Brian Ferrari's Blog

Don Herron’s Tub Shots

A recent Out Magazine article about Felice Picano featured a 1980 photograph of the author lounging in his bathtub with a cigarette and a glass of wine. I immediately recognized the photo as one of Don Herron’s Tub Shots, a series that the photographer snapped over a 20 year period, spanning from San Francisco to New York and covering a wide swath of his legendary friends, lovers and fellow artists.

Don Herron (1941-2012) was living in San Francisco in the early 1970’s when he began shooting the bathtub photos, having been inspired by medieval sculptures set in niches. Herron told the Village Voice in 1980, “I decided to do a series of photographs of people in containers. The bathtub was the logical container to use. I started with my friends and it grew from there.”

He continued the series after moving to New York City in 1978, where he was a part of the vibrant East Village art scene. Among the many who posed on the porcelain for Herron: Keith Haring, Peter Hujar, Robert Mapplethorpe, Annie Sprinkle, Peter Berlin, Ethyl Eichelberger, Michael Musto, Phoebe Legere, John Waters’ leading ladies Mink Stole and Cookie Mueller as well as Warhol factory superstars Jackie Curtis, Taylor Mead, and Holly Woodlawn. The Tub Shots were featured in the Village Voice, New York Magazine, Christopher Street and Art Forum.

My first encounter with the photos were a couple of postcards I picked up in an East Village shop back in the late 1980’s. I had just finished reading David Kopay’s autobiography and was quite happy to see (almost) all of the gay footballer on display. Another card I purchased was of a director named Robert Schifflett, about whom I know nothing other than the charms on exhibit in the photo and his ability to hold his breath.

Recalling his bathtub session with Herron and the noir photo it produced, performer Charles Busch recently said “My crummy 12^th Street tenement tub amazingly looks kinda glam. If memory serves, after we called it a wrap I believe the charming photographer ended up in the tub with me. I think so.”

Another subject was artist Mel Odom, whom I recently asked about the experience.

“George Stavrinos dared me to do it;” he said “But I’ve never seen one of him!”

“Don did two shoots with me – the first one was without the mask. He wasn’t satisfied with that and we did a second shoot. He was probably right.”

“My parents didn’t know that I had posed nude and it was published in the Village Voice just as I went home to visit them in Ahoskie, North Carolina… and there was the issue sitting on their friend’s coffee table!” Odom managed to pilfer the newspaper and, as far as he knows, his parents never found out about the photo.

Odom’s Tub Shot was also reprinted as a full page when the series was profiled in the April, 1980 issue of Christopher Street. When I mentioned the postcard series that was my introduction to the photos, he recalled “Mine wasn’t used for the postcards because I received weird phone calls after it was printed in the magazines. ‘Hey! Are you naked like you were in the Village Voice?’ I got letters from prisoners, too.”

Here’s the Village Voice feature from April, 1980:

I still have the Kopay and Shifflett postcards I bought 30 years ago. Every once in a while, I Google around looking for other Tub Shots online. With the exception of the Mapplethorpe and Haring photos below, they are fairly obscure in the digital age.

Random pics pop up on Pinterest – this one of Ethyl Eichelberger, for example – but I have not found any online collections.

When Herron passed away a few years ago, his ex-lover, artist Adam Donaldson Powell paid tribute to him here. Herron’s estate has created a Tub Shots website but there is currently no content.

That might be about to change. Daniel Cooney Fine Art will be exhibiting 65 of these photos at their gallery in New York City from September 13 until November 3, 2018. Interested viewers may contact the gallery for reservations via phone at 212-255-8158, via email dan@danielcooneyfineart.com or give them a visit at 508-526 West 26^th St., #9C, NY NY.

Gimme Gimme Gimme… Erasure Covering ABBA

When Cher’s cover of ABBA’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” was released earlier this month and immediately mashed-up with Madonna’s song “Hung Up”, one Facebook friend declared that the result was “gay ground zero”. To this I meekly respond… “….but what about Erasure’s cover of ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme‘? Cuz, ya know… lead singer Andy Bell is actually… gay?”

Erasure’s version first appeared in 1986 as a B-side of their third single, “Oh L’Amour”, a modest chart hit at the time that has proven to be one of the band’s signature songs.

Trying to keep track of Erasure’s discography takes more time than anyone but the most devoted fan has to offer. Album track listings vary on different releases throughout the world, not to mention multiple reissues and bonus editions. As far as I know, this original version of “Gimme Gimme Gimme” was never included on any of their official album releases, although there was a remix on a 2011 Wonderland double-CD reissue and a live version was included on Two Ring Circus.

It was also a staple in their live act in the 1980’s – there are several versions on concert DVD releases, some with Andy singing a few a capella bars from ABBA’s “Money Money Money” before launching into “Gimme Gimme Gimme”.

ABBA sure loved repeat-word song titles, didn’t they? Well “Honey, Honey”, I’m not sure “I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do”. But anyway…

I was an ABBA fan from childhood and got into Erasure as a teen, when Andy Bell was one of the few out gay singers. Most gay singers at that time still chose to remain coy in their lyrics – Boy George would tumble for “you” rather than “him.” Frankie might say “Relax” but not “when HE wants to come.” Erasure singing “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” was quite a revelation to my 18-year-old gay self. Covering a song without changing the gender in the lyric is done more frequently now – often just to be provocative. In the 1980’s? Not so much.

