The 9 to 5 logo looks like S to P behind the rear-projection screen

But we won’t StoP until I dance my disco-fantasy wig off.

Disco Fantasy Sex Tiger Bob Enright and his foxy 9 to 5 girls

We’re enough to drive you crazy if you let us.

GREAT MOMENTS IN OSCARS HISTORY:

Allan Carr—the producer who brought us the mega-hit movie Grease in 1978, struggled mightily to keep disco relevant long enough to prevent his 1979 not-at-all-gay-porn-so-stop-giggling movie musical Can’t Stop the Music (featuring the Village People, Bruce Jenner in a wardrobe of distractingly cropped T-shirts, and a “Y.M.C.A.” musical sequence that drove a million ‘70s boys into the filthy homosexual lifestyle) from tanking, and then depleted Broadway’s entire reserves of sequins and taffeta when he made La Cage aux Folles the toast of the town in 1983—sabotaged his entire storied career and everything he’d achieved in life 30 years ago when the “antithesis of tacky” Academy Awards ceremony he produced opened with a now-and-forever-infamous-laughingstock parody of “Proud Mary” sung (extremely poorly) by (I am not making this up) Rob Lowe and (stay with me here) Snow White to celebrate (I said stay with me) “the youth of Hollywood” and (of course) get sued into oblivion by Disney.

Fun fact: He *did* that year change the convention of “And the winner is ...” to “And the Oscar goes to ...”. So there’s that.

#neverforget

I apparently chipped two teeth today at lunch by somehow incorrectly using a fork

The damage seems pretty superficial and not worth a trip to the dentist, but I definitely have some sharp, rough edges on my upper and lower incisors numbers 7 and 26, assuming I’m reading the googles correctly (see chart). Nevertheless, my future clearly holds a litany of chunks accidentally bitten out of my tongue and OSHA-mandated utensil training.

I didn’t really know anybody by the time the first pride parade happened soon after I moved to Chicago

So I went by myself to watch it. And, standing among thousands and thousands of cheering, smiling, happy, proud people who were watching with groups of friends and waving at other friends who squeezed by on the crowded sidewalks, I never felt more alone.

It was actually so devastating in my mind that pride weekend literally filled me with dread for the next 15 years I lived in Chicago.

I did notice that first year that the people dancing and waving on the floats looked very happy—and they didn’t have to be surrounded by friends or even anybody as they enjoyed the parade from their glorified perches. So I made up my mind that I needed to make the connections to get myself on a float by the next pride parade.

As I slowly—finally!—made Chicago friends and watched the next few parades with them, I still harbored an irrational, unshakable dread that I’d lose them—or they’d actually leave me—and I’d be alone all over again in the crowds. So I kept trying to figure out how to get myself on a float.

Then I joined the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus. And we marched in the parade! But not on a float. And I very very stupidly decided to wear my rollerblades and they hurt and I was bad at stopping so I kept running into people and I was so miserable I had to hobble home the moment it was over so I couldn’t hang out and celebrate with anyone afterward so as far as I’m concerned the whole experience didn’t count and I don’t want to talk about it.

Then! Finally! I got on a float! And let me tell you: Though standing in a Speedo sucking in your abs and holding on for dear life on a lurching, frequently stopping vehicle technically sucks all the fun out of it, having hundreds of millions (in my fantasies my math says I have hundreds of millions of adoring fans so shut up) of people screaming and cheering for you is ALMOST as awesome as dancing and waving high on a moving platform where the cooling breezes are plenty, the jostling crowds are penned up on the sidewalks below you and the scenery changes by the second to keep everything interesting.

Plus you get to dance to your favorite disco hits.

I got myself onto many more floats for the rest of my years in Chicago. The weather was always perfect, my cheering, adoring fans swelled into the billions (shut up), and the joy and pride were always plenty. And my irrational dread—though never gone—was always in check.

