I probably should have saved this title for Monday, since the original lyrics open with “met her on a Monday and my heart stood still.” But it will always be a Shaun Cassidy tune to me, even though his version was a cover and reminds me of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries series that aired in the late 1970s. Ah, to be in my teens again–only medicated properly this time. What a difference that could have made, right?
I left the apartment yesterday morning to walk over to the Marsten House on St. Charles, and I have to say–the experience was vastly superior to the one I had on Magazine, in the Garden District’s version of Walgreens. Including walking there and back, it took a sum total of fifteen minutes, so fuck you, Walgreens on Magazine; you will now be known as the Marsten House on Magazine, and the one a block from my house will simply be Walgreens again. Still not planning on doing much business with them going forward, but the experience was entirely pleasant. Until I got home, at any rate. Remember, I felt good yesterday morning? Well, within an hour of getting home I was running a slight fever and was completely exhausted. Everything aches from fatigue this morning, despite a good night’s sleep, and my alarm kitty let me sleep later than usual, too. (He tried to get me up at the normal time, but when I didn’t? He just turned into a purring kitty cuddle puddle, which made it even harder to get up. My mind was woozy all day, too, so I didn’t get much done other than sitting in my easy chair with football games on, a couple of things around the house (dishes and a load of laundry), and read some more of The Hunting Wives. Paul was out packing up his office all day and didn’t get home until after nine (he’ll be doing the same today, too). Most of the football games were disappointing–LSU lost and played terribly; Auburn lost to A&M; and Arkansas lost to Notre Dame. Georgia-Alabama was a really good game, as was Mississippi State-Tennessee, and Tulane trounced Tulsa. But I wasn’t really vested in any of the games–the fatigue and brain fog thing again–so the LSU loss didn’t really hit as hard as it usually does. So, thanks, COVID vaccine?
And do not @me regarding the vaccine reaction. I work in public health, so let me stop you before you start: I will block you for anti-vaxxer stupidity, and fuck you, while we are at it; fuck you with a razor-blade encrusted dildo. Jenny McCarthy should burn in hell for all eternity for her ignorance and idiocy–anyone who listens to that stupid bitch for medical advice is even worse than she is– period, and fuck you. I reacted strongly to the vaccine because I am immunocompromised because of the colitis, idiots.
I will never understand the mentality that it’s preferable to have a dead child as opposed to an autistic one.
My hips and legs ache painfully. It’s horrible. But my coffee is delicious, and so was my coffee cake. I’m about to make some toast, and maybe a bowl of cereal and get another cup. I have some emails I want to answer this morning–I’ve been ignoring my inbox for quite some time–and of course, there are some finishing touches the apartment also needs to have done. I don’t know what my energy is going to be like throughout the rest of the day, but I hold out hope for a very nice, productive day.
Also? I really miss the time when I didn’t dread checking the news.
I did think a lot yesterday about the book and writing, even if I couldn’t focus enough to write. (The brain fog is absolutely terrifying, for the record. And the memory losses are even worse.) I know what the book needs in order to be finished, and it’s just a matter of energy and brain function. I also watched some videos for research for other projects (and for the book, too), and stumbled across a marvelous documentary about the Manchac Swamp and the so-called curse of Aunt Julia Brown. As you may or may not remember, the “curse” also involves the complete destruction of the isolated swamp town, Frenier, where she lived, by the Hurricane of 1915. (It also wiped out Manila Village and the Filipino settlements on the shores of Barataria Bay and Lake Borgne.) I’ve always wanted to write about the hurricane and Julia Brown–as well as the Filipino immigrant settlements, and it occurred to me after watching this documentary (which also talked about the destruction of the cypress forests in the swamp, which has also severely damaged the swamp ecosystem), and as we all know, I’ve been thinking about writing an environmental thriller set down here. Why not about the Manchac Swamp and some murders?
Why not, indeed.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday filled with love and laughter and relaxation, and I will be back on the morrow.
Monday morning and back to the office. I didn’t want to get up this morning–not really a surprise there, after a holiday weekend–and even now as I sit here with my coffee and can feel my mind and body coming back to life, my body really wants to go back to bed. This week will be my first regular work week in a while–four days in the office and one at home–so I imagine I will be dragging come Thursday morning. I did get some more work on the apartment done yesterday–the difference in the apartment is actually pretty amazing–but had some fatigue. I made groceries in the morning and came home to just kind of collapse and relax. I went down some research holes on Youtube (Louisiana bridges; the story of how New Orleans’ bridges were built and funded should also be a book; some of the nation’s longest bridges are in Louisiana; the top three, in fact–the Causeway, Atchafalaya swamp basin, and Manchac swamp bridge–all are in the New Orleans area) and then scribbled the rest of the evening in my journal. We started watching an odd show called Outer Range with Josh Brolin and Lili Taylor, which is different and interesting and very well filmed, and then I went to bed early.
Today is also usually my Admin day but I am in clinic this morning and afternoon, so I kind of had let some things slide to do today but I also found out late Thursday that I would be in clinic, so I am very behind and will be trying to get caught up around clients all morning. I am also trying very hard not to get stressed about it–it is what it is and it will get done at some point–and I also have some emails to answer. And it’s fine; I’ll get everything done like I always do, and not going to let anything get to me today. I slept really well last night, and now I am waking up completely. (I love when my body shifts from “want to go back to sleep” to “waking up and feeling rested”.) I’m also trying to spend less time on social media–primarily because it isn’t fun any more, and hasn’t been in a long time; it’s just another habit that needs to be broken. I need to resist the urge to waste time there “just to check in” and spend that time more productively. The precipitous decline in emails that need to be answered has been delightful, even if it still catches me off-guard, as does the amount of free time I now have.
