Category: Story

“And that’s my story.”

With a dramatic flourish and certain finality, dowagers Helen O’Malley and Bow Ross finish the dish.
— Ladies’ Luncheon at Abraham & Strauss, Brooklyn, New York, circa 1957

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When He Pours, He Reigns: Why I Love the Movie Cocktail

by Leigh Godfrey

In the 1980s, Tom Cruise made his career out of playing a certain type of character. The hot shot—the ambitious young man who rises from obscurity, gains a modicum of fame in his chosen profession, suffers hardship, and finally overcomes all obstacles to become a success. While I enjoy all of his films in this particular oeuvre (Risky Business, Top Gun, Days of Thunder), my absolute favorite has to be Cocktail.

Not just a movie about bartenders, this film rises above the confines of its genre to give a detailed portrayal of a man who dreams of being rich and successful, but must struggle, not only with himself, but against amoral individuals who prey upon his own fears to keep him down. After finally confronting his demons he triumphs, taking a different path to the one he initially supposed he would travel, but ultimately emerging successful and happy.

I’m not kidding, I swear.

Act One: “The Rise and Fall” or “Make Mine a Pink Squirrel.”

In Cocktail, Tom Cruise plays Brian Flanagan, a nice Irish boy from some backwater town who, after “serving his country” (this is never fully explained, but one can assume he was in the Army reserves or something as no war was being waged in 1988 as far as I know) heads off to New York to make it big in the financial world. A visit and pep talk with stereotypical Irishman Uncle Pat (he owns a bar!) lays out the whole film for the viewer:

Uncle Pat: “What are you going to do?”
Tom: “Make a million.”
Uncle Pat (laughs): “In the meantime, I’ll get McDougall to offer you a job.”
Tom (incredulous): “No way!”
Uncle Pat: “It was good enough for your old man . . . he supported a family on that job, just like you’re gonna have to do.”
Tom: “Not me, I’m not falling into that trap.”
Uncle Pat: “Everyone wakes up and finds themselves married with kids someday. It’s like most things in life, good or bad, it just kind of happens to you.”
Tom: “Well, I’m gonna make things happen for me.”

Tom then goes on to discuss the finer points of making a million with savvy old Uncle Pat, who gives him his first piece of valuable advice in a conversation that might have come from a pitch meeting for the reality series Survivor:

Uncle Pat: “You outwork, out-scheme, out-think, and outmaneuver. You make no friends, you trust nobody. And you make damn sure you’re the smartest guy in the room whenever the subject of money comes up.”
Tom: “I don’t know Uncle Pat. It doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.”
Uncle Pat: “Fun? You want fun go play at the beach.”
Tom: “I think I’ll try the city first.”

So he hits the Big Apple, and in a poetic montage poor Tom has the doors of many institutes of high finance slammed in his face. Although he seemed dead set against the working class life mere moments before, he spies a “Help Wanted” sign in a local bar and wanders in. There he is set upon by a madly ranting Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown), who proceeds to bitch-slap Tom into uncovering his true bartender self. He does this by issuing a number of “Coughlin’s Laws.” “Anything else is always something better” and “Beer is for breakfast,” being some of the many fine bon mots this aging lothario throws around. Seeing that Tom has no hope of being Charlie Sheen in Wall Street, Doug offers him a job.

Tom’s first night working in the bar is a nightmare. He is dropping bottles and can’t remember anyone’s order. What’s in a Pink Squirrel? Who ordered the Velvet Hammer? (Here I would like to posit that no one could expect any bartender to know how to make a Pink Squirrel or a Velvet Hammer, both of which feature crème de cacao and cream as ingredients and sound like something a 70 year-old woman might sip as a digestive.) The customers are frustrated. The waitresses are frustrated. Tom is frustrated. Being a stockbroker must be better than this, he thinks. But the next day he can barely keep his eyes open in class.

Aha, you may see where this is going.

Cut to another montage of Tom learning the tricks of the bartending trade and lip-synching to some rockin’ songs along with his mentor. Tom gets the hang of bartending and finds business school less than compelling. Doug is no help, as he bullies poor Tom into subverting his dream of striking it rich via a bar franchise, into being head bartender at the hottest nightclub in town.

Tom still blindly clings to his dream of ruling the world, although his hopes are now pinned to a feeble childish drawing of a stick figure standing on top of a circle enclosing the words “Cocktails and Dreams.” How pathetic is that?

Remember this drawing, as it will be the centerpiece of a later revelatory moment.

So, as another rung on the ladder to his dreams, Tom dons a striped shirt and joins Doug as the crazy bartending duo of the 80s excess nightclub “Cell Block.” Here is where I’d like to point out one reason why I love the movie Cocktail so much. Although it is called “Cocktail” you see Tom and Doug make six drinks between them the whole movie, and the only recognizable drink I saw either one of them pour was a Campari and soda—and I only know of one person who admits to drinking that. The rest of the time is spent tossing around cocktail shakers and bottles of booze and Tom standing up on the bar reciting pearls of wisdom in the form of “poems.”

Now, I don’t know about you, but where I’m from, if a bartender wastes my time by performing stupid carafe acrobatics then I’m pissed off, he gets no tip, and I never return to this bar again. But in this movie the bar is packed every night with hundreds of admiring, big-tipping, if rather thirsty, patrons and women who fall all over themselves and can’t get enough of these two bards of the bar.

