Luck of the Drawl Ya'll

Unluck of the Draw

          Las Vegas, home of the 10Am gin and tonics and old folks tapping those blinking blissful buttons into the next morning. Nickel after nickel they click their retirement away one hopeful sip at a time. Hookers and heat stroke make up this dirty desert pop-up town that looks very much like a one sided Hollywood movie set. The hot wind burns my eyes the second I step outside the hotel sliding doors and I'm pissed I didn't bring my expensive eye drops. I guess I'm too vein to break the line of my skinny jeans with one extra thing in my pocket. God I'm sick of me sometimes! My contacts are singed and sizzling with the dry heat and immediately I begin to sweat bullets. I wish I had the money to sit my fat ass down right now at the nearest Figure Skating themed slot machine, smooth out a crumpled twenty, and kiss it goodbye forever, anything to not have to venture outside. But I can't bring myself to set what little money I have on fire at the moment. Unemployment doesn't taste good in my mouth especially here where the dice are always rolling and pent up soccer moms and homeschool house wives give themselves license to dress like cheap whores with tranny shoes. These ladies make that skin tight choice that NOBODY in this world needs to see. These are the rural ladies of 'Merica feeling sassy enough to strut their stuff in dresses they wouldn't be caught dead in back in their hometown of ol' Altoona Wisconsin.       

         Four AM waffles at the Tuscany diner are a dream but the daytime boredom makes me wanna climb the walls of this hotel because it's too damned hot to venture out mid day for any reason whatsoever. Night time is the only time of day here and midnight might as well be noon. Its a city of gambling addicted vampires and when you wake up from your cat-nap at ten in the evening you know its going to be a long night. The scorching sun blisters my pampered little pooch's paws on the side walk during our daily walks and she skips around like an excited tap dancer on a red hot plate. Poor little Harley is hating her life in the desert because she's either outside wheezing like she has full blown Mesothelioma and struggling for every breath, or she's stuck in the hotel room like Ann Frank all day. I've been known to pull one over on the housekeeping ladies as to avoid an astronomical pet "deposit". Occasionally mama slips through the cracks. She might as well be a fried egg on the hot asphalt that turns her perfectly groomed white paws into black hairy Gaga boots. The melting pavement is literally dying my dog into a different breed all together from the ground up. Black leg warmers are not part of this equation if you know what I mean? Let's just say a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel isn't known for it's desert temperament but more for lounging around like a furry accessory pillow on a 7,000 dollar Donna Karen denim couch on HGTV. I guess the apple doesn't fall far for my furry child since my idea of roughing it is finding out the Candlewood Marriott Suites doesn't have a pool.    

           I've watched my favorite people on earth stuff twenty after twenty into Gold Fish machines with little to no pay out other than the temporary rush of hope that comes from a dazzling spin with blinking lights. My favorite quote of the entire trip was a hustler who was promoting a free limousine ride to some obscure gentleman's club off the strip. "Warm titties in yo' face guys....free limo and warm titties in yo' face?!" My country Tennessee roots and fifteen years experience in Manhattan couldn't have prepared me for what lay in store on this cross country adventure to Vegas. The biggest and only obstacle has been filling this endless down time. Three days in Las Vegas.....Hell yes! Three weeks? Kill Me! My year has gotten away from me alltogether and seems to be slipping through my fingertips like a fine powdery sand. My personal control issues always allow me some form of a French retreat and a way out of almost any scenario but not this time. Have I given up or just given in to forces stronger than me leading me where I need to be?            

           This year an unavoidable foot surgery parlayed itself into forcing me to leave my show in Tennessee, something I've never done in my entire career. This was a true first for me. That break for surgery turned into a mandatory vacation/recovery period and from there into a three week trip to New York City to kill time. New York accidentaly morphed into four days in Amsterdam my favorite city in the entire world. The Amsterdam daze was followed by a huge wedding in Scotland and both were capped off just brilliantly with a horrible long distance breakup that dragged on and on with some seriously regretful aftershocks to follow. Sometimes the universe strips you of everything in one devastating blow for your own good even if you can't see it at the time like me. Being blindsided is an understatement in regards to my smoldering summer's emotional wreckage. But the grace in which we deal with the aftermath of such epic breakups depends on how tempered our reactions are to them. Needless to say mine were short, ineffective, and in fact paralyzing and did more damage than good. I couldn't find a graceful perspective if I had a GPS!       

            It seems Love is the most terrifying word in my vocabulary because it means that you allow the worst, most flawed parts of yourself to be transparent and hopefully accepted......or not. Dating and auditioning run a shockingly close parallel to one another and when I think about it I smile and a little nervous laugh pops out. After three months it's out there, all of you...the good, the bad, the frustrated, the elated, the bored. No matter how badly you wish you could get that first fart back that slipped out next to your significant other you can't! Just let it go friend....literally. If you think the romance and mystery is over in that exact moment get over it because it's quite the opposite. You have just arrived at the starting point of honesty, a beautiful place to be.  A perfectly fucked up, confusingly clean slate levels the playing field for you both. To forgive others I have to first forgive myself for my raucous twenties that are still a bit of a blur. And to be able to have a full cup to offer someone else I must cut loose all the baggage I'm dragging through my adulthood for no good reason. The guilt can't follow me forever right? Because it hangs and lingers in the air like a smoke ring floating over the black jack table. Hit me. 

