To Share Or Not To Share

W.W.J.D? Is there anything written about this in the 10 Commandments? How about the Qu'aran?
TO SHARE OR NOT TO SHARE?
That is the question.

This morning at 7:58 AM, my landlord and his hound appeared at my locked gate. He rang the doorbell because he was desperate, I suppose. For the second time in less than a year, he had stopped up his toilet and came up to our house to borrow our plunger. Wire hangers weren't cutting it this morning, I'm assuming. Let's define the work of a toilet plunger, shall we? What is does is make mince-meat out of poo. Right? It's a job that needs to be done, and some years it has to be done more than others. Eat your fiber and you will be blessed - God willing, Baruch HaShem, Insha'Allah. And, it's worth taking the plunge (pardon the pun) to buy one of these things because you will inevitably need to do some mincing during your many decades on this planet (again, God willing, Baruch HaShem, Insha'Allah). Plus they're still pretty affordable.
Come upstairs once, fine. But, then go and buy one! And while you're at it, get some other personal items that you might not like to borrow from others: Prep H with the long applicator, Tucks pads, lube...what have you. Lending out my plunger to another person and then storing it, knowing it was mincing elsewhere - I have a beef with this. As my grandfather wrote in a letter he sent to me over 20 years ago: "neither a borrower nor a lender be."
I know it sounds crazy. I don't mind having one plunger per household for all who dwell under one roof to share. Guests are included. I just don't like the idea of mixing family matters. I like to think that there is some kind of biblical taboo.

Later on, when my awkward lonely landlord tries to return it, I'm not sure if I should allow it back in. It's been tainted too many times. It will be one of those conversations with a lot of fake politeness:

"No, really, you can keep it."
"You sure? I can buy you a new one?"

No, really, I insist.

What The World Needs Now Is Michael Franks

For many of you who admit to reading this blog, perhaps you'd also admit to owning a few Michael Franks albums. Maybe it's thanks to me. Or, maybe you happen to have impeccable taste. Since I've completely run out of blog-topics for the last two weeks, I thought I could turn some of you on to this exemplary adult contemporary music. Some friends have caught on and can see the genius, others think he's a cheeseball. My pal, Bruce, called it "Tootsie music" years back when I professed my love for Michael Franks. I happen to think Tootsie was a fine movie, and would have been even better, had they chosen a musical score by Michael Franks.
I got my first taste of his brand of music in the early 80's. My parents were fans and often played The Art of Tea, released in 1976. Back then my 2 favorites tracks were "Eggplant" and "Popsicle Toes." I used to run around the house reciting the lyrics: "You got the nicest North America this sailor ever saw - I like to feel your warm Brazil and touch your Panama."Of course, the interpretive dance that went with it was really special. If I'm not mistaken, I think it involved tennis balls and a pair of high-heels.

Undoubtedly, his finest album is Sleeping Gypsy. Every song is a work of art. Listening to this album makes you feel like you've lived on a yacht your whole life...and I'm not talking about the yacht that I lived on with my Dad yelling at me. This is the yacht where you eat tropical fruits and play the steel drum with your pet monkey on one shoulder and your Amazon parrot on the other. Oh, and in this world, you don't look like a ridiculous white person when you dance, either. Check it out if you don't already have it. A lot of peeps like to do the nasty to this album.

I like how ubiquitous Franks' music is, and it always appears when you need it most. I just received an e-mail from Sklave while on his honeymoon. He let me know that while dining in a kosher restaurant in Rome, "The Lady Wants to Know" (from Sleeping Gypsy) was cued up just as they finished ordering. Italians know what's up...
The television show Northern Exposure was smart enough to use the song "Monkey See - Monkey Do" on one of their episodes. I always wondered who were the Michael Franks fans out there? Are they fat and white? Lesbians? Are they always eating coconuts?

