Author Archives: Joel Derfner

Last night E.S. and I finally saw Wicked, the musical adaptation by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman of the novel about how the Wicked Witch of the West got to be wicked, be a witch, and live in the west. The Wicked Witch (who in the book and the musical is named Elphaba; this may in fact be her name in the Oz books but I’ve never read them so I don’t know) and Glinda the Good meet in college, where they share a room and get to be friends. Glinda is of course graceful, charming, and beautiful while Elphaba is awkward, off-putting, and green.

During intermission, E.S. and I were talking about how much we loved the show. “At least now we know what we’re going as for Hallowe’en,” I said.

“Didn’t everybody already do that last year?” he asked.

“Hmph,” I said. “Well, I don’t care. The only question is which of us is going to be Glinda and which is going to be Elphaba.”

“Oh, please,” he snorted. “Everybody knows I’m Glinda and you’re Elphaba.” I gasped, I called him a bitch, and then the lights dimmed to indicate the imminent start of the second act.

Afterwards, we revisited the issue on the subway home. “Maybe you are Glinda,” he said, “and I’m Elphaba.”

This wasn’t much better, given that Glinda is annoying and untalented. “Why do you say that?” I asked, my eyes narrowed.

“Just to annoy you.”

“That’s it,” I said. “I’m Glinda and Elphaba.”

“Then who am I?”

I thought for a moment. “You can be Elphaba’s paraplegic sister Nessarose.”

“Do you want me to drop a house on you?”

Then I spent the rest of the evening calling him “Nessa” until he made me stop.

My dog A. was fine when she spent her time shuttling back and forth between E.S.’s 396-square-foot apartment and my 815-square-foot apartment. Now that she lives in a house, however, she seems to be finding life very confusing and a little bit lonely–sometimes we are on one floor, for example, and she is on another, and she doesn’t know what the world is coming to.

So we’ve decided to get her a little brother or sister.

A. is a Maltese; at first, E.S. wanted to get another Maltese. “No,” I said, “because inevitably one of them will be cuter and we’ll love that one more and the other one less, and I can’t have that.” E.S. claimed not to understand what I was talking about, but I was adamant, so eventually he relented. We considered other breeds and ended up deciding on a Yorkie. Then yesterday E.S. and I had the following conversation:

E.S.: I’ve been thinking, maybe instead of a Yorkie we should get an Italian greyhound.
FAUSTUS: But you said a Yorkie.
E.S.: But one of the new pet therapy dogs in the hospital is an Italian greyhound and it’s so cute.
FAUSTUS: But I don’t want an Italian greyhound.
E.S.: But it was so cute.
FAUSTUS: Too bad. You already said a Yorkie, so we have to get a Yorkie.
E.S.: That’s very concrete of you.
FAUSTUS: What do you mean by that?
E.S.: “You said X, so we have to do X.” That’s a pretty inflexible position.
FAUSTUS: Have I ever done anything that led you to believe I was in any way flexible at all?
(Pause.)
FAUSTUS: I mean other than physically.
E.S.: Damn.
FAUSTUS: A Yorkie it is, then.

Those of you who live in or near New York City may be interested in stopping by Tuesday’s WYSIWYG, at the Bowery Poetry Club.

This will be my fifth WYSIWYG appearance, but I’m actually very nervous because it will be the first time I’ll be reading something instead of singing. Of course, the thing I have to read is pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself, so if you come I promise you won’t be disappointed, especially because even if you hate me you are sure to be entertained by Rod Townsend, Curly McDimple, Joe Jervis, Greg Walloch and Spinster.

Of course, if you hate me and are entertained by them I will start stalking you and doing whatever I can to make you like me, just like Rose in that episode of Golden Girls in which her coworker doesn’t like her and she tries to make him be her friend through sheer force of will.

She failed but I will succeed.

Yesterday morning, when I woke up, while performing my morning ablutions I felt an odd but very powerful sense of disconnection from reality. The familiar seemed strange, and the strange seemed even stranger.

