Entries Tagged 'Gypsy Magnolia' ↓

Angels! As part of my work with the Encyclopedia Show – Austin that someday I hope pays me a living wage, I get the loveliest job of getting to sit down and interview my favorite Encyclo-friends about their lives with some boring questions from the Institute for Human Knowledge and Hygiene plus some juicy good ones from the brain under my goddess crown of golden spirals. We should all know those who share I life stage, and honor them. Also, if there’s anything YOU want to know, just comment and I’ll answer for Ralphie!

TWENTY QUESTIONS WITH GYPSY MAGNOLIA: RALPHIE HARDESTY

Basking in the glow of technology.

#1- How old were you when you learned to read? I have the worst memory, but I guess it was kindergarten. That would’ve made me 4? Does that sound completely wrong? When do children learn to read?!

#2- Exactly how many books do you read per year? I am a very typical American. I do my reading online or through Netflix.

#3- How big is the T in your Truth? My T won a blue ribbon at the county fair.

#4- Literature is FUNdamental!

They dared him to bring his mom. He had the last laugh.

(now for the juicy ones)

#5- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one character from fiction it would be Fabio.

#6- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one nonfiction writer it would be David Rakoff.

#7- Bed-Banish-Betroth:  Jackie Collins, Nicholas Sparks, V.C. Andrews I had to google Nicholas Sparks and VC Andrews. Betroth Jackie, Bed VC, Banish Nicholas.

#8- What book would you read with your last meal? Does the spoonful of Nutella I just ate count? The Chocolate War.

Ralphie moves like a bat.

(Personal questions)

#9 – Name the Weird Austin thing that is most like you: THE BATS! BECAUSE I EAT INSECTS AT NIGHT!

#13- Movie theaters  = popcorn time!    True.      False.   Discuss. False! My life is separated into before and after the Alamo Drafthouse. Before, movies were popcorn time. Now, popcorn is but one awesome choice you can make. Popcorn and Reese’s were my movie theater snack preference, but now I like pizza.

#15- My astrological sign is: Libra. My strength is my ability to understand and work with others.

#20- What is the most beautiful idea you are in love with? That the world will end in 2012. Is a fact an idea? I will google it and get back to you.

#21- What charity are you playing for today? Locks of Lynde: Wigs for Balding Gay Men.

Angels! As part of my work with the Encyclopedia Show – Austin that someday I hope pays me a living wage, I get the loveliest job of getting to sit down and interview my favorite Encyclo-friends about their lives with some boring questions from the Institute for Human Knowledge and Hygiene plus some juicy good ones from the brain under my goddess crown of golden spirals. We should all know those who share I life stage, and honor them. Also, if there’s anything YOU want to know, just comment and I’ll answer for Michael!

TWENTY QUESTIONS WITH GYPSY MAGNOLIA: MICHAEL GRAUPMANN

I'm so excited to chat with Mike!

(Required by the Institute)

#1-  How old were you when you learned to read? 6

#2- Exactly how many books do you read per year? 5

#3- How big is the T in your Truth? 8.5 inches

#4- Literature is FUNdamental

(now for the juicy ones!!)

#5- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one character from fiction it would be Madame Bovary

#6- If I were to be pretend romantically involved with one nonfiction writer it would be Roger Ebert

#7- Bed-Banish-Betroth:  Jackie Collins (BETROTH), Nicholas Sparks (BANISH), V.C. Andrews (BED)

#8- What book would you read with your last meal? The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

(Personal questions— My favorites!!!)

#9 – Name the Weird Austin thing that is most like you: BookPeople

#11- What is your favorite yoga pose? Eagle

 

Stay Fresh, noble Eagle!

#13- Movie theaters  = popcorn time!    True? False.

Discuss. So much noise. Can’t eat without shoveling. Kernels stuck in teeth. Salt all over hands. Butter is fake.

#14- I would walk down the aisle to Nelly Furtado’s song Forca because it is inspirational and about fighting.

#15- My astrological sign is: Virgo. My strength is my organization and details.

#17- What was your high school goth name? Bert

#18- The longest I lived in a vehicle was 48 straight hours from Illinois to California. I learned to vary my diet more than a single economy sized bag of pizza-flavored Combos.

