Video Friday!

I only have one video today, but it’s good, dollies. Electric Six’s “Gay Bar” mixed with the Muppets theme. Yes, oh yes. Thanks to my friend Heather S. for the lovely link.

Love, Me

So, I joined this project called “Love, Me”, which is essentially a project with women bloggers writing love letters to themselves. Cherry Bomb, a blogger and burlesque performer that I met at Mondo Homo came up with the idea and I thought it would be an awesome idea to join. Why would you do this? Read on, friends:

The idea came to me the other day, when a person I don’t know very well said something terrible about me. I gave it some thought, started to feel broken up about it, and then I realized: I know perfectly well all of the things I don’t like about myself. So why are other people are only too happy to volunteer what they don’t like about me? Hating yourself should be passe by now, something as 1997 as brown corduroys, so why is self-loathing still en vogue? Loathing yourself makes it just that much easier to hate other people. Especially other women. Hating yourself is easy; what would truly be subversive and challenging is admitting to loving things about yourself.

So, I decided I would write a love letter to myself and publish it on my blog. I am nervous because it is a difficult task, and one that makes you vulnerable to attack. The moment you admit to loving something about yourself, you are subject to the animus of others who may want to take you down a notch. We, as female-bodied people, are not typically taught to love ourselves. We are taught to demur when given compliments, to write them off with a laugh and never absorb their true meaning. We put ourselves down for the sake of making others feel better about themselves. Admitting to loving things about yourself is egotistical, the cardinal sin of “femininity.” But what if we could articulate those things? And even more so, what if we could support other female-bodied people in doing so?

So, here goes. I am going to edit a poem I started writing a few years ago during the last breakup I had before Special Lady T popped onto the scene. As I recall, it was with La Carpentiere–who I actually SAW last week in Th’ville. Small world–and I was feeling like she was an idiot for dumping me and was trying to define myself.

Love, Me

I love solid. Midwestern
serious work ethic; I love doing
what you love as long as
what you love pays
the bills. Sometimes
you have to suck it up.
The crops must be sown.

I love salt of the earth
no airs about anyone
Or when airs are put on
airs, I love the laughter
that follows–from the gut.

I love being balls out
and the beauty of solitude and privacy.
Hiding and revealing
like a morning glory
innermost stamen thrust
to the sun on brightest days.

I love comedy and tragedy
rolled into one. Emotions
fleeting like clouds on
an overcast day. I love overcoming,
I love persevering, I love
laughing at myself.

I love romance and
old-fashioned ways–doors being opened
satin and pumps,
and manners. Yes, manners.
It’s important to be polite.

I love close families.
Cousins and kids running ramshod
through the house. Loud volume, chaotic.

I love the power of generations:
a German hat with a thousand pins on it,
a volume of Irish folktales,
a Celtic knot painted on the ceiling of the
oldest Catholic parish in town.

I love coming from women
five sisters, grandmothers, aunts,
small girl cousins–we rule the roost.
My family: mostly mom and sister
for years no men, only my brother
feminist; how to treat women drilled into
his thick head.

I love capable.
Working hard not
hardly working, I can
handle most of what
gets thrown my way.

And I love sensitive. I
love listening, even when it’s
hard. Leaving emotions checked;
I can hear most things,
recover. Empathize.

Love, Me. I love
me: a million contradictions
complexity, emotions,
depth, humor, beauty.

OK, that was very hard to write. I’m going to go back and do some edits over lunch…I’m really worried about putting myself out there like this. But I guess we shall see what comes of it.

Here’s the list of other gals doing this project:
This is Where I Write – http://rantsnotdrugs.blogspot.com/
Twenty Twenty Hindsight – http://twentytwentyhindsight.com/
Rollertrain – http://rollertrain.tumblr.com/
Fluid Pusher – http://fluidpusher.blogspot.com/
Cherry Bomb – http://www.cherrybombnyc.com

Video Friday!

Golly! I nearly forgot.