This is War......This is SPARTA!

     Today I find myself standing before huge piles of my things heaped together on a filthy garage floor. The remaining ruble of yet another smoldering failed relationship burns before me and singes my nostrils leaving them ashy and charred. Wadded up a dress shirts still on hangers and precious personal artwork were urgently packed for me in an attempt to erase my memory as quickly as possible. Cue tips and band aids spill out of my picnic backpack along with all my medicine cabinet supplies proving it was a hasty and angry packing job indeed. It's a quick attempt to remove all traces of me, to be completely wiped clean of any and all painful remembrance. Its a shedding of the prickly snakeskin that my truest self so badly needed to wiggle out of six months ago and was long overdue. It would've eventually encrusted me into a false sense of self anyway and it had to loosen and fall off before even more damage was done to either party. Sometimes everybody looses in the gritty game of a love filled life and the risks involved. Old inspirational cliches just seem to fall flat to unsympathetic ears. How can you know when your time is up and movement is required? My stagnant Tennessee life has demanded immediate action and a facing of the beast herself...New York! I know the answers to all my stupid questions actually but I'll press on anyway because I so rarely have any comment at all. I figure I'll judge myself and edit later.

 

      I stand broke and vulnerable, open to my close friend's kindness. Their true colors have presented themselves amidst this cloudy confusion much like a rainbow after a heavy unavoidable storm. Ghosts of close VIPs have slipped into the shadowy background while trying to stay politely uninvolved while others have stepped forward into the light to show themselves as the radiant human beings they truly are. These are the people who are open and willing to listen and bleed with me and be patient. These are the kind of folks willing to help me see the forest through the trees when all I taste is bitter bark and anger. Kindness, in a emotional desert like this one, stands out like a mirage that tempts you to drink freely. But you blink and you're all of a sudden spitting out sandy mouthfuls. 

   

       My blind trust-fall back into the dirty city makes me freeze in my tracks and my spine tingles like Pop Rocks candy on my fat tongue. Paranoia and anxiety set in as soon as I realize I overslept and missed moving the car by 10:30 am before that merciless, hard bitch of a meter maid slaps a bright orange envelope on the pigeon poop covered windshield. Just a few days back here and my wheels are spinning out of control and my thumbs can't type fast enough. My gut is churning with the idea of high rents and weekly Broadway show rejection but it's not the same New York it was when I left because I'm not the same person. I've been still for the first time in my life in a good way. Best friends have moved away and gotten pregnant. I've lost people....grandparents and loved ones. Gorgeous, stunning babies came giggling and burping into the world this year while I was gone such as little Dawson, my butterball of a self proclaimed god son! Big Broadway shows I never saw have opened and since sadly closed. The blood and tears of my show friends stain the sticky subway poles with vein attempts at squeezing themselves into a role that couldn't be further from their type cast. I haven't written a thing in months nor cared to comment on the world or my questionable part in it. But something cracked me open that Jim Carrey said in a commencement speech on you tube, "You can just as easily fail at what you don't want, so why not take a chance on doing something you love?" Precisely my point Ace Ventura! 

 

      The subway crackles like fingernails on a chalk board, shocking my body into stark urban reality while the hot air from the train makes me want another shower. Getting the dirty subway under-arm sweats in the muggy summertime takes me right back to the good ol' times. My Tennessee detour was originally only supposed to be no longer than two months but ended up morphing into what has become almost three years now away from my friends and the city life I've known since 1998. You do the math! This blog has remained virtually dormant with not so much as glimmer of literary inspiration since I last hobbled around these city streets with my shin splints. I could've punched a Gerber baby right in the fucking face when I left three years ago and no amount of giggling infant beauty could've cracked this jaded gay exterior no sir! But now happily my NYC friends tease me saying that "Tank's lost his New York edge!" when I get taken for an idiot in a gypsy cab. A big piece of me smiles inside and knows that was my original goal all along, to loose that sharp edge that was quickly becoming a permanent mask that was all too real underneath. My quick-to-judge protective responses were becoming a problem. My Berlin Wall was flying up upon any weirdness which is totally unavoidable here. Weird is the norm in New York and almost a daily occurrence so get over yourself Tankersley and look into people's eyes again and acknowledge the human race before you because it's a beautiful thing. 

      A subway car represents a rainbow of colorful genetic DNA spanning through all the worlds nations and every possible race is represented in immediate eyesight. I've missed it. The best and worst of us all jammed on top of each other like sweaty summer sardines. It's dirty and real....the hug of human nature. Two years ago I would've tazed an old lady before she could've even formed the words to ask for my help across the street! It was certainly time for a serious intervention of sorts and some therapy that didn't involve H&M or my debit card. My Tennessee home gave me that chance to salvage what was left of my shipwrecked New York state of mind and allowed me to hit the long over due reset button on my life. My best friend in life told me one day that the goal in his own life was to make his anger-fuse grow longer with age instead of shorter.(Like mine) Wise words from a grounded and sound mind clear of pointless distraction. 