Fast forward to 2001. We find out that Michael Franks is coming to Atlanta, so we buy tickets to finally check out his crowd and get to see him live. [My mom had seen him in concert in the late 80's and was disappointed that he no longer looked like he did on his albums. Basically, he had gotten fat and looked old. It's kind of like the Christopher Cross thing. He was smart to put a flamingo on the cover of his hit album. Once you see him, "Ride Like the Wind" doesn't make you feel so foxy. Anyway, Franks hasn't had a decent album since Passion Fruit in 1983.] The crowd, much to my excitement, was mostly upscale African-American. Lots of the same people you'd expect to see at an Al Jarreau concert. But, the concert sucked. Franks looked haggard and didn't have a saxophone accompanying him. The band was dominated by an annoying pianist who thought he was playing free-jazz and some bad back-up singers. One thing Michael Franks' music is not and should not be is challenging. If it doesn't groove you into melancholy bliss like some kind of musical rum drink, then it ain't happening. We left early. It's not that we'd given up on him, it's just that we wanted to hold on to our image of Franks with long wavy hair, a mustache, tight jeans and a halfway unzipped Members Only jacket.


This photo of Biscuit in Peru was inspired by Michael Franks and our quest to capture his essence: There are 5 albums of his that should be in everyone's collection: The Art Of Tea, Sleeping Gypsy, Tiger In The Rain, Objects Of Desire and Passion Fruit. You can skip almost everything that came out between 1983 and 2006. I almost like his latest release, Rendezvous in Rio, as it feels like a throw-back to his old style. When morale is low in your house or you'd like to feel a little more like you just got back from Tahiti instead of Costco, pop in some Franks.
These days, Michael Franks has been splitting his time between Woodstock, NY, and Sanibel Island, FL, where he runs a shelter for errant Dachshunds. Is there anything jazzier than a wiener dog?

G-Dawg: The Kissin' Bandit

Today, around 11:50 AM, Bisq's 31 year-old cousin Grant, a.k.a G-Dawg, arrived at our doorstep with a six pack of Miller Lite and a cracked-open bottle of Diet Pepsi in hand. It's a rare occasion when G-Dawg comes to visit us on our own turf - maybe once per decade. You can't count the other miscellaneous visits that occur in between which take place at painful family pow-wows while I'm under considerable duress, being forced to eat desserts laced with Splenda and being drowned in syrupy small talk. It's so hard to get down to brass tacks when you're surrounded by a bunch of hyper kindergarten teachers, peanut-butter fudge, ladies in light blue polyester leisure suits and no alcohol.

Cousin G-Dawg flies planes and helicopters for Customs and Border Protection, a department under Homeland Security, and has done so for the last 9 years. He attends an annual three-day helicopter training in nearby Orange County, and that was the reason for the visit. He's Biscuit's only good-looking relative. He gets paid to shoot guns, fly planes and lift weights. He's possibly the most self-actualized person I've ever known, next to Oprah. He's a fine mixture of Bill Clinton and Forrest Gump: a smooth operator disguised as country pie. He was, of course, a high school football star in his backwoods Louisiana town, along with being an altar boy (more on the Catholicism later). His good looks are of the all-American-Varsity-Top-Gun variety. Plus, he's got the heavy duty Southern accent and is so polite that he opens the car door for the (female) driver in even the tightest of parking spaces. It really threw me off when we were both walking to the driver's side door with a mission. He wears a snug-fitting gold chain (which I've always been a sucker for) with a St. Mary pendant. Today, he donned an LSU ball cap, a polo shirt and some almost trendy jeans with a wide enough boot-cut leg to accommodate the Glock strapped to his ankle. His year-round tan is part of the job description, I'm sure.
Sexually, he's as screwed up as can be. At Bisq's bachelor party, he was throwing C-spots at the strippers so that they would expose Bisq's weenie. That's kinda...different. Mix that with the Catholicism and you've got yourself one twasted dude - so twasted that he goes to confession only at churches where he won't know a soul. When he confesses to his own priest, he'll say something like, "Well, I have been swearing an awful lot." He saves the good stuff for anonymous priests in far-away towns. There's a very real possibility that he'll be headed to a strange confessional in Costa Mesa before he catches his 6AM plane out of John Wayne Airport tomorrow. More on this later.

