The Indelible Del Shores
AWARD- WINNING DEL SHORES — writer, director, producer, actor, and stand-up comedian — has been called “a master of the Texas comedy” by the Los Angeles Times. His original plays and films and television series, most notably the Sordid Lives series, portray characters with hilarious wit and great humanity, even the unlikable ones. He’s worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest names and produced some of television’s biggest hits like Queer as Folk, Dharma & Greg, and Touched by an Angel. Del performs his one-man show, SIN-gularly Sordid, in a few days, but first: the interview.
Rick Kitzman
You’re performing your latest show SIN- gularly Sordid June 5th and 6th at Lannie’s Clocktower. Do you know her?
I only know her as a legend in Denver. Everybody assures me I’m going to love her.
Absolutely! What can people expect from your stand-up comedy?
My whole philosophy of doing stand-up is I’m not a traditional stand-up comedian — I’m a storyteller. It’s as if you’re sitting in my living room, and I’ve got a glass of wine, and I’m telling stories and talking sh*t. Sometimes that bites me in the ass a little because people feel so comfortable they start talking back. I have to remind people this is not a dialogue — I’ve got to tell other stories! But I just love this show. This will be my seventh and eighth time to do it. A big focus is the fact that I was abruptly single in my fifties and what do you do? I had to restart and figure everything out because the AOL chat rooms were gone and replaced by Grindr and Scruff. There’s a lot of funny stories about my evolution back into the dating world. My favorite piece of the show is Sharing 5 Bad Dates with Del, which frankly makes me worry I won’t ever get another date for their fear I’ll talk trash about them onstage. So yeah, that’s what my audience can expect. I’m also known for writing f*ck-you letters to the haters. There’ll be letters to Pat Robertson and Ted Cruz and Oklahoma Congresswoman
Sally Kern, one of my favorites to perform. I actually read her hateful quotes as her and I write her a letter. This is my fourth tour. I’m known for collecting bizarre stories that are so true they could be out of Sordid Lives. I’ve got a few celebrity stories, some trash on Mr. Leslie Jordan, George Lopez, and others.
I watched your last interview with your Aunt Sissy shortly before she passed, the inspiration for one of your characters. She is a hoot! You called yourself a thief of your family. Why was your family an inspiration for your creative writing?
Honestly, it happened accidentally. I didn’t intend for it to go in that direction. When I was in my twenties, I wrote my very first play about the kind of small-town Texas humor I like to explore. But it was based on nothing but my own mind. I would tell stories to the cast and director about my mother’s family who I thought was kind of normal. I didn’t think of them as crazy. Back in my hometown they were normal, regular people. Everyone’s kind of eccentric. In Texas, everything’s bigger.
I looked up your hometown, Winters, Texas on Wikipedia. Did you know you’re listed as a notable resident?
That’s so funny. Residents there are not all that proud of me. They’re like, “Oh my God, he’s talking more trash about us!” But I don’t do it in that vein. I want to celebrate small-town life. My favorite compliment is from Romulus Linney, the playwright and Laura Linney’s father. He wrote me a fan letter saying, “You write about the forgotten people.” My grandfather, Paw- paw, was having these progressive strokes. Everybody came in to basically watch him die and fight the will. There was lots of drama with my mother and my Aunt Rita, and my mother would call and tell on my Aunt Rita and my Aunt Rita would call and tell that my mother was trying to mercy-kill my Paw-paw to get to the money faster. My mother filed a lawsuit against my Aunt Rita by this little pitiful lawyer in town. It just got crazy! So I was telling all these stories to my director, Sherry Landrum, and she said, “That’s your next play.” So I started writing Daddy’s Dyin, Who’s Got The Will? That changed my life. I wrote, I stole, basically I lifted my mother’s family and thought I would get away with this on a little stage in Hollywood. My family doesn’t go to theater, only my mother, who was the high school drama teacher. My dad, by the way, was a southern Baptist preacher. The play became very, very successful. It won best play that year, MGM optioned it, my first screenplay was greenlit with Hollywood stars, Beverly D’Angelo, Tess Harper, Beau Bridges, Judge Reinhold, and Keith Carradine. It opened wide in Texas. My family had no idea it was about them, and I thought F*CK! I didn’t know what to tell them. My Aunt Rita had always been my champion. The character Evalita was based on her. My aunt takes everybody to see the movie and she did not speak to me for seven years. We finally reconciled, and her biggest complaint was her wardrobe, that I had her wear the same dress for three days making her look like white trash! When all these aunts and uncles started passing away, I said, “Well there goes my career.”
Two of your works, Southern Baptist Sissies and Trials And Tribulations Of a Trailer Trash Housewife, use labels that could be construed as insulting and derogatory. Does that inform your humor or deflate the power of those words?
