How to do the wrong thing right
What’s the very luckiest trait to be born with? Great intelligence? Stunning beauty? Artistic talent? Or something more subtly admirable, perhaps — an indomitable spirit. Unbreakable religious faith. Dazzling wit. Perfect health. Sparkling vivaciousness. Or maybe even some diaphanously unique trait — the conviction of intuitiveness. The ability never to gossip. A will of iron-fistedness masquerading as diamond radiance.
Swell and lovely traits to be born with, all of them are; nonetheless, this trick question invariably always answers itself: ’tis better to be lucky than smart, better to be lucky than gorgeous, better to be lucky than talented. Naturally, everyone’s lucky some of the time, some are lucky lots of times, and a rare few are even born cradle-to-tomb lucky!
Hollywood, in particular, has forever been infatuated with the latter. Can any of my dear readers name the movie, and its gay icon actress, who delivered this following line so fragrant of magnolia blossoms and deadly nightshade? “I didn’t think about it much. If I had, I’d have known you’d die before I did. But I couldn’t have guessed you’d get heart trouble so early and so bad: I’m lucky, Horace. I’ve always been lucky. I’ll be lucky again.” (For those of you drawing a blank… well, my advice is to hightail it out of Dodge. With any luck, when the Black Maria pulls up at 4 a.m. to revoke your gay card, none of the awakened neighbors will have to lay witness to your awkward betrayal of your brethren.)
Yes, boys, it may indeed be the black-hearted, backend of October, but as holidays go, Halloween flickers frighteningly hollow this season; apparently, there’s not one interesting thing to say, or ask, about children knocking on the doors of perfect strangers asking for candy. The spookiest thing here of wonderment is what subterranean motives inspired these questions be penned at all? One flimsily attempts a bait-and-switch pity party for his giant schlong; another can’t even retain the mean streets’ horse-sense learned from a two-year-old’s first lick at a wall socket; and (scariest of all three questions!) one heretic heathen actually ridicules his obligatory worship at the altar of the Bette/Joan/Judy Holy Hollywood Trinity! I mean, come on now? Let’s just get clang, clang, clang, “What a dump!” went the happy trolley with a dozen pumpkin and four apple pies right to it.
Dear Howard: My husband, Mr. Walking Gay Cliché, himself, is addicted to the Davis/Crawford/Garland film repertoires—I mean, hardcore queen addiction. Like, say I scored 50-yard-line tickets to The Super Bowl, but TCM happened to be running yet one more triple-header of Meet Me in St. Louis, Beyond the Forest and Mildred Pierce. Guess whose two straight fathers-in-law would be “bonding” at front-row views to pro-cheerleaders’ fake titties as I slowly glaze over, for the 16th time, listening to Eve Harrington accept her Sarah Siddons Award? You think I’m kidding? Get this one. Just two days ago, I got in early from work only to discover missing from the garage’s back wall my vintage-original, unopened box of both Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia… metal bikini Princess Leia, at that! And what had poached away their prime placements, you ask? Some ridiculous, old plastic-sealed, rotted movie costume — probably one of Judy Garland’s wedding dresses, or some equally worthless “Golden Era” gown, with only a single provenance label, blurrily initialed with, “Hadrian/L.L.”, to which Jay taunted from the kitchen, colander in hand, “Just five years, is all. Five years from now we can retire on that dress, and with enough money left over for you to acquire every first edition Princess Leia ever made.” Question is, Howard, do I shoot him now, or wait ’til after he tells me where my sweet Leia is? — Anonymous
Dear Annoying: If your husband has what he says he does, then he’s lucked across the long-lost holy grail of movie gowns. More copies of it were sold than any other dress in history — a full million, in fact, and this at the height of The Great Depression. Macy’s of Herald Square, alone, during the spring/summer of ’32, sold 50,000 of them. This iconic gown — a billowy stiff, white-ruffled/whipped-cream organdy confection of silk chiffon (something permitted only MGM’s Adrian to daringly concoct) catapulted Joan Crawford into superstardom. Never was she more beautiful than in Letty Lynton, and never has the movie been shown since — not in any theater, not on television, not on DVD. Nothing. Nowhere. A vengefully successful 1936 plagiarism suit barred all subsequent viewings forever from the public domain, until the year 2025: Adrian’s original, fancifully-flounced organza sensation similarly vanished into puff of air, never to be seen since. Anon, just as your husband promised (the force be with him!) in but little more than five years’ time your dick will be rubbed, daily rawer, even than when you were 12, so thrillingly vast shall be your trophy hoard of Collectors’ Edition Leais — you lucky Jedi!
