Jitney Trash

          So it begins…..with a beautiful little girl sleeping on her mother’s shoulder in the sunlight while sucking her thumb. She’s dreaming away as her mom walks her down Riverside dr. draped over her shoulder. Ahhh….to have a safety net in this crazy world takes the edge off. I mean it would if I had one.  The sun is warm but it’s perfectly counterbalanced with a cool breeze. This sweltering, sticky New York summer heat makes me want to run to the Hamptons! Wait, I’m broke and unemployed and the only reason I would be going out to the Hamptons would be to work as a Jitney slave at the South Hampton polo club. I don’t have words for how unbelievably ridiculous these people are. Just kidding of course I do.  If there's on thing I have......it's words. It is truly something to behold when the bleach blond, tanned to a dangerous crisp, Gucci mamas come walking in like the real housewives from hell, they’re almost caricatures, cartoonish even. Botox and boobs are the painful reality here. I would get bussed out of Manhattan with the catering company I worked for at 5:30 in the morning with a bunch of broke cater waiters (struggling actors) and we would bust our asses all day in the hard sun setting up for the match later that afternoon. Moving 36 bags of ice may not sound like a big deal but trust, in the middle of July, this boy needs an industrial sized air conditioner, a cold pack, and a Popsicle! Fuck the heat. I was ice skating at five thirty in the morning everyday for years and years in the coldest possible scenario you can imagine. The freak show that was about to take place is borderline vomit enducing. The pure attitude of a private club like this makes me totally insane. These are the ultimate cunts that sip Piper Champagne through a little straw and mismatch their cloths on purpose. Trust me; nobody is watching the game, well except Howard Stern and his gorgeous wife. They were actually engaged in some way oblivious to all the socializing and ass kissing that was going on around them. I love him. And I love that he refused to get married until the gays could! I really respect him for that.  It was quite a scene let me tell you. No one could’ve been bothered with the beautiful horses galloping by in a totally fantastic visual. These million dollar steeds were quite a sight indeed. I could hardly set up my bar when the horses came trotting around the grand circle that surrounded the field. I grew up next to a horse farm in East Tennessee and I used to own a horse named Big Red. This polo match was really a time for networking and being seen while wearing some Julie Taymour inspired homeless-Balenciaga-Hampton-couture? BLAHH!!! It was a mismatched circus of rich people flaunting their bank receipts and the new work they had just had done. I did this every Saturday and Sunday for the entire summer. Hold me. I left my dignity in Harlem for this gig. I know my place and where my broke ass belongs! Who are these bitchy architects and sleazy agents? And why are the Absolute vodka girls wearing teeny tiny mini skirts and all look like models from New York City, wearing Swarovski crystal necklaces and bracelets? Freaks……all of them! I could count on one hand how many people looked like they had any business being at a sporting event at all. Polo matches remind me of the old fashionable big hats and Ascot snobbery. I did My Fair Lady for ten months….I know the truth. These people are wealthy clowns layered in white on white. And their perfect blond kids matched their parents wearing more white on white on white! I get it. These little Von Trapps are loaded and this handfull of children will never have to work a day in their lives! They even sounded rich; like little girls named Dyrk and Revelation and the boys named Preston, Cohen, Rocco, and Rex.  These bitches sit around having Lavender gold-leaf tea and rubbing their gums with cocaine all afternoon. I know you don’t allllllll have allergies. I’m on to all of them and what they are concealing in their Fendi clutches! It’s a huge, unnecessary show of peacock feathers and attitude. In a crowd like this a sincere soul shines out like a solo flashlight in a pitch black canyon. No matter where you are you can see that singular light from anywhere. By the time I finished my twelve hour shift as a bartender in the VIP lounge, I swore that I never wanted to see another pair of plaid pants as long as I live and breathe. No goal made during the entire game was more exciting to this crowd than when Rihanna came riding in on the hood of some shiny blue Lamborghini trying to keep her skirt from flying up while she giggled and waved. She, and her people, were there to announce the fact that she was about to be really fucking famous and that her first hit album was about to drop that following week. BAM! I think she was 19 years old at the time I and officially on the map.

       These cunts are going to hell in a Pucci handbag made of excessive leather fringe. What brought these divas to the point where they thought they could basically get away with diamond-studded murder? Look at Lindsey Lohan’s exhausting two weeks in jail. I’m sure she learned her lesson! I just feel that she has changed for the better……..no? Rich little kids ran around jumping on the gorgeous luxury floor pillows that were dispersed throughout the Abu Dhabi inspired silk tents. Little trust fund 11 year olds were sneaking behind daddie's back and steeling sips of his mojito while he was screaming at his assistant on the phone. My heart goes out to his secretary.

