Jill Conner Browne: Top Yam

Brassy, sassy, and outrageous. Larger than life, shockingly frank, and funnier than a whole carful of clowns at the circus. Who is this you say? Madonna? Rosie O’Donnell? Nope. It’s Jackson, Mississippi’s number one Sweet Potato Queen (SPQ), Jill Conner Browne.

Author of the hilarious The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love, the ultimate guide for the fallen Southern belle in every woman, Her Raucous Highness took time out from minding her behind to give Crescent Blues some tips on Big Hair, Not Doing Jack and How To Act Special.

Crescent Blues: Welcome to Crescent Blues, Your Majesty. May we say that interviewing you is a real honor. We understand Jackson’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade was extra special this year. In addition to your traditional parade float and yam toss, did the Sweet Potato Queens have something special up their sleeves… er, gloves for this all important event in the SPQ social calendar?

Sweet Potato Queen: Yes, the parade was Extra Special this year because for the first time in 17 years, they acknowledged Us as the true grand marshals of the parade. We, of course, have declared Ourselves to be such since the beginning but it has taken them this long to come around.

We get new accessories every year and this year was no exception. We always get new wigs — for that maximum Big Hair Fluff — they are always Big and always Red, but the style varies. This year they were long and curly, much like Peg Bundy on Married with Children. We also have new capes — hot pink, of course — and new gloves. We got Very Excited about our gloves — they are hot pink Sequinned gloves, above the elbow, naturally, and they have long, hot pink Fringe attached. Sequins and Fringe are two of our Most Favorite Things in life.

The official parade t-shirt featured a drawing of a Sweet Potato Queen, and the Theme was “MIND YO’ BEHIND IN ’99!” Certainly good advice for us all. And so, we emerged from a giant copy of the Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love on our float, through a door cut in the shape of a Queen with her arms held up victoriously, with a sign saying, “Through this shapely doorway will pass THE FINEST BEHINDS OF ALL TIME!”

We emerged to the strains of that haunting melody, “Do Da Butt,” went right into our crowd-pleasing dance, “The Book of Love,” and then when “The Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare” came on, instead of holding our arms up for the wild applause of the multitudes, we held up our considerable butts for their viewing and, no doubt, heartfelt approval.

Um, does this mean that the Queens have caused their already abundant salient features to become even more, er… noticeable?

About our salient features — actually our own Personal Salient Features have all grown, naturally, in the past year to the degree that some of us had to go so far as to Remove some of our padding in order to fit all of us Inside the outfit! The end (ha ha) result being that the outfits are smaller but we still look bigger! If we keep this up, by next year, we’ll be able to leave off the padding altogether! YIKES!

Since you got all new big hair, new sequined gloves (with fringe!) and new outfits, did you need to beef up your security in anticipation of driving more men mad with lust than usual?

Yes, indeedy-do, we did in fact beef up our security force this year, and they got outfits too, in order to produce the maximum amount of envy possible in onlookers. They wore jack-boots, black fishnet hose, short black skirts with “SECURITY” emblazoned across the butt, SPQ wannabe t-shirts, SPQ sunglasses, red wigs, black sun visors marked “SECURITY”, and headsets — for communication along the parade route. They carried gigantic blue plastic bats for whacking unruly spectators whenever they deemed it necessary — which was about every 30 seconds — in order to instill Fear and Respect in the crowd.

All that resulted in a Highly Effective Security Force, however, they too, with the new outfits and all, have become hopelessly snotty and exclusive, in keeping with our theory that the Most Fun is to be had in the Exclusion Of Others.

Now that the SPQs have become nationally famous and have their own Web site, may we ask what your plans are for world domination?

Well, we definitely want to see the Doctrine of Not Doing Jackshit spread to the ends of the earth. Beyond that, we want to see women everywhere Living Into Their Own Queenliness.

A dear lady at our church spoke recently and we were quite moved by her words. Miss Ruby has very thin red hair, very thin — OK, she has four hairs, but who’s counting? But she Used to have Big Hair and when she did, she wore it in what was called a “Double Bubble.” She was a schoolteacher at an inner city elementary school before her retirement.

She recalled that one day, she wore a gold bow in the center of her Double Bubble on the back of her head. A little girl in her class had been watching her studiously all morning, and finally, the little girl could stand it no more, and she came up and asked Miss Ruby pointblank, “Miss Ruby, do you know you have a bow in the back of your hair?”

And Miss Ruby allowed as how, yes, she did know that. “Well, you don’t ACT like it,” the little girl said.

Miss Ruby inquired as to how one SHOULD act if one knows one has a bow in the back of one’s hair. “Well, you would sit up real straight and turn your head so, and you would touch it a lot.”