Gina Gershon is one of these women. Gina plays Coral, a photographer with whom Tom shares a few sweaty lustful nights and decides he’s in love. In love enough to break up with his boyfriend Doug when he finds out Doug has also bagged the lovely Coral (only to teach Tom a lesson, of course). Their break up is a very dramatic scene that is played out behind the bar, with Doug brandishing a broken bottle of Jack Daniels at Tom’s throat as Tom shouts: “You wanna cut me?”

After living through this kind of melodrama, Tom decides New York is too fast-paced for him, so, as foreshadowed in his earlier conversation with Uncle Pat, he goes to the beach, which in this case means he heads down to Jamaica accompanied by the strains of that Beach Boys hit “Kokomo” featuring John Stamos on bongos! Here is where the story really picks up steam.

We have now entered the second act of this little morality play, “The Turning Point,” or what I like to call “Tom realizes the love of a good woman may almost be as satisfying as a banana daiquiri.”So here we are in Jamaica. It seems like it must be a week later, but we find out that Tom has been down in this tropical paradise for three years (!) Tom is tanned and relaxed. He wears flowered shirts and has learned how to use a blender. And one afternoon while mixing up some fruity rum drinks, Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) elbows her way up to the bar as only a true damsel in distress can do.

“My friend just passed out, do you have a phone?” she says. Instead of pointing her to the nearest phone kiosk, Tom jumps over the bar and runs to the beach to investigate the situation. Apparently, he’s under the mistaken impression that mixologist is a special branch of the medical field. Jordan informs him that her friend has been drinking champagne in the sun. So instead of rushing the girl off to a hospital or checking her pulse or even loosening her bathing suit, Tom pauses to utter what has to be one of the greatest/lamest lines ever said in a movie: “Champagne. Perfume going in, sewage coming out.”

If that’s not enough to love the movie Cocktail then, really, what is?But there’s more. Jordan and Tom make cow eyes at each other and the next thing you know, they are having a full-on Jamaican tourist board affair montage, set to a reggae version of “Run For the Shelter of Your Love.” They ride horses on the beach, they dance with locals in the street, they make love under a waterfall. Ooh, so romantic! It doesn’t matter to Tom that she’s a poor waitress cum artist and can do nothing for his career. He lives in Jamaica now, mon. He shares with her his dreams of becoming a millionaire and she coos and says supportive things like: “Your flugelbinder is out there waiting to be discovered.” It must be true love!

But then wouldn’t you know it, Tom’s ex-boyfriend Doug shows up to ruin the party. On his honeymoon and toting his foxy rich wife Kerry (played by Kelly Lynch in Bo Derek mode) Doug immediately begins to lay into Tom, actually accusing him of taking pride in his work! While the bartender badinage flies fast and furious, Doug makes Tom feel ashamed not only for being a good bartender, but for being so into dull old Jordan and not even attempting to land a rich hottie like Doug has successfully done. So when Doug wagers that Tom can’t score with wealthy older woman Bonnie, Tom forgets all about Jordan and moves in for the kill. Poor Jordan! She sees the whole horrid display of manliness and runs back to New York, licking her wounds. Tom feels some slight remorse, but its nothing a few blowjobs from Bonnie can’t cure, right? Wrong, as it turns out. But this shocking plot twist has gotten us back to New York, where the action really starts to pick up in act three, “The Revelation,” or “Be careful what you wish for and always listen to Uncle Pat.”

So, Tom is a kept man now, and Bonnie is aerobicizing and drinking carrot juice and keeping poor Tom on a leash that’s so short he can barely sneak away for few stalker moments to look in the window of the restaurant where Jordan works. After a drunken display at an art gallery, Tom and Bonnie call it quits for good and Tom tries to patch things up with Jordan. But she is upset and pregnant! And, even more shocking, rich!In an effort to throw her off from the fact that he has no intention of being there for her or the baby, Tom accuses Jordan of hiding her wealth. After all, if he’d known, things might have turned out differently. But this ploy backfires, as Jordan chokes out: “I knew if I told you my family had money, then I’d never know how you felt about me . . . ME!” Uh oh, she had his number. Tom has really gotten into it now. He didn’t make his millions, he’s not successful, and now (just as Uncle Pat predicted) he’s found himself responsible for a girl and a kid. What the heck happened? He can only turn back to his old mentor Doug for some advice. But things have gone horribly wrong for the master bartender. Although it seems like all of his dreams have come true—married to a millionairess, opening his own lavish nightclub, owns his own boat—it turns out that Doug is in fact suffering from deep depression, and has blown all of his money!

Doug confides that Tom was right all along, and that all of his posturing was to cover up the fact that he didn’t know shit. This throws poor Tom for a loop since he has been harboring love and admiration for Doug since day one. But instead of getting him to a mental health clinic, Tom leaves Doug to drink alone so he can drive Kerry home, only to have her make a move on him. Shouting: “I can’t make it with my best friend’s old lady” Tom leaves and goes back to find said best friend to tell him it will all be okay. But Doug has seen the writing on the wall and slit his own throat with the broken shards of a $500 bottle of brandy. Oh the irony! Tom has a true Oscar moment here when he puts his hands in Doug’s blood and then screams: “Somebody help me!”Whew! Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t a heavy movie.

