Laurel's Blog

Can I Be a Drag Queen if I am a Woman?

 Shopping yesterday for Mona’s outfit. No shortage of fluffy gowns, sequined jumpsuits or shoulder-padded gold evening jackets. I filled my shopping cart with possibilities. Padded bras, door knocker earrings, false eyelashes, spike heels, and, the wig. I put the deal together in the dressing room, and what did I see? A drag queen. I don’t have anything against Drag Queens although they get all the gigs. They have replaced Carnival, Freak Shows, Circuses. They are the only segment of the population that seems to be having fun. Their irreverence is sacred and healing. I envy their solidarity. In the dressing room, I was alone. Not gay, Not a Drag Queen, not a Butch Lesbian in a business suit,  just a straight woman in a stupid outfit.  Why? I thought it would be fun, pretending to be a blonde, dumb nightclub singer instead of a graying, depressed nightclub singer. In the dressing room I realized that the outfit was a One Trick Pony. A unoriginal visual gag that demanded no talent, no creativity. 

It’s easy to dress up. It’s Halloween, nothing more. So clever, fishnets. So clever, a purple tent dress. So clever, sparkling eyelashes and bright pink pumps.

I put everything back on the rack except the wig. My creation, “Mona”, must retain her dignity. What dignity? Her artist’s dignity. Mona doesn’t need spike heels or fake nails. She can sing. Sadly, not too many clubs want singers. They want Drag Queens, Kareoke, TV sets, Open-mike nights.

I put the costume pieces back in my shopping cart. I added a boa, pearls, girdle, gloves, cigarette holder, evening bag, shawl, hat, minature chih-wawa. If you can’t beat em, join em.

Imaginary Audience Riveted, Enthralled

AP: Nowhere — A new audience has formed itself inside Laurel O. O’Casey’s imagination and she is busier than ever. Booked solid, virtually, until 2020, Laurel will be traveling the globe in her mind as she performs her unique and misunderstood Performance Art form.  Laurel Casey, her nemesis, will be singing Jazz with her trio, ( Odie Tempken, piano - Todd Baker, bass - Kirk Feather, clarinet) in front of a real audience in real clubs as soon as she can convince real club owners that Laurel O.O’Casey will remain safely supressed until summoned.   Laurel O. O’Casey has recently graduated from The Lonely Institute, and, as Dr. Ophelia Cummings, will be available for group counseling sessions via speaker phone.  The glamourous Laurel Casey will be receiving counseling from Dr. Ophelia Cummings concerning the interpretation of Mae West lyrics.  

Essays

I thought I wanted a “boyfriend”

“Losing site of her objectives, she redoubled her efforts” Truer words have never been plagarized. At some point between loneliness and confusion I realized that I did not want a boyfriend. How could this be? Everybody wants a boyfriend, or partner, or girlfriend or mistress or husband/wife, SOMEONE Read more »

Newport Underground

Stories

Motherless Child

I was standing on the front lawn in a starched Sunday taffeta, clutching a small purse, rubbing a stiff white patent leather shoe against a mosquito bite. As the afternoon sun drifted behind a maroon cloud, my mother took a photograph. Read more »

Advice

Recession Hits Cocktail H’ordearve Plate

Many people depend on simple daily rituals to keep their sanity during trying times. One of the most popular rituals is known as Cocktail Hour, which usually begins in the late afternoon or early evening, depending on a person’s schedule. I personally look forward to Cocktail Hour, especially in New England during the winter months. The average cocktail hour includes olives, crackers, cheese, and, on special occasions, salami. I have just returned from the supermarket with a small bag of groceries which cost me 154.88. Dinner items for the week, chicken, potatoes, canned peas, cube steak, iceberg lettuce, pasta, frozen pizza and a can of tuna fish, came to a total of 55.45 . The rest of the groceries were designated “cocktail hour fare” and added approximately another 100 bucks to my receipt total. Granted, I bought 7 large bottles of mid-priced wine, but when I focused my eyeballs on the price-per-pound for cheese and olives, I thought I was going to shit my pants. I felt violated.

