The world is a little rough right now. Turn on the local news and you’re inundated with senseless shootings, people being victimized and schools in crisis. Turn on the national news and you’re looking at a senseless state of affairs with an administration that would be laughable if it weren’t so deadly. Mother Nature seems to be wrecking havoc with one catastrophe after another and religion is being used to hide child molesters, or as an excuse for not baking us cakes.

Pageants, princess dresses and sparkly shoes, oh my!

Nope, it’s not the latest Miss America competition; it’s “Close Your Legs, Honey” — one of the two Fringe Arts Festival shows this week’s Portrait, Claris Park, is involved in this year. The show is described as “a new musical about ugly people in a beautiful world.” Park plays an 11-year-old glamazon fighting off pageant-wannabe Honey for supreme glory.

Meet the man behind the makeup: John Burd. Philadelphia Magazine voted him one of the top-10 event producers of the summer, and his amateur-drag night has been a consistent hit and talk of the town for its fun and inclusive entertainment.

I had a few relatives visit me last week and when the conversation turned to gay stuff — I don’t even recall what — one of my cousins laughed and said, “Can you ask the community to stop adding letters to the alphabet? It’s hard to keep up!”