The Pirate Clown

While I’m not much for sharing anything, especially my living quarters, I do enjoy Derek, my occasional roommate. Derek started out as a dog sitter, then dubbed himself “dog nanny” (which makes us BOTH sound more pretentious then we could ever aspire to be), and finally just started calling himself my roommate.

Here’s what I like about Derek:

1. He calls himself my roommate even when he’s on tour in Europe or traveling with the circus. No, I am not speaking metaphorically. Derek’s a real live clown. No, he does NOT wear the big shoes and red nose for fun.

2. I can’t piss him off. Which, aside from being a rare gift, is just refreshing, really.

3. He has more issues than I do. Before anyone who knows us both really, really well starts hollering that I’m lying, please think in terms of quantity, not quality.

4. On the rare occasions I feel compelled to groom, he has adequate hair product and other girly things around. Yes, he’s gay, but that’s not why: he’s an actor and they tend to carry a lot of weird baggage, both emotionally and physically. Case in point: I just brushed my teeth (see? I groom!) and noticed that my household had somehow magically acquired fingernail polish remover. So, should I ever purchase a nail polish other than clear or attempt to paint my nails at home, I’m all set.

5. When I got butchered by a hair stylist who made me look like… well, picture the butchiest, burliest, manliest lesbian you’ve ever seen on TV (they don’t get this severe in real life), then give her an even worse haircut. That was me. Anyway, when I got that haircut, he’s one of a precious few people who just admitted it made me look like a lesbian trying to look like Dudley Moore. He actually laughed at me, which made me laugh, which made me not cry, which was where I was headed when I looked in the mirror. As we’ve established I’m not all about the grooming, you could well ascertain that this was a truly hideous look for me.

6. He teaches my bird words like “lesbian”. Rather than choosing to believe that he’s plotting against me, I like to think he’s educating her in diversity.

7. He will tell me without compunction that I am living like a bachelor and should probably make more of an effort to swap out the milk carton every couple of months.

8. He’s a vegetarian so I never have to worry about him stealing my leftovers.

9. We have nothing in common except an intolerance for the bourgeois,a desire to make money without wearing pantyhose, and ugly, wicked senses of humor.

10. He likes pirates, too. In fact (the point of all this), he’s in American Stage’s Pirates of Penzance, opening this week in the park. Pay what you can nights are Wednesday and Thursday, and after that it’s something like $20.

Go see Derek. In choices in keeping with American Stage’s artistic choices for their park shows, they’ve departed from the traditional Gilbert & Sullivan opera. Derek’s gonna have mutton chops and an afro; you can’t miss him.

Oh, yeah, for more info, visit AmStage’s web site.