Snoopy Taylor in Long Beach

My Halloween started this year on Saturday, October 29. I was the only drag queen at a straight bar a LONG, LONG way from Manhattan. But we had fun.. and it was good training for the actual Halloween night in Manhattan where my friends and I would be attending Patricia Fields bash at her new location.

But this was good training. And I was able to spread joy, glammor and a little bit of horror to a bunch of Long Island rednecks.


Notice the crazy flyaway hair.. I was wondering at the end of the night if I was going to have to rename her "Sloppy Taylor" due to her untamed wig and her love of Rum and Cokes. We made sure this was corrected before Snoopy hit Manhattan.

Get your ass down from there!!

Yes. This is just filler because I've been too crazed to update my BLOG.
I've moved and been to several amazing parties.. abd I seriously need to get on here and catch y'all up to speed. Hopefully over the weekend.
Until then.. enjoy this ass. :)

The full support of the troops.. not!

The Whole World Was Watching -- Go Get It

Last night was the book launch party for Romaine Patterson's book, The World Was Watching. I've known Romaine for a little over a year now and had admired her on-air antics on the Derek and Romaine Show on Sirius Satellite Radio.

Though I knew I little of the history of how Romaine was one of Matthew Shepard's best friends, and how Christina Ricci had played her in the film version of The Laramie Project, I still had a lot to learn about this angel hearted lesbian with a mouth like a sailor yet a laugh of sunshine.

Romaine is an activist that anyone can love. And this is what I've learned from her in this book. Her style of peaceful activism that she created in the face of hate inspires me. I could hardly get through the introduction without getting a little choked up.

I look forward to finishing the book.
I encourage you to go get the book.
And I'm honored to know Romaine Patterson.

Yesterday - A Very Fellini Forrest

Scene One -- Morning

It is cold on the beanbag as I sleep.
It is 65 outside but yet my office is 45 and the air-conditioning is relentless.
I worked all night but need a hot shower.

Walking to the gym I pass St. Vincent's Hospital.
A man walks out of the emergency room and looks in the trash.
He pills out a juice bottle and taps it on the ground.

Holding it forward like a lance he returns into the emergency room looking very determined.
The first thing I imagine is that a hospital employee is about to get murdered.
I run in behind him screaming for people to look out, give them warning, alert the guard.

My screaming startles him and he turns the bottle upon himself cutting his hands and wrists.
Blood is flowing rapidly.
He holds his arms out straight to the left and right.

The guard is approaching, I back up out the door and depart.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Scene Two -- Dusk

I am the first customer in the restaurant.
The drag queens are busy setting tables and getting into costume.
I order my first $2 frozen margarita.

Gusty Winds finishes applying her nails.
She leaves a thumb, pinky and middle finger nail plus a bottle of glue behind.
I apply them.

I take pleasure in scratching my scalp and scraping the frost off my drink.
But I bite them.
They fall off.

FIN

Welcome to Forrest's Golden Oldies

Sometimes when I'm walking through town or riding on the subway I'll think of some crazy ass incident from my life that makes me laugh out loud. (I also have moments when I remember some crazy assed, heinously stupid thing I've done, and I visibly cringe and shudder at the thought.. and maybe even let out an audible gasp.. but those are things I'm trying to forget, so I'm not going to create a journal of them.) This is a chance for a communal flashback, so that the next time you see me and I'm laughing giddily at nothing at all.. there's good reason.

So lets all get ready to travel back to August 1985.

I was in Marine Corps boot camp at Paris Island, SC.

I was in Third Battalion, supposedly the toughest because we were removed from the main part of the base so there wasn't as many eyes on the Drill Instructors, making sure that they weren't being too cruel to us.

We had four drill instructors and our Senior DI was a Gunnery Sergeant, and we were his very last platoon of recruits. He was supposed to have won all kinds of awards.. but for some reason he couldn't get our group to march together to save his life.

This pissed him off GREATLY… no I mean GREATLY.

Sometimes he would get so red in the face because the hillbillies in my group couldn't tell right from left and they kept running into each other.

