Victor, Victoria, Victory!

Easter Sunday, but no Easter dinner for us – just a slothful day of recovery from last night’s festivities. Yesterday we finally got a nice, mostly sunny day (back to rain again today) so I mowed Cousin’s lawn using his Craftsman sit-down mower – really the first time I’ve driven ANYTHING, not counting video game cars, so that’s a big step for me, and once I got used to it, it was fun...don’t think I’ll use a push mower again if I can help it. Wouldn’t it be weird if I ended up learning to drive and LIKING IT after all these years of avoiding anything to do with the steering wheel of a car? Around 4pm Cousin’s friend John (the one who helps Cousin make doll genitals out of sculpting clay) came over to get ready for the Victor/Victoria party with us.

Each time I do drag (apparently that term comes from Shakespeare?) I take it a step further. This time I fully shaved all facial hair, Cousin did my makeup, and gave me fishnets and a sweet purple sequin minidress that fit me like a DREAM and big blonde princess hair and a pair of old black pumps that subsequently BROKE. I put on fake eyelashes (with eyelash glue) and long, pretty fingernails (with super-glue) and made fake breasts out of rolled-up socks and attached a pair of clip-on earrings, since I’ve never had pierced ears (just eyebrow, nose and lip – and I am now completely over facial piercings). My drag name for the evening was Taffeta, Taffy for short; Cousin was Nicole (Nikki) and John was Camille. Cammy, Nikki and Taffy out on the town. And when we got to the party, my goodness, what an entrance we made! EVERYONE wanted photos with us, and at one point there were so many cameras flashing on us that it was like paparazzi on the red carpet. K., the host and birthday boy, lives in a beautiful house up in the hills with a panoramic view of the town below – even at night it was beautiful, I can only imagine in daylight. I had a little trouble with the long nails. When we first arrived and hit the food tables I said “Oh good, deviled eggs!” and snatched one up but sliced right through it with the nails and it fell to the floor in two pieces. A nice little woman, noticing my predicament, started making little snacks and handing them to me so I could eat (so sweet of her). We spent most of our time on the open-air deck, so Nikki and Cammy could smoke, so that became the drag queen smoking deck, and people kept coming out to get photos with us, girls especially just seem to love drag queens. One kept telling me that I looked SO MUCH like her 14-year-old niece. We handed out flyers for our Auntie Mame party in May. (I hope we gave one to the cute boy in the DIY bluejean getup – the one from Switzerland. He was a hottie.)

Then as we were leaving, first one of my shoes and then the other completely lost their soles, and I was stumbling along with the soles flapping on the ground, trashy as hell and most inconvenient. We drove to Gian Don's, the one club on Maui that has occasional gay nights (there is NO full time gay bar on the island, one reason I may actually be ready to leave by October), where a very nice man at an Easter crafts table in the bar (the DJs boyfriend) used his hot glue gun and glued my shoes back together! I danced a little – started the dance floor, in fact! – but Cousin didn’t want to stay long at the club, so then we headed over to his friend DJ’s house, and DJ was asleep and naked, but didn’t seem to mind that we woke him up, but we didn’t stay there long, either, so finally we headed home, and were followed for a long ways by a police officer, which was really unnerving (three inebriated drag queens going over the speed limit – oh, that would’ve made an officer’s night – Cousin joked that if they put us in jail we’d have to ask to be put in with the women). Luckily we got off scott-free. But I had a bitch of a time taking my super-glued nails off this morning. Couldn’t get the thumbs off, in fact – ended up just trimming them down with a nailclipper. Tomorrow morning, back to business: gonna get up early and go in to Kahului to continue the job hunt, and get a new canvas for another Ben Whishaw portrait I’m going to do (using a photo from Interview magazine) that’s going to be the best yet. Oh yes. It’ll make him fall in love with me for sure.


xo

glam aka tony

Art, Spam and stem cells

Just got back from a trip in to town (Kahului), and I have a bunch of new art supplies. We went to the Golden Palette, about the saddest, most decrepit little art store I’ve ever seen: the only shop left in a little ghost strip mall that was evacuated because of the fire that destroyed the Salvation Army. They don’t have much of a selection and I can’t think how they do enough business to stay open (Cousin says they’ve been there forever), and I bought a canvas because I felt guilty about leaving without buying something, it’s the sort of underdog business you feel sorry for. Then to Ben Franklin’s in the Queen Kaahumanu Center where I got another canvas and some paint and mineral spirits, then Cousin drove me to meet this guy who put an ad on Craigslist, offering 14 tubes of oil paint (including three of the really big sized ones) plus a bottle of linseed oil for $25, a killer deal, so that was a score. Then we went to Denny’s for lunch. Cousin said, “This is the good Denny’s,” meaning not the Bad Denny’s in Kihei where he broke his arm a few years ago. Two of the dishes on the Specials list came with – no kidding – SPAM. (Cousin said the food the natives eat here is really bad, and I’m afraid it looks that way. There are also these really gross red hot dogs that are sold everywhere and are made with meat possibly as gross or grosser than Spam.) I’m already finding it hard to stay motivated here, and the job hunt has yielded no success. It’s also proving hard not to eat bad (fattening, greasy) food, since it’s everywhere. But I haven’t fallen down on the exercise program yet, and the pants that used to be uncomfortably tight around the waist are falling off if I don’t wear a belt.

