Andrea
Denver, Colorado
Dear Andrea,
Who the fuck gets smallpox anymore? What is this, 1927? (I was around then.) Was the brother a filthy pig? (I had one of those, too.) Oh, wait, that was unkind. (I’m a little tense at the moment. I’m watching teen Jeopardy! and the fat kid from Omaha just missed a question a retard could answer.) Allow me to rephrase: So sorry for your loss, I guess. I’m BUSY, Andrea.
I’m scribbling this like a doctor writing a prescription: I doubt you can catch anything from an incinerated Bag of Bill. Many people keep the ashes of loved ones inside their homes, on the mantel or on a shelf in the office. I have one friend who keeps his mom’s ashes right on the dining room table—because sometimes salt just isn’t enough. (She was fat; it would take two hands to toss her over your shoulder for luck.)
Anyhoo, the yard thing does feel a little creepy—I mean, what if the gardeners accidentally mow the poor thing into mulch, or the dog digs him up and drops him at your feet, like a squirrel he’s killed? Do you say, “Good boy, Bingo,” or vomit all over the dog and the deceased?
If your husband is insistent on having his brother in the backyard, then make sure that (a) he buries him in an airtight, sniff-proof container, (b) buries him VERY deep in the ground, (c) doesn’t tell you where in the yard he is, and (d) never has the neighborhood kids over for a scavenger hunt . . . And no, I’ve never seen Forensic Files.
FYI, things could be worse. You may have issues with your husband burying his pox-riddled brother’s ashes under your pansies, but Mrs. John Wayne Gacy had to deal with her husband burying thirty-three teenage tricks under the dining room. So, Andrea, be grateful. Put a smile on your weather-beaten face and tiptoe through the tulips! . . . And remember, moisturize. The body. Before it’s in the ground. If not, it smells.
* * *
Dear Bianca,
I am in my first year of recovery from alcoholism (along with addictions to meth, cocaine, Xanax, Valium, Ecstasy, and whatever other party drugs I could get my hands on) and living in a treatment house. My AA sponsor, Brian D, makes me write a gratitude list first thing every morning, when I get up. He says I need to start each day by thanking God for all of the blessings in my life. I understand the need to be grateful but I’m not religious and don’t know if I believe in God. Any suggestions?
Michael
Palm Springs, California
Dear Michael,
Your question is so complex, and so multifaceted, I don’t know where to begin. I think I need a drink before I start. Gimme a sec; I’ll be right back.
Okay, I’m back, Susan, thannnks for way-ting. —Oh, I’m sorry, MICHAEL. Must be the vodka talking.
For starters, your sponsor, Brian D? Is the D for “douchebag”? No decent person would make you write lists the MOMENT you wake up. What happened to having coffee or taking a shit, not to mention apologizing to your trick for the rash before you give him bus fare? I can think of at least twenty things to do when you get up first thing in the morning—six of them starting with the letter F—and none of them involve writing a gratitude list.
Ever watch the Today show? (I don’t—I don’t care about the news—but for our purposes let’s pretend I do.) Do you think the first thing Hoda Kotb does when she wakes up at three o’clock in the morning is write God a gratitude list? No, of course not. Hoda pulls a fifty out of her bra to give to the makeup guy at NBC, who will cover some of the bags under her eyes and bathe her in foundation so she looks like she’s under seventy. I don’t mean to dis Brian D, but if he REALLY cared about your recovery, he’d let you sleep in, pretty up, and laze your way into gratitude over waffles, mimosas, and porn.
Before I continue, let me apologize for this EXHAUSTINGLY LONG answer, but your question really pushed some buttons for me; not sure why. (Can you believe I apologized for something? Neither can I!) Anyway, short-form answer to your question: Move out of the treatment center and have a fucking cocktail. We’re all going to die eventually, so you might as well go out with a buzz. And now I’M going to have a few cocktails; responding to your complicated question has sucked the life out of me.