I remember playing the song in my freshman dorm room (vinyl on a record player, thank you very much) while my straight but artistic roommate came to the realization that the androgynous singer pleading for a man after midnight was a dude. Towards the end of this version, the song builds as the tempo speeds up … and up… and up…with Andy Bell imploring “Gimme. GimmeGimme….” Well. I thought my roomie’s Depeche-Mode-lovin’ head just might explode.

ABBA had not experienced any kind of renaissance at this point. They were a 70’s relic, prone to ridicule like Saturday Night Fever or Donny and Marie. Most of their LP catalogue was out of print. If you had their old albums, you certainly did not bring them to college. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that the group would have wave after wave of resurgences – ironic or otherwise.

1992 saw the release of Erasure’s ABBA-eque EP – a collection of 4 ABBA covers that hit #1 on the UK charts. Unfortunately, “Gimme Gimme Gimme” was not a part of this collection, which featured “SOS”, “Lay All Your Love On Me”, “Take A Chance On Me” and “Voulez-Vous”. The video for “Take A Chance…” had Vince Clarke and Andy Bell in and out of drag, playing all 4 member of ABBA.

The ABBA Gold greatest hits came out later in 1992 and never stopped selling…. followed by the film Muriel’s Wedding in 1994…

… and then came the A*Teens, the stage musical Mamma Mia, the movie(s)… and the rest is history.

So maybe Erasure had a part in ABBA’s renaissance. Or maybe they just caught the first wave. In any case, their version of “Gimme Gimme Gimme” deserves a listen. Maybe someone will mash them up with Cher AND Madonna for the ultimate gay apocalypse.

Oh! And while Andy Bell was often the one running around scantily clad onstage, here’s a NSFW pic of Vince Clarke from photographer Rankin’s book Male Nudes. Gimme Gimme indeed.

Revisiting Kate Bush’s Gayest Songs

Here’s something for you to chew on: Madonna and Kate Bush are the same age. I always have trouble reconciling this – they never seemed to exist on the same planet, let alone at the same time, but it’s true – The Material Girl and our ethereal goddess have both turned 60 this month. I have always been a fan of both of them and am not here to put down one over the other. I love them for different reasons – to hold one up to the other would be like comparing apples and umami. Diversity among the divas, right?

Madge has garnered plenty of press upon turning 60, so I wanted to focus on Kate, specifically her early gay-centric songs. Two appeared on her second LP, Lionheart, which came out 40 years ago this November – another number I can’t quite wrap my head around. Lionheart may be her least-known LP, rushed out just 9 months after her acclaimed debut, The Kick Inside. Many of the songs were written by Kate throughout her teens, including “Kashka From Baghdad” and “Wow”.

Prone to obscure literary inspiration, Kate would (often reluctantly) explain the origins of her lyrics by vaguely pointing the listener in the right direction and allowing them to fill in the blanks for themselves. “Kashka From Baghdad” is not a song that needs much explanation. The opening line:

Kashka from Baghdad lives in sin they say / With another man / But no one knows who

Kate sings the song from the perspective of a person watching their shadows “Tall and slim in the window opposite /  I long to be with them.”

The chorus, if you can call it that, is: At night they’re seen / Laughing, loving / They know the way / To be happy

Awfully progressive for a catholic teen writing songs in the mid-70’s British suburbs, don’t you think?

“Kashka From Baghdad” is one of Kate’s forgotten early songs – overlooked in favor of all the brilliance that came after. On the other hand, every Kate Bush compilation contains the song “Wow”, which became her third UK top 20 hit song. “‘Wow’ is about the music business,” she said at the time. “Not just rock music but show business in general, including acting and theatre.” Fill in the blanks yourself.

In the book Kate Bush, A Visual Documentary, authors Kevin Cann & Sean Mayes go a bit further in explaining the lyrics: “… people working together hype each other’s spirits up with their enthusiasm and admiration. But as most performers know this can be deceptive – ‘still we don’t head the bill.’ And this actor has a problem: many successful performers are gay, but some are too gay – ‘He’ll never make the Sweeney (a popular UK TV program at the time), be that movie queen. He’s too busy hitting the vaseline.’ For many gay actors, there is no place in the mainstream – we’ll call you – ‘but don’t hold your breath.'”

In the original video for the song, Kate punctuates the ‘hitting the vaseline’ line with a pat on the bum, which was suggestive enough to get the video censored by the BBC.

There is a song called “Moving” on Kate’s first LP that was written about Lindsay Kemp, her dance teacher and mentor. Kemp was/is an openly gay dancer/actor/mime, a highly influential British artist who was involved personally and professionally with David Bowie. He staged and performed in the Ziggy Stardust stage show among many other acclaimed theatrical productions with his own dance company.

“I couldn’t believe how strongly Lindsay communicates with people without even opening his mouth;” Kate said in a 1979 interview. “It was incredible, he had the whole audience in his control, just with his little finger. And it was amazing. I’d never seen anything like it, I really hadn’t. And I felt if it was possible to combine that strength of movement with the voice, then maybe it would work, and that’s what I’ve tried to do.”

