rants n raves
by tom miller
rants n raves
by tom miller
11/23/98 - 3:29 P.M.
miller & chace @ krullen's dungeon
on saturday, i pulled my shift from 3:30 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.
normally, i start at 5:00 p.m. but there was another gator game; this time against their arch rivals, florida state.
they have the stupidest mascot i've ever seen. mascots are usually characters like you might see at disney world, such as mickey mouse or goofy. this is how it should be, because those types of characters are funny. but when you get into live animals, i think it's animal abuse. worse, when you get a guy in make-up and a tacky getup, this breaches all bounds of common decency. the mascot for the nolls, as they are called, short for seminoles, is a stain on the fabric of the american indian. they have a man who looks like a girl, he's painted up to resemble a hollywood indian, he's on a horse (or a live animal if you will), and he rides around the field holding a spear and looking angry.
it's about the most offensive and hideous thing i've ever seen in my life. did you know there are 86 schools, if you count elementary and sr. high along with college, using indian mascots in florida? first we take their land, then we take their pride. all that's left is bingo.
*****
the gators got their scaly green asses licked, ending all hopes for any championship this year.
look ma, i'm playin' the violin with my dick.
*****
and then it was sushi time, with my straight friend. we went to kotobuki in the gator plaza and had a veritable feast of raw flesh. he always orders the sushi special, but he usually adds an extra $15 to the meal price so he can get more salmon, yellowtail, and tuna.
we talked about poetry, his job, new japanese videos he's gotten in the mail. then, i went back to the club, waiting, hoping that nice boy would come out. as the hours waned on, i figured it wasn't going to happen, and of course, i began to drink.
then, the lady chace walked up the stairs with his girlfriend.
*****
the lady chace is a garbage collector by day. by night, he puts on his black teddy and spends about an hour applying makeup to his face, and suddenly, the lady chace comes to life.
let me try to describe the indescribable. he/she is a stocky built 5'10'' man with a wide face, a bit of a belly, and legs seemingly short and thin for the body. his/her hair is thinning a little on top, but is shoulder length and dark brown. lady chace never wears a wig. often, she/he wears large elton john type blue glasses, giving a perverse elvis quality to her visage. an image comes to mind as i write the details here. let me search the web and see if i can find it...
ah. here it is.
courtesy of the beatles and yellow submarine
that's as close as i can come. anyway, she has a sunday show at the university club. it used to be that i had a sunday show and she worked for me. here's how i met her.
*****
i walked into the club one afternoon for happy hour and had a beer. in the corner of the club, was a loud man, playing pool and ranting about something or another. he looked so unusual, so las vegas, that i thought he might fit into my variety show as elvis; not dead after all, and hiding out in gainesville.
little did i know that what i thought was a funny idea came nowhere near to the truth which was funnier and scarier.
we began to talk and i found out the following details.
1. he's a former navy seal.
2. he has a brother who's bigger, badder, a comedian, and a former special forces sergeant.
3. his dad does drag and it's okay with his wife.
i asked him if he might like to come out in drag for one of my sunday shows and do a number.
"honey," he said, "i don't do numbers, i do comedy. standup. i'll put something together and you'll see what i mean."
so there we were on sunday night at one of my notorious variety shows. chace was waiting in the wings. all twelve people who came to see the show were drunk and ready to be entertained.
i introduced chace and got out of the way. her theme music was a bad 80's rock-n-roll song. she came out, performed an odd dance, and then called for the music to be turned down. then she began her... "comedy".
she talked about her drag dad, her brother, some "character" she made up named, fernando, who has a giant poodle; it was like sitting in a therapy session with a former guest of the jerry springer show.
the audience wasn't laughing. they were quiet, and a look of either confusion or horror was on their faces. a couple of people left. when i saw this going on, i covered my face so nobody could see me, and i started to smile. it was fucking funny to me; not her especially, but the reaction going on in the room. these people had come to be entertained, but they were being mortified; and i had their money.
i started audibly guffawing and doubling over with amusement. one or two people who attend my shows regularly laughed too, because they knew this is what i go for. there was no doubt she was destined to be a star at the tom miller show.
in future shows, she would bring her father, and he would be in a white wedding gown, (he didn't wear a wig either and his frosty white hair was styled into a bun), and he would video tape the show using so many on-camera special effects as to make the resulting video impossible to watch.
then came the brother. his name is bull. he is a bull. a friendly, wide man with almost no hair at all on his tough round head. he wears a leather jacket with military awards, rebel flags, patches that say things like "joke 'em if they can't take a fuck", and "i'll kill you." he's a big boy. if this guy was on your bad side and he punched you, you'd have a mail stamp from every country in the world by the time you made it back around the earth. in short, he'd pound you into a mud puddle and walk you dry. for my birthday, he gave me an illegal switch blade.
i like him a lot.
anyway, for his first appearance, i got him a pitcher of beer. chace did her dance, performed her "comedy", and then introduced his brother. bull came out, sat on a stool, and talked about his dad, about chase, about the military, and none of the dialogue was amusing at all.
again, the audience was real quiet, trying to listen, hoping for any opportunity to laugh, but none was given.