Now Tom is like a ship at sea. He has nothing. No rich lady to bankroll him, no job, no boyfriend or mentor, and Jordan has moved back home with her wealthy folks and won’t even see him. But after tearfully reading Doug’s suicide note (thoughtfully forwarded by Kerry and featuring this charming and final Coughlin’s Law: “Bury the dead, they stink up the joint”) Tom glances up at the sad image of “Cocktails and Dreams” sketched out by Doug back in the good old days and he is determined to not let the dream die.

After liberating Jordan from her Park Avenue penthouse and marrying her, we see Tom a few months later as the proprietor of his own bar. That’s right, it’s Flanagan’s Cocktails and Dreams. And Jordan’s pregnant with twins—all’s right with the world. And so the happy ending, which I admit was a long time coming, but really, didn’t Tom deserve it? He grew as a person and realized that following in his father’s footsteps, and being a working-class Joe with a wife and two kids, is better than having a million dollars.

This movie teaches us that style is not a substitute for substance, greed is not good and if you have sex under a waterfall in Jamaica you will get pregnant. These are all good morals to be fed while watching a movie about bartenders. And that’s why I love the movie Cocktail. I give it four stars and three Pink Squirrels. Drink up!
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Trumpet of the Swan: Short Story Review: Miriam

by Katharine Elizabeth Monahan Huntley

Almost a decade before Truman Capote introduced Holly Golightly to literary society, he created eerie Miriam, the titular character in a short story published in A Tree of Night and Other Stories, 1949:

“Her long hair was the longest and strangest Mrs. Miller had ever seen: absolutely silver-white, like an albino’s. It flowed waist-length in smooth, loose lines. She was thin and fragiley constructed. There was a special elegance in the way she stood with her thumbs in the pockets if a tailored plum-velvet coat. . . . She touched a paper rose in a vase on the coffee table. “Imitation,” she commented wanly. “How sad. Aren’t imitations sad?”

Next to Truman Capote’s unique writings, imitations can only pale.

Click on the link to view: “La Côte Basque, 1965”

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Brace Yourself: Interview with a Thirteen Year Old California Girl

by Katharine Elizabeth Monahan Huntley

“Elvira: ‘You are really lucky not to have a mother . . . the questions she asks! Morning, noon, and night. Where are you going, and who have you met? And are they cousins of somebody else of the same name in Yorkshire? I mean, the futility of it all.’

Bridget: ‘I suppose they have nothing else to think about.'”—At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie © 1963

Thirteen-year-old Nichole Alexandra Lopez’s braces are pink. Far from shy, she laughs when boys get red, yet if she witnesses peers making fun of geeks, she says: “Omigod, don’t.” As we chat in a local bowling alley / arcade where she is babysitting little sister Jacque, the junior high student alternates between touching up her flawless face, flipping back her highlighted hair, and rolling her twin glims at any mention of the parental units’ rules and regulations. We are both wearing identical sterling silver hoop earrings. I ask to borrow her Clinique.

Nichole: Which one?
Several Clinique products appear from out of her black Volcom purse: pressed powder, lip gloss, make-up brush.

Nichole: I learned how to put on make-up from my cousin, Amanda. She’s sixteen.

WBTL: Where do you clothes shop?

Nichole: Abercrombie, Billabong, Forever 21.

WBTL: Or, as I like to call it—For Over 21.

“For Safety, Swim in Supervised Area.”
Nichole is wearing an Encinitas Junior Lifeguard tee that drops to her knees, flared size 0 jeans, and sneaks.

WBTL: Why is your shirt so long?

Nichole: My dad made me wear it.

WBTL: What about at school? Doesn’t everyone change clothes? I remember keeping an extra set in my locker.

Nichole laughs and pleads the fifth.

WBTL: Entertainment?

Nichole: Music, TV. Like, mostly MTV. America’s Funniest Home Videos. Fear Factor.

Jacque: Courage the Cowardly Dog.

Nichole: There you go. Cartoon Network.

WBTL: Music?

Nicole: Snoop Dog. Ludacris — “Stand-Up,” Lil Jon, & the East Side Boyz’ “Get Low” is my favorite song of all time. Right now 50 Cent is in my CD player. Ever heard of Chingy?

I laugh and plead lack of hip.

WBTL: You’ve always attended private schools. This year’s your first in a public. What’s it like?

Nichole: You learn more about the outside world, like . . . like fights and cussing out people. Not as much attention to academics. Sometimes I mess around with my friends and forget to do homework. More people to choose from. More talking about guys. Yeah, and people asking you to ditch school.

WBTL: To go where?

Nichole: Starbucks.

Nicole’s mother inserts an anecdote about her daughter:
“On Thursdays, Nicole’s school starts at 9:00 o’clock instead of its usual time of 8:00. I drop her off at a church where she is supposed to stay until 8:30 and then she is to walk directly over to school. One Thursday I was sick. I brought her to the church then went to Rite Aid for my prescription. Afterwards, I drove by the church and saw her running out the door with her girlfriends. Naturally, I decided to see where she was going. First, they went into donut shop. Then as they walked back, her friends took a turn towards Starbucks. Nicole hesitated for a moment, and then went on to school. The next Thursday I gave her extra money, and said ‘why don’t get a couple extra donuts today?’ She looked at me, shocked.”

Nichole, of course, is savvy enough to know answering certain questions will only lead to more questions — the bane of any teenager worth her mad text messaging skillz.