Someone out there is messing with my life line. The beautiful moments at the end of a long day, wherein I stuff myself with cheese and crackers, salami, olives and wash it all down with a huge swig of cold white wine. This is how it goes. Cheese, cracker, olive, sip of wine. Sip of wine, piece of cheese, cracker, slice of salami, sip of wine, bigger slice of cheese with salami and mustard, etc. Sometimes I am talking to other people who are also stuffing their faces, sometimes I am sitting in my study alone, pondering the events of the day, planning my tomorrow. If I cannot partake in a snack plate I don’t see how I’ll have a past or future. One day will run into a night and into another day, without designation, a dripping watercolor. You will consider this a trivial matter until your own sacred ritual is thwarted.

The Gift of Enlightment at Private Writer Yoga Retreat

Surely you know a person who needs help. Why not offer them a gift that keeps on giving? Enlightenment. Send your damaged friend to the Nameless Top-Secret Writers/Yoga Vermont Retreat. They”ll be forever in your debt. Certainly you say that you care about your friend but actions speak louder than words. So does money. Call your depressed, lazy, self-obsessed friend today and tell them to expect a miracle. They’re expecting one anyway.

More

Boston Ice Party

 

            The newspaper photo, front and center on page 1 of the entertainment section showed me sitting on a grand piano above Doris Duke’s wigged head. The caption: “Local Cabaret Singer performs at Doris Duke’s Birthday Party.”

The morning after, my phone started to ring. Two bit agents from Worchester to Woonsocket who’d ignored my phone calls for years suddenly wanted to “sign,” “book, and/or “coach” me.  

 “Been troyin’ to catch yup wid ya” said Bert of the Bert Benson Theatrical Agency. “How’s it going? Got your press kit awhile ago. Got some ideas for us.”

            “Hey babe.”  Some guy from Taunton.  “I’ve been talking to my Boston people. You know the Starlight Room at the Ritz Hotel? Laine Kazan? She’s played there. I booked her there.”

             It had taken me thirty years of entertaining in ill suited second-rate venues to realize that I didn’t want to perform in ill-suited second rate venues. It didn’t suit my temperament or I.Q. 

Generally, singers are, for lack of a better word, dumb. Except for a very small percentage, people in the entertainment industry are vapid, narcissistic, vain, and moody, with lousy S.A.T. scores.  Perpetual denial and the worthlessness of their pursuits make them mean-spirited.  Two percent of show biz types make a living, the rest of us become assholes for a hundred bucks a night.

            Fed up, I told Bert Benson that I wanted such and such amount of money for a gig. 

“Nobody gets that price around here” said Bert. “The stars of the Newport Jazz

Festival don’t get that price.”

 

I repeated the price adding that it was non-negotiable.

 “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re a nobody! You’d be lucky to get—“

I hung up.

It felt good, not wanting a gig and not feeling guilt for giving up. People asked where I was singing, and I would say, “Nowhere, I’ve failed.”

 “Nobody fails unless they stop trying.” My friends reminded me.

“I stopped trying.”

 

 I had a couple of good weeks at home doing nothing. Then I got a call from the owner of an Italian restaurant on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston.  Donna, an Italian woman with a heavy accent, had seen the newspaper photo. She offered me Friday nights for three months, good money, a contract, and was willing to advertise in the Globe. Soup to Nuts Dinner and drinks were included, which meant I could entice my best musicians. She wasn’t a booking agent and didn’t call me “Baby,” so I accepted. 

             My first Friday went on the books as the hottest night in Boston since 1898. Despite no windows, Donna decided to set up the downstairs room for the performance because it looked like a European Cabaret. There were a dozen little tables with red checkered cloths and candles, a side bar, up-right piano, theatrical lighting. The piano and bass player stuffed themselves with pasta and fine red wine.  Donna and I lugged a sandwich board with my name on it to the sidewalk. Although early, people were waiting at the front entrance, sweating.