I’m back! Both Jack Daniel’s and I thank you for waiting. So, gratitude? Waaaay overrated, in much the same way as getting a blow job from someone with no teeth. Oh sure, on the surface it’s all dirty and fun, but when you look at the facts in front of you it ain’t that hot. Yeah, the sucking is good—I’ve never heard anyone say, “You know, that sloppy bitch kept dragging her gums,” but the reality is, you’re getting a blow job from SOMEONE WITH NO TEETH. And there’s a REASON that your cum dump has no teeth. And that reason is usually (a) he/she’s so old she considers a catheter an accessory; (b) he/she’s bulimic and her fangs rotted from daily purgings; or (c) he/she lost them to Josef Mengele in a bizarre, twin-centric, Nazi medical experiment. If the reason isn’t (c) you’ve made a horrible choice. C is acceptable due to your “service provider’s” tragic backstory. Because no matter what drama you have going on in your life, Gummo has been through worse. I don’t care if you have a two-inch dick and a ball sac you could trip over, on a scale of one-to-Auschwitz, you’re barely a five.
Next comes waterboarding. My advice: I don’t care how hot he is, NEVER date a guy who’s in ISIS.
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
You know who ruined gratitude for me? Jesus freaks, that’s who. Those joyful souls are waaaay too grateful for my liking. I’m not talking about your everyday, garden-variety Christians, who are exhausting in their own special ways, but Jesus freaks. You’ve seen them—they wander the streets wearing crosses around their necks that are so big it would be easier for them to just strap Jesus to their back, like a carry-on or a tote. And they’re always happy, happy, happy, smiling like a retarded forty-year-old man-child clapping his hands in a candy store.
Or perhaps you’d recognize them because they mention HIS name every five minutes, regardless of the circumstance, occasion, or context of the conversation going on. Let’s say, for example, it’s a simple, wholesome breakfast at Denny’s.* Here’s the scenario:
WAITRESS: Can I start you off with a drink?
JESUS FREAK: Yes. I’d like a huge, teeming glass of water . . . which I can drink today, only because Jesus the Almighty has brought the rains down from the heavens to quench the earth so that the believers and repenters can satisfy their thirst and continue to spread the word of the Lord.
WAITRESS: Okay. Water it is.
Had I been that waitress, the conversation would have gone differently.
WAITRESS: Can I start you off with a drink?
JESUS FREAK: Yes. I’d like a huge, teeming glass of water . . . which I can drink today, only because Jesus the Almighty has brought the rains down from the heavens to quench the earth so that the believers and repenters can satisfy their thirst and continue to spread the word of the Lord.
WAITRESS: We’re in California. There’s a drought, you asshole. You’ll get half a cup. And on your way out maybe you can ask Jesus why the fuck it hasn’t rained here in five years. This place is drier than Betty White’s pussy.
But it’s not just the pasty, old white trash that frequent Denny’s who are Jesus freaks; old black women are very fond of him, too. I was watching the news recently, shortly after one of America’s weekly white-cop-shoots-unarmed-black-man-for-no-apparent-reason events. The entire family of the deceased black man was holding a press conference, and while the family attorney was at the microphone speaking, next to him, a woman (Grandmother? Great-grandmother? Aunt who raised the victim as her own child because the baby-mama was a teenage crack whore?) kept chanting, over and over, “Thank you, Jesus; thank you, Jesus; thank you, Jesus.” And I’m thinking, for what? Not only was your son/grandson/nephew just killed, but you’re making a fool of yourself interrupting your pro bono attorney who is announcing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. Unless of course you’re thanking Jesus for the windfall awaiting you, or for the national TV exposure that might l
and you a series on BET or Bravo! In which case, I stand corrected.
I, too, have no idea if there is a God or not. Maybe yes, maybe no. What I do know is that if I’m on my knees, I won’t be able to thank God because my mouth will be full.
I’m taking a risk here, Michael, because I don’t know if you have any immediate family members who are regulars on the charity circuit, but . . . I find the families of the genetically disabled are also overly grateful to God for the “blessing” of having a thirty-seven-year-old brother who wears a helmet to take a bath and likes to make “pies” out of his poops. I’m always wondering, what’s the blessing, exactly? They’ve learned that shit is a therapeutic tool, and not just a couple of brown logs floating in a toilet? If they want to be grateful I think the gratitude comes in the fact that Billy’s being “differently abled” gives them perfectly legitimate reasons to turn to alcohol and drugs as both a coping mechanism and a food group.
