“Dancing With Tina” Synopsis By Terry Oldes

“Dancing With Tina” by Terry Oldes

“Dancing With Tina” is a brutally honest tale about Crystal Meth use in the gay community. Filled with humor, tragedy and crucial information about the drug and its effects, it’s meant to touch, entertain, and educate.

Author Terry Oldes, a thirty –six year old HIV positive man and former Mister Gay Iowa now living in Chicago, writes of having broke up with the latest in a series of co-dependent relationships, only to find himself falling for another one right away. After the relationship reaches a confusing and melodramatic close, Terry realizes the man was addicted to the number-one problem drug in the gay community: Crystal Meth, or as it’s known on the street, “TINA.”

He starts dabbling in the drug himself and meets hundreds of fellow users. At first he thinks he’s merely having fun; his drug-influenced sexual revelry lifts him out of his intense codependency, a byproduct of having been adopted into a dysfunctional, rural Iowa family where child abuse was common. The drug eventually takes hold, causing his life to spiral out of control. He holds an overdosing man in his arms, another man he encounters murders a cab driver in a nationally reported incident. Paranoia consumes his life and makes him occasionally suicidal. Terry is befriended by Eric, a married man going through a divorce and from Eric he learns much more about the dark side of Meth, for Eric is one of its most notorious users in Chicago’s drug community. Eric turns out to be the best friend of Terry’s Meth-addicted former lover.

After a nervous breakdown in Palm Springs involving paranoia, Terry realizes he has to walk away from Crystal Meth. Slowly he weans himself off the drug, while continuing to study the behavior of other users. He proceeds to become a lecturer on Meth abuse, actively helping others understand the drug’s dangers and why they need to stay away from it. Having survived his own ride through Hell, Terry settles down with a new partner, finally overcoming the codependency issues that have plagued him all his life. Eric eventually conquers his own addiction, helping hundreds of others through twelve-step support programs while still paying the price for his past.

Extreme as it may seem to many readers, Terry’s story is all too common in the gay community. His non-judgmental tale will enlighten others as to what may lie ahead of them if they try Crystal Meth; it is also sure to give current users hope that they too can conquer addiction.  

Don’t Tell Mama I met Ethel Mertz’s Husband’s Lover

Don't Tell Mama. What a fantastic name for a bar. The only one funnier I can think of would be, Your Father's In the Backroom.

DTM is a cabaret/piano bar in the theater district of Manhattan and I can't really say it's a gay bar, since I've seen many heterosexuals there, but it certainly is a place where all are welcome.

It isn't a drag bar either, although every time I've visited it was to see a female impersonator named Tommy Femia and although to some it might be semantics, there is no way I would think of him as just Judy Garland "drag".

Some die hard Judy fans didn't care for him, but as with any entertainer who inspired a cult-like following, a few people get absolutely rabid if you even suggest the person passed gas. Lighten up. If someone is in the public eye, everyone is going to have an opinion about their behavior, so you may as well have a sense of humor.

I've never heard Bess Truman fans getting worked up over such things.

Contrary to the bar's name, if she was still alive I would have told Mama. I would even have brought Mama, since for some reason she loved female impersonators. Where that all came from I have no idea, it's not as if in rural Iowa we had Farmer Jones running down the street in a Bob Mackie original every day.

Tommy sang live and while he didn't sound much like Judy, his patter on the mike and his obvious love for the subject I found entertaining since I had been to DTM about five times over the years. He was always nice and friendly after the show, even going so far as to introduce me to his Mama, a little blonde lady who squeezed your hand so hard you wouldn't be embarrassed to tell her anything.

"How wonderful to see you again," she'd say, even though I'm sure she didn't remember me from Adam.

Each time I stopped in there would always be something memorable. One time it involved Tommy sitting on Scottie's lap, playing with his bald head and mentioning how much he liked billiards.

Another time a long line of people waiting to get in the club had to part to let us through, since we had reservations. Scott and I made our way past the crowd, the two of us wearing sunglasses (at night, how full of ourselves as role playing hayseeds were we?) Everyone thought we actually were somebody famous.

"They must be important, they got right in," one guy whispered.

Scott turned around and ruined it, "Oh, we're the Lufts!" thinking they might get the "in" joke and actually know the name of Judy Garland's third husband.

All I heard was some blonde girl in her twenties ask, "Who the hell are the Lufts?"

After taking off his makeup, Tommy and I chatted in the back bar and it always felt like old home week at DTM, with anyone welcome to just sit down and introduce themselves. Perhaps it was his Mama who gave it that feeling, but I always felt I was going to walk out with a casserole or something like back in Iowa.

Tommy introduced me to one of the bartenders, who was also a singer. I recognized him from the Off-Broadway show Whoop-Dee-Doo which he had been in with Tommy.

As we sat and had a beer, he told me about a piano bar he used to work at in the village and how Diane Schurr came in once after-hours. All the employees were actors/singers, so they did an impromptu set for Ms. Schurr and for some God-awful reason, he sang a song called, "If You Play With Yourself You'll Go Blind."

It wasn't until he finished the first chorus he realized his mistake. (In case you didn't know, Diane Schurr is blind). He told me he wanted to crawl under the table.

"Talk about stopping the show! Every employee in that place had their jaw on the floor and my song went over like a lead balloon. Luckily, she was a good sport about it.

"After apologizing, she laughingly said, 'Don't worry about it, and in case you're wondering, I didn't get this way by playing with myself.'"

Another time I was seated at a table with a gay couple and afterwards we joked and talked, getting to know each other. As we cackled, somehow the subject of Vivian Vance came up, the actress who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy. I'm sure I brought it up, gotta slip those little passions of life in every conversation I possibly can.

The younger man looked at his partner and nudged his elbow. "Go ahead. Tell him."

The older one asked, "Do you know who John Dodds was?"

I can honestly say I've never been asked that in a bar, and yes I am a freak, because I knew who he was talking about.

