How to take a road trip without a car

The year is over, and I'm back in the City of Excessive Precipitation. It's how I got there that was the interesting part. Halfway through the semester I had this great idea: since I like travelling, more travelling would obviously be better. Like taking the train to Seattle, for instance. Everyone I talked to thought this was an incredibly stupid idea, even though it was cheaper than the plane by about a third. But when I told my best friend Carina, she immediately said it was the coolest idea in the universe, and that we should do it. So we made plans - I was gonna ride from DC, she would get on in Cleveland, and we'd head to Chicago and on to Seattle from there. Three days of fun in the train.


People still told us we were crazy, but if you had been on this train you would've shut up quick, cause it was the coolest thing that could ever happen to anybody. It was like a road trip without a car. It was like a cruise trip without a ship. And it was quite simply the cheapest way of travelling across the entire country.

The route starts in DC, right, and I hopped on at Union Station, with my bags about twenty pounds overweight. After some rearranging I got on. The seats are super comfy - coach on the train is first class on an airplane. Part of the plan was that I was going to save Carina a seat. But the conductor lady came up - she was a thinnish woman with straightened hair and a name tag that said "Beverly'. She yelled, "You better move your bag! People need to sit down! What're you doing, taking up all this room!"

"Someone's sitting here," I said. So she left. Two stops later, more people got on, and Beverly comes back up. She doesn't even say anything, she just glares at me, and I try to glare back as best as I could (she was pretty hard-core). Finally she was like, "I don't see another person."


"That's cause they haven't gotten on yet."


She snorted. "No-no-no-no-no. That is not how this works. You don't save seats for people! Get your bag up outta that seat." I didn't have to get it up because she had already gotten it for me.


The whole way to Cleveland, she glared at me every time she passed. "Beverly hates me," I told Carina (it wasn't enough that we were about to be on a train for days; we still had to call each other). I kind of despaired of getting her to understand how much Beverly hated me, though - I have been known to exaggerate. A raised eyebrow could make me say someone has it in for me.


I took the chance to escape Beverly and went to explore the train. See, with the train, you can walk around as much as you feel like between cars. They have a lounge car which is made entirely of windows and has tables and stuff where you can hang out, and a dining car where you can spend twenty dollars at one go. And then you could go to the back of the train and stand at the window and watch the east coast melt away before your eyes.


It rained the entire way to Cleveland. Carina unfortunately had to get on at two-thirty in the morning, and then the train was delayed because this stupid freight train in front of us couldn't get up a hill. It was the Little Engine That Couldn't.

So finally we pull in to Cleveland at three or four and I'm all excited. I look out the lounge window and see my friend walking towards the last coach car with her bags and umbrella. I ran through all the cars, trying not to wake people up, and I get there and hug her to death, and then who appears but Beverly, wanting to seat Carina. She sees me - and by this time it's four in the morning so she's even pissier than usual - and she says, "THIS is your friend?"

I glanced at Carina. She didn't have horns or anything; I didn't think it was that much of a stretch that she and I would be friends. "Yeah," I said cautiously.

"You mean you were gonna save that seat all the way to Cleveland? Are you serious?"

"I mean...I was gonna try."

So I get a whole chewing-out from Beverly, but finally she let me come back to the last car and sit with my friend, which is good because we'd been planning this for months. "See?" I said to Carina once we were alone. "See?"

"She doesn't hate you personally, she's just a bitch."

But we got rid of her in Chicago, where we switched routes. Chicago was the best because we had a several-hour layover. On the plane, you dread those because it means you have to sit in the airport forever. But a train station is usually right in the middle of a city. We walked out, and the Sears Tower was right next to us. We walked down the street, and there was an Indian restaurant. So we went to Whole Foods and stocked up for the rest of the trip. We did really well with the food; we had enough to last us the whole way without having to go broke in the dining car even once. In fact, the other passengers loved us because we had a surplus of food and shared it. We had two loaves of bread, hummus, rice cakes, three different kinds of cheese, mango applesauce, Nutella, and a cornucopia of fruit. We stole plastic silverware from the counter and stopped at the Indian restaurant on the way back for some shahi paneer and garlic naan.