As we continue the interview, Nichole pretends to ignore the two sixteen-year-old boys watching her.

Nichole: That’s Kort and his friend. He walks here all the way from school. I don’t know why.

WBTL: Oh, I know why.

Nichole: Their numbers are really high up there.

WBTL: How many people go to your school?

Nichole: There are about 1500 in the 7th and 8th grades. At one point traffic came to a standstill in the halls. I know a lot of people. A group of us eat lunch in the amphitheater. One of my friends went up to this guy and said “Omigod, you like Nichole, right?” And he’s like, “Yeah, okay, now go away.”

WBTL: Have your heard about the movie Thirteen?

Nichole: I know about it. It makes you think about drugs and how you react to that. You think about friendship and how you have to stop that. I would tell . . . I would probably say no. I don’t need to show off or copy.

WBTL: Your parents are strict. Do you wish the situation were different?

Nichole: Yeah . . . like, I’d like to at least go out to the mall by myself—with my friends. [Sigh] Maybe when I’m sixteen.

WBTL: Jacque is seven. What advice will you give her when she’s thirteen?

Nichole: Don’t follow your friends.

WBTL: Do you think she will?

Nichole: Yeah. She’s already doing it.

Nichole and Jacque jump onto Dance Dance Revolution Extreme to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” executing the steps gracefully, and in sync.

Swimming Pool “I was thirteen the first time. I haven’t stopped since,” is the insouciant line mystery writer Charlotte Rampling’s publisher’s daughter drops in this sensual thriller. Wade in, this isn’t your mother’s Agatha Christie.
 
Thirteen Director/writer Catherine Hardwicke and her teen-aged co-writer Nicki Reed present a modern day Go Ask Alice with this high wire act between self-esteem and the ages of 11, 12, and 13.
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Elephants Script & Stage Directions

by Emily Figueroa + Katie Royal + Maxwell Trautmann

Click on above image to meet the authors!

kTVision Presents

Elephants Fall From the Sky

On Stage: Podium on Stage Left

Lights on

Audience Lights Shut Off

ENTER: Andrew- center stage with mic

Emcee Andrew’s Introduction:

Elephants Fall From the Sky is a performance art pastiche of little deaths and vita transcendence.  Stories told bold with Gravitas and Levity.

Don’t look for Veracity. 

Check.  Check.  Check the Poetry.  Read it then Shred it.

Katy (peeks through curtain):  Yeah, I Said it.

Wallie (backstage):  You Said wut?

Lili enters/ Lili Taps! (20-30 seconds)

CUE Music:  Rebel Rebel (Song length TBD.)

  • Ariana and Brie enter from audience
  • Rebel Rebel performance – Lili and Emily enter during song
  • All dancers exit

Change light to pink

ENTER: KATY center stage with mic

Katy’s Spoken Word:

Title:  The Boys Are Back in Town

“Hell no.”  said Topcat, as she took a drag.

“Hell no to those in the know.”  “Fuck.”

“Fine.”  “Somebody pass me a mirror, cuz I ain’t got much time.”  Where the Hell’s my Wine?”

Catty chimed, “We look better now than we did back then, and aren’t you curious?

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

Topcat lassoed the twins, Fran and Rick, along with Scott, Valvur, and Neuner.  We fixed up in the Upper Room:  The Ruthless, “addition.”  Some would consider it an eyesore, a ramshackle shack detached from the rambling main house.  These days had seen better days.

70s party paradise.  Peter Jacuzzi lived down the road.  Yes, that Jacuzzi.  “You’re soaking in it.”

Flash in the past.  Fifteen minutes of fame.  Parade of charades.  We didn’t care, we didn’t wear underwear.

At the High School Reunion, The Smoker’s Corner Crowd sparked up ciggies outside the banquet hall.  Tennys Duffy walked our way.  “I’ve always loved the way you smoke cigarettes.  You make it look so Kool.”  With a K.

Tennys never gave the time.

Neither did Charlie Vance.  Nor Topher.  Or the Oddone brothers.  Had they not been so hot, the spelling of their surname . . . odd ones undone.

Devin, the original Kingsman, married Homecoming Queen.  She’d just published a Top Ramen cookbook and popped out a couple of kiddles.  Both 23 and harried.

Flirt alert!

Catty batted her Maybelline burnt match lined lashes (velvet black) and smacked her “Lips to Match Your Mood” lip balm.  2 kinds:  “Are you a Virgin or a Slut?”  “. . . Moisturizes and protects cheap, chapped or just plain overused lips.”

Topcat, the twins, Valvur, and Neuner jammed out for the Grand Slam.  Reminiscing about their junior high Physics teacher, Mr. D., in a Denny’s back booth one Friday night lights out.  Making out w/ a glam gal.  No wife in sites.

Feeling British, Scott and Catty drove up to Orinda Downs on the wrong side of the road.

The “Julie Holbrook Let’s Just Be Friends” boys were throwing a kegger.

KATY EXITS

PINK LIGHT OFF/ STAGE LIGHTS ON

ENTER ANDREW

NOTE: LIGHTS FADE TO BLACK DURING POEM

Andrew’s Poem:

I heard a rumor today about you

Okay

They said you were wrong

Okay

You gotta stop acting like that

Okay

I know we’re friends but you don’t have much more

Okay

You walk funny

Okay

Let me teach you how to walk normal

Okay

You also wear your pants wrong

Let me show you

Okay

See now you look normal

Now we should practice what you say to people

Okay

When they ask you what you did this weekend don’t say “like” or

“duh”

Okay

So now I can feel good about defending you because before it was hard for me.