I replied, "Yeah, he was Vivian Vance's last husband. He was supposedly gay, but their relationship worked out anyway in spite of that."

The man continued, "After Vivian died, John came out of the closet and he was my first lover. We were together until he passed away. I still have a few of Vivian's things he left me, including a small piece of furniture given to her by Tallulah Bankhead when she was on the show as a guest star."

Wow, I never would have expected to hear this in a bar. Of course, I asked tons of questions since I'm a classic movie/TV geek, but I didn't pry about gossipy stuff. I knew about the gay issue already, and apparently so did Vivian Vance, from what I'd read in biographies.

The story this man told me was very touching and he seemed to have honestly been in love with John Dodds. He spoke of how wonderful their relationship had been, yet how much Dodds really cared about Vivian also. Their marriage had worked, even though Dodds was gay.

Stories such as these opened my eyes that I shouldn't be too judgmental about anyone's choices, be it a Judy Garland female impersonator or an unconventional marriage. To each his own, although I am still thankful I never had to give my closet door much more than a slight push at twenty-one for everything to fall out. Nothing wrong with showing a little humor with these tales, but still, it's all good.

Rather than Don't Tell Mama, perhaps it should have been called, Don't Tell Ethel…

Part Two-Gays 'N Gators

Spot was a gator. 

Chris, a spectator.

Spot jumped from the deep,

And Chris took a leap,

Cuz Spot thought Chris was a potater.

Chris did fly down to Florida a few days later and we headed for a place I knew he would enjoy, the Everglades. As a child, I would have been bored with a swamp, but now that I was older and had read Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ book, “The River of Grass”, I was just as excited about seeing it as Chris. Not everything in a national park has to be epic and huge, and anyone who thinks the Everglades is simply a swamp is grossly misinformed because it really is a river, just one that moves at one meter per hour.

Chris’ big passion was global warming and the entire region was one big, delicate science experiment, slowly disappearing due to the encroachment of man. Although I was used to giant mountains and rock formations, here we were forced to notice the little things struggling for life.

You would think I’d get a little tired seeing alligators on this trip, but I never did and the excitement I felt at my first sighting continued with about two hundred more of them as the trip went on. At several points, I even made Chris stop the car so I could pick out the large, motionless lumps lying there in the stagnant water like logs and I was happy to have a partner who not only consented to pull over but actually suggested it too. 

Because the Everglades were in the dry season, one of the only areas that actually looked like a swamp were the old canals dug at the turn of the century. Since the wildlife didn’t care, who was I to pass up a good viewing spot? Walking down a boardwalk and marveling at the largest bees I’d ever seen, I noticed grasshoppers with colors like the rainbow and sizes that made you wonder if they could carry off a small kitten.

As I continued, suddenly something hissed underneath me. The water line was three feet below and as I leaned out over the edge, I could make out something scaly and black underneath. It hissed again, just like a cat, and as I stood right over the alligator and peered through the cracks in the floorboards, it let out a huge roar worthy of a lion, the wooden boards vibrating. Wide eyed and thrilled, I ran to get Chris and hauled him over for a repeat performance, but all we got were more hisses.

 After a long day of hiking every mahogany grove we could find and a boat tour around the coastal waters, Chris was worn out, so we headed back to the hotel outside the park. He relaxed, but I was just too excited to sit there and read or watch TV. Hell, the wildlife in the Everglades was twice as interesting as the wildlife up in St. Petersburg. I could see drag queens and exposed behinds anywhere, how often did I have the opportunity to get close to an alligator?

So, I drove back into the park around sunset, taking a left turn into the Royal Palm area, where I had heard the reptilian bullhorn early that day. Because the sun was setting, the colors were glorious with clouds a fluffy pink and white cotton candy against more blue than you’d think any sky could be.

I only passed two people on the entire boardwalk and by the time I reached the furthest ends of it, the sky had grown dark, everywhere around me was nothing but silence. I heard a light splashing underneath and as I walked over, noticed an 8 foot alligator slowly swimming away from the boardwalk. So calm and creepy, it moved just a little bit faster than the ones this morning. Once forty feet away, it turned around and quietly submerged, staying down for about thirty seconds.

Coming back up again, ten feet closer, just as I was about to continue walking, a second massive alligator rose up next to the first one. As the two swam towards me, I could see this was a huge bull, about eleven feet long. I knew what I was witnessing, I’d read about it in books while preparing for my trip. They were going through the mating ritual.

The bull nudged the female with his nose, patting the top of her snout, like he was playing, and soon she climbed onto him and rode around for awhile, piggy back. He rolled over, the female twirling with him several times. Then they submerged for a minute, came back up and continued the courtship. It was almost like watching a ballet, with subtleties and nuances I never imagined an alligator could show.

Twice more they repeated the pattern before the female swam in the opposite direction and the male got the hint she was done, disappearing himself into the water to look for another member of his harem.

One of the most vivid, beautiful images I’ve ever witnessed, it was totally unexpected, with the darkness descending, like walking into a wildlife documentary.

Chris was jealous once I got back to the hotel, but what was I supposed to do? Tell the gators, “Hold on! Let me run and get Chris so he can watch you mate too! Here, let me put a little Barry White on the turntable to keep you in the mood…”

 Besides the Alligator porn I witnessed, the other unexpected highlight of Florida was on the Seminole Indian Reservation. We were staying overnight in a tourist attraction called, “Billie Swamp Safari”, about eighty miles north of the park. Although the surrounding area was farmland, canals and small wetlands still helped move the water to the Everglades watershed and the Seminoles had built this large tourist destination of swamp buggies, air boats and animal shows.

All the buildings were thatched, with fenced-in pits containing crocodiles, alligators, turtles, even a brown bear and a rare Florida panther. Taking an air boat tour, we raced through the canals and swamps at top speed, skimming over the water like a dragonfly.