Then we crossed the country. The sun set over the Mississipi in Wisconsin. We hung out in the lounge car and met people. The Amtrak website had gone on about how you meet awesome people on the train, but I think Carina and I were both hoping that we'd be able to keep to ourselves. We ended up meeting this really cool dude, though. His stage name is Mickey Western. He's this guitarist and all-around indie artist type. He has this really earnest voice and he's always going on about Kerouac and the other beat poets. We also met Blair, this Canadian dude who was a little weird.


Night on the train is kind of creepy because the train's going through the countryside and it's pitch black, and everyone around you is alseep, and because your perception is limited to the train car you get wigged out and can't tell whether the train is going backwards or forwards, or if it's even going at all.


The next morning I woke up and we were in North Dakota. The landscape was grey and green-brown as far as the eye could see. It was kind of addictive to stare at, but it was also kind of a drain to travel through it for an entire day with no change. I loved it, though - there were all these swamps, and you could tell that the place would have looked awesome covered in snow.



We passed into Montana during the day, though you couldn't tell to look out the window. We figured it was time for food, so we went to the lounge car and spread out our bread and hummus.



And this was the best time ever. Mickey came in with a friend and shared our food, and we played this surrealist writing game. Finally, finally, the mountains started looming up on the horizon. It was awesome, after so many hours of prairie. It got dark, and the train wended its way into the Rockies. There were deer and elk. Mickey kept going on about this bear he saw from the train one time. "It was a little guy!" he kept saying. "Just a cub, he was sitting all by himself on top of a hill. It was a little black bear, a real little guy. Maybe I'll see him again."

I was so psyched to be back in the mountains. It was all dark and mysterious and Wagner. Blair came by and sat down with us. As the sun set, the lounge car emptied out. "It's getting quiet now," said Mickey. "I could go get a guitar."

"Sweet," we said. He went back to his coach car and came back carrying this tiny case. The neck was sized normally, but the body of the guitar was just barely bigger than the neck. It was a perfect travel guitar. Apparently he got it off ebay or something for thirty dollars. But anyway, he started playing these songs, and he was really good. He played songs that were perfect for travelling through the Rockies at night - songs that brought a tear to your eye because they made you feel like you were missing something even though you know you'd never know what it was you were missing. His style was kind of bluesy, kind of country, kind of folk, and kind of sixties in its lyrics. These other dudes from Seattle came and sat - two friends, you know, quiet guys who looked like Seahawks fans. One of them had used to write songs. "You're changing my life, man," he told Mickey, who just kind of smiled a hippie smile and played another song.

"It's like being six again," said Carina (her father used to play the banjo).

I felt like Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (except less racist against Native folks) when Pa is playing his fiddle late into the night and everybody's eyes are shining and no one wants to go to sleep.

But finally it died down, and we watched more horror movies and went to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning we were in Wenatchee, and it smelled like Washington again.

It's actually not an island of dykes.

Something I have been wondering about for a long time has finally made itself clear to me. The wondering went like this: What happens to the actual people on the island of Lesbos? What are they called? Why did people start using the word 'lesbian' to describe dykes? I mean, I know about Sappho and stuff, but why would you use such a stupid-sounding word? To me it just sounds like a space alien. You know, invasion of the Martians and Lesbians! Like Lavender Menace should've been a sci-fi movie instead of a civil rights group for white dykes.

I like the word dyke better because it's bad-ass, and it's something to reclaim. Like the difference between vagina and cunt.

Anyway, I'm putting some fat quotes in from this article:

ATHENS, Greece - A Greek court has been asked to draw the line between the
natives of the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos and the world's gay women.

Three islanders from Lesbos — home of the ancient poet Sappho, who
praised love between women — have taken a gay rights group to court for using
the word lesbian in its name.
One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the
name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults
the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our
geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no
connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.
The three plaintiffs are seeking
to have the group barred from using "lesbian" in its name and filed a lawsuit on
April 10. The other two plaintiffs are women.

Also called Mytilene, after its capital, Lesbos is famed as the
birthplace of Sappho. The island is a favored holiday destination for gay women,
particularly the lyric poet's reputed home town of Eressos.

"This is not an aggressive act against gay women," Lambrou said. "Let
them visit Lesbos and get married and whatever they like. We just want (the
group) to remove the word lesbian from their title."

He said the plaintiffs targeted the group because it is the only
officially registered gay group in Greece to use the word lesbian in its name.
The case will be heard in an Athens court on June 10.
Sappho lived from the
late 7th to the early 6th century B.C. and is considered one of the greatest
poets of antiquity. Many of her poems, written in the first person and intended
to be accompanied by music, contain passionate references to love for other
women.

