How Y'All Doing by Leslie Joran

Finally, progress! Just shy of two years after my local library drastically cut its operating hours due to Covid, this week the library fully re-opened. I triumphantly went to the library right before they closed at 6:50 pm last night, just because I could, and it felt thrilling. We have to be able to access joy wherever we can get it right now. Aside from books, I have found great joy in growing lettuce on our deck, in making needlepoint eye-glass cases for friends and in the shining-light that is Leslie Alan Jordan. He burst on the scene in the spring of 2020 when he first joined Instagram, and became an overnight sensation. After just one viewing, I was hooked. I started to look forward to waking up each morning at 6 am and hearing him say, "Leslie Alan Jordan reporting for duty!" or his catch phrase, "How y’all doing fellow hunker downers?" His memoir “How Y’All Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived” was published in 2021 and chronicles his story as a little boy from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who grew up to be a writer, character actor and singer. He is best known for his roles in “Hearts Afire,” “Will and Grace,” and “American Horror Story.” When his father died in a plane crash when he was young, his mother Peggy Ann was left alone to raise Leslie and his twin sisters by herself. After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, he fell into an abyss of drugs and alcohol problems, which found him once sharing a jail cell with Robert Downy Jr. However, after he entered recovery, Jordon was able to build an exciting career for himself in Hollywood. This book includes some excellent Hollywood tales about celebrities like Carrie Fisher, and describes what it was like to be gay at the beginning of the AIDS crisis. There is something infectious about the joy of Leslie Jordan. I dare you to watch one of his videos on Instagram and not break out in a big smile. How Y’All doing? To buy this book on Amazon click here.