As we reached a really deep section, the operator pulled the boat slowly into shore and idled in one spot as a group of Arkansas Razorbacks raced down to the edge of the water, since they knew what was going to happen. About fifteen huge alligators knew also, because they slowly swarmed next to the boat, causing many of the passengers to lean back in horror at their proximity.

One alligator stuck both his head and the tip of his tail out of the water, staring directly at a terrified woman, his mouth wide open like he was expecting her for supper.

The driver said, “Hell, ain’t nothin’ to be scared of, just keep your arms and legs in the boat and don’t try to pet ‘em,” and he took out a bag of dog food, throwing several handfuls into the water and on the shore.

The pigs raced to get the food, and the alligators snatched at the pellets in the water, but I couldn’t believe a pig would stand just two feet away from an alligator, happily munching down dog food. Although I was expecting a real blood bath, each animal left the other alone, and I had to laugh at one tiny little piglet, about twenty feet away, high on the bank, nervous and shivering. There was no way he was going to get that close.

In a national park, you’d never catch a ranger throwing dog food to them, but here on the reservation it seemed anything goes. Use common sense, respect them and they’ll respect you, if you want to wear your life jacket go ahead, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Such laid back rules and friendliness made it feel like we were floating around Grandpa’s farm, only Grandpa had ten foot alligators rather than complacent cows and horses.

 Since we were staying overnight, we decided to check in and drop off our luggage at the thatch chickee hut on poles we’d be sleeping in, a traditional residence for the original Seminoles. At first, they put us deep within a forest, secluded on both sides by vegetation, but that wasn’t good enough for me. Going back into the main building, we told the clerk we wanted a hut overlooking the water.

“Sure, if you’d like, we just thought you might want a little privacy. Besides, most folks are scared to be near the gators, last week we had to move one family since there was one hangin’ out underneath the stairs.”

Like a five year old, I enthusiastically replied, “No, we want to be near the alligators!” so they found us a hut that had a “resident” alligator who hung around near the back deck.

Mosquito netting over the beds, spider webs in the ceiling and rickety doors that only locked with a padlock, as I walked around back, sure enough, there was the alligator just lying there in the water, probably used to being fed by visiting tourists.

Yes, I’m weird, but I named him Spot, since he looked up at me just like a dog, a slight reptilian smile on his face. Stupidly holding my camera directly above this six foot alligator, I caught a good shot of him, my image clearly reflected in the water.

 During our daytime swamp buggy tour through the cypress hammocks we learned more about medicinal plants than we ever wanted to know, since the place was so dry wildlife seldom congregated back there. The tour guide, a really gregarious Native-American, made what could have been a really boring ride through vegetation into a trip through the world of a Seminole medicine woman.

We then attended an informative show on poisonous snakes hosted by a gatorman named Glenn, whose long blond hair and gruff no nonsense enthusiasm reminded you of an old west cowboy, only he broke gators, not horses.

Glenn ended up being our host for the rest of the night, sitting us down after the snake show in another hut to tell Seminole stories in front of a large crackling campfire. After an hour of laughter and stories Mark Twain would have been hard pressed to come up with, Glenn took us on our last tour. A nighttime swamp buggy ride through the same territory we’d traveled during the day, but this time, it was different.

Chris and I were the only people on this tour, and once Glenn found out our sincere interest in wildlife and ecology, he let down that tour guide persona and turned into a good ole boy showing his friends the Florida back country.

The moon completely full, it lit up the surrounding area and you could see everywhere, even with the headlights off, which he extinguished every once and awhile. At one point, he stopped the swamp buggy cold, the engine completely dead, and we sat there in the moonlight, whispering, since he had told us about a panther sighting a few days previous and if we were lucky, maybe we’d see it.

The only thing missing was a six pack of beer while he told us stories of gator wrestling and his past. We never did find a panther, but we passed ostriches, bison, gazelle and all kinds of other exotic creatures. Although they weren’t native to Florida, the Seminoles figured the more wildlife the better.

As he started the engine Glenn didn’t tell me to sit down like the earlier tour of twenty people had been instructed to do. He just said, “It’s okay if you stand up, you’ll get a better view that way, just yell if you see something and we’ll head over in that direction!”

He even gave Chris the mobile floodlight, helping him look for specks of reflected light in the distance that may be eyes, and just perhaps, a panther.

While he was only supposed to give us an hour tour, we stayed out there for two, and he even took us to an area the tours weren’t supposed to go while we spent ten minutes looking through a swamp for a giant alligator named “One Eye”, so named for the obvious reason. By now, I was holding the light and I suddenly caught a glimpse of something scaly and huge, lying there in the water. Moving the light over, there he was, the biggest, most menacing gator I’d ever seen in the wild, probably about twelve feet long.

Heading back to the compound, the light hit twenty pairs of red eyes and once closer, we realized it was a herd of water buffalo lazing about in water up to their necks, while beyond, the sinister eyes of hidden reptiles shown like silver dollars.

The night felt like a naturalist’s treasure hunt, and you could tell Glenn was enthused he got a couple of nuts from the north just as interested in all this as he was. I’m sure he usually got a bunch of rowdy families who wanted the wildlife to come to them, not the other way around.

I couldn’t help myself, and when he shook my hand I gave him a twenty dollar tip, saying, “I can’t thank you enough, that was the best damn thing I’ve done all vacation!” smiling from ear to ear as he gave us a huge smile back.

 Walking towards our hut, I dropped Chris off and continued on to use the restroom. There were only three other people staying at the place that evening, a married couple and the night watchman. It was thrilling to actually walk through these compounds by myself and when I shone the flashlight into a pen, have a giant captive crocodile open its mouth threateningly.

I was a little nervous the lurking panther in the neighborhood might show up in front of me, but Glenn had said, in his no nonsense way, “Don’t be scared of ‘em and don’t run, then you just look like a big mouse to ‘em. Try to make yourself look tough and large, in the end it ain’t nothin’ but a big cat anyway…” This from the guide who told us that a couple of days before one of the other guides had to be rescued when she came face to face with the feline in the dark, looking like it was gonna pounce.