#19- What is Austin’s best kept secret? The Encyclopedia Show

(Bonus!)

#21- What charity are you playing for today? Austin Pug Rescue

Thank you for your words, Angel Michael! See you next show!

Hail Caesar. Whoa Cesarean.

Angels, I’m not much into following things like the Oscars, but since they’re over I’ve been trying to see what all the fuss is about. Plus, my inability to conceive does not mean I don’t ovulate for a week each month and need some quality couch time.  Did you know it takes MONTHS for movies to go from the theater to DVD? I feel like maybe they could be a lot more efficient if they just did it all at once. I really wanted to see dreamy Colin Firth’s performance in The King’s Speech because I had a childhood stutter that I lost when I accidentally hypnotized myself one time in a funhouse. I don’t miss it, but love both the “overcoming disabilities” and “hooker with a heart of gold” tropes. So, since the local movie theater is only playing the Bieber movie and “Topper” (they do one kids freebie and one for retirees who are nostalgic for a time when cinema verite was not invented), I decided to do the next best thing… watch all 11 episodes of the EPIC (correct use of the word) 1976 BBC miniseries “I, Claudius.” Or, as I thought it was called “I, CLAVDIVS.” How did the Romans tell the U from the V?

FACT: Romans only vsed fovr vowels.

Anyhoo, Derek Jacoby, who has made a pretty magic career playing white haired men on PBS, is the lead role/narrator, Claudius, who is born deformed and afflicted with a stutter. Things in Rome were just like living in the U.S. Dominant political structures, wars in foreign lands people pretend aren’t happening, a crazy wife of a Republican emperor, and orgies. There is so much sex in this miniseries, angels, that you really get a feel for how weird the 70s must have been. And it’s one of those things that was on PBS so kids probably watched this when they couldn’t get their clammy hands on one of the good National Geographics. A bird lands on Claudius and I think that tagged him as going to be emperor. His step mom was a meany but like a Roman Cinderella, he endured. When he is eventual emperor, the stutter has disappeared and he takes a wife that one day challenges the president of the hooker club to a duel to see who can outlast more lovers in a single day. Trope goldmine, angels! And I don’t want to ruin anything, but the hooker is Sicilian. And the empress is hungry. You feel me? And there are so many nipples!

I am often asked if my work is based on John Hvrt's crossdressing.

I identify with Clavdivs because all this slutty is happening behind his back and ruining his marriage. Additionally, having such an educational program to teach us about the dangers of empire is really important in the age where Bret Easton Ellis (author and purveyor of cocaine smut) is calling Charlie Sheen (misogynist and consumer of cocaine smut) “post-empire.” As in, when people are going buckwild with pleasure, they are probably ignoring more important things like war. Like Janet Jackson, I live by the Pleasure Principle, but am never not keeping it really real about the global cost of our ignorance. You know, like how sometimes James comes home to the trailer with Jack-In-The-Box and I ask him how the soy in the meat is treating him? Because it treats the worlds’ indigenous farmers like shit and starves them? And the excess estrogen is going to one day turn him into a goddess! Slowly, it works, as he’s now eating more chicken. Bird by bird, Anne Lamott reminds us. And the Roman fashion is so drapey I really love it, but the miniseries is sometimes confusing when everyone is called Caesar with no salad in sight.

Empress Livia is the original golddigger. And she was pretty slvtty.

Today we as a globe lost Elizabeth Taylor, one of my personal goddess role models, as I’m hoping to spawn my own collection of ex-husbands and conflict-free white diamonds someday. Watching “I, Claudius” helps me embrace the world without her light, with a reminder that imperialism is bad, mostly when rich people are really busy trashing each others’ lives. I give the miniseries 3 and a half blossoms. Feel free to watch it next time you’re cramping for 11+ hours!!

xoxoxoxoxoxox

G

Oh angels! What energy the divine days of August (Agosto for our south-o-the-myn-made-border-kindred-spirits) brings into being!

This month I feel my energy has been tumultuously circling like a Dairy Queen blizzard machine because it is just that hot here in Texas.