            Donna looked like a fire hydrant in her red Chanel suit.  “Come to Ze Cabaret, my friends!”

             People, desperate for relief from the evening heat, hesitated when they felt hotter air hit their faces in the foyer.

“I will turn up air conditioner! Come in, Come in” said Donna.

The air conditioning system had exhausted itself. Buttery tepid air smelling of garlic and Clorox spewed out as people funneled down the stairway and stuffed themselves into the café chairs at the tiny tables, hip to hip and knee to knee. More chairs were brought down by the one waitress and bartender. Some people sat on the stairs, on the floor, on laps, fanning themselves with napkins, unfastening buttons and ties, whining for drinks. Italian opera blared from the Muzak speakers. Donna, balancing precariously on her Italian leather spikes, toddled from table to table with trays of ice water. It was time to get up and sing.

 I opened with “Stormy Weather.”   Desperate to forget the heat, the audience listened. Donna and the waitress rushed to refill the water glasses and took drink orders.  The chef and prep cook hurried down from the kitchen with plates of steaming calamari and mini-pizzas.

“All is on the house!” screamed Donna. “Eat and drink!”

The bartender poured the booze freely into lines of plastic glasses.

After a few ballads and several stiff drinks, people started to calm down. Drunk and punchy, swaying in the suffocating heat, they seemed to converge into a boiling human soup. The dead air was tense with sensuality, a mix of cologne, crotches, booze and olive oil. No one got up to leave, but with people using the exit stairs as bleachers, there was no easy way out.

 Bra straps unfastened, shirts unbuttoned, skirts hiked to thighs, the room was a co-ed steam-bath. Gay and lesbian couples smiled and held hands. The “Proper Bostonians” leaned into their martinis, flinching.  

Two handsome gay men at a front table sang along as I began Cole Porter’s ‘Too Darn Hot.’ I walked to the ice machine and filled a bread basket.  I dropped a cube down my front of my dress. Big response. Big cheers.

“Well, according to the weather report, every average man you know.

Likes to take his lovely dovey to court when the temperature is low.

But when the thermometer goes way up, and the weather is wickedly hot,

Mr. Pants and his romance, are not, because its, Too Darn Hot!”

I danced around the room dropping ice cubes down people’s backs. Giggles and grunts of delight and surprise erupted. It woke them up. Cooled off, they were now hungry for a spectacle of a performance, something spectacular as reward for their suffering. My cold fingers, brushing against their hot necks, had broken the ice, so to speak. The ice cubes melted down their hot backs, down their legs, into shoes.   They groaned with relief.  Tables called out for me to cool them off.  Donna filled more bread baskets with ice.   

  I dropped a piece of ice down the back of a large, thick man with a crew cut and skin tight polyester bowling shirt.  He let out a grunting shriek of outrage, pushed himself away from his table, stood up.  He turned and kicked the table of two gay men holding hands. He put his big face very close to the smaller of the two.

 “What the fuck is it with you faggots?  Don’t fucking touch me! You’ve been fucking with me all night!” He tried to shake an ice cube out of his shirt, ripping at it, scratching violently to be free of it.   I touched the man’s shoulder and said,  “Sir! Sir…I did it! I put the ice down your back!  He grabbed the small man by the collar and lifted him off his seat,  screaming,“You fuckers are taking over the fucking world.  I’m gonna rip your fucking dip-sticks off.” With that comment, the gay man’s partner climbed over the people sitting on the stairs and ran onto Commonwealth Avenue, screaming for the police. Donna, moaning, limping, followed him.  She’d broken a heel. The little gay guy ducked under his table.  The large man, confused, stood tall and very still for a moment. .He couldn’t figure out where the little man went.

   Up the stairs, commotion, in the room, dead silence.