So, about that art. I have nearly completed a large portrait of Ben W. over a background of the Union Jack; oil over acrylic, and the oil is drying right now before I go in for the finishing touches. Cousin showed me how to print the photo I was working from on a transparency and then project it onto the canvas so it came out better than I can draw free hand. This is a revelation for me and will lead to all sorts of new and improved ideas, because the thing is I need to paint humans (or animals), figures motivate me, they’re the subject matter I’m drawn to; when I try to do landscapes or abstracts or still lifes I invariably get bored and don’t finish them. If there isn’t a relatable human or living figure in it, I lose interest. Then I’ve started another of an Egyptian style cat, gold/yellow color with lapis lazuli (really pretty blue) bangles and adornments. And with the two canvases I bought today I’m going to do two more: another of Ben over a background of candy hearts (the ones that say BE MINE and DO TELL and SO DREAMY, etc) and one of a tiger-striped hippo. So I’m back in full creative flux. Right now I’m doing a drawing of a box of Boo Berry cereal, because we started talking about things that symbolize our childhood at lunch, in the context of Cousin’s book, and I came up with the idea of illustrating the book not only with photographs of all the old times we’re talking over (which Cousin has a lot of ), but also with drawings and paintings of some of the products and toys and foods that we remember from growing up – hence the Boo Berry cereal drawing. (My sister sent me a box of it last Halloween, I ate the whole box, and remain of the opinion that it is certainly the best-tasting of the monster sugar cereals.)

Did a little more yard work for Cousin yesterday and I’m going to mow the lawn (with the kind of mower you drive) later today or tomorrow. The Victor/Victoria party is this Saturday and I don’t know what to do about shoes. Cousin has a big pair of white thigh-high leather platform heels that fit me in the feet, but they don’t fit around my legs, so they won’t work very well, and there aren’t really any other options. We were going to go to the beach today but it isn’t nice enough; it’s been cloudy and rainy and relatively cool (K. says it’s “freezing”) the last few days. And I just started getting my nice island tan!

I saw Michael J. Fox on Jon Stewart the other night. My Mom told me he was on Oprah recently and Oprah's new doctor (I gather Dr. Phil has been replaced?) told him that with the new stem cell research bill that Obama signed (to use stem cells from ADULTS and not just dead babies or whatever) he will be CURED of Parkinson's within the next decade. Mom hopes they'll be able to cure her of her stroke damage within that same amount of time. And I started thinking about how strange it would be if she suddenly, at age 65 or so, regained the ability to walk and the left side of her body was un-paralyzed, meaning she no longer qualified for disability checks, and had to find a job and start her life over again - at the very age when most people retire.

Script idea, there.

Thursday at the beach

Spent a lovely, lazy, sunny day with Cousin yesterday, first at the beach in Kihei (the Secret Beach, clothing optional, in sight of Bowie and Iman’s house), then at Spago in the Four Seasons building where he treated me to a swanky dinner of sushi cones and walu (fish) and cocktails – the bill came to $170, not including tip (holymoly). He said we got out of there pretty cheap, though; in the past he’s spent more than that himself. The last time he was there Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy were dining at another table. I said, “What is Jenny McCarthy famous for?” and he said the movie she made, Dirty Love I think it’s called, was really funny. We were at the beach so long I was actually ready to leave this time. Cousin made a nice sand castle and started on a mermaid as well, but didn’t get very far; I made a sad little castle myself that got sanded over by the window pretty quick. I got lots of sun and am now a candy cane: bright red from the waist up, then WHITE in my bathing suit area – not the most flattering look; I should’ve sunbathed nude like Cousin and others do. Now I’ll probably be peeling for the Victoria/Victoria party next weekend. But I am on my way to a nice bronze Island tan (I used some of Cousin’s bronzing spray). He drank Pyramid apricot ale, made in Portland. It was unusually calm today so the waves weren’t as fun, and the sun was behind the clouds much of the time, but we saw a whale, and Cousin said he could hear their whale language when he went under water, but when I went under I didn’t hear anything. The maid came over and cleaned this morning and I briefly spoke with her: she was nice. I told her about Michelle Obama making the unforgivable mistake of patting the Queen of England on the back (John Stewart had a funny riff on that on tonight’s Daily Show). Tomorrow I finally get to see the Hana house, the one that used to be Heavenly Flora: I’m going with Cousin to do some landscaping work – weed killing and mowing and such. I’ll earn some more money that way. I’ve been here only a week, and I guess I’m doing pretty good so far: I’ve already taken in Haiku, Paia, Kahului, Lahaina and Kihei. Cousin will be gone most of June with J. – they’re going first to Seattle for a friend’s memorial, then to London for a while, and K. is also going to Russia around the same time, so I’ll have this whole fabulous house to myself (not counting Ilio and Nikita, our dogs) for most of June! Good time to come and visit me, if you’re able...

