So we can marry in California! At least, for right now! Of course, having married Rafael in Spain, in a castle, on the Mediterranean, where the marriage is 100 percent legal across the entire country of Spain, I couldn´t help but think for a second, "Pshaw!" Hey, it was just a second! Then… I was elated! Thrilled! As I went about my day, I listened to the radio and watched TV and I heard story after story of lovers and their celebration of that love as they were given their MARRIAGE LICENSES! You could hear the joy in their voices and see it on their faces. Victory! Acknowledgement! Relief! But mostly… joy. In the privacy of my own home, and of my car, I shared their joy. Seeing on television people waiting in long, long lines for their marriage licenses, I was happy that my community, right here in California, was now going to feel the joy that I experienced in Spain. I wanted to be standing right there with them but I´m Coco Peru, I don´t do lines! I do castles… on the Mediterranean.
I was particularly moved watching Star Trek´s openly gay actor, George Takei, on the news yesterday after he and his partner received their marriage license. He spoke about his joy and ended by equating this historic moment with a philosophy from the Star Trek series called IDIC, which stands for Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

INFINITE DIVERSITY IN INFINITE COMBINATIONS!

Oh, now that´s the world I want to live in. That´s the world I want to create.
But then, the news always has to go and show the other side….the Conservative Christian Right. I know it´s the journalists´ job to keep the news "fair and balanced" but the other side is always….wrong. And hateful! And no fun! And quite frankly, I´m tired of the Conservative Christian Right. These are the people that still believe Jesus had blonde hair and blue eyes! Why can´t we just have a day where we don´t have to hear their side? One day! On the other hand, there was this report yesterday that said that there are 180 million Christians in this country and only about 18 million of them are a part of that fanatical and conservative Right Wing. It went onto to say that most Christians disagree with them and feel that their religion has been hijacked, that their religion is getting a bad name. I couldn´t agree more. I just wish more of these Christians would speak up! In fact, if anybody is spinning in their grave, poor Jesus has been spinning for over two-thousand years! I have this fantasy that if he were to come back for his Second Coming, he´d walk up to one of these protestors, tap them on the shoulder and say, "Hi, I´m Jesus. I´ve been spinning in my grave for two-thousand years and I decided to come back because I just wanted to say… SHUT UP!" And then I´d like for Jesus to take their sign that says "God Hates Fags" and beat them over their head with it… until it breaks. But Jesus wouldn´t do that. Jesus would look past their hate and see the beauty that is hidden deep within them, he´d see it so clearly that he would bring it forth, and these hate hucksters would be transformed and carry signs that say, "God loves all. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations! Support Gay Marriage!" And then Jesus would really surprise these Conservative Christians and shout joyfully, "Oh, and by the way, I´m a Jew!"

Anyway, the perfect way to end the first day of gay marriages in California was to be invited to the home of our friends, Bill and Kelly, and to witness, along with their two children, Elizabeth and James and other friends and family, their marriage. In the Hollywood Hills, with an all too perfect view of the Hollywood sign directly in front of their terrace, we witnessed Bill and Kelly take their vows. Gathered together were gay people, straight people, children, single people, married people… people. But what inspired me the most was watching Elizabeth, James and the other children cheer when Bill and Kelly were announced "Husband and Husband"! Yes, children love LOVE, any form of love… and any chance to throw confetti.

I couldn´t help but think about our brothers and sisters from the past who paved the way to give us this moment, some who never lived to see this day. I thought about those who work so tirelessly now to fight for our rights and make sure our right to marry continues past November. And looking at those children I thought about how our future lies within in their tiny, little, hands. I think Jesus stood with us yesterday and smiled. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations indeed!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that you all survived the holiday season. I did…barely. My holiday season started a bit early in Florida where I flew to help my mother Helen unpack boxes and rearrange furniture. She just moved full time from the Bronx to her condo in Florida. It´s a big transition for her and I knew that the first part of my holiday season would be spent helping my mom. Now, it´s not exactly how one wants to spend their holiday, but as my mother reminded me, "That´s one of the benefits of having a gay child." True, I knew my mother was right. It was my gay duty to help her unpack, rearrange and redecorate! However, when I first walked into her usually spotless condo and saw stacks and stacks and even more stacks of boxes, I nearly had a breakdown. I said, "Oh mom, this is too much, even for a gay child", at which point she informed me, "You think this is bad? I still got more in storage across the street." I think that´s when I started crying over the Nat King Cole Christmas CD, "WHY? WHY ME?" And I hate cardboard boxes, they make me itchy, but there I was… surrounded in a sea of cardboard! My mother, sensing my impending breakdown, assured me that she had only packed what she really needed. LIAR!

Opening the first box I saw that she had packed ribbon… and not a bolt of new ribbon, no, it was a piece of ribbon that she had once gotten on a gift. When I confronted her on it, she defended herself, "What? That´s a good piece of ribbon! You know how much you´d pay in a store for a good piece of ribbon like that?" I answered proudly, "No, I don´t know and I´m glad I don´t know" and with that, I tossed that goddamn ribbon into the garbage. I then threw myself into the task of digging through those boxes of ´things´ wrapped in newspaper… digging into the unknown. Not sure of what I´d find, I can only say that after the ribbon, I was scared…very scared. Yet, all my fears of the unknown dissolved, and I ended up actually enjoying the process! Because, you see, amongst all the useless stuff that my mother did pack in those boxes, I also rediscovered the home that I had grown up in on City Island. It sort of became like a treasure hunt and with each item I unwrapped I was flooded with memories, and often I found myself having to fight back tears, like when I unwrapped a dinner bell. Holding the bell that had once been so familiar, and hearing it ring again after all these years, I remembered the year my father dressed up as Santa and knocked on our door to surprise me. I stood in our doorway, shocked, as my father laughed, "HO! HO! HO!" and in his hand he was ringing our dinner bell. I looked up at my older sister and said, "Santa has the same dinner bell as us. And Santa looks like Daddy." At which point my sister slammed the door in Santa´s face! I then ran to the dining room only to discover that our dinner bell was missing! "Wait a minute…our dinner bell is missing… and Santa had the same dinner bell as us… and Santa looked like daddy! Hmmmm." And can you believe… I still believed in Santa?!?
This was just one of the many memories that ran through my mind as each box was unpacked. I began to understand how perhaps, for my mother, even a piece of ribbon might be hard to throw away, especially when we attach so many memories to these simple ´things´. Although I´m pretty sure my mother couldn´t part with the ribbon simply because "That was a good piece of ribbon. I can´t believe you threw my ribbon away! You know how much a piece of ribbon like that goes for? I guess you got money growing on trees out there in LA."

Following a festive Christmas with my family, Rafael and I then left Florida and flew to St. Thomas where we embarked on a cruise. I have been working with www.Travelpride.com as one of their entertainers and this New Years I was again invited to perform on their amazing seven-day cruise through the Caribbean. We had a wonderful time, met great people and even got to see some people that I had met on previous trips. But ringing in the 2008 on a sailboat, under the stars, with about 150 gay men and two lesbians and my husband, Rafael, seemed just about the best way to ring in any year! And I even saw a shooting star! I´m just sayin´.

After the cruise, Rafael flew back to LA, but I returned to Florida to once again continue unpacking boxes. Towards the end of that week though, the childhood recollections were wearing thin and I told my mother, "I am calling everyone, family and friends, and telling them ´Do not buy my mother anymore crap! No more picture frames! No more crystal vases! No more cute Hallmark figurines that I´d personally like to smash! If you want to give my mother anything, give her cash! COLD, HARD CASH so she can hire someone to unpack these goddamn itchy boxes!´

It seemed endless, but by the end of the week, much to my relief, I had finally cleared out most of the storage unit and put most of what was in all of those boxes either away in my mother´s condo, or in the garbage, or donated it to charity. Whew! And then my mother said, "Well thank God you made room for the next batch of stuff that your brother is bringing down from New York next week." "WHAT? There´s more? You´ve got to be kidding me? What more could you possibly have?" She said, "Pots and pans…" I said, "You´ve got pots and pans down here." My mother answered, "But those pot and pans in NY are good, and they don´t make pots and pans like they used to. I´m sure if I had a yard sale they´d go for a pretty penny. Not that I´m gonna sell them because you never know when you´re gonna need a good pot or pan."

My friends, there is only so much unpacking, decorating, and rearranging a homosexual child can do at one time. The thought of more boxes coming from NY pushed me over the edge and I fled back to California. Besides, I needed to get back so that I could prepare for my next CONVERSATIONS WITH COCO with my special guest star, Lesley Ann Warren. I am a HUGE fan of this woman´s work, from Cinderella, to Victor/Victoria, to Clue, to TV movies, Independent films, Will and Grace and Desperate Housewives. However, now I am also a fan of not only her work, but of the woman she is. She is an incredibly kind, generous, loving human being. My evening onstage with her was a once in a lifetime treat! We laughed, we cried, and we even had a sing-along! AND she looked fabulous. Sequined pants! It´s the first time a guest was shinier than the drag queen! I´m just sayin´. After the show I asked Lesley to sign my Victor/Victoria album and as she did, I said to her, "If I had known when I was that lonely teenager watching Victor/Victoria in a movie theater that one day I would share the stage with you, my life…" I was at loss for words and Lesley looked right into my eyes and said, "I know exactly what you mean, I have had that moment." It was this sensitive, kind person that both I and the audience had the pleasure of meeting that night. A night I´ll never forget!

Sometimes I look at my life and I think, "Lesley Ann Warren? New Years Eve in the Caribbean with Rafael and shooting stars? And sure, even unpacking boxes with my mom and laughing and then crying and seeing the beauty in a simple old dinner bell? Yes, I am blessed!"

Just do me a favor… don´t pack the goddamn ribbon.

*For photos of the cruise and of Lesley Ann Warren and I, go to the Gallery and click on "Coco Pictures".

Oh it feels like it´s been a half-a-year since I last wrote a Coco Thought. Oh wait… it has been a half-a-year! Where the hell has the time gone?!?
Well, you see, I left in April and spent four months in Spain with my husband Rafael. It was amazing and it was in Spain that I wrote my new show called UGLY COCO that just opened in Los Angeles. Rafael and I got to travel some in Spain, always taking the small highways to explore hidden treasures and we saw some really beautiful sights off the beaten path. And I discovered my new favorite city in Spain, Valencia! But most of my time this summer while in Spain was spent writing the new show, going to the beach, taking a siesta every afternoon, and drinking coffee. It was Heaven!
A lot of people ask me how I write my shows. I really don´t know. I just sit down and start writing with an idea of what I want to say, but what does help me to write is music. In fact, this summer I spent a lot of time listening to my friend Kerry Muzzey´s music. Kerry is a friend from NYC who now writes music for television and film. His music inspires pictures in my mind and I used his music to help create different sections of the new show. In fact, when Rafael and I would listen to it while driving through the mountains in Spain, Rafael would say, "Oh my God! This music is perfect for what we´re seeing right now!" It was fun creating a soundtrack for our travels. So often I felt like Rafael and I were in our own movie thanks to Kerry´s music.
Kerry´s music has recently been discovered on ITunes by many fans and he was asked by Jessica Biel to write the music for a new film she produced called "Hole in the Paper Sky". All of Kerry´s music is gorgeous and that´s why I am so excited that Kerry orchestrated one of the songs in my new show! It sounds exactly how I had imagined it would… only better! I love having talented friends! You can check out Kerry´s music on ITunes.