It occurred to me last night that I dealt with my stress of the last decade or so in about the same way that I always did in the past–by taking on too much of a load so I don’t have time to focus on being sad or worried about things or concerned. The primary problem with that is I’ve slowed down some, and can’t keep up the way I used to be able to do. So, in order not to face unpleasant realities and keep myself occupied I replaced worry and sadness with stress and overwork. This time I finally burned myself out in a way I had never experienced before–the COVID in the summer of 2022 that basically wiped my short term memory and left it permanently on the blink also didn’t help matters any, either. The last two years or so have been so much stress and depression and sadness and fear (the surgery terrified me, as did the recovery process) that my memory and brain couldn’t really recover, and I went back into strictly survival mode–“just get through the day/week/month”–and I am now finally coming out of it at long last, and it’s been so long since I’ve not been buried in work and projects and things that I am having a difficult (but nice) time getting acclimated to my life again.
I also am resisting the urge to say yes to everything because I have free time, and if I have free time that means I’m wasting time….it isn’t the best way to have your brain wired, really. I would much rather waste time than spend the rest of my life worried about running out of it, to be honest. But like I said, I really went into a deep dive on the book last night in my journal, getting to the heart and core of my main character and why the experiences he is about to have are going to happen and how it changes him, who he is going to become. I think that’s important, and it’s something I always forget when I am writing a non-series book; I don’t have to really go into a lot of detail about who Scotty and the boys are; and with a non-series book I have to remember it must be written differently and the plan has to be completely different. (I do worry that this is more busy-work to do so I don’t have to write, but that’s always going to be something I wonder about, and no, this was incredibly productive because I am starting to get a grasp on who my character is and what he wants and why he is where he is in his life…)
And on that note, I’d better start getting ready for work and my not-Admin day. Have a great one, Constant Reader, and I may be back later; one never knows. It depends on how busy we are and if I can get caught up on my work or not. We shall see.
Tuesday and feeling a bit better after the wasted weekend (I wasn’t wasted, but rather wasted the weekend; but I need to stop looking at it that way and realize both my body and my brain wanted, and needed, rest). I wrote another chapter last night and am back into the book; here’s hoping it will last and I’ll keep writing as more time passes. The work wasn’t great, but it’s done and it’s fixable. This weekend I am going to have to really dive into things for sure, and I am hoping this week I’ll be able to keep up with the kitchen and everything else so I don’t have to spend a lot of time doing that this weekend and instead can dive headfirst into writing and reading.
I stopped to pick up a few things on the way home from the grocery store last night, and then once I was home I emptied the dishwasher, bonded with Sparky a bit, and then sat down to work. Sparky wasn’t especially fond of this idea–he’s not fond of anything I do that doesn’t involve either providing a lap for him to sleep in, filling his food bowl, or playing with him. I do think we’re going to have to make a Costco run this weekend at some point–we’re running low on some things–and there are some other things I need to order for delivery this weekend, too.
But I am happy I am writing again. I’m sorry I didn’t have the time or energy to edit “Passenger to Franklin,” which I was writing for the Chessies chapter’s next anthology; but it wasn’t ready to be submitted and had I done so, it would have been rejected anyway. The nice thing is this anthology–themed around urban legends–provided two short stories for me–“When I Die” and this one; both of which need editing, and both of which I think are going to be terrific stories and perfect for my collection, too. I have found the voice for “Passenger,” which was missing in the first draft, and “When I Die” needs to be revised so I can make the main character gay; it works better that way, especially with an unrequited crush on his wealthier roommate. I like the idea of them visiting the graveyard at Frenier as kind of a fraternity prank; the rich roommate thinks it might be a fun thing to do to all the pledges, and the one they take out with them into the Manchac Swamp is a pledge who looks up to both of them, in a smarmy way the main character doesn’t necessarily like–and we see a personality change come over him as they cruise through the swamp at night. (I also need to look up boats, and sometime I have to drive out to Laplace so I can take the old highway and see what that’s like so I can write about it some more. The college and town I am writing about on the North Shore is fictional, of course; but Frenier and the swamp are real.
And both legalizing cannabis and protecting abortion are now on the ballot in Florida, which makes me absolutely giddy with joy. This is very good news for the Democratic Party and really bad news for trash like DeSantis and that ghoul Rick Scott; I would hope it means a huge turnout which always is bad news for Republicans–that’s why they are always screaming about “voter fraud” and trying to suppress people’s right to vote; free and open elections generally aren’t good for Fascists.
After I got my word count for the day, Paul and I settled in and started watching Apples Never Fall, which we are really enjoying. It’s based on a book by Liane Moriarty (also the author of Big Little Lies and a few others; I’ve enjoyed everything of hers that I’ve read thus far) and I like how this is playing out so far. It’s so nice having Paul home in the evenings again–I’d forgotten how much I just enjoy our down time together in the evenings.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Tuesday, Constant Reader, and I may be back again later; one never knows.
Wednesday pay-the-bills day, and I am a bit groggy this morning, but that’s okay, really. I slept well and didn’t want to get up, and there’s nothing wrong with that (why I’ve always felt like not wanting to get out of bed in the morning makes me a lazy slug is something else I clearly need to work on). But the weekend draws nigh, which is always a lovely thing, and of course…parades. Yes, the parades start this weekend, with three on Friday night, six (!!!) on Saturday, and another three on Sunday. It’s also supposed to rain all weekend, so I don’t know how much time I will actually spend out at the corner this weekend risking getting sick and/or tired. I was also very tired last night, to the point that I really didn’t do much of anything once I got home from work yesterday afternoon. I didn’t do any chores, I didn’t run any errands, and I didn’t get the mail.
