banned in houston!

here is a post that was considered too controversial for my high school alumni association bulletin board. it was deleted after the moderator received complaints.

i'm not sure what exactly got people's panties in a knot here. seems pretty tame to me, except, perhaps, my use of the term "cathouse pink." might not have been considered consistent with the board's family values orientation.

then there's always the alternative lifestyles factor. i swear if your post includes a reference to the village people or "priscilla queen of the desert" the moderators are on you like fred phelps at drag pageant.

THE POST:

i'm thinking about using this thread as my personal internet reality show. to that end, i present herewith the story of kurt and tony's recent paint job.

well, as followers of the tony and kurt saga know, we bought a charming depression-era bungalow 3 years ago in el cerrito. the sellers tried to gussy it up with a cheapo paint job, which started peeling and blistering about a week after we closed escrow.

well, as it turns out, a friend of mine is a painting contractor, and he told me this summer we could wait one more year before we had to paint, but, let's face it, a paint job that's only got one year left on it is not a pretty sight.

we decided to paint before the rainy season, which starts around mid november.

well, of course, first things first, we had to choose a color, and at first we were going to go with periwinkle. as an afterthought, i told tony maybe he should think about peach because years ago when we were looking at houses there was a peach house that he really liked. (our real estate agent referred to it as "the peach mist house.")

so fred, that's my painting contractor friend, he slapped some periwinkle on the side of one wall over the garage and peach on the other side. "peach kiss" this shade is called. i think it's a benjamin moore.

well, wouldn't you know it? we loved the peach! it was so much more cheery than the periwinkle, and it didn't seem to show the imperfections in the walls so much. "peach it is!" we told fred.

couple days later, tony called me at work. "they put the first coat on," he said. "it looks pink." a longtime friend who happened to be visiting that day and could be trusted to be frank with regard to our home improvement projects confirmed that the house looked pink. very very pink.

i told tony don't worry. it needs to dry a little. it won't look as pink when it dries. i came home a few hours later. i saw the house as i approached it from a block away. it looked pink, a shade that my mother, cantankerous old gal that she is, might characterize as "cathouse pink."

but you know what? it did mellow a little as it dried, and what with the trim and darker (kind of blood orange) accents, it looks peach. maybe a little pinkish peach, but it's beautiful. think hawaiian sunset. or cocktail napkin at the bellagio.

and when people call it pink, i can say "it's not pink. it's peach kiss!" you know, kind of like that guy in "priscilla, queen of the desert."

Kurt "big daddy" True
19 july 2003