     

     Far too long have my fingers been absent from this notebook application. I've had nothing but time to write and gush out any and all things that flourish inside my cloudy, smokey haze yet nothing ever came. I'd wait every morning with coffee in hand for an actual family of bunnies to come hop-hopping across the front lawn for inspiration but still nothing. A blinking cursor on my touch screen has mocked me many a night with its modern dance and the silence around me just grew louder. The green Tennessee fields are brilliantly sprinkled with countless lightning bugs twinkling like Christmas lights strung up in mid air just for me. The scent of honeysuckle and pine wood burns from the neighboring chimney into my country soul but the city still calls me back like a deranged distant wolf. This is the necessary inner peace platform one needs before taking the blind leap into the unknown. Taxi honks and turnstile clicks bring me all the noise I need to fill that epic canyon of silence. What is it about this bustling hustle that makes my mind explode with creativity as the images and thoughts sizzle in the synapses of my brain, shooting like divine lightning through my finger tips and out into the universe? The freaky Japanese bubble teas, five dollar cinnamon muffins from the upper best side, and overpriced bad coffee seems to always set the world straight again for me. The panic is actually  part of that alive feeling that keeps me feeling young while welcoming daddy's crows feet with open arms like an express train when you're running late. New York.......where every stop is either delayed or a skip stop....no grey area. It's exactly where I wanna be. 

Biscuits and Davey

       I realize that my blog posts ebb and flow like the bi lunar ocean tide and that my moods change like an inconsistent weather radar reading during the stormy season. Hurricane David is by far one of the most dangerous types of atmospheric local chaos. Board up the windows folks and lock down the hatches. Whenever I'm stumped in my writing confessionals I tend to look back at the roller coaster of a ride I've been on for some time now. Could the silence of a rural environment actually be deafening to the point that I have to listen to a CD called 'Sounds of the City' a collection of horrible urban taxi honks and angry turnstile clicks and subway rumbles just to get myself to relax? I need a balance. Can the city of angels and demons be calling me back home after I wrote about my great escape for months on end?  Silence...Check. Quiet...check. Recording a CD...check! Finally paying off my Sallie Mae student loans that have been hanging over me like a cloud in the antidepressant commercials...done!!!
    Tennessee. It all started with a humming that morphed into words; words that evolved into lyrics to a country song and I'm taken away every single time. There's something new in me like a confidence I can't fully explain and I feel the need to not only acknowledge it but celebrate it with a dirty Actors Equity Les Mis call in Chelsea. My career won't be complete until I die on the barricade at some point. What's wrong with me? I have a beautiful one bedroom nest for dirt cheap...a rock star performing job at the biscuit ballet where I'm Rudolf Nureyev as far as the locals are concerned. But most importantly I've had the time to hear my voice clearly for the first time ever in my life without the oh' so familiar fall out of epic vocal judgement. Again I stand at the crossroads of leaving and it feels like I'm gonna throw up in my mouth a little. Or maybe it was the cherry cheesecake Yoplait Whip I just ate two days past its sell-by date I don't know? A pirate plank might be the best comparison (swirling sharks and all) to the rat race I'm considering doing a swan dive back into but it's worth it. It's a familiar tune I wish could forget the words to but I sing it in my sleep nonetheless. It's definitely time to reconsider a new approach to your career when your big Mary Poppins number follows a ventriloquist name Bob who literally uses a sock puppet! 33,000 dollars in debt paid off  in full to Sallie Mae can't justify poop and dick jokes to me at almost 35 years old. I mean an actual sock puppet in 2013 can you even imagine?! And I can't forget to mention the Stunt Dog Snickers I had to follow at my last gig. Is this success I wonder? I'd say yes without hesitation because of the peace I've found exploring the scary, untouched depths of myself that compare to the uncharted deep sea dives only black light cameras can catch. Daddy would take even a lateral move at this point.

Miss Understood

  

         The classic mystery of Monogamy...does it exist in the dirty dog-like inner workings of a gay man's DNA? Am I supposed to put that huge piece of me on a shelf to ignore every time I consider letting myself be open to a new relationship and the idea of love? Is it a theory or can you get everything from the same person? So many questions! I like to think that you can. The guy that inspires such blatant and carelessly dangerous consideration in my mind will make me french toast in the morning and spicy Bloody Mary's on a blustery and cold rainy east-side day; in between playing renditions of Claire de Lune on an slightly out of tune piano while I shower! Too much? Absolutely! Expectations too high you say? I know. But maybe I missed the boat in this case and that's all she wrote folks. I like to think timing is key when it comes to rekindling an old flame. Hopefully all the previous baggage can be set aside or forgotten and the lessons been learned already so you can take that first step all over again. Its not the great guys I'm falling for....its me friends. After all, I'm the only common denominator in all of my failed relationship attempts. So how long can I go on pointing fingers and placing the blame on everyone else but myself? I could have walked down the path more traveled and had the picturesque white picket fence with a beautiful show girl wife popping out pale, plump, red headed grand babies, making my mother bubble over with peels of grandmotherly delight. Should that be the case my life might look really good on paper. But alas sexuality is not a choice. I would've chosen invisibility and normalcy over anything on the check list. Don't get me wrong, my life has unfolded beautifully with twistsssssss and turnssssss that no one ever saw coming. Even with the understanding that I was genetically designed to color outside the lines, unfortunately my personal demons involving unnecessary jealousy have begun to cloud my already cloudy mind and eat away at the trust I've found with my new man and every man before him. I can dish it out but I can't seem to take it so to speak.