the more the audience didn't laugh, the longer i let bull go on.
he was awesome. by the time he was done, i was reduced to a giggling ball of humanity curled up on the floor. one of the funniest guys i've ever met.
he and chace together made a stunning combination, and with the dad there, it made the twilight zone and the outer limits combined look ordinary.
but the funny thing was, every sunday, chace got better and funnier. bull got funnier. everyone talked about how bad the show was, and then they would bring their friends. people were having more fun. and those that listened very carefully to chace and bull, and who got to know them personally, found they were genuinely likable people. they were good people. they had enthusiasm. they weren't jaded. they weren't caught in the grind. they weren't boring.
and when i decided i wanted to focus on writing and poetry and ended my show, chase approached management about having her own show. they said, sure, as long as it was free. chace agreed and assembled some of the better drag queens to do the show with her using only her passion to perform and have others perform with her, as incentive. they were told they wouldn't be paid and would be lucky to even receive complimentary drinks.
they came, they performed, and her shows were becoming good. now she was doing drag numbers and her patter was actually funny. yes, there were still the few people who would escape the show to the upstairs bar and complain that it was the worst thing they've ever seen, but chace was having fun, and so was everybody else. her enthusiasm is infectious.
yesterday, she was told that her show had made the mark; that the club was making enough money at the bars to be able to give her the take at the door.
she, herself, calls her style of impersonation, "street drag." she calls lip synching a song, "pantomime." it's okay to only have two outfits. it's okay to not wear a wig. it's okay to be tacky or camp. it's okay to not have everything planned and rehearsed.
it's okay to have fun.
lady chace; a young attractive former las vegas crown holder; out of drag retirement and not so pretty anymore; back on the stage with her former name now new again, the lady shannon chace; a person like this makes life worth living.
a person like this is beautiful in the truest purest sense of the word.
*****
so as i said, chace and his girlfriend came up the stairs. by this time, i had had a few, and was feeling pretty good. i said hello, and asked chase if she had her 70's thing.
she reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of amyl nitrate, or as gays in the 70's like to call it, a popper. i opened the cap and had a good sniff. invisible hands began pressing on my head.
"thanks," i said.
"of course i have it, honey. anytime," she said. "you know i love you. you brought this old queen out of retirement. i want to do a show with you again. you're my boss. i believe in you." and then she went up the stairs.
you see, lady chace is as queer as they come, but after complaining none of the college boys would have her, she got herself a girlfriend. i don't recall her name, but she is slender, wears or would like to wear leather, enjoys s&m, and gives you the feeling she's some kind of sultry vampire. when she starts drinking, she talks down to everybody as if she's lived hundreds of years.
"honey, you don't even know," or "sweetie, i've been there," or "baby, let me show you something."
they were planning to go over to krullen's dungeon party, and i promised krullen i'd go too, and write about what happens in my journal.
let me tell you about krullen.
*****
at the club on monday nights, there was a show known as medieval mondays. originally the concept was to have knights and armor, sword fighting, mead, jugglers, and light bondage and torture stuff.
over time, the s&m part of the show began to overwhelm the good natured jugglers and sword fighters and mead drinkers. soon, there was nothing but krullen and his dungeon.
krullen is not his real name, but that is what he is called by his subservient "dogs" and "fairies."
this is how i met patricia, (the pretty girl who lets me live in her house.)
she was the fire fairy. she wore tight clothing and wings, and breathed fire at the end of the night in the parking lot. she used to let the patrons of the club feel her dick. she doesn't have one, of course, but she would stuff something in there that felt so real, that word got around she was a hermaphrodite. she liked it that way.
krullen's "dogs" were a couple of guys who really enjoy pain. they pierce themselves, cut themselves, allow themselves to become whipped, let people breathe fire on their backs until the top layers of skin are seared.
but krullen doesn't administer to his "minions" anything he isn't willing to take himself. so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to see a nice gay couple innocently wander into the bar for cocktails and witness krullen electrocuting his balls with a car battery, or having himself wrapped up with barbed wire and whipped with straps; but only if he allowed it.
krullen is the master.
you must be trained in the fine art of fetish if you are ever to rise in the ranks.
you see, fetish is not torture. fetish is causing a level of pain in the body which creates pleasure and it is always consensual.
i found it frightening that some people witnessing whippings would yell from the balcony, "harder! harder! we're not being entertained!"
those fucking pussies wouldn't ever be out there taking half of what they saw. gotta' love bravado backed with hot air.
krullen has long hair, can appear ferocious and intimidating at times, friendly and congenial at others, he has scars from cuts carefully and symbolically etched into his chest and stomach. he is an expert when it comes to applying consensual pain to a person's body with whips, the hands, and other implements.
when the show ended after a successful and bloody, and sometimes chaotic run, krullen took his whips and snakes and stretchers and spreaders out of the club and remodeled his home dungeon. we were invited to attend the grand opening.
*****
"honey," said chace, "you coming to the dungeon with us?"
i had waited and waited, but it seemed nice boy wasn't going to make it. i finished my drink and said, "yeah, what the hell."
*****
more tomorrow.
(tune in next week for the continuing adventures of tom miller and his world of the bloody mouth.)
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