Music videos are silly. Not to say I don't understand why we're expected to do them from a "marketing" standpoint-- it gets our faces/name out there alongside our music, more associations mean a bigger chance of picking up the album if they see it, etc etc. But DOING them still feels silly. The makeup/"costume" portion was fun this time, at least. I asked, jokingly, if I could do my own makeup or if they had something specific in mind, and the makeup lady gave me a Look. I still touched things up myself after she left (not much needed to be done, but she was bitchy and I wasn't about to be out-bitched), and did my own hair. They must've dumped out someone's entire jewelry box onto my neck and arms, it was ridiculous (everyone else looked sharp, too, even Rory!)! I mean, it WAS the bar bimbo song... they know what they're doing! Of course, I couldn't be nearly as much of a queen as I'd want to be lipsyncing to a song like that, but still got to have a bit of fun.
I helped myself to some of the necklaces n' bracelets... hehe. Greg noticed and I said I'd pay them back if they noticed-- no one noticed the white shirt, tho I didn't tell him about that. He shook his head, but it was in that usual benign way he does, . --Which reminds me... right near the beginning, I took very small things from everyone I cared about. Things that wouldn't be missed. Guitar pick from Nate, small strip of rejected/double-exposed film from Rory, a used-up damaged Zippo lighter from Greg. Trash, really, objectively, but for some reason I've just always done that with friends and other important people. Neat bookmark (advertising the college library) from Pammie, old pretty makeup palette from Cryssie, nice old comb from Ricky, an old Donna Summer ad that Dave wrote his phone number on for me when we first met... the list goes on. My little magpie collection, I guess. And I keep them all in an old cigar box of my father's. It's like... I dunno. A part of them is always with me. Silly, but there it is. Anyway, I like Sam, so I'll have to figure out what little thing from him goes into the box.
My last-for-the-foreseeable-future set at LR was a HIT and I had such a wonderful time, but it was nearly a failure! I had to be around Lori the entire day leading up to it, and it’s not like she isn’t a pleasant enough person. In the moment, though, having to see her around Greg, knowing she can touch him and lean against him and kiss him so publicly, without a care, while everything to do with me is necessarily in the dark, sneaking and hiding, grabbing what we can when we can, only leaning against each other publicly while we’re on stage, part of a show, nothing real… I want to give him something real. I KNOW I can. I want to be able to prove to him that I can, that all the running and hiding can be worth it.
Some days I feel so confident that I can figure it out. Earlier that day, all I could do was despair and wallow in my inadequacies. Too short, too fat, teeth too crooked, jaw too soft, chin too small-- I misted up once or twice while doing my makeup and costuming backstage, but was able to breathe it out and avoided anything more embarrassing. And when I was finished, I looked in the mirror one last time and my heart grew back. It was like seeing an old friend you'd dearly missed, except the friend was me. Maybe I wasn't going to be able to knock Greg off his feet, but I still fit in my red sequined jumpsuit-slash-short-shorts ensemble and I knew right then and there that I still looked MARVELOUS, honey.
Straight people think of and treat drag queens as clowns first and foremost if they like us at all. Comedy IS in our performance, more or less depending on the preference of the queen-- and parody is a kind of comedy-- but focusing purely on the comedy is missing out on the whole picture and even the more diverse details. Others think we're mocking women in a cruel way, or trying to demean them. Which is even more heartbreaking to me! For me at least, and for the others I know, it all comes from a place of love, of adoration, of seeing and appreciating things in women that straight guys could never understand.
Of course there's still humor involved, and poking fun, but it all comes from that place. A straight man sees a sassy, confident, stylish woman and is intimidated by her. A queen sees a sassy, confident, stylish woman and is INSPIRED by her. To be a queen you have to have confidence n' pride in yourself, too-- I mean, we're called queens for a reason; you can't pull it off if you don't have that pride and confidence. Out of face and out of gay spaces it's always been difficult for me to carry that confidence-- I think partially, because it's not the kind of confidence people expect from a man, so it becomes its own kind of joke, and then neither of us know what to do with each other. In face, as Marjan, it becomes second nature.
