Have a Heart, Xtina

Christina Aguilera is no longer fat. There, I’ve finally admitted it.

For three months since she debuted a slimmer figure on “The Voice,” I hoped the weight loss was a phase. Maybe her current boy toy forgot to buy her weekly bag of Cheetos. Or a mega roll of sugar cookie dough complete with little sugar dough baby. But no, the traitor didn’t forget once, or twice. He forgot for several months, the bastard.

Would I ever watch Xtina belt out “At Last” with “self-tanner” running down her leg again? What about her wrecked blonde weave as she writhed in a bandage leotard, looking like she stuck her finger in an electric socket?

To my delight, I can still have all of that – minus the extra calories. I’m glad Christina is a healthy weight again, since the extra pounds may have put her at risk of heart disease, the number one killer of women in America. More than 42 million women in this country currently live with it everyday – and often go undiagnosed or treated, leading to more early deaths than men. These women could prevent or lessen the affects of heart disease by working out, eating right, and maintaining a healthy weight.

Now I didn’t mean to get all Dr. Joanne on you. I just don’t want Christina to die, because then how will I be able to make fun of her?

This, my friends, is the only reason I’m supporting my sister Evamarie Spataro’s American Heart Association Walk on September 22, 2012. She needs to raise $300 by September 15. I told her I’m only doing this for Xtina, not her, and she said I'm the worst sibling in America.

I’m not sure what Eva meant by that last part, but please heed my warning: Don’t sit back while Christina Aguilera inevitably gains the weight back, putting herself at risk for a coronary. Give her a reason to keep working out, to fit into those horrible denim cut-offs and American flag cardigan.

Please give all of your quarters to Eva's cause here: http://heartwalk.kintera.org/charlottenc/evamariespataro

From the bottom of Xtina’s cookie dough-filled heart, thank you.

Miss America (I Wanna Be)

“There she is, Miss America…”

Before a smarmy C-lister oversings a single note, before last year’s winner can bludgeon pin a crown to your bouffant of three-day-old hair without sobbing, you need to play the game. You can’t take your pageant prize of a free trip to the Bahamas just yet, cap’ain hat and white sunglasses blazing.

Actual Miss America Contestant

Winning takes time. Or at least a lot of teeth grinding. Snap in those blonde extensions for the campy opening number to “Waiting for Tonight." You can't help that the two (straight) show producers are collectively 250 years old. You will flash your veneers at the TV audience and say, “My name is Heather Mane Heather and I’m from the Corn Cob Capital of the World!” Your whippet-thin frame almost breaks in half showcasing a meticulously inoffensive bathing suit. A Danube-eyed minion with feline reflexes ensures butt glue holds up your bottom line in beachwear.

One wrong answer in the question and answer segment can turn you into a sad and unfortunate internet meme. “India is the eighth continent and largest beef producer in the world!” just hit three million views and has made your mother cry.

 

Beauty pageants force you to live in the moment. The tension is high and you can't stare too long at the finish line. Voting is a similar (yet surprisingly butt glue-less) process where one voice is added to a chorus you won't hear until later. You can't rummage through your competitor's dressing room when you're supposed to be onstage singing a Christina Aguilera ballad. Focus on what you came there to do. Who knows who will be accompanying you after the winner is announced, because what counts is your winning few minutes in the voting booth. Keylight or light musical accompaniment is optional.

 

This is my platform: on May 8, do a solid by our Miss America ladies and gorgeous drag queens alike: Vote no against Amendment One and keep North Carolina Powered on Dreams. Come May 9, we will hopefully be laying on a sandy white beach, savoring our Miss America win with pineapple rum or chilli cheese fries. Or both. But for now, we have a tired ass Jennifer Lopez song to slog through.

Song of the Week: "Miss America (I Wanna Be)"

Powered on Dreams

Stuck in a Dress, Green Glasses Powered on Dreams

When my sister and I hit our early teens, we formed an underground band. You probably haven't heard of us because we were that cool. Or that obscure, but you get it. We dubbed ourselves Licorice Snap, an electronica-infused, spoken word phenomenon that was bound to blow the minds of our then emo, pre-hipster audiences.

Every spare afternoon, we headed into the recording studio to lay down some sweet tracks. It was the start of a new millennium, hot on the heels of Ricky Martin and MTV Total Request Live. YouTube and widespread recreational music programs were a mere sparkle in the eyes of their future creators.

At the time, Licorice Snap had a new sound. Eva cranked out sweet electronica beats and I rocked the spoken word. We even had a handheld dictionary called Franklin (which, incidentally, you could play hangman on too) that would talk in a Stephen Hawking-like voice. We programmed (fine, manually typed in; this was before smart phones!) our background vocalist to say "Lambs Love School" for our house remix of Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Our songs were about loving yourself like the fabulous queen you were or aspired to be. Miss America (I Wanna Be) should have been a number 1 hit. We should have been on the cover of "Rolling Stone" playfully giving everyone the finger or using said finger to rage on a keytar. 