After I left Spain, I went to London where I performed for two weeks to sold-out audiences at the SOHO Theatre! It was a great experience and the London audiences, which can be a little strange, were completely fantastic. I could not have had more supportive and enthusiastic people there. I was thrilled and so was the theatre. I am hoping that they will invite me back with UGLY COCO, especially now that the pound is so strong! Shit, your salary doubles when you transfer it to dollars! Woo Hoo!
Following London, I flew to Rehoboth, Delaware, where I performed at the Blue Moon Café, and I had a surprise visitor: My mother, Helen! She drove down to see the show with a few of her girlfriends, which of course, made the evening more of a hit. Gay men love moms, especially Coco Peru´s mom. Actually, my mother´s shoulder hurt after the show because every time I mentioned her in the show the queen behind her would tap her on the shoulder. But as my mother would say, "He meant well."
After Delaware I flew to Ogunquit, Maine, where I performed in the Maine Street Café. I have to say the audiences were WILD! I don´t know if it´s the fresh air up there or they just drink a lot, or both, but they were fun! It was hard work pulling them in, but I kept a tight leash. The show sold out both Friday and Saturday, so I was asked to do a third night on Sunday. I was really hoping to take a rest before leaving on Monday morning, but who am I to turn down money? I put the face on one more day and left Maine a very happy drag queen! And Ogunquit is gorgeous, by the way… really gorgeous, but the ocean is freezing. I went for a walk one day on the beach and it was so cold that I had to wear a sweater and jeans, and people all around me were in bikinis and shorts and I thought, "Poor people, they´re desperate… and half Polar Bear!" It´s not normal, but then again, not everyone can sit on a beach on the Spanish Mediterranean for four months… I´m just sayin´.

Leaving Maine it was now all about UGLY COCO. I went to NYC where I prepared all of the music for my new show with my musical director, Daryl Kojak, rehearsed with my director, Michael Schiralli, and created the new costume with my designer, Gregg Cook. It was exhausting! It was like a snowball that kept gathering speed and I just had to go with it. Of course, all of these people are so talented and they made it so easy for me, and I also lost a few pounds, so it was well worth all the running around so that I could fit in the new dress.

When I got back to L.A., I immediately started rehearsing out here in the Renberg Theatre, but before I knew it, I was headed back to the East Coast for the Richmond, Virginia Gay Pride. I left on a Friday morning and was expected to make it there that evening. However after a series of mishaps along the way, including three planes being delayed, a person "inadvertently" setting off one of the inflatable slides off the side of the plane right before take-off, and my luggage getting lost in Chicago, I didn´t make it to Richmond until 2:00 PM the following day… and I had to be dressed and ready to leave the hotel at 3:30PM for a 4:00PM show! I made to Richmond two hours before show time! It was crazy! But the Gay gods were looking out for me and I made it just in time! I even had time to take a sip of water and eat a handful of almonds! Fortunately, when I did get onstage the audience was wonderful and supportive, which was a good thing because I was so overtired and frazzled that I may have lost it and ended up in jail and on the six-o´clock news. "This just in: Low End Celebrity Drag Queen Bites the Heads off of 1000 Homosexuals in One Gulp".

Well, I´m back in Los Angeles! My show UGLY COCO has opened and it is amazing to me that what started out as a blank document in a living room in Spain is now a show running here in Los Angeles. I´m exhausted but grateful that I am working, that I am surrounded by wonderful, talented, supportive people, and that at Xmas I´ll have a couple of weeks off to visit my mother in Florida where Rafael and I will sit down and play a few good games of SKIP-BO with her… and possibly get some new material for a future show that I can write next summer in Spain…between the siestas, coffee, and the sight of gorgeous tanned Spanish men who have no qualms wearing speedos…

PS: I'll be in NEW YORK CITY with UGLY COCO November 9th, 10th and 11th at Joe's Pub. Check out my calender for details.

I´m cranky. I know you´re thinking, "What else is new, Coco?" But I just got back from the grocery store and people annoy me. When I´m waiting to be checked out, I bag my groceries. It annoys the hell out of me when I´m standing on a line and the person in front of me just stands there as their groceries are being rung up. Today this young woman in front of me, with two perfectly good arms, just stood there watching her groceries pile up, and then continued to stand there and watched the check out girl bag one-hundred and fifty-six dollars worth of groceries. I wanted to scream, "Hey ya lazy fuck, don´t just stand there, pack your fuckin´ bags." What made it even worse was that she stood there with her mouth hanging open, and not because she was in awe of anything, she just had one of those mouths that hangs open all the time. You know, one of those mouths that would make people in my old Bronx neighborhood say, "What are ya…tryin´ to catch flies? Close your goddamn mouth!" She just stood there and never lifted a finger…or her bottom jaw.

It sounds like I need a vacation, but what´s sad is that I just got back from a wonderful cruise in Costa Rica. Well, it was work for me. I had to do one show and then a little cameo on the last night, and putting on a face full of make-up while the boat is rocking while everyone else on the boat is enjoying a beautiful dinner without me… was work! I know...poor me! Yes, you're right, let's be real...there was plenty of leisure time for me to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. And believe me, when you're on a boat full of gay men, there's plenty of shows to choose from! Anyway, I was hired again by www.Travelpride.com to do my show on the Windstar and I had a blast. Beautiful beaches, friendly people, an amazing boat, fun parties, but what makes it so wonderful is that the Windstar line of sailing boats are small, so there are only about 140 other guests. This lets you really get to know other people, and there isn´t that "scene" that just exhausts me. If this sounds like your kind of trip, I encourage you to definitely look into Travelpride and hey, we might even get to travel together one day. (I can be Stella Stevens and you can be Shelly Winters. If you don´t get that reference, just let it go.)
What made this trip even more special is that my husband, Rafael…he´s from Spain, was able to go with me. It was so good to see him relax, get a tan, and wear his new Speedo.
On this trip I met so many great people, but I also got to meet and work with the drag magician, CASHETTA! I love her! She is warm, funny, talented, and it was such a pleasure getting to know her. And she really does MAGIC! Watching her I kept thinking, "I´m so happy I´m gay". We really are a creative fun bunch. We´re also a creative fun drinking bunch.
Get this, the boat's revenue from alcohol sales on the "all gay" cruises, as opposed to a regular cruise, goes up 300 percent!!! Are you surprised? Needless to say, they love us gays. Cashetta, at the last show, the night before the cruise was over, asked the audience who had the highest bar bill. The highest bar tab belonged to a couple from Palm Springs, and that amount was (drum roll, please) 3,300.00 dollars!!! For a week! One half of the couple then proudly called out (slurred out) from the audience "AND COUNTING". She was feeling proud and sharing her Gay Pride with everyone. Ahh...the gays. By the way, Rafael and I got a bill for (drum roll, please) 79.00 dollars (wanh wanh wannhhh…that´s supposed to represent Game Show Loser music). Fortunately, most bar bills were somewhere in between these two extremes.
I miss the cruise. I met wonderful people, I spent a relaxing week with my husband in his Speedo, I ate food that I didn´t have to make, I laughed and swam and, at night, danced under the stars!

Cut to: Coco standing in Trader Joe´s only one week after returning from her cruise in Costa Rica. Coco stares at the woman in front of her. The woman´s mouth hangs open as she watches her groceries being rung up. Coco wants to scream, "Pack your fuckin´ bags you lazy cow. And close that goddamn mouth." But Coco, unlike the woman, keeps her mouth shut and instead reminds herself that she is being an impatient bitch. She knows this about herself and doesn´t like it. Coco then reflects on her cruise and, once again, remembers what a lucky bitch she really is.

Check out my photos of the cruise in Costa Rica in the Gallery link under Coco Pictures.

I just watched Ugly Betty, and call me crazy, but didn´t the scene where the little boy is called a "fairy" on the train and then everyone on the train applauds because his father defends him, feel a little like something I wrote and performed in 2004 as part of my "Undaunted" show and then again later on my LOGO special?
Maybe I am a bit paranoid, but it´s not the first time it´s happened. In fact, years ago I saw a woman on HBO doing part of one of my monologues… word for word. I have also seen another of my "moments" from my shows on a prime-time show and had to again deal with people in my audience thinking I stole a line from a hit TV show that I had been doing for years in my show. No, if anything happened, they got it from me!
It's funny that my ideas for shows can be rejected by the Hollywood establishment when I've gone out on meetings and pitched them, and yet then I can turn on the TV and see my ideas on prime-time hit TV shows.
I guess it can be said that this is all a coincidence, but it doesn´t feel that way. But am I bitter? Absolutely.
Hey! I think I just came up with the title of my next show...."Ugly Coco"
Just needed to get that off my chest.

I am so happy! My mother, Helen, finally found a couch and two matching chairs that she liked and bought. You see, this is really a miracle, because for years, and I mean YEARS, of shopping with her I have had to listen to her say over and over in every store that we went to, "Why are all the couches being made with Micro-fiber? Who started this awful trend? I hate this micro-fiber crap, you leave marks on it when you get up. I don´t care if it´s easy to clean, I don´t want to look at people´s asses left behind on my couch after they´ve gotten up and taken their asses back to their own ugly Micro-fiber couches!" Well, Helen finally found a couch in the right color in the right size AND in a cotton/polyester blend! Can I get an AMEN? You can´t imagine how thrilled I am by the words "cotton/polyester blend" after years of "Micro-fiber". My mother is convinced that she is responsible for the fact that there were some couches this year on the market that weren´t Micro-fiber and she is taking full credit for that fact, "After all my years of complaining, these stores must´ve gotten so sick and tired of hearing me, they finally realized they had to get more couches out there that aren´t that awful Micro-fiber crap." Whatever the reason, I am eternally grateful and I never, never, never ever want to hear "Micro-fiber" again.

Now, after being on vacation with my mother in Florida, I am trying to get back into the swing of things in 2007. I just returned from Aspen, Colorado, where I performed as a part of Gay Ski Week. It was my second time in Aspen. Ah yes, time for a flashback! The first time I went, I was there with the film Girls Will Be Girls for the HBO Comedy Arts Festival. On the first night of my stay at the Comedy Festival, Evie Harris and I did a skit as part of a bigger show and to put it lightly, we bombed. People were walking out in droves during our skit. Not one person, not two, they were leaving in groups of twenty! Evie and I had one of those awful moments onstage that actors have nightmares about. Although we were saying our dialogue, we were looking at each other and having a whole conversation just with our eyes that can basically be summed up as, "Say your fucking lines as fast as you can bitch, and let´s get the fuck off this stage!" I think comedians are very superstitious people when it comes to performing, and therefore, after bombing nobody wanted to be near us. We were cursed and the other comedians were afraid they were going to catch it. Wherever we went, people treated us as if Evie and I had shit in our panties…well, Evie did shit in her panties but still, we have feelings… well Evie isn´t capable of having feelings, but we´re human… well Evie´s half human/half jackal, but you get my point. We felt like two losers, and honestly, we were. So imagine how good it felt, when later in the week, we shared the Best Actress Award! Suddenly, regardless of Evie´s stench and flea infestation, we were popular and people wanted to be near us. Unfortunately, Evie ruined whatever good attention we were getting when later that night she climbed up on a snow-bank, hiked up her gown and yelled out "Look everyone! I can still make yellow snow! Woo hoo, let´s hear for me!"
So having bombed in Aspen years ago I was scarred, but that´s why it was nice to return to this lovely town and try to create a better memory, sans Evie. As part of Gay Ski Week, I was going to have the opportunity to perform at the Wheeler Theater. I had seen a show there when at the HBO Comedy Festival, and I remember wishing that I was up on that stage. So it was exciting to realize that I was going to, in fact, perform in the theater where only a few years before I had sat wishing I was up there. I also found out that one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Mary Chapin Carpenter, had also performed there. I´m just sayin´. Anyway, our show was called "A Fag, A Drag, and a Dyke" Michael Brill was the fag, I was the drag, and Michelle Balan was the dyke. The organizer and host of the evening, and also a very funny comedian, was Paul J. Williams. The theater was packed with about 500 people, and I followed Michael, who was hilarious and had the audience in hysterics. With each huge laugh he got, I got more and more insecure and thought surely I was going to bomb as I had once done with Evie. As Michael walked off the stage my mouth went dry and I saw in my mind droves of people walking out. "Why am I doing this to myself?" However, as soon as I walked out the audience cheered and I remembered "They want to like me. They´re here for a good time". And I was right, I could not have asked for a more supportive audience. Once I got that first laugh, I just enjoyed myself. When I walked offstage I was so relieved, and I had to smile when I saw Michelle Balan going through the same anxiety that I had just put myself through before walking out onto that large bare stage. She was saying, "Oh great! I´m gonna walk out there and bring the audience right down. How the hell am I supposed to follow a drag queen?" But, of course, when she went out there she wowed them. Why are performers so crazy? So often we are our own worst enemies. Back in the dressing room I packed my things, said goodnight to the poster of Mary Chapin Carpenter and stepped out into the crisp, cold night. Walking down the street towards my hotel I admired the beauty of Aspen, the stars in the sky, the trees wrapped in lights, the moon reflecting off the snow and then it hit me, "Shit, it´s cold out here!" It was seven degrees Fahrenheit. I´m sorry, I don´t care how pretty it is, seven degrees plus icy sidewalks plus drag queen equals, "oh…oh…oh nooooo."

