She said I think I'll go to Boston...

Hello, Ducks!

Starzina Starfish-Browne here with your Eric’s!Periodic!Horoscope! for Thurzdee,  May Twennyfirtht, 2015.

Happy birthday to John, each of whom turns twenty-four today all the way out on The Left Coast.

And now, in the time-honored tradition (well, since February-or-so, anyway) of Eric’s!Periodic!Horoscope!, We hereby wish Happy Belated Birthdays to the most-mouth-watering birthday suits to have celebrated birthdays since last We e-pisstled.  So, Happy Belated Birthday to Aaron, Davy, Greg, Jon, Kenneth, and Langston, each of whom turned twenty-four sometime since Our last e-pissode. 

  Also, a Very Special Happy Belated Birthday To Gregory GODDAMN! G., as it occurs to Us that We have now known him for TEN YEARS. Both of Us having recently turned twenty-four, that obviously means We met when We were fourteen.  Much more on that in a moment.

Before We stray from the subject of birthday wishes, We realized in the course of writing this that, of the eight gentlemen wished Happy Birthdays above, We have seen two of them in their birthday suits.  That’s twenty-five percent, for you math-heads, which is not too shabby, especially compared to Our last e-pisstle, in which We had seen exactly NONE of the birthday gentlemen in their birthday suits. 

But don’t let that information keep you gentlemen whom We have NOT seen in your birthday suits from sending Us pixtures of the birthdays suits in question.

We are now, of course, in the sign of Gemini, Our video for which is above.  And here, because it is also brillllllliant, is Our original Gemini video, which was the very first video We made:

Here are the links with which you may share those videos with both of your friends:   http://youtu.be/Yj7enrUk6js  https://youtu.be/YBwdacfn2Vk

And now, here is a little blast-from-the-past, occasioned by Our having watched last night’s season finale of SURVIVOR, which was won by some sort of Jesus freak.  Who promptly thanked Jesus for his win. Why would anyone imagine that Jesus would give a shit who won SURVIVOR?  

At any rate, here is Our take on the subject, from a number of years ago:

MEMO

To: Reality TV show fame-whores, specifically those on Big Brother 5

From:  God

Re: Good vs. Evil

I was stepping out of a long hot bubble bath the other day when I happened to catch the Virgin Mary watching your show, Big Brother 5.  Ordinarily, We don’t much go in for television up here (once you can literally do anything you want, forever, you’d be surprised how little television you actually WANT to watch), except for Nick at Nite (LOOOOVE those old reruns) and The Young And The Rest Of Us (Katherine Chancellor and I went to school together).  However, the Virgin Mary had made her extra-spicy Guadeloupe Guacamole, so I pulled up a tortilla chip and sat down and was somewhat disturbed by what I saw.

First of all, you are playing A GAME. Neither side is “good” or “evil”; they are simply “Us” and “Them”.   No matter how many times or in what bizarre ways you invoke My name, I am passionately indifferent as to the outcome of your little contest (although I HAVE to say, Will is awfully cute).  And please do not make yourselves ridiculous by asking that I come along and “smite your enemies”.  The last time I got a good smite on, they wrote a book about it, and turned it into an Epic Motion Picture starring Charlton Heston, who subsequently became extremely confused and started thinking he was Me.

Speaking of that particular book, I noticed that, although you are not permitted to have writing implements or reading material in the Big Brother House, the producers have made an exception for the bible, which you all seem to read and quote with severely arched eyebrows, as though there are bible passages that have some special significance to This Week’s Food Competition, or Who Wins Head Of Household.  I am here to tell you, THERE AREN’T.  Most of the people who wrote the bible (leaving aside the issue of My Inspiration for another memo) don’t even WATCH television up here, although many of them are quite fascinated with computers, especially Ezekiel.  

On the same subject, if *I* were locked in a house for the summer with twelve strangers (which, since I know everyone, would seem to be an impossibility along the lines of “Could God make a rock so heavy that He couldn’t lift it?”…HEE! Of all the things I invented, I love the human mind the most.), I’d be thinking, “This would be a really good time to get around to re-reading Gone With The Wind” or “Gee, I’ve always meant to read Anna Karenina.” 

The bible? Not so much.

