We all return to our roots

The world of Fabulous Debauchery is the brain child of Rebbecca Pittenger ’04, and Kelly Ridener ’05. Their topics have included “Top 10 Fashion Icons of the Hiram College Faculty” and “Gifts for Gender Warriors.” They were usually drunk when they have written the previous articles…With that being said, the authors invite you into their world. A world of owning one’s baggage, and laughing at the mundane and ridiculous. A world chock full of Fabulous Debauchery.

Fabulous:

Funny how the mundane interactions one has will influence the mind to creative (right?) exposition. I have just returned from my weekly outlet of Fabulous Debauchery (the ancient Japanese art of karaoke), and let me tell you, I am rejuvenated. I sang, drank, and lived as if the consequences of tomorrow would amount to just a hill of beans. My life was full of life tonight, and though that may be an experiment in redundancy, you know of what I speak. I have tried, without success, over the past few days to recapture the essence of what it was to be 21, a Hiram College upper-class man, and without real consequence in my life. I have tried to recapture this, and been frustrated to tears with the results, for try as I might, I could not distill my thoughts into that of the person, the OH so fabulous personage of that day, that I was. I had been forgetting to keep my mind in the tense. I was that person. I am not him now.

So the mournful, and eternal question, remains…what is fabulous in my life? Now that I have accepted the fullness of time, now that I have traded haute-couture for off the rack, now that I have abandoned the Paris and Milan fashion buying extravaganzas of my youth, what am I to celebrate?

Shall I retreat into the bosom of Whitman and only sing the body electric?

Screw that.

I want to sing the body on electric avenue (big ups to the Class of 84 if they get the references).

I will admit that I have found (with ever increasing frequency) that there are areas of my life that are entirely bereft of fabulous debauchery…at least on the surface. After one has rubbed shoulders with Donatella and Madge in London, it is difficult to cram on to the over-crowded COTA bus with the lumpen prols. But c’est la vie. If you don’t get the reference, I ride public transportation; however, often I find the most exciting and shocking things going on around me.

There is the Hamilton Avenue Thumb Sucker who obsessively and obscenely sucks her thumb. She works her jaw for all it is worth. It reminds me of that fabled night I spent with Kate Moss…that girl did so many 8-balls we started calling her 64 and her teeth chattered so much that we finally had to duct tape a two inch dowel into he mouth, but I digress. So the bus isn’t really all that bad. I tweet about it all the time. If only I had a seersucker suit and a fine hanky, I could be the contemporary, bus riding, equivalent of Truman Capote…well his less talented cousin at least. I also find myself composing verse while riding through the streets of my fair city…I’m not sure you’re ready for that yet.

There are also the eccentrics. They are truly fabulous, although at times they can be a bit much. There is the Prophetess of the North High Street #2. Have you ever seen the Ken Burns documentary on Shakers? They bend and sway during their worship. They are also abstinent, but that’s another article. The Prophetess begins her incantations by rocking gently back and forth in her seat. Then the “Grand Dip” as I call it happens. Her wooly, strawberry lochs flip over her head into the aisle, and then her hands shake with the spirit. She pops up and delivers her divine inspiration. There was a day when she actually pointed at me. I had my ipod on, but I did read the word sodomite on her lips. It was very entertaining to have her preach at me whilst the dulcet tones of The Scissor Sisters rocked into my ears…” She's my man, don't be too sad sonny
'Cause she'll never be your woman no more…” Oh wise woman, how I am gladden in heart and spirit that you have picked my sins to point out.

These are but two examples of how I find myself continually embroiled in the world of Fabulous Debauchery: a world that has created so much joy for me and my compadres. A world that is ever expanding, and represents what my Hiram Experience really taught me. To restate the obvious, that life is utterly, exasperatingly, and unapologetically ridiculous. I was worried that I had forgotten to look around the world and revel in what I see. I guess I have been worried for nothing really. I have forgotten that the true values of Fabulous Debauchery are intrinsic. And intrinsically…I’m better than you.

Debauchery