I do have to say that it is so strange to me that there are gay men who actually choose to vacation where it´s cold! Rafael and are such ´beach´ people that whenever we go away, it´s somewhere hot and near an ocean. To see gay men layering clothes and wearing snowsuits like the ones I wore as a child (only more fashionable and much more expensive than anything I ever wore as a child or now), and still having a good time freezing their asses off was startling to me. I realized there was a whole side of the gay community that I had never experienced… and I was loving it! Men with rosy cheeks, peeling off their snowsuits, and talking about the snow pack is hot! And once again, I was so proud to be gay because, overall, we really are a friendly and peaceful group of people. I just wish the rest of the world could accept that we should rule the world, because if we did, it would be such a more beautiful place to be in. I mean, to see drag queens skiing down the side of a mountain is just what this world needs right about now. Don´t ask me why that is so, it´s just that when I was standing there at the foot of a ski trail with my gay brothers and sisters and I saw Flo from Kansas City, Missouri with a red beehive and a big smile coming down the mountain in a backdrop of beautiful pure white snow, I knew that I was witness to the perfect blend of the natural and unnatural, a blend that keeps this world in harmony, in balance. A gift that keeps us all laughing at oursleves.

Well, I am off to Puerto Vallarta next week, then Palm Springs, then Costa Rica, North Carolina and, regardless of how well the show went in Aspen, the performance anxiety is hitting me hard once again. I guess the ´stage fright´ is here to stay, and all I can do is hope to fulfill my duty as a two-spirit/girlboy/drag queen and perhaps make this world a more peaceful, balanced, fun, and pretty place to live in. A world that will hopefully one day recognize that we are a peaceful people and that our contributions to this world are valuable and should be celebrated. It seems a long way off but perhaps we can find some comfort and inspiration from my mother, Helen, who stayed true to her vision, who waged her battle and finally won, and who is now sitting proudly on her new cotton/polyester blend couch…and not that "goddamn ugly Micro-fiber crap".

I mentioned in my last thoughts that when I performed in NYC in October, Liza Minnelli came to see my show and that we hadn´t seen each other for nine years. It was a nice reunion and I hoped that it wouldn´t be another nine years before I saw her again. Well, this Thanksgiving Rafael and I decided to spend the holiday weekend in Las Vegas because not only do we have a lot of really good friends there, and not only was my good friend Matt (from NYC who designs the lighting for Liza´s show) going to be there, but Liza herself was going to be there doing her show and we were invited!
We went to Vegas with our friend and my manager, Michael Warwick, and we stayed with my friend Michael Laurita. Both Michaels had never met before and I was hoping they would get along. Fortunately, they are both huge Broadway fans, so all I had to do was mention a show tune and, before you know it, those two were off into "Broadway Land" naming names that I had never even heard of before. Seeing them get along so well and hearing them sing along to show tunes was nice… and a little scary.
On Thanksgiving Michael L. had a lot of people to his house for dinner and we all ate too much and after dinner we sat by the fireplace and talked, and laughed and ate more Pumpkin Cheesecake Roll than I care to remember. That shit is good! Who knew? We also laughed because Michael had put on the DVD of the Disney version of ANNIE for a few of the kids that were there, and more of the adults watched it! We also laughed for the simple fact that Michael had the ANNIE DVD, and then we decided that Michael had many copies of it hidden away because he actually farts them out. For the rest of the weekend we made fart noises followed by a surprised, "Oh! Annie!" Yes, very mature and a Happy Thanksgiving was had by all.
Well, on Friday, Rafael and I and Michael W and our friends Chris and Keoni (yes, that´s a name…he´s Hawaiian) went to see Liza at the Luxor. She was amazing and we had great seats and afterwards we were whisked off by Matt to see Liza backstage. It really was a wonderful show, and how amazing is it to get to go backstage and tell Liza that she was AMAZING? And after hugging her I still couldn´t help but think to myself, "Oh my God, this is Liza! Liza Minnelli! The lady who was just on stage singing her ass off, Liza Minnelli! She knows me! Goddammit, I´m Coco Peru!!!" I love having those moments. But it got even better! You see, the following evening Liza was doing a 1AM free "Gypsy Show" for all of the performers in all of the other Vegas shows, and backstage Liza said to me, "Honey, you´re coming tomorrow to the 1am show, aren´t you?" I looked at Matt and Liza´s assistant, Ira, and I said, "You heard her boys". So not only did I see Liza Friday night, but on Sunday morning at 1am guess who was sitting in the front row center with Michael W, Michael L and his boyfriend Alex? ME! We couldn´t believe how close we were! And I think the two "Broadway Loving Show Tune Singing" Michaels were crying before she even walked out onto the stage. And when she finally did walk out, before she even sang a note, I turned to my friends and I asked, "Do you smell her perfume?" YES, we were so close you could smell the "Obsession"…no pun intended. That was enough to set the two Michaels off again! Well, we all sat back and knew we were in for a once in a lifetime experience. I´ll just say that there were more then 20 standing ovations throughout the show and Liza sang one of her mother´s songs, which she never does! She invited Sam Harris on stage and they sang the Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand duet Get Happy/Happy Day Are Here Again, at which point I couldn't even look at the two Michaels, the tears were flowing! After not seeing Liza for nine years, seeing her look so good, and sounding so great, and feeling the love the "gypsies" showered her with was a wonderful experience. My face literally ached from smiling so much. It was like "Liza Unplugged".
Anyway, it´s a bit funny that Liza has sort of reappeared in my life because this past August I was asked by a Swiss magazine to write a story for them. They had asked me to write about something "crazy" that had happened in my life and of course, I thought of all the bad crazy things that have happened to me over the years, like falling down the steps at an audition, or the time I got into a fender bender in drag…a fender gender bender! But then I thought "Why don´t I write about one of the "good" crazy things that happened in my life?" And I decided to write about a weekend that I spent with Liza years ago. Here is that story that was printed in Switzerland! I hope you enjoy.

Crazy? I remember one moment from my life that was crazy, but in the best way. Years ago when I lived in New York I was friends with Liza Minnelli. She had come to see my show after meeting me out one night through mutual friends and we hit it off. I loved being invited over to her home for parties. It all felt so surreal to me. I mean there I would be in Liza´s apartment and right next to me was Liza´s Oscar! I especially loved when she would leave messages on my answering machine and when I came home my room mate would say, "Oh my God! Liza left you a message." And I would act all cool and say, "Yeah...so?" and then listen to the message five times.
Well, one day Liza invited me out to Atlantic City in New Jersey to see her show and to stay with her in a house the casino was providing her for the weekend. I couldn´t believe it! ME? Well...yes me! I took a bus out to Atlantic City and I spent a weekend with Liza under the same roof. We went swimming in the ocean together, we ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches on the couch late at night, we had long talks, and when I told Liza a story about my mother she said she could totally relate, at which point she started to tell me a story about her mother, but that´s when I had to stop Liza and say, "No, my mother is Helen from the Bronx, you´re mother is Judy Garland. Call me crazy Liza, but it´s a little different." But that´s what I love about Liza; she always tries to relate to people even though she grew up in a world that is so not relatable. This has always endeared her to me.
Well I went to see Liza´s shows that weekend and she was amazing and after the shows I was brought back to her dressing room where she greeted some people, but after the final show she and I were whisked off into a limo and taken to a heliport where a helicopter was waiting for us to take us back to New York City. I was thrilled! Fuck that hot bus I came out on, I was going back to NYC in style now!
While flying back Liza said, "Honey, sit over here, next to the window. I want to show you something." She then asked the pilot to shut off all the lights in the helicopter. The helicopter became dark and Liza said to me, "Look, isn´t it beautiful?" I looked out the window and we were flying into New York City. The city´s lights glowed beneath us, the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty glimmered against the night sky, we flew over the street where the club was where Liza first came to see my show, I watched the traffic moving, Times Square, and then it hit me, "Liza sings ´New York, New York´ and here I am looking out a small window flying over New York City with Liza Minnelli´s head resting on my shoulder. This is crazy! How did I get here?" And I said to Liza, "This is amazing. Thank you, this is a moment, I´ll never forget it." I then reflected on the weekend, the house, the casino, the orchestra, the costumes and all the people to take care of Liza, and I said something about how lucky she was to have all of this and how I wished that I could have all of this too. Liza smiled and said, "Believe me, even when you get to my level and have all of these things, there´s even more bullshit to deal with. The important thing to remember is that wherever you are, the good moments come in waves, and when they come you should make sure that you catch the wave and enjoy the ride while you can."
We landed in Manhattan and we said goodbye and Liza got in a limo and was driven to her penthouse apartment. I then walked to the subway station and, riding the wave, I caught a subway back to my little one-bedroom apartment, where I called my mother, Helen, and said, "I just flew on a helicopter with Liza Minnelli over New York City."
Crazy!

I am writing right now from JFK airport. My mother, Helen, dropped me off here early this morning and it is always difficult saying goodbye to her. I can´t wait for my whole family to be together at Christmas. Lately, as I get older, I am beginning to appreciate more and more my loved ones and to see how fast time goes by, especially with all the traveling I have been doing lately…time really seems to be flying by.
It has been a busy two months for Coco Peru. I was in Pittsburgh, then Reno, and finally in NYC. I performed two shows at The Eagle in Pittsburgh, one at midnight and then another at 1 a.m.! Let´s just say that my first show was crowded and a hit, and that, as great as the first show was, the second was the complete opposite… a disaster! In the audience there were a few drunk, mostly young people who weren´t all that interested in what I had to say. In fact, I stopped the show a few times and said, "I don´t know, call me crazy, but… should I go on?" At one point I was so disgusted by the rudeness that someone yelled out, "Welcome to Pittsburgh!" At least one queen was on my side. Well at that point, like any self-respecting drag queen or even a desperate one would do, I cut the show in half, went inside myself, pretended it was a rehearsal for me, thought of my husband Rafael´s lovely face and kept thinking of what was to come at the end of the evening…CASH! As I took my bow, I looked out into that audience and forgave all of those rude drunk queens and then placed an evil curse on all of them. However, I mustn´t always focus on the negative and I must be grateful that the first show went so well and that the crowd was amazing, because if I had performed only for that second drunk audience… I´d be retired, bitter, and living in Palm Beach, Florida, right now.
You know, years ago I was visiting a friend in Guthrie, Oklahoma who was working in a theater there, and I wandered in a bookstore that I didn´t realize was a Christian bookstore. I remember I picked up a book that was called, "Alcohol Is A Demon". I laughed and wanted to buy it just for the camp value, but the more I perform for people who are drinking during a show, the more I´m beginning to believe, Alcohol is a Demon… a Big Fat Ugly Fucking Demon!
Next I was off to Reno and let´s just say… lots of alcohol in Reno! There is nothing sadder (except a drag queen bombing in front a few drunk queens in a leather bar in Pittsburgh -"Coco, let it go") than walking through Harrah´s Casino at seven in the morning on your way to the breakfast buffet and walking past the slot machines and seeing poorly dressed people pouring their money down machines and pouring booze down their throats. At seven in the morning! I wanted to scream at them, "Okay people, you need to give up gambling for a year or two, and BUY NEW CLOTHES! I don´t care how many sequins you put on a sweat shirt, it´s still a sweat shirt and shouldn´t be worn in public!" By the way, if you ever want to feel thin, go to a buffet, any buffet, and I promise you, you´ll walk out of there feeling like Twiggy.
Anyway, I performed at a benefit for the Nevada Aids Foundation in Reno and they did a great job. I was really impressed with how the community pulled it together to have such a great and successful night. BRAVO! However, next time your guest drag queen performer (I´m not gonna mention any names) is performing, it might be a good idea not to have the local news in the back of the ballroom interviewing people during that drag queen´s performance. Call me crazy, but it was a little distracting and if you thought Barbra Streisand´s "Shut the fuck up" was harsh, Barbra can´t compete with the foul mouth that I had that night in Reno. At a formal Black and White Ball I not only told people to shut the fuck up, I threatened to shove my high heels up their ass, eat their cell phones, and called women in gowns and men in tuxedos "Assholes". When I walked offstage my manager, Michael, once again reminded me, "Um Coco, remember yelling at and threatening people? Yeah, well…you can´t do that." "WHY?" I then explained to him it was left over rage from that second show in Pittsburgh and it just came flying out in Reno, sort of like a delayed reaction. But I felt terrible and I went downstairs to the restaurant and ordered Chicken Parmesan. However, the waiter recognized me from "Girls Will Be Girls" and he didn´t charge me for my meal! There´s nothing like Chicken Parmesan and being asked for an autograph to make a bitter and enraged drag queen feel better. It´s amazing that the waiter had more respect for me than some of the "formal" people upstairs shelling out a few hundred bucks for a Black and White Ball. There I go again, focusing on the negative! Sorry Reno, most of you were wonderful, but really, no one wants to hear about the wonderful people in this world, we want to hear about the loud assholes that torment me.