In closing, I hope you all enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, and I’ll see you (albeit briefly) in the Afterlife.

Verily,

God

But back to Belated Birthday Boy Gregory GODDAMN! G. (whom long-time Eric’s!Periodic!Horosocpe! Gentle Readers will recall as the love-child of Christian Slater and the late lamented River Phoenix).

  We first met him ten years ago, on the occasion of Our first-ever trip to Greater Bostonia, when We first performed Our then-fifteen-minute play, The Wedding Consultant.

(Parenthetically (hence the parentheses), this was also the trip on which We first  met OurPatrick, whose play Parthenogenesis has been accepted into this year’s New York Fringe Festival…please go and offer your assistance here:  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/parthenogenesis-at-the-nyc-fringe-festival/x/3785583#/story )

Here, direct from Our archives, is that story in its entirety.  (You lucky, lucky people!)

Greetings, Eric—

Here is your horoscope for Tuesday, May 17, 2005:

Talk about lucky! (Oh, I *KNOW*! And I’m trying to maintain the positivity of the trip, which ain’t easy in this cessp00l of a job. Where we were forced to move to another floor yesterday, with no advance warning whatsoever, just a guy showing up at our doors with a cart. Ya know, if you’re gonna be a wh0re for money, ya might as well get l@id in the process, is all I’m sayin’. But enough about that sh1t….I promised to tell all y’all about Iris Does New England…)

If you can imagine it, you can have it -- and no one has ever accused you of being short on imagination. (Oh, see now…I am COMPLETELY the wrong person to be tellin’ THAT to this morning. If I start conjuring up the things in my imagination, some of all y’all are gonna find yourselves dragged out yo’ beds wiffout yo’ jammies. I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, My Trip, by Iris Holcombe, Wedding Consultant. If you know me at all well, you know that I LOATHE traveling. I love being different places, but I can’t stand all the pieces of the process of getting there. That being said, those aspects of the trip were all relatively uneventful, which is the best that can ever be said about airports and plane rides and such. The key uneventfulness was that they never opened my suitcase, which was, of course, full of ladies’ underg@rments and fake t1tz. I can only IMAGINE the strip search that would have resulted from THAT. You know how dangerous those Mad Drag Terr0rists are.)

Put some of that red-hot energy into the mix, and the world is your oyster. (“Oysters”…New England…it’s a THEME horoscope! Kewl! Now shut yer hole, Chinaman, mine’s makin’ money.

So at any rate, I arrived in Cambridge (ahead of schedule, actually) and promptly realized that I had not a thing in the world to do for hours and hours. Fortunately, it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, so I took my hind parts out for a walk, so I could figure out where the h3ll I was. The first thing that I found out was that, in New England, when two streets intersect at a corner (as they WILL tend to do from time to time, especially in densely populated areas) this is called a “square” (well, technically, “squay-yuh”), and generally named after some (presumably) famous person. Those really must be some long, dark, cold winters up there, if all they have to do with their time is run around naming street corners.

(Here in The City That Loves You (On Your) Back, of course, we do NOT refer to street corners as squay-yuhs, and we generally name them after the cr@ckwh0re who works there. One of my personal favorites is Epiphany’s Corner (not to be confused with Grover’s Corners)…but I fear that I digress.)

Anyway, a number of squay-yuhs later (at which point I realized that the map that I was following, while geographically accurate, was woefully out of scale) I arrived at the Zeitgeist (no, really) Gallery, where I would be performing on Saturday night. The curator very kindly allowed me to tour the facility (see how I “painted a word picture” there? Am I an artiste, or what?), and I soon realized that this was destined to be what we in the entertainment industry technically refer to as a “Wee-Wee Jar Job”. Which means, for those of you among The Great Unwashed, that you need to bring your own wee-wee jar, or you’re never gonna get to p33.)

Very few times over the course of a year, the universe taps us on the shoulder and lets us know that today is our lucky day. (Well, I’d better see The Universe coming, ‘cuz if it takes me by surprise, I’m liable to whip around and punch it in the nose.

Moving on, I continued my tour of Cambridge in search of other cultural attractions (okay, a g@y bar). Some of the larger squay-yuhs, which consisted of more than the mere intersection of two streets, contained many of those newsboxes with free weekly newspapers such as one will find in metropolitan areas.