“Sit down, you idiot” yelled the man’s wife. The man continued to stand, wavering drunkenly, .then collapsed on his tiny chair with a thud. Chest heaving, he was suddenly aware that every eye in the place was on him. His wife squeezed his beefy arm affectionately and wiped his shirt with her napkin. Pushing her beer in front of him, she said, nonplussed, “You silly dumb boob, drink up.”  She was used to him. The friends at their table were, too. They asked the waitress for more chicken wings.  

 The bass player had disappeared during the scene, but the pianist played cute little ditties one after another like an organist in a silent-movie house accompanying a slap-stick comedy. Upstairs, shouting, a crash, police sirens. The people on the stairs separated, expecting me, I guess, to fix the problem.   Several red and white pulsing lights were flashing through the upstairs window.  Donna was sitting on the rim of a huge potted plant, head in hands, a red shoe in her hand. A policeman was patting her shoulder. Another policeman was talking to the gay man and filling out a report. More police cars arrived. There wasn’t much I could do. The show must go on.

Downstairs, the audience hadn’t budged. They sat quietly, like soldiers waiting for their orders. The little gay man was no longer underneath his table. The large man, his wife and entourage had left.  The bass player had returned and stood at attention with the piano player. They stared at me, eyes wide. I sang what came to mind.

   People, People who need people

   Are the luckiest people….in the world.

.

 The piano and bass player followed my lead. There were murmurs of understanding, a few ah’s and oh’s. I segwayed randomly into 

 

  What’s it all about Alfie?

  Is it just for the moment we live?

\

The audience was tearing up, a lesbian couple kissed, a straight couple rubbed noses. Not remembering all the lyrics to “Alfie” I segwayed into “Make Someone Happy.”

 

           “Love, is the answer

           Someone to love is the answer…”

 

            A chubby policeman appeared on the stairs behind me. He stood and listened, hand on his gun. I was lecturing off the cuff about tolerance and forgiveness. The piano player, sick of it, stopped playing, stood up and said “The show is over. Goodnight.”

  The audience, stunned and exhausted, looked to me for instructions. A punky woman and her partner stood and began to clap.

“Bravo!” They shouted.

The crowd followed suit, squishing to a standing ovation. Wet with sweat and alcohol, they collected their things and shuffled past me with nods of acceptance and understanding.  Many lowered their eyes as though I were a priest.

“That was theater.” said a young woman, squeezing my hand.

“It all looked so real.” said another.

“Are you doing it again next week? I’ve got to bring my parents.”

 

I wanted to tell them, yes, come back next week, but they would see an entirely different show. There is no “again” with my work. No returning to the scene of the crime. No reruns. Catch it once or it’s gone. My performances defy description and do not transfer to video or audio reproduction. They evaporate on contact, like  snowflakes on a wet sidewalk. No wonder I can’t get a grant.

 

Donna limped up to me. “ I just can’t do it” she wheezed. “ I am no longer a young woman.”

“No problem” I replied. “Really. I understand.”

“The police say they keep eye on restaurant. I don’t want police with eye on restaurant.”

 

What lesson did the audience and I learn that evening. What wisdom did I impart?

Never touch anyone from behind.

Is that enough advice to warrant violence?

No.

Lesson two: Homophobia is alive and well.

Well, that’s Life 101, Show Biz, 0.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dharma Bummer

                                                

 

            His beloved Vespa motor scooter had been stolen. I noticed it missing, early morning, when I let the dog out. I went back to the bedroom.

 “Dharma, Are you awake? Your bike isn’t out back.”

“I know.”

“Where is it?”

“Stolen.”

          He went back to sleep. When he got up he asked me to drive him to the bus station.

 “You have to report the theft to the police or your insurance won’t—”

“I’ve got everything under control, don’t worry about it. Could you drive me to the bus station?”

He was still half asleep without coffee.

“Shouldn’t we go to the police station right now and –“

“I’ve got it covered.” He said.

“Let me drive you home.”

“No, the bus is fine. I like the bus.”

