therapist.  My life is not "all together."  When you come to me out of the blue and detail just how badly your life sucks, all you are going to do is push me into the corner weeping piteously as I remember just how badly MY life sucks.  So much loss.  So much loss.
3) Do not give me helpful advice on what I COULD do to be a better producer/capitalist.  My brain is hard-wired to screen out any talk about money matters.  *I* can't do anything and your comments on "why can't you see this?  It's so easy." feel like you're whipping me.  Don't fucking whip me. I will cut you.
4) No, I probably do not know your friend who also a) is gay b) is trans c) lives in Arizona.
5) Yes, I am a liberal, a Socialist, anti-gun, and (as far as Christians can see) an atheist.  Fucking stop trying to convince me to be otherwise.   And if you feed me a line of conservative, plutocratic, pro-gun, and Christian shit, expect that I will call you on it as surely as I make the Jehovah's Witnesses sorry they ever walked up to my door and tried to convert me.  Let's make a deal.  You don't try to convince me to believe any of your crap, and I will do likewise. 
6) I am not an elitist just because you can't understand half the words I say.  I'm not going to debase my lexicon.  Fucking find out what those words mean yourselves.  You don't even have to crack open a book.  Just fucking google it.
7) I am not going to fucking clean up my language.  As Mark Twain said, "There is some comfort to swearing ...a comfort denied even to prayer."

είμαι Θεα

Back when I was male...  (I say it that way because even my kids say that I was never really a man) ....but back when I was male, every other day I would have a nightmare in which I was either being fired or was about to be fired.  I usually wound up 87549//////////////////////////////////////////////////////nhbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb (damn it, Dog.  Get off that freaking keyboard!)  by co-workers who tormented me that I was a terrible programmer, a horribly ineffectual human being, and an idiot.  This nightmare became so regular that as we went off the bed, I would kiss my dear wife good night and ask, "I wonder what horrors await me in dream time tonight."

These night horrors tapered off when I started transitioning and disappeared completely after my surgery.   My semi-nightly demonic taunting have been replaced by dreams with varying degrees of lucidity.   When the dream is completely lucid, I am essentially God.  But I am not a jealous god.    After one nocturnal apotheosis, I spend the bulk of the night fulfilling the wishes of everyone I met.  And they didn't even have to tell me they loved me or even believe that I was God.   (It's good to be de god.)

Last night's transfiguration was particularly gratifying.  After hanging out with Xena for a time  (she's a pillow princess, who knew?) I found myself at a combination summer school/summer camp.   After enjoying the double-occupant showers and the mandatory sex with other denizens of the girls' dormitory, I decided to continue exploring the rest of the camp au naturale.  There was none of the "Oh my God, I'm naked!" panic of other dreams.  I knew I was gorgeous and was treating the other campers/students to a beatific vision.  No need for false modesty. 

I wandered into the wrestling class.  It was disappointing that I had to wrestle guys,  but they were distracted enough by my nudity to attempt to use their flame throwers on me.  A simple wave of my divine finger took care of that nonsense and sent them flying against the wall.  Utterly bored, I started back for the dormitory, but couldn't remember exactly where it was.  No problem, I thought.  That's the way things go in dreams.  You can never be sure that something will be in the same place when you go back to it.  So, if Jimmye couldn't go to the dormitory, the dormitory must come to Jimmye.  The entire world warped until the entrance to my inner sanctum approached me like a supplicant. 

I woke up with the stupidest of grins on my face. 

A 420 Tale

One time I made the mistake of trying to do a show on 420.  I had never actually heard of the holiday before.  All I knew was that everyone was saying,  "I love 420", "420 is the best."   I honestly thought they were talking about some new cleaning fluid they'd found.

By the time the show started, everyone but me was baked.  The comedians were stoned.  The host was stoned.  The entire audience was high....both of them.

I tried to do my set, but no one was listening.  Nothing but crickets.  Eventually I stopped and asked the crowd, "Hey if I were to leave this stage right now, how long would it take you to even notice?"  Literally half the audience...ok, that one guy...looked up at and said, "......whut?"

I don’t feel like a woman

When I was little had a reputation for being a goody-goody who couldn’t do anything bad.  I was hideously teased for this.   But none of my tormentors could possibly know that deep down inside I was a wicked boy…worse than any of them could possibly imagine.   I wanted to be a girl.

I knew it was a monstrous thing to want to be.  In the years before “Women’s Lib”, women were treated like children.  For a boy with a God-given penis to want to be female was seen as a desire to lower himself on the social ladder.   It was like wanting to be a slave.  

I tried diligently to rid myself of this horror.  I wanted to be good.  But nothing worked.  Unlike other transsexuals, I never thought I actually was a girl.  Bath time made that fact crystal clear.  My evilness was restricted to simply wanting to be a girl.  In those times that I actually indulged my demon and dressed up like a girl, I felt …happy.

As I grew older, I increasingly resented my body and was jealous of the bodies of girls.   Men were not attractive at all.  Their bodies were functional but boring.  I just couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly have any passion for these big lumps of flesh.   (In many ways, I still don’t.)  This made puberty particularly troublesome for me.   It was the beginning of my life long battle with depression.  About the only time I ever felt “happy” was when I felt female.   But these times were relegated to dressing like a girl ( a rare event,) snogging with my girlfriend (and even rarer event,)  and masturbatory fantasies (no comment.)

When you are trans, you constantly vacillate.  Am I a transsexual?  Am I just a weirdo?  Am I confused?  But in the chaos of my emotions, two propositions never varied.

1) When I am sad, I feel male.  (I came to refer to this as "James Mode.")

2) When I feel female, I am happy.  (I came to refer to this as "feeling happy.)

I felt that if I could just admit that I was a freak and become a woman, I would finally find contentment.  Of course, it took me 50 years to make that admission.  I was under the sway of “professionals” who as late as a year before I started transitioning convinced me that “I might THINK I was a transsexual, but real transsexuals think like real girls and real girls like to kiss boys.”   

When I stopped listening to those who would keep me from turning my back on my God-given maleness and started transitioning, I became obsessed with a new thought.  The two invariants held true (see above) but simply feeling female was not enough.  I actually had to BE a woman if I was to finally find peace.   I could surely imagine what it would be like to be free of my despised genitals and doing so would make me happy, but I knew that when I was physically female, there would be no need to pretend.  I would feel female all the time and my happiness would be never ending.

 

I had my surgery five months ago.  For the longest time, I was concerned that I did not in fact feel like a woman all the time.  I certainly didn’t feel like a man any longer except when I was in James Mode again.    (Apparently depression cannot be quelled with simple surgery.)  The invariant still holds.  When I DO feel my femininity, I am deliriously happy.   But I just don’t feel it all the time.   

In fact, 95% of the time I don’t feel either male or female.  I’m just a person.  I’ve come to realize that this is the normal human condition.  One only “feels” their sexuality when in a sexual situation.   Most of the time, we are just sexless entities trying to make our way through life without screaming.   Most of the time,  the thought of whether we are happy or not just doesn’t come up.

 

I’m very happy that I got the surgery.   I don’t despise myself any longer.  I no longer feel revulsion when I look at myself in the mirror.   But 95% of the time, I am no happier  than I was before.