No, it doesn’t. It’s not Del Shores. It’s the characters. If you’re going to be a writer, if you’re going to create a bigot, or someone who’s closeted, are you going to censor their language? No. Because that’s how the characters speak in real life. A character says ‘faggot.’ I don’t use that word. It’s the only time I ever wanted to fight, when someone called me a ‘f*cking faggot.’ Yes, it’s a very powerful word, but I put it in the mouths of characters. When I write a play, I embody the characters.
‘Sissy’ was a very derogatory word when I was growing up.
For me, too. That was the word that triggered me, the first word I ever heard about myself that I did not ascribe to myself and I didn’t like. I still hate that word.
Another horrible label to me was ‘queer.’ Not now, due to the power and brilliance of Queer as Folk. You were a writer and producer on its last three seasons. What was that experience like?
The best. Unquestionably, the most amazing television gig I ever had. Even more so than my own series, Sordid Lives. We were a hit. Showtime left us alone. We were able to write uncensored and unbridled … to write stories with our passion. The cast was lovely! Amazing human beings! We got to paint stories that weren’t always the prettiest picture, but telling the truth. We got a lot of controversy. A lot of the gays said, “Oh, that doesn’t exist.” The same thing happens with a lot of Southerners because they don’t want to be reminded that a lot of their relatives live in trailers and perhaps they came from that. I always defended Queer As Folk with fervor because I felt we had to tell the truth. It may not represent you, but it represents a lot.
Please tell me that Sharon Gless is as delightful as I think she is?
Beyond! I’m crazy about Sharon Gless. I think it’s a crime she was never nominated for an Emmy for her role in QAF. The Emmy committee is very conservative. I think if QAF were to premier today, she would be nominated and win, but at the time, people couldn’t get past the sexuality and its graphic nature, so they dismissed its quality.
You call your father, a Baptist preacher, ‘a good man.’ How did your religious upbringing affect you? Do you consider yourself religious or spiritual?
I consider myself agnostic, but also spiritual. I believe in humanity. I don’t pretend to know any more about God. So I don’t know, I suspect there is not. I don’t think there is a god. I don’t believe in all that, so I am not a Christian. I am not religious on any level. I am the Christian’s worst nightmare because I have biblical knowledge. You’ll hear that in my show. Sometimes I think I am more Christ-like than some of the Christians who go on my page and write hateful things.
What was your impression of the Indiana Religious Freedom Act backlash?
It’s the next wave for us. We are seeing all these religious acts coming up in various states. I do a radio show called the Del & Emerson Show — straight talk, real gay. We’re a big hit on UPN, their biggest show. We cover the gay news every week. The Religious Right is striking back at us, and we will continue to see this. You think the fight will be over when the Supreme Court rules, that if that goes our way, we are done? No, we are not done. As my youngest daughter said after Prop 8 passed, “Don’t worry, they’re all going to die. My generation will take care of you.”
What has it been like having two daughters?
They’re amazing girls, now 23 and 25. I have no regrets being so closeted so long. They were 2 and 5 when I came out as a gay dad. They’re amazing little fighters for our community. It was an interesting childhood for them. One is a school teacher, and the other is going into social work.
You’ve married and divorced a man. Was your marriage miserable? Were there good times?
I wouldn’t have stayed married to someone for 9 1⁄2 years if it was all bad. I don’t like to talk about it to the press. It was a good marriage for a very long time, and it was good until it wasn’t.
What’s your take on the impending Supreme Court decision?
I think it’ll be a 5-4 decision. I hope it’s 6-3, in our favor of course.
How do you think the losing side will react?
We’re going to see all these groups find new ways to hate on us, like passing all these crazy laws like Indiana just did. We will see a huge response. Look at the statistics. Over 60 percent of Americans think gay marriage should happen. The tides of change have happened drastically. We’re putting a face on gay rights. Nobody’s closeted like they used to be. I’ve just written a new Sordid Lives movie called A Very Sordid Wedding. I catch all the characters up to date in 2015. I’m waiting for the Supreme Court decision to come in to do the final re-write. Religious bigotry plays a big part in the script. We’re getting there. We’re probably filming in August in Texas. We’re very determined to raise the rest of the capital.
I wish you the best of luck. What would you like to see happen during your lifetime before you move on to that big barbecue in the sky?
I would like to continue to see the tides change. I would like to see the hateful, hateful pastors go away and be replaced with love and compassion for everyone. And if they’re going to preach Christ’s message, that they embrace what he really taught, which was love. I’d like to fight a little less with assholes on Facebook.
What's Your Reaction?