I did work on the story more and it’s starting to take a better shape than the mess that it originally was. I’m not certain why it’s taking me so long to get this draft finished, but I am instead going to think of it in terms of your writing muscles are as rusty as your actual muscles and so yes, they need to be used a bit more so I can get back into the swing of using those muscles every day. I really should think about writing now as writing therapy; the same mindset as my physical therapy. I am slowly but surely getting back into the spirit of writing after a deeply traumatic year, and the more I do it, the stronger and more lithe those muscles will get–and the less warm-up they will need. Having so many of the conflicting voices in my head stilled at long last also helps me with the focus and stuff; the problem is the lack of use and working out the kinks and the doubts. I think the story is going to make better sense and be much stronger than it was going to originally be in this draft version, and I did think about it a lot last night, too. I have always had a powerful imagination, and so last night I was using it to imagine what it would feel like out in the Manchac Swamp on a night in early October–and the kinds of risks college students will take that older people probably wouldn’t. If it weren’t for the parades–and maybe after the season is over I can do this–I should drive out to the swamp and check it out; there are a lot of places around New Orleans and in Louisiana in general that I really should go visit and experience.
Time, and exhaustion, is always such an issue. I do remember driving somewhere–I’m not sure where or why–that required me to cross the lake to Slidell on my way; I was writing something that required me to take a look at that far reach of New Orleans east that heads out to the bridge over the Rigolets, and so I detoured on my way to get a good look. (I also used that visit to base a scene in Royal Street Reveillon on as well; two for the price of one!) I’ve also noticed that, now that I have take up my proverbial quill again, my process of writing is a little different than it used to be; again, rusty out of use muscles might have something to do with it, but it could also be a change, who knows? My process has evolved and changed so much since Ye Olden Days when I first starting treating writing as a job and a vocation as opposed to a dream. (It’s also why I hate process questions, mine is rarely ever the same, especially when it comes to writing short stories.) I do like this story and like where it’s going; I really like the idea of my four unsuspecting, slightly drunk and high college students out visiting a supposedly haunted location in the Manchac Swamp (putting some of those New Orleans-area history wormholes I’ve gone down since the pandemic started) and I think it could be a terrific (if macabre) little story. And it’s something I am actually writing, not something I’m just thinking about. The story will probably always be special to me for being the first thing I wrote and finished after the surgery.
I’ve also been watching, with no small amount of amusement, as the right wing anger cancellation machine (you know, the thing they bitch about from the left while doing themselves because they are nothing if not the biggest hypocritical pieces of shit in recent American and world history) has decided to come for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. I have enjoyed so many cruel laughs at their expense over the last few months! Why stop there? Why not come for Beyonce, too? They never learn, do they? Their refusal to look at factual history–even factual recent history–showed itself when Ron DeSantis chose to follow the Southern Baptist playbook and come for Disney to bolster his dead-before-it-started presidential campaign? The Mouse isundefeated, and remains undefeated. Taylor Swift is the biggest pop culture star in the world right now whose fans absolutely worship her–and her fans are of all ages, and they protect her from scavenging low-life scum whenever and wherever someone tries to come for her. The irony that this romance is actually the culmination of every Taylor Swift longing teenaged love songs–she’s dating the star football player AT LAST–does not Fox or Newsmax in their quest to humble Taylor Swift, who is laughing at them as she sits on her piles of gold and the love and admiration of millions around the globe. I wouldn’t call myself a Swiftie1–I do like her music, and listen to it occasionally, but it’s not my go-to–but I do admire her as an artist, a businesswoman, and a person. She stands up for the underprivileged, she supports queer people and queer rights, and above all else she fights misogyny (which a lot of the right-wing hate is predicated upon) whenever she encounters it, calls it out, and is not afraid to go to court to fight it, either. The way she outsmarted the douche who bought her original masters deserves a five minute standing ovation.
I may not know a lot about Ms. Swift, but I do know better than to fuck with her or activate her fans. And frankly, the profas (if the the left is antifa, then it stands to reason that their position makes the right profa, right?) are soooo stupid and blindly wrapped up in their cult of Golden Calf worship that their rage makes me like her all the more. I listened to her Red album in the car on my way home from the office yesterday and it’s still a banger (“Red” is my favorite Swift song, don’t @ me), and I’ll probably be listening to more of her music in the coming days as well. I also love that the derangement extends to rooting against the Kansas City Chiefs in the upcoming Super Bowl–which means they have to root for San Francisco.
(laughs evilly in gay.)
And on that note, I need to head into the spice mines and start paying the bills. Have a lovely Wednesday and you never know–I may pop in again later.
Although I did start writing an essay during the pandemic that I called “A Sixty-Year Old Swiftie.” ↩︎
Wednesday morning in the Lost Apartment, where it is a staggering 39 degrees outside. Brrr! But I slept pretty well (even if I didn’t want to get up), and my mind is slowly but surely coming back to life. Yesterday wasn’t a bad day at all, but I was out of sorts and off-track for pretty much the entire day, because my routine was disrupted when I got to work and so…yeah. I did run my errands on the way home from work last night and got home to a needy Sparky, so I had to spend some time playing with him and then transformed my lap into a cat bed for a little while. Tomorrow morning I have to get up super-early for PT–which I am not looking forward to, and of course there’s a department meeting on Friday morning, that I think I’ll go into the office for despite it being my at-home day and having the ability to call in for it. I have some on-line events Saturday for the January Bold Strokes bookathon, which I should post more about, and then the rest of the weekend is mine.
I did some more research into a story I am writing last night, and yes, I actually started writing the story. I’m writing about Julia Brown, the “witch” of Manchac Swamp who worked as the healer in a small town inside the swamp and along the lake shore, which was only accessible by railroad. Frenier was a small community, and it was completely destroyed by the 1915 hurricane; all that is left of it is the cemetery and it’s only accessible by boat now. I’ve always wanted to write about the 1915 hurricane since I first learned of it–it came up when I was down a rabbit-hole about the Filipino settlements on Lake Borgne, which were also destroyed in the 1915 hurricane, which led me to reading about Frenier, and the so-called curse of Aunt Julia Brown. (I do wish I’d known about all this before I wrote a Sherlock story set in 1916; no mention of the previous year’s destruction in that story is odd but maybe unnecessary; it didn’t impact the plot of the story at all, but…if I set another Sherlock story in that same time period I need to address that elephant in the room.)