Heading to the toilet never felt quite so adventurous as that night.

Unfortunately, the only thing loose I encountered walking back were mosquitoes, all the other dangers safely locked behind wire and mesh. Half anticipating that around every corner, behind every bush, would be a large crouching panther.

I was a bit disappointed once I reached the hut empty handed. Crawling under the mosquito netting in my bed, I laid there for ten minutes, listening to the splash of an occasional gator, the hum of insects and the far off call of birds. I fell asleep as happy and content as I’ve ever been.

 The next morning I checked on Spot, who was fine, and Chris and I went to breakfast. An hour later when we returned, Chris headed to the back deck holding a water bottle. Soon I heard him say, “Terry come look at this…” then suddenly “Oh, shit!!” and the sudden splash of water.

Running back to the deck, there was Chris, arms spread wide and jeans covered with water. His face pale as a ghost, he had a look of surprise, yet he was halfway smiling.

The water below was still sending out ripples from where Spot had apparently been begging for the water bottle like a dog would, when he suddenly jumped four feet up to snatch it out of Chris’ hands. Luckily, Chris’ reflexes were better than Spot’s and he backed away just in time.

“Shit!” Chris exclaimed, “That was pretty stupid of me, but man, that was cool! He was just hovering there for a minute, then bam! He came up after that water bottle!”

“You weren’t teasing him with it were you? It’s just a water bottle, it’s not food.”

“No, I was just holding the bottle by my side, I’m not stupid! He must have thought it was a treat, because it almost cost me an arm and a leg!”

 All I could think of was I had held a digital camera four feet above Spot’s head naively thinking, “Wow, what a great shot.”

An idiot, I am completely and undeniably...an idiot.

Part One - Gays N' Gators

Florida.Sunshine, beaches, fairy tale castles, killer whales, big bugs, alligators, panthers, drag queens, muscle studs with more ripples than the Gulf of Mexico and then there’s…me.

Florida was never, ever on my family’s list of destinations. They believed there wasn’t a damn thing east of the Mississippi worth seeing. Like the Beverly Hillbillies, they always thought “Californy is the place to be…”

I first explored the state on my own as an adult, when I was twenty-nine and like the suave sophisticate I am, I remember standing on the beach behind the Parliament House, a cruisy popular gay resort in Orlando, talking to some handsome guy.

Did I say, “How’s it going?”

Did I ask, “So, are you from here or just visiting?”

How about, “Can I buy you a drink at the courtyard bar?”

No, I said, “Do you think there are any alligators in this lake?”

The guy gave me a weird look, said, “I don’t know, maybe…” and walked away, looking for a trick who obviously wasn’t into the “Discovery Channel”.

 I went there twice more, both times with my ex, Peter and his fun family, who gave Mickey and the gang a run for their money when it came to cartoonish behavior. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Goofy and Donald came up to them and asked for theirautographs.

 Now, in the spring of 2007, it was Chris and I heading to the land of citrus and swamps. Because of his hip problems, Chris had no desire to be thrown around by huge metal monsters while I screamed in sheer joyful terror, so I flew down first for a few days by myself to take on take some of the amusement parks. Chris would fly in and we’d do a few other things that didn’t entail smiling mice and roller coasters.

I swam with an energetic forty year old Dolphin, dived amongst the sting rays at Discovery Cove and since it was owned by Anheiser Busch, all the free beer I could sample. Now, that makes a lot of sense, do they want you to swim with the wildlife while cocktailed? I wasn’t drunk, but that weird little question came up in my mind anyway.

At Busch Gardens Tampa, same thing, and as I walked through the park, two young straight guys in their twenties, three sheets to the wind, yelled out, “Hey Man! Free Beer in the tent behind the roller coaster! Partyyyyy!!” Again, did Anheiser Busch want you to puke your guts up when you rode their rides?

While the straight guys shouting “Hey Dude!” were a rarity, I must have been visiting Busch Gardens during a leather bear weekend, because everywhere I looked were large gay men in groups, some in leather, many in t-shirts saying “Los Angeles Bear Patrol”, “Washington D.C. Bears Club” and so on. Although I would never be considered a bear, I have been a little honey pot a few times in various “Eagle” leather clubs, so I felt comfortable walking among such brethren.

 Getting on one of the roller coasters, the thing just sat there for five minutes, never moving. Turns out there was a malfunction and we were all told to exit. Directly behind me, one of the visiting bears got a look of red faced embarrassment as his boyfriend tried to pull him out of the cramped seat. He was stuck and it took a good twenty seconds of pulling and straining, but once he finally popped out like Winnie the Pooh from Rabbit’s House, he looked at me and smiled, confirming why I’ve always loved the leather community.

He said, “Honey, looks like Daddy needs to go on a diet!” and laughed. If you can make fun of yourself like that, you’re alright with me.

Although there was no “Drinking with the dolphins” here, I did get to stand on a flatbed truck and ride on the Serengeti Plain to pet giraffes. At the zoos they always made it sound like giraffes were something to be scared of, but you know how politically correct places have to be, what with insurance policies and stupid tourists who insist on sticking their son on top of a rhino for a photo.

I thought it was dangerous to be anywhere near a giraffe, but the tour guide handed me some lettuce and one of those huge animals you’d swear God must have been on acid to create, walked right up to me and ate it. Its tongue would have made Gene Simmons jealous as it curled around my offering and I gave the big animal a hug.

My particular giraffe had a cold or something because the slobber dripping out of her mouth and onto the other passengers made even the tour guide say, “I’ve never seen her like this! Gracie! Get away, you slob!” as a huge clump of spit dropped right on a little girl’s head, who stood there in disbelief. A scream was obviously trying to make its way to her vocal chords but she was too shocked to get to that point, giant tears quickly forming in her eyes while a disgusted mother pulled her out from under Gracie and wiped the goo off with paper napkins.