Lambrou said the word lesbian has only been linked with gay women in
the past few decades. "But we have been Lesbians for thousands of years," said
Lambrou, who publishes a small magazine on ancient Greek religion and technology
that frequently criticizes the Christian Church.

Lambrou says Sappho was not gay. "But even if we assume she was, how
can 250,000 people of Lesbian descent — including women — be considered
homosexual?"

The Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece could not be reached for
comment.

Thank you, Greek Lesbians. I wholeheartedly support your lawsuit. Maybe everyone will stop using that stupid word now. Although we're still kind of indoctrinated by it - you can't tell me you didn't snicker when the dude said, "We have been Lesbians for thousands of years!"

Not only that, but "homosexual and lesbian community of Greece" is an oxymoron. If you're gonna go that way, you should put "gay and lesbian". I personally think "queer" would reduce it to one word, but I'm not in charge of the group.

I think it's also stupid that all these dykes go there for a vacation. If I were a native Lesbian I'd be pissed. It's not even like there's a dyke Acropolis there or anything. Seriously, what can you do there that's of historical value? Hang around at the cliff Sappho jumped from? More likely they just chill on the beach and drink cocktails and act like loud Americans (or continental Europeans).

Incidentally, if everyone spoke Hungarian there would be no confusion. The word for dyke is (among others) "lezbikus", and the word for someone from Lesbos is "leszboszi". Two completely different things.

DK-24 (The Alien Villian Movie)

Y'all might remember that I starred in 2006's biggest sci-fi blockbuster.Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, or if you've only seen the director's cut, you should watch it. This is the final cut, and it's up for an award in some online film festival. They added some smoke and sound effects. I'm not sure how long it'll be up, so watch it now if you're gonna watch it. I'm the alien in the red mask. I really enjoyed kidnapping that girl because she was a pain in the ass on the set.

I'm just gonna give you the link because it takes way too much code to embed it:

http://www.thecollegiatenationals.com/video/index.php?vid=6654



Also, let's have our weekly or whateverly picture of Nathalie Stutzmann, best contralto ever. Do you see that big puppy she has? That's because she loves dogs.

The Best Superpower

Some Howard students had a bad-ass sit-in today. It was the coolest thing ever. It made me feel like I was in a movie, and that I had superpowers.

It was a contingent of twenty or twenty-five students and one professor, and we marched to Louisiana senator David Vitter's office to tell him to leave the public housing up in New Orleans and stop allowing contractors to build those freaking condos. I was marching along in a dream because of last night's all-nighter. I was so tired that I had begged Yoda for some of his coffee and drank it black, something I never do (asking Yoda for something OR drinking black coffee). But there are two things I never miss - paper deadlines and political stuff.

It was just so bad-ass when we all marched into the Senator's office. It was like a scene from a movie. All twenty-five of us walked into the Senate building (with signs concealed) and went up to the fifth floor, making no effort to keep quiet. No point in keeping quiet when people are getting forced out of their homes every day.

We went straight through the glass doors of Senator Vitter's office, into the antechamber. A receptionist was working at the desk. When she saw us she went pale and just stared.

If it had been that many white people entering the office, they would have needed guns to have the same effect we did. Everyone was snickering, because normally white people at least ACT like they're not about to shit themselves when twenty-five black people enter the room. All the receptionist could say was, "Um-"

"We want to speak to Senator Vitter," our spokesperson said.

"He's not in!"

"When will he back back?"

"He went home. To Louisiana."

"Is his Chief of Staff in?"

"Um - I - maybe."

"Can we talk to her?"

She jumped up and hurried towards the open door to the inner offices. "I'll ask!" The door shut behind her. About thirty seconds later we heard the click of a lock.

We made ourselves comfortable. There was a table with big books on it, a couch, and two puffy chairs. It looked like a furniture store display. I went over to the table and moved the books aside. Then I sat down on the couch and put my feet up on the table. "Come on, guys," I said. "It's not every day that you get to chill in a Senator's office."

Everyone sat down. There was a TV across from us. "Can you turn off FOX news, Dr. Greene?" I asked the professor. He smirked and hit the power button.

We had effectively taken control of the antechamber.

Several minutes later another woman came out cautiously. "Good afternoon. Um...the Chief of Staff's not available right now."

'That's cool," said several voices. "We can wait."
"We cleared our schedules."

