I Wear Cowboy Boots

I haven’t blogged lately because I have been busy. Valentine’s Day is crunch time with the telegrams. It’s the day of the year that basically pays the rent. Plus I had a few that needed redelivered because of the snow and got more money for those. Oh and then I had some stuff I had to do for my writing. Basically, I have been busy. Yeah, I said that. Busy and tired.

Valentine’s Day was certainly busy. I ended up delivering four deliveries which was supposed to be seven but three were moved because of the snow. I did my first and got a nice tip. Went to the second, dude was in a meeting. Sprinted to Brooklyn, and then went back to LES to complete the third. All three of these folks threw money at me which was a surprise. Then delivered to a girl for her birthday as a cake. Later I sprinted to perform with La Familia, a multicultural collective I belong to. I finished the day with five good shows. I was so tired I forgot about it. And then I went home.

After which I rolled out of bed and went to another delivery. Yes, I went to Westchester, Larchmont, and walked up a snowy ravine. For some reason I never tire of adventure even when it almost kills me. Hell, my life almost kills most people but nevermind that. For the record, I spent the rest of the day in bed.

Sunday I recorded a podcast with Matt Bailey, a young ventriloquist living in the city that attends Pace University. I am on the episode after Terry Fator. At the moment, it is tough to see who is king of the Ventriloquists, Terry Fator or Jeff Dunham. I respect them both. Terry and I have a strange relationship. We have never met, but people compare us. They either ask me if I like him and say we are both good, or tell me how much I suck and how much more superior his brand of humor is. I’m happy for the man. He’s making money and has a hot wife.

Monday was spent running errands and doing a favor for a friend. Today I had three redeliveries. One was a lesbian secret admirer. The woman on the receiving end was a little confused, the contact was in Milan, and everyone was like Ohhh la la. I think she thought it was from a man, she said so herself. But my instructions were to slow dance with her. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay, but this woman might be a little surprised when she finds out her knight in shining armor is Joan of Arc. Who knows? Maybe this might be the love of her life. Then I did another that was awesome and got a hug from the client. Third was downtown to an AIDS crisis center.

Then I had to fight crime on my facebook friends. One of my followers put up several avatars on my thread spewing white power with photos of Hitler and with the sayings “If it ain’t white it ain’t right.” So I had to block him. Then I sent my writing off to some people and blah blah blah.

Either way this is all possible because I wrangle and wrestle with the best of the cow pokes. Yes, I am talking my zebra striped cowboy boots. I got them in Nashville with my sister. They have been the footwear that has seen me through all these adventures. As I said my life would kill most people. But my cowboy boots keep me in line and keep me kicking ass and taking names. 

Love

April

I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl

www.aprilbrucker.com

Weiner Whack

Yesterday I was part of the festivities when DOMA was lifted. Celebrating that our world was changing for the better, I was doing some political activism. Yesterday, I was canvassing for Yetta Kurland. Unlike many of her opponents, Yetta is a true Progressive on the Democratic ticket. She cares not only about the LGBTQ Community but also women. She fights for women's rights whether it comes to our right to choose or equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. Not to mention Yetta campaigns for animal rights and I loooovvvveee the people working on her campaign. And she is a friend of my friend Carlos Valentin who by the way is a fabulous director. So yes, I am on Team Yetta.Oh and she accepted my friend request on facebook and tweeted back at me. Team Yetta it is!

TEAM YETTA!!!!!!!

Anyway, I was minding my own business canvassing. I got hugs from strangers and people were being really nice to each other. Even when people didn't want to sign the petition they were nice. It's because they had signed fifty others or they were too busy on their way to make out now that they could get married. That is when I saw some action.

They was some chatter. I look over and there he is, Anthony Weiner. Yes, he was the politician who showed his pee pee to that girl. He was disgraced. He had to resign. His wife was four months pregnant. It was all bad. And then he was replaced by a Republican (YUCK!) But nonetheless he was still a good candidate and a good politician. Before the arrival of Mr. Weiner, no pun intended, I had been talking to his canvassers and they said that they got to meet him and he was mucho coolio. So as he was running around I decided to snap a pic with him.