He was relentless when they would screw up and send us to the "sand box" were we would have to do all kinds of exercises (sit ups, push ups, etc). This doesn't sound so bad until you understand that as you are flipping around ("On your back! On your stomach! On your Back! On your stomach!) sand is flying everywhere including down your pants, inside your shirt, in your hair, everywhere. In the hot, humid summer in South Carolina, its not a pleasant thing to march around the rest of the day with sand in your drawers.. without the ability to itch or scratch the sand fleas climbing in your ears or in your eyes.

I know.. not very funny.. but just wait.

One time we were marching and he is particularly upset and he is screaming in the face of some of these kids like a rabid bulldog.. and they are TERRIFIED. He is trying to lead these clueless wonders in drill until he just can't take any more. He's so red in the face and screaming he looks like he's going to burst a blood vessel at any moment. Then all the sudden.. he can't take any more and he screams at us to "GO GET IN THE SAND BOX - NOW!!!" and when they say now.. you don't really take your time. Its all out pandemonium whenever they tell you to do something, part of the "do what I say immediately and ask questions later" part of the training.

Well he and the other DIs are screaming and yapping at our heels, doing their best to scare the crap out of us, but what nobody realized was that there was a freshly laid sidewalk between where we were and the sand box. All I could hear upon my fast approach was PLOP, THFFFT, SQUILCH!! These kids had tried running across it and their feet sunk 8 or more inches into the cement.. and then with the force they were traveling, they fell face first into the gray matter.

I saw what was right in front of me and I did this huge award-winning NFL leap over the pile-up completely clearing the entire mess and when I looked back, I nearly burst out of my mind trying to hold the laughter in, although some of the guys didn't have the strength to hold it in.

Well needless to say, the Senior DI couldn't have been more displeased.

And the look on his face as he stood screaming at the gray spackled recruits, and seeing a 30 foot stretch of completely ruined sidewalk that had once been completely smooth, nearly sent him over the edge.

This makes me laugh out loud even today.

------------------------------------------------

PS -- Gunny (Senior DI) really was a hateful bastard. Not in the hateful way that DIs are supposed to be hateful.. I had plenty of special "attention" from quite a number of Drill Instructors. If there ever was a Drill Instructor who was a cry baby.. it was Gunny. I don't remember his name

As for my other DIs. I met one of them, Staff Sergeant Thompson, years later in Japan as he came into my office at Camp Shwab in Northern Okinawa. By that time I had been promoted several times and was only two ranks below him.. but I couldn't force myself to call him anything but "SIR." There are some people I will respect forever.

What a surprise.. not.

Officials: NYC Terror Plot Uncorroborated

You've been warned.. were you listening?

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
-- James Madison

'When the government fears the people it is a democracy....when the people fear their government it is tyranny...'
-- Thomas Jefferson

Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.
– Thomas Jefferson

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
– James Madison

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
– Herman Goering

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
– James Baldwin

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
– Voltaire

The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.
– William Ellery Channing

"If there be one principle more deeply written than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest."
-- Thomas Jefferson

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.
– Sen. Robert Taft, (R) Ohio

Fascism will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible.
-- Sinclair Lewis 1935

Getting a Little R&R

Yesterday was a day that I knew would end with some much needed R&R.

First meeting of the day - to pitch my company, City Hunt, to the senior marketing executives of Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble to pitch our company's method of using scavenger hunts as a viable medium for marketing products. We had 14 three-minute meetings with 14 different executives. Many of them seemed to love the idea.. but what can you tell in 3 minutes?

Regardless, it was a very exciting opportunity and a great chance for us at City Hunt to hone a rapid-fire pitch for our product that gets results.

Next stop - the Spark Plug PR office (job 3 or 4) where I need to finish compiling my guest list for the opening of the new hot spot in the Meatpacking District, R&R (as in "rock and roll".. not relaxing vacation). Unbeknownst to me the subway has a heightened terror alert because Rove is about to go under questioning and I guess Bush needed to create another distraction.

R&R (416 West 14th Street between 9th and Washington) is a new rock and roll bar in the middle of the uber-trendy Meatpacking District. In the days before refrigerated semi-trucks, this was once a neighborhood of insulated warehouses that were used to chop up the cow or other barnyard animal carcasses and refrigerate or salt them before they went on sale across the city in the local delis and restaurants.