I’m not going to pretend to know how vigorously Kemp pursued a film career, but a glance at the IMDB shows a list of film roles that seldom had character names: Pantomime Dame, Jester, Cabaret Performer …

“We’d give you a part, my love, but you’d have to play the fool….”

Well, she did give him a part. In 1993, Kate cast Kemp in his biggest film role costarring with her and Miranda Richardson in The Line, The Cross and the Curve.

Here’s wishing Kate a Happy 60th Birthday. I still hope that she might bring her triumphant 2016 stage show to Broadway for a limited run. We shall see. Whatever her next move, oooh yeah… it’ll be amazing.

You Know The B-52’s Song Roam Is About Butt Sex, Right?

A couple of months ago, the internet burst into flames when Bunny Wailer, songwriter of “The Electric Slide”, confirmed rumors that the song is indeed about a vibrator. (It’s electric!).

An article on the Aazios site quoted him as saying that he wrote the song after a girlfriend told him she didn’t need him because she had a toy she nicknamed the “electric slide”. The story went viral.

Singer Marcia Griffiths was not happy about it. “I don’t sing about vibrators,” she said. “I sing to teach, educate and uplift.”

“Why not both?” I say.

Huffpost, which initially reposted the Aazios story, then printed an update that it was not true… noting, apropos of nothing, that Aazios is “an online source of LGBTQ news and entertainment” – as if that had anything to do with Bunny Wailer, the vibrator, or the validity of the story.

Snopes has labeled the story FALSE with a quote from Bunny Wailer that reads like a statement issued by a lawyer protecting a client from litigation: “At no time have I ever lent credence to a rumor that the song was inspired by anything other than Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue“. To state otherwise is a falsehood and offends my legacy, the legacy of singer Marcia Griffiths, and tarnishes the reputation of a song beloved by millions of fans the world over.”

The problem is… he wrote the song in the 1970’s, years before Eddie Grant’s 1982 hit. The song was dusted off and reworked to ride the “Electric” coattails of that hit record. And thirty-five years later, it is still a dance floor staple at a certain calibre of venue. It is understandable that someone who still makes money off this record does not want to suddenly admit that their cash cow is about a dildo.

Bottom line: Either it is or it isn’t. But moving forward, you have a topic of conversation to yell over your 9th cocktail while your mom and Karen from finance are knocking into each other on the dance floor.

So… now can we talk about The B-52’s 1989 hit song “Roam“? You know that it’s about butt sex, right?

Of course, nobody is going to step up and confirm this now. The B-52’s still make a nice living touring the world performing “Roam” along with party classics like “Rock Lobster“ and “Love Shack“. One song they haven’t performed in years is “Dirty Back Road“, a track from their 1980 Wild Planet LP. Co-written by a guy named Robert Waldrop with band member Ricky Wilson, it’s not that much of a stretch to figure out what this little ditty is about:

Wreckless driving / Like a sports car / God I want you / Like a fuel engine / Energized line / Like a road / You ride me / Like a road / You ride me / Foot on the peddle / Feet in the air / Sand in my hair / Don’t look back / Don’t look behind you / Reckless drivin’ on / Dirty back road

Pretty obvious, right? Well… of course not, according to YouTube comments. People will argue about anything. I know, I know. Never read the comments.

So lets move on to “Roam“: Co-written again by Robert Waldrop, this time with the surviving members of the band. Ricky Wilson had passed away from AIDS complications in 1985 during the recording of the Bouncing Off The Satellites LP. After taking a few years off, the band came back in 1989 with the LP Cosmic Thing, which would be their biggest commercial success. The singles “Love Shack” and “Roam” topped the charts around the world and still get regular airplay today.

When did I realize that “Roam“ was about butt sex? I couldn’t say. I just always knew. I saw Robert Waldrop’s name in the cassette booklet, read the lyrics to “Roam“ and thought “Look at that. He cleaned up ‘Dirty Back Road‘.” Well, not completely – the second line has them “dancing down those dirty and dusty trails.” It may not be as blatant, but it’s there.

The phrase “Take it hip to hip rock it through the wilderness” is repeated about a dozen times throughout the song.

The chorus: Roam if you want to / Roam around the world / Without wings without wheels / Roam around the world / Without anything but the love we feel…

And then there’s this verse:

Hit the air-strip to the sunset / Ride the arrow to the target / Take it hip to hip rock it through the wilderness / Around the world the trip begins with a kiss

(at this point in the video, a banana goes through a hole in a bagel)

I would like to make it clear that I do not make these pronouncements as some sort of slander. Believe me, I am a big fan of butt sex and partake as often as possible.

In posting this piece, I realize that there are people who will get annoyed or upset that their favorite B-52’s hit is all about taking a ride on the Hershey highway, but really… if you think this is shocking or not possibly true then you never really understood the band and/or their sense of humor in the first place. People who only know them from Top 40 radio might not remember that they were/are a predominantly gay party band. They were messy, subversive and more than just a little punk. Fun punk.

If a clueless fan does not know that, it is akin to saying that you love John Waters because of the films Hairspray and Cry Baby, but have never seen Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble.

Like many other bands before or since, the B-52’s started out edgy and moved towards mainstream pop as their career progressed. While their current tour does pull heavily from their first two LPs, their bread and butter is still playing the hit songs. They are a business – not so much a band as a corporation like their contemporaries The Go-Go’s and Blondie.

