So it's Thanksgiving.  One of the things that Kerry and I have done for years is volunteer for / at God's Love We Deliver, followed by lunch and then usually a ridiculous dinner and a movie, leaving our own Turkey plans for Friday.  This year is no different.

However, today, children's television station "The Hub" was showing the three worst pieces of Muppet movie trash, "Muppet Treasure Island,"  "Muppets from Space," and "A Muppet Christmas Carol."  We were watching bits and pieces of them, mostly in anticipation of our annual Thanksgiving Night movie excursion, this time to see "The Muppets," Disney's attempt to reboot the franchise.

Now, a little bit of history and backstory.  I was born in 1973, which puts me smack in the target audience for "The Muppets."  I am right in the middle of generation X, saw "The Muppet Movie" in the theatres in 1979, danced as Kermit with a Miss Piggy in first grade to "The Rainbow Connection," and was young enough to experience the Muppets for the first time with a child's eyes.  I didn't understand the camp, the satire, the multiple layers until later, but I always understood that at the very heart of the, there was a message of hope, of creativity and of fitting in to the world around you while maintaining your individuality.   When I was 9, I drove my parents crazy to get me a Miss Piggy Puppet for Christmas, and then crazier trying to find hair accessories for it.  (Should i have known THEN that I was destined to be a drag queen? Probably.)  A singing Miss Piggy delivered balloons to the office where I was working the summer I turned 16.   I have ALWAYS cried at the finale of that first movie ("Life's like a movie/write your own ending/keep believing/keep pretending...").   One night about a dozen years ago, I met a new friend who immediately seemed like a soulmate. After several hours of conversation, I said to  him,  unironically, "There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met."  He got a look in his eyes and raced back to his bedroom and returned with the framed lyric from "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday," Gonzo's song which I had just quoted.

Needless to say, I have always felt a deep, deep connection to the Muppets.  When Jim Henson died, I was devastated, but never more so than the TV special several years later where the Muppets were looking for Kermit.  In the last moments of that special, he entered and spoke for the first time without Jim Henson's voice and i bawled like a baby.

Tonight sitting in the theatre watching "The Muppets" I was very glad that i had extra napkins, because I relied on them frequently:  When Kermits photo wall had a picture of him in Jim's arms;  when the cast started backing up Kermit and Piggy on an ensemble version of "Rainbow Connection,"  and just about a dozen other times.

I AM the target audience for "The Muppets."  The running theme of this movie involves trying to recapture the magic that the gang used to have.   In some subtle way, they're saying "Back in the 70's, we knew what we were doing.  Since Jim died, we've been floundering.  We sold ourselves to some German company, and they sold us to Disney, and neither of them had figured out what made us so special back in the days of The Muppet Show."  And they'd be right.  But I can tell you what made them so special:

The Muppets have ALWAYS referenced a kinder, simpler time. In the 1970's, we were at war in Vietnam, we were in the middle of a crumbling recession, national pride was in the toilet, our government was floundering. There's a great joke where Kermit pulls out his rolodex and tries to call President Carter.  Well, the Muppet Show was always vaudeville, in the 1970's a throwback to the 20's, today a throwback to the colorful halcyon days of the 1970's.  We've let things get too serious again.  We've forgotten that when we all work together, we can accomplish miracles.  When I ran for Empress, I used the platform of "Community, Camp and Collaboration."  What are the Muppets if not a shining beacon of all three of those concepts?

Let's learn from new muppet Walter (who can be a manly  muppet, while his brother can be a muppetish man).  We can accomplish amazing things if we just try.  Let's learn from Kermit and Piggy, who look at each other like Amanda and Elyot in Private Lives and realize that while they may occasionally make each other miserable, they have a love that can survive ages.  Let's look at Gonzo, who although he is a rich and famous plumber, still wears The Great Gonzo's jumpsuit under his pinstripes.  Let's learn from Scooter, who within a beat changes from "I don't go onstage!" to the host of the Muppet Telethon.  And let's learn from the producers of "The Muppets," who although they kept Rowlf (as the true alter-ego of Jim Henson) silent for years, brought him back as if to say, "Jim's spirit, his laugh-at-ourselves-first perspective and his sense that we ALL fit in, even as we are all individuals" was missing, but it's back.

