I Am What I Am

Please forgive my absence - I've been busy writing for The New Gay and working on other projects.

I will make every effort to post once a week and give an update on my writing, MARK and the latest from my life.

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk working on my talk show idea, when I looked at the time (it was 12:30pm) and thought I might be able to make it to Times Square TKTS booth and score a ticket to La Cage Aux Folles. The woman at the booth had one ticket for a cabaret table which sits at the lip of the stage. I took it!

It must be one of the great perches in all of Broadway at the moment - what with the notorious and dangerous Cagelles. I wouldn't miss a single bat of an eyelash. And I've always had a love and fascination for drag queens. So for 3 hours La Cage Aux Folles Nightclub was my heaven.

What moved me the most as I watched this spectacle - happened late in the second act. Albin, out of drag, impersonating the kind of man he was not for the sake of the son he loves. There he sat, lifeless. An impostor. He doesn't stay that way for long - it is not in his nature to hide himself, hence, "I Am What I Am."

Once the truth is revealed, and people are exposed for who they are, and they desperately want to be - the whole cast breaks out in to "The Best of Times." Singing, dancing, arms flying - joy breaks out.

Once again it got me thinking of the things that cause or inspire us to become unbounded and express our true selves. And, the cost of concealing it.

If you haven't already read my piece for The New Gay - here it is, JUMP.

Photo: Sara Krulwich/NYTimes