I also went down another research wormhole last night, too–inspired by Mary & George–about George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and his close relationship not only with James I but with his son, Charles I…although the relationship between Villiers and Charles I wasn’t quite the same kind of erotic friendship as Villiers enjoyed with the senior Stuart. Buckingham was also one of the real historical figures that appeared in Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, which I still want to retell one day from the point of view of Milady deWinter. It’s such a fascinating period, really, and the clothes! MonDieu, the clothes! I’ve always been fascinated by Cardinal Richelieu, and really need to get over my fear of writing about a historical period and just buckle down and write that damned book, don’t I? Sigh. I also need to get back to both Chlorine and Muscles, too.
Heavy heaving sigh.
But I am also starting to feel like I am settling back into my normal, every day life, and I feel better than I have in years. That cloudy feeling in my brain seems to be gone, and I am adapting to getting back up early in the morning without much hassle; I suspect the sleeping pills are working their magic and sending me into a deep healthy sleep every night, which pays off in being both awake and lucid in the morning. I’ve also got some blog entries to finish writing–my thoughts on Saltburn, because I know everyone is just waiting to hear what I have to say about it, and some analysis of the most recent chapter of the graphic novel Heartstopper, both of which are destined to be queer cultural artifacts.
And I hope to finish reading Tara Laskowski’s The Weekend Retreat before the weekend, too. I should have spent some time with it last night, but it was after six when I got home and by the time I was finished with putting stuff away and quality Sparky time and writing, it was later and so I just went down the Villiers wormhole. I also watched the final episode of season 2 of War of the Worlds, and am officially tapping out now. Not only was the shark jumped, the story became preposterous. I thought it might be a bit more interesting and intriguing once I realized the direction they were going in, but no. I also forgot part one of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City was airing last night, so I’ll be catching up on that tonight after reading. I get to go straight home from the office tonight, so fingers crossed that I’ll get some good reading time in before I shut my mind off and dig into some reality television.
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely Wednesday, Constant Reader, and who knows? I may be back later.
It’s probably hard to imagine what Southern Decadence is like unless you’ve actually been to it; even the hundreds of pictures I’ve taken and shared on social media over the years can’t even remotely begin to get the concept of what it’s like across–the same as Carnival, really; it has to be seen and experienced to be truly understood. My first Southern Decadence was in 1995, which was around the twenty-second or third time it was held; my knowledge of Decadence, primarily from urban legend and tales told from one gay to another and passed down over the years, is sketchy and probably untrustworthy (if you’d like the unvarnished truth and read about the history, I highly recommendSouthern Decadence in New Orleans from LSU Press, co-written by Frank Perez and Howard Philips Smith; I have a copy and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Alas, my memory isn’t what it used to be, but the story is it began as a bar crawl for a friend who was moving away, and grew from those humble beginnings into a massive event that draws queers from all over the world).
That first Decadence I came to was also one of the hottest, temperature wise, or perhaps it was simply because I wasn’t used to the summers in New Orleans yet since I didn’t live here. I just remember being in Oz one afternoon and just soaked in my own sweat, and going down the back staircase from the second floor–the staircase that opens out onto the dance floor–and having to hold onto the railing because the steps were slick and wet. The railing was also wet, and when I touched the walls so were they–all the humidity and body heat and sweat–but at the same time it was so much fun. Gorgeous, flirty and friendly men everywhere, everyone scantily dressed and getting wasted and just having a good time. This was during the height of the circuit parties, most of which have died off over the years–there’s no longer a Hotlanta weekend in Atlanta in mid-August anymore, for example–but back then, it seemed like every month if you had the time and the money there was a circuit party somewhere you could fly off to and be yourself and have fun being in an entirely gay environment for a few days. That was, for me, one of the primary appeals of circuit parties and gay bars–they were safe havens for everyone to be out and proud and loud…and after a few weeks navigating the straight world for work and play and life in general…it was lovely to let loose in, for want of a better word, a safe space.
Circuit parties also had their downsides, don’t get me wrong–Michelangelo Signorile detailed some of those in his book Life Outside, which got taken out of context an awful lot–drug use and rampant sex and bad choices also led to other problems, not to mention the spread of HIV and other STI’s; the very first time I ever went to a circuit party–Halloween in New Orleans, 1995–there was a very Masque of the Red Death feel to it; here were all these gay men crowded into a riverfront warehouse, doing drugs and dancing and having a great time while the plague raged outside the doors. I even wrote about that in my diary on the flight back to Tampa a few days later.
But Decadence was always my favorite, out of all of them, and it was something I looked forward to every year. My workouts were always planned so I would hit peak physical condition for Decadence and maintain through Halloween, before starting to work on the Carnival body. It feels weird to talk about it that way, but that was my mentality and my schedule for years. Bulk up for a couple of months, then lean down leading into the event.
I had always wanted to write about Southern Decadence, and I know I’ve written about how I came up with the idea for the book numerous times; standing on the balcony at the Pub watching one of the strippers fight his way through the mob of gay men to get to the Pub so he could work, Paul saying you really should write a book about Southern Decadence and seeing a scene vividly in my head as I looked down at the sea of sweating gay men. I’ve also written about where the idea for the character and his family came from. So what is there left for me to say about Bourbon Street Blues?
The new cover for the ebook edition.
The name’s Dansoir. Dick Dansoir.
