Del Shores: Sordid Confessions

Texas-born Del Shores, a brash gay playwright-screenwriter and standup comic, here follows up his previous one-man-show—My Sordid Life (VL-5/12)—with another cathartic feature-length monologue, which is preceded by a staged skit in which Shores encounters homophobic Christian pickets from a group whose acronym is "C.L.A.P." Alternately clever and queasy, Shores begins the set with payback and spite worthy of a gangsta rapper, revealing that his gay marriage (triumphantly mentioned in My Sordid Life) has ended; spewing bile on right-wing entertainer/blogger Victoria Jackson and other Tea Party types; judging Christian-music artists on their closet-gay qualities; and trashing an actor on one of his projects who made disdainful remarks to The Advocate on the quality of the scripts. Meow! Or, as Shores might say, Me-fucking-ow! The comic also recounts his sexual mishaps in connection with varied genitalia—male and female—and comments on crimes in which vaginas prominently figured. Away from sexual topics (which isn't very often), Shores describes assorted real-life grotesques he's met in the American South who fuel his writer's imagination. But his mocking of impoverished homeless people who are (paradoxically) fat brings to mind the material of Andrew “Dice” Clay (which is no compliment). Larger LGBT collections will certainly want to consider. A strong optional purchase. Aud: P. (C. Cassady)