        The years are seriously flying by like subway stops on an express train. It was crucial for me to find peace in this redneck environment for my already fragile sanity.  Perhaps it's way too late for that. And since I find myself plopped down in the middle of the ridiculous American bible belt I proudly smooth out the little bubbles on the Obama bumper sticker I permanently placed on my conservative parent's soccer- mom minivan. Oops....It sits right above my dads sticker that says "Rim to Rim.........the Grand Canyon!" No kidding! Each corner of my presidential 2012 sticker has been frantically scratched at on every side by angry Republican hillbillies and scooter-bound ladies in the Walmart parking lot, desperately trying to remove my Democratic pride before getting caught "red" handed. Waves have been made with the locals inadvertently. Its my small attempt at a strangely successful rage. Some Romney sheep is going to definitely tailgate me now and lay on the horn or drag his angry key across the ol' Green Hornet's paint job that's been so good to me. It's a truly trusty war horse that has served me well for a very long time.  All driver's forgiveness aside, my trick to avoiding the impending parental backlash of my mother's wrath in regards to the Obama bumper sticker was placing an ugly inspirational Christian theme-park magnet over it temporarily for quick home visits. So far so good....until she finds the blog!

The Imaculate Misconception

     When do you tap out of the New York City fight I wonder? And when do you stop pounding the fruitless pavement and celebrating the occasional bread crumb mercifully dropped from a midtown casting agency? The thick 33 year old denial clouding my pursuit of genuine happiness reminds me of that Lunesta commercial where the cartoon character walks around all day with a dark little rain cloud tightly tailing her every move. That can’t be 34. I need to sit into my decision to relocate for two years, uprooting myself from everyone and everything I’ve known for the last 14 years I rode the one train uptown to Harlem. You don’t shake the city angst that easily. To this day I still get the shakes whenever I think about going to an Equity Principle Audition at six am and waiting outside in the biting New York cold hoping to get the chance to belt out at least 32 bars of some obnoxious musical theatre song I’m not entirely comfortable with anyway. 

      I always hang on way too long to all things broken if I know it or not, relationships, jobs, apartments, grudges, ideas. The urban adrenaline that used to pulse through my veins like lightning has hardened into a thick glue making it impossible for me to move or give a shit anymore. I want my ashes spread over the hard wood floors of Pearl Studios where daddy’s been getting cut from the dream countless times leaving all dignity in the room should the word “Improv” be dropped! Not to mention the ol’ hamster wheel of required six month Wicked calls...my dream. Little fish? Even a good Sex and the City marathon couldn’t blow a little life into my broke city soul and wallet these days. I like privacy and walking little Harley off leash without threat of getting run over, being ticketed by a bored New York City bike cop, or harassed by another homeschool fellow dog owner! For the moment I’d rather be stuck traffic hopelessly gridlocked than being smashed like sardines on the dirty train if it comes at all.  Among the long list of things that tip the scales, Im cool with saying adieu to the amputee legless guy that drags his torso across the filthy train floor begging for loose change with hands stained solid black with unspeakable grime. I'll never forget the pathetic crackle in his voice that took the saddness of it all to a whole new level. Or the homeless woman rubbing her invisible bed bugs all over my jacket as she forces her way through a tight rush hour crowd like a bull. No thank you. Other than barely coming up with my epically unattainable rent due by the first of the month and the eight AM Spanish mariachi band splitting my head wide open, inspiring an emergency run to the local pharmacy to grab a fistful of Excedrin Migraine, I think my list is almost done. SSSSSShhhhhhhhh New York. It’s quiet time.

       Now I’ve traded in my ghetto mansion on 156th street for the bottom floor of a house that sits in the clouds atop one of the highest points in Pigeon Forge. Scenic loop circle is private and picturesque and as far as I’m concerned it’s Cinderella’s slipper. The deafening silence makes me wonder if my hearing is going sometimes. No hospital ambulances racing past my bedroom window blaring sirens at all hours of the night or firecrackers being popped by little punks in the courtyard, startling the hell out of me because they sound like gun shots. I clearly watch way too much Law and Order. How about another rainy marathon Tankersley? I can still hear the clicking subway turnstiles and people screaming "TAXI!" penetrating my dreams the way I can hear Paula Dean's horrible accent even if the television is muted. That woman is a terrorist of the English language. No wonder my anxiety level floats at around the boiling point. Anger management alone was enough reason to run for the literal hills. It’s crucial for me to sit with this quiet and suck down the crystal clear Tennessee air that’s so pure my brain is actually thanking me.
      Friends and VIPs keep asking me when I’m coming back to the dirty thankless grind of screaming high G’s at ten am that get harder and harder to reach, much like my leg to my face! My answerer to these doubting Thomases is “Whenever my therapist gives me a hall pass.” All I know is that simplicity suits my 33 year old bones at the moment and having some semblance of quiet stability has been paramount in me finding any peace at all. My writer’s inspiration comes and goes like the tide and my fingers miss the fiery tap tapping away of all my sarcastic rants in the dry periods. The occasional threads of juicy thought all too often get caught in my widely cast nets of personal judgment and never see the light of this laptop monitor. Even if this blog contains waaaaay too much information it’s better
in the end to let it rip because it would be a crime if some of this shit was forever encased in my IPhone notebook App. The tomb of doom. So...........POST.