Okay, so that really isn’t my name. It’s my stage name from the days when I was on the go-go boy circuit. I started when I was in college, at Vanderbilt up in Nashville. As with almost everything that goes on in my life, I became a go-go boy on a fluke. The Goddess brings interesting experiences into my life all the time. Sometimes I don’t think it’s all that great, to tell the truth, but she always seems to be watching out for me.
I was working out at my gym one day when this guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to make some easy money.
Like I hadn’t heard that one before.
I was twenty-one at the time, just turned, but I wasn’t some wide-eyed dopey innocent. I was raised in the French Quarter, after all, and by the time I went off to college at age eighteen I had pretty much seen everything. French Quarter kids have a lot more life experience than other kids their age. You can’t really help it. The French Quarter is like Disneyland for adults, and growing up there, you get used to seeing things that other people can only imagine.
Anyway, this guy said he was a booking agent and scout for this agency that booked dancers in gay bars throughout the deep South. The troupe was called Southern Knights.
“You can make a lot of money this way,” he said to me above the sounds of people grunting and weights clanging. “You’ve got the look we like.”
I looked at myself in one of the mirrors that are everywhere in gyms. I was wearing a white tank top and a pair of black nylon jogging shorts. I was pumped up from lifting, and if I did say so myself, I looked pretty good. I’m only about five-eight—nine if I have thick-soled shoes on. I have curly blond hair that’s darker underneath. The sun does lighten it, but that darkness underneath always makes people think I dye it. I don’t. I have big, round brown eyes. I am also one of those blonds lucky enough to be able to tan. I’d gotten a good tan that summer and it hadn’t faded yet. The white tank top showed the tan off nicely. I also have a high metabolism and can stay lean rather easily.
But scam artists are everywhere. I wasn’t about to fall for a line from some stranger in the gym. For all I knew, it was a trick to get my phone number, or an escort service, or something else I didn’t want to be involved in.
Not that I have anything against escorting. People go to escorts for all kinds of reasons—loneliness, fear of commitment, whatever—but they do fulfill a need in the gay community, and more power to them. I just never saw myself taking money from someone for having sex. I like sex. I enjoy it. So, it just never seemed right for me to tale money for doing something I like.
Besides, taking money for it would make it work. I prefer to keep my status amateur.
I got a copy of the book out yesterday and skimmed/read it again, to get another look and remind myself of Scotty’s roots and beginning. I realized yesterday, as I turned the pages of an ARC (yes, I still have ARC copies of Bourbon Street Blues available), several things: one, that the reason I always hate reading my own work is because my brain is trained to read my work editorially, to fix and edit and correct and look for things needing to be fixed (and I can always find something) and that second, it’s really been so long since the last time I looked at this book–or any of the earlier Scottys–was four years ago, when I was writing Royal Street Reveillon. So, by making the obvious effort to flip the editorial switch off, and having so much distance from the book that it almost seemed like something new to me, I was able to skim/read the entire thing without wincing in horror or pain or embarrassment.
The original cover, which always makes me smile.
Bourbon Street Blues was also the last novel I wrote that didn’t have an epigram of any kind, let alone Tennessee Williams: I started that practice with Jackson Square Jazz with a line from Orpheus Descending: “A good-looking boy like you is always wanted.”
Reading the book took me back to the days when I was writing it. The Greg who wrote Bourbon Street Blues is still here, I’ve just been through quite a bit since then and have changed because of my experiences. There were some sentences in the book I would change now to make better, but there are still some jewels in there, and well, I can kind of understand now why the character is so well-liked. He’s charming and humble and kind; sure he talks about “being irresistible” a lot, but that’s part of the charm. Guys find him attractive. He doesn’t necessarily see it, but is more than willing to accept it and not question it. He enjoys his sexuality and he enjoys having sex. I wanted Scotty to be unabashedly sexual and to have no hang-ups, carrying no stress or issues about being a very sexual gay man.
As I read the book again, I also started seeing something that had been pointed out to me over the years a lot–and began to understand why this was pointed out to me so much; an old dog can learn new tricks, apparently–but I still think other people are wrong. The book isn’t “all about sex,’ as some have said. Rather, Scotty sexualizes men; he sees them as potential partners and appreciates beauty in men. His friend David also loves to get laid, so they cruise a lot–whether they are at the gym (either the weight room or the locker room), a bar, wherever they are–and so people get the idea that the book itself is incredibly sexual, even though there is literally only one sex scene in the entire book and it’s not graphic; Scotty’s weird mish-mash of spirituality and beliefs and values make the act itself a sacred ritual, and that was how I wrote the scene; from a spiritual, commune-with-the-Goddess perspective. It’s also funny in that people are so not used to seeing world through the Gay Male Gaze that it’s jarring, and puts sex and sexuality into the minds of the reader.
The question is, would people think the same if this was done through the Straight Male Gaze, in which women are sexualized? Since this is the default of our society–literature, film, television–is flipping the script to show the Gay Male Gaze so uncommon and so unheard of that it triggers such a reaction from some of the readers?
There’s also so much innocence in the book, and it’s also interesting to see it as a kind of time-capsule: Scotty doesn’t have a computer; his rent (on Decatur Street in the Quarter, with a balcony) is $450 a month (ha ha ha ha, that’s what the condo fee would be now monthly); and he also doesn’t have a cell phone. The whole point of the book was to do a Hitchcockian wrong place/wrong time now you’re in danger kind of story; and that is precisely what Bourbon Street Blues is. I’d forgotten that one of the running gags in the book is that he never gets a chance to sleep much throughout the story so he’s tired all the time and just wants it all to be over so he can go to bed.
Another thing that’s dated: even in 2002, in my naïveté and innocence, the evil politician running for governor–when described by Scotty’s brother Storm as problematic–even he doesn’t support an outright ban on abortion–he wants to ban it but with the rape, incest and health exceptions.