Well, next I was off to New York City. I hadn´t performed in NYC for seven years and I was terrified. But what terrified me even more was the yard sale that mother was having and that I was helping with. Let´s just say, my mother had a lot of shit for sale and I realized that all of this shit for sale was crap she sold 20 years ago in a yard sale and then re-bought 10 years ago in somebody else´s yard sale. It´s an ugly vicious cycle and I was now lifting boxes and pulling muscles and telling prospective buyers of used junk, "What? You´re gonna haggle me over a freakin dollar? Give me a break!" It´s amazing how quickly the Bronx can kick right back in! But truly, I hate hagglers. My mother was selling this stuff cheap and still people were giving us a problem. But those boxes were heavy, and we wanted this stuff to go, so we let people haggle us and then cursed them under our breath as they walked away, "Cheap bastard!" But the best part of the yard sale was all the women that are friends with my mother that stopped by and stood around talking. To hear all those hard Bronx accents and the stories they told were like buttah on my ears. It´s like being in the middle of a great play or hilarious movie, and I just sit back, watch and thoroughly enjoy the dialogue. In fact, my mother´s neighbor, if she said it once while telling a story she said it a hundred times while hitting her S´s and T´s harder than I do, "So I says ta her, I says…." Now while this may be offensive to some ears, it was like Heaven on toast to mine. I wish you were all there with me.
Anyway, my show was on the 20th at Joe´s Pub. I did two shows in one night and I felt like I was back with old friends, and in some cases, I was back with slightly older friends. It was a wonderful night. Even the nasty rain stopped that afternoon as I had hoped it would. Rafael flew in from LA for the show, my mother and five of her girlfriends rented a limo and came (my mother warned them that I curse a lot and her friend Terry said, "You think I give a fuck?" -Terry is Italian) and even my old friend Liza Minnelli came! I hadn´t seen Liza in 9 years, so when she came backstage before the show we both squealed and I wanted to squeeze her because she looked so great. I did grab her face in my hand and squeezed her cheeks just like the Bronx Italian mother that I am turning into and I thought, "Oh my God, I just squeezed Liza´s face…I´m ready to do a show!" I know that doesn´t really make sense, but it makes complete sense to me… sort of like the gold had rubbed off on me. Anyway, it felt great to be back in NYC and to be received again so wonderfully. There really is nothing like a NY audience and they totally get my RAGE. They eat, sleep and breathe it every day! Believe me, hearing that train screech into the Union Square station made me want to scream, "Christ! Can someone oil those fucking goddamn tracks?!?" But instead, you stick your fingers in your ears and you let the rage build up inside of you and then on the train you give the young girl eating Chinese food that´s stinking up the whole train a dirty look and make her feel self-conscious and that makes you feel better. Just spreading the sunshine everywhere I go!

However, rage aside, one of the nicest moments was when my friend Patricia told me that her girlfriend, Lauren, went up to my mother at the show and told her how much she had enjoyed the show because she has a very young son who likes to dress up in girls´ clothes and play with dolls. My mother told Lauren, "I feel bad for any parent that doesn´t have a gay child. Having a gay child has opened up a whole world of experiences… a different perspective in life… that I would have never had if I didn´t have a gay child."

I picture my mother and her friends riding in their limo, sitting at a table in a downtown night-club, people going up to them to say hello because a table of six elderly women from the Bronx watching a drag show with Liza at the next table is strangely beautiful, and I think, "My mom is correct! Our two very different worlds have met and somehow it´s so wrong… that it´s right!" And there is a lesson here that I think the world could use right now, and I can´t put it into words right now because I still haven´t had my second cup of tea, but it has something to do with love, respect, and a willingness to open yourself up and celebrate our differences. And besides, life is more fun that way… and you get to meet people like Liza Minnelli!

I am now back in L.A. where it is sunny and warm and I am going through all of the boxes that I had sent out from NYC that were being stored in my mother´s home for years. In them I have found all of my old press clippings and other memorabilia… including my Bionic Woman doll, my Charlie´s Angels Bubble Gum Trading cards, my View Master, my beloved Fat Albert figurine, and a silver ring that I had asked my parents to buy me in high school instead of the school ring my Catholic high school wanted and encouraged us to buy. The ring I picked out is inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a unicorn, and a RAINBOW! I almost sold it in the yard sale for two dollars but just as I was about to, I looked at this old tarnished ring and I said, "No, it´s no longer for sale" and I slipped it on my finger. My mother cleaned it for me and as corny as the ring is, it is a reminder of who I was. A young person who in high school didn´t want the same boring ring that everyone was getting, but who wanted something original and colorful. I found that ring my senior year of high school and sadly, because I was filled with so much shame, self-loathing and homophobia, once my parents had given me the ring that I asked for I looked at it on my finger and rather than seeing it with my eyes I saw it with the judging eyes of the world around me. What I saw was an ugly "gay" faggot ring, and rather than wearing my new "high school" ring, it sat in a drawer for years… until my mother´s yard sale. I proudly wore that ring home all the way to LA and I continue to wear it…and oddly enough, seeing it on my finger… helps with the rage.

Well, that´s all for now. Time for my second cup of tea, but let me just say that going through all of my old things and seeing old friends has been a reminder of how fast time goes… is going… and that is why I didn´t feel an ounce of guilt when, on my last night in the Bronx, I ate three slices of pizza… and a big serving of chicken parmesan!

Well my friends, it has been too long since I last updated my Coco Thoughts. It´s not that I haven´t had a lot to think about, it´s just that I've been away for two months with little access to a computer. You see, I was in Spain for seven weeks in a small town and then I went on a week-long gay cruise from Nice to Rome. And now I am home in L.A. with a head cold, jet lagged, and my apartment is still rocking because my body thinks it´s still somewhere in the Mediterranean on a fabulous cruise with a bunch a homos and four lesbians. What a strange sensation to be on land and to be completely seasick! And what an even stranger sensation to be grocery shopping and weaving up and the down the aisles bouncing off the shelves knocking boxes of cake mix to the floor like some drunk sloppy queen and wanting to tell the other shoppers staring at you, "I´m not drunk, I was on a cruise between Nice and Rome and my body thinks it´s still there" which, of course, would only make it worse as these strangers would then think, "Poor queen, not only is she drunk…she´s delusional!"

But it was a wonderful two months. Spain was incredible. Rafael and I go every year to visit his family but what made this year all the more special is that Rafael and I were legally married in Spain this past July!!!!! Married! Legally! Same rights as his married brothers and sister! Oh, and did I mention the ceremony took place in a small castle on the Mediterranean? No? Well the ceremony took place in a small castle on the Mediterranean. God, I like saying that! It was a wonderful day surrounded by family and friends and I even read something that I wrote that I had translated into Spanish! It was a surprise for Rafael. I rehearsed it and promised myself that I wouldn´t cry that day, but about two lines into it I broke down crying like an idiot. I was so embarrassed, but Rafael was crying worse than me so that made me feel a little better. In fact, his whole family was crying, although it could have been because in the eleven years that Rafael and I have been together, what I was reading that day was probably the most Spanish they have ever heard me speak, and they realized I´m not really retarded…just slow.

The wedding was exactly the day we wanted and I can´t explain it but even after being together for eleven years, being married does feel different even if it just means getting up in the morning and saying, "Hi husband." It makes my day! Actually it´s been a little sad returning to a country where our marriage isn´t valid, especially after being in Spain where everyone was so authentically happy for us including the judge, the staff of the restaurant where we had our reception, the girls that worked at the bakery where we bought our cake, our neighbors that we had just met, EVERYONE! And although my family could not make the trip over, my mother, Helen, wrote Rafael and I the most beautiful letter. It made us cry and I feel truly blessed to have the family that I do and to have gained another family that embraces Rafael and I the same way that my family does.

By the way, we love our wedding bands and we bought them in the jewelry district in downtown L.A. Who knew there was a huge jewelry district in L.A.?!? HUGE! Too huge! When shopping for our rings (white gold) we went to every building, to every booth, and after hours of walking around and thinking, "Really honey, do we need fucking rings? My goddamn legs are killing me" we wound up buying our rings in the very first booth we went to that morning. Why is it always like that? Anyway, I just want to recommend to any of you out there looking for jewelry (even if you´re from out of town), and not wanting to walk around for hours, to try out Elias Fine Jewelry. They were a lovely family, the parents are so sweet, the daughter loves gay people and the son is cute. AND they gave us a good deal. Their email is eliasjewelry@aol.com

Did I mention that after Spain I was invited to perform on a gay cruise that went from Nice to Rome? Yes, if spending 7 weeks in Spain and getting married in a castle on the Mediterranean wasn´t enough, I got to go on a cruise from Nice to Rome! And kids, I cut loose and had a fabulous time. All I have to say is, "Oooooooh child!" A company called TravelPride, based out of Fort Lauderdale, ran the trip and the cruise was on one of those big sailboats on the Windstar line. Our boat was called The Windsurf and I performed in the Windsurf Lounge! Who ever thought that one day I'd get to say "Welcome to the Windsurf Lounge!" Suddenly I´m a Lounge Act. Who knew? Well the audience was fantastic, except for a few drunk queens that glued themselves to the Windsurf Lounge Bar and talked through my show, but I know that those queens probably shit in their pants when they got their bar bills at the end of the week and that makes me happy. However, the rest of the audience was amazing. Standing ovation! In fact, the whole trip was amazing, the people I met, the crew, the staff of Travelpride, it was just a really wonderful experience for me. I miss them all…and the breakfast buffet.