Standing on Zero

         On the 13th of July 1998 I found not only the meat and the matter of the dirty 212, I found its voice. On that very late Tuesday evening I found myself sitting atop my shabby apartment building in Astoria, mesmerized by the Manhattan skyline staring back at me. Perhaps it was the car horns or the fog horns, or the inner David horn inside me that bid me leap the river that night to walk the streets and weave in and out, through and around the city's bustling corners. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the N train traveling at the speed of light underneath the East river. My destination was still undetermined. 57th street? No, it wasn’t quite dangerous enough. Times Square? Torture! I can't deal with the theatre crowds and bright lights. Nor was I interested in doing the tourist bumper car dance tonight. 34th...23rd.....closer.............14… Done! It was just shady enough and a perfect stop for me. I needed something gay. This wasn't a mission to find sex or even conversation really but simply to immerse myself in something bigger than me. My inexperienced green eyes were set on adventure and I walked and walked for a while and nothing jumped out at me. Hello New York City! What the fuck? Whoever says that Manhattan doesn’t sleep is lying. I found refuge in the dimmest little park I could find and busted out a sweet tightly wrapped friend. It was time and I could wait no longer so I sparked her up and sat back to relax. I placed myself on the East side of the park next to a sleeping young man, around 30 or so, contorted uncomfortably and wreaking of intense body odor and liqueur probably purchased at the Asian deli across the street. Contented with my resting place I proceeded to break the law happily and without hesitation. A few minutes into my sweetj treat I was approached by a small dark figure with no distinguishable features. My horn? Silhouetted by the lamps I could just hear the voice of a small black woman asking if I could share the wealth with her. Struggling to see her face I confessed that I didn't have a single thing I could offer her except well....you know. She happily accepted and not once asked me for money. I related the sad tale of a starving artist blah blah blah until I bored even myself not realizing how ridiculous it must sound for a little white boy to regale his troubles to a homeless woman with real problems. And there on a park bench in the shadows we started a dialogue. After I found the therapy I needed from an empathetic ear and started to spill my guts we started to walk, just me and a character that looked like a disheveled, scruffy cast member of Les Miserable'.

      "Would you like to join us?" "Us?”, I said. "Yeah, the gang." My heart sped up a little but I was feeling good and insatiably bored and up for the little adventure. This was the infamous invisible woman who sleeps under the rotten New York City bench you walk past every day without a single thought. From her apparent age I wasn't worried too much about what kind of gang she meant. Where was the huge snob of a 19 year old that I had hardened into? Why was I so down on people that fell below society's functional standards when I myself had no contribution to make to the world other than steaming lattes for the upper best side cougars at my coffee shop (Timothy's) on 72nd and Columbus. After a while a filthy hand extended itself in my direction. "Stella, that's m' name" she said in a comforting and surprisingly sweet voice. I took her homeless hand and shook it while my inner OCD sent me to the moon as though I was in an episode of Monk. Who was this lady? I'm guessing she was my reason for coming into the city that night.

      As we rounded the corner two strangers stepped into the light, clearer and more distinct with each step. “This is Leena and Marty,” Stella said. “This is my Village gang.” As I introduced myself and shook their hands I found myself amazed at the world’s unexpected tricks. Marty was a white man of fifty or so that seemed to have suffered an extreme stroke that had left him slurring and hard to understand. The effects of his body’s attack on itself and the huge bottle of whiskey in his arthritic hand played on each other to result in the saddest looking man I’d ever seen in my life. He was soon dismissed from all conversation considering the verbal nonscience he presented us. Leena on the other hand was sober and showed extreme traces of articulated intelligence. Coming from Philadelphia she came to New York on the wings of an interior designers dream. Upon her arrival she made for herself quite a comfortable life and became very successful. But in her words “New York will either make or break you kid. And well look at me honey….it’s obviously the later!” Leena fascinated me. She looked to be no older than twenty or so, black, and had a very gentle and bright face with beautiful almond eyes and gorgeous sparkling teeth. Obvious to my trained eye Leena was a transsexual. She shared with me her story and cut through the boundaries of all I’d known at the time. Her childhood was extremely unique as her contradictory feelings began to bubble up to the surface at a very young age. “I grew up a little girl,” she said. Her mother completely accepted her son’s dominating feminine side and began theming pink instead of the stereotypical baby boy’s blue room. Leena was given pretty dresses and makeup and everything society affords a young girl preparing for her role as a woman in the world. Throughout her school years she was tormented to a dangerous degree much like myself but nothing could compare to the reality of a boy wearing dresses in a public school environment! The emotional scars were lying just beneath the surface and I could sniff them out like a blood hound catching the trace of a rabbits scent. My amazement truly bottomed out when she related her living philosophy to me with sincere wonderment in her voice. “What a horrible way to go on living” she said. “I never could!” Never could I asked? She and I seemed to be running parallel lives in a way but I was a few hundred degrees shy of understanding her true strength in facing the harsh obstacles that lay before her as a kid. “NO, no honey, what I mean is that I could never live a closeted life or be something that I’m not….no way! The pain of every hurtful childhood remark could never compare to the reality of living as something other than exactly what I am….a woman....inside.” I soaked up the moment because up until then I had never heard words like that down in the ridiculous South. As we continued through the story of her life she portrayed the scene of a disenchanted New York City tour guide. I learned that she was momentarily taking a break from her full time job as an active tranny-prostitute working her spot at Chelsea Piers alongside of countless other "ladies." Bad drag queens with strangely broad shoulders tip toed and stumbled out of the cobble stoned dark corners of the meat packing district....a perfect name for a micro-neighborhood with such colorful citizens. I mean these bulging line backers in miniskirts pleasured men, women, adolescent horny under age city boys, and drivers getting their rocks off in the back of their sausage delivery trucks. You got cash? They've got anything you need!