 Now, in The City Of Brotherly Love Handles, these boxes would include one for the Philadelphia G@y News. In Cambridge, not so much (not that I expected a box for the PHILADELPHIA G@y News, or even the Cambridge G@y News, but I was naively imagining the BOSTON G@y News.). I looked high, I looked low, I looked long and hard…ooops, sorry; I forgot myself.

Finally, I found myself in front of an emporium which purveyed women’s underg@rments of the leather variety, artificial male appendages operated by batteries, and various creams, lotions, and unguents designed to enhance the joys of f0rnication. (Said emporium was called, I might add, “Hubba Hubba”, and I’m NOT making that up.)

 “Aha!” sez I, “Here they will have the newspaper for which I seek!” And they did. Two of them, in fact. I forget what they were called, but they each claimed to be “NEW ENGLAND’S largest LGBT newspaper”. The h3ll? Boston doesn’t have its own? Whatever. Moving on…I purchased a few necessities (NOT at Hubba Hubba, thankyouverymuch) and returned to the hotel.

 Somewhere during my return trip, I received a call from my producer, who, upon being told that I had already toured the performance venue, said that he would “see me Saturday”. I told him that I would see him FRIDAY, as I wanted to see Friday night’s show. G0d bless him for having the b@llz to buy a pig in a poke, as it were (I’m not sure that I’m using the idiom “pig in a poke” quite correctly here, mainly because I have no idea what the h3ll is a “poke” (although it sounds vaguely dirty)). What *I* mean is, g0d bless him for somehow discerning from a script, a resume, and a few emails that I was a reliable performer who would show up and do the job, and not some nutjob diva with an attitude problem (SHADDUP!))

This one is yours, and whether or not you feel the tap on the shoulder, you have some luck coming your way. (I DO have luck coming my way. Even more of it, actually…the infamous 24th birthday continues to be celebrated this week, both Tuesday and Thursday, with an intervening appearance by TCBITWWW (The Cutest Boy In The Whole Wide World, for you newbies).

But back to Boston, where I had better start condensing, or I’ll never get through this. Thursday evening, I finally met my Internet friend (there’s NO way to say that without it sounding dirty, is there?) Patrick, who was the one who let me know about the whole festival in the first place. He took me on a whirlwind tour of suburban Boston, followed by a show in which he was performing, and dinner, where we were entertained by the antics of two high school couples en route to or from their prom. There’s just nothing like watching teenager try to get l@id for the first time. (Well, I suppose there’s watching them SUCCEED, but we didn’t hang around that long.))

Now that you've been told and you know it's coming, you have all kinds of options. (I gotcher options RIGHT HERE, Bay-Bee. Friday was my day to Do Boston, which started out with me boarding public transportation OF MY OWN VOLITION, and when does THAT ever happen? (Of course, Bostonianese public transportation is clean, well-lit, and involves piped-in music, so it wasn’t quite what I was used to. How DO they get rid of the smell of ur1ne???)

 Being a terrible tourist, and having almost no interest in history, “Doing Boston” for me consisted of wandering vaguely about soaking up local color and thinking about lunch. Boston, for those of you haven’t been, is essentially Philadelphia put in a blender. Where we have a tasteful grid of streets, named running east-west, numbered running north-south, they have spaghetti: streets which turn into other streets without warning, streets which disappear into nothingness, and almost no right angles (they still, however, manage to create squay-yuhs somehow). Oh, and, no matter which direction you go, you will wind up in Chinatown. As I was not particularly craving Chinese food, this was beginning to make my lunch plans a little difficult, until I finally made my way to a lovely (and EMPTY) g@y emporium, where I obtained a delicious bowl of clam chowdah and was able to chat with some friendly natives.)

The first, of course, is to jump right on any chance you come across, (But what if his name isn’t Chance?)

regardless of the perceived outcome, and see what happens. (Well, clearly what’s happening here is that, if I don’t soon send this out, it’ll never GET out. So I guess you’re just all gonna have to hold your breath and wait for tomorrow’s exciting conclusion of Iris Does New England.)