Oh, this is getting very long, but you need to hear this. A funny thing happened when I returned. A friend forwarded an article from a very right wing Christian website, Agape Press, and would you believe the article uses my name?!? It´s true. I put the link at the end of this THOUGHT but here is the excerpt where my name is mentioned:
"GenderPAC, a group that describes its mission as promoting an "understanding of the connection between discrimination based on gender stereotypes and sex, sexual orientation, age, race, and economic status," has been on the prowl for a few years now attempting to tear down the societal barriers established by "gender roles." Translation -- this group seeks to rewrite the laws of nature, tamper with Mother Nature's recipe, and turn biblical gender standards on their heads. It also appears to be a front for the homosexual lobby.
In order to accomplish their mission, GenderPAC has unleashed a number of politically correct weapons from its public relations arsenal; one of them being a "diversity statement" that is to be signed by all the federal lawmakers in Washington, DC.
Since the "project" was conceived, GenderPAC has been roaming the halls of Congress seeking signatures at the bottom of its propaganda pledge. The pledge reads, "[t]he sexual orientation and gender identity and expression of an individual is not a consideration in the hiring, promoting or terminating of an employee in my office." Call it the Coco Peru clause."
Can you believe that? I am actually flattered that a right wing Christian would use me. But let´s face it, I am really not that famous, I mean even I consider myself a low-end celebrity, I mean the reference "Coco Peru Clause" is pretty obscure, I mean I am picturing a lot of right wing Christians scratching their heads and wondering "Coco Pe-who?" Which makes me wonder, "How did this author, Joe Murray, know about Coco Peru?" I bet Joe would tell people he just googled "Drag Queen" but I like to think he saw my LOGO special…seventeen times, and that as much as he wants to deny it, the truth and honesty of who I am is speaking to that part of him that is searching for truth, the kind of truth that Jesus spoke about, the kind of truth that doesn´t discriminate, the kind of truth that recognizes that God created a world that is diverse and that anything that reminds us of this diversity is a good and beautiful thing. Or maybe he´s a just some closet queen that hates himself and the fact that he watched my LOGO special and wants to take it out on the world. But you know what? I was once that closet queen and I wasn´t a very nice person and I feel blessed that I was able to liberate myself, so for whatever reason he felt the need to use my name in a negative way, I forgive him, because that´s the Christian thing to do, and the way my mother, Helen, raised me to be.
HOWEVER, a gay website, goodasyou.org, responded to Joe Murray´s article with a piece titled:
"What Joe, couldn't find a way to work in Rosie or Elton?"
And they ended the article with this:
"But seriously, Joe -- Coco Peru?! Even we find that one a little too obscure to use."
WHAT? Okay, wait a minute, it´s okay for me to say that I´m obscure, but a gay webpage saying that I am too obscure and that the author should have used Rosie or Elton? OUTRAGEOUS! But how like the gay press to want to once again refer to those openly gay entertainers who made fortunes being in the closet. Am I the only one who finds it a little sad that when the Rosie´s and Elton´s and Ellen´s and all the rest of them come out, the gay press always gives them cover stories on the National Gay and Lesbian magazines, and we label them our heroes, and give them honorary GLAAD Awards? I wonder where Anne Heche is keeping her honorary GLAAD Award nowadays?

I have nothing against Rosie, Elton, Ellen and all the rest, I´m happy they´re out and have made the world a safer place, but how about a cover story on a man who in his early twenties made a decision to be an openly gay performer and has somehow survived? A story about how he saw men dying of AIDS all around him in NYC, how he heard stories of teen suicide and realized how lucky he was that his family had accepted that he was gay, a young man who decided to take everything he had learned to hate about himself and instead embraced it and celebrated it so that future generations of gay youth might not have to go through what he went through. When faced with people telling him that he was throwing away his college education, that he would never make it unless he "butched" up, that no one wanted to listen to a drag queen tell stories, decided it was more important to be honest and face his fears than worry about all that, and believed that if he just stayed focused, some people would see value in his story and realize that had forgotten they were listening to a man in a dress, and instead were relating to another human being and in realizing that they were able to relate to a man in a dress they might open themselves to other possibilities and perhaps, hopefully, even see the value in their own story. A young man, who when other performers were trying to make their way to fame and fortune via being in the closet, was out of the closet marching in parades, doing hundreds of benefits, performing in hospitals for people dying of AIDS, a young man who isn´t that young anymore but somehow managed to make a career for himself, a life for himself that was created and lived out of the closet. I want to see that story on a cover. Coco Pe-who? But am I bitter? Absolutely…

And yet, at the end of the day as I lay my bitter (and a little self righteous- Yikes!) head down to sleep I remember that I just performed on a fabulous gay cruise and that I met a lot of wonderful people that made me feel valuable (except for a few drunk queens at the bar who are still crying over their bar bills), and that for eleven years I have had an amazing man in my life that loves me, that I have two families (one from the Bronx and one in Spain) that love and support Rafael and I, and that I was married this past summer in Spain…in a castle…on the Mediterranean! That´s Miss Coco Peru and that´s my story, a bit obscure, but one that I can live with.

By the way, now that I´m married, does this mean I´m no longer Miss Coco Peru but Señora Coco Peru? Hmmm…

For the full story by Joe Murray visit this website http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/8/72006jm.asp

Would someone mind telling me what the hell happened to March and April? I´m sitting here drinking my Irish Breakfast Tea and the last thing I remember writing about was being on a cruise ship watching people overeat.
Where has all that time gone? Was I abducted by aliens again? It´s so annoying when that happens, and it always happens at the most inconvenient times. I´ve tried telling my friend, little miss alien, that it would be nice if she and her little cohorts would give me a heads-up when they plan on abducting me, but she always surprises me. One minute I´m reaching for organic raw pumpkin seeds at Trader Joe´s and the next moment I´m lying on my back getting probed by several little aliens. If that´s not enough, they always insist that I do a little number for them too. Believe me, you haven´t lived until you see Coco Peru singing Dusty Springfield´s version of "Where Am I Going?" from Sweet Charity on a UFO surrounded by aliens. It really is beautiful...and so Coco.

I don´t think I´ve been abducted lately though because, whereas most people never remember being abducted, I remember every second very clearly. I´m not sure why little miss alien let´s me remember, but I think she probably figures, "Who the hell is gonna believe a drag queen?" I usually don´t remember right away, but little miss alien always leaves me a gift to remind me, and it usually takes me a few days to find it. But when I do find it, it jogs my memory and I remember the whole experience. Most of the time she leaves me gems and stones from all over our galaxy. I´ve built up quite a collection. Someday I´ll have them made into something, maybe a tiara with a necklace and earrings. Perhaps I´ll have Bob Mackie design it for me. I´ve met him a few times in outer space. He gets abducted too. Mr. Mackie designs a lot of little miss aliens outfits. In fact, one time Bob Mackie brought Cher with him because little miss alien wanted Cher´s input on one particular dress. I was so excited to see Cher in space and I tried to introduce myself, but she completely blew me off. Little miss alien felt terrible about it and gave me two stones that time, and instead of dropping Cher off back in her bed, she beamed Cher down in a not very glamourous place. I´m sure Cher still wonders why one night she woke up in the bushes at the intersection of Mulholland Drive and Coldwater Canyon.
Anyway, like I said, I don´t think I´ve been abducted lately, I just think I´ve been busy.

My "Conversations With Coco" show with Charles Busch went great. It was completely sold-out and I couldn´t have asked for a more supportive audience. Charles was both funny and charming. Of course, Charles was one of my inspirations before I even did drag. It seems like yesterday that I sat in an audience watching Charles in complete awe, and now here I was all these years later sitting on stage with him. It was amazing!

The day after my Conversations event my boyfriend´s brother and sister-in-law came to visit us all the way form Spain. Of course that week was a whirlwind that included Universal Studios, Santa Monica Pier, and Las Vegas! I loved having them here with us and a week didn´t feel long enough. I have a really hard time with goodbyes and I was very sad when they left. I still miss them.

But a few days after they left I was off to Gainesville, Florida to perform at the University of Florida as part of their Gay Awareness Month. Let me tell you, there is nothing like hanging around a bunch of enthusiastic 19 year-olds to remind you of just how old you really are. However, their passion and excitement and their "we´re gonna change the world" energy really reminded me of why I started Coco in the first place. They were refreshing! In stark contrast, I stayed at the Red Roof Inn next to the Steak-n-Shake, down the road from Shoneys where there was the "All You Can Eat Breakfast" and believe me, people not only had the all you can eat breakfast, they had the all you can eat and then some breakfast. Not so refreshing. If this didn´t sour my stomach, being called a faggot by three truck drivers did the trick. I left Shoneys and went shopping at the strip mall across the street where I found a Ross Dress For Less and felt much better.

That night I performed for an audience of about forty and I was nervous because forty is a pretty small number, but forty young enthusiastic college students sounds and feels like an audience of one hundred and forty. I was very happy and relieved when the show was over. Afterwards I met some of the students and sadly, I felt like Aunt Coco Peru. As much as I didn´t want to, I felt old and couldn´t help but think about my college days and I asked myself, "Has it really been that long?" The answer was a resounding, "Yes Coco...that long, ye olde bag".

I woke up the next morning, watched different people overeat at Shoneys and then Nick, my host, picked me up and handed me a copy of the school newspaper. On the cover was the most hideous photo of me that looked like I had a fish hook in my mouth that was being reeled in by three homophobic truck drivers, along with the most uninspired headline that read"Drag Queen Puts On A Show". They should have just wrote, "Old Drag Queen Puts On A Show and Has A Stroke Too! Thank God We´re Still Only Nineteen!" I was ready to leave Gainesville.

I drove from Gainesville to Palm Beach to visit my mother. Driving along the Interstate I saw signs for Orlando and Disney World. My grandparents moved right outside Orlando when I was very young and we went to visit them every year. I lived for those trips. It was always a nice escape from the harassment I received at school. Why couldn´t I leave the Bronx and just live in the Magic Kingdom? Surely I could rent one of those small charming apartments overlooking Main Street and have the Princesses over for afternoon tea and private tutoring from one of the Fairy Godmothers. Was that too much to ask?

With the exits for Orlando zooming past me, I remembered the first time we pulled up in front of my grandparents house. I was five and it was evening and I was awoken by my parents standing outside the car with the door open and telling me that we had arrived. It was dark and humid and I smelled something sweet and wonderful, something that I had never smelled before and I asked, "What is that smell?" My mother answered, "That´s your grandfather´s gardenias." I knew I was going to love Florida. Back then Florida was so wild, I mean the roads around my grandparent´s home weren´t paved, they were just sandy roads! I felt like I was in a jungle. I became obsessed with palm trees and wanted to bring one home with me to the Bronx. In Florida I felt like I was escaping to some remote tropical island that was so different from anywhere else that I knew. Driving along the Interstate now I longed to smell those gardenias again. Instead I pulled off at the next rest stop and got a coffee at Starbucks.

I finally made it to Palm Beach and was so happy to see my mother, Helen, looking good. One of the first things I noticed when I entered her home was a photo of her and my father that she had recently framed. It was taken on a cruise they took to Bermuda back in the ´70's. My mother then went and found some other photos from the same trip. One of the photos was a group photo of all of their friends at their Bon Voyage party, back when you could still have a Bon Voyage party. Looking at the photo I realized that many of these people had passed away, or had moved to other states, but here in this photo, frozen in time, they were still young, approaching middle age and having the time of their life. It was amazing to see how many of them were holding cigarettes and even more amazing to see so much orange furniture! Staring at all of my "aunts and uncles", I couldn´t help but realize that I was getting closer to the age they were in this photo. I was suddenly very aware of time, and although I didn´t do anything extraordinary with my mother on this trip to Florida, I enjoyed every minute I played cards with her. She is the queen of SkipBo and, by the way, she whipped my ass. I wouldn´t even consider going to Mah-Jong down in the club-house.

It was good to be back in Florida, although so much has changed over the years. And it was sort of amazing that I went from hanging around nineteen year olds singing show tunes and talking about their gender identity, to elderly women in the pool doing exercises and talking about their aches and pains. I guess I sort of feel right now that I´m somewhere in the middle, but the one thing that seemed pretty universal no matter what your age is that ...everyone loves to gossip! There were times the nineteen year olds sounded like little old ladies and there were times the little old ladies sounded like they were back in the dormitory. And strangely, that made me feel better.

Little miss alien has told me a few times how sad it makes her to watch us here on Earth living within the "illusion of time". I tell her, "Illusion? Tell that to the spider veins in my legs. They don´t look like an illusion to me!" No, right now, time feels very real to me and it seems to be going so fast that I don´t remember half of March and April. I wouldn´t want to be nineteen again, but I´m not too crazy about getting older either. I guess if I could have my way, I sort of would like to stay right where I am for a few more years. But I can´t feel sorry for myself, and I must always remember what little miss alien told me, "Just think Coco, how many people get to sing Dusty Springfield songs in space surrounded by adoring aliens and get to be blown off by Cher? Who, by the way, understands that time is an illusion!"