She actually wrung her hands. "How about I take your information?"

"Okay." Tchgozie, our spokesperson, handed her the batch of petitions my friend's group had gathered.

She took them, and waited.

"We still want to see the Chief of Staff," said Tchgozie.

"See, there are other meetings going on back here," she said.

"Great."
"We'll greet the people as they come in."

Her voice was strained. You could tell that having us greet people was the last thing she wanted. "What I'm trying to say is, we have other things going on-"

"We've got time," I said.
"It's real comfortable in here."
"Yeah, the TV's great."
"Thanks for your concern."
"We'll just be right here."

She wanted us to leave, but she was too much of a pansy to actually ask. She seriously looked about to crap herself. I mean, I've seen whitefolks get nervous, but this was BAD. She retreated back into the office. We held our laughter until the lock clicked.

Sometimes - in the car at night, or shopping in a small store - it's inconvenient that white people are scared of you, but everybody was digging the sense of power it gave us today. It was like just being who you are gives you a superpower. Now I know the answer to the question people always ask about which superpower you'd want. I already have my superpower. It's stronger in males, but it's definitely there when I get loud.
Whenever someone came into the office they would pause, visibly nervous, like we might shoot them if they crossed the antechamber to get to the back offices (the receptionist who should have greeted them was still hiding back there). And we'd be like, "Hey man! How you doing?"
"What's up, man?"

And they'd say, "Hello-" and make a break for it, looking neither left nor right.

The Capitol Police showed up about thirty minutes in. They told us to put the banners away, and then they went into the back offices to devise a plan of action.

This was their plan of action:

All the women cops came out. The only white one stepped forward and said, "Hi guys! I'm Tara!"

We just looked at her like, you gotta be fuckin kidding me. She didn't even do the good cop act very WELL. I was insulted that they expected us to fall for it.

"Tara" went into this whole spiel about how she was glad we had come, the people at the office were delighted to see us but they couldn't fit us into their schedules at the moment, and our best bet would be to make an official and legal appointment. "You can wait here for now,' she said, with this stupid grin on her face, "but this is a private office. If they ask you to leave and you don't, you will be subject to arrest."

This went around in circles for several minutes, with us asserting our right to be there and her asserting her right to the impending kick-out.

"How can you arrest us for wanting a meeting? This is non-violent."

"Tara" said, "We would never be violent-"

"No!" cried Eugene from ANSWER, who had been stewing the whole time. "You guys arrested me on September fifteenth and you were brutal!"

"Yeah! Y'all tried to kick his ass!" I interjected loudly from my position on the couch.

"You kept me in a bus for eight hours without food and without water! You-"

The strain of keeping up the act was too much for "Tara". She took several steps toward him. "Lower your voice, young man!" she snarled. "This is an office!"

"I didn't raise my voice!"

"Yes, you did! One more word and I'll have you arrested!"

Eugene shut up. But as the cops started back to the inner offices, he said to us loudly enough for them to hear, "Hey, if someone says something that's not true, I'm gonna call them on it."

Tara froze inside the door. She turned around, shouldered past the other cops, and stalked up to Eugene. "One more word and you and I are gonna have a problem!" she yelled. Eugene just stared at her.

They really should have picked someone better at being a good cop if they wanted that plan to work.

In the end it was one of the office workers who ended the stalemate. He came in from the outside, completely unaware of the situation, and instead of freaking out like his lily-livered colleagues did, he said, "Hi!"

"Hey, how's it going?" we said.

"Good, good. Is there anything I can get for you?"

"Yeah, we've been trying to speak to the Chief of Staff."

"Alright - let me see what I can do." He went back into the offices. I don't know what kind of briefing he got from his colleagues - whether they asked him to negotiate for them or whether he blew them off and decided to anyway - I think he was the highest-ranking person we'd seen so far- but he came back out and had a perfectly civil conversation with us. He wasn't completely comfortable, but you could tell he wasn't afraid King Kong was gonna bust into the building any minute. He offered to arrange a meeting with the Chief of Staff where all of us could be present, and he said he'd see what he could do about having the Senator attend too.

So we thanked him and showed ourselves out, not without making plans to come back at least once a week over the summer.

"Tara" had stationed herself outside the office, and attempted to make small talk with us.

We ignored her.