Shortly after his arrival, we went out to lunch and listened to all the tales of hot single gun-slinging southern pilots with badges. Good stuff. Much debate has ensued between the husband and I as to whether or not G-Dawg is a virgin. Remember, he is a devoutly guilt-ridden Catholic and has made allusions in recent years to holding out for the future Mrs. G. Dawg. And, as if he wasn't already crazy as a bag of mice, they have this uncle...let's call him Uncle Hugh, who is constantly dangling prosti...I mean escorts and wads of casino cash in front of him. The word on the street is that G.Dawg will do "everything BUT."
After lunch, I took him on an outing to Trader Joe's. I have to admit that being with G-Dawg makes me want someone to start some shit. On his badge, it states that its bearer is entitled to make arrests, conduct seizures, shoot your ass - whatever he's up for. While shopping for groceries, we had a buggy disappear with a few items in it that we had not yet purchased. I told G-Dawg about this and basically the two of us divided the store in half in order to chase down the outlaw with our cart. We were on a mission, and I saw that LSU cap bobbing down the supplements aisle out of the corner of my good eye. I felt like I was taking part in my first sting operation. Of course, I wasn't armed with anything more than some double-Ds and my keyless entry unit for my Altima. I figured G-Dawg would catch the "criminal" and conduct some border patrol-style seizure or shake-down. About 8 years ago, I had him handcuff me in my kitchen in Santa Fe. He could only get better with time. He's got moves.
Long story short, I found the buggy. No harm, no foul. G-Dawg found another buggy which he thought was ours and began to lay claim to it. It all ended with an "Aw man, mah baaad." I think he tries to conserve the searches and seizures for the border. It's tough being the guy with the guns, the badge and heart of gold!

At 6 PM he joined us on our evening walk to Bellevue Park and an idea came to me - wouldn't it be fun to watch G-Dawg go bonkers for my saucy red-headed upstairs neighbor? She's single, wears platform shoes and lives to Tango. At first, I thought she wouldn't go for him. She's somewhat artsy, part of that breed that goes to Argentina. Some grouches might view G-Dawg as a highly-paid, trigger-happy aviation cop from a small town. How hot is it to work for Homeland Security? Turns out, she's no grouch.
We waltzed upstairs only to find her and a few of her horny girlfriends lounging on pillows on the roof-top deck, uncorking bottles of everything from Champagne to Riesling. I had G-Dawg holding the baby as part of the plot to see if the girls were interested in more company. Within less than 20 minutes, he'd infiltrated the system, in spite of kicking over 2 wineglasses. My saucy neighbor was charmed by his country-ham accent and his faint resemblance to Matthew McConaughey. The girls were busy talking about sexy things in front of him whilst he slapped his knee and laughed goofily, flashing those pretty white teeth. This is his signature move. I was onto him, but the girls were eating it up; so much so that I left him up there to fend for himself. A little later, he came downstairs to tell us of the supreme pickle he was in: his plane back to Louisiana was leaving from Orange County at 6:00 AM. How would he manage partying all night with these 2 horny chicks and still make it home? "Maaann, it's fixin' to get ugly," he kept moaning. I believed it. This one roof-top chick, Felicity, mentioned the word "threesome,"which really got G-Dawg pumped up. I encouraged him to find a way to make it work. After all, flying down the interstate at 3:00 AM can't be much harder than shooting down a plane over the Gulf of Mexico.

Now it's Saturday and time for me to put this story to rest. I saw my red-headed neighbor this morning who told me that I could fix her up anytime. She spoke of the Dawg's sweetness and the smooches they exchanged around 1:30 AM. A perfect gentleman, she said. He didn't even try anything. Just a few minutes ago, when G-Dawg called to say thanks, he started the phone call off with a "HO-LEE COW!" and defined last night as a "wild time." The kissin' bandit does it again! I forgot to ask if he made it to a confessional this morning. After all, he claims that priests out here in California hear it all. No doubt, maaannn.

Big Blonde Hair, Highlights and Frost Jobs

I spent a few years as a blonde. I've taken the journey from brassy to platinum, streaked to frosted. Some actually thought that I was a natural blonde - gosh, I'm flattered. The times that I had my blonde variations, my mom was so proud; our family is terribly deficient in blondes. She always dreamed of having a pug-nosed Aryan daughter. Genetically, this was close to impossible. But, the dye job brought me a lot closer to this ideal. She still displays a photo of me from 1996 that we affectionately refer to as the "Lady Di." When I look at my wedding pictures from February 2002, I really do look like a Jewish Barbie Doll, which is a bit of an oxymoron, I realize. Biscuit has certainly had his share of bowl cuts, shags and spikey up-do's and could write his own hair annals, since his notorious looks deserve their own column. Look for that in August.