James has been particularly surly, as I’ve been straddling the fence about taking Folk Singers Against Sarah Palin national, which I think would involve living at the Washington D.C. YMCA. I can’t tell if James is wishing me gone, or hiding his hurt at our possible parting. It’s odd, as a feel called to a new place, but love this one like a home- surrounded by loved ones, good energy, pleasing sighs and rupturous laughter. I feel like other work is calling, but there are still so many roots to raise here. And my friend Elphaba just started offering free Reiki in exchange for my fennel dip recipe. Still I rise!

For my mythical moment: Let’s talk Auras. What are you?

Here I am:
LAVENDER AURA: Imagination, visionary, daydreamer, etheric.

I particularly like:
The Life Purpose of someone with the core color of Lavender is to explore other dimensions and realities and then share their amazing otherworldly perceptions with the rest of us. They are here to stimulate our imaginations, inspire our sense of wonder, and awe us with their magical minds. -Russell Rowe

Let me know what your soul glow is, friends! Seeking gold-aura-ed starperson!

Hello angels and noble beasts!

James has been pretty crabby this week, as our ac has been counteracted by my keeping the door open so that I can breathe with the spiders. Looks like someone will need two chakra jobs this week. His emotional needs sometimes make me feel like I’m a beautiful tree that people hung way to many swings upon. Still I rise.

For this month’s Encyclopedia Show, I will be performing a love song to one special almost second place vice presidential spouse that should perhaps reconsider what type of partner, spiritually, physically, and INTELLECTUALLY is most fulfilling. Let’s just say this person’s current situation is with an uninspiring harpy.

But in making sure I teach something, I’ve created a short poem about my favorite Vice President, George Clinton.

When you ousted Aaron Burr
Like a monthly release
We had no idea
How you could make us move our feet
You hated all Tories
An atomic dog barks
In the interest of liberty
When you founded Parliament
James Madison said “whoa”
How bout some bicameral action instead
Away from Guy Fawkes’s blow
Six electoral votes in 1808
Were not enough to elect you
Until Bootsy Collins arrived
Lifting your angel wings
At the Hall of Fame you purr
Like notes from a kazoo
Tooted by a founding father
He fed the troops at Valley Forge
Hearkening G. Washington’s inaugural dinner
By shouting to the staff
We want the funk
And indeed, we did.

See you Thursday, angels!

Raise the root for America angels!

I just finished my annual Independence day drum circle and this year it was a little disappointing, as I’ve never done one in Texas. It’s a wet heat. A very wet heat. Very difficult to keep the drum heads taut. Not to mention keeping my thighs dry while pounding away at animal skin. Shwoo! Thanks for the yummy vegan hummus Bernice!

This month– I HAVE A TREAT FOR YOU!

In my earlier days, I was a cast member for Up With People… well, until I was asked to leave after a rather awkward incident involving the daughter of one of my host parents in Brussels and a hand mirror. I hope, today, that you feel as free as you did that day, Godeleine. To me, you will always be that beautiful girl. My forever sister.

I recently ran into one of my old castmates, Samaria Guitaria,  and she agreed to come do a little revival number with me this month… dedicated to the sexiest almost-vice-presidential-spouse to ever have a pulse and chest hair… that ISN’T Happy Rockefeller… CAN YOU GUESS?

While you wait, here’s a video of SG and I performing at the 1982 Superbowl- the tribute to folk music of the sixties, that we called our “Hootenany” show.. Up! With! People!

That ginger sax player stole my heart for a minute, but his interest in autoerotic asphyxiation really was only interesting the first three times.

Love & Tapioca & Kiddie Pools!

(James calls this “hump day”– Open ears, Goddess!)

Happy Wydnesday, Mayflies of the Meadow!!

Your goddess gift for the day is this video:

One of my most jubilant days…

For your dancin heart and chucklin feet! Try to spot me dancing in the crowd!

Darling spirits of the immaculate and divine Earth enHERgy!!!

become one with the Earth's enhergy

As part of releasing my goddess, I’d like to make the following declarations to the universe:

1- For the next 365 days I will remain dedicated and committed to preserving the tangible goddess through walking more, which works because I’m still working on getting the money together to fix my Chevette, Artemis, after a particularly distressing blow out on the road to Utopia that led me to my current situation with James in this trailer. Preserving the planet’s beauty will remind me that these aluminum walls, too, can benefit from a spiritual focus and perhaps help to negate the increasing ionic incompatibility circulating in this cat food can of a home.