You´re all not going to believe this, but I just finished my Irish Breakfast Tea and sitting in the bottom of my mug is the most ´out of this world´ beautiful blue stone. Thank you little miss alien, I love it! It´s going to look lovely in that necklace.

Hello! I just returned from a five-day cruise with Aquafest on the Carnival ship "ELATION"!!! I had a great time, although my home is still rocking. I tried reading the paper this morning and I got seasick. Even typing this right now is making me dizzy. Oh no, did I just taste my steel cut oatmeal with cinnamon, blueberries, sunflower seeds and flax seed meal again? I think so! And I think it was mixed with my daily multi vitamin and my fish oil capsule. Oh dear. Somebody make my goddamn house stop rocking!

[Two days later]
I had to stop typing the other day because I truly got nauseated and if there is anything I hate, it´s a repeating fish oil capsule. Anyway, as I was saying, this was not an all-gay cruise; I went with a group of gay people on a regular cruise. The ship left out of Galveston Texas and went to two ports in Mexico. Most of the people on the boat were Texans, but in our gay group we also had people from California, Nebraska, Washington, New York City and Canada. Our group was about 60% gay men, 40% lesbians, and 1% drag queen. And I really enjoyed this group of people that I got to meet and travel with. And after being surrounded by loud, drunk, overeating straight people, I am once again reminded that I am soooooo happy that I am a homosexual!
I was horrified by the amount of food that people were eating. It was non-stop. I don´t eat hot dogs but I´m not against people eating one if they want to. Yet, I do have a problem with watching people who are clearly on their way to heart attacks and diabetes walking back to their tables with a plate in one hand that includes two hot dogs smothered in chili, a hamburger and French fries, and in the other hand a plate with potato salad, pasta salad, a piece of fried chicken, more French fries, and balancing between this plate and their thumb, a small plate with chocolate cake and a Danish. I mean, c´mon! A goddamn Danish! I can´t tell you how many times I wanted to stand in the middle of the dining room and scream, "STOP EATING". One day sitting there with my friend Michael these two women waddled in and one said to the other, "We can get ice cream or we can get frozen yogurt." And Michael looked at them and said, "Or fruit." That became our code for the week every time we saw a plate of food that disturbed our very being. "Or fruit." I saw a lot of stretch marks out on the deck, watched people line dance and drink out of fake coconut´s, and please tell me what is more disturbing than a white middle-aged sunburned woman wearing the bikini she wore in college? I´ll tell you; a white middle-aged sunburned woman wearing the bikini she wore in college…with cornrows. Why are white women still getting these and who finds it sexy? It was all too much.

Thank God I was with a group of homos to balance this all out for me. And what a terrific group of gay people we were; fun, interesting, kind, thoughtful, courteous, witty, good dancers... and I was thrilled that on the last night when the dining room´s host invited all couples to get up and dance, many from our group got up and danced a slow dance along with all the other couples. It was really beautiful…even when a few groups of straight people got up and left, disgusted that there was even a gay group on the cruise, "but do they have to flaunt it?" Actually, the fact that people got a up and left made it even more beautiful because in the face of that ugliness these gay couples were able to hold their lovers close and dance with their heads held high. I have to say that most of the trip we were so busy having a great time that we were pretty oblivious to the fact that some people might have a problem with us being on board. Before the trip my mother Helen said, "Promise me you won´t walk around the ship alone, you might get thrown overboard. It happens! Watch the news!" Still, even though some people walked out of that dining room, some straight people danced with us every night at the disco, crashed our dance party out on the deck, and said that the next time they cruised they wanted to go with a gay group because (as we all know already), "All y´all are so fun."
On the last night Michael and I were standing on one of the balconies over looking the center of the boat (think Mall) and there was a group of kids riding the glass elevator and they were pointing at us. Clearly they had heard that there was a group of homos on this trip and they had just spotted two of them. I remembered fondly the scene in The Towering Inferno when the elevator cable snapped. Michael and I then headed for the stairs and as we climbed them on our way to see the boat´s show starring The Elation Dancers, the kids from the elevator were on their way down the stairs. When they turned the corner and saw Michael and I they SCREAMED and scattered in all directions. It was so weird. Sadly, it really upset Michael. It made me laugh…in that ironic sort of way. It seemed so ridiculous to me, you see, because I was traveling with a group of kind fun souls who meant no one any harm. Why scream at us? I thank God I´m gay and I didn´t buy into the roles that were set up for me by society. It was difficult but I learned survival, discovered who I am and how I want to create myself. You think kids would respect and want to learn from that, and you´d think rather than screaming at Michael and I, these kids would scream at their over eating cornrow wearing mothers and pot bellied skinny legged beer drinking fathers, or to put it another way, their most likely future. Poor little fuckers! Hopefully there was a little fag or dyke in amongst them who will one day get out, or at least a straight one that will one day realize, "All y´all are fun".
Anyway, at the show Michael and I sat in the front row to support some of the dancers we had met. At one point they did what I truly hate; they came into the audience and pulled people on stage. I knew as soon as they came into the audience I was getting pulled up there…and sure enough…next thing I knew, I was up on that stage dancing and making a fool out of myself. I hated that moment, oh, and looking in a mirror and putting on my makeup while the boat was rocking causing some serious nausea wasn´t too much fun either, but over all it was a great trip; I met and performed my show for wonderful people, I didn´t have to cook for six days, and as much as I hated getting pulled up on that stage, I can now put on my resume, ELATION DANCER.
And remember, "Or fruit".

Happy New Year! I just returned from two weeks in Florida visiting my family and then ten days in Costa Rica both with my boyfriend Rafael…he´s from Spain. I know, I´m a traveling whore, but I can´t help it, it´s my nature. Anyway, I had a great time, and now that I am back I´m having a difficult time getting back into the swing of things. After spending my days on a beautiful beach in Costa Rica and taking hikes and seeing animals in the wild and not listening to the news or reading a newspaper, it is a little depressing coming back and turning on the TV and hearing Simon Cowell make mean remarks about a young girl´s weight on American Idol or listening to the frantic way in which the news is delivered. What seems so important here seems so ridiculous when you´re away from it for a little bit.

I loved Costa Rica, in fact, I got to see three species of monkeys in the wild. Before going to Costa Rica I had hoped that I would see at least one single monkey but I got to see groups of them. I was in HEAVEN! One day on the beach a monkey came down through the trees and got close to where Rafael and I were sitting and I thought, "Let me take out a banana and see if I can lure this cute little monkey a little closer". Now I was aware that you aren´t supposed to feed the monkeys, but no sooner did I have that banana out of my bag, monkeys started coming out of nowhere, and as cute as they are, they´re very aggressive, sort of like the seagulls I encountered on the beach in Florida, and when one got too close to me and bared his sharp little teeth I said, "Here honey, have a banana. It´s on Coco". I handed that banana over and fast. I mean I could see the headlines, "Drag Queen Mauled to Death By Precious Adorable Monkey". I pictured gay men across America asking each other, "Did you hear what happen to Coco Peru in Costa Rica? It´s terrible!" and then laughing their asses off. Nasty queens!

Anyway, Costa Rica is beautiful and we were happy to visit it when we did because like with all beautiful places human beings are moving in to fuck it all up. Rafael and I were so sad to see so many foreigners buying up property, tearing down the forests that are home to so many species of animals and building these enormous homes that don´t fit in to what was once a rustic and authentic place to visit. In fact, on the beautiful gay beach someone with a lot of money and connections was beginning to build a hotel just behind the trees that line the beach. Not only was this out of the way and beautiful beach being destroyed, so was the fabulous cruising that must have been happening just past those trees not so long ago. Once again, we gays discover something beautiful and make it our own, and then "they" move right in and take it away from us. I heard from a local that there is a law to protect the beaches from being built on, but if you have enough money, people get paid off and laws seem to disappear as fast as the forests. It´s hard not to be cynical.

You know, it seems to me there are two types of people on this planet, one group that can look at a virgin beach and think, "Wow, that is so beautiful, it´s important that this beach stay this way so that future generations can experience it", and then there is the other group that can look at this very same beach and think, "Wow, can you imagine how much money we could make building condos here?" And more than our future generations right to see this beach, what about the monkeys and sloths and birds and lizards and butterflies, etc. that make this their home? What makes us think that we are so much more important then these animals? I don´t get it! On one particular beautiful day, standing on the beach watching an incredible sunset I thought, "There are too many goddamn people on this planet" and I wanted to scream out so that the world could hear me, "STOP FUCKING". I heard once that there is an indigenous group of people living somewhere in the wild that practice homosexuality most of the year in order to control their population. Sounds like a great idea to me! And I´ll be the first one to do what I can do to help control the world´s population and save the monkeys, and the gay beach, and what was surely a fabulous cruising area just past those trees. I´m just sayin´.

So here I am back in L.A., slowly trying to get back into my reality. It seems hopeless that I can do anything to change the world, and this lack of control frustrates me. I did take back a little of that control one night in Costa Rica. We had come back from the beach and I turned on the TV and because of cable we got that Court TV show with that woman Nancy Grace and she was going on like a crazy woman with her passionate opinions and I looked at her and I said, "Nancy, you´re not real. You are not real to me. You know what´s real Nancy? Monkeys! Monkeys are real!" And with a sense of purpose and relief, I shut the TV off and in the distance I could hear a family of monkeys moving through the trees. So much better than Nancy Grace´s big mouth!
Sometimes I think about what I used to hear when I was growing up, "They should take all the gay people and put them on an island" and you see, years ago that would upset me so much, but now I´m thinking that might be a good idea. I picture Rafael and I on that island (I own it – Hey it´s my fantasy) by the water's edge as we watch the sunset, sitting beside other gay and lesbian couples sitting around taking in its beauty. But someone else is there too, an honorary guest we´ve invited to our island on a day pass, (a week ago Liza joined us with a honorary day pass- Hey, it´s my fantasy) a young girl who on American Idol was made fun of by Simon Cowell because she was heavy. But on our island she doesn´t have to worry about that. Here she is naked like the rest of us (okay, some of you are wearing sarongs), and her skin glows with the orange of the setting sun, and she sings for us. She knows she is celebrated here, and as she finishes singing her song just as the sun disappears beneath the horizon we all call out to her, "Sing it!" She loves it and we love it and the monkeys love it and surrounded by all this natural beauty she then asks if she can stay here with us on our gay island…and we all look at one another and say,
"No".

Hi Everyone!

´Twas the night before my last Spanish test and I thought I was going to have a heart attack! I´m so sorry that I haven´t written in so long. I have been completely stressed out and overwhelmed by my Spanish class and I can´t wait for it to be over. It has gotten to the point that when I do homework and get stuck on a question, I do the mature thing and throw my book across the room and scream, "I hate this shit", like a frustrated two-year old. It´s not pretty. Although I have to say, I would love to see a frustrated two-year old throw a picture book across the room and scream "I hate this shit". I´d give them money. Anyway, I can´t believe at my age that I am doing HOMEWORK! Oh, I´m sorry, I mean la tarea….that´s Spanish for homework. ¡Odio esta mierda! That´s Spanish for "I hate this shit!"

Onto the more glamorous part of my life! I have had a star studded filled month. First off, I did an episode of the WB show called TWINS that stars Melanie Griffith. I play…now get ready…A DRAG QUEEN IN A GAY DISCO! Can you believe it?!? And I had to wear a blonde wig! It was strange being a blonde. Drag queens Bridgette of Madison County and Kelly Mantle, who were cast as extras that day (and hopefully everyday when we´re up for the same roles --Kidding girls…but, not really), decided that my name should be Taffy…and I totally looked like a Taffy. (You can see photos of me in my Gallery Page) However, I was not Taffy after all. When I auditioned, the role was as Lady Footlocker, then it became Crystal, and it finally ended up being Coco…as it should be.