Today is Chicago’s pride parade. My Facebook and Instagram feeds are filled with joyful, excited, rainbow-colored pictures of my Chicago friends and acquaintances already celebrating, and while I’m thrilled and proud to have (eventually) been a part of those traditions, our dramatically more subdued Cedar Rapids pride festival in two weeks is now WAY more my speed. And not my Speedo.

So I wish all of you celebrating pride in Chicago today—whether on the sidewalks or on a float—an awesome day and an awesome experience both personally and with everyone around you. I’ll be happily cleaning the garage—and no doubt dancing to my favorite disco hits—instead. And we all can’t stop the music.

I forgot to take a perfunctory selfie after Scott's first run with us last weekend

so I obsessively planned this one during all 3.33 miles of today’s run, where Scott and Rob ran a little too fast for my aging hips to keep up at the end but we all (well, probably just I) still clocked in at a respectable 10:43 pace. We tried to take our selfie in front of Rob’s midlife-crisis car—which I think is a Chevy Pinto, but I don’t know shit about cars so there’s a slight chance I may have that wrong—but the sun and shadows weren’t cooperating so we resorted to our default garage-door background where we all still look dashingly sporty and brutally handsome:

Fun fact: If you randomly, cruelly get the Village People’s “You Can’t Stop the Music” stuck in your head during a run because its tempo and beat perfectly fit your pace, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because you literally CAN’T. STOP. THE. (DAMN.) MUSIC.

#HowToTurn50

Most runners run with music

Rock ‘n’ roll, maybe. Or (I’ll deny this if you say anything) disco. Or (nobody’d believe me if I tried to deny this so I won’t even waste my time) show tunes.

But me? Noooo.

I’m about to spend 3.22 miles listening to the pulsing, motivating beat of my own voice, hopefully driving my lines for Fuddy Meers deep in my head:

You’ll know if it worked when you come see the show.

When it's 5:11 am ...

and you’ve been pointlessly wide awake so long that you’re tethered to an outlet because you’ve drained your phone battery in a YouTube clickhole, you stumble on this forgotten gem of Sondheim + Liza + Pet Shop Boys gaysplosionness—which is made mega-extra fabuloso with the addition of Spanish subtitles because SPANISH SUBTITLES and there’s nothing more Sally Durant Plummer than losing your mind looking at a coffee cup as the dawn breaks with SPANISH SUBTITLES.

Flashback Friday: Big Gay Disco Pants Edition

Big gay cruises = big gay costumed dance parties

I don’t miss the cruises, but I’m deeply sorry I returned those pants to my possibly gay neighbor's disco-pants library.

Flashback Friday: Jake and the Dreamettes Edition

Little-known fact: I toured extensively in the '70s backed up by my sassy sister and our groovy grandmothers. My sister eventually got promoted to take my place when we streamlined our look but we made up for any awkwardness on our farewell reunion tour.

I’ve got a taste for livin! I’m thinkin’ cold Blue Ribbon!

Because a befeatherhaired Patrick Swayze rockin’ mad disco chaînés in a long white scarf, that’s why.

I just kissed this woman!

On the lips! Also on the stage! But it didn't count because there was a disco ball nearby.

This project ran way longer than I expected

Unlike normal people with social lives, I spent my holiday weekend evening making a wall of my favorite running bibs and medals, which looked way cooler in my head than it ended up looking in this cacophony of color and shine and WHY ARE THERE NO DAMN GOVERNMENT STANDARDS MANDATING THAT ALL RUNNING BIBS BE THE EXACT SAME SIZE? SERIOUSLY.

Note: Hanging a medal rack in drywall when you've forgotten to charge your drill so you use the bad-idea-man's pound-n-pull-nail method of "drilling" holes instead only results in creating bigger and bigger holes in the wall. And in your heart.

Also note: I have NO idea what I think of that lamp. I keep deciding it's ugly and then I find a beautiful visual dialogue between the austere, confident architecture of its base and the ornately lined florals of its shade. And then I get distracted by show tunes and SQUIRREL!