2- The eight year anniversary of my divorce is rapidly approaching this May. I consider this my birthday in many ways, as it was the tunnel-like experience filled with rats and broken down automobiles (like in Stephen King’s epic battle between light and dark, The Stand) from which I emerged as a new person, reborn, financially distraught, but still with my goddess vessel and dimmed spiritual light intact. I have seen some of what the next year holds, and I hope that I, as an eight-year old woman, am blessed with the grace to endure, not matter how many times he flips that gorgeous-smelling mane of gay divorced actor hair in my goddess face. (Say what you will, a man whose hair smells like stale smoke, coffee, and something I still can’t identify really gets my light shining…)

3- I am also testifying this evening during my meteor shower lunar mud bath, that I am ready for reuniting my soul energy with the universe’s guiding vision to inspire my conjoining with another person, preferably a tall man with dark hair and eyes that are limpid pools of any color. Like conjoined twins, our systems will be connected together, grow and nourish each other, but our primary connectors will be our sweet full lips and baby-making parts. He will respect and penetrate me with his love full of enthusiasm, even if I am not bending over. Our juncture will be as if the universe is colliding with another equally dynamic universe and all that is left are two quivering masses of universe goo, nuzzling like baby kittens in each other’s arms. Mystical. Magical. Made for each other.

4- Speaking of, I’m still lighting sage regarding Coach’s departure from Survivor. James had it on when I saw the mythical masculine powerhouse that is the Dragonslayer. His imperfect yoga, his inability to lead without the goddess beside him, does anyone know where I can write him a letter? I’d like to send him one of my crystal healing packets that will soothe the burn of getting voted out like a sweet balm from a kindred soul’s core of life giving.

I hope this finds you blessed and at peace.

***Still I rise****Raise the root***

Still, I rise. You can, too.

Hi, dear friends!

It is with a proud starshine heart that I embrace the possibilities and opportunities of the Encyclopedia Show Austin!

The spirits keep me moving, as I keep busy spreading my healing love and hands throughout the country. Ever since my divorce eight years ago, ending nineteen months of love’s empty promises and betrayal in a relationship with conflicting earth energies, I’ve been working to heal my own goddess within. I know the books say it takes half as long as the relationship to overcome the wrong enacted upon you by another in the name of financial stability, so, like Medea before me, I hope to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of burned down townhomes and time shares into the glorious sunlight of my waning childbearing years. You hear me Tyler Perry???

I used to work for the Institute, but ever since a women’s sweatlodge where I became severely dehydrated from drinking a gallon of sloe gin fizz that I thought was pomegranate seltzer, I have been a mission to rebuild this house I call my lady body and soul. During my convalescence, I realized if I were truly a she-power fairy that I could not work along side the one who severed my earth root and insists on reliving his twink glory days while masking them as “THE NINETIES.”

I’ve had a number of odd jobs and temporary gigs with elementary schools, birthday parties, women’s retreats and community centers that have all refused to pay me for reasons I cannot discuss without invoking the evil eye’s glare. However, after meditating on it, I realize that my infinite soul flows deeper than their mistrust and homogeneous beliefs about how to raise children, and that I must sally forth into the world with my still-beating bird heart of hope.

For the record, I’m single and LOVE to mingle, so I look forward to meeting you and your single male friends at The Encyclopedia Show Austin! Even if they have baggage, it’s ok, as it is a lot of spiritual labor to take care of a real man’s needs. It’s a bonus if he is taller than me, likes cats, and knows how to use a sage smudge stick, if you catch my drift. *wink. Also, if he has his student loans paid off, that helps too, as I think help with student loan repayment is a very emotionally corrupt reason to propose to someone during intermission of the Broadway Series Production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Starlight Express” in Syracuse, manipulating someone’s emotional connection to their childhood train set.

Keep shining, darlings, and I will see you very soon!

<3 Gypsy