Anthony Weiner and I on the historic day DOMA was lifted

I figure yes his last name is ironic. Yes he is a Democrat reminiscent of Bill Clinton in some ways. On the other hand he cares about working people, the middle class, families, LGBTQ People, and women. Especially women, but that is in a different way-couldn't resist, sorry. On the other hand his heart is in a good place. Now hopefully he keeps it in his pants cause voters are stoopid. Sigh McSigh Sigh

xoxoxo
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
Paperback available on Amazon and 877-Buy-Book
E-Book available on Kindle and Nook, also through Brown and NYU Books
Audiobook available on itunes and Audible this Summer
www.youtube.com/aprilthestarr
Portion of proceeds go to Ali Fornay Center

Pleasantly Surprised

As you all know I host my own show on YouNow.com called Confessions. Last night I invited a friend of mine on who recently went through a gender transition and is now an F to M. Translated, when he was born a biological woman but always identified as a man. I asked Shai to do the show to add a little depth to things. Thus far the show has been a lot of tawdry sex stories and I wanted to mix it up by giving someone who truly had something to say a true platform. And that person would be Shai.

To give you a little background on my friendship with Shai I knew him when he was living as a woman. I remember him being unhappy as he struggled finding himself. I remember him also suffering with bouts of severe depression. During that point in our friendship I would worry about him. I knew him to be a butch lesbian at the time though and thought perhaps he, well rather she at this point, was going through a rough spot. It was however when he came out as trans and asked to be referred to as male pronouns that it all clicked. The word trans has only entered our vocabulary in the last decade or so and even still we are struggling to understand it. I do believe nature makes mistakes and unfortunately sometimes people can be born in the wrong body.

Over the past year I had seen Shai transform into a strapping young man. As I witnessed this I thought perhaps I should make my show a platform for some activism. That’s when I asked him to be on.

Truth be told after I asked I felt a flinch in my stomach. Being the Mama Foxxx of Confessions I know we get people from all over in the chat on YouNow. While Adi Sideman and company are good about manning it, it just takes one moron to make someone feel unwelcome forever. I was ready to play Ninja though. The way my chat works is that there is no racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, or weightism of any kind. If I see that the person is reported and they are banned. But with the advent of a trans-person what would the reaction be? Would there be an onslaught of this? I was prepared.

When Shai came on his mic wasn’t working. It looked like they were going to vote him off. Oh no, this was already going to be a disaster. However once the mic began working Shai started talking. That’s when the people in the chat pleasantly surprised me. They asked intelligent questions about Shai’s transition as well as his taking of testosterone as well as the surgery required to reassign one’s gender. In addition they also wanted to know more about Shai’s life and skills. Very confidently, in a deep male voice, he informed them that he could beat box and rap. He rapped a little for us, told us about his welding and his parakeet sat on his shoulder the entire time. The audience responded in turn with love and support not only for his bravery to tell his story but for his courage to be himself. I was pleasantly surprised at this. Not only was I proud of my friend Shai for finding happiness and taking perhaps one of the biggest risks one can take to do it, but also for my friends and fans on the younow chat for being supportive, inquisitive, respectful and tolerant. I would have to say I was so pleasantly surprised I almost cried. And even better the audience not only did not want Shai to go but they want him back every week!

My only regret was having to bump him out after a while. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to hear more about his new life or transition which were very fascinating but unfortunately there were five more people waiting to go live, I had started late, and as host it is unfortunately my job to keep things moving. And unfortunately that means being the bad guy. But if any one of my broadcasters took a risk last night it was Shai, and he taught us all a little something about what it truly takes to be brave.

This morning I kept thinking why I was drawn so much to activism and giving people like Shai a platform to do it. The answer was, not only was I bullied as a child but also went through the nightmare of an abusive relationship as an adult. And the reason I am so sympathetic to LGBTQ causes is that the friends who got me through that time in my life were mostly gay. They cooked for me, did my hair, and gave me the smack in the head I needed. Because of those experiences not only don’t I like to see people bullied in any way but will give anyone a platform for any sort of activism, especially LGBTQ people.

I also thought about what a wonderful new network YouNow is. Adi Sideman and Robert Galinsky have gone out of their way to make it safe and welcoming for anyone of any walk of life, ethnic background, sexual orientation or faith. In essence perhaps we have created an internet utopia.

As for Shai, I am pleased to call you my friend and best of luck on your journey to becoming the man you always dreamed of being. You now have a new set of friends and family members at younow.com who want you to come back every week. Xo April