You don’t realize the pressure you put on me.

It’s like I’m the only friend you have that actually cares about you.

You don’t realize what I’m teaching you is to make the school like you.

It’s not as if I don’t like you.
I just find it hard to walk with you

Talk with you

Shop with you

Eat with you

Play with you

Skate with you

That one time I wanted to smoke with you, you said no like it

was bad for you.

Okay

LIGHTS BLACK OUT BY END OF POEM

SET STAGE: (45 seconds)

  • Stagehands bring on coffin
  • Five ladies enter with own chair
  • Extras enter
  • Boys enter

Title:  MAC’S SCENE

Stage lights up

KATIE ENTERS- begins narration

  • Ladies pay respects during initial narration
  • Ladies sit by time Katie says XMAS lights

Men exit with coffin as narrator says last line

LINE: “and made their way to Luz’s party” – LIGHTING BLACK OUT

Luz enters during blackout with beach chair and cooler midstage right

LIGHTS ON: Optional blue and pink light to set scene for party?

Scene continues

LINE: “not even him, but us, together” BOYS EXIT – Luz takes chair and cooler

Katie’s finishes narration

LINE: “It was Christmas in July” LIGHTS BLACKOUT

Dancers ENTER, Katie Exits to AUDIENCE

SIMULTANEOUS: CUE FAME/ LIGHTS ON   

Transition to: FAME
Music:  Fame (Song length TBD.)
Katy & Wallie’s Spoken Word:

Andrew:  From the west to the east, these ladies are never the least . . .

Katy:  Who are you calling a lady?

Andrew:   Ad lib Title:  Memoirs of a Matriarch:  It’s All Fun Until You Break a Nail

Katy:  Pivot turns and past burns, too-toos in full effect.  Matriarchs on a mission, Christmas afoot, ripping and zipping through the aisles.  This diva guided me, as I did her.  Cooking up pork, handing me a fork.  Serving up knowledge and strive.  I took the dive.  After New Year’s, she dressed me in gold and sent me on my way.  Which way? 

Up, of course.
Wallie:  It was like . . . the theme music to the Wicked Witch of the West bicycling.  Driving the jeep, raving, from store to store, buying up the Christmas chore.  No time to settle the score.

Waking up from sleep.  Shhh . . . Don’t make a peep.

She’s the Veep.  It was like falling into the deep.  Being touched by Meryl Streep.

Sins on your soul will seep.  What you sow is what you’ll reap.  And we weep.

Bleep.  Or, we write memoirs.  We are matriarchs of course.

Title:  How a Trans Girl and  Divorcée Came to Slay

Fox and I walked from The Federal to “The Social,” an apartment complex located within North Hollywood’s NoHo Arts’ District “Pizza Slice”—the triangle of Vineland, Lankershim, and Camarillo.  Fast cars drag race late nites over the hill to Hollywood–flashing by the red neon signs of Johnny’s Auto Body and the Colony Inn, rife with sin.  It bills itself to tourists as the “Hotel Near Universal Studios.”  To get to Little Toni’s from Idle Hour you jaywalk.

The Social’s Penthouse #6 is a study of geometry in motion.  Rooftop parties jammed with revolving roomies ranging from Jr. High mates to ill-fated spoilt baby rock stars.  Balconies occupied by tween actors and Tik Tokers are in hip-hop distance of each other.

Levi Ponce’s mural, Baby Buddha, Bob Marley, and Jimi is painted on the backside of Big Boss Records studio.  They keep a watchful eye over Huston Street, the strip that perpendiculates Mr. Patel’s no tell motel from Ponce’s “Soliloquy,” protector of the wholesome, homeless, hoes, anything goes.

The elevator sighs, “Fourth Floor,” and opens up to the front door where Wallie and I live and go live with our podcast, “At The Four Twelve:  Cocktails and Conversation with the Heyy and Divorcée.”  Wallie had originally roomed with my eldest son, MacGuinness, one story up at the PH6.  At times, various “Socialites” take part in the revolving apartment art installation.  My younger son, Killian—Gaelic for “strife,”—has occupied three.  Wallie’s trans mother, Raquel Starr, resides in the #409.  We are a biological and logical family.  Progressive.  Nonaggressive.

Music:  Playground Love (Song length TBD.)

Excerpt from The Virgin Suicides

Lillye Hope (6:00)/Lili Hardy (8:00)  “We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt so compelled to compliment each other . . . We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors were together.  We knew that the girls were our twins, that we all existed in space like elephants with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all.  We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.”

Wallie’s Interview:

Music:  I’m Every Woman (Song length TBD.)

Andrew:  Wallie was tragically born a male and is sheroically transforming to female. Named after a cousin who was killed in a woodchipper, her father, Jose David Cruz, promised his sister, Mori—Hebrew for “bitterness of Yahweh,” —that he would name his first-born child after the original.  Fargo, right?

Wallie:  “As a child growing up in Philly, I knew I was different.  I liked certain things that other boys didn’t.  ‘Why do you like girl music?’ ‘Why do you dance like a girl?’  I always felt like a girl.  As I got older, the mirror was telling a different story.  You assimilate, especially when you are in terror of your parents finding out.  You do not want to be your parents’ disappointment.