        For every drink I served I drank two. I would get instantly wasted and would love my job for the next couple of hours. I’m a horrible bartender because I pour them like I like to drink them…..strong as hell! My drinks get sent back all the time because just a splash wasn’t cutting it with these refined "ladies."  Vivica Fox certainly couldn’t have been bothered with my cocktail (whoever the fuck she is?) In fact, the reason I was picked to be in the VIP bar certainly wasn’t for my bar tending skills that’s for sure. I ended up stationed there because I was well spoken and had no criminal record, two huge pluses in the catering world!  Let’s just say that there’s a wide variety of people working for this particular company. I’m sure I’ve seen some of them on Jerry Springer.

         I could've killed this guy that I thought was hitting on me. He gave me his card at the bar and told me that he could do wonders for me. I glanced down at his card and saw that he was a plastic surgeon specializing in eye lifts and Botox! This nip/tuck disaster was claiming to be the keeper of time and youth even though he himself looked totes cra cra. I swallowed hard and tried not to stab him with the little knife at the end of my wine cork, He was one suggestion away from a new nose job himself. This dude looked like he’d been stung by a swarm of bees. He resembled the “Cat woman” that runs around New York City under a big hat and veil because of her million facial surgeries that rendered her unpresentable to the general public. He could go fuck himself! I don’t use lotion every day but damn…..facial intervention so soon? “Preventative measures will save you bundles in the long run” he said. And as if schlepping all over the polo grounds just to find a few ice cubes for Star Jones’ Yorkie wasn’t humiliating enough, all the taxes that came out of my little check that day were enough to send me face first into the Hudson river!

         I don’t even think I can afford to die right now. I have outstanding loans and a little dog. I found out that when my buddy Wilson died unexpectedly that you can’t be buried here in the city unless your entire family has roots here going back generations. If you have no history beyond your adult love affair with New York they will ship you back to wherever the hell you came from. I couldn’t be buried in the Riverside Cemetery right by my apartment because there is literally no room in the inn. Every single square inch of land is accounted for here in the 212. When I die I want to be cremated and have my ashes sprinkled at Chelsea, Pearl, Ripley Grier, Telsey, and in little pinches up and down Broadway in the theatre district. I recently saw an add for a new natural burial. It sounds so incredible to me and is so much more my style that a stupid casket. You can now be wrapped in a bio degradable, earth-friendly egg (sans coffin). You are placed in an upright sitting position, hugging your knees in a fetal pose. You are essentially in a cocoon with tree seeds clutched in your hands that grow and feed and spring out of your decaying body. You feed the tree with your body and essentially become it. You can pick any tree of your choice. I’d much rather go sit under the huge branches of a tree that came from the life cycle of my friend or family member. How much more beautiful is it than starring at some weird final quote etched in stone? This green final ceremony has more meaning to me because it’s actually alive and the energy continues. I want this when I go. But, if I did have a gravestone quote it would say “Just Kidding!”

         The Piper Champaign people pulled me aside and told me that they were planning a paparazzi attack on JZ and that I was going to be an integral part of their super-star sting. They made a big ta-doo about making sure that I timed it perfectly so that they could get a beaming, smiling shot of me handing this mega star their product and him taking it. We were in a holding pattern until I got the secret head nod from a Champaign rep. wearing a microphone head piece. It was the secret service of expensive bubbles. She nodded and we were at places! The velvet ropes were clicked open and our busted looking multi-millionaire walked in and I made my move. I wiggled my way through the A-list crowd on a mission; to get my face in a sweet shot with McJizzle! The photographers were queued in a line like Rockettes and I smiled like a cracked out Crest commercial as I extended the silver tray with a singular little red flute of Piper. And just as the cameras started popping and flashing like gunshots his hand went up to take it….5…..4….3….2….and with one look at me and my cheesy demeanor he waved me off like the servant that I was. The final shot was of Beyonce’s man totally rejecting my drink and me standing there looking like a dufus with a expression of happy surprise plastered across my face. Please, like he (J fuckin’ Z) drinks anything other than Dom or Crystal! Please Piper? No billboard will be born out of this photo disaster I suppose. His look of disgust was too good to be true and I’m sure the camera film has been destroyed or gone mysteriously missing.

       I was instructed to say “Enjoy your perfect Piper!” every time I popped open a little flute.   I handed seven bottles to each of the Unreal Housewives of the Hamptons. The problem was that these cunts would stand in line for thirty minutes and then order as many drinks as they could possibly carry.  Fuck needing another eye lift, these folks desperately need liver transplants and therapists. After twelve hours in South Hampton working as an indentured servant, I needed a line or twenty myself! Hook a brother up Paris. I know you’re holdin' some law breaking substance in that Chihuahua’s diamond studded locket dangling from its leash. You’re not fooling me sister. Nobody searches a dog do they? If I was a drug dealer I would hide the goods in little doggie sweaters……Harley full of Grace! I should make that bitch start paying me back that 1,600 dollars she cost me by being my little incognito drug mule, pushing dime bags out of her puppy rain coat pockets and selling loosies for .75 cents. The whole thing would look like a good petting and nothing more. Leave the cash in her pocket and be on your way. Maybe I’d wear a tie and no one would be the wiser! Nobody would ever suspect this little furry pocket puppy of pushing Ecstasy and Xanax on a street corner, no way.  Pretty soon Harley would be selling herself in a dark alley letting strange dogs lick her yellow-stained cone for tuppins! The green Herringbone turtleneck would mean its weed day. The blue stripped hoodie would mean it was crystal meth Thursday. And if she happened to be sporting a shiny silver winter coat with a cross n’ bones stitched clearly on the flipped collar…..well…....just keep on walking buddy! I wonder what dog house she would go to if we got busted? What do they do with the animals that are in the unfortunate care of someone that gets arrested? I’d get ten to fifteen at Attica for drug possession while she would get shipped to the ASPCA and put up for adoption. Would I ever see my little girl again if I got thrown behind bars?  I wouldn’t do well in prison with the whole complete loss of freedom thing.  But don’t you threaten me with a sexy black man and the jungle fever that rushes over me when I'm watching Christopher Maloney in an episode of OZ. The sex aspect of incarceration would be like winning a lottery for me. Dropping the soap would probably be my full time job if it came to that.