I had a great time. The entire cast and production team were so friendly and professional and I have to say, I LOVED Melanie. She is so adorable and personable and she kept telling me that I was funny. I like that. I also made sure to tell Melanie the first day, "Listen, you´re not the only one around here with a Spanish husband". Now of course, she could´ve smiled and told me to fuck off as stars are often known to do, but not my Melanie! No, she totally engaged me and was completely sweet and kept telling me that I was funny. I like that. Now, at the top of our scene together she asks me if my boobs are real and I tell her that I´ll tell her if she tells me, at which point I confess to her that mine aren´t real, but as she struggles to answer whether hers are real or not she is saved by her ringing cell phone. I couldn´t help but wonder if this scene made Melanie uncomfortable as it might have cut too close to the truth, but far be it from my Melanie to be uncomfortable with the truth! One day while rehearsing she looked down at her boobs and said to me, "Well, mine are really real…but not really." I have no idea what that means, but I completely get it. She was like a drag queen trapped in the body of this fabulous woman who, like a drag queen, knows what people might be thinking, so she owns it before anybody can beat her to it. Not to mention, she is the daughter of Tippy Hedren, the wife of Antonio Banderas, and she kept telling me that I was funny! Ohhh, I do miss my Melanie.

This all occurred while I prepared for my second Conversations With Coco. My special guest this time was Lainie Kazan! And when the night arrived I was thrilled that the theater was sold-out. Lainie was very nervous before the show but once she got out there in front of mostly a homosexual audience she couldn´t help but feel the love. And love is all it takes to get a person going. Lainie opened up and talked all about her life, the ups and the downs, and her honesty, her warmth and willingness to have a good time were felt by all. I especially loved her stories about Carmen McCrae and Judy Garland. I´m not going to tell them here, if you weren´t there, then that´s your loss. Maybe next time you´ll buy a ticket. And if you write me telling me that you live in Arkansas and couldn´t fly out for the night, that´s no excuse! By the way, did you know that the song "Never Been To Me" was written for and about Lainie? If that´s not a reason to love Lainie, I don´t know what is. When I asked her if she had really been undressed by kings and seen some things that a woman ain´t supposed to see, Lainie smiled a big knowing reflective smile, held her head high, shook her head yes, and just like a drag queen, owned it! I love my Lainie.

Last week I received an e-mail from John Pardee, a writer and co-producer of Desperate Housewives because Marc Cherry, creator of the show was receiving an award at the wonderful annual Cracked Xmas show that benefits The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention hotline for gay and questioning teens. John explained that their plan was to do a skit with all of the men from Wisteria Lane but use drag queens to play the women. They thought of me for the Marcia Cross role of Bree Van De Kamp and wanted to know if I would do it. Hmmmmm? HELL YES! This sounded like fun, I love The Trevor Project and please, who could pass up the chance to meet some of the men from Wisteria Lane? We all met at Marc Cherry´s home for the rehearsal on Sunday the 4th at noon. I, of course, was the first one there. I was there before Marc Cherry! I´m not kidding. I´m punctual, and proud of it. Kris Andersson a.k.a. Dixie Longate played Lynette (arrived a little late); Oscar Quintero a.k.a. Kay Sedilla played Gabrielle (on time); Willam (who´s been on Nip/Tuck) played Edie (very late); and Jason Ginsburg, who doesn´t do drag but is a funny sketch comedian and who is as skinny as Teri Hatcher and fits into her clothes, played Susan (on time but still hate that he can fit into Teri´s clothes). Well you´ll be happy to know that the men of WL (James Denton, Ricardo Antonio Chavira, Doug Savant, Mark Moses and Shawn Pyfrom) were delightful. And Marc Cherry? Well he made me feel like I was just hanging out with one of my funny gay friends…and then I took a look around at all the extensive remodeling he is doing to his very large home and I realized, "No Coco, he makes you feel like you´re hanging out with one of your very successful and super wealthy gay friends. You know Coco, the kind of friends you don´t have." But you can´t be jealous… he´s openly gay, he´s worked hard for it, and let´s face it, he gave us Desperate Housewives. I love my Marc.

I arrived at the Wiltern Theater that night only to found out that all of the Desperate Housewives were there in the audience except for Teri Hatcher. I was thrilled! No, not that Teri wasn´t there, but that so many of the others were! Our moment arrived and the men were introduced and the audience went wild. I had a moment of panic thinking about how disappointed the audience was going to be when the "ladies" walked out. One by one we were introduced and we walked on stage to thunderous applause! You could feel the energy! This generous audience was ready for a good time! We performed our sketch to cheers and laughter and of course…my microphone wasn´t working properly and half my lines were lost. I held it together, as both Coco and Bree would do, even as visions of sugar-plums and guns danced in my head. When the skit was over I looked out into the audience and saw Marcia Cross, Felicity Huffman, Eva Longoria, Nicolette Sheridan and Brenda Strong, standing and applauding. It was wonderful. Still, I walked off the stage and said to my boyfriend Rafael…he´s from Spain, "Can you believe that my microphone wasn´t working right?" and he said, "Yes, it´s typical Coco." It´s true, have you seen the film Girls Will Be Girls? Art imitates life and sometimes, in Coco´s world, life imitates art. But am I bitter? Absolutely! But I decided to let it go, especially when Carson Kressley form Queer Eye walked by and said to me, "Hey, I love you, I saw your show in NYC years ago at The Westbeth Theater Center." Carson knew who I was! My Carson…I love him. I also ran into Khandi Alexander with whom I did a play here in L.A. back in 1997 before she was on the hit show CSI Miami. I am happy to say that when I tapped her on her shoulder and she turned around, she didn´t say "Who are you, bitch?" Rather, she screamed and hugged me and said, "I couldn´t leave without seeing you. You know I love my Coco." Well kids, you know I love my Khandi.

Shortly thereafter the moment arrived; the ladies of Wisteria Lane made their way downstairs and greeted the other "ladies" of a slightly different and slanted Wisteria Lane. One word: Classy. And I was so happy that they were. I always feel that when you´re on a hit show and making money doing what you love to do, you should at least be nice. Well they were all better than nice, they were charming, and sweet and I could go on and on but let me just say, I love my girls. Well okay, let me also say that Marcia Cross said to me, "I hear you´re famous." I said, "What?" She repeated herself and when I realized that I had heard her correctly, I was flattered but kept things in perspective, and I said, "Well, low end famous." She giggled. I´m sorry but I need to say it: I love my Marcia! I love my Housewives, my Marc, my John, my Carson, my Khandi, my Melanie, my Lainie! I love my Trevor Project! I especially love my fellow drag queens! I love my Rafael, he´s from Spain, and yes, from time to time I remember: I love my life, fucked up microphones and all! Still, I could live without la tarea!
Well, Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night. I look forward to more adventures with you all in the New Year!
Love,
Coco
PS: You can see pictures of me with the housewives in the Coco Pictures on the Gallery Page.

Okay, so I´m back in school taking Spanish 2 and I´ve turned into the student that I always hated in high school. Last weekend I bitched and complained about how I was so not ready for my first Spanish 2 test that coming Monday. I agonized over the whole weekend "I can´t take this, it´s all too much! Just how many fucking ways are there to conjugate a goddamn verb?" Monday morning arrived and I took the test and then I bitched and complained about how "I probably failed or, if I´m lucky, just barely passed." I was so ugly that at one point my boyfriend called me the "c" word. That´s not unusual, but I really was being a "c". Well, I just got my exam back and... I got a 99½. I hate myself! And it´s the "½" that really put me over the edge. I remember wanting to kill people in high school that complained about how terrible they did on a test only to get it back and pass with flying colors while I sat there with a 66 and wanting to stab those smart ass crying wolf bastards. It´s strange for me because I grew to love being the failing angry outcast who made fun of the smart ones, and here I am now, a smart one! And the sad thing is, I´m not even enjoying that I got a 99. And did I mention a ½ ? Oh, why do I torture myself? Especially when so many other people already do so.

The other day I was driving to a meeting and I was a little late because of the traffic. When I was only a couple of blocks away from where I was going, the car in front of me stopped at a STOP sign and because traffic had built up in front of us and this person didn´t want to block the four-way-stop intersection, he didn´t go through the stop sign. Fine. The problem was that when traffic started to move he let all of the cars on the perpendicular street to our right make the right onto the street we were on. All of them! I thought 4-way stop signs meant that you go...I go...the next person goes...than the next person goes, a one for one type of thing. After letting all these cars cut in front of us the car in front of me finally went and guess who got stuck at the stop sign then because traffic had stopped and she didn´t want to block the intersection? I was furious! Then when the traffic started moving I pulled out and this woman in an S.U.V. pulled up to the stop sign on the perpendicular street to the right of me and didn´t stop, she just kind of rolled out in front of me so I had to stop. And as she was rolling in front of me she was looking at me and indicating with her right hand as if to say to me, "I´m going...I´m going to make the right. Okay? I´m making the right. Okay? Thanks." And I wanted to scream, "BITCH! You cut in front of me so just move your ass and make the goddamn right." But she couldn´t turn fast because not only did she have just one hand on the wheel of this giant S.U.V., and not only was she indicating to me with her other hand, but sitting on her other hand...was a cockatoo! A cockatoo. Yes, a cockatoo. I´m telling you, if I had a gun I would´ve shot this woman and her goddamn bird right then and there. And then I would´ve gotten out of my car and right in the middle of that intersection I would´ve done a Happy Dance with twelve back-up dancers giving it their all behind me. And when the car horns would´ve started blowing I would´ve screamed, "I´m not moving until I´m good and finished with my Happy Dance. That´s right...Dance Faggots...DANCE!"

Back to reality. I mean, really, what kind of person drives a car with a cockatoo sitting on their arm? Well I don´t know her name, but she´s out there and she doesn´t care who she kills. It could be you, me, herself, and even her damn bird that "just needs to go everywhere with me because he´s my buddy".

While I´m on the subject of animals, last night I was awoken about three in the morning by two cats screwing outside my window. Have you ever heard two cats screw? It´s ugly, loud, and at times, frightening. It sounds like demonic humanoid infants with red glowing eyes and they´re coming to get you. I laid there fantasizing about hosing these loud cats down with cold water, dropping a cinder block off the roof on them, I even tried to summon up a coyote that would eat them (Hey, two for one!), as well as a few other various ways to kill two fucking cats...literally. I even imagined the next morning that when my neighbors would come out looking for their precious cats, they´d find me and a fat coyote doing a Happy Dance!

I also have neighbors on my block that have dogs. We´re not allowed to have dogs in our building and, by the way, our building also has a nice front lawn. But it´s funny that all of the people that own dogs around us walk their dogs over to our nice lawn and let their dogs piss all over it so that our lawn always has burnt patches of dead grass all through it. And it really kills me that the building next door put up a small fence to protect their lawn, but they feel it´s okay to walk their dogs all over ours! You would really get a kick out of watching me yell at our neighbors, "Get your fucking dog off of our grass before I rip down your fence and take a fucking piss on your fucking precious lawn!" Okay, I´m exaggerating, but not that much. Of course they always apologize, but they´re always back a week later. When I was growing up my mother used to pour black pepper on our lawn, and then we´d watch from our window as dogs sniffed and started sneezing uncontrollably. It was fun! It was even better to watch the owners watching their dogs in horror while they also wondered what all the giggling was from our window.

It sounds terrible, and it´s not that I don´t like animals, I LOVE them. I really do. I still have never recovered from having to put my own dog down over ten years ago, and I doubt that I ever will. There are days when I think of her face and her unconditional love and I just break down crying...sometimes even in the most inappropriate places. I watch The Animal Planet, for God´s sake! Yes, I love animals, it´s just that, I guess, sometimes I can´t stand their human owners.
But really, I shouldn´t get all worked up over cockatoos in cars, and screwing cats and dogs pissing on my lawn. After all, I got a 99 ½ on my Spanish test! I know that getting a 99 ½ really doesn´t connect with anything I´ve been ranting about, but in Coco´s world...it does. Cue the dancing faggots, I feel a Happy Dance coming on!