I'm still emotional from having seen this movie, and that may be silly.  But it's making me reconnect with a more colorful time when we all worked together, when we all problem-solved our way out of crisis, and when we all put on rose-colored glasses, not because we were naive, but because the world was a little bit prettier that way.

I AM the target audience for "The Muppets"...but so are you.  And so are we all. 

It's hard to say, "What a weekend!" from the point of view of a rainy Wednesday morning. Which weekend? Which direction are we talking?

In this case, I'm talking about this past weekend, it was a blur of activity and energy and moved so quickly that I barely had time to notice what was going on, much less blog about it!

We started immediately after work on Friday night, where after a lovely conversation with Alex Bartlett at Planet Pepper (where I should pay rent I paint my face there so often!), I headed down to Splash for Absolut-ly OUTrageous,  a celebration of 30 years of Absolut Vodka.  Being quite a connoisseur of their entire product line, I was more than capable of carrying on conversations with their team, to thank them for their ongoing support of the Imperial Court of New York, and to serve as decorative art for many of their other guests.  The court turned it out, led by Emperor Vanity Society, Emperor XIV and XVIII Tony Monteleone, Empress XIX Robin Kradles, my darling Imperial Husband to Be Ritz Kraka, Viscountess Doris Dear, Viscount Jim Darling and later even Empress XXI B and Princess Royale Angela Mercy!

It was a lovely event.  It required me to schmooze, chat, talk, opine and drink Absolut products.  I excel at all of those.  I even met some fabulous new people, and attending a matinee of Private Lives today with one of them!!

So, my Absolut Pairings:

Absolut Citron:  With Cranberry, Cointreau and Rose's Lime Juice for a Cosmopolitan.
Absolut Mandarin:  Perfect with Tonic and a Lime!
Absolut Vanilla:  Mix with Diet Coke for a flashback to a kinder, gentler era! (I was told that it was "Very old school!"
Absolut Wild Tea:  I like it with Seltzer and Lemon
Absolut Pears:  No other way except with Sugar Free Red Bull! Gives you pear shaped wings all night!
Absolut Peach: Mix with Orange Juice for a hint of a hairy navel!
Absolut Peppar:  Mmmm...Tomato Juice and Bloody Marys!

How do you like YOUR Vodka?

Saturday, my partner and I went to see the new Broadway musical "Bonnie and Clyde."  (I won tickets in a charity auction, so I have every right to comment.)  Don't bother.  I went to see it so you didn't have to.  No, truly.  It wasn't even good-bad, it was insulting and banal.  The performers were all working their tushies off, and were all technically proficient, but the show was ugly to look at, ugly to listen to, and I feel like our conundrum at intermission ("shall we escape now?") was answered badly as we stayed for the rest of the show.

Sunday was a blast:  The day started with a Court Performance for LifeBeat's "Hearts and Voices" program at Friends' House in NYC.  My good friend Annie is the Executive Director, so it was going to be a lot of fun, and was.  The audience loved the show, which was about half filled with live singing and half with some really fantastic camp.  Thanks to Doris Dear, Victoria Falls, Madeka, Fanny Fondue, Nick E. Lodeon, Viagra Falls and special guest Amazing Grace, along with Miguel, Greco, Giovanni and Audra on special greeting duty!  Then it was time to RACE home, take off the face, eat a pizza, take a nap, get up and start all over again to hit

The Glammy Awards @ Splash!  (You know my activity level is gearing up. Sometimes I'm at Splash two or three times a year, last week alone I was there thrice!!)  Fabulous evening filled with the glitterati of nightlife.  No, the Imperial Court of New York did not win (again), but we had a great time, and it's always an honor to be nominated.  Great fun with Emperor Vanity and Empress Pepper, the handsome Ritz Kraka, the amazing Zondra Foxx, the stunning Giovanka di Medici, the fabulous Louie G, the adorable Aaron "Lucky Bitch" McQueen and the assembled throngs of nightlife royalty!

It was a weekend filled with opportunities that asked us to fit in by standing out -- and that's what makes this adventure so fantastic.  Finding the balace, creating a character and barrelling forth into a very mixed crowd...while being able to speak and / or relate to people from every cross section of the population you can. 