Working on everything but homework

As you know, it's almost finals week. I have an enormous research paper due for music history tomorrow that's supposed to be eight to ten pages long (in student lore, this means eight pages - no more and slightly less). It's pretty much established that this is gonna be an all-nighter.

I'm up in the music building with my friend Andrew, hammering away. It helps immensely that Nathalie Stutzmann is singing Faure to me from the CD player. She's seriously the best contralto in the world (after Ewa Podles. I might be obsessed with Stutzmann right now, but I haven't lost sight of reality and facts). Dr. Timbrell's so nice - he ordered me a recording of her Winterreise. I should get it when he comes back from Vienna (he got tickets to see Siegfried with Deborah Voigt. I'm so jealous). I am so completely pysched about this CD that it's not even funny. In fact, I want you to be psyched about it too, so I'm gonna show you the picture she has on the front of one of the editions.

I want that jacket. Anyway, like I said, Andrew and I are up here typing away and procrastinating like nobody's business. Every half hour or so I go down to the office he's in to "check up", and we end up talking.

Things started to go downhill when I said, "I wanna get a drink. But the drinking fountain's so far away." I thought for a second. "Wouldn't it be funny if I brought my bike up here?"

We cracked up just thinking about it. "Alright!" I said. "It's happening!" I tore downstairs and unlocked the bike I've been using (it belongs to one of the ANSWER people), and hauled it up the stairs with the vigor that youth and a great idea give you. "That was fast," said Andrew. "Did you take the stairs?"

"Well, I wasn't going to go to the elevator!"

"Only you could make hauling a bike up three flights of stairs sound lazy."

Andrew came and got on the bike. You have to know about the music building to understand why one might need a bike to go to the drinking fountain. While most buildings are shaped like an 'L' or a 'U' or a square, the music building is shaped like a hyphen. As in, it consists of three floors of one single hallway, running the length of the north side of the quad. The first floor is the theater and admin floor, the second floor is visual arts, and the third floor is music. It's tiled in beige, and all the doors are orange. There are drinking fountains at both ends of the building, but only one works, and we were both in offices on the OTHER end of the building.

So Andrew took off on the bike down the hall. I doubled over laughing because it was hilarious to see him careening down the hall, past all the doors and cork boards and the office where the chair of the music department would normally be during the day. Plus, the fratgirls were around, and it was funny when they saw us with the bike.

After several trips to the drinking fountain we decided to go to Andrew's dorm and pick up his stuff for the next day, since it's going to be an all-nighter and he has to perform at student recital tomorrow (today). So we went dowstairs, carrying the bike, and out onto the yard. The next distraction came in the form of the huge bleachers they've already started setting up for commencement on the tenth. They have to seat hundreds of people, and they are probably twenty feet tall at the back. The workers hadn't put in the seats, so it was just a huge metal framework.

Perfect for a jungle gym.

So after some climbing we biked and walked down to Andrew's dorm, and then while he was getting his stuff I practiced my no-hands turning and manuevering on the bike.

Now we've come back to the music building. "I wanna order some food," said Andrew.
"Yeah! Me too. Let's do that."
"What can we order?"
"Chinese...or pizza."
Andrew didn't look sold on this. "Well, you're vegetarian. So we can't order Wings over Washington." (That's this chicken-wing place that's supposed to be bomb.)
"Chinese or pizza."
"I don't feel like Chinese."

So we went on the Pizza Hut website and did this thing where you can do your order online. It took forever to decide what toppings and what crust and what size. Finally we clicked 'place your order'. And then it was really cool because this thing came up that said, Joseph is preparing your pizza. And it had this little timeline that you could follow: Order-prep-baking-boxing-delivery.
Andrew was really psyched about watching it, but I told him to get back to his work. "You'll basically be watching pizza bake. And a watched pot never boils."

"Yes it does."
"No it doesn't!"

So we're waiting for the pizza now. It better get here soon cause they overtaxed us. I want to see my tax dollars working at something besides killing Iraqis.

It had the wrong name.

I am hella pissed. You know how I ordered a book about how to be a bad-ass drag king? Well, I did. I was all psyched for it to come so I could get started with the hard-core stuff that makes you look like a dude. But I was stupid enough to order it off The Big-ass River, aka Amazon. Even though I KNOW they are a Republican company that's trying to geta monopoly over online shipping.

Anyway, I finally went down to the front desk today and asked after it. "We had a package like that," said the desk lady. "But we sent it back."

"Why would you send it back?!?"