Even if the B-52’s issued a statement today that Roam never was or is about getting popped in the pooper, the motivation would not be to tell the truth, but rather to protect their own livelihood. Case in point: The Village People, Inc. When faced with anti-gay protests for a gig in Jamaica back in 1998, their representative had the balls to issue a statement that there was nothing gay about them. The fucking Village People, people. I would like to think that the B-52’s are still way too cool to ever do such a thing.

So… I just thought you ought to know. Roam is about takin’ it up the ass. And now you have a topic of conversation when you hear it wafting over the airwaves at the supermarket or when you are in line at the bank. I am not going to debate the evidence. It is what it is. I think it’s a hoot – it makes me chuckle whenever I hear it. But if you feel a strong opposition to the theory… may I invite you to hit the airstrip… and teach yourself the Electric Slide. Boogie woogie woogie.

Is ‘No Homo’ Still A Thing?

On June 15th, 2018 I took part in the latest Meditation On A Theme onstage here in NYC. The topic was the phrase “No Homo.” A shortened version of my essay has now been posted on The Good Men Project (with a photo by my very talented partner Christoph Hovanec.)

I may post the unedited version here in the future…

BFerrari No Homo promo pic

Sunshine and Tinsel: A Canine Christmas Tail

I wrote a story/poem back in 2006 recounting an incident with the family dog when I was 4 years old. I gave copies to my family in their Christmas stockings that year. A couple of years after that when I was hosting 60 Degrees on East Village radio, I read it as part of my Holiday episode. Now it has been posted on the GoodMenProject website for this holiday season. I hope you enjoy it!

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‘Twas morning in the Ferrari house
two days Christmas past
Life was getting back
to normal at last

Mom’s in the kitchen
brewing a cup
Dad’s in the bathroom
shaving his scruff

I crept out of bed
little 4-year-old me
To revisit the presents
that Santa brought me

My sisters, still sleeping
they hadn’t a clue
Of the calamitous doings
about to ensue…

Our dog was named Sunshine
half beagle, at most
The other half basset hound:
Dumb as a post.

This brilliant young pup
found a holiday treat:
She thought that the tinsel
was something to eat

Soon she’d get queasy
lowered eyes to the floor
Rocking forward and backward
5 minutes or more

The “extended heave warning”
gave time to react
We’d all run for newspapers
or brown paper sacks

More often than not
we would catch her in time
Sparing our rugs
of the glittery slime

We’d gone all through Christmas
playing this game
But this morning was special
not more of the same

She had eaten more tinsel
It did not agree
There she stood: heaving
right under the tree

All of our presents
were still on display
Right where we’d opened them
on Christmas Day

I entered the room
and clearly could see
Sunshine’s next targeted
barf casualty:

My sister Jen’s brand new
Fisher Price Zoo
Was about to be covered
in silvery goo

I had to think fast:
What can I do?
I can’t let her spew
on the Animal Zoo!

I got on all fours
I crawled under the tree
Grabbed her by the collar
and led her towards me

It seemed like slow motion
but safety seemed near
I began to stand up
when I thought I was clear…

But I wasn’t.

Ornaments shattering
down came the tree
On the stomach-sick dog
and pajama-clad me

Out of the living room
there arose such a clatter
My family ran in to see
what was the matter

From under the tree
they heard screaming and crying
My mother envisioned me
bleeding or dying

Quick as a flash
my dad lifted the tree
I was curled in a ball
with the dog beside me

He started to scold me
as he always did
My mother said
“Come on! Lay off of the kid!”

Pine needles were scattered
broken bulbs, too
But I only sustained
a small scratch or two

The tree went back up
a few ornaments lighter
The rope that secured it
was fastened much tighter

My act of heroics
became quite a joke
To share with the relatives
and neighborhood folk

They would all laugh
I’d join in too
At the sacrifice made
for the Animal Zoo

With all the excitement
as best I recall…
The dog never did
get sick after all!

Revisiting My First Blog Post

I launched this blog a year ago with a post about the Kitty Genovese case. I’m happy to announce that a revised version of that piece has been posted on The Good Men Project. Thanks to editor Kevin Wood for reading the original piece and expressing interest. Hopefully there will be more to come….

Pride Parade, 2011

I don’t focus much on poetry these days, but I did have a few pieces published in Vice Magazine back in the mid-90’s. That wasn’t the Vice Magazine of today, but a NYC free gay bar rag that tried to aspire to something more cultural than Next or HX by featuring poetry and art photography.

Tasteful nudes, of course.

There was even a centerfold.

I still have some of them stored somewhere.

But I digress: they published a few of my poems. One day I’ll post them.

This piece was originally written for a class at The Writer’s Studio in the Fall of 2011. I was frustrated with the assignment and with what I had come up with. I thought it was crap and made some disparaging remarks about it before choosing a classmate to read it aloud. And as the words hit the air, I started to realize that it was really moving. And important. And it was really effecting the others in the room. People got a little verklempt. And there was silence when it was over. And then a classmate spoke up and said, “I hate you. If that’s what you come up with when you’re not feeling the assignment. I really hate you.”

The lesson I learned: just as you should never apologize before an audition (regardless of any ailments or trauma in your life), do not discredit your own work before presenting it.

