"Brother Boy" and Sordid Lives

On a totally frivolous note, tonight is the series premier of the "Sordid Lives" on LOGO. If you haven't seen the original 1996 low budget film with a incredible cast of top talent, I recommend you rent the DVD. The movie is a scream and since much of the original cast has been signed for the series, it should be extremely funny as well. Having lived in Alabama and Texas in the past, I clearly can identify with the small town southern setting from places I experienced and the outrageous behavior of some of the characters. Although some of their traits are indeed somewhat universal. Leslie Jordan is hysterical as Brother Boy who believes he is Tammy Wynette. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times:

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“Sordid Lives: The Series,” which premieres tonight on Logo, Viacom's LGBT-directed cable network, is a prequel to "Sordid Lives" (the movie), which was in turn adapted from "Sordid Lives" (the play). All were written and directed by Del Shores ("Queer as Folk," "Dharma & Greg"), whose range of accomplishment in diverse mediums makes him in a sense the Southern, white, gay Tyler Perry.

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Bonnie Bedelia, Rue McClanahan, Caroline Rhea and Olivia Newton-John (looking great, singing better than ever, and there is no irony intended in those words) are the names that should need no introduction; Leslie Jordan's is a slightly less familiar name but an immediately familiar face, even when he is made up as Tammy Wynette, which he is constantly. All but McClanahan and Rhea return from the film, as do the lesser known but superb Beth Grant, Ann Walker and Sarah Hunley, among others.

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The series splits its attention between Hollywood, where Ty (Jason Dottley) is trying to find work as an actor, and central Texas, where his relations are running farcically amok. The stories are connected only by phone calls between Ty, his "beautiful, controlling" mother, Latrelle (Bedelia), and his flamboyant Aunt LaVonda (Walker). . . . Also in Texas are Ty's grandmother Peggy (McClanahan), great aunt Sissy (Grant) and uncle Earl (Jordan), known as Brother Boy, who is in a mental institution, where an icy psychologist (Rosemary Alexander) plans to "de-homosexualize" him and where the death of Tammy Wynette leaves him suicidally distraught -- until he is visited by her spirit, played by Wynette's daughter, Georgette Jones, and told to carry on in her name.