Over the last 15 years, starting just before 1990, this neighborhood has been transforming into one of the most chic destinations for shopping, dining and nightlife. The thick, insulated walls mean that clubs can play their music as loud as they want with no complaints from the local community board. The cobblestone streets, some of the few remaining places in New York City you can still find this, adds a little bit of charm. And the lofty ceiling heights and raw, expansive, industrial warehouse buildings lent themselves to be whatever the interior designers could dream up for them.

But now, in 2005, the area is just a bit TOO trendy. If you are not planning on buying a bottle of vodka (starting around $250) for table service, or if you don't know the door person, do even think about getting into one of these places. Even if you do get in, it doesn't guarantee that you'll be treated warmly.

So here is this raw rock and roll club opening up in an area where people are STARVING for something real. Needless to say, the response was sensational.

Almost all of my VIPs made it in (most of them showed up by 8:30, thank god). Though I did have one fashion designer call me from the line trying to get in saying that next time he will have his agent at William Morris call to make the reservation for him because he doesn't wait in lines any more. Listen honey, last night it wouldn't have helped.

Who showed up:

Adrienne Grenier (the star of HBO's Entourage) & his band the Honey Brothers, Brittny Gastineau, Kid Rock, Liv Tyler, Sean Lennon, Dean Winters, Rachel Hunter, Domino, Donna D’Cruz (rASa Music), DJ Coleman Feltes, Harold Hunter and DJ Strip.

Needless to say.. there were already calls that came in from William Morris booking these people.. and after 9pm if you weren't A-List, it would have been hard to get in at all. One of my guests went outside to make a phone call (R&R is actually underground so no cell reception) and then was not allowed to re-enter the club.

My heroic moment of the night was breaking into the nightclub office (its good to know that Barnes & Knoble membership cards are good for something besides that 10% discount) so that everyone could get there bags and go home when our event was done.

At the same time I was practicing my Oceans 11 burglery skills, Adrienne Grenier walks up behind me looking a little vexed. He needed paper. It looked like he was running out of time before the thoughts in his head would escape and he needed to write them down quickly. So I emptied the office printer of 1/4 ream of white peper, which was sure to be enough for his musings and it was the least I could do for the star of the evening.

The prospect of huge marketing contracts with interntaional corporations like Coke and P&G, celebrity parties, free drinks and yet another opportunity to invite my friends to a fun night out of historic proportions.

Yesterday, New York really DIDN'T suck.

NYC Cheep Thrill

Some of life best entertainment is free.

I keep forgetting how much fun it can be to watch country bumpkins drive in the city.

The look of terror on their face as they turn a corner and head the wrong way down a one-way street - with traffic coming right at them.

Still laughing here.

Quote from Natalie

"Don't ever be anti anything. Be pro something."

-- Natalie Hill (on an IM -- 8:52pm)

Despirate Penguins

So the day after I post my story about hanging out with the gay penguins in Central Park, a New York Times article comes out that says that they have ended their six yewar relationship because Scrappy, a slutty San Diego penguin ho, moved in to the neighborhood and put the moves on Silo.

But the unfolding drama doesn't end there. The foster penguin that Roy and Silo raised from an egg together has grown up to be a full blown lesbian (she was last seen trading in her traditional penguin tuxedo wear for a mullet and flanel shirt) and is now sharing a nest with another female penguin (and 6 cats).

And homosexuality is now running RAMPENT within the penguin community in Central Park with three other same sex couples residing there now.

By next year I think they may have recruited enough homos that they can have their own parade.

------------------------------------

Gay Penguins Break Up

Friday, September 16, 2005

New York City's most famous gay penguin couple has split up.

Even worse, one of them has taken up with a female penguin new to the Central Park Zoo, the New York Post reports.

Silo and Roy, two male chinstrap penguins native to the South Atlantic, made local headlines six years ago when they came out with their same-sex relationship.

Since then, the pair have successfully hatched and raised an adopted chick — after trying to incubate a rock — and become role models for six other same-sex couples among penguins at the zoo.

That all ended when Scrappy, a single female newly arrived from SeaWorld in San Diego, caught Silo's eye.

"Silo and Roy stopped spending as much time together or building a nest," said John Rowden, curator of animals at the zoo.

Silo promptly moved in with Scrappy, building a new nest with her. Zookeepers were at a loss to explain Silo's sudden conversion.