Andrew: She found willing support from her Kindergarten teacher, Miss Campbell.

Wallie:  “Playing dress-up; feeling pretty.  I was frolicking in an 80s cocktail frock that puffed out.  It had a cinched waist six sizes too big for me, and when I spun around, it opened up into a complete circle.  I  fought with the girls over the black and white garment.  I told my teacher, ‘Miss Campbell, I love what you’re doing, but we need, like a wig or a clip in ponytail.’  She brought in a pink bag from the beauty supply store.  In it was a little bob brown wig but I wanted the flirty pony.  Now I had two things to fight over.  A teacher’s assistant snapped a picture of me, and I begged her not to show my mother.”

Andrew: They kept her secret.  In 1st grade, however, Wallie told her  mother, from the shower, that she wore dresses.  Wallie’s mother asked . . .

Wallie:  “What else have you done?”

Music:   (Song length TBD.)

Title:  Run to You

Wallie:  “In the fall after high school, mom bought me a $1000 dollar hoop dee car with a push start button that would always fall out.  I started cosmetology school.  Kits, mannequins . . . I excelled as I had been doing hair since I was eight years old.

Andrew:  After graduating Florida’s Aveda Beauty College, Wallie moved to L.A. with Jason, a  recording artist boyfriend with a contract.  Still . . . evictions, surfing from couch to couch—homeless for two months.  Wallie was hired at an upscale shoe shop, took a second job at Forever 21, and was doing hair on the side.  ALDO shoes and accessories is where Wallie met me.  One of my roommates would come to lunch, and Wallie wondered . . .

Wallie:  ‘Who’s this little white boy with swag?’

Andrew:  The “little white boy with swag” was MacGuinness.

Wallie and Jason’s relationship was shot, and during a fight, Jason called the police.  Wearing boyfriend jeans and a pink sweater that said, “Hooked on You,” Wallie grabbed her new six-inch platform boots and ran out of the house.

Wallie:  “I didn’t even grab my toothbrush.  I called Andrew, who told me to . . .

Andrew & Wallie:  Just go to the PH6.

Katy:  A year later, Wallie was standing at attention in military lineup fashion with the other Socialites, when I walked through the front door of the PH6, a toothbrush in hand and both sons at my back.

Cheetah Girls Cinderella Song

Wallie:  “Looking at Disney, I would see myself as the girl, Chuchi, from the Cheetah Girls.  It was a rude ass awakening to me that I wasn’t.  Looking in the mirror, I didn’t see what I saw in my head as a twenty-three-year-old.  I was just listening to music, getting older, and having to do the best with what I had.  There was always something happening with my hair, every version preppy, edgy, long hair, short.  I was never satisfied.  Up until I started meeting other trans people and seeing how beautiful they are . . .”

(Raquel’s Burlesque Moment)

“I heard about Raquel Starr from another girl, Jesse.  She said, “I have a girlfriend who lives in this building; she actually lives right down the breezeway from you.  Jesse said she was this and she was that—all that.  I’m not the kind of gal  impressed by the hearsay.  Let me see, let me meet her, you know, that kind of thing?”

Andrew:  Wallie finally met Raquel at her birthday held at Cobra. 

Wallie:  “She’s in a skintight dress made from pink snakeskin leather.  I walk up to her, ‘So, we live in the same building.’ I realized I had seen Raquel in passing at Evita, way back with Bradshaw.   Long ginger hair with a gold chain link dress.  Glistening, floating through the room.  She stumbled upon our bottle service, offering party favors and taking shots of tequila.  She wanted me to do the wig for her Viper Room performance.  The wig was terrible.  I made it not terrible.

And just like that, Jessica Rabbit became my drag mother, and I, her drag daughter.”

Andrew:  Incrementally, the inevitable millennial guyliner led to an enviable mug of glamour; tucks and Spanx under slips. 

Raquel comes in and sits at the vanity.

Wallie:  “I was visiting family in Florida.   had just come back from shopping, and since it was the weekend, I  already knew Grandma and Grandpa were sipping whiskey and milk.  I rushed to their suite, where they offered me a drink.  Grandma pulled me aside, ‘I’ve got something for you that helped me, and it will help you.’

Goes to the second drawer of her dresser and takes out a zebra print lace push up bra and told me to put it on, so I did.  Pushed up the A cup girls.  Grandma said, ‘There.  Now it looks like we have something.’

I felt like a little kid, foreign.  I pushed them up, and as I sat and drank with her, she would make comments like, ‘It needs to be a little tighter.’  And as much as I tried to pull on my fat from back through my armpits, it wasn’t going to happen.”

Raquel: Once I got my body, it was the end for all the other bitches.

Wallie: “I decided to delay my return to NoHo, and take the necessary steps to slay.  My mother, Hurricane Jacqueline, went with me to Miami.  She took care of me while I recovered from my boob job along with a few other sumpin’ sumpins’.”

Andrew:  So Wallie, how can allies support?