Even in 2002 I couldn’t conceive of anyone running for statewide office calling for an outright ban on abortion.
How things change.
It was also interesting that I got two things very wrong in the book, too: for one, I was thinking for some reason the swamp on the edges of Lake Pontchartrain on the way to Baton Rouge on I-10 was the Atchafalaya (it’s the Manchac/Maurepas), and while I had always remembered I’d given Scotty’s mom a name in this book but forgotten it later when I needed a name for her in a different book–I had the name wrong. I thought I’d called her Marguerite in Bourbon Street Blues then named her Cecile in a later book; I had actually called her Isabelle. (I’ve even told that story–about the names–before on panels and been WRONG ALL THIS TIME!)
It was also interesting and fun to remember–as I read–that Scotty was also not looking for a boyfriend. He was perfectly happy and content being single (which was also something important I wanted to write about–a gay man who didn’t care about finding a life-partner, figuring if it was meant to be it would happen). I also presented him with two potential love interests–Colin the cat burglar and Frank the hot daddy–with that actually being resolved without him having to make a choice between them. I also had the book end with Scotty being slowly persuaded into becoming a private eye.
Originally I had conceived it as a stand alone novel, but the publisher offered me a two-book contract, so when I was writing Bourbon Street Blues I knew there was going to be a sequel. This freed me to leave some personal things open for him; I knew I was going to bring Colin back in the next book so he was going to have to choose between them, and I also knew the personal story needed to be wrapped up by the end of the third book, which was going to be the end of the series with everything resolved. That changed when I wrote Mardi Gras Mambo, but that’s a story for another time.
Bottom line: it’s a good book and I am proud of it. It’s only available now as an ebook from Amazon, but I hope to eventually make it available through every service as well as get a print-on-demand version for those who might want one.
Thursday! Somehow we have managed to make it to Thursday, Constant Reader, which is definitely something to cheer about. Huzzah! This week has been a bit challenging, but I feel pretty good today (yesterday was one of those I slept well but never seemed to completely wake up days, which are getting harder and harder to deal with); I slept decently and I feel like I’m awake this morning, which is better than yesterday at any rate. I ran some errands on my way home from work last night, and then was tired. Paul was working on a grant so I just sat in my easy chair with my journal, trying to outline some projects that are currently in progress and get a stronger idea on where to go with the stories.
I’m not going to try to write that story whose deadline is the end of this month. As deep a wormhole as I’ve gotten into for the lost town of Freniere in the Manchac Swamp and Julia Brown the witch–which I am definitely going to write about at some time–I still don’t have an idea for a story, and I have another anthology I want to write something for by the end of the year that’s going to need some serious thought and consideration. The other contributors are very impressive names–it’s going to be another one of those one of these things is not like the other or why am I up here with these people? I was thinking about this same thing last night as I was telling Paul about my Bouchercon panels–in almost every case, I was thinking, what am I doing on these panels with these incredibly smart and talented people? Oh, well, the audience will be there for the other people and I’ll just be sitting up there, afraid to say anything for fear of proving that I don’t belong up there.
Ah, Imposter Syndrome. Such a delight at all times. Woo-hoo!
But as this month continues to slip through my fingers and everything I have to do continues to pile up with more and more things for me that I need to do–triage triage triage–and I am making a to-do list to try to make sure nothing gets overlooked or slips through the cracks. That’s always my fear; not that I won’t get everything done in a timely manner, but that I’ll forget something if I don’t write it down. That terrifies me. But I am pretty happy that I got a rough start to the Scotty book, have gotten some other things done, and am really hopeful that I’ll get to finish reading my book this weekend.
I continue to be endlessly fascinated by the Great Hurricane of 1915–in no small part because I wrote a New Orleans story set in 1916 (“The Affair of the Purloined Rentboy”) that makes no mention of it at all. This is one of the pitfalls of writing historical fiction–I am not an expert on New Orleans history and it never occurred to me to check to see what the hurricane situation in the preceding years was. On the other hand, I have read some New Orleans history for that period and NO ONE mentions the Great Hurricane of 1915. NO ONE. And considering it wiped some towns off the map (Ruddock and Freniere, in the Manchac Swamp), you’d think it would have merited a mention in some of these Storyville/French Quarter histories? It was a Category 3 or 4, so it had to have done some serious damage in New Orleans, and in the fall of 1916 the city would have still been rebuilding, one would think. Anyway, I picked a book on the hurricane from the library yesterday which I will also peruse this weekend to try to figure out how I want to write my story “When We Die” (yes, I already have a title for the story, I just don’t know how it’s going to go or what it’s going to be about or if it will even ever turn into anything…but now I also want to write a Sherlock Holmes story involving a hurricane….this is why, in case you were wondering, it’s so hard for me to get shit done because other ideas are always crowding their way into the front of my brain which is really annoying….)
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Happy Friday Eve, Constant Reader!
Wednesday and the middle of the week, such as it is.
I managed to get all my errands run yesterday in a relatively short period of time, and then once I got home managed to finish Chapter One of Mississippi River Mischief, which was a delightful turn of events. It always feels good once the first chapter is finished, and for some reason, this was one was harder than most to get started and finished. I’m not sure if the chapter will stand as written, either–I may want to reshuffle some things around and maybe this isn’t the best place to start the book–but it’s a start that I am glad to have made, at any rate. It never feels real until that first chapter–messy and sloppy and choppy as it is in its pacing–is written. Now I can say I’ve actually started writing the book–even though I’ve been working on it inside my head for quite some time now.