Dharma had christened his bike “Mona-Lisa”, being that she was Italian. I’d nicknamed him Dharma, being that he was a serious student of Buddhism. The bike, an inadvertent gift from his father (when he’d taken on the payments) had been in perfect condition. Dharma and Mona, inseparable for years, had covered 14,000 rough miles across the country without incident. He’d coddled her, kept her tuned up and shining. One visit to Providence, RI, and she was gone.

He rationalized the loss. “Mona and I had our time together, and that chapter of my life is over. She was with me when I really needed her. That time has passed. I’m not traveling like I used to. I’m doing sitting meditation. I now travel in my mind. I need to regain my health. I should walk more.”

Three days after Dharma filled out the police reports, they found Mona Lisa. It hadn’t been difficult. Although spray painted a dull brown, whoever had stolen it forgot to change the Louisiana plate.

Dharma, thrilled, took the bus from his home in Newport back to Providence. I picked him up and we drove to the towing company where Mona had been stored.  She was beaten up but still drivable.

“She looks kind of cool” said Dharma, pleased. “I may rename her “Rubber Bum.”  Back wheel wobbling and almost flat, broken tail light, cracked muffler, smashed mirrors, scratched and dented, he rode the bike to my place.

The police said they’d arrested the kid who was riding the bike. Somehow the kid’s cousin located Dharma’s phone number, probably from paper’s stored in the bike compartment. Dharma’s cell phone rang.

“Hey man, you the guy got your bike stolen?  My cousin didn’t steal it. I bought it off some other guy and he was just ridin’ it. He just got out of jail, man. The cops are sayin’ they might press for a felony, man. How much that bike cost?”

Dharma says “10,000 dollars”

“Oh, shit man, they gonna nail his ass, man, and we didn’t steal it! Man! I’m telling you! Some guy sold it to me and I don’t know who he is or where the hell he is!”

Dharma says, “Hey, wait, wait a minute. Calm down, don’t worry. I’m not going to press charges. It was my fault anyway. I left the keys in it. Anybody having a hard time makin’ it might do the same thing. No problem, man.”

Dead silence on the other end of the phone.

“What you say?”

“I said, I’m not going to press charges..”

 “The police got my cousin locked up now at the police station and they’s gonna press charges they said and he just got out a’ jail, and he’s gonna be really f-”

“Let’s go get him out.”

Silence, then “Wha?”

“I’ll meet you there this afternoon and we’ll see if we can get him out”

“This sa’ kind of trick, man, ‘cause we don’t need no jive ass bullshit—“

“Bro’, what is your name?”

“Clive.”

“Clive, glad to talk to you.  I believe that you didn’t steal the bike, okay? Let’s see if we can work this out- I do not intend to press charges. Shit happens, man.”

Dharma met Clive at the police station. He was large, sulky and suspicious.

An aging white guy was being nice to him. He felt some resentment which left him off-balance and more confused than he already was.

The policeman behind the counter said they couldn’t let Clive’s cousin out of jail unless Dharma attended the arraignment on Monday and reasoned with the prosecutor.

Clive put his hands in his pockets, not surprised. He walked a few steps away from Dharma, stopped and turned around. With a mix of feigned sincerity and suppressed rage, he challenged Dharma.“I hope that ain’t too much inconvenience.“

“Not in the least” said Dharma, pleasantly.

Large, stunned Clive stiffly shook Dharma’s outreached white hand.

“No worries, man.” said Dharma.

 Dharma came over to my place after his visit to the police station. When he told me about his forceful plea for Clive’s freedom, I felt vulnerable, almost unsafe. 

“Won’t your letting them off send the wrong message? If they think they can get away with it, won’t they just do it again?”

“They’ll do it again anyway. They’ve got nothin. And why they’ve got nothing is not their fault.”

“ Didn’t you say you don’t believe they were the thieves?”

“I choose to believe.” said Dharma. “That’s different than believing.”

Dharma showed up at the court house on Monday and sat with Clive from 9 am to 2:30 p.m. until the cousin was presented to the judge. The state attorney read a rap list on him that lasted five minutes. He was on probation for aggravated assault and battery. Being caught riding a stolen vehicle while on probation was a serious matter, and although Dharma insisted he was not pressing charges, it didn’t make much difference.