Aloha, Maui!

Here I am on the islands! Oh, Maui, how I love thy semi-tropical climate, and persistent rainbows, and continuous breeze! It was certainly worth the white-knuckled terror of the flight. But I’m just being a big ol’ drama queen now. As a matter of fact I’m in danger of becoming one of those people who doesn’t bat a lash about getting on an airplane. It’s only the takeoff and descent that suck, the entire middle part is fine, and even soothing, especially since I had earplugs in this time. Coming down on Maui was the only turbulent part – it’s windy here! Anthony met me by the baggage claim conveyor and wreathed me in a green tea leaf lai that he made along with a tuberose one, creamy white colored and fragrant of vanilla and honey. It made me want to quote aloud lines from Shakespeare. (I’m finishing “Wuthering Heights” finally and I think it’s influencing my writing style.)

Cousin Anthony (who I will henceforth refer to simply as “Cousin”) took me to his and J’s “project house” this morning (photo above) to get new smoke alarms installed for the people coming over to look at, and hopefully buy the house. It’s been on the market almost 2 years now, and the asking price is down to $1.8 million from well above $2 million. It has a steep paved driveway and exquisite decoration and a pool and three floors, the top two both with wide spacious patios sporting breathtaking panorama views of the town and lush foliage below, and beyond them the glowing azure ocean stretching to the horizon.

Afterwards Cousin took us to the only restaurant in town serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m. where he said he’d had such a bad experience last time that under TIP on the check he wrote “Find a new job,” but he gave it another chance for my sake, and he had florentine eggs benedict (florentine basically means “spinach”) and I had a stack of golden buttermilk pancakes with fresh strawberries, and everything was fine, the server was attentive, in fact almost overly servile, I thought, but Cousin is imperious and impatient in demanding compliance from people, whether it’s restaurant servers, the agent who has failed to sell their house so far, or the people in front of him on the road who purposely block him from driving as fast as he’d like in his giant F350 white pickup truck. (So big that he took up two parking spaces when we went to the restaurant.) We stopped and chatted with a couple exuberant older Hawaiian ladies who run an art gallery and are planning a Victor/Victoria themed party for a mutual friend.

Then we went to Secret Beach, which was clothing-optional, and Cousin lounged naked in the HOT sun (it's between 60 and 90 all the time here), while I body surfed and got too much sun (my head is turning bright lobster red – I put “Green Ice” aloe gel on it). He pointed to one house and said “That’s David Bowie and Iman’s house,” then pointed to another on the hill above us and said “That’s Sharon Stone’s house.” Bowie’s house has its own little point or spit of land jutting out onto the water, landscaped all the way up so people can’t climb into their yard and it’s semi-private while being also directly in view of a public beach – with naked people. Sharon Stone’s house looks like cheesecake – same color and consistency. Cousin thinks the water here is cold and was only in it for a few minutes, but I spent a solid hour or two body-surfing the waves, and the water is heaven to me - exactly what I dreamed of and longed for the whole time I kept trying to swim in those glacial 40-degree lakes in Glacier Park last summer. Cousin finally called me ashore after J warned him on the phone not to let me stay in the water too long or my scalp might burn. On the walk back from the beach to the parking lot I felt like a sensitive, pale water creature burning myself on hot coals. The soles of my feet felt soft as the underbelly of a reptile, scalded by hot rocks as I walked along barefoot.

Back at Hohani Place, Cousin had a nap while I organized and put away everything in my room, then took a dip in the pool. He has corned beef simmering in a pot on the stove for tomorrow night’s dinnner. They have a friendly, skinny, tan, blonde Russian girl roommate named K. who goes to a community college nearby, studying to be an IT person. She warned me not to go anywhere without suntan lotion, a rule I failed to observe today, but I didn’t know we’d be hitting the beach when we left. I did my regular exercise regimen this morning, then also did a 15-minute run on the exercise bike with the Resistance set to 7. It’s easy to sweat here with the high humidity. Cousin started to play “Brideshead Revisited” but I said “Let’s save that for another night” because I just can’t watch that movie without a commitment to fully experience it, such is the bond I’ve formed with it. I just read Benji is going to make a movie about the Beatniks next with Jesse Eisenberg from Adventureland. He’s going to play Lucien Carr, a less-well-known figure from the Beats’ early days who nonetheless played an integral role in bringing them together. So I have that and Bright Star to look forward to. Well, I’ve got to go try on some diaphanous gowns Cousin laid on my bed in preparation for our upcoming parties. Looks like I’ll be doing drag before San Francisco after all!

Cousin told me the first night that he and J both walk around the house naked from time to time. K. does, too, occasionally. That's how it goes here! Being the shy thing I am, I’ll probably keep my underwear on at least.