So here it is, posted without further comment…

(I did not take these pics, btw)

Pride Parade, 2011

The parade of pride and fabulousity follows the purple stripe downtown –

guiding the way to gay ground zero: Christopher Street,

where it reaches its zenith, then dissipates into the side streets and alleys.

The air is electric – more than any celebration in recent memory.

The mood victorious as the decision was passed down late last night:

We can get married in New York today.

Mylar streamers and cardboard cutouts adorn the floats – trailers and pickup trucks

glittered up like drag queens for a day – back to work tomorrow, like the rest of us.

An explosion of g-strings and dykes on bikes and topless transgenders

and she was a he and that one I’m not sure – all making their way down 5^th Avenue

to the anthemic disco beat of I Was Born This Way.

On toes, I am balanced on a square inch of stoop at Barrow Street –

holding on to the railing, vying for a better view.

Next to me babies in rainbow bibs and bandanas

clap and giggle in the arms of their two mommies.

Police line the barricades with bemused smiles of “tolerance” –

steps away from Stonewall, and the confrontation that started it all-

their opinions now suppressed and stored for a private audience at a later time.

A weary drag queen sits on the curb, shoes in hand, wilting in the summer heat.

From windows and rooftops, cheering crowds toast

with their brunch Bellinis and Bloody Marys.

On a 5^th floor perch at the corner of Bleecker, a man with confetti blesses the crowd below.

We walk this parade route, sharing sidewalks with ghosts, both living and dead:

There are no monuments to that lost generation of artists.

The survivors, no longer emaciated – saved by their cocktails.

These muscled torsos on spindly legs walk with the gait of wounded birds.

Their weary eyes and sunken cheeks tell the history more freely than their mouths.

We forget what it was like to be so scared.

Making our way down Christopher, herded like cattle to the street fair on Hudson.

Promotional tents for film and TV; samples of snacks and fruity drinks –

with acceptance comes the term “marketable demographic” as the former pariahs have

deep pockets and money to burn.

Booths for dating services, pet care and enterprising wedding planners – a first!

A Wheel of Fortune carnival game: step right up and win some porn!

Stickers and posters advertise the Real Housewives of No Place Real.

Underwear-clad go-go boys flirt as they pass out condoms and lube.

Young lovers embrace – that overwhelming first love. Out in the open for all to see.

Too young to have known the fear, the loss, the magnitude of the shame.

Celebrating side by side with those old enough to remember

when the bullied and beaten didn’t ask why, and didn’t tell.

They took what was given – they were told they deserved it.

With words and in silence in one hundred different ways.

Now we know better.

And the world is not perfect on this day,

but we are closer now than we have ever been before.

That’s So Gay.

Meditation On A Theme kicked off Gay Pride Month at The Center on June 2, 2017. The theme was That’s So Gay. Here’s what I had to say:

It snuck up on me recently when I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t know how this happened…. but the calendar says that I came out 30 years ago. Is this a milestone that people keep track of and celebrate? What is the anniversary stone or fiber that should be gifted in celebration of declaring yourself a homo for 30 years? Tobacco? Taffeta?

1986 thtr arts I can’t pinpoint the exact date when this occurred – I got the boyfriend and then started to come out to friends and family. It was the spring of 1987. I was 18 and a senior in high school, which was uncommonly young for people of my generation and average-to-late for younger people. A friend of mine from college now has a 10-year-old trans child. When I came out, I felt like a trailblazer. Now I feel like I wasted a few years. On the other hand, my partner Chris was a late bloomer and I don’t want to make him feel bad, so I’ll just say we all move at our own pace.

We watched the ABC miniseries When We Rise that aired in February. It didn’t get a whole lot of fanfare – people on Facebook either loved or hated it. But for Christ sake, we’re talking about a prime time 4-night miniseries on broadcast network television about the history of the gay rights movement. That’s something, right? It also helped me to dust off some cobwebs and have a look back at when I first came out. Chris is quite curious to learn about our history over the past 50 years and while he sometimes beats himself up about what he doesn’t know, I remind him that he’s a lot more knowledgeable than a lot of younger people. And when I say this, I picture some generic air-headed twink who doesn’t realize that gay history goes back further than season 1 of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Bette Joan

This applies not just to the history of gay activism, but to gay icons and the history of camp as well. Thank god for Ryan Murphy and his FX show Feud – the younger generation has now discovered Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. I’m afraid for the moment that Garbo and Dietrich are shit out of luck.

Before

Together Chris and I have watched many of the documentaries that were integral to my coming out process and understanding of gay history. We watched the 1984 documentary Before Stonewall. I sat with my computer nearby and as each interview subject appeared onscreen (and that includes Ms. Audre Lorde herself) I would Google their names to see if they were still alive. Only one or two are left. And some of them lived to ages in their nineties, but the documentary is now 33 years old. Again, it’s just that passage of time that has gotten away from me.

I know this is going to sound ridiculous but … I forget that everyone continues getting older, even when I am not paying attention. It’s like the first time I was at a beach house in the wintertime. And I went for a walk on the beach in the snow at 4 am and I thought “My GOD! The waves are crashing on the shore all the time!” It’s one of those moments that I smack myself in the head and go … “Well, of course they do, you idiot. Of course they do.” And so… my Captain Obvious Statement of Stupidity is… time just keeps marching on. And before you know it, a generation is gone and you are moving one seat down to make room for the younger ones.