Greetings, Eric—



Here is your horoscope for Wednesday, May 18, 2005 (The Happiest of Hump Days to one and all…may your day be Mary and briiiiiight, and may all your humping last all night.):



Some astonishing news is coming about a money matter you thought had been long solved. (Here’s hoping that, by “astonishing”, Kimmy Cr@ckWh0reAndIDon’tCare means “winning PowerBall™ ticket".

Anyway, on with Iris Does New England, Part Deux. I believe, as of yesterday, I had gotten as far as my day trip to Boston, where I ate g@y clam chowdah. I subsequently returned to Cambridge, mah po’ feets nearly fallin’ offen mah legs, and went back to the hotel to freshen up. (That phrase always sounds so delightfully euphemistic and polite. Not unlike the Summer’s Eve™ commercials, where they talk about that “not-so-fresh” feeling. 

(Before I get off (well, okay, not exactly) on a completely c00ter-related digression, I should mention that, on my way back through Cambridge, I somehow managed to stumble through the campus of MIT, which may have been the UGLIEST couple of city blocks I have ever seen (and I AM counting every slum-ghetto-cr@ck dealer section of Philadelphia I’ve ever been through…hey, at least they have CHARACTER) and clearly represented One Of The Things That Is Wrong With This Country. To wit: fine, you’re all geniuses, mad scientists, smarter than the average bear, whatever. Plant a fu(king flower, fercrissakes. Paint a mural. Hire an architect. Jeebus! Spray some g0ddamn graffiti on the place…it could only be an improvement. I’m just sayin’.)

The battle won't rage on all day -- in fact, the fireworks might just climax in a very nice surprise later on tonight. (I shall await my “very nice surprise” with bated breath. My not-so-very-nice surprise last night was that my planned evening was cancelled, due to the fact that John G, who had been back in his office ONE DAY, succumbed to the dreaded eye malady previously induced by said toxic office. SUE THE B@STARDS!!! YOU run ColbyCo now!

 At any rate, back to Boston…after my ablutions (I showered, I shaved, I FDSed myself into a stupor), and some lovely irises (get it?) from Gerre (thanks , Gerre!), I was off to the theater at 6:00 to meet and greet. The cast was called for a 6:30 cue-to-cue, so I figured I’d (finally) meet my producer and some other folks, then toddle off for some dinner and a tasteful libation before returning for the show at 8. Well, I was half right. 

I met my producer (whom I had correctly identified from (uncaptioned) Internet photos (HMcHHw/HS*) and several other very nice folks. What I had not realized was that these two hours would have to be The Two Hours When Everything Came Together. Never one to shirk when there is (intelligent, goal-oriented) work to be done, I rolled up my proverbial sleeves and was up a ladder about five minutes after I got there. Fortunately, I found myself working alongside a very nice Woman Who Gets Things Accomplished, so all was well. When I was able to relieve the producer (the PRODUCER, fercrissakes!) of the task of FOLDING THE PROGRAMS, I knew that sticking around had been the right decision. 

(I WAS able to slip out at 7:45 for a tasteful cocktail and THE best fried calamari EVAH at a bar next door…if you ever find yourself in Cambridge, it’s called The Druids (all this entertainment, AND useful information…all free in your morning email…are you people LUCKY, or what?)))



You're famous for your love of startling, unexpected events. (Well, by this point, I dunno exactly what I expected, but I am here to tell you, the show was BRILLIANT! The performers were all excellent, and their pieces were wonderfully varied and fun (and nobody droned on about their childhood). Also, at no point was there That Piece That Makes You Go “Why The Fu(k Did THAT Have To Happen In The Middle Of An Otherwise-Wonderful Show?” And Makes Everything Else Look Good By Comparison. 

I would write a complete review, but it’s already looking like there’s gonna be a Part Three to this story, so I’m gonna have to move on. Highlights included a crowd-favorite piece about an audition, a mother defending her right to feed her body parts to her children, an older gentleman describing his intimate relationship with a baboon, and a jazz musician singing scat intermittently while describing the rise and fall of his relationship with his wife. 

