One of my least favourite moments turned into one of my favourite experiences of the trip and I thought I would share it here:
Flash back to Mykonos a few days ago. Everyone said that my friends and I MUST go see the sunset drag show at the Elisium hotel.
For two days we missed seeing this spectacle, so come the third day, we were hell bound in making an appearance. My friends left early and I arrived right when it started. Immediately I could tell that this drag queen was dealing with a stiff audience and dragging the bottom of the barrel to get any of us to laugh or seem into her show.
It began slowly and cautiously, but then this drag queen really started in on basing all of her jokes on put-downs for people. We half giggled under our breath for support, but then when she made a "black people" joke whilst I was sitting next to my brother from another mother who happens to be African American, I had had enough. Especially in the wake of the worst racial tensions going on back home in America since the 1960s.
I looked over at my friend to see that he was keeping his composure, as usual, and simply rolled his eyes at her and her racial insensitivity--this was all too familiar rhetoric that he had heard before. But it wasn't until the queen asked our group where we were from that I just lost it. She made us repeat several times at full voice that we were Angelenos and then several more times that we were from West Hollywood. Then tragedy really struck: that bitch ordered her actually-talented co-host to drag my friend and I onto the stage.
When she realized my friend's skin tone, she immediately began making jokes about his penis size while simultaneously making jokes about me being a hobbit and too small to be "of service."
"No one cares about you Frodo." She said several times, obviously more concerned with what she again racially insensitively assumed was my friend's package size, while all the while berating me. Finally, the bitchy American Angeleno kicked in and I lost it. I grabbed the microphone from the drag queen and told the audience:
"I don't even know why we are up here."
She was not having that. She gave us a tequila shot and pretty much threw both of us off of her stage, irritated that we weren't willing to play along with her insults. When I walked away, I did feel a ping of regret: I love drag queens. Several friends of mine have done drag throughout the years, so I know the hours and hours of extreme dedication and work that it takes to not only make yourself up into a woman, but also have the courage and the tenacity to put on a show and perform in front of a group of strangers. (I too have been a performer of and on throughout different stages of my life.)
And what I thought was going to be a funny little session at the "library" getting "read" by a true New York drag queen, we were instead the subject of her mockery as she fished for any way to salvage her sinking ship of a show. I walked away from that stage feeling over it, annoyed, and kind of pissed at myself that I reared the ugly head of my inner bitchy American in front of an audience of potential future sexual conquests. (What? This was Mykonos!)
Hours later at the club, I nearly had forgotten the verbal persecution my friend and I had encountered earlier by this man in a dress. That is until this nice Irish fellow stopped me outside the Loo and said to me:
"You're the American at the drag show."
"Oh jeez," I replied. "I'm really not normally that much of a cunt. I'm actually a pretty nice guy. I just couldn't take her insults over and over again and lost it when she made that black joke against my friend."
"It's ok," he said. "I would have done the same too. We were all wondering why she had dragged you, pun intended, onto that stage in the first place."
"Well," I said, "I doubt you would have been as bitchy as I was, and I am embarrassed that everyone had to see me like that, to be honest. Again I'm a really nice guy for the most part. I just could not take her calling me Frodo Baggins anymore. It's like she didn't give a shit about me the second she saw how short I am and I already deal with enough stigma as it is from within the gay community for my height."
The Irishman just shook his head and smiled at me. I could tell he was a little tipsy, but he smiled and looked at me dead in the eyes. Then he pointed his pointer finger and tapped it into my sternum.
"You know what? You are Frodo Baggins."
I brushed his hand away from me and rolled my eyes.
"No, I'm serious," he continued. "You might be a small guy, but you are Frodo Baggins. You are going to change the world. I can tell."
I just kept shaking my head.
"Man, I'm really serious. Just by looking at you, I can tell. The world would have been destroyed without Frodo Baggins. He might have been small, but he changed the fucking world, man. Saved everyone, man. You are Frodo Baggins. You really ARE going to change the world. I can't wait to see it happen."
Then he walked away. I yelled to him that he was sweet, but I don't think he heard me. I turned to look into the mirror above the sink. I saw my own reflection--really saw it-- for the first time in a long time that night.
Whether it was the fact that I too was tipsy or just moved by his compliments, either way; I started to cry a bit. I have always wanted to be something bigger than myself, pun intended, and maybe this Irishman was right. Maybe I am Frodo Baggins. Sometimes the smallest person can change the course of the further. I put my hands on the sink's edge and leaned in to look at the mirror and really size myself up.
"Maybe I am Frodo Baggins," I said aloud. Then I laughed and wiped the tears from my eyes. I took a deep breath and had one of the most sincere moments of clarity of my life. Luckily for me, I've known for a while what my self-proposed purpose is on this planet: I am a writer and I want to share my words and my experiences with the world.
But I am also an activist. I have never been able to lay down and just take the terrible injustices of the world. I have never been able to just sit complacent while the world passed me by. I want to leave this world a better place than how I found it.
Suddenly it occurred to me that the Irishman was and is right: I am Frodo Baggins. I am going to change the world. I know, I know--this sounds crazy coming from a gay, 5'6" man with no previous experience at being Superman. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try.
We have a lot of problems in this world: injustices, murders, terrorism, poverty, starvation, and wars. But there is also a lot of light. At a time when I didn't realize I needed it, that Irishman saw the light inside of me and helped me rekindle it. Reminded me of who I am and what I came here for.
I'll never run for president nor probably elected official, but I will always have a voice. I'll always have my trusted steed at my side of a pen that will beat the sword any day. I have compassion and a hope for this planet. And I have a love in me greater than the depths of the Grand Canyon. None of these make me any more or any less special than anyone else. But they do give me strength to stand against the hated of this world, rise above, and continue to try to make it a better place.
I will always remember that drag show and the Irishman who showed this hobbit that we all are here for a reason. We all have a purpose. And all of us, in our own way, can and will change the world.
It's time this Frodo Baggins began.
(THIS WAS NOT THE DRAG QUEEN IN THE STORY, FYI)