I slept very well last night–I don’t think I even woke up once in the middle of the night, or my sleep was so deep and restful that I don’t remember waking up in the middle of the night, and I’ll take either one, quite frankly. I feel very well rested this morning in general–physically and mentally and spiritually–which is always a nice way to start the day; yesterday I was crabby and irritated from having to get up so early, so while I really didn’t want to get up this morning either, at least I’m feeling mellow about having to get up and go to work this morning. I have a lot to do today as always; I can’t imagine what it will feel like to get up in the morning and not have a lot of things to do, frankly. On the one hand it sounds lovely, but on the other it would make me wonder why I would have so little or nothing to do; does that mean my writing career is over, for example? I can see it either way, to be honest. I think it would be a relief to not have to make a to-do list or spend the day trying to squeeze in everything that needs to be done…I am just going to come home right after work today–the errands (mail, grocery store, etc.) can wait until tomorrow, quite frankly–although I will be out of blackberries for tomorrow morning, but should I go ahead and stop on the way home tonight or put it off until tomorrow or what? I’ll probably decide at the end of my shift today…see how I feel as the time on my workday runs out.
It’s going to be another wet Wednesday in New Orleans; thunderstorms all day with a possibility of flash flooding–which, let’s face it, will play a part in my decision as to whether to just run straight home or potentially stop somewhere for blackberries and a few other things; I don’t like running errands when streets are filled with water. It’s supposed to be like this mostly for the next five days, really; and there’s a tropical system forming out there in the east Atlantic. Ah, August, how much fun are you always in New Orleans?
I’m also curious as to what is going to happen with Southern Decadence this year, given the new COVID variants and the rise of the monkey pox. We aren’t doing condom distribution this year, which feels very strange and weird, but we have had lube on back order for well over a year now so we don’t have everything we need to make condom packs anymore, either. Who knew that lube would be one of the things we’d have supply chain issues with during a pandemic? I’ve also been thinking about Decadence a lot, obviously, because I am writing another Scotty and am trying to slowly revisit the entire series to get reacquainted with his world and community. I also have been thinking about this story I want to write about Julia Brown and the Manchac Swamp–which is also tied into the new Scotty book–and while I was in the shower this morning I started thinking about a potential story for an anthology I’d like to submit to, but probably won’t have the time to write anything for–stories based on Alice Cooper songs, and I have one in mind already; nothing that’s already been started and can just be renamed, of course but rather something that has to start from scratch and I’m not sure if I have the bandwidth to write anything else at the moment.
Right? I say that…
But then of course it will bother me, like a loose tooth I can’t stop worrying with my tongue, and then I will break down and write the damned thing. Well I just looked up the submission call and the stories have to be turned in by August 31, so I most likely will not be writing anything for it, but it’s horror, not crime, which means the dark and twisted idea that I had could potentially work after all. Hmmm. A conundrum, to be sure. I was thinking some dark and nasty and suburban…yes, maybe I can play with the idea a bit today between clients and see what is actually possible here. What can it hurt?
And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely middle of the week Wednesday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
Tuesday morning and it’s back to the office with me today. Hurray!
I really didn’t want to get up this morning–what else is new–but I could easily crawl back underneath the covers and go right back to sleep. But that isn’t possible, so I sit here and swill my coffee and try to wake up completely so I can get ready for work. Yesterday was a decent day of working at home duties and feeling rested; when I was finished for the day I did work on the new Scotty a little bit, and also did a little more research about Julia Brown, the witch of Manchac Swamp whose entire town was wiped out by the hurricane of 1915 (which has caused a bit of an issue for my Sherlock Holmes story, which was set in 1916 and never mentions the hurricane of the previous year; one would assume the city was still rebuilding at the time of that story, but I guess the lack of mention can be explained away easily enough if i put my mind to it–not that anyone will ever notice or say anything, naturally). After finishing work for the day entirely and moving to my easy chair, we watched the new episodes of The Anarchist and Loot, before starting season three of Who Killed Sara? I have a lot of errands to run after work tonight–prescriptions, the mail, and picking up library books–which is fine; there’s an easy pattern of driving I can follow to get it all done relatively easily and quickly, but the primary issue is that I probably won’t want to do any of those errands once I get off from work today.
Most likely not. But they need to be run, and I might as well get it all over with at once, don’t you think?
I concur.
My birthday is coming up, sooner than I would like–this month is just flying past, which is partly due to me trying to get through the work week as quickly as possible every week; as I’ve said before, doing this is wishing my life away, but what can I say? I vastly prefer the days when I don’t have to come to work than the ones where I do, sue me. Retirement–a mere four years in my future–looks to be more and more enticing all the time; however, I also don’t want the next four years to just blow by, either, so no more of this wishing my life away stuff; I need to focus on each day and squeezing as much worth and value out of every day that I can. I am very excited about working on the new Scotty book and whipping it into shape; making a story come together out of the amorphous nether regions is always kind of fun for me (no matter how much I bitch and/or complain about it) and of course, I find myself once again writing a book during football season–heavy heaving sigh, one day you’d think I would learn–but there’s also no telling what this season will be like for us LSU/Saints fans; both have new coaches and it’s kind of a new era for both teams; I find it highly unlikely, however, that LSU will have another season as bad as the last two, and of course last year’s Saints season was a total disaster. Can’t really complain though; Louisiana football fans have been terribly spoiled this entire century–LSU won three national titles, the Saints won the Super Bowl–so it was probably one of the best runs for Louisiana football in history, really.
The problem with this, of course, is that I really need to be doing some day trip exploring around the state for things I am writing. I really need to go into the river and bayou parishes and scope it out, get a sense of what it’s like there–the sights, sounds, smells, etc.–and if I am going to write about Julia Brown and the Manchac swamp, I kind of need to go have a look around there. I’ve written scenes in the Manchac Swamp before, but it’s been a hot minute since I explored around out there and I don’t trust my memory (which lies to me on a daily basis, the bastard)…and I also should drive around in the East a bit as well–taking pictures and so forth. But….if I can find the Saints on the radio, I can always listen to the game in the car as I drive around.