My personal favorites were the 20-year-old love-child of River Phoenix and Christian Slater (and I mean that as a very sincere compliment) describing an encounter with Satan (any monolog which includes the phrase “kicked him in the @sshole” (not “@ss”, mind you, but “@sshole”) is okay in my book) and the producer’s piece “1000 Proms”, in which he played a teenaged Southern belle Jeebus freak en route to her prom, and reminded me for all the world of my sistah, Ovella Parsons-Wilkes. (He also uttered the immortal phrase, “…and she called me a “C U Next Tuesday”, which means “(UNT”…”, and I am thinking there should be T-shirts.) Oh, and did I mention, the place was packed, and a good time was had by all?)



So when that type of thing comes along, you're always excited about it, which actually adds to the end result. (I could use a little “addition” to my “end result”. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. At any rate, I was very encouraged by everything I saw on Friday night, and went back to the hotel looking forward to Saturday. (Which, at this point, will get described in Part Three.))



The past couple of days have been nothing if not unpredictable, so you've probably been quite happily living on the edge. (Ain’t THAT the truth? And now here I am, back in the center. Blech. Meanwhile, have any of all y’all theatre types ever heard of such a festival (writers performing their own solo pieces) before? And, if you have, why the h3ll haven’t *I*?)



At the moment, however, you're ready to call it a day (Oh, is THAT what it is?)

and you know just who to call to help you put the whole matter to bed. (That would, no doubt, be related to the “very nice surprise” you promised me earlier.)

Accidents are a distinct possibility, (There ARE no accidents.)

and not necessarily the slip-and-fall variety. (“Honest, Mom, I was swimming where some boys were.”)



Before you send that flirty (or gossipy) email, you'd be wise to triple-check the address -- you don't want it going to your boss, do you? (Yeah, I’ll be adding My Boss to the horoscope list ANY DAY NOW. Really. Meanwhile, stay tuned tomorrow for Part Three: The Dramatic Conclusion of Iris Does New England. (HEE! Look, Gerre; another cliffhanger.))

Greetings, Eric—



Here is your horoscope for Thursday, May 19, 2005 (So ya know that “new” (well, re-programmed) radio station? The one whose new slogan is “we play whatever we feel like playing”, or something like that? So I’m standing there flossing this morning (and how BORING is flossing, anyway?) when what should they decide they feel like playing but the Theme from FLASHDANCE. I defy you not to shake your b00ty when you hear that song…why, I nearly organized a line dance on the trolley later. Of course, there were only two other people on the trolley at that hour, but whatever.):

For the next couple of days, the most important thing will be pleasing someone you love. (Mmm-hmm. I had dinner last night with TCBITWWW. (How’s THAT for a segue?) It was a short evening, as he was somewhat under the weather. Why is it that, now that we’re finally having some decent weather, everybody I know is under it? I firmly expect my dinner companion this evening to announce that she has contracted leprosy, immediately before her ring finger falls into the bouillabaisse. I shall make her wear a bell and cry out “Unclean! Unclean!” (That’s actually a private joke, but I’m hoping it was at least mildly amusing for those of you not in on it. It was? Oh, I’m SOOO glad.))

Fortunately, that type of behavior, no matter how unselfishly you intend it, often results in some really nice fringe benefits. (And lord knows, it’s about d@mn time for a few fringe benefits. 

But you didn’t come here for this…you came here to hear about the rest of Iris Does New England. (Regular p0rn aficionados, y’all are. I LIKE that in a person.) So where were we? I believe we were up to Saturday, a large part of which I spent rehearsing in the hotel room. I’m sure the people in the NEXT room were quite confused. Not that, now that I come to think of it, I ever actually saw another guest in this hotel…hmmm. 

I had lunch with Patrick someplace called Legal Seafood, which is a really stupid name for a place with really good seafood. Later, I went to the theater really early, so I could get ready and stay out of people’s way. Unfortunately, due to the set-up of the place, I was unable to see any of the Saturday night pieces, but the good news is, the producer had it videotaped, and we are all getting DVDs of the entire festival. How cool is that?