Also note: There may or may not be a couple disco-ball necklaces from my sordid past as a Chicago pride parade float dancer hanging among my medals.

Also note: "Don't Forget Me" from Bombshell was playing on that super-cute little speaker when I took this picture. Actually, it still is as I write this. Because I -- again -- may or may not have been playing it on auto repeat for the last hour.

Also note: Yup.

How did civilization not die out entirely in this era of procreation-repellent attire?

(Note: Shoes are sold separately on page 442.)
(Also note: When I posted this on Facebook, it did not recognize any of the faces in this photo as people in my friends list.)
(Also also note: WHEW.)

We unfortunately have all day for the pain

If you can tear your eyes away even for a second from the compelling irresistibility of my ever-thickening disco-fantasy mustache, you'll see I'm still wearing yesterday's other facial hair and mega-patriotic flag T-shirt. I stayed home from work today partly to keep taking care of Mom but mostly to maximize my wearage of my Independence Day shirt, which I spent five whole dollars on but I won't get to wear again for one whole year. You'll also notice in this photo Mom's new smart TV, which I finally got to work but Mom's asleep so it's off and I'm able to take weird selfies safely shielded from her selfie-questioning gaze. And never you mind the subtext in this post that I potentially haven't showered today. Because it's so none of your business that I won't even bring it up.

Oh -- and Mom is doing remarkably well pain-wise today, after a pretty rough night. She still has moments of gasping shock, but they're fewer and farther between. And my handy little 3-hour timer on my phone is helping me keep her pain meds right on schedule. Progress!

Why are his trousers vermilion?

After work tonight I made a trip to my packed-to-the-rafters-with-everything-and-I-mean-everything-I-owned-in-Chicago-when-I-moved-home-two-and-a-half-years-ago storage locker with the faint hope of opening a handful of 30+ boxes and stumbling on four long-buried things: my passport, my running medals, my running bibs and some sort of documentation that shows the cost basis for some meager investments I made 30 years ago with a man who's no longer alive at a company that no longer exists.

Do NOT get me started on the cost basis documentation ... or the fact that it doesn't automatically follow your investments on their inevitable journeys through endless cycles of portfolio selloffs and acquisitions and companies that cease to exist. DO. NOT.

But! Look at everything I DID find:

• My passport!
• My running medals! Which may or may not be jumbled up with a few random disco-ball necklaces!
• My running bibs!
• Plus! Clockwise from the top:
• Cards Against Humanity!
• A little figurine I bought in Barcelona 15 years ago of a folklorical boy squatting over a tiny, fresh pile of childish bad taste! Because why not!
• A $25 IHOP gift card!
• The abovementioned bibs and medals and disco balls and passport and let's get back to the fun stuff
• Long-forgotten-but-still-very-gay Broadway CDs!
• A dented York Peppermint Patty!
• BONUS! A pair of so-gay-they-make-their-own-obscure-Sondheim-references vermilion jeans that can't possibly have ever fit over my hips because right now they look like they won't even fit over what's left of my pride

There's also a massive unopened box sitting right next to me AS WE SPEAK labeled "summer clothes and shoes" that holds the promise of overflowing with something magical and/or even-more-pride-crushing since it was packed and sealed over two years and two waist sizes ago. I'd tell you I won't open it until later when it's not late and I'm not tired but we all know I'll be ripping into it before I even finish writing this po

Follies Flashback Friday: Parasols Edition

Last year I got to sing "Sunday" just two blocks from the blue purple yellow red Cedar River with these two.

This year I'm a backup gentleman for Joe's velvety "Luck be a Lady" and a -- duh -- dancing queen behind June's spacewoman-outfitted, discoriffic "Dancing Queen" trio. And then I'm the dancing king of the entire Pride Lands in our massive "Circle of Life" finale. The KING.

Do you want to miss these moments? No you do not. And you have only this Saturday and Sunday to see them before I put away my royal dashiki forever.

Get your tickets at www.crfollies.com!