Sunday bread crumbs

Morning after a busy day.  Slept late (really late).  I may have found the key to winding down at night...StarTrek (STOS) because so far the episode with Michael Ansara as Kang has put me to sleep two nights in a row ( I assume Kirk will save the day but I am not sure).  It was a great evening.  If the audience has half the fun I have, then it is worth it.  Although some people last night seemed like they didn't really care for our show.  When asked they were almost exclusively new to the Crown.  Maybe they had different perspectives of what goes on there.  We are unique to the place.  And since there are acts I don't care for there, I would think that there are those who don't like ours.

But I did promise photos of the second dress.  Note: Will post the photos I took and the photos Cheri Amor took.  There are some interesting differences and I do apologize for that.  Suffice it to say, this dress will be worn ONLY at certain events from now on

First the makeup.  I really have to explain I don't do "drag".  I know that sounds prejudicial or elitist and really those who do drag have my respect for what they can do.  But I am not a drag queen.  I was asked, however, for the purposes of the AGIF show to camp it up...drag it up so to speak,  Since I really don't have background in that, this was my compromise

And although I got a lot of compliments, I didn't really like the look.  It was totally stage....

(Insert rant #1 here).  While I appreciate the thought, I don't WANT to look like a drag queen and suggestions in that manner really make me uncomfortable.  Why is it that when someone says "I like your look but...." they really seem to mean "You don't look like I think you should"?  I don't really care that you have been a queen for 47 years and know every makeup trick in the book.  When I say "Thank you but it isn't what I do." then let it go...please.

At home I didn't really think the dress was that shear

 But here is the dress  I have wanted the Michelle Pfeiffer on the piano showing a lot of leg photo for a long time

 

There was no place to put the sender so I had to put it under my arm

  You can file that in "things I will never see Lori in again"

Bread crumb 2:  Know when to be "off".  I know that when I am performing I can be obnoxious and loud.  I know which friends I can be irreverent with.  I hope I know quickly who doesn't want to talk and who does.  The dress above aside...I have to be an ambassador for the Trans (and by that I mean all trans...but especially the CD and TS's) community.  We have an image problem.  Not unlike the image problem many minorities have in societies who don't have the facts or who rely on stereotypes.  I want people to see me and say "Gee she isn't at all like what I saw on TV".  Why?  Because I have to be part of the whole community, of society.  Reinforcing the stereotypic behaviors of being rude, bitchy and a clown doesn't make my life, nor my "sister's" lives any easier.  When you come into a place and start getting in the customer's faces and making sexual innuendo comments...you diminish the rest of us.

This is why I would be very happy if RuPaul disappeared from the earth (as much as I wish Dr Pol would go with him).  But I do understand the attraction.  Very similar to me knowing that every person who lives in the country isn't Jethro Bodine or the Duck quack guy.  They are not.  But who gets the press?  Just for fun, name 5-10 transpeople you know about,   On the positive side is Laverne Cox, Chaz Bono. Iknow several more who hold positions in science, medicine and the arts.  You seldom hear of the trans who have government jobs, places in Fortune 500 companies, who are respected parts of their communities.  No you hear about Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Tootsie and the Queens on RuPaul.

So that's my rant on what people see in public, let's talk professionalism.  Drag Queens are entertainers.  I get that.  And as much any actor, singer, performing artist would and should get the respect from fellow artists to not have their performance interrupted or sidetracked.  It is rude and it is very crass and unprofessional.  And it is just as unprofessional and crude to go around the venue during the performance and talking to the patrons.

RESPECT. Give it...get it.  You want RuPaul drama?  The next DQ that interrupts MY show or anyone in my show is going to get a stiletto up her ass.  You know who you are.

Bread crumb 3 "Islamic State kills Ethiopian Christians in Libya"

  This is atrocious on its own.  I wish there was some way to make those persons accountable for this crime.  They are cowards to start with, hiding behind masks and sneaking around.  But that aside...

On a level closer to home now.  I hear often that my fears would never come to pass.  My fears of being singled out for my life, for who I am isn't possible.  That in America it would never happen.  I wonder, as these Christians were being captured, tortured and eventually murdered, if they thought the same.  How they believed that in their world, worshipping who they wished wasn't a reason to be killed.  On the same token, how the majority of the Muslims in the area would never consider this kind of violence in the name of their God and are just as angered as we are.

 But it happens here in the good ol USA.  We are appalled when Christians are murdered and yet we ignore, or in some cases applaud when a transperson is beaten, raped or killed because "it is their own fault".  And yet I hear it won't ever happen here because we have "laws".  So should we assume that when the ISIS members attacked the victims, someone yelled "We have laws!"?  I doubt it.  

Of course killing and maiming a person because they are "different" isn't the common thing in the US.  No that, we will all agree, would be wrong (sort of like saying that we should kill every Muslim in the world because they aren't Christian and yet I know people who say that...sorry I digress).  No, we are subtler.  We make life difficult for them.  We make it hard for them to survive.  We make them marginalized. We tell "Jokes".  We spread fear.

 

But it won't happen here in the US.  We believe everyone is equal. The majority do believe this.  But the majority of Muslims believe that killing is a sin.  It won't happen here.  Except when a small band of people decide that they can decide who gets to live, or die or gets a job or gets to use a public facility or gets to keep people from marrying or buying a house or adopting a child. We are appalled over the murder of Christians in Libya, but less so with the killings here in our country over gender expression.  Granted, so far they have not rounded up a whole group and led them to prison or death.  But it doesn't take a whole lot to get public opinion to sway in that direction.  The "It isn't me, why should I care." contingent. It doesn't take much.  In less than 100 years this has been proven over and over again.

 

Last week was the Yom HaShoah, the day of remembrance marking the Holocaust.  I know that the majority of the Germans would have been against what was done, but they stood back and let it happen because they thought they had been mistreated after WWI. I see a contingent here in the US who have that same feeling.  Thet they are "losing" their lives because something is given to someone else just to help level the playing field.  It can snowball out of control quickly.  Today I am "safe".  That can change in a heartbeat. Electing someone or not voting can change everyone's lives.  All it takes is apathy or convincing people that they are getting the short end of a stick.

Why do I worry?  Because those who don't learn from history do repeat it. Although the definition is for Genocide, it does apply to other groups like the LGBT community:

 

Genocide as defined by the United Nations in 1948 means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including: (a) killing members of the group (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.