 I do know that the show opened with a guy who did some sort of standup routine that absolutely tore the place apart. There was also a monolog about a kindergarten teacher attempting to read HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES to her class, but constantly being interrupted by the children’s questions, which sounded really funny. As for what else went on, I guess I’ll just have to wait for the DVD. The place was even more packed than on Friday, and they LURVED us. Oh, and my favorite curtain call direction EVAH: “Join hands, bow, take the step forward that says, “Stand UP, you muthafu(kahs!”, bow again…”)



The top of your priority list belongs to the ones you love -- (Yeah, that’s a big shocker. As opposed to, say, people I haven’t even met. @sshat.)

but you'd never admit to it, even under threat of torture, death or worse. (Torture? Death? The h3ll? Oh, but you wanted to hear about MEEEE, didn’t you? Well, let’s see. Sight unseen, the producer placed my piece at the end of the first act, batting cleanup, as it were, to use a sports metaphor, (I think). I was quite touched by the display of faith. I seem to recall laying…er, slaying them in the aisles, but I was distracted by the fact that, two paragraphs in, I dropped the friggin’ cell phone, which CAME APART on the floor, and I spent the next few pages picking it up and putting it back together. With white gloves on. Jeebus. 

Naturally, being a Highly Trained Professional, I kept talking the whole time, but it nonetheless p1ssed me off. All reports, however, were that I killed the place, and no one seemed to notice, or care about, the phone debacle. In fact, one older gentleman told me afterwards that he was going to have dreams about me. Well, about Iris, actually. Which was a little disturbing, yet flattering in its way. And the standup guy claims to have spent the entire next day quoting my piece. Although how exactly you work “Pansy, sit your dyke pygmy @ss down and shut the h3ll up!” into casual conversation, I haven’t got any idea. 

The show was followed by live music, from a band who did a really killer version of “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” Then we went out for drinks…apparently, in Bostonia, they card EVERYONE. Well, everyone except ME. And here I was, lookin’ so cute in my Red Sox hat. (Wig hair, ya know. And again with the sports. I may be becoming a l3sbian. Didja hear the one about the Polish l3sbian? She liked men.))

They know how you feel, however, which is really all that counts. (Well, of course. Because it’s all about MEEEEEEE. So anyway, that was my trip, and I’m really glad I dragged this story out for three days, because THIS week has been not so much to write home about.)

Moving on, didja know that We have been e-pisstling e-pissodes of these e-pisstles in one form or another since 2001?  The preceding saga, as well as every other scintillating e-pissode from 2005 (now TEN YEARS OLD) can be found in charming dead-tree format here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-singel/erics-daily-horoscope-2005/ebook/product-17475744.html ? 

Thank Gawd We didn’t stray from the point.

****************************************

Namaste, MotherFuckers.

In gaseousness,

Starzina Starfish-Browne

 (Your Your-O-Scopes:

http://www.humorscope.com)

 (Meanwhile, why We didn’t think of this sooner, We’ve got no idea, but better laid than necking, as they say (and how right they are!).  For real live actual ass(tromlaogical) ho(roscopular) advice, please visit Our good friend AstroGeek here:  http://sett.com/astrogeek895/.  Our Own epistular musings are of use to you only insofar as making you feel better by comparison, but he will give you actual pertinent advice for your very own lives, based on upon the positions and transitations of all manner of planets, planetoids, asteroids, Altoids™, hemorrhoids, and other heavenly flotsam, jetsam, and Jetsons.  Plus, he knows all about Uranus!)

*****************************************************************************

Starzina Starfish-Browne was born in the wagon of a traveling show…well, okay, not really. She was actually born in Lowake, Texas, the daughter of a beautician and either a garage mechanic or the town mailman. At sixteen, she escaped her humble beginnings by running off with Doctor Browne’s Traveling Medicine Show and, more to the point, Doctor Browne. Following the dissolution of this unfortunate entanglement (Doctor Browne was a Virgo and Starzina is, of course, an Aries), which produced a daughter, Starzina entered a contest in Soap Opera Digest and won a scholarship to Oxford (yes, in ENGLAND), where she earned her doctorate in the newly-created dual major of Astrology and Human Sexuality. There is absolutely NO TRUTH to the rumor that Starzina’s second daughter has Royal blood, despite tabloid photographs allegedly depicting her cavorting on the Italian Riviera with Princes William and Harry, clad only in Prussian helmets and armbands of questionable taste. Starzina currently resides with her daughters in Philadelphia, the City That Loves You (On Your) Back, where she enjoys Double Coupon Day at the local SuperCruise and “encouraging” the coxswain of the Penn rowing team.