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. 

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

Sweet Potato Queen: 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! 

Crescent Blues: 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? 

Sweet Potato Queen: 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. 

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

Sweet Potato Queen: 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. 

Crescent Blues: [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?

Jill Conner Browne - Continued