(I don’t care about missing the Saints games as much as I do the LSU games, honestly; I often will make groceries during the first half of a Saints game because the city turns into a ghost town.)
I also am really starting to like the Fresh Market on St. Charles. The fruit and vegetables are fresher than those at other markets; my blackberries, for example, don’t get moldy and fuzzy within two days when I get them from there. I also like the butcher counter–and in futzing around on their website yesterday I discovered that yes, I can indeed order for pick-up there as well. If I get this all under control relatively soon, I can get to the point where I never have to set foot inside a grocery store again…and I kind of like that idea.
And on that note I am going to head into the spice mines. It’s going to be a lengthy and hopefully productive day down here in the mines, and I will chat with you again tomorrow, Constant Reader.
I got up again before seven this morning–despite staying up an hour or so later last night than I usually do; I was waiting, hoping Paul would be coming home, but he didn’t get home again until after I went to bed. I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I would have liked because I got distracted by reading Kellye Garrett’s marvelous Like a Sister, and by the time I finished the book it was late afternoon and the tiredness I was feeling yesterday morning–I mentioned it, remember? I wasn’t as awake and alert as I had been the day before–I decided to just kick back and relax for the rest of the day. I watched a lot of history documentaries on Youtube; watched a lot of news worried about Ukraine; and then last night I decided to watch The Drowning Pool, a 1970’s film version of Ross Macdonald’s book–with significant changes made to the book–moving it to Louisiana for one (more on this later). When the movie was finished I went to bed, and woke up early again this morning (body clock has reset, for good or ill). I have to make groceries this morning, as well as gas up the car (can’t wait to see how much gas costs today; but I am more than willing to pay more to save Ukrainian lives, frankly) and head home for some more editing work. I am going to work on my manuscript today; and I have a manuscript from Bold Strokes I need to get edited this week as well. Lots of heavy lifting to get done this week, but I think I can manage.
I also need to select my next book to read. I’ve narrowed it down some; the leading contenders include Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, The Twelve Jays of Christmas by Donna Andrews, The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr., and All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris. A plethora of treasures in my TBR pile, no? There’s also some short story collections and anthologies I want to start working my way through–not to mention a short story I need to write by the end of the month (see why I need lists?)–so I think once I get home from the grocery store I will most likely have to make this week’s to-do list. I also have some emails to write for sending tomorrow. But I don’t feel as paralyzed this morning as I usually am by a daunting pile of work that needs doing. We’ll see how I feel when I get home from the grocery store, though, I suppose. Usually dealing with the groceries wears me out and I am pretty much useless afterwards; I don’t know if that is actual physical or mental exhaustion or laziness settling in. I know that my energy levels have significantly decreased over the past pandemic years, and sometimes I do wonder if it’s maybe Long COVID; exhaustion and loss of energy seems to be one of its leading symptoms, and of course, both tend to trigger depression, which creates a massive downward spiral. But I keep testing negative for it, so what do I know?
So, The Drowning Pool starring Paul Newman as Lew Archer, renamed Lew Harper in the movie, and the location was moved from southern California to Louisiana for some reason. The movie is very cynical, so it definitely fits into my Cynical 70’s Film Festival, but it’s not a very good movie. (I’ve read the book, and while the family structure of the film seemed familiar, there’s a lot of significant diversion from the book.) One of my favorite parts of the movie is one of those things Louisiana/New Orleans people always point out in movies and television shows: the geography makes no sense. Harper is summoned to New Orleans by an old flame, whom he meets in a Royal Street antique shop for some reason. She doesn’t anyone to know she’s hired him, so why would you meet in the Quarter? The airport is in Kenner; why would you make him drive all the way into the heart of the city when you could have simply met him at a lounge or bar out near the airport, where they would be a lot more anonymity? Anyway, the old flame (Joanne Woodward, wasted in a role far beneath her talents) has gotten him a room at a motel in the small town she lives in, and she runs off, promising to be in touch…and here is the weird Louisiana geography part. He leaves the Quarter, takes the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain, eventually crossed the river in Baton Rouge, and then winds up somewhere in swampy Acadiana. That’s all fine…but why would you take the causeway to the north shore to get to Baton Rouge when I-10 heads directly there from New Orleans? He added at least another hour to his trip by crossing the lake. There’s another scene where he’s tracking someone down, following his girlfriend as she gets off the St. Charles streetcar, crosses the street, and enters a home. Harper later refers to the man’s “apartment in the French Quarter”–um, the streetcar doesn’t run through the Quarter, it didn’t in 1975, and it was clearly St. Charles Avenue (there are several more of these, in fact; the bayou area near the town was clearly filmed in the Manchac Swamp). The plot is convoluted and didn’t make a lot of sense–blackmail, Joanne Woodward’s husband is a closet case, someone has stolen an account book from a local oil baron’s company that exposes their pay-offs and bribes and other illegal activities–and Newman, while handsome and charming, doesn’t really put a lot of effort in the role. Your mileage might vary, of course, but I found it to be disappointing. The only thing about the film of note was very young Melanie Griffith playing Woodward’s nymphet teenage daughter…and I kept wondering how old IS she to be so sexualized in a film? But it was also the 1970’s…in catching up on the 1970’s films I’m constantly amazed at how much unnecessary nude scenes for women there are, or gratuitous sex scenes that add nothing to the plots in these films. But I also appreciate the grittier, more realistic if cynical point of view of the films; there’s nothing pretty or noble about humanity in these movies…which also kind of explains how “hopeful” movies like Rocky and Star Wars were so enormously successful during the latter part of the decade.
And on that note, i think I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again tomorrow.
Queer and Loathing in America 