Which brings me back to you. You’re living in a treatment center/recovery house—what a terrible place to get sober. You’re surrounded by sober alcoholics—people for whom everything is a “trigger” to drink. A simple lunch at Olive Garden sounds like this: “Does the wine burn out of the chicken Marsala? Is there rum in the rum cake? Can you make a virgin piña colada?” It’s less harrowing being alone in a hotel room with Bill Cosby than trying to have a snack with a recovering drunk.
I have a cousin, Barry K, who hasn’t had a drink in years (which is why I haven’t seen him in years), but on the occasions when we speak (usually after the unexpected death of someone we both either loved or hated), he starts every conversation by announcing that he’s a “grateful recovering alcoholic.” And when we hang up, my first thought is always, what the fuck is he grateful for? He spent years losing jobs, puking in public, and peeing himself in restaurants, and now he spends every waking moment in church basements listening to other people with no lives share about their “recovery.” If I was Barry K, I wouldn’t be grateful, I’d be quiet.
The last time I saw Barry, I was walking into Forgotten Woman to buy a casual top (36 Husky) and he was coming out of—guess where—a church basement. I made the mistake of saying, “Barry, how are you?” He said—guess what—“Grateful.” I said, “Why??? Your shoes don’t go with your pants, your fly’s open, and you have coffee on your tie.” He said, “I’m grateful to be sober.” I said, “You’d be better off drunk. At least it would explain your look.” He smiled and walked away. I smiled and walked into Forgotten Woman. And I was grateful that even though I’d had cocktails for breakfast I could still match a simple summer shift with an open-toed wedge.
*P.S. I don’t actually eat at Denny’s. Just like my handsome twenty-eight-year-old Peruvian gardener, Ronaldo, it’s beneath me. I chose Denny’s as a reference so I would seem more like an everyday person, and therefore make the story more accessible to the reader.
* * *
Dear Bianca:
I’ve been trying to lose weight, and keep it off, for years, with varying degrees of success. I’ve tried Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Deal-A-Meal. You name it, I’ve tried it. I belong to three different gyms, I’ve worked with a trainer; I’m even seeing a psychiatrist, yet nothing helps; I don’t know what to do. I’m beside myself.
Janice
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Janice,
Of course you’re beside yourself—you weigh five hundred pounds. You’re beside everybody. You’re two people. Actually, three people, if they’re all frail, petite, or in ill health with Stage Four Something or Other. Being morbidly obese is much different from just being fat. Anyone can get fat; morbid obesity takes work and requires drive and determination. Good for you! Be proud of your stick-to-it-iveness; you’ve made a concerted, diligent effort to become a sideshow attraction, and all of your hard work has paid off. In fact, why not BE a sideshow attraction? Why not join a circus or a carnival, and let your massivity work for you? Monetize your girth. You can sit on a stool in a cage, half nude, and let people throw peanuts or coins or dollar bills at you while you chow down on a couple of po’ boys or a small horse. Ka-ching!
“Liza, Lorna, don’t wake Mommy. She’s just napping.”
© Jovanni Jimenez-Pedraza
I say, Janice, why stop at five hundred pounds; why not go to six or seven hundred, assuming your heart, bed, and reinforced Dodge Ram can handle it? Then you can start a career in television!
One of my favorite shows on TV is My 600-lb Life, on TLC. Janice, if you haven’t seen it, put down that vat of Chunky Monkey and run—I mean lumber—into the family room and turn on the television. It’s a fabulous show. It’s about an Armenian doctor (whose name no one can pronounce) in Houston who does gastric bypass surgery on grotesque fat slobs—oh, I’m sorry, my bad—I mean unfortunate people dealing with weight issues. The patients have to be AT LEAST six hundred pounds to be cast on the show. It also helps if they live in a trailer and have crucifixes on the walls and lots of children bringing them food.