"Because it had the wrong name on it. We didn't know who it was."

"It's supposed to go by room number!"

She got an attitude and pulled up the list. "See how it's organized by name? See that? Tell me how I'm gonna find the room number in all that? No, seriously, tell me!"

I almost offered to give her a tutorial on how to make an Excel spreadsheet. But I didn't. "Well, obviously MY name wasn't going to be on it," I said. "I sent it to my drag king name, not my real one! Why would my real self need a book about being a drag king?"

"I don't know about any drag kings," the desk lady said. "But you better call UPS and have them redeliver it."

So I called UPS, only to find out that Amazon (freaking Republican profit-mongers) had put a HOLD on the package, restricting UPS from delivering it even though I HAD called with all the right information. They were basically taking my money AND my book. I called customer service and screamed at their voice recording for a while, and them I wrote them a scathing email telling them to re-send the package or they would never see the light of my credit card number again. Their bureaucratic bullshit will probably keep them from doing that.

I was so pissed that I probably would've punched the wall or something if I'd been a dude in real life.

Then I realized what I should have done from the very beginning. I called up the LGBTQAIPCAG bookstore (I just added all the relevant letters I could think of, to show that it should really just be called the queer bookstore) and said, "Hey, I've been looking for this book..."

Within five minutes the dude said, "We'll call you tomorrow! Thanks very much, good luck with being a drag king!"

"Now THAT'S customer service," I spat at the Amazon page on the desktop.

My new idol

I was getting pretty pissed the other day because there are no drag kings of color. There are all these ladies out there sporting beards and sexy ties, and almost all the ones I've found are the type to get sunburned, if you know what I mean. Even that person I posted two posts ago took me forever to find.

But then I found Buck. Buck Naked. Look at this performance well, because it's pretty much exactly the type of drag king I'm going to be. Buck is my new idol. (I'm still in love with Nathalie Stutzmann and want to have her voice. But she and Buck are two entirely different things.)

Can you imagine if I went on American Idol in drag?

That's Bull to you, sir

I know I said in the last post that my drag king name was gonna be Ashton Black, but I just had an even better idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. I've decided that the name "Bull" has to be in my drag king name.

First of all, it's funny but not obvious like "Dick Van Dyke". It's way more subtle. I want a name I can use if I ever have to go into witness protection and need a name I'm already used to.

Second of all, Bull is a family name on my mother's side. One of the perks of having white family is that your ancestors were allowed to do things like read and write and make their mark on the world, so you can trace them and know who they were. Bull comes from this Norwegian ancestor of ours named Ole Bull, who was a crazy-famous violinist. He was friends with Liszt Ferenc and Chopin and Grieg and all these other dudes. I even have a CD of his stuff at home.

Just the musician connection alone should make that my drag king name, but there's the added irony that almost every DUDE on my mom's side of the family gets to have Bull as their middle name. I could be carrying the name of one of history's greatest violinists, but the existence of my ladyparts meant it was not to be.
Every once in a while I go and complain to my mother. "Why didn't you name me Bull? You should've named me Bull!"

And she always says, "I couldn't name you Bull- you would have hated me!" Which may or may not be true. Maybe naming me Bull would have turned me into a girly girl who would DIE of embarassment to have a name like that. We'll never know. The point is, I've always wanted to have Bull as my middle name (instead of Nicole. Where the heck did "Nicole" come from? Although I suppose I could shorten it to Cole. Cole Bull. No, that's too monosyllabic).

Anyway, the name Bull HAS to be part of my drag king name. But Ashton Bull doesn't sound as bad-ass as Ashton Black. So y'all have to help me think of other possible names (that have Bull in them.)

I've decided I'm gonna go to Pride in drag. It's gonna be awesome.

My New Career Path

I just had the best idea known to humankind. I have decided what my career is going to be. I will be famous and rich and dangerously powerful, and no one will be able to stop me.

I was sitting in Vocal Accompanying, which is pretty boring because we never actually play anything. My professor had put on a recording of a Poulenc song. The song's about this dude who sits in a hotel dreaming dreams and thinking thinks and smoking, and he says he doesn't want to go to work anymore, he just wants to sit and smoke.