My friend Michael wrote me an e-mail last night that said he noticed that it had been a while since I had written a "Coco Thought" and he was wondering if I thought it might be time for a new thought. Now of course when Michael pointed this out to me I knew he was doing so as a good and very supportive friend, but I felt like I had been caught! It was as if Michael had walked in on me, old lazy loser with her feet up on the coffee table watching Starting Over with a bag of Soy Pretzels and a big glass of Gatorade. I felt so guilty, especially since I wanted to verbally abuse Michael for being right…and because it´s fun. Anyway, the point is that I´ve been busy. I returned from Spain completely jet lagged. It was terrible! I´d force myself to stay up until 11 PM only to wake up at 2:30 AM with a caffeine headache from Hell. So I´d get up and make myself a café latte and then sit there waiting for the paper that didn´t come until 6 AM. I even caught myself mumbling under my breath one morning when I finally heard the paper hit the door, "It´s about time, you fucking bitch!" Not the best way to start your day… insulting someone you´ve never even seen and who is doing their job!

And then my eight-and-a-half-year-old niece came to visit me for nine days. Her name is Dominique and she´s adorable, and sweet, and lovable… and she doesn´t stop talking for a second. Fortunately, she´s also funny. I think if you´re going to be around a kid for nine days the least they can do is be funny. Otherwise, what´s the point? One morning I put an ice pack on my head (it was 7 in the morning and I was making pancakes while some hateful unfunny educational animated show about a bear family played in the background) and this ice pack on my head looked to Dominique like a crown, and she said to me, "You´re the Queen". And I asked, "Well, why can´t I be the King?" And she looked me up and down with squinted eyes, thought a moment and said, "Nah, you´re a Queen." I love her.

It is amazing what you learn about from kids though, not that I learned that I was a queen. What I mean is that when kids are around, you no longer matter, you become a slave to them, your needs really aren´t as important as you´re used to having them be. The bottom line is, you´re up at seven in the morning making pancake batter before you´ve even made your café latte! When you´re suddenly responsible for a child twenty-four/seven you realize what a selfish self-absorbed asshole you have been for most of your life. I guess that´s why I never had the calling to have children. I like my needs. I like my quiet morning café latte with a crossword puzzle. I like my classical music, not a little annoying talking bear family. I don´t eat pancakes! I don´t know how parents do it day to day for eighteen years. I admire my parents for putting up with me, especially since they were finished having kids, my brother and sisters were grown, and then "Surprise!" Don´t get me wrong, I had a great time with my niece, I cried when her plane took off, I felt a little empty for a few days afterwards. It´s just that jet lag is nothing to the exhaustion of being with a kid full time. In fact it cured my jet lag. That´s why there were no "Coco Thoughts"; I´ve been sleeping for the past month! Well, good morning people, I´m awake, I´ve had my café latte and Coco is back!

By the way, I started my Spanish 2 class today. I´m in a classroom surrounded by people who have just graduated high school, and I can´t tell you the anxiety it gives me to be around them. I hated high school and anything that is reminiscent of that time makes me nervous. Sitting there, I was making myself sick but then I thought, "These young people should be honored, for sitting beside them in this classroom, under these awful fluorescent lights is, as Dominique so beautifully reminded me, a Queen." Thank you Dominique.

I have just returned from a wonderful month in Spain with my Spanish boyfriend. The day we landed was the day that the Spanish Parliament passed the law that allows same sex couples to get married (I've been told I have good timing), with equal rights, including adopting children. I'm posting here the Spanish Prime Minister's speech that he gave right before the law was passed. I love him! It was really amazing to be there while this was happening and to know we were in a country where we were truly equal. Life continued as normal but there was this underlying feeling of moving forward, growth, and true freedom for all. I'm in awe of this "traditional" country's progressiveness and of its leadership on this issue, and I hope the leadership of our own big country will learn a little Spanish... so to speak.

SPANISH PRIME MINISTER JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO:

"We are not legislating, honorable members, for people far away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and, our families: at the same time we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.

Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who, during many years have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed. Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity, and restores their liberty.

It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone's triumph. It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet: because it is the triumph of liberty. Their victory makes all of us (even those who oppose the law) better people, it makes our society better.

Honorable members, there is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married. To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the potential to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: this law enhances and respects marriage.

Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in a profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I wish to express that, like other reforms to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil, that its only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society.

With the approval of this bill, our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our mothers had less rights than our fathers, or if we tell them that people had to stay married against their will even though they were unable to share their lives.

Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson: every right gained, each access to liberty, has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise."

SPANISH PRIME MINISTER JOSE LUIS RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO

I just got back from the L.A. Gay Pride Parade! Standing off to the side on Santa Monica Blvd., I watched Paris Hilton go by on a float with her mother. They were both chosen as Grand Marshals for the parade. They waved, they blew kisses, Paris played with her dog, and people yelled out from below "Paris! Over here!" so that they could capture the moment on film and years from now look at their photo and again feel the surge of pride that they felt that June day as their Grand Marshals rode on by. But I gotta tell, I wasn´t feeling the pride vibe. It was more like the "oh nooooo" vibe.

It´s not Paris Hilton´s fault. She was asked to be a part of it and she was. Good for her! But why was she asked? What has she done for our community? Has she done hundreds of benefits for gay causes? Has she been an outspoken gay activist for the gay community? Has she visited hospitals and sat with and performed for people with AIDS? Did she ever deliver a meal? Did she grow up dealing with issues of shame, gender, homophobia, and overcome such odds that were set up against her from an early age? Well, I have! Why the hell wasn´t I asked to be the Grand Marshal? I´m just sayin´. Truth is though; I would have been embarrassed and felt unworthy being honored as Grand Marshal. But that´s my problem and it has something to do with the shame I mentioned earlier. Besides, I´ve been in those parades before and let me just tell you something: drag, plus sun, plus dehydration, equals "I am so glad it´s Paris Hilton up there and not me!"

Now there were some wonderful people honored today such as Rev. Troy Perry (who just gets me going whenever I hear him speak-Alleluia!) and Dr. Betty Berzon to name a couple. But still, it makes me sad that society is so addicted to celebrity, and that even our own community could, when choosing this year´s Grand Marshal, overlook the fabulous GLBT people all around us. True, we might not know their names or even recognize them, but they´re out there working everyday to make our lives better. Why don´t we celebrate them with our pride? We should know their names and recognize their faces even though they don´t have a T.V. show and happen to be an heiress. But am I bitter? Perhaps… just a little…absolutely. Oh, I feel a big goddammit coming on…GODDAMMIT. There, I feel better.

Okay, so enough of my bashing celebrity because Lord knows… I´d love to be one…and an heiress. But until that happens I am thrilled that last Tuesday the 7th, I taped a half-hour comedy special for the new gay station LOGO! It was taped at THE ABBEY in front of a live audience, with a huge production team from Eddie October Prods. I had my own trailer, a make-up artist, a hair stylist, a gift bag, all the bottles of water I could drink, free food, a tag around my neck that read "TALENT". The point is that it was all so professional I was terrified. Yet, as terrified as I was, I was also deep down very excited and grateful for the opportunity. I felt like I had been waiting for this moment for so long. The song "This Is The Moment" from the musical "Jekyll and Hyde" comes to mind…and that disturbs me. Nonetheless, I did it and I can´t wait for the finished product. The show is due to air in July and you can call your local cable company to see if you´ll be getting LOGO.

Anyway, another parade is over and my feet hurt and I´m tired and Paris is beautiful and rich and had a fabulous gown and I do hope that as she rode past those ugly conservative Christians with their ugly signs she blew them a big sloppy kiss and said, "Ewww, those people are ugly and mean. Hey Mom, let´s spend lots of our money to help GLBT people get the rights they so richly deserve and maybe those ugly assholes would disappear and go fuck themselves with their ugly signs. That´s HOT!" That would make me proud.
By the way, I´m off to Spain for a month. I know… I´m a whore.


Wed, May 4, 2005

Hi...Ugh..I´ve had allergies for years, but I just found out yesterday what I am allergic to: dust mites and olive trees! Apparently we all have dust mites in our bedding, but what I didn´t know is that the allergy is not to the actual microscopic creature, a relative of the spider, no, it´s to their shit. I´m allergic to dust mite shit! They shit in our beds! And if the dust mites weren´t bad enough, as my luck would have it, I also happen to live in an area that was once the largest olive tree grove in the west, with a lot of those olive trees still surviving today in parks and in people´s backyards. So between the olive trees and the dust mites, Coco´s a mess. I´ve been suffering from this for years, in fact, there is a scene in "Girls Will Be Girls" where I confront Evie in her dressing room, and in this particular scene you can see how puffy my eyes were back then. The make-up artist was wonderful, but honey, there ain´t no competing with dust mite shit.
Anyway, I was instructed by my doctor to go buy dust mite-proof pillow, mattress, and box spring encasings, to vacuum and dust my home three to four times a week, to wash my sheets often, to keep my windows closed and to do nasal douches. I asked the doctor upon receiving these instructions, "Isn´t there just a pill I could take? Pills are so much easier. I mean really, who has time to dust and vacuum three to four times a week AND nasal douche?!?" He told me I could get injections, but he wanted to see if altering my surroundings helped first. I said, "I´ll give it month and if I still wake up with the puffy eyes, I´m coming back and you're shooting me up!" Suffice it to say, the war against dust mites has begun and who knew nasal douching could be so much fun?!? It´s like you´ve just stepped out of the ocean but you didn´t have to deal with all that sand.
By the way, I´ve discovered something that I hate: people playing bongo drums in public. I don´t mean in public places where you pay to see people playing bongo drums, I mean like this guy that lives near me that sits in his car with the car door open and plays his bongo drum with this smile on his face and seems to think that this unnecessary noise is enjoyable to everyone else. I just want to walk over to him, take the bongo drum and repeatedly smash it on the pavement until it´s only held together in pieces and then hand it back to him and say, "Have a great day." And then go sit in my car with the car door open and blast the theme song to "Girls Will Be Girls". Oh it´s a good thing she´s back in therapy. Oh well, I´ve got to go dust.

April 14th, '05
Hello everyone. Thank you for visiting me! I´m so glad we´re not actually talking because I bit my tongue last week and it´s still killing me. I bit it right in the middle of a performance! It´s true, the pain made my eyes water a little, and I tasted blood, but I never stopped talking and the audience never knew that inside… I was screaming like a goddamn banshee! I just returned from a five-week run of my show in San Francisco. It´s the first time I have ever done five shows a week with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sundays. What drag queen do you know does matinees? It´s not right. It´s not natural. I have never liked matinees and I don´t even like going to see them. I had no idea I was doing matinees until I got up there and saw it on the flier. Apparently she didn´t read the contract very close. But I did it! And I even had a matinee on that day after we lost the hour the night before because of Daylight Savings time. I told the audience they better be lively because if they thought they were tired…oh nooooo…she´s tired. All that said, my matinee audiences were delightful! And I´ll never do another matinee in my life…EVER… unless of course the pay is good.
By the way, I have never seen so many homeless people as I did in San Francisco. They all seem to be very sweet though. In fact, one rainy day a homeless man told me, "Your umbrella is as gay as fuck", and I looked up at it and I realized…it was! I was so happy.
Another day I was feeling a bit blue, not really having a good day, and I decided that since I had the day off I should go to the movies. I went with my stage manager, John, and as we stepped on the train we were hit with an odor that made my nose hairs need no trimming that week. In my Bronx fashion I let out a noise of disgust and said, "Ugh, no, we can´t stay here. I have to move up to the front of the car and get away from this stench from Hell." Drama queen. Anyway, we were sitting up near the conductor when all of a sudden this gay guy came up and knocked on the conductor´s window. The conductor opened the window and the gay guy said, "Someone urinated on a seat back there and you´re going to have to clean it up before someone sits in it. I´m getting off at the next stop." With that the train pulled into the next stop and as the gay guy turned to get off, John and I saw that the guy´s entire ass was soaked. Well! How he ever got that close and actually plopped his ass down in it without smelling it, I´ll never know. But that is not the point; the point is that there is nothing like a queen sitting in a bum´s piss to make you realize just what a good day you´re actually having.