Wallie:  Become informed.  Get educated.  Realize the evolution.  Complacent cis girls always feel the need to comment, and make it seem so unobtainable.  You were born a girl, use it to your advantage.  I couldn’t play with my mother’s makeup.  You had the time.  You also act like it fucking happens like magic—the drive and wanting to do something. . . .  putting your best face on and handling.  The more passable you look, the safer you are in society.  It can be death  for those that can’t get surgery.  . . . And, why the intimidation, why the reluctance to accept trans sisters? 

(And why isn’t my bang working?)

Cis women shouldn’t feel competition; they know what they got.  When Audrina goes out with her cis and/or gay friends, and a straight guy is paying attention, it’s always the jealous friend, girl or gay, that feels compelled to point out she is trans, which can lead to a dangerous situation.”

Andrew:  “How do you feel when you look at cis girls?”

Wallie: “I look at them with pity.  I just feel I need new friends.  Friends that make me sweat.  Why should you be in sweats while I’m in heels?”

Music:   (Song length TBD.)

Title:  Baby, I’m a Starr

Raquel Starr’s Interview

(Narrator to be determined)  “Barbara Walters:  You don’t have to look like this.  You’re very beautiful.  You don’t have to wear the blonde wigs.  You don’t have to wear the extreme clothes, right?
Dolly:  No.  It’s a . . . It’s certainly a choice.”—Dolly Parton:  Here I Am

2:33-2:51

Katy:  Story told gold.  She don’t care if it’s pretty shifty, or gritty.  The urgency . . . the agency.  Authentic expression overtakes the fake.

L.A. long drives, long cons, what could possibly go wrong?

Toys boys blank blondes vacuous vapid stares parents unaware, no care.

Starry eyes.  Lies between thighs.

What’s a girl to do?  Go ask Alice or become Jessica Rabbit?

Raquel:  There was an ugly fight with my father.  Because I have a sister, because I wanted to discover myself, I ran away.  I left Monterey, Mexico, just shy of eighteen for McCallum, Texas. 

Running lost into the wild, and, honey, I find the wild.

I worked in a mall candy shop.  All I knew was music.  Always singing in Spanish.  A friend heard me sing and invited me to a casting for a band to perform at quinceañeras. 

Identifying as gay, I met an amazing transgender woman, who invited me to perform in drag shows.  Give me a microphone!

Katy:  What did you sing?

Raquel:  “Bésame Mucho.”

Katy:  Reaction to the action?

Raquel:  Compliments, “You’re so pretty, you’re so pretty . . . Coming from . . . not a broken home, but a home that definitely had troubles, and at the time the trouble was me.  I thought I had to fix myself.

Katy:  I see . . . you turned to the audience for acceptance.  Go on.

I received an amazing amount of love from all these people.  Not to mention the tips!

I started performing in different venues; after the restaurants closed, I’d play at the gay bars.  Out of the blue a club from Houston hit me up.

I didn’t know anything about make-up.

I didn’t know anything about padding.

I didn’t know anything about wearing a bra.

Yet, once I started,  I just didn’t want to take off the drag.  It became my second skin!

Fuck it.  Time to move to Hollywood.

I just turned 21.  I had enough money to stay in a West Hollywood hotel for a week.  . . . when you take off your clothes, make the night count to make the day survive.

I did the show, and people liked me.  A friend in the exotic adult film industry introduced me to a producer.  He liked me for who I was and wanted to move fast.  I wanted to move slow.  I moved in with him after a week.

I had my boobs done as a rite of passage, then went back home to Texas to recover.  Family judgement faded away.  My father said, “Human beings are not meant to travel alone in the world.  You have a family, and I’m sorry I didn’t see the beauty in you.  I see you.”  And for the first time, I felt seen.

I became a Mother to Nikita Dragun, and now Wallie.  I have love for the upcoming generation and wish to share my stories so they may avoid the same struggles I faced.

(ALL CAST AND CREW SILENTLY COME ON STAGE TO STAND BEHIND RAQUEL.)

Once upon a time, me being a little boy, daydreaming about becoming a star . . . I didn’t have a path; I didn’t have a plan.  Opportunities came my way, and I evolved.

. . . And . . . I’m here.”

And (hands up), I’m here!

Twinkle fingers down.

Lili Taps!
Music:  Heroes (Song length TBD.)
Bows & Acknowledgments!

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All the Girls Called Themselves Sheena: Bryan Knox Punk Rox

by Katharine Elizabeth Monahan Huntley

Bryan Knox was born under the sign of Virgo to a dichondra farmer in Riverside—when the area code was still (714). Virgoans are custodians of culture—and true to his astrological sign, Bryan’s early punk rock years are filed chronologically (1980-88), geographically (Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties), and neatly in a box marked “Punk R#ck Doc. Destroy Date: Never.” Content is divided between “Stuff I did” and “Stuff I didn’t.”

Bryan’s collection, and his clear recollection of the punk crowd: poets, artists, writers, trust fund babies with gangster daddies . . . not to mention the musicians that laid down the soundtrack to L.A.’s early punk rock party—makes it easy to go trippin’ down memory lane.

Exene

“What’s black and white and read all over?”—Children’s Riddle

Bryan: It was 1978 or 79. My friend Bill Bartell and I finagled this gig with the The New Rocker. The office was in the 9000 building across from The Roxy on Sunset Boulevard. We would hang out and pretend to be important. No one was ever really working anyway, the job was just leverage to go see bands. We heard X was playing at the Hong Kong Cafe. We arrived early to watch the sound check. At one point Bill and I were sitting around with John Doe and Exene and DJ Bonebrake. I was naïve to their personal history. John Doe’s gear had stencils of Baltimore all over it, his bass case, et cetera. I asked him about it. He said it was because he was from Baltimore, which surprised me, I don’t know why.