I think, as they say, that that will preach! And we want to see women everywhere KNOWING that, figuratively speaking — or literally, we don’t care — They Have A Bow In The Back Of Their Hair! That there is Something Special about Them, today and every day, and they should damn well ACT LIKE IT.

[Interviewer wipes a tear from her eye.] Truly, those are words all women should live by. Ahem. Back to business — Crescent Blues has noticed that since your book was published, the numbers of BHW (big-haired women) have undergone a substantial increase. Do you take any credit for this? What advice do you have for those wishing to join the ranks of the BHW?

Yes, of course, we take Full Credit for it and we are So Pleased that it is happening. It is just about our Favorite Thing In Life when people do what we say — not only is it invariably good for them but it is Personally Gratifying to us, in the extreme. Our advice: If you don’t have it, buy it — they are making that stuff everyday

Your Majesty, after reading your book, we saw that although you recommended writing your own obituary, you didn’t mention if you had already taken care of that small chore for yourself. If you have, could we persuade you to give the readers of Crescent Blues a small taste of what your neighbors and loved ones will see in the local paper in the event of your demise? (Heaven forfend it be soon!)

“She was a big ole friendly girl, wasn’t she?” “Lord knows, this woman PURELY LOVED to dance.” “If she loved you, she loved you warts and all. Oh, she SAW the warts all right, she just loved you anyway — and hoped you would extend her the same courtesy, regarding her own personal warts.” “She had a Butt Like A Butterbean — not even that big — it was more like a baby lima.” “We are burying her in a pink taffeta dress with ruffles all over it. And her red wig, of course.” “The deceased wishes to thank all ya’ll for coming, please come on by the house and eat a little something and now, ya’ll be particular, you hear?”

Have you ever thought of using the Promise for a higher power — say to promote world peace or even possibly find a cure for the common cold?

Absolutely, it is in the by-laws, and at least one instance is cited in the book where we used it to heal a man stricken by paralysis and he gives us Total Credit for restoring him to the piano-playing, hot-loving, yam worshipper that he is today.

On the Five Men You Must Have In Your Life — at this moment how many of these rare creatures grace your court? Can you tell us a bit about them? Oh hell, Your Royal Queenliness, why not just spill your guts and give us the down and dirty details? Who are they and how did you get them to fulfill your every need?

Are you kidding? Rule number one or at Least in the top ten: DON’T ADVERTISE YOUR MAN — or in this case, MEN. I am not telling WHO, but I already told you HOW! I WILL say that I do not currently have a job vacancy in the Roster of Five but that I am always willing to interview promising applicants.

You have your majorette boots, you have hordes of stud spuds begging you to give them the Promise, you’ve attained near nirvana from learning to master the art of not doing jack — do you have any major wishes left to achieve?

I have always wanted to learn to tap-dance. I think I am a natural born tap-dancer, just waiting for some actual instruction and, of course, taps. And all the Queens want to be on David Letterman — we want to do the velcro wall in our SPQ outfits.

What advice do you have for those of us longing to become Sweet Potato Queens?

Well, you can’t be a SWEET POTATO Queen, but you can certainly pick another food group to reign over. The crown and the attitude are all that really matter.

Somehow we just can’t see Rutabaga Queens catching on. Come on, Your Majesty, the staff and readers of Crescent Blues want to be Sweet Potato Queens. If we joined the ranks of your Wannabes, just what kind of sucking up is necessary to meet the requirements for any future position? (Readers, get ready to take notes.)

How much sucking up is enough? First of all, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea of the Rutabaga Queens — a year ago, would you have been dying to be a Sweet Potato Queen? Attitude is The Main Requirement For Successful Queening, and we think that any and all may achieve it.

However, for those who don’t feel they have quite enough to generate an entire Queendom under their own steam — we are happy to welcome you into the ranks of our Wannabe’s. Be advised that you will be Wannabe Wannabe’s for some time and that as such, you will be sucking up to the Actual Wannabe’s, who in turn suck up to the Queens, and EVERYBODY SUCKS UP TO ME!!

All the sucking up flows uphill and ends with ME! Everybody connected with this deal has to do whatever I say, and do it plenty quick and be grinning about it the whole time. Nobody seems to mind this. Which is lucky. For them. I would be happy to receive your homage as well. I am particularly fond of pie, in case you’re interested, which you certainly should be.

One last question, what does the future hold for the Sweet Potato Queens?

The future? I expect it will be More Of The Same And Then Some on account of we don’t dwell on or in the future a whole lot — we mostly work on Having Fun Right This Minute — which is all anybody knows for sure they’ve got, by the way.

Teri Dohmen