I racked my brain to figure out what was different.

Could it be that it was the first morning I was waking up in the new house in Brooklyn that E.S. and I finally, after a maddening series of delays, finished buying?

It was certainly a possibility, but somehow it still didn’t seem quite right. And the feeling of unfamiliarity only intensified.

Then, as I was wandering around the rooms (in my socks, since the floors have obviously not been scrubbed since 1972), I saw a box I had marked “OPEN IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!” I obeyed my instructions and looked inside.

I almost cried with relief when I saw that it was my bathroom scale. I installed it in its proper place and the strange feeling dissipated at once.

Then I stepped on the scale.

I should have stuck with the odd but powerful sense of disconnection from reality, because now I have to go kill myself.

Dear God,

Remember when I said that if You let George W. Bush be impeached I would go an entire week without taking Your name in vain, even while being sodomized?

Well, that deal is now off the table.

However, if he is found guilty of treason and executed, I’ll up it to a month.

Sincerely yours,

Faustus

Remember when I went to Seattle for auditions for a show of mine and ended up thinking that most of the men who auditioned for us were too gay?

Well, we cast a couple of them anyway.

And I have learned, after being in rehearsal for a week and a half, that they’re straight.

Luckily, they’re terrific performers, so everything is okay, except for the fact that I don’t understand anything anymore.

It is my greatest dream in life to throw a drink in somebody’s face.

Actually, that’s not true. Throwing a drink in somebody’s face is only my second-greatest dream in life; my greatest dream in life is to become an arsonist.

Last night I tried out (as a go-go boy) for the guy who runs the parties at Splash on Saturdays. It seemed to be Big ‘n’ Beefy night, so I felt somewhat out of place, but I was still having a good time.

Then somebody walked by me and indicated that he wanted to speak to me. I leaned down and he shouted in my ear (the music was pretty loud), “How’s your dick?”

I heard him fairly clearly but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood, so I shouted back, “What?”

He shouted, “How’s your cock?”

I gave the only possible reply, which was, “Fabulous!”

“Is it hard?” I gave him what I hope passed for a lascivious look. “If you get it hard I’ll give you a dollar.”

And I almost spit in his face.

A dollar? Excuse me. I should get a dollar for letting you stand next to me. Men have been sticking dollar bills in my underwear all evening with the understanding that if they want any kind of display they have to pony up.

I said, “Make it ten and I’ll think about it,” but I spoke softly, because though I was insulted I also didn’t want to anger him.

He hadn’t heard me; he looked up quizzically and shouted, “What?”

I gave him a mysterious smile, declined to repeat myself, and started dancing again, ignoring him until he walked away.

Does anybody in the New York area with a T-Mobile, Sprint, or Working Assets mobile phone care to weigh in on the quality of the service s/he gets? I’ve been happy with Verizon’s service but I simply cannot continue to patronize a company that would sell my phone records to the government. I’m switching my home service from AT&T to Vonage, but, for cellular service, before I make a two-year commitment and buy a gajillion-dollar phone I want to make sure I can trust the guy who wanders around the countryside on TV saying, “Can you hear me now?”.

In unrelated news, does anybody who is internet-savvy want a gig that will take a few hours and pay $25/hour? If so, please email me and I’ll give you more details.

In even more unrelated news, I was going to write a post wondering how I could possibly have managed to gain 3.6 pounds yesterday, but then I realized that obviously it’s because God was angry at me for importuning him.

At first I worried that Karl Rove and Verizon had conspired to fill my morning protein bar with sugar and lard, but then I remembered that it tasted just as repulsive as it usually does, so I think it really has to be the God thing.

Dear God,

I know I have generally thought of You as either a malevolent, brutal, and selfish malfeasant or a myth perpetuated by other malevolent, brutal, and selfish malfeasants.

However, if You let it be true that Karl Rove is really being indicted, I promise to go an entire day without taking Your name in vain, even while being sodomized.

If You let George W. Bush be impeached, I’ll up it to a week.

Sincerely yours,

Faustus