Nathalie Stutzmann was singing it. Lately she's been my new favorite person in the world. All you have to do is look at her to know she's awesome. She has this hat... And once you hear her, you're convinced. AND she's recorded Winterreise. That cements her place in Ashalyn's Hall of Bad-assery. Winterreise is the coolest song cycle in the history of Western music. From the minute I first heard it I've wanted to sing it, but of course all your teachers tell you you can't because you're not a man, and Winterreise was written specifically for a male singer because it goes on about travelling and this girl he's in love with. So teachers think it's a waste to teach it to a girl cause you can't perform it anyway.
So it's incredibly cool that Nathalie Stutzmann's done it. I WANT that recording so bad.

So anyway, I was listening to her sing this song that's written for a dude, and I was imagining the song - the person sprawled out on the hotel bed with smoke in the air - except I was imagining a woman wearing the same clothes that the male character was wearing, like George Sand or something.


Then I had the best idea in the world. It just came to me, like relativity came to Einstein:
I should be a drag king.

Isn't that the best idea you've ever heard? I just sat there, completely still, unable to believe the awesomeness of that idea. I couldn't even pay attention to the rest of the class.



I don't know why I never thought of it before. It will be like dress-up except better because it's real. I mean, sure, I look pretty femme, but that's a small technicality. By the time I have a beard and stuff, no one will notice my slender fingers.

Of course it won't be an all-day thing. It will be for special occasions, like parties and stuff, or walking down the street at three in the morning. Eventually I will start performing in drag, and that's where the richness and famousness comes in.

My tentative drag king name is going to be Ashton Black. For one, it's like my real name except different (my mother tells me she almost named me Ashton), and for two, it makes me sound like a secret agent and a black power person at the same time. Plus, it's sophisticated. I'm not gonna be one of those campy drag kings like Ben Dover or Elvis Herselvis. Ashton Black is going to have class.

Also, drag kings get to pick from like, twenty dates a night. People freaking line UP to hang out with you if you're a drag king. You can get all the girls, and all the guys! This is very special for me: I will be able to have a male date that's decent, because I'll finally be able to date gay dudes! I love gay dudes, and gay dudes love other dudes. So if I look like another dude, it can happen!



Of course this is all in the embryonic stages. Picking a drag king name isn't enough. These are the things I need to become a full-fledged drag king:

1. I need to learn jazz piano. You can't be an awesome drag king playing Mozart and Debussy. More specifically, I need to learn some Harlem stride. Because Ashton Black is going to be the type of dude who has a bowler hat, a long coat, and one of those cigarettes in the long holder that he puts down so he can tickle the ivories. You can't be that kind of person without knowing how to play stride piano.

2. I need some boob-binding materials. I hear sports bras work, but I think I'm on the edge of what can be subdued by a sports bra. There's a way you can make stuff out of pantyhose. Or Ace bandages. More on that as I find out.

3. I need some sunglasses.

4. I need to get really good at braiding my hair straight back. Or I could cut it again. I have to think about that. Because I won't be a drag king all the time. In fact, I won't even be a drag king MOST of the time. So I don't want my neck to be cold when I'm not one. Plus, short hair requires re-doing every couple months, and beauty salon - I mean, barbershop - costs add up.

5. I need to do about five hundred push-ups so I won't look wimpy. Gay dudes are obsessed with going to the gym every day. None of them will date me if I look wimpy. Maybe I should add some chin-ups. My thighs already look awesome cause I bike a lot, so at least I don't have to worry about that.

6. I need a goatee.


7. I need to go on a hard-core shopping trip with my friend Sean.


8. I need a book about how to be a drag king. You can learn anything if you read it in a book. I've already ordered one off The-big-ass-river-dot-com. In two weeks it should be here. After that, watch out.



But the number one coolest thing about being a drag king is that I will be able to sing Winterreise.

A Picket Fence In Every Pot

Do any of my readers own a house? If you own a house, this isn't so relevant to you.

Now when I say "own a house", I mean just that. I don't mean those of you who are in debt peonage to a bank, because you technically don't own a house. The bank owns your house, and if they really felt like it or were really going broke, they could kick you out of your house tomorrow.

That's what happens when you live in a country whose capitalism is virtually unfettered.

This post is very relevant to you.

If you or someone you know is getting screwed over by the falling housing market (believe me, these Band-aids the Fed is putting on this are not gonna help), you should come to DC on April 16th to declare a moratorium on foreclosures. The Mortgage Banker's Association is having its annual policy conference, and it's the duty of every progressive to make sure that conference doesn't go down as planned.

Here's the link. Be there or be screwed.