{"id":95433,"date":"2026-09-07T01:41:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=95433"},"modified":"2026-09-07T01:41:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T08:41:54","slug":"the-last-rose-of-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2026\/09\/07\/the-last-rose-of-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Rose of Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ll just tell them I\u2019m a drag queen
\nand everything will be fine!\u201d <\/em>
\n\u2013 <\/em>Marilyn Maye<\/strong>‘s answer when told that people only wanted to see
\ndrag queens in Provincetown.  She just celebrated her 16th<\/sup> year
\nentertaining the masses in Ptown.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Seeing Marilyn Maye <\/strong>at Provincetown Town Hall<\/em> tells me that the season is coming to a close.  Like the last rose of summer, Auntie Marilyn not only hangs on but thrives.  She defies the odds and pulls off great shows year after year.  Yes, there are the occasional memory lapses in a lyric.  Hello?  She\u2019s 98!  I\u2019m lucky I remember the name of this column…and it\u2019s my name!  Marilyn wove every bobble into the tapestry of the story she was telling \u2013 and invariably got a rapturous response from the capacity crowd.  This show had several special moments, but the unexpected highlight was when someone in the audience asked her to sing \u201cWhat Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?\u201d.  It\u2019s a song that hasn\u2019t been in her act for a number of years and one the band hadn\u2019t prepared.  After a few moments of discussion, out came an exemplary rendition of the classic \u2013 which she revealed she\u2019s sung at quite a few gay weddings.  After the show, I joked that I expect to see her onstage at 100.  \u201cOf course, Billy <\/strong>\u2013 I\u2019m already booked!\u201d  And I\u2019ll be there!  In the meantime, some clips and pics from Ptown can be found on BillyMasters.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"colorbar1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dolly Parton <\/strong>always said if she were born a man, she\u2019d have been a drag queen.  So it comes as no surprise that CNN <\/em>mistakenly ran a photo of a Dolly Parton impersonator when announcing her death.  The only surprise is that the impersonator was a woman and not a man!  \u201cWe regret the error and apologize to the Parton family.\u201d  The impersonator in question, Kelly Vohnn<\/strong>, was appalled.  \u201cSomebody at CNN <\/em>really messed up and didn\u2019t do their research.  It was quite embarrassing, to be honest.\u201d  Somewhere, I bet this gave Dolly a chuckle!<\/p>\n

The Parton family announced updated plans for DollyFest<\/em><\/strong>.  The event was originally planned to celebrate Dolly\u2019s 80th<\/sup> birthday in January, but, due to health concerns, was pushed to next year.  The event will still take place \u2013 but now it will be a tribute to Dolly.  And, this being a tribute to Dolly Parton, you gotta double the festivals and double the fun.  There will be a weekend in January 2027 in Nashville.  A London event is still being planned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ll just tell them I\u2019m a drag queen and everything will be fine!\u201d  \u2013 Marilyn Maye‘s answer when told that people only wanted to see drag queens in Provincetown.  She just celebrated her 16th year entertaining the masses in Ptown. Seeing Marilyn Maye at Provincetown Town Hall tells me that the season is coming to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95442,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95433\/revisions\/95442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}