I was just enjoying the hell out of Faith Soloway's hilarious L Word parody (and you should too) and I was inspired to dig up this old image from my own L Word parody with Jen Kober who's gone on to amazing things as a regular on Treme among others. The poster was put together by the talented Tanya Zani and the show won the National Theatre Award from Curve Magazine.

The thing that makes me happy today is thinking about my motorcycle: a 1972 Honda 350Four. I wish I had a better photo of it than this one of me and Michelle Citrin  heading to a gig in Guerneville on what turned out to be a pretty magical day. At that time we were both kind of creatively stuck. We rode up on the old small highway. We wove on windy roads that were all of a sudden friend not foe, and under Redwoods that seemed so much closer to me and my heart than from a car or even on foot. The night ended up including a woman in the audience randomly standing up and telling us she was a reincarnated Holocaust Survivor, gay men awkwardly trying to hit on the woman hosting the show, a midget dreamily slow dancing with another comic who's 6 feet tall, a random passerby telling Michelle gravely that her karaoke was pretty good but if she could could learn how to write songs she'd really have it made. Michelle will have her first musical on Broadway this year, Sleepless in Seattle. After a woman who sounded just like Harvey Fierstein read our palms we met a woman at about 3am who told us she was a prophet. At that point, I believed her. One thing melted into the other. It was all swooping and smooth and alive, just like the ride on the bike. The Prophet told us this was what she called a Blue Velvet Day.  

I wanted a motorcycle since I was a kid. I used to sneak into the boys section of the library at my school and in my small town and read books about mini bikes and motorcycles. We lived in a fairly rural area and the sand pits near our house were full of bikes and dune buggys. It was all very 70s.

In the early 2000's I took the only money I ever made from start-up stock and bought the bike. It sort of found me when I stopped by Charlie's Place in San Francisco. Vintage Hondas always catch my eye. One of the mechanics told me about a bike she'd just heard about. I found the jacket you see above in a a thrift store in The Haight. The photo was taken for my first cover shot for Where magazine. It never made it. It was considered too gay. It was too much for my Dad too who asked me as favour not to use it. But I love it. And I'm not alone. Its had a lot of press. It reminds me of my bike. Though I never used that much hairspray when I was riding it. 

After my accident in 2006 I couldn't ride and then I moved east when my wife went to medical school.

I left the bike in San Francisco, along with my heart. My friend needs to move it now and I'm hoping there's still a way to store it till I can get back and get on it. I miss driving through Marin and Sonoma county. I miss the warm sun and the golden fields and the windy roads and the freedom and getting the little wave I never knew existed between moto riders before I was one. I miss this time of feeling most myself.

Maybe you need to have been born exactly when I was to find Olivia Newton-John incredibly sexy, or a headband or cigarette-like mic entertainingly comforting.

And somehow there are no women in this dance club. Hmm, I wonder why that could be?

I can't wait… 

Gram died last night.

This is a painting of my Gram when she was a teenager working crazy hours with her sister at her brothers' first store.

A customer came in one day and gave it to her. It shocked her that someone thought of her. She also never saw herself as attractive, even though she really was a beauty in her day.

We were talking the other night about what Gram liked to do.  What movies, what books, what songs? Gram liked business.

She loved flea markets as long as she could go. She read the paper to see what the prices were and how people were merchandising. 

She had been an entrepreneur growing a series of small convenience stores in Niagara Falls after the hat store and the men's goods and the bowling alley all didn't work.

Gram is the last of her 4 siblings who had a hell of a life and an incredible bond and love for one another. They lost their mum to an institution when Gram was very young and it seems their father didn't want her around. Her father was "wonderful to me" she'd say but not to her siblings. 

She spent the rest of her life holding onto family, connecting with every relative, even staying close with the stepmother who'd hit her and she and her siblings and run away from. We had Shabbes supper (Friday night dinner) every week till I left for college and the US. All 16 of us. All the cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.

She married young, had three children who each had three children themselves and took care of her mother and father-in-law who'd escaped the shtetl and lived with her. She was a huge part of the Niagara Falls Jewish community.  She loved her family, a good joke, food and chocolate. It's hard to really describe just how much she loved chocolate. One of the places she and her siblings lived, after then left, was with a relative who owned a candy store. All four of them were chocolate maniacs. It's reliable.

Would she have called herself a feminist? I don't know but she worked and entrepreneured her whole life. 

She was not fancy but she appreciated beauty and quality. She wouldn't waste a thing. 

I know this isn't the best edited blog post, but I wanted to share some things now. There's a snow storm coming. There's a lot to do. I wonder how you shovel dirt into the grave in the snow? It's a Jewish custom I appreciate. It makes it real.

I'll post more from An Honest Living: My Search for Meaning through Work in the future. Here's some bits about Gram.

Continuing my promise to post one thing every day that makes me happy. I missed yesterday because of Gram's sudden decline in health but the movement for freedom which I tweeted plenty about made me very happy.

This is Bette singing at a gay bathhouse. the Continental Baths early in her career with piano player Barry Manilow.

If I had Fantasy Island powers this is own of the places I'd want to go back in time to. Come to think of it. If I could Fantasy Island it, I'd sing this song, just like this. 

It's my favourite take on one of my favourite songs.

"I see my light come shining…"

 I'm promising myself I'll find and post one thing every day that makes me happy.

Ah yes, back when film comedies had women who really did comedy in them.
Comedy perfection, every one of them: Teri Garr, Madeleine Kahn, Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman and my higher power, Mel Brooks.

 

This is some funky sh4t! Bless You Tube, I've not heard this song since I played it on my mixed cassette that I bought in 1988. Man I love this song. And how is it that both Teena Marie and Taylor Dayne died so young? It's like the Gilda Radner, Madeleine Kahn one two punch of the white girl funk genre.

photo: Chris Applegate