E sent me this series a while ago and they are still funny to me today. They are a video series on YouTube called “Stop It!”

Alma Won’t Stop Cooking

Mercedes Always Wears the Same Outfit

Bill Won’t Stop Watching America’s Next Top Model

Happy Friday!

Yesterday Afternoon (Gross Story-Sorry!)

So yesterday afternoon, I headed to my doctor’s office for a check-up.  Regular lady visit and all.

Anyway, my doc is near Water Tower Place–which in case you’re not from Chicago, is a giant mall at the top of Michigan Avenue.  It’s been there forEVer and I used to go there when I was a teen and drool over all the Le Sportsac purses there, because there was a Le Sportsac store there in the 80’s.  (There was also a Rizzoli bookstore there, as well.  I used to go and drool over the giant expensive art books there, as well.)

So, I decide that I’m going to go visit one of my former students (and current performers.  I won’t say who, so as to discourage stalkers) and I head into the giant makeup store there, which is where she works.  I head in, examine all of the products from Make Up For Ever (OMG.  Must.  Buy.  Everything.  They.  Make.), pick up a pair of eyelashes–she was not working and I had not a huge budget, so I moved along–and then decide to head upstairs, because I couldn’t remember whether or not Water Tower was the place with the Max Studio store–it was not.

On the way, I remember the populations of people I try to avoid in downtown Chicago: Tourists, pre-teens with money, teens with money, and people from the suburbs.  They just don’t move quickly enough for this big City girl.

I pop off the elevator and there’s one of those hot pretzel places at the top.  I’m like, “Yum!”  So I order a pretzel, because it’s going to be a while before my date with T.  Procure pretzel and head back down escalators.

Oh my god then it all goes wrong.  I get VERY nauseated and almost throw up.  Seriously, I had to run across the mall at top speed to the bathroom and gag into le toilet.  It was sudden, violent, and frightening.  One second you’re eating a pretzel, then the next, HRLLLLACCCK.

Needless to say, I threw the remaining pretzel out and jumped on the bus and went home.  Yuck.

Helpful Hint: Don’t buy hot pretzels at the mall.  In fact, don’t even go to the mall.  It will make you ill.

“Afternoon” Burlesque & Weekly Update

Ms. Bea sings to "Daddy" (a dildo wearing a red sparkly bow tie)

This weekend, we launched the new free show at Joie de Vine–this great lesbian-owned wine bar in the gayborhood–and it made me wonder why we had’t had a show in Andersonville before. It was totally hopping, the acts were top notch and it was fun as hell. And the fact that we had a whole hair salon to get ready in? Brilliant. Each girl had her own well-lit station. A far cry from some of the venues I’ve performed in–e.g. the dirty basement at Spin.

It was totally hilarious during the 7pm show, though, because the front window (while tinted, so you can’t see in from the outside) it seemed totally light outside. T took a bunch of photos and it looks like “oh, here I am walking my dog down the street on Sunday afternoon, and there’s a burlesque show!” We’re going to move the first show later in the evening, so it’s a little darker before we start. (You can witness this in the shot to the left. It seems like the person outside to my left is totally having a picnic on a sunny summer day, while a comedic nightclub act unfolds in the foreground.) Also, I love that the specials are in the shot–Special today: Mint Mojitos and hot, queer, naked ladies.

So, yes, it was really fun. I had a good time and it reminded me about why I do this here burlesque.

This week, I am hosting a Stitch n’ Bitch at my house. I’m going to teach ladies how to make the really cool twirly pasties with spinners on ‘em and have a lot of my pals over for craft night. Then we have the Naked July show on Friday/Saturday and Joie de Vine again on Sunday. Plus, me and T have a nice little date night (trip to Target, out to dinner…Ahh, domesticity) planned tonight and I am working on a new act for Sunday. Should be fun–set to David Bowie’s Rock N’ Roll Suicide.

All righty. I promised myself I’d try hard to be on time or early to the day job this week. Gonna go strive for it.

Kisses,
Ms. Bea