I thought, “I paid for this?”

Even though the gallons of drool were a bit much, I was still happy to have done it, but petting a giraffe felt like you were just rubbing a large deformed cow.

 Since I had a couple more days until Chris came in, I stayed at a gay resort in St. Petersburg. According to the Damron guide it was one of the largest in the country. My past boyfriends would have had a fit if I’d even mentioned I was going to stay at such a place, but Chris didn’t care and it was just that type of attitude which kept me in line. I was on vacation, I was gay, I enjoy meeting new people and I like being around gays and lesbians, what’s wrong with that?

If a place was laid back and friendly, that was great. If it was seedy and cruisy, that’s fine too. It doesn’t mean you still can’t enjoy yourself. There are always so many facets to gay life it didn’t mean everything had to be about clandestine sex.

After checking into the resort, I hauled my luggage up to the second floor and yes, I quickly deduced the place was very cruisy and in many ways, simply just another hook up joint. I have yet to stay at a resort that didn’t have some type of seductive appeal to them, whether they were well maintained or not.

One of the most interesting things about gay resorts is the mixture of people in them. Well off couples on vacation behaving themselves, young tweakers looking to do drugs, drag queens living there, attorneys, waiters, whatever. Because of our “common thread” and years of oppression, we are forced to congregate in our own little worlds, many times together, and that isn’t always a bad thing. If nothing else, it sometimes gave me a lot of laughs and it did this time.

 Within thirty seconds of shutting the door and putting my suitcase on the bed, the phone rang. “Who the hell could that be?” I wondered.

Picking up the receiver and saying hello, I heard, “Hey, Josh, it’s Steve!”

“What?”

“It’s Steve.”

“I’m sorry, but I think you have the wrong room.”

“Oh, Josh isn’t there? Is this Room 233?”

“Yes, it is, but there’s no Josh here, you’ve got the wrong room.”

“Oh, sorry. What’s your name?”

“Er…um…Terry…”

“Hi Terry, I’m Steve. You like military guys?”

“Um…er…um…”

“Are you cute? How tall are you?”

“Er…um…well…er…”

“You a top or a bottom? Me, I like either. I’m 6’ 1”, buzz haircut, 170, you here for the military ball?”

“Um…no, I’m..er…just on vacation…”

“I’m downstairs, you want me to come up?”

“Er…no…um…I haven’t unpacked…er…I…er…”

“Well, you gonna be out later?”

“Er…um…”

“I’ll keep a look out for you, maybe see you around. Hope I get to run into you tonight…Bye.” Click.

I slowly put the phone down, wide eyed. I can handle myself when it comes to pushy cruising, but this took the cake and I couldn’t believe, with my past, I was actually blushing.

 I unpacked my things and fifteen minutes later decided to head to the pool. Opening my door slowly, I peered out to see if anybody who looked like a Steve might be cruising by, but the coast was clear. I did everything but tiptoe out of my room.

As I walked by the room next door, I noticed the curtains were open. There, on the bed, on all fours, was a nude muscle man with his behind up in the air, the old red eye staring right at me, God and everyone who might walk by. His door was slightly open and he was probably hoping some passerby might join him.

My God, I thought, no wonder none of my ex’s wanted me to go out by myself, and I scurried past the window half laughing, half intrigued but mostly nervous, hoping I wouldn’t pass some orgy room full of Italian body builders and get pulled in. So helpless I couldn’t defend myself, I would just have to make the best of the situation.

No, it was best I hurry on down to the pool and call Chris from the little Tiki Bar after dropping off a Florida postcard to Scottie in the mail with the note, “Weather is here, wish you were beautiful.”

Over the phone Chris chuckled at my story and when he heard the resort had an Eagle in it, said, “Well, why didn’t you pack your harness if they’re having some big military leather thing down there?”

I answered, “Now you tell me, when I’m safe and vanilla in a white polo with socks and tennis shoes! How was I supposed to know there was an Eagle here and besides, is it really in good taste to ask your boyfriend, ‘Oh, do you mind if I take my leather down to the Eagle? They have a back room there!’”

“I didn’t say run to a back room, I just said it wouldn’t matter if you had taken your harness,” he replied. This from the man who won’t even look at leather.

So, now I was stuck near an Eagle looking like a Harvard prep boy and just to prove I could do it, walked into the bar anyway. Although surprised they let me in, it wasn’t crowded, being late afternoon, and I joked with two leather guys on vacation, and yes, they confirmed there was a bear convention going on that week.

The resort complex had three different bars in it, and everyone I met at each one was friendly and talkative. I also saw one of the best drag shows I’ve ever seen that night. Just two old broads yakking it up on a couch like  some TV talk show. Both in their fifties or sixties, they’d obviously put their money where their hips were because they looked good, faces pulled back, hair piled high, the wit flying out of them like hookers in a police raid.

They both had titles, although I don’t remember what hoo-ha they said they were, “Miss Continental Fundamentalist Hot Dog of 2005” or something like that. I’ve never quite understood why titles were so important, especially since some of the names of the contests seemed a little off base, like “Miss Trailer Park Trash 2001” “Imperial Queen Countess Dowager of Charlie’s and her royal court”. All in fun I guess, and I have seen some flawless drag queens, but still, I didn’t get worked up about being Mr. Gay Iowa…

Anyway, these two on the couch basically just talked to each other in front of an audience and had me laughing so hard one of them looked over and said, “It’s okay honey, keep laughin’…Gary, the bartender over there will mop the pee off the floor…” which made me laugh so hard there was a real possibility of it happening.

....to be continued....

