Darlings, Am I Being Too High Minded????????????

"My mother.....she's........not quite herself today."
----Norman Bates in "Psycho"

Girls, I never considered myself some kind of flagrant moralist, but, after reading Josh Kilmer- Purcell's memoir, "I Am Not Myself These Days" I have to wonder if age has tempered me, or even if during the age such things would have repulsed me.

I have to say it is most likely the latter, because I can recall being at parties where people were doing all kinds of recreational drugs, and not being the least bit interested in either the substances or the people doing them. Few things could top the night I was approached in a gay bar by this really butch type, we went back to his place, and while I got comfortable, so did he. Except his being comfortable made me NOT; in he walks in a white, practically exposed tightie nightie, wrapped in a peignoir, offering to be my "Lady for the Evening." Really, I thought? So being open minded I decided to play along. But when he presented a silver case, opened it and said, "Oh, by the way, would you mind if I did some cocaine?" I scooped up myself up so fast, slammed the door without looking back, worried that one of the neighbors on the floor would see me dressing in the hallway, only realizing later that with this guy it was probably a regular occurence.

The point is, I can look back on this and find it funny. The experiences Josh chooses to look back on he WANTS to be funny, and he wants the reader to think them funny. But I could find nothing funny in destroying your body with liquor and laxatives, a la Karen Carpenter, to keep a tranny figure; I could not find the disintegration of a bad seven month relationship get even worse, thanks to crack addiction, and his efforts years later to track down this fellow he was involved with come off at best as pathetic, at the worst as insanae.

What is he trying to do? I kept asking. I was never sure. He chronicles the club and tranny scenes with accuracy, though a general lack of humor. He describes in almost too graphic detail the preparations needed to transform himself into his tranny persona, Aquadisiac!!!!! But the last words in his book is like a stern moral lecture to young gays about how at some point the parties end, and, as he says, "the show can't go on."

Make up your mind, Josh!!!!!!!! Because I found your book, while a quick read, dispiriting. If I were a young gay kid in a suburban town, reading this, I think it would scare me so much I would not go anywhere. Which could result in other kinds of trouble.

But that's me. One critic actually compared the book's wit to Noel Coward, which I for one cannot see. He lacks the insight of Augusten Burroghs, the sophisticated fun of Lauren Weisberger, and the narrative drive of Candace Bushnell. If you are gay or questioning, hoping to find answers, you won't. If you are straight and think the lifestyle in general crazy, your worst fears will be confirmed.

Personally, I think the gay rights movement was ahead of itself with the Lucky Charms leprechaun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So save yourself the trouble, girls!!!!! Don't read this!!!!!!!!!!