      Sitting and talking with my new vagabond amigos I realized I hadn't said a word to anyone in weeks because I was all alone and living with a crazy old Russian man. He was a seedy pervert named Vladimir who took pictures of ballet dancers at Lincoln Center and ABT and sold them illegally on the street. My social life had come to a screeching halt upon my arrival to the big city. My good friend Joan tore a piece of paper off of a dancer’s bulletin board at Steps on Broadway in an attempt to help me relocate from Minneapolis to Manhattan. Mission accomplished and there I was living in Queens with a man with no teeth that I caught watching me sleep at night on more than one occasion! It is an f*d up image that is burned into my deepest darkest memories to this day. I mean I was sleeping in a room with a closed door. Ol' Vlad was creeptastic and turned out to be the roommate of DOOM!

      I couldn't judge these pre-op hookers roaming the streets because I myself felt like musical theatre prostitute that was forced to sing Suddenly Seymour or Gershwin for some demanding old lady that was hooked up to one of those little portable oxygen tanks and eating banannas foster. It paid the bills but barely, Waiting tables and being forced to sing something beyond a happy birthday is the stuff that Excedrin commercials are made of (well not anymore.) New York, New York should only be sung by certain people of which I am not one. I belt....Leena drops to her knees and blows people’s minds. What's the difference? She's done in a matter of minutes and I’m stuck walking circles around the dining room solarium, leaving painful blisters on my aching barking dogs praying for another table full of asshole tourists so that I can get stiffed yet again on the tip. If I didn't have morals I wouldn't hesitate to choose an easier path. That's the America we live in today, epically tough to get ahead when your overhead swallows you up by the first of the month. House poor is a thing I’m quite used to unfortunately.

      Watching this exotically androgynous creature twist and wrap and silk turban around her head to cover any trace of hair, the conversation came to a lull. What was wrong I wondered? Had I bored these two to death with my lack of real problems? Did they come to the realization that they weren't going to get any money from me and lost interest. After a little bit Marty started shuffling around and mumbling to himself, seemingly getting more and more agitated. "No more alcohol!" He became consumed with the fact that he just hit the bottom of his Whiskey bottle and began to shout and jerk around exhibiting a scary form of turrets that left everyone uncomfortable. The major energy shift had me wondering if it was maybe time for me to part ways but Stella went to Marty and took him in her arms and whispered and stroked his hair and calmed him with her soft words of encouragement which were something along the lines of "It's ok baby....we'll get you some more booze baby..." He somehow believed her because he started purring like a drug addicted kitten. Then she said that she would go make a few bucks for another bottle of something good. Marty laid his head down on the concrete chess board and passed out completely. He had a Chinese take-out box half full of what I think was some scary looking mashed potatoes in one hand and an empty bottle of booze cleverly disguised in a crumpled brown bag in the other. He and I would not speak again that evening. Stella was off to panhandle and do god knows what and Leena and I were left alone to talk. We chit chatted about how the city can amaze a person time and time again in a myriad of ways. Leena was proud, confident, and well spoken. I wondered how she could be out here on the street with no roof over her head that could shield her from the windy world. This was my first homeless conversation that lasted beyond "Sorry man I don't have any cash on me" which was usually true. "Straight people don't know what they're missing” Leena said.. “There sure as hell ain't no national Straight Day!" She was absolutely right. Can you imagine? I think it would be just yucky if people celebrated Straight Day or White Day or Men's Day, the absolute worst of the unsuppressed majority! Onne thing I truly appreciate is the fact that all the men and women out there bumping and grinding into the night are the reason there are gay people in the first place. When my mom dares to mention gayness being a choice I happily remind her that it's the combination of my parent’s genes that make up every fiber of my gay, wiener loving being and I put it all on them. You can imagine that this particular argument sends my Christian parents to the moon and I love it. It drives them crazy and I don't really care. If every gay person in the world were straight and had at least one child the world would be so over populated it wouldn’t even be funny. It would tip the balance of things. I think there are already way too many people throwing giant cherry Slurpee plastic cups and lids out there car windows that will probably never naturally disintegrate into the earth. I think gay people are evolution's way of putting a cap on too many screaming babies in what seems to be one long, never ending economic recession.


    By now Stella as wandering her way back into our presence again this time with a case of beer! "That was fast" I said. "Oh I just go to my usual spot, sit down on the grass with my back turned to the people passing and leave my hat out for them to drop change in. “Hat?” She then reached into a tattered Gap bag she'd found in the trash and pulled out an amazing straw hat that you might see on some cunt in the Hamptons. For me this hat perfectly captured Stella's essence completely. She put it on and I was in love with her, the hat, the crazy company, the beer that she gave me, the warm evening, and the pot. As she slumped down on the pavement and popped open a can of Bud Lite she let out a loud exhale and said "Priorities." Laughing to myself I listened to her begin to tell her story and was shocked at the description of a woman that I didn't recognize before me. It was like she was talking about someone else's life....detached and curious....surprised that she had slipped so far. Her beginnings were complicated with several sisters and only one parent in a low income housing project. "We got by" she mumbled. After she graduated high school she got a filler job, always keeping in mind that one day she wanted a higher education and a writing degree. She worked ironically as a career counselor at a Catholic girls high school and got to the point where she could buy her own home. Things at this point for Stella were very much like the final moments of a clicking roller coaster ascending the top of that big, scary first drop. Her happy reality was about to crest the top and just over the horizon was the metaphoric plummet of doom and gloom! I'm sure she never saw this coming, no one could. On top of the world she decided to celebrate now and then with a little drink. Somehow that tiny luxury ended up costing her more than she could ever imagine and snowballed into so much more. She eventually lost not only her house, family, and assets, but most importantly the will to save or get them back. She bottomed out and just gave up. That essential life-energy was drained and she soon found that her only furnishings would include a dirty park bench. Her once vibrant life came tumbling down and she didn't even seem to give shit. Where was my breaking point I wonder and how slippery was that dangerous slope? Her only pleasures depended on the kindness of strangers, good Samaritans, and day old barely edible food.

