This story begins at the beginning of time, when the first bacteria learned that it could reproduce itself. Anyway, man came along . . . and created Bruce Baird in his own image. My life began in a hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, home of the Mardi Gras and the best female impersonators in the world. (They got real boobs!) Mardi Gras is a festival which takes place on the days before Lent begins, 40 days before Easter, the day on which Jesus Christ dropped out of sight. Jesus Christ was named after his father’s(?) favorite baseball player, Jesus Alou, and his favorite holiday, Christmas. The reason for the question mark after father is that Jesus was really not his father’s son. His father had been hit in the balls in Vietnam and couldn’t have any kids. He married a girl named Mary, mother of Jesus. She said she had always been faithful(?) to Joseph. Joseph was a homosexual anyway; he only married because he wanted to become president of Xerox, and you can’t get anywhere if you’re a queer. He pretended. Mary said it was an immaculate conception and it probably happened when she fell through the ice on Lake Erie, trying to fish for whatever Eskimos fish for. Mary was an Eskimo. The baby was born on a weekend drive to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. All the hotels were filled up with a doctors’ convention and all the hospitals were closed. The kid was born in a manger(?). I might be wrong on that point; it may be that Mary was the first Eskimo manager of a baseball team in Fresno. In that case, the three Alou brothers played for her before they made it up to the San Francisco Giants and the Big Leagues. The three brothers were Felipe, Mateo and Jesus. Joseph never became president of Xerox because at a party he got a little drunk and made advances toward his boss. The boss fired him. Joseph later appealed to the ACLU, but they didn’t do anything as usual. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the president of Xerox was a Texas Aggie and he promised he would live forever rather than let a gay become president of Xerox. He ended up living 1,024 (210) years which was a record at the time. He did this by halving himself ten times over his lifetime. Each time he got smaller and smaller until he was so small he fell through his asshole and strangled himself. The process of halving is very similar to the first bacteria and the beginning of life. Mary eventually became a prostitute and a very good one I might add. Jesus, her son, was her pimp and he led a very lucrative life. He treated his mother real good and she eventually fell in love with him. Jesus gave the money he made from his girls to the Chicano Defense League; he always felt discriminated against because of the Latin-American stigma attached to his name. The Alou brothers never made it as big as the DiMaggio brothers, but Matty did win the National League batting crown in 1966, when he was playing for Pittsburgh. My favorite player of all time was Roberto Clemente who played for Pittsburgh until 1972 when he was lost in a plane crash trying to help the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. Actually he is very much alive and playing soccer in Cuba. He’s the one who is constantly complained about his knees.
I was a cute baby (so everybody said) and I was the first of my generation on my mother’s side of the family. I was a hit! I don’t remember too much that happened at this time and all I really know is what people have told me. My father, Bruce Sr., was going to school at Tulane. He was an electrical engineering major and he graduated at the top of his class. My mother, Margaret, had quit going to college so she could have me. She was going to Tulane and was a business administration major. She was co-valedictorian of her Metairie High School class. The other co-valedictorian was her twin sister, Marjorie. My parents lived in an apartment owned by my paternal grandmother who we called Grammy. My mom and dad lived on the inheritance left him when his father, George Dewey Baird, died. He died when my father was about eight years old. My paternal grandparents were well off. Grammy was married before George and married once or twice after him. George once ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican. A Republican never wins in Louisiana. George didn’t win because he died of a heart attack when he was in early forties while running (for public office). When someone told my father that Roosevelt died (when Roosevelt died) my father said, “Oh, good!”