All that is to say, from the moment the first notes of Hot Stuff flew out of my mouth to the moment I closed with Minnie Riperton acrobatics (Inside My Love, in this case), all my jealousy around Greg n' Lori and my frustrations with myself vanished. I wasn't Jules anymore, not the shy quiet guy lingering in the corners of straight parties hoping not to be noticed hiding behind his drink (so many of them because of my main gig, TOO many); I was Marjan, a queen holding court, and I had every guy in that club by the balls. Was I singing my frustrations with Greg out? Partially, yes. Did it feel strange doing all this without Ricky by my side? Also very much yes, even if I was swept up in song soon enough. But my heart bleeding into my voice just made things better instead of bringing me back to almost crying, so things worked out.
Spent the rest of the night with friends, some I hadn't seen in at least a year. Cryssie, Pammie, Dave (who was very happy about the Donna tunes, of course!), Casey, Pete, Tommy, Enrique... all of them still such darlings, so witty, so kind. I'd missed all of them so much, I'd missed being Marjan so much, I'd missed being so instantly understood so much. It was like living in a foreign country for years and finally being able to go home and speak your language again. And yet, I know I'll have to go to this version of home less and less in order to preserve it as a home. I hugged them all so tight, told them my new address n' phone number, that they were free to come visit whenever they liked when I was back from the road (or, as I said at the time, that I take housecalls!). I hope they take me up on it. Cryssie still wishes I hadn't joined the band and some of the others aren't crazy about it either, but I really do want to make it all work and put in as much effort as I can to make it happen.
As for Greg... we're going to be on the road again soon enough. Maybe his monogamy'll extend there, but most of the others have girlfriends already and their monogamy certainly doesn't extend to the road... so we shall see. I keep trying to not let my hopes up too much, to stop liking him so much, but my heart and dick have always been stubborn things.
Had a bit more serious talk with Greg today, after rehearsals-- he came back to my place for a beer and what I was hoping was some Etcetera (the bath thing still in the back of my mind, always, still driving me a little crazy-- G-d did he know how that would make me feel, how much that would make me want him?). Not so much. Just talk.
"What is all this, to you?", he said, eventually, after we'd burned through the simple things.
And, well, what the hell was the bath thing to him? Like, you tease me, make me cum, then run off with some girl?? Is what I wanted to say. But I knew I had to be careful[19]. I found a way to be mostly honest, lyrically honest, quietly honest. He'd been the one to show me nearly all the ropes of being in the band. He made it so easy for me to sing with him, and he's so fun to perform with. He helped me build so much confidence performing. Off-stage, he was funny and nice to be around. And being the way I am around most of the rock scene felt so lonely that first time around. So many experiences were and still are singular, quiet, purposefully and needfully secret. He's a steady, constant presence, an anchor on stage and a friend otherwise-- an attractive friend that I enjoyed having sex with. And still do.
Coming onto him again, of course, but unsuccessfully. He has Lori at home, so I'm inconvenient now. --He didn't say that, I just know it. I hate how jealous she makes me, how ugly it makes me feel[20]. At least it didn't make the rest of the visit too awkward. I know I should be happy he was there to begin with, and I did like having someone to talk to. I was able to admit to him that I thought he was the only one around the band mature enough to handle knowing what I’m like (not that he's never made jokes at my expense, but they weren't mean-spirited jokes, and he also hasn't been a real asshole). He told me that could’ve been true of Nate, but Rory'd "probably be okay. He's a clown, but he's a good guy." Gave a noncommittal sort of maybe-answer to that, had another beer, said our good-night's.