Alas, our unabashed ode to peace, love, and fierceness was too ahead of its time.

No one heard our music because we didn't know where to play it or who would listen to it. How would we even lug our sweet sound machine, a desktop computer in our parents' house, to a gig? Our studio was our parents' house. Pretty soon, we unceremoniously lost the music-making program when the computer went out of commission. The dream seemed to die. I clutched our EP, emblazoned with Eva's color pencil cover art, to my chest like my Christina Aguilera drag queen cookie held her sugar dough baby.


 With the looming Amendment One vote to ban gay marriage and benefits for unmarried or domestic partners in North Carolina, up for vote on May 8, we can't afford to keep our fabulous soundtrack of hope locked in the archives.

Licorice Snap's opus, Powered on Dreams, says that anything and everything is possible. The imagery of a flying car that puffs purple exhaust describes a utopia that will overcome bigotry, homophobia, and racism if we just believe in ourselves. And yes the song is kitschy, because it's our right to be tongue-in-cheek with a message. Politician Harvey Milk understood that balance of theatrics and politics. When he was running as the first openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the late 1970s, he said, "You gotta give 'em hope."

If Powered on Dreams inspires you to go out and be fabulous, or more fabulous than you already are, then Licorice Snap's ten-year hiatus was well worth the wait.

Licorice Snap Track of the Week: Powered on Dreams

Appropriate Valentine Behavior (and Xtina melting into a drag queen)

Some people call it the most romantic day of the year. For others it’s Singles Awareness Day, when you can eat a very unromantic yet satisfying burrito at Taco Bell. I for one don’t believe in either. Valentine’s Day is a time for me to gorge on heart-shaped Dove chocolates. I look forward to it every February 14. Unfortunately, I bought two bags too many to prove my fortunes wrong.

Actual Photo of Christina Aguilera, "The Voice"

What used to be the best part of Dove chocolates was a happily prophetic message inside each wrapper. I’m always a fan of finding out what’s going to happen to me without asking someone who actually knows me. Now the tide has turned, and I’m no longer simply told to “Remember my first crush.” This is Chinese fortune cookie realness. One morning (yes, that’s right) I opened one to reveal this command: “Watch the sun come up,” and then a second to “Share a sunset.” This had to have cosmic meaning in my life, but I didn’t know what.

I turned to the one person who could succinctly sort this out. My bus friend, we’ll call him Jeff, always has a solution. Since he had taken his car to work, I emailed him my problem, imploring, “Is the universe trying to tell me something?” I waited impatiently for an answer like he was a shaken Magic Eight Ball that hadn’t settled yet. Then the blue triangle finally flipped. “LISTEN,” he wrote, “they are in the wrong order. It should be, ‘share a sunset’ then ‘watch the sun come up.’” Lastly, with his (and now my) juvenile penchant for adding “in bed” to the end of fortunes, I got the message. I was not a very romantic person.

I’ve never watched a sunrise. And romance? Last Valentine’s Day my bestie and I loudly read from “The Vagina Monologues” and baked a giant sugar cookie replica of Christina Aguilera that melted (our goal was to make a drag queen clutching a shank and a baby, so close enough). I never begrudged not having a Valentine because when I did, it was the worst. Such a commitment meant you couldn’t phone it in. You had to wear diaphanous polyester tops to look “soft and feminine” and say “I love hydrangeas” even though you are so Madonna about them.

Since childhood, I have practiced Appropriate Valentine Behavior. Hands to yourself, candy in those hands. In second grade, Timothy Ducey unceremoniously broke my rule of Appropriate Valentine Behavior. He was my first man friend (non-dad category) that I babbled to about my life over lunch. One day at recess, I fell on the basketball court and Timothy used the opportunity to clumsily kiss me. I was not happy.

Source of My "Misfortune"

That Valentine’s Day, I made an effort, thanks to my mom trying to make me less brazen towards non-people. I baked Timothy a sumptuous heart-shaped cookie smothered in fresh frosting. I picked a card that said, “Like You Lots,” with Barbie giving vapid bedroom eyes. If that was not suggestive, I didn’t know what was. What sexually-charged Valentine did Timothy give me in return? A baseball card that said, “You knock it out of the park” or some other lame sports double entendre. I palpitated with liquid hot rage. Here I had poured my feelings out and he replied with a handshake. Going back to being lunch besties was not an option.

Share a sunset? Watch the sun come up? I was still stuck in second grade. Luckily, my "misfortune" had inspired me to school myself on finding romance my way. Which might involve first making a heart-shaped or drag queen cookie. Or both.

By the way, Jeff unfortunately knows all about my Timothy Ducey issue, which just shows how you bring baggage into a new man friendship. Thankfully he gives me sound advice or makes me laugh. I’ll need it. The last two times I went out for Chinese, I got these fortunes: “A chance meeting with a stranger will probably change your life” and “Watch for a stranger to soon become a friend."