        When my mom wanted to send me to an all boys school in hopes of butching me up so that I wouldn’t end up gay, I said fine. Bring on the secluded male dorm rooms and the prison yards full of sexy ass brothers rocking their one singular hour outside...shirtless and pent up….literally. My parents were pushing brochures on me regularly from a Christian college that didn’t allow guys and girls to walk on the same sidewalk! If I’ve ever heard of something “gay” that was it! To me, that particular school sounded like a Jesus concentration camp where the girls are made to wear floor length dresses and couldn’t even consider sporting an open-toe sandal….das ist Verboten! Legitimate religious debates make me want to wither up and hide under a rock. In fact, I took all of my god fearing, Christian-freak family members off my Facebook account because I didn’t want to start writing and filtering my words through what my mother would think if she ever read this blog. I don’t want my sweet mother to necessarily know all the inner ramblings of her son’s brain. Sometimes ignorance is bliss in cases like this. I have actual preachers in my friend list and their  brainwashed, judgmental offspring. My cousin invited me to her wedding in one breath while, at the same time, making it very clear how she would feel about coming to my gay wedding! She firmly believed that the very institution of marriage would seriously be corrupted by the inclusion of gay people and their possibility of true and equal rights. Ol’ Sharla wouldn’t come to my Sodomy ceremony but sure as hell would love a homo doing some of the registry shopping and her hair and makeup on the big day!  The distance my family puts me at sometimes makes me feel sad occasionally.  But nonetheles, I'm happy to run off and join the circus of intelligent people living in the appropriate century.

        For me to delete a blood relative off of a social network like Facebook is a deeply seeded knee-jerk reaction that I automatically have to any of my coo coo ridiculous relatives and their prehistoric views. I have a major intolerance for intolerance. I can’t deal with trying to truly be myself while being worried about what these people would say or how they would respond. I don’t want some huffy creationist judging me and reading my words and giving me their ten million cents! There would be endless raging, epic prayer chains clogging up the phone lines all throughout East Tennessee, Minnesota, and Mississippi. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. When I asked my cuzz how she could feel the way she does about gay marriage, knowing the pain that inequality brings to the heart of her very own cousin, the answer Laura Ingalls Wilder gave me was unacceptable and too archaic to justify. And just like that the judge’s gavel slammed down and Poof……with one click I unfriended the weak Christian links with no hesitation or questioning. Of course, I feel bad deleting my mother but it's for her own protection!

          I’ve spent my entire life trying to build up enough courage to hold a guys hand in public and to this day I shudder when a man reaches for my hand anywhere other that Cherry Grove or the Pines! People are quick to reach a little too soon in my opinion. I have to be absolutely in love with you to hold your hand. Slow down boys and let me do the reaching. Don’t you dare grab my hand unless I give the ok. I’ve been totally out of the closet for more than half of my life but I think my Southern upbringing has my brain fooled like some kind of toxic muscle memory. For some reason I don’t like to draw attention to myself? I guess I’m in the wrong business for being someone who grew up so painfully shy. Religion just bores me to tears. But, believe it or not, even the Jesus tribe is looking good compared to the completely souless crowd of plastic surgeons and tanned cougars desperately maintaining the Stepford façade. These people could use some sort of divine inspiration or meaning in their lives, other than the sole purpose of impressing one another with their yachts and golf ball sized diamond rings they can barely lift to brag. I’ll kill them all! Stop trying so hard people. I just want to slip away from my bar, scramble up the polo announcer’s platform, grab the megaphone out of his hand, and scream at the top of my lungs in some insane cater-waiter snap, “ ENOUGH…..DROP THE ACT….FREAKS!!” I’ve just realized that being out there during the weekends getting my hands dirty is ok. I'm empowered in some way by it. How is one empowered, you may ask, by passing out hors d'oeuvres to people who consider you……..well not at all?  I feel that, at least, I have a humbly human energy to bring to the table. It’s like the sexy feeling you get right after watching an episode of Hoarders or Jerry Springer. It’s just so good to not be certain people sometimes.