Not the best night, not the worst, either. Even more frustrating than the time with the bath in some ways. Went out and cruised later. Got fucked against a tree. I have no idea what the safest kind of cruising is for me anymore now that I'm starting to get more well-known, but I didn't give a damn about any of that at the time. I had so much pent up, and things had fallen so flat, so much left hanging on my end. I needed some kind of closure. Or at least, catharsis. And this was certainly the latter-- he did it as hard as he was asked to, and there was that added excitement and adrenaline outdoor sex always brings, of having to stay desperately quiet thru anything and everything-- I bit my arm so hard during it all I pierced thru a little skin; the tree scraped even more of it from my arms n’ shoulders n’ hands. When we were done I had to sit awhile, too nervous about being seen to really be able to soak it all in, only sitting to recover, before I could walk back home. Writing this is making the scrapes on my hands sting, but I don’t mind. It’s nice. All the pain from that fuck has been nice in its own way.
PS: The meanest, angriest part of me wants to play with Greg’s dick til he's leaking and then just put my clothes on, wash my mouth out in front of him, and leave without a fucking word. See how he fucking likes it. --I still hate that that part of me exists, though. Even writing it down. I usually don't. I shouldn't.
Well, I've never been to Iran (Morocco was as close as I ever got and that's still far away) and now I might never get to go. The government situation there wasn't good to begin with-- a corrupt monarchy-- but a war or something broke out recently (not that there hasn't been constant little skirmish type things throughout the past while) and now it's a theocracy. Which, uh, doesn't sound better to me. Easy for me to say thousands of miles away, I guess.
It's still sad in a lot of ways; I feel a grief I wasn't expecting to feel. I've obviously wanted to connect more to that side of my heritage. And even if the government there never accepted me regardless of what type of government it was, the family on the Persian-Jewish side is more likely to be accepting than either Catholic side (and the government in this country doesn't accept me in a lot of ways either anyhow!). My heart breaks for them, too; Anna, Esther and Ebi loved going to Tehran or Shiraz when they could despite it being SUCH a long and expensive trip, and now... well, it might be fine once the dust settles, but we don't know yet. Nothing very good, or at least, nothing certain. Not much good in the 'States, either, frankly. Not a theocracy, but more and more politicians crawling out of the woodwork that seem to want to make it one. I barely have the time to pay attention to it now, but the seventies in general have been terrible, so I just assume it's still terrible and I'm usually right. I haven't voted for much since McGovern anyway. It all became clear to me how bullshit it all was at that point. They're gonna do what they wanna do.
...Anyway. The lightest consequence of all this is, I'm going to have to be on the lookout for some new bath oil or perfume that smells like incense and roses. Or maybe see if the Persian market back home has some interesting things (I wonder how this'll affect them?)... it'll have to be after the tour, though! Leaving tomorrow. Smoked a joint to relax. It just made me write a lot.
PS: It feels SO strange talking about ~politics~ in here like this. At least, in a more formal register. A lot of what goes on with everybody at LR and the streets around it is politics, too, it just doesn't sound like a social studies textbook or a newspaper. Not to me, anyway. There are more formal political types around, always, of different types. Cryssie always called me a bimbo for how easy my eyes glaze over the more formal the politics get-- "This ~stuff~ is important for our liberation, y'know!" I guess it's hard thinking about something as big as liberation when all you've been able to do most your life is get by day to day. And it all just seems so abstract to me. If "liberation" is just the equal right to be full human beings and straight people not giving a fuck about seeing the rest of us out and about as ourselves, then right on. There's more theoretical stuff to it than that, tho-- Pam knows about all this like Cryssie and they both still like my idiot self somehow-- and maybe someday I'll be able to sit down and learn about some of it. But today is not the day!
[19]And I hate how desperately important it is for me to be careful around men like him, and I hate that I hate being careful, and I hate that I want to be as un-careful as possible, that it hurts so much that I can’t– all so stupid.
[20]I’ve met her now a few times, and she’s nice, sweet, and ugh I felt like vomiting and I wanted to kill myself afterwards each time– fuck I know I shouldn’t talk like that, even in here, I really shouldn’t.