Minette - Recollections of a Part-time Lady

But it’s hard to beat a five-room flat for $32, even if the walls are Niagara when it rains. And I have my piano. I play every day, mostly rags, especially the master, Scott Joplin. There’s one song I’ve been looking for all my life. “I’m the Hostess of a Bum Cabaret.” I never found it, though.

My friend Crazy Arthur contacts spirits and he says one of them helps me play the piano. His name is Bob and he lived here from 1895 to 1905 and he played piano in one of the theaters. He was a straight man that wanted to come out, but didn’t, all those years before gay liberation. Bob’s crazy about me. And Crazy Arthur says that when I relax enough Bob can get into my body and play. So I’ll just relax and sit up real straight and say, “Bob, do your stuff!”

I’m glad I’m not a young queen today, honey. I think it’s very sad and tough, especially since the demise of gay liberation. Things are going in the opposite direction, back to the fifties. It’s like they won. The punks.

I hate to see the hippy style go. All those fabulous clothes. Gone. I have a friend, when I met him he had frizzed hair down to his asshole and glitter on his face. He was a parody of a hippy. Now he’s a parody of a straight person. If he dressed any straighter you’d mistake him for a Chinese waiter. It’s so altered. I definitely have a generation gap with this post hippy generation.

Times have been hard, of course, and they will be hard again, but that doesn’t mean you have to immediately get dark and ugly. No wonder straight people are worried about gay liberation. Now, not only do they think we are going to suck their son’s cock, they think we are going to bite it off. The only way to get out of darkness is to want to be liberated and try for something beautiful. If you do things ugly, people treat you ugly.

That’s all the campy tales for today, boys. I feel so lit up on that bit of tea. I guess it’s talking about all these gay times. If you want to go to the bathroom before you leave, take matches and light the candle over the toilet. The slumlord won’t fix the plumbing and there’s no electricity in there. It looks best in candlelight anyway. But be sure and blow it out when you’re finished, because my sister Double John isn’t working for the church where she liberated those candles from. Not anymore.

Take some tea for the road, boys, and make that subway ride gorgeous.

If you would like another copy of this book, please contact:

Ray Dobbins

57 Second Avenue

New York 10003

(212) 475-0071

This book is based on many visits to Minette’s flat. The words are Minette’s. The text was edited by Steven Watson. The photographs from Minette’s album are mostly by anonymous photographers, printed, and re-worked by Ray Dobbins.