Let me explain something about my longest stretch as a blonde - once you move to Atlanta, GA, you feel it incumbent upon yourself to do away with dark hair. You start with a few highlights (right Roach?), then move on to blonde panels, until finally you say "what the fuck" and let the Roach dunk your head in a vat of bleach. For those who don't keep up with our impressive roster of stylists, Roach was and still is an influential hairdresser in the pricey Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. She styles everyone from sorority sisters to lesbians with mullets to straight men who look like middle-aged women and lots in between. Over the course of our 5 years in Roach's often inebriated hands, we were regularly morphed into any of these archetypes.
Our chance encounter with Roach occured at an Inman Park porch party back in 2001, shortly after 9/11. At this point in history, the world needed more blondes. It was no time to look drab with untreated dark hair and unpainted toe nails. Look like that: the terrorists win. Back at the party, it was difficult not to notice a wildly intoxicated bodacious blonde in the crowd. Bisq actually recognized her from some topless toga party pics he had randomly seen a few months before at a friends' house. Fate brought us together, one might say. So began a 5-year friendship which involved many a drunken haircut and loads of other activities that could only be shared with someone as twasted and fun-loving as the Roach.

Back in Santa Fe, we had Bob D., a gay Texan cowboy who lived on Coke (the soft drink, not the powder) and Creatine supplements and also taught us Body Pump. Once, while teaching Body Pump, Bob informed the class that he was wearing a thong and requested that we not gaze up his shorts during the abs routine. Love it. Mix a West Texas son of a regional soft drink distributor with a lot of International Male garments, a few missing teeth and a keen interest in beautifying Santa Feans and you get Bob. He had some incredible erotic art in his townhouse, which was littered with empty Coke cans with cigarette butts floating in them. Bob started me off with a few highlights framing the face - a pretty conservative look. Mostly we liked having breakfast with him at Harry's Roadhouse after Body Pump class where he treated a whole table full of female fans...and Biscuit.
I remember showing Bob my engagement ring at his salon. Like a good gay man, he called everyone in the salon over to have a tearful gasp. He looked me in the eye and said, "Oh dorlin..." And he meant it. Before we moved to Atlanta, he taught Bisq how to do my highlights out on his porch, so we wouldn't have to suffer once we got to Atlanta.

For some reason, we've gotten into the habit of befriending and socializing with most of our hairdressers. Actually, it all started back in 1996 with a dude named Henry Falcon. We met him through my fashion-forward grandmother, Amma. Amma was pissed at her hair salon and decided to have Henry come to her house to get her weekly coif.
Henry, as you can see, was a skinny, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed stylist who resided on the West Bank (New Orleans, not Israel). Henry liked to hang out with my grandmother who could have also been described the same way about 40 years ago, except she never lived on the West Bank and she never cut hair. Henry had a crush on Biscuit, but I have yet to meet a gay guy who doesn't. He was so surly that it didn't really matter. In fact, if I've ever called any of you "saster," it was Henry who taught me how. It was a fun relationship which resulted in some twasted hairdos. Last I heard, Henry had married some older wealthy dude in Asheville, NC. Every time I've been in Asheville, I've looked him up in the phone book - but to no avail.

I have to give a quick shout-out to Blake's ex, Rachel Milham, who briefly styled my hair at Gerogie's salon in Kenner, LA. She introduced me to Velcro rollers, which I used for a few months to give me that just-got-back-from-the-prom look. I felt like JonBenet! It's worth mentioning that "Milham" is a respected surname in New Orleans. Her dad, Dan Milham, is the trusted weatherman on Channel 6. I was definitely impressed at Blake's score: less than five years in New Orleans and slapping skins with a Milham. Not only that, she had a tongue ring, drove a white Mitsubishi Eclipse and had a best friend named Hottsey. That's the stuff of legends in Kenner. Kudos, Binki.

Of all of the relationships one might forge over a lifetime, I do think it's worthwhile to get tight with a stylist. It's always served me and Bisq. Although, after looking over these glamour shots...you be the judge.