   Another characteristic of my new friend Stella was that she was a lesbian and occasionally enjoyed a sniff or twenty of crack cocaine or the rewards of any drug in the known universe. Feeling the need for a change of scenery this little circus started to shift, leaving Marty alone, face down, to drool on the dirty chess table covered in pigeon poo. Standing first, Stella gulped down the last bite of an atrocious looking pastry saying "Mmmmm Mmmmm, the creamiest this side of 5th Avenue!" We all began to walk towards the west side of the park. Leena informed us that she couldn't join us any further because she was losing money with every passing minute. "So many unsexed menz in this town and sooo little time I tell you" she said as she sashayed away from us as optimistic as can be waving kisses and joyous blessings as we parted company. This lovely and polite hooker bid us a pleasant evening as though she were a dignified character in Pride and Prejudice and not a lady of the night working the trashy street beat. And just like that she was gone.

     There we were, me with my fumbling, curious 19 year old conversation skills and Stella with her straw hat and half empty beer. We set out on the tour of South Manhattan you never want to see. Our first destination was of course the worst area of the island depending on your perspective. At the time the 14th street pier was over-run with unfortunate souls all scrambling to make a quick an easy buck with the Johns. "Quietly" she said. "Tomorrow you're gonna know so much more about where Not to go my sweet boy trust me, I'll take care of you." I believed her for some reason probably because I desperately needed a friend and in a way she was saving me. She was the street smart mama I needed at the moment so I set all judgments aside and carried on. That night would afford me the peeled back view of New York City that they left out of all the travel guides and Big Apple Tour bus schedules. That night I wasn't sleeping.

       With our compass due West Stella and I worked our way towards the Jersey skyline. All along the way she gave me little tips and hints about certain places that were not for me to be taking a camera and sight- seeing that's for sure. It was about 2:30 in the morning and I had hours and hours to go before I complained. I couldn't walk slow enough for my old friend and then I realized that she really had nowhere to go and was in no big hurry. Her speed and energy was the equivalent to the flat line when the doctor pronounces somebody dead. I didn’t realize at the time that an act of going to the pier wasn’t exactly as exciting for Stella as it was for me. She lives there on the pier, on the park bench, behind a bush in Washington Square Park. Every single day I pass invisible people like Stella, never really giving them the time of day. I wonder how many people slip through the cracks like this and go unseen by the busy general public like myself? This was all so exotic and new for me. I knew that pleasure was never-not followed by something a little darker, a shadow of something mixed with a dangerous excitement. For Stella it was just another pier on any ol’ regular night where people stroll up and down the boardwalk, occasionally dropping loose change into her cup as they take in the cool bay breezes and glowing street lights. For me it was where prostitutes and drug thugs, punky gay boys and the occasional police officer come to get a blow job from the tranny he’s supposed to be arresting for the very act. That was her life…not mine. Those shadows were friendly to her instead of daunting and dangerous like I was always taught by my paranoid parents and for good reason. Any broken boundary of this nature can lead to an extremely slippery slope I’m not interested in.


      The abandoned warehouse streets… the sudden multiplication of bars… the smell of the fishy pier …we were getting close now. Stella and I tripped across the busy highway to find ourselves among some of the worst characters around. These are the folks that spawn my mother’s wildest nightmares! This was the world…the real world and I loved every seedy dark detail. What an instant realization came flooding into me when I was confronted with the reality of this big wide world that up until now had been shrouded in false myths. There my guide and I found countless men gay/straight/bi strolling up and down and leaning against the cement guard rails. They were all cruising each other and I guess the surprise was all over my face because Stella said “You need to understand the underside to appreciate where you are at right now kid!” We headed straight into the darkness and I must admit to my hesitation. But I knew that what I needed at the mere age of 19 was a dousing of cold ice water to help me see the light. “Welcome to “the Stroll” she said. In my brief moments of visual clarity I could make out the hugely over sized divas with towering orange wigs teased to Jesus wearing seven inch pumps. Lord save my wicked soul for being so fascinated by the chameleon-like androgyny of a man not satisfied with his own making.