Louis Armstrong's Chandelier

"Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can."
-Elsa Maxwell, quoting her father's last words

One of my best friends is a 6' 5" Dutchman who enjoys his martinis by the name of Scott Vandermyde. I've known him for years and I'll never forget the day I first met him. It was at the Halsted Street Market Days Festival about twelve years ago and my then partner, Peter, introduced us. Apparently the two of them had once dated.
"Dated" my ass, "hooked up" is more like it. From what Scottie told me later, the date consisted of Peter throwing Scottie on top the stove to serve some hot buns. Urban gay men like to use that term "dated" to legitimize what most people would just call "a roll in the hay".
What was most surprising about this is Peter was as Eastern European as you could get, but Scottie preferred Chinese food. I guess when you're hungry you'll cook whatever you can get on the stove, or should I say, the "dutch oven"?
Scottie and I quickly hit it off due to our mutual interests and almost instantaneous ability to finish each other's sentences, annoying everyone else around with a succession of bad puns and movie quotes. As a matter of fact, once Peter and I broke up, I got Scottie in the divorce. Peter got the condo, I got Scottie.

Over the years, we became very close since we both could be crotchety as hell sometimes, yet also cry together when we'd watch Margaret O'Brien tear down the snowmen in Meet Me in St. Louis. An odd way to bond, but it worked.
Scottie played the piano and at parties we usually brought the cocktail conversation to a halt when we'd perform together, not because we were any good but because I'd forget the words to some classic song and start making up lyrics. (Ever ruined a good Cole Porter number? Don't, I have and the audience can always tell when you're winging the words. Just because he wrote Anything Goes doesn't mean it's true.)
One time we even stopped the show when his piano keys started sticking because he drunkenly spilled his cosmopolitan all over the board. Yeah, we had one hell of an act all right.
"Pick up the tempo, dammit, pick up the tempo!" I'd angrily whisper.
"I can't, the C key won't come back up!"
A few times he was even my "formal" pianist, playing behind me at several of the All-Iowa AIDS benefits I performed at over the years. At one of them I sang "Bill" (how campy is that), but before I did I made the mistake of telling the audience how Helen Morgan and Ava Gardner made the song famous in Show Boat. Before I started the next song I whispered to Scott, "Was the Ava Gardner thing too much?"
He whispered back, "Honey, it's Iowa , they didn't even know what Show Boat was…" before launching into some honky-tonk blues number.

He's been quite a pal over the years in more ways than one. A few years ago we were bar hopping and he whispered into my ear, "As disgusting as this was for me to actually hear, my friend Bryn over there approached me and said, 'I want to rape your friend.'"
I did a double take, Bryn was gorgeous. "What are you, my pimp now?" I asked.
"I doubt that. I can't imagine you'd bring in much money for Papa Scott after a night on the streets. I do need quarters for laundry though."
After Scottie started chatting with some Malaysian standing near us, I ended up conversing with Bryn, eventually leaving with him. He suggested we go down the street to the nearest "Country Club" to get better acquainted and I had downed just enough Bud Light with Scottie to be agreeable.
Once we got a room Bryn told me, "Now, when we're done, it's okay if we just go our separate ways here, okay?"
"Thanks for the romance, buddy. I wasn't expecting a ring," I answered.
Afterwards, I decided to go home and since we were on the second floor, Bryn walked me to the landing. There is nothing worse than being in a bathhouse, trying to act all masculine and suave then screwing it up, because the minute I lowered my right foot onto that first stair I lost it, boom, boom, boom, straight down one flight, landing in a heap at the bottom. I quickly stood up, hoping none of the good looking studs in towels had noticed.
Even in a bathhouse I couldn't resist theatricality. I looked up at Bryn, still at the top of the stairs, his jaw on the floor. "You pushed me, Ike Turner!"
Since I had just made a joke, Bryn realized I was okay, so he smiled and said, "Yeah, but what did love have to do with it?!" as he waved goodbye and I limped my way to the street door, every once and awhile getting a weird look from some of the guys I was walking past.
A week later, Scott left for a trip to Czechoslovakia . I got an email from him while he was gone. It said, "What goes around comes around, and for as much fun as I made of you being pushed down the staircase it came back to haunt me. I stopped by a 'country club' last night and thought I was being really studly walking down those wet stairs.
"Next thing I knew I missed eight steps and did a somersault into the hot tub. Some guy who was in it asked, 'Are you okay?' in English.
"When I said yes, he told me, 'I don't think even Esther Williams could have done a better splash than that.' I'm surprised there was any water left in it after I fell in."
Scottie limped out of that place just like I had, but to this day, he still has a pigment scar from where his ankle hit a step. A war wound, he likes to call it, although I would have taken out the "a" replaced it with a "ho" and put an "e" on the end.
A couple years later I stopped in San Francisco to see Bryn, and we got some stranger to take a photo while we staged me falling down the stairs of a bar while Bryn stood dramatically at the top with one arm out.
We sent it to Scott, who replied, "I'd better get a couple quarters out of that one, too."

The two of us also shared a really agonizing characteristic to the people around us. Give us a funny story and we'd work it so hard and often you'd think we were auditioning for vaudeville, and let me tell you, there was a damn good reason vaudeville died. We played that circuit until it actually stank. Like Abbott and Costello or Hope and Crosby, we knew each other so well we played off each other to the point you'd think we were married.
Occasionally, Scott would take a solo spot, usually name dropping so quick and fast your head would spin. As an example, there was one routine he had about meeting Elaine Stritch, the Broadway star.
He was by the stage door in New York dressed in a suit, she came out and mistakenly thought he was her chauffeur since he was standing right next to the limo waiting for an autograph. After eyeing him up and down wondering why the hell he wasn't opening the car door for her he said, "Oh, I'm not your driver Ms. Stritch. I'd just like your autograph."
"You got a pen?" she asked, in that gravelly voice of hers. He pulled out some ball-point he'd stolen from his hotel and handed it over.
"What the hell is this?" she said, analyzing it before she opened her purse, threw his pen in, took out a sharpie and said, "Now, this is a God-damn pen!" and signed her name on the playbill.
Just then, a group of blue hairs from Jersey approached, gushing all over. "Oh, Miss Stritch, we just loved your show, you are so wonderful!! You are absolutely the best ..." before she looked at Scottie, looked at the blue hairs, looked back at Scott and said, deadpan, "Excuse me, I need my insulin shot," while he opened the car door for her.
She got in, but not before Scottie reached back into her purse and grabbed his cheap pen back, getting a withering look at the same time.
A casual acquaintance looked at us and asked, "Why don't I have any funny stories to tell?"
I told him he does, it's all how you look at it and that Scottie and I view things with a rather sick sense of humor. Stories do seem a little more epic when we're together. I tend to think the key is that we laugh at ourselves in those stories.