“What the hell do you mean, you aren’t pressing charges?” asked the attorney.

“It was my fault, I was drunk and left the keys in the ignition”

“You’re saying it was your fault?”

The attorney was somewhat bewildered.

“That doesn’t make our job easier.” He said, “But the probation violation is a separate issue, so we aren’t letting him out.”

“As long as both you and the judge know that I am not pressing charges for the theft.” Insisted Dharma. “Why should the man be punished for something he didn’t do?”

“He stole your bike.”

“Nobody can prove that and it’s a mute point because I choose to believe he was just riding the bike and did not necessarily steal it.”

The attorney shook his head and sighed. His suit was wrinkled.

“As I say, this kind of thing doesn’t make our job easier.”

“Well,” said Dharma, “I understand that you have a job to do, and I respect that, but I’m doing my job as well.”

“What job is that?” asked the Attorney.

“Well, no need to get into it.” said Dharma.

“Fine.” answered the Attorney, “but you’d best call your insurance company before you make this decision final. I’m not certain, but I don’t think you can collect insurance for damages if you don’t press charges.”

“I stand by my decision.” said Dharma.

The Vespa dealership in Newport approximated the damage at $1,800.

“I don’t understand” I said. ‘You don’t have any money, and you owe your father so much money, why would you put this thug first, and not your family? You could get the money from the insurance company, maybe a little extra, repay your dad. This guy your protecting is a convicted felon on probation, and I’m not saying that’s bad exactly but –“

“You don’t get it, do you?” Dharma gave me his dead-eyed look, half pity, half disgust.

“And the felon,” I whined, “remembers where he stole the bike, in front of my apartment. If he thinks we’re mushy liberals I wonder if he’ll come back and steal my car?”

“That’s fucking ridiculous!!” barked Dharma, before he caught himself.  He said very calmly, “You don’t know, do you, that I talked to my father this morning. He supports my decision 100%.”

We were talking on the phone and I felt the cell phone against my ear, small and greasy. I felt small and greasy, too, unable to think of anything to say, except, “Good. Well, that’s good. Glad it all went well.”

Why wasn’t I being supportive like his father? He only owed me 300 bucks not thousands. It wasn’t about the money, or was it? I had, at first, felt proud to know him, respectful of his spirited generosity and radical world view of equality, yet an emotion I could not identify tightened in my throat. Was it envy that I couldn’t be so forgiving?  Resentment in that he was harder on me than the thief, judgmental, often patronizing? Jeolous? Situational Ethics seemed to interest him much more than I did.

 Dharma detected a waver in my tone. “Don’t worry, it will all work out. I am going to ask the guys at the Vespa shop if I can sweep and clean and do stuff around the garage in exchange for fixing Mona. Maybe work there mornings, three times a week. You know me, I like to sweep.”

And there is was. An answer. He liked to sweep. He reached low, not high, so as not to fall.  Forced to accept the charity of family and friends, he now had the opportunity to help someone worse off. It was a chance for him to be a man instead of a little boy, to feel powerful in his generosity. In this case, play God. “Let me release you from your burden, Brother.”   

Years before, Dharma and I were sitting near my living room window in my second floor apartment. We happen to glance out the window just as a teenage girl grabbed the handlebars of his bicycle, which he’d left on the sidewalk.  

He stuck his head out the window right above her head and said, ”Oh, little girl, please don’t steal my bike. Please don’t.”

Horrified, she gasped, then caught her breath, jumped on the bike and disappeared. Dharma walked to the sofa and sat down, still, quiet. He lit a cigarette and shook his head. “I hope I didn’t upset her.”

“I really don’t understand you” I said. “I’m trying to understand but I don’t. If someone came in here and robbed me at gunpoint would you feel worse for them or me?”

He gazed above my head and said, “I’d feel bad for the whole world.”