      There we met Leena again. This time with a friend who just “finished some binniss aroun th’ conu.” “Slow night?” said Stella. “Dead baby!” they replied laughing. Having no trouble that interested me in that way, we said our goodbyes to the “ladies” and bid them a good and prosperous night and Stella escorted me all the way back to the Queens bound N train like a loyal spaniel. I had made a friend even if there was no number or email to exchange. I would probably never see her again in this lifetime. We had shared a culmination of moments that changed me enough that I’m recounting it fourteen years later on this blog. Now that’s an impression New York, very much like a cattle brand that you don’t easily forget. In the final moments I had with my odorous pungent friend I realized I was crossing back over that river a new man…my own man. The experience was as priceless as Marty’s cold mystery mashed potatoes. To this day I’m sure you can find him still slumped over some filthy chess board in Tompkins Square Park drooling into his 40. Leena will probably contract, if not already, something deadly and I fear the same for some of her very nice friends. I could only wish them well and a future of hopeful bread crumbs and fresh opportunity. Sometimes life deals you a shady hand and what you do with it alters the course of the rest of your life.

      And as for Stella and me, our contrasting worlds could not be any more different. One of us was having a truly human experience and the other wasn't.....me being the later. She was more real to me in that moment chewing her creamy cupcake of doom with icing and female stubble running circles around her mouth. Her contentment with her nasty pastry that appeared out of some suspect bag made me giggle and I couldn't help but think about how ridiculous it was for me to be complaining about making insurance payments on my gold BMW or working as a bartender at the South Hampton Polo Club in the VIP tent. We were worlds apart from any common ground but there we stood eye to eye looking into the reflection of what if? What if I unintentionally slipped myself? What if she never did? Regardless of class, gender, or sexual orientation I connected with a black, homeless, alcoholic lesbian with a charming straw hat and am a better for it. She knew I saw her on a level playing field and respected me for it. There is a beauty in the strength of a woman like Miss Stella. I wish to god I could truly be content with a beer and a cigarette and nothing more. I hate that I worship money and find deep happiness in the comfort and options that it brings. It sickens me at times actually. Simplification is crucial for a cluttered city mind like mine and an intervention is long overdue. Now can you imagine the tricks my mind will play on me every time I pass a homeless guy or gal begging in the street and jingling a paper cup full of pennies and dimes? They now have a voice. This was officially my city where dreams got churned into diamonds and the chaotic balance of things left me absolutely breathless.

Rocks in My Socks

        How can you be surrounded by peace and tranquil surroundings and still have anger management issues? Does even the most poised shrink completely loose it from time to time? The supreme quiet of these here Tennessee parts is giving me the chance to hear the unhealthy mental storm rumbling just beneath the fragile surface? Years of running around Manhattan like a chicken with no head and what do I have to show for it.....Some ink on the resume...little to no savings...and..........well....I can't think of anything else at the moment.  Leaving a chaotic city like New York after 15 years has my ears still ringing and tricked into thinking there are cabs available at all times of the day and night even in small town USA which isn't true at all. Here you drive, even if it's my moms old green soccer van that has a Grand Canyon sticker my dad put on the back that says "Rim to Rim".  He'll never know how good that is! Moving to Redneck Vegas was total culture shock where the hillbillies sit bumper to bumper in traffic on the parkway spitting black chew onto the hot asphalt and sometimes your car. Forget getting anywhere during the rod run weekend where these good ol' boys are picking their noses, yelling at busted country girls, and perfectly content to move at a glacial pace acting as a road block to my busy day. I've never known traffic of these epic proportions before even in New York City.
       Moving to another town doesn't mean you can out run your personal problems no matter how hard you try. I need some time to untangle the tight sailor/navy seal knot in my chest. I need to monitor my emotional responses like a doctor watching an EKG line. Overreacting emotionally is usually my downfall especially when walking my partner through the mine field that is the second six months of getting to know the real me. I'm the guy with little dabs of girly concealer on his crows feet and childhood scar; the guy that eats his feelings at 3 am. and sleeps until he hears the Titanic museum's noon fog horn; the guy who no longer gets up before his boyfriend to gargle, freshen up, get cute...only to return to bed for my "first" morning encounter of the day. I'm a huge fraud. As Jane Krokowski said on 30 Rock...."Love is hiding who you are at all times....even when your sleeping. Love is taking a shit at the Burger King downstairs!" Chapter 2 of my autobiography "A Snowflake on the Sun" will be called Morning Breath.
       How can I loosen the white knuckle grip I have on feeling different from the rest of the human race instead of one in the same? Its not even logical. Being left alone to deal with my own voices can be a dangerous deal with the devil but love seems to be the only thing to break through the Berlin wall surrounding my heart. Gratefulness, like my little brother taught me, is the key to a happy existence.        

    Lovers........friends.......no one is safe. Yesterday I went on a DayQuil tare which is something I deeply regret. It's a drug to be avoided at all cost in my case. It seems to act as a truth serum and opens the verbal texting damn of suppressed thoughts that come tumbling out, flooding the unsuspecting offender blind sided. I'm generally a very quiet person (with a blog) and keep to myself professionally. I refuse to do keroke at the local Brewery and then wonder why the kids don't bother asking me out when its time to go kiki it up at the clrrrrrrb. It's my fault.  Most people don't hang out with their coworkers every night of course but my social life has taken a tragic turn or the worst landing me in Hillbilly Vegas Pigeon Forge y'all.  It's of my own doing because Knoxville is a bitch for gas and most of my real connections are in NYC anyway. Not to mention I turned around one day and felt old as hell! The next chapter hopefully will have more patience and kindness subduing the jade and it will melt away slowly like a little blue Valium trickling down from the top of my frozen margarita.