Word-is-out-1977 We watched the 1977 documentary The Word Is Out. It holds up well – this was a groundbreaking documentary for its time. There’s a remastered DVD version that I highly recommend, with updates on the cast, which had a lower mortality rate than Before Stonewall, which came years later.

HMilkPoster I noticed something interesting while revisiting these documentaries, as well as The Times of Harvey Milk. I hadn’t watched these in many many years. Certain people would appear onscreen and I would remember how I felt about them but I couldn’t remember exactly why. I’d say “Oooh I love her! Ugh I hate him.” …without remembering what it was that they were about to say or do. I started to realize that some people who rubbed me the wrong way as a 20-year-old viewer seem perfectly fine to me now that I am 48.

wordisout01 Some of it is due to a changing view on life or love or recognizing the defensive stance that previous generations might take when openly discussing their sexuality. But I also realized this: I had a low tolerance for effeminacy when I was just coming out. Yes, I was fine with being gay but I wanted to be the one to TELL you that I was gay. I didn’t want you to be able to guess. And someone who was flamboyant was not my cup of tea. I was also an actor and effeminacy was the last thing you wanted anyone to detect. AND this was during the AIDS crisis, of course, and I think that, in my not completely enlightened brain, this inability or unwillingness to hide also broadcast that you HAD it. I know how ridiculous that sounds. I would like to sit down with my younger self and talk about it.

When did this change? I assume it was gradual. But there was one moment that sprung to mind. And I had written about it in an essay called The Bus Stop back in 2005. Bush Jr. was inexplicably elected for a second term and I was feeling pretty disgusted with the conservative portion of the country that would vote for that simpleton. And then we took two steps forward, and one giant step back… and here we are… and now George W doesn’t seem like the worst choice in the world, does he?

The Bus Stop was supposed to be my first published work. It was accepted into a gay anthology that collapsed before the book made it to publication. One thing I must say before I read this: I apologize in advance for anything perceived as racially insensitive. But this is where I was at the time:

3rd ave uptown I was on my way to work one morning, waiting for the uptown bus on Third Avenue at 9^th street. It was a frigid 8 degrees that day – I was all bundled up in a hat, scarf, gloves, and bomber jacket. Nothing flamboyant. Nothing extraordinary.

I turned around and saw this 250lb black kid come out of the deli followed by his three skinny little girlfriends. They were young – probably around 13 or so. The linebacker would have passed for much older but the loud immature behavior was a dead giveaway.

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He flings the door open yelling “We in the Village. The Village is gay. Let’s get out of here. Gay people live here.”

Now… to be honest, this kid seemed pretty light in his linebacker loafers. Granted, he was young, but given his size, puberty had paid a big visit. Yet, the voice was pretty high, and the inflection had those telltale signs. And here he was, hangin’ with the girls down in the Village. It was so blatantly obnoxious that I thought perhaps he already did know that he was gay and that this was some sort of a joke that he was making with his friends.

M103 bus I had only glanced over as they came out the door. I’m a New Yorker. Direct eye contact can be considered an overt act of aggression. You get used to it. So I heard these comments over my shoulder as I peered down the street, praying for the bus to come.

The behemoth continued. “This place is where gay people live. I want to get out of here. Look at him. He’s GAY.”

In an instant, I was 13 years old again on a junior high school playground. I could feel their eyes burning into the back of me. He had to be talking about me. We were alone on this stretch of street. There was nobody else he could be referring to.

The teen flashback only lasted a moment. Because I am not 13 anymore. I am in my thirties, and I am angry. My next impulse was to turn around and say… “Are you black? Do I need to point out that you are black? Yes, I’m gay. What ARE you gonna do about it?”

This didn’t seem like a smart thing to say to a brutish man-child who did not yet know his newly acquired strength. Besides, in front of his friends, he’d really have to prove himself, and he’d snap me like a twig. Or clock me over the head with his box of scam-candy.

The impulse to confront passed. I heard my mother say “Stay above it. Don’t stoop to his level.” So I did what I would have done when I was 13 years old. I ignored it. I stood there.

I started wondering what could have tipped him off. As I said, eye contact was minimal. I wasn’t even paying attention at that point. Age, gender – it didn’t matter. I started to examine my clothes. No bright colors or patterns. Too neat? I hadn’t said anything, so I can’t blame the voice. This time. I wasn’t dancing pirouettes singing show tunes. Was it my earring? The little tuft of gelled hair sticking out from under my hat? (I had more hair then. And hair products.)

Then I stopped myself. Did it matter? Why was I dissecting myself over this? So what if he could or couldn’t tell! Why SHOULD I have to cover my tracks? Why couldn’t I be a big ole fag, in 2005, waiting for a bus in Greenwich fucking Village and NOT have to worry about some dickhead whupping my ass because he couldn’t deal with his own burgeoning sexuality?

The kids were now beating the crap out of each other, smacking their drinks out of each other’s hands as they waited for the same bus that I had been praying would show up already.

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Finally, it arrived. This crew pushed their way onto the bus first. I thought about waiting for the next one. But no – let them get on first and then I could make sure I sat as far from away as possible.