Dear Howard: I’m the unicorn of abstinent bottoms: Fate cursed me with something the size of a butane cannister between my legs (the six ounce kind — hardly the 3.61!). It’s the length of my femur! I’m the only bottom locked totally out my naturally given inclination within God’s gay butthole binary. No matter how much of a “total top only” some dude is pulling my pants zipper down, I’m instantly forced to top him. Always! But then I guess nobody ever said life was fair, right? — Hornless Toad
Dear Fried Frog’s Legs: Wrong! Nobody ever said that reverse-showboating becomes a harpy, horse-hung queen. That you insinuate somewhere out there exists a wretchedly miserable top saddled with always having to go just all-out-jackhammer using your misappropriated light switch — a drill zombie doomed to forever perform his best motion-of-the-ocean pyrotechnics with a toolbox promising him all the long-term potential bestowed a cha-cha queen met off Scruff? Yes, poor, poor miserably endowed you. I’m sure you can somehow figure out a way to pull that soapbox out from beneath your bed and stand on it — or, better yet, a sturdy crate of butane cannisters (the 6 oz. kind, not the 3.6). Not that it’s any of my business, Frogmore, but just whatever are you lighting up over there at your place anyhow to necessitate any butane cannister’s clean, yet super-intense heat? To my knowledge, their sole function is to refill hand-held torches grabbed from the headshop; and, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t everything “legally” smokable in Texas these days require all the complexity of a match? Junkie, get home, get some professional substance abuse help, and let’s maybe, say, revisit your Curse of The Tripod at a later, less cloudy date.
Dear Howard: My roommate tricks around a lot — like, every single night — then comes home with some little trinket or another that he didn’t own when he left. “Look what I just found?” he’ll grin, holding out a pair of gold cufflinks, a silver bracelet or once a genuine tortoiseshell shoehorn: “How lucky a find was that?” He’s beautiful, too — stomp down gorgeous. So I dunno if men just give him these things as gifts, or if he just sorta borrows them a little while, but the only explanation he ever offers me is, “Look what I just found?” Howard, am I rooming with just petty thief, a prostitute or a psychopath? — Avery
Dear Very Innocent Fool: Yes. And make certain to keep anything you personally own and treasure out of Mr. Finder’s- Keepers sightline: Dude, you’re rooming with someone who possesses all the morals and warmth of a saber tooth jack-o-lantern. What the hell’s wrong with you, anyhow? Is your last name Gump? This is Handbook for the Homosexual Kindergartener level stuff! Better wake the fuck up, Forrest, and start smellin’ the sociopathy — quickly! ’Cause it’s everywhere!
On a closing note to this orange-colored month, several sweet readers have inquired about the status of my ol’ orange hellcat, Boo: This time last year, I waxed wanly about having found an abandoned little orange kitten 18 years previous out on the torn-up train tracks (now called The Katy Trail) abutting my apartment — the only outside world Boo had ever known to exist since was whatever he could peer over and glimpse down upon from his soothing, sunshiny spot atop our balcony. Yet, now suddenly, in Boo’s dotage, we had to move temporarily.
“Temporary” be damned — any displacement rolls The Reaper’s dice when dealing with a 104-year-old housepet: diabetic, arthritic, deaf, blind and incontinent, was Boo ultimately coaxed, confusedly, into his carrier (with a little help from the Bumblebee tuna) one late October’s night last year, to our short-term digs and most certainly his ultimate demise: Adaptation is only for the young and the strong.
Well, the seasons have now come full-cycle again, my old apartment is glittering new again, and, indeed, there were lots of rough patches with more than a few iffy moments, but from his favorite balcony corner up in the sunshine of the only real world he’s ever known, some things that go “Boo!” in the night only force the dark go brighter — lookie, lookie, lucky orange came in! Have a happy Halloween, guys!
P.S. “Yes, I did it. Do you hear me? I’m glad I did it. You dirty, filthy, groveling mongrel! If I have to hang for it, I’m glad I did it!” — Letty Lynton, the first character in cinematic history permitted to murder minus comeuppance, to her former paramour just as she fatally poisons him.
— Howard Lewis Russell
Send your questions to AskHoward@dallasvoice.com.