Now, it's onto Thanksgiving at God's Love We Deliver...and what am I going to wear???

xo

Get your minds out of the gutter...I'm not talking about that...although it will be pretty orgasmic!

Last night I sat down with Chris Crouch, one of the Imperial Court of New York's jewelers (he produces things under the MOANS label, so perhaps the headline is still right!) to talk about the new jewelry for my coronation walk.  As generous as he is creative, Chris and I talked about size, color, scale, impact from the audience point of view.  I brought him photos of jewelry that I admired, talked about what aspects of the pieces stood out to me, and whether it was a matter of quality or size that appealed to me.

Wow.  Shopping for jewelry IS like sex!

In any case, we're on track to make some jewelry that's going to be beautiful, elegant and of a shade and color not seen on a Empress at Coronation in quite some time...I'm very pleased with where that conversation went, and excited to see how it goes.  The next step is to bring the whole team into the same conversation so that gown, hair and jewelry are all working at the same purpose.  (Have I mentioned how much I love the designers I work with?  Alex Bartlett for Planet Pepper is making the gown; Izzy Decauwert is on hair, and with Chris on jewelry, I know I'm in amazing hands.

But that's sort of what the first time should be like, shouldn't it?  Exciting and new, and yet with a sense of safety and comfort and a feelign that no one is going to treat you badly or do wrong by you.

That's sort of the way that I'm feeling right now about a lot of the preparations:  the people that are surrounding me are amazing, I've got amazing friends ready to help at a moment's notice, an amazing Imperial Crown Prince Royal in Ritz Kraka.  I'm looking forward to my Imperial Wedding Night with all of the joy and bliss of someone who knows she's had years to plan, all the excitement of someone going at it for the first time, and all of the inherent nervousness that the responsibility brings.

But it's all good, and I'm enjoying each moment along the way, savoring it, because there's only one first time to discuss your coronation jewelry.

So tell me...will I end up doing something that will be remembered?  Or will I just end up an ass? 

I've been a performer since I was old enough to smile -- parents met onstage, I was onstage at 2, performing in community theatre regularly by 7, and later writing, directing and acting.  Through it all, music has been an important piece of the picture: I started piano lessons as soon as my feet could reach the pedals, took formal voice lessons for a few years in high school and college, and have been singing onstage, with organizations like the NYC Gay Men's Chorus and around the piano at the Monster for 25 years.

Until September, I'd also been SMOKING for 25 years.  And in 2003, had my tonsils out.  Since then, my attempts to sing legitimately have been far and few between, and my voice has sunk into a lazy Brenda Vaccaro-style baritone. But I was always a tenor, and most of my material was starting to feel wrong for my voice.

So this week, at the recommendation of a friend, I started a conversation with teacher, coach and director Rob LaRocca (www.roblaroccamusic.com) to see what it would take to scour the rust off my brass pipes.  Well, let's just say that within an hour of working with him, the top of my range was saying 'hello!' again, and after a second hour, i was hitting high B's. Wow!  Let's see what it takes to develop my confidence and my consistency.  I've remembered a lot of the technique and the theory, but it's about putting it back into practice, and then seeing what we do with it.

I know Witti will be singing a lot during the reign, but what after?  Time to mount "Witti Repartee: Falling in Love...again." or time to reimagine what a one-woman show would look like for a man...possibilities abound.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for songs and routines and help to make the next year fun for all of you as well!

xoxo

W.

So many amazing things have already begun happening to me on my journey toward Empress XXVI of the Imperial Court of New York, so I thought: why not blog about it?  Let's create a permanent record (well, as permanent as any digital media will be!) of what I'm thinking, feeling, hoping and doing!  Maybe someone will even read it!

At the very least, it will be a way that I remember the year, that I look back in reference on what we did, with whom we did it, and how much trouble resulted.

So, we're off and running. (Or rather, we will be, once I learn how to publish this damn thing -- the first post went somewhere out into the ether!)

Always feel free to comment, question and suggest!  But let's keep it positive, kids -- this work is hard enough without tearing each other down.