Surprise, surprise. Something’s wrong with gay linebacker’s bus pass. He starts arguing with the driver, and they’re all kicked off before they can even get on. As I board the bus, the driver is yelling “I’d have let you go ahead if you hadn’t mouthed off at me.”

As the bus door closed, I turned to the crew, smiled sweetly and waved my gayest little Marlo Thomas wave. That Girl really pissed them off.

that girl

The bus began to pull away, and they ran alongside screaming and giving me the finger. I returned the gesture with one hand while blowing little kisses with the other, hoping that the boy would think of this moment for a long time to come. I wanted him to remember my face, and the faces of every gay person that he had ever caused any trouble. I hoped they kept him awake at night as he tried to understand why he wanted the guy who sat next to him in English class to fuck him and why his family raised him to behave this way and why they hated what he secretly was. Alan Helms

I sat down and continued reading a book I’d started earlier in the week: Alan Helms’ memoir Young Man From The Provinces: A Gay Life Before Stonewall.

We don’t have to put up with this shit anymore.

So – that was written 12 years ago. And magically, we no longer had to put up with that shit anymore, right? Yay! Two steps forward, and hopefully now only one step back.

I just had another one of those time passage / epiphany moments, as I realized that the kids in this story are now twice as old. It was half a lifetime ago for them. They are in their 20’s now. Maybe the girls have kids. Maybe that boy was ON RuPaul’s Drag Race. Who knows? The thing is – I’m not mad anymore. I hope he sorted himself out. I hope his family doesn’t hate him. I hope he has a good support system. And I hope by now that he would want to sit down with his younger self and talk about it.

My Fellow Americans…

What follows is the piece I read for Meditation On A Theme at the Gay & Lesbian Center in New York City on December 16, 2016. The theme was ‘My Fellow Americans…’ All of the pieces that night dealt with the election results. The response in the room was really enthusiastic – moreso than for anything else I had previously presented. I had every intention of posting it here, but procrastinated. Now, over a month later on Inauguration Day, I’m not sure if I am posting it too late. Or too soon. Maybe it’s the perfect day to do it. I don’t know. Here it is:

thisi I don’t even know what to say – in the end I thought I would get up here and just walk around shaking my head and doing different shrugs for 10 minutes. This is what I feel like I do all day since the election.

Honestly, I did not want to come here tonight. When I write for Meditation On A Theme, I immerse myself in the material and think about it 24/7, for better or for worse. That’s the only way I know how to get to the meat of the matter. I totally creeped myself out with the Kitty Genovese murder I talked about last time I was here. I was afraid to walk alone at night in my neighborhood. Cuz, ya know, I’m such a delicate young thing.

But here we have a topic that is forcing me to face the very thing that I have been trying to avoid for the past 6 weeks. I’m one of those people who watches the morning news, the evening news, the 11 o’clock news and the rest of the time, if there is nothing good on TV, then I switch on MSNBC or CNN… while I’m scrolling around the internet. That all changed on Election night when I turned off the TV around 11:00 pm. Things weren’t looking good and I just knew how this was going to end up. At 3:00 am I woke up and looked at my phone – there was a CNN headline on a black background that just said “President Trump.” And I put the phone down. And I couldn’t sleep. And I stayed off Facebook for a couple of days. I put the TV on an environmental music channel. Who knew Enya was still a thing? I didn’t want to hear any more talking about the election. Because with all this talking, we still ended up here. He won… No. He is perceived to have won. No amount of talking bobble head media analysis was going to change that. I just wanted everyone to just shut the fuck up. Well… now a little time has passed and I’ve eased back into it all a bit, but still… coming here tonight to talk about it was not my idea of a good time.

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And then I thought I had the hook into the ‘My Fellow Americans..’ theme: Four years ago I was on a jury for a murder trial – 6 weeks I spent on that case. Both sides agreed that the guy committed the murder and that he had a history of mental illness… the debate was whether he was guilty or not guilty by reason of insanity. Almost every juror started deliberations feeling as I did – that he was guilty. But one by one the jurors started getting coerced by these two jurors who muddled up the facts of the case and kept sharing their own personal experiences with schizophrenics, which was completely unethical. And there were jurors who were willing to compromise and vote for acquittal just to end the trial “for the victims of the family, who had suffered long enough.” But I don’t think any victim’s family would be happy with a not guilty verdict that was compromised just for closure…. and you start to question how these jurors who have seen the same thing you have seen and heard the testimony and saw the evidence and can turn around and completely say the exact opposite of the truth. Of what you KNOW is true. And you start to think: Something is not right here. What is going ON here? Is it me? And this year, as this election progressed, I would see these completely fake news stories and watch these fucking Trump spokespeople twist the truth… not even TWIST the truth but just out and out LIE about things that that asshat had said on LIVE television just minutes before. And then people on Facebook would either believe it…. or dismiss the whole thing. And I kept feeling like I was back in that jury room. And you start to wonder if you stepped into some bizarro world where common sense is out the window.

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But there was this one other person in the deliberation room… this one female juror – early 20’s, very quiet, very stylish. And as the numbers shifted from 10 for guilty and 2 not guilty and then it was 8-4, and then 5-7… and we’d catch each other’s eye, like… what the hell is going here? And we started sticking together for the sake of sanity, and looked to each other for strength and stuck to our guns and said… NO. This isn’t right. This is NOT right. It was just like 12 Angry Men, but in reverse.