So, stop killing yourself trying to lose all that weight; embrace your obesity and have fun killing yourself with Big Macs! Go out and gain the other hundred pounds necessary to be one of Dr. Whatshisname’s patients. Janice, you don’t need to make a call for help, you need to make a call for seconds. And thirds! And when you get close to the magic number of six hundred pounds, call me . . . and I’ll call the casting director at TLC! Good luck, and bon appétit!
BIANCA CHEWING THE FAT
My fascination with fatties began in 1991 when I was just a DQIT (Drag Queen in Training). I remember watching TV one night, snuggled up on the couch with my court-appointed guardian, when the nightly news came on. The lead story was about the death of a twelve-hundred-pound man named Walter Hudson from West Hempstead, New York. Shockingly (!), Walter had a heart attack and died at the age of forty-seven. And he was so fat that a local fire rescue squad had to cut a hole in the side of his house and pull him out with a forklift. I was so shocked by the spectacle of Walter’s body being pulled out of the house (like a dead orca being removed from its tank at Sea World) that I vowed, with God as my witness, that even if I crammed myself into a size-two evening gown or summer shift, I would NEVER, ever eat so much that a SWAT team had to unzip me.
I’ve always wondered how morbidly obese people have children. I mean actually have them. How does a seven-pound baby wend its way through hundreds of pounds of fat and find the birth canal, let alone the vagina? I imagine it’s like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure, frantically swimming for her life, looking for an escape hatch as the ship fills with water. (If you haven’t seen The Poseidon Adventure, it’s like Titanic without the good-looking people.) And I’m shocked that when the baby comes out it’s usually healthy. I figured that the baby was so desperate to get out (to both get air and, well, it’s in a vagina, yuck), it probably shot out of the snatch hatch at full force, like a hooker doing the Ping-Pong ball trick, and smashed into the wall across the room, and got all flattened and fucked up. But no, that doesn’t happen; another one of nature’s unexplained miracles, like morning rain, gorgeous sunsets, and Lady Bunny’s career.
Morbid obesity intrigues me on many levels. As my dear, dear, I-can’t-believe-she’s-not-a-drag-queen friend, Julie Andrews, once sang, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start . . .”
For über-fatties the very beginning is breakfast, which is followed by another breakfast, and another one after that. Then of course comes snack time, the three hours of noshing that will tide you over until lunches. After which comes . . . you get my point, which is: How do you get so fat that Richard Simmons drops by with a camera crew and pets you like a zoo animal? How much do you have to eat to go from being heavy to husky to what-the-fuck-happened?
As I mentioned in my reply to Janice’s letter, on My 600-lb Life, many of the show’s “stars” are so fat they can’t get out of bed to get food for themselves, and rely on their spouses, children, or whoever else
can fit in the trailer to bring them food. First time I saw six-year-old Jimmy dragging a little red wagon filled with two hundred Big Macs and a potato field full-o-fries into Mommy’s room, I thought, “This motherfucker needs to join the teamsters. He’s hauling quite a load!”
I’m also fascinated as to how fatties manage to conceive. It’s a geometric phenomenon. If the wife is the bedridden mountain of meat, how does the man find the hole? Strap a GPS to his junk? (FYI, I’ve only seen one real vajayjay, up close, in a dirty magazine. I had no idea what I was looking at. The “model” had her legs opened to reveal a giant, hairy maw; it looked like JFK’s head wound. I didn’t know if I was looking at a porn picture or an autopsy photo.) And if it’s the man who’s morbidly obese, how does the woman get it in?
(Thankfully, weight gain has no effect on dick size. If Michael Fassbender gains three hundred pounds, his knob will still be dragging along the floor like a Swiffer.) I assume the woman gets on top, otherwise we’re looking at a bone-breaking, junk-yard-car-crushing scenario. I’ve often wondered (and by that I mean obsessed over) if Ellen Barkin’s flattened features were a result of letting her fatass ex-husband, Ron Perlman, use her face as a lawn chair. Whatever; Ellen is still hot, so maybe chubby-chasing has its upsides; who am I to judge?
I could go on, but all this fat-shaming is making me hungry.
Chapter 2
Love Is a Long and Slender Thing
Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Blame It on Bianca Del Rio_The Expert on Nothing With an Opinion on Everything Page 2