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻: Maybe, because even then he was emblematic of Los Angeles.

Bryan: Exactly. Exene was looking through the LA Weekly. She would stop on different pages to color over photographs. Every once in awhile she would open her cigar box and very carefully select a new crayon. I looked in the box. All the crayons were red.

Joan Jett

“We like dancing and we look divine”—Joan Jett [sings a David Bowie tune]

Today’s artists hire their own “people” to keep the masses away. At least, at bay. In the early L.A. punk rock scene, it was fairly easy to mix with people now elevated to icon status. Like Exene and Joan Jett.

Bryan: I was living in Moreno Valley. Darby Crash was still alive. A bunch of punk bands were playing at Great Gatsby’s in Redondo Beach. The Angry Samoans, Eddie and the Sub-Titles, the Circle Jerks, maybe. I drove a 68 Volkswagen Squareback. Bill Bartell, Jon Morris, Donnie Rose, and I had a TEAC open reel four-track recorder that we took to all the shows. We’d arrive at the door and say we’re recording the band—then we’d go to the soundman and say we need two lines out of the board and he would plug us in. We would use two mics . . . which reminds me of another story that you can’t publish because it’s too criminal . . .

That night we got into the club but the soundman was onto our scam and wouldn’t let us record, so we just watched the show. I noticed Joan Jett standing dead center in front of the stage, teetering. Everyone slamming around her. She was barely conscious, having a good time. Jon was a big fan of Joan’s and thought we should try to talk to her, but Bill said: “No,” we should try to kidnap her. We discussed the pros and cons—wouldn’t it be funny and cool and punk rock? But then she would find herself in Riverside.

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻: BUST Magazine sells the t-shirt W.W.J.J.D? What Would Joan Jett Do?

Bryan: What would Joan Jett do? She’d be mad and we’d get our asses kicked and she would dislike us. And we’d have to drive her two hours back to L.A.

The Ramones

“Rock, rock, rock’n’roll high school”—The Ramones

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻:How did you get into punk rock?

Bryan: I can’t really remember what I listened to as a kid besides the usual—like The Beatles. Then in TV Production class at Moreno Valley High, 1978, I met Jon Morris. Jon was into audio recording—he had recording equipment and a serious stereo system. The only thing I had was an eight-track player in my Ford pickup. It was stolen when we went to see the Ramones open for Black Sabbath at Santa Monica Civic. He also had a Punk Magazine. Jon, Bill Bartell, and I would sit around and listen to records, reading Punk and other zines. We were aware the Sex Pistols were touring. We tried to figure out a way to get to San Francisco to see the ultimate punk rock concert. We never made it, but we spent a lot of time obsessing over it.

Bill Bartell knew this girl named Nikki who was Donnie Rose’s girlfriend at Poly High. Nikki called herself Sheena because all girls called themselves Sheena—because of the Ramones. Sheena and Donnie were a punk rock couple.

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻: Isn’t there a Donnie Rose—Germs connection?

Bryan: He was definitely a Germs insider. Donnie was really young when he got into the punk rock crowd. Before high school. Anyway, he and Sheena had a friend named Rene Gade. I met her at The Squeeze, a little nightclub in Riverside, run by Nicki Syxx. Rene was the first real punk rock girl I ever saw. Beautiful and cool with exaggerated make-up and spiky short hair. Beautiful and cool.

Death Patrol

“Looking out the window and who do I see? Someone outside is glaring at me.”—Rene Gade

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻: Were you ever part of a band?

Bryan: Yes. The early 80s was the first time Death Patrol performed. Bill Bartell instigated the band for his own amusement. He was always there, but he wasn’t in it. I was the bass player. Well, it was really an old Japanese guitar that I put bass strings on, which was fine since I didn’t know how to use it anyway. Jon Morris “operated” the synthesizers and was the guitarist. We didn’t have a drummer. Shawn Cowart was the singer. We called him Warcot—Cowart inside out. He was an illustrator—gory comic book art with pop culture commentary.

The original lineup played twice. Shawn lost interest. Jon lost interest. Rene joined the band. Then her friend Stacy joined—she played guitar. Like most bands, Death Patrol went through quite a few mutations. We really wanted to be the Screamers. We made up a story about how we opened for the Screamers. Other bands corroborated our story—it eventually became an urban myth.

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻: There’s a flier in one of your files: “The Alternative Alliance for the Inland Empire” advertising for drummers for three different bands, including Death Patrol. Requirements include: “Punk as in early Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, and other British Punk Bands. This isn’t H.B. [Huntington Beach]. Dark romance, avant-garde. Prefer creative person not influenced by Black Flag. Determination over skill.”

Bryan: The Alternative Alliance was the tagline for different projects—to make it sound more organized than it really was. We did have rehearsal space, though. I had rented a one-bedroom house; the previous tenants had modified the garage into an acoustic, insulated sound studio. Serendipitous.

🆆[🅱🆃]🅻:Was Death Patrol any good?

Bryan: No, we were terrible. But if you’re creating your own fun, everyone has a reason to have a good time. It didn’t matter if you were good—it only mattered if you were entertaining.