And this is how I have felt watching all this – like that jury room was this microcosm – this cross section of society. We ended in a hung jury and then the following year, a different jury convicted the guy. But unfortunately, for all of us here and now, there is no hung presidential election. There is no do-over. We all just look at each other and shrug and shake our heads…

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So that was topic #1, and then I went back to the theme and thought about it. “We the people.” When I did go back to Facebook… MY Facebook, that is. See – that’s what you have to do – you have to make it your own. You control your settings – you control what you subject yourself to and what you don’t. You need to feel free to send people to the cornfield, as it were. Banish them to Bogeyland.

In recent years I reconnected with a lot people from my childhood and teen years. The number of Facebook friends I have from high school is much larger than the number of friends I actually HAD in high school. And when you are talking about music or TV or posting pics of your dinner or your pets or your pets’ dinner, it’s easy to think that everybody’s awesome and wonder… why weren’t we closer friends back then? Well… not anymore. Stupid stupid people who never got the HELL off Long Island and fell for this orange buffoon’s line of garbage and believe all that Breitbart bullshit and forward fake news all over the goddamn place. Unfollow unfollow unfriend unfriend block block BLOCK.

And this one dipshit was one of the people right after the election who posted that pic of Trump at the rally with the rainbow flag with LGBT FOR TRUMP scrawled on it (The flag was UPSIDE DOWN but neither Cheeto Voldemort nor his flunkies knew or cared. They just told him to hold it up for 20 seconds and the unwashed masses would eat it up. Sure enough, they fucking did.)

this

So this former friend who I never really liked too much anyway is one of those whose voting obviously upset some gay person in his life. He was re-posting that pic with the message “I voted for him, but we got your back. Nothing bad is going to happen to your rights.” And the problem right there is that… well, there are several problems, really. Really? You think you have power? ANY power over that? And you really think so little of the gay people in your life and your hatred of Hillary is so intense that you are willing to jeopardize MY rights? Or the reproductive rights of any female you know? Because it’s ultimately secondary to you. It’s not important enough for you. *Unfriend* Goodbye! To the cornfield with you!

this-is-n

I don’t care about these people. Just let them go. Make your Facebook your own, because you have to stay present with what is going on. Fill your newsfeed with people who you want to converse with. Debate if you want. I’ll debate with likeminded people who have differences of opinion on how to handle this mess, but I’m through with calling this a level playing field for everyone anymore. As quickly as I make people go away, I find more reasonable people to associate with.

I have no time or interest in continuing to address people who say shit like “Now you know how I’ve felt for the past 8 years.” Really? You were scared for your safety? Was the legality of your marriage ever in jeopardy? Your healthcare? Your reproductive rights? What manufactured fear of your rights were you afraid for, which didn’t even happen? Everybody’s still got their guns that Obama was supposedly coming for. These people under the delusion of “Fox News thinking” believe that Obama was the worst president ever. They wouldn’t give him credit for the lowered gas prices, but you can bet they’d blame him if gas prices were sky-high. And DO you care about the environment AT ALL? Such nonsense.

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Maybe I’ve missed this but here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. Wouldn’t you LOVE to see the stats on who just doesn’t bother to file taxes this year? What kind of example has been set? Just don’t pay your taxes! And what does it say to people when every single cabinet appointment is about nepotism and paying back a buddy who donated money and there are NO qualifications? What does that do to the psyche of Our Fellow Americans? The most experienced, qualified presidential candidate EVER has been bested by the most inept charlatan ever to run for the office. I still will not say he won. This election was stolen. Fuck them. It’s not my president, or yours. I have no respect for that office when the Republicans had no respect for it for the past 8 years.

If you voted for that windbag piece of shit, I’m sorry, but you’re out. It’s a waste of my time. So you make them go away. But we can’t just unplug from what’s going on. We have to pay attention.

I’m not just talking about Facebook – use whatever platform you want. When I say Facebook, more often than not I’m referring to links to opinion pieces on other sites. There have been plenty of times in the past few weeks when I didn’t know what to say, or I couldn’t find the words to express how I was feeling, and it was the words of other people that made me feel validated.

Right after the election John Oliver said you need to put this on a post-it. This is not normal. Put it on your fridge – read it every day. They are going to try to normalize his behavior. Don’t let them. Do not get to a place where this is “normal” to you. This is not. Normal. I see this every day and I post this often. I have a .jpg of a post-it that says This is not normal. And I keep it on my desktop and use it as commentary frequently.

this-is-not-normal

I know that it’s preaching to the choir but sometimes you HAVE to, for your own sake and theirs. Sometimes you have to raise your voice to remind yourself what it sounds like and to know that you still can.

So I have two mantras: This Is Not Normal. And the other is this: She won the popular vote. She. Won. When you can’t stand the thought of all that hate out there and feeling like a majority of the people voted for this clown, remember – she won the popular vote by 2.8 million. That’s higher than the population of 14 different states. We are the majority.

this-is-no

“For the sake of our children and our families and our country, I ask you to stay engaged, stay engaged on every level. We need you. America needs you. Your energy, your ambition, your talent. That’s how we get through this. That’s how we help to make our contributions to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. America is worth it. Our children are worth it. Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up.” —Hillary

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