Today is the birthday of one of my oldest blogging friends.  He’s since found other more interesting things to occupy his time than post his thoughts and comments all over the interwebs, but now seemed like the right time to pay tribute to the crotchety old bastard from Oz who calls himself Willowtree.

Our friendship dates back to 2006 and at one point he was quite the prolific blogger.  We both watched Jenny, you know, the Bloggess, rise to fame and he was friends with Ree, aka the Pioneer Woman long before she had a TV show on the Food network.  Sometimes we reminisce about the good ol’ days like crusty old men.  Fortunately that’s only actually true for one of us.  1..2..3… not it.

As a special tribute to this long time blogging buddy, or bluddy, I present some recycled images that he didn’t know I had anything to do with.  Once upon a time Bitsy and Willowtree had a photoshopping war.  Behind the scenes I was Bitsy’s secret weapon, photoshopping like a madman.  Fortunately, these didn’t require much work for Willowtree has some very unique hobbies and an amazing history.

First, he moonlighted as the 7th member of the Village People.  He was the dirty Australian member.

In this candid shot we find him rocking the tie-dye.  I think this was between one of the shows while staying at the YMCA.

Of course there was a lot of travel, and being the lesser known 7th member of the Village People he didn’t always get to stay in the VIP accomodations.  That didn’t always work out poorly for him though.  Here is Willowtree coming back to find a friend in his sleeper car on the train.

Here we find WT judging a male swimsuit contest.  I think the rain slicker was part of the whole Village People persona.

When the Village People fired him, sadly, Willowtree moved on to combine his next two loves: baseball and Rainbow Brite.

For a previous birthday I gave WT a friend.  Let’s just say he liked her a lot, and it was clear his Village People days were behind him, or perhaps we found out why he got fired.

One thing that Willotree did learn from his days on tour is always remember to bring a good supply of lube.  Oh yeah, he likes to party (but not with Crisco as far as I know).

So, Happy Birthday, Peter.  Maybe this will motivate you to start posting again.  Everyone else has now been warned of the dangers of posting photos of yourself on the interwebs.  Yay Photoshop!