There is still a little bald spot in the lawn of Grant Park from the time the two of us went to see a screening of West Side Story on a warm summer night. Halfway through the movie he was halfway through a bottle of Bombay Sapphire when he started exhibiting his trait of conducting and singing along with whatever music is playing.
"Sit down and shut up!" I heard behind us.
"This isn't Karaoke, be quiet!" someone else yelled.
Oblivious to it all, Scott simply raised his plastic cup, turned around, bowed and said to the crowd, "Here's to Rita Moreno! Best damn Anita since Chita Rivera!" and knocked over the remaining half of the Bombay Sapphire bottle hidden next to his blanket.

Even Queens , New York wasn't safe from our vaudeville routine. On one vacation we drove out there to tour Louis Armstrong's home and my hand to God, Scott almost broke the chandelier in the master bedroom. It was six feet up, and like I said, Scottie is well over 6'5."
While leaning down to examine the Armstrong's bedspread (don't ask, he's weird), he stood up, hit the chandelier while it made this loud clanking sound, swaying back and forth. My eyes were just waiting for it to fall and shatter. Shit, I thought, I can't take him anywhere. It didn't fall, but Scott certainly gave it a good run for its money. After a dirty look from the tour guide, we proceeded on to the master bathroom.
We went in and the entire thing, and I do mean the entire interior, was covered in mirrors. I'm not just talking mirrors hanging on the walls, I mean the walls were the mirrors. You looked up and the ceiling was a mirror. You shut the door, the entire back of the door was a mirror.
After blurting out, "Must have been a little intimidating to take a crap in here." Scottie got another dirty look from the guide and was bluntly told, "Let's move along."
Then we walked into the kitchen. We were on a rug runway/path through the house, you know the kind, it's so some housewife from Paducah doesn't step off and break some priceless historical artifact or something. Well, this house and all its furnishings dated from 1970, so it wasn't exactly Renaissance antique.
The tour guide pointed out all the dated, mustard yellow appliances as Scottie leaned down and touched the linoleum. (Again, don't ask me why, he just did.)
The guide stopped the tour, indignantly saying, "Sir! Please do not touch anything off this brown rug. They are original to the Armstrong's and historically part of the home. The oil in human fingerprints could destroy it over time!"
He looked at her and in a very loud voice said, "It's Linoleum! You couldn't destroy it if you ran it through a meat grinder, set it on fire, then fed it to a hippo!"
I slowly moved to the back of the tour group and told some lady next to me, "I have no idea who that man is."
Walking into the master bedroom closet, the guide was by now keeping a really close, pissed off eye on Mr. Vandermyde. She began her spiel how Mrs. Armstrong loved decorating and how tasteful and chic the décor was. She also commented Mrs. Armstrong had done it "All by herself."
Just like the bathroom with mirrors, the interior of the huge walk-in closet was covered in shiny silver striped wallpaper — the wall, the ceiling, the back of the door. You opened up the shoe drawers, the entire inside of them had shiny silver striped wallpaper. You opened up another drawer that held socks, that entire drawer was shiny silver striped wallpaper.
Scottie said, "What the hell is this? Was she on crack!?"
We were almost escorted out of the Louis Armstrong Historical home.

That said, when I first began dating my partner Chris, I introduced him to Scott, who took me aside and confided, "I hate to tell you this, but I went out on a date with Chris years ago. We went to dinner, then he wanted to show me the English gardens in Lincoln Park ."
"No stove?" I asked.
"No stove, I don't think I was really his type."
"Good" I replied. "What's next? You're going to try out my socks too before I actually buy them?"
"Hey, the bottom line is friends just have to look out for friends…"
"No, the bottom line is you're a slut."
"I'm also a pretty damn good bottom line," he answered.
I later had the enormous satisfaction of telling Scott, "Well, you must make a really wonderful impression on dates, because Chris doesn't remember you at all."
"Well, I had more hair then," he replied.
"Where? On your legs?" I dryly asked.
Just then a clip from the musical Hairspray came on the screen at Sidetrack, it happened to be Show tunes Sunday when we were having this discussion.
I calmly looked at his head and said, "Honey, Hairspray is something you'll never need."

Judy Garland

“In New York, Judy saw the way she affected people ... We’d take long walks on those humid summer evenings when we weren’t planning to go out. The people we met on the street mostly treated her with loving familiarity. ‘Hiya Judy!’ a truck driver called out on one of our outings. ‘Howza kid?’ A young man across the street heard the commotion, and he too called out, ‘Judy, baby!’ Approaching us was a stooped figure. ‘Is that you, Judy?’ the old woman asked, just as if the girl she was running into was someone from the neighborhood she hadn’t seen in several years.

Judy could have played the imperious grande dame with these people. But why would she want to when they approached her with such well meaning warmth? She responded in kind, transmitting back the same friendly waves.” — Vincente Minnelli, “I Remember It Well”

 I really cared about Judy Garland. How could you not? She was special and had been with me since childhood. Out of all the historical personalities she seemed the most real, the most charming, the most emotional, the funniest, the warmest, and kindest of all. I grew up feeling as if I almost knew her.

It wasn’t about the tragedy, she was never tragic to me. Full of life, she felt more like a good friend than a star who’d passed away two years after I was born.

I did not discover Dorothy when I was a kid. I discovered Judy Garland. Dorothy was someone completely separate, and I didn’t mix the two. I don’t remember the first time I saw Dorothy, but I do remember seeing The Wizard of Oz for the first time in a theater. The only thing in my memory is that witch melting and scaring the shit out of me, but I don’t remember Dorothy at all from that first viewing at a children’s matinee.

 At the age of six, I was flipping channels and that’s where I discovered Judy Garland. A rerun of her variety show was on and she was wearing a black dress while singing a torch song. It was about as far away from most six year olds worlds as you could get.

She’d alternately get this wispy, nervous look then suddenly smile. In and out came the emotions left and right, up and down. I was intrigued, although I didn’t know what the hell she was singing about. Still, I felt drawn to her.

I watched the show every night it was shown until PBS ran out of episodes. My parents didn’t think much of it at first since I was always intrigued with old movies, starting with the traditional westerns and monster films, then moving on up to more sophisticated things. I was watching The Thin Man series by the time I was eleven. This wasn’t odd because my dad liked old films, but I became so intrigued with Judy Garland my parents actually tried to stifle it.

It was the stigma of drugs and her death which scared them since I’m positive they had no earthly clue Judy had a strong hold on homosexuals. They were embarrassed I would be so interested in a woman whose life had been ruined by medication. This was the early seventies, long before the renaissance of her work and the understanding addiction is a disease. She was still looked on as an example of what you didn’t want your children to have happen to them.

 Two events stand out in my mind. One was at the library. Dad and I went there every Tuesday, roaming the shelves for several hours, discovering whole new worlds. One night I asked the librarian for a book on Judy Garland. She looked at Dad, who had a “deer in headlights” expression.

Obviously at a loss for words he said, “It’s the Wizard of Oz thing, you know how kids are.”

I didn’t want him making excuses for me, no excuse was needed. Perking up, I said, “No, it’s not. I don’t want a book about Dorothy. I want one about Judy Garland.”

The woman again looked at Dad, he shrugged, and I was handed a book called Weep No More My Lady, written by Judy’s last husband and of all the books to start off with, probably the worst. Dad had to check it out under his card because I only had a children’s card.

The book was sensationalistic and pure exploitation. I wouldn’t have used those words at the time, but that’s what it was. Now there are many well written books about her, back then, this was about it, and it was trash. Still, it was a start.

I couldn’t figure out why Dad was so embarrassed by my asking for the book? He didn’t care if I read about Errol Flynn’s movies or W.C. Fields? He didn’t even mind when I checked out a book called Blonde Bombshells of the 40’s, why now?

A year later I found Rainbow by Christopher Finch and once again, had to go through all that rigmarole with Dad at the library. This time, the book was informative and had depth. I was very confused however, at the last line in it, “In the end, Baby Gumm knew the truth about Judy Garland.”

Truth? What truth needed to be known? Why all this dark mystery? Combine that line with my parent’s embarrassment and I began to wonder what I was missing. Judy still just made me feel happy, plain and simple.

 The second negative memory I have took place one Saturday afternoon. The Clock, a film Judy made with Robert Walker and directed by Vincente Minnelli, was going to be shown on TV. When I told my parents I was going downstairs to watch it, Mom said, “You are too young to be watching her movies. No.”

Why couldn’t I watch her movies? Most of them were musicals for God’s sake, she was always happy and singing! How wholesome could you get?

I got really ticked off at that one, pouting and marching to my room. (Don’t piss off a ten year old gay boy who loves Judy Garland.) Mom could read her trashy romance novels and hold hostage to the TV when Rich Man, Poor Man was televised, but I couldn’t watch a harmless, happy MGM movie? I didn’t understand and wouldn’t talk to my parents for the rest of the day. Apparently, I was quite a snot, even back then.

 Years later, I asked Mom why Judy Garland was so frowned upon when I was a child. She admitted they didn’t think a woman with such a drug problem should be allowed in my life.

I told her, “For Christ’s sake, I was a lot smarter than that as a child, they were musicals! You know there was nothing wrong with them!”

By this time she admitted, yes, they had probably over reacted and I had grown up acting fairly normal, but still, at the time, I was impressionable and they didn’t feel right about it.

 So, I had to go over to my grandparent’s house, where every time a Judy Garland movie came on, or any musical, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, whatever, they would be glued to the TV talking about their own memories of going to the movies in their youth.

Even though Judy was persona non grata, I still didn’t care. It also didn’t help that while poking through my mother’s record collection, I found a copy of Judy in London. Traitor. She felt so guilty she bought me the Carnegie Hall album that year for Christmas.

Dad could never get her name right. It was always Julie Garland or Judy Andrews, just like he thought Gabriel Peck was a great actor and that Patsy Page was a better singer than Patti Cline.

 I didn’t actually see The Clock until I was about thirty-three. While viewing the film, I laughed at how silly my parents had acted. Perfect little world, perfect little story, perfect little people, about as far away from dysfunction as possible and I have to say, Judy looked more beautiful in this film than any of the others. Minnelli really knew how to catch her beauty on camera and for someone who started out as an ugly duckling, I thought, “She’s breathtaking, no wonder so many men and women fell in love with her.”

Hell, even if Stonewall wasn’t somehow connected to Judy’s funeral, which took place that day, it should have been, since it makes a wonderful story and I can’t think of a better friend of the gay community, of human beings in general, than Judy. I also think it’s incredibly cool the Pride Flag is of a rainbow.

 My parents were only doing what they felt was right. Still, I knew they were wrong about their assessment of her. The Judy incident was the first time I realized my parents could be mistaken and was one of the first times I made up my mind to make up my own mind.

Although I’ve certainly had my moments, I didn’t turn out all that bad. A little emotional yes, but hell, I like to think that’s one of the good things I got from Judy Garland.