FLASHBACK: Miami White Party (Thanksgiving 2003)

As circuit seniors who'd had a fabulous time at another White Party in Palm Springs over Easter, Dan and I were determined to dance our asses off whenever and wherever we could even if it meant blowing off our annual Thanksgiving ABC travel.  We flew to Miami instead, staying in South Beach at the Royal Palm Hotel.

To say I was enchanted with our hotel is an understatement.  Even though I'd recently turned 50, I had never paid for nicer lodgings.  It was a definite upgrade from the Holiday Inns where I had stayed with my parents in the Sixties.

Even the floors had style!

The neighboring hotels weren't too shabby, either.  Developers finally had caught up to the South Beach scene.

I couldn't get over seeing Christmas decorations while wearing shorts.  That would change, big time, 17 years later.

Chilly, overcast weather prevented us from tanning our first full day in town.  We shopped for outfits instead.  Or at least I did.  It seemed ridiculous to have to buy a white shirt at Banana Republic that I would wrap around my waist as soon as I hit the dance floor.

Whenever visiting Florida, I had a rule:  ALWAYS rent a convertible.  Too bad no Karmann Ghias like this one parked on Ocean Avenue were available.  My father bought his first, a hard top, in Munich nearly 50 years before.

Our Chrysler Sebring took us to the Norton Museum of Art, now completely re-modeled.

I miss the spiral staircase.

A visit to the Miami Zoo provided the only continuity with our ABC trips.

An intimidating bus, full of chattering hunks who had taken the dress code far more seriously than I drove us to Vizcaya for the White Party where, if memory serves, Deborah Cox performed "Absolutely Not" early in the evening for a crowd that knew every word.

Right or wrong, you judge the same

My picture never fits your frame

What you thought, you'll never know

You can't see me with your mind closed

Should I wear my hair in a ponytail?

Should I dress myself up in Chanel?

Do I measure me by what you think?

Absolutely not, absolutely not

Wanna bet?

No incriminating pics exist to document the dance-floor debauchery, although I do dimly recall that we appeared in online photos with other high, sweaty circuit boys.   In those pre-selfie days, it felt like a new kind of validation:  yes, we WERE there, in a fantastic, intoxicating environment that existed purely for pleasure.  Clicking on the link, long vanished, triggered a new rush of serotonin.

We had glimpsed the future.

More ABC Thanksgiving Travel:

Amsterdam

Berlin

*Moscow/St. Petersburg

Copenhagen

Dijon/Paris

*exceptions make the rule

Twentieth Century Boy (5*)

I’m at the right place, at the right time, at the right age!  This is our music!

It's not often you get to read a vividly written account of the life you imagined living in your salad days.  That's a loaded statement mostly because Duncan Hannah's undeniable white privilege, coy heterosexuality, artistic talent and social climbing gave him carte blanche in the worlds I had begun reading about growing up as a hick in El Paso.  While I was mostly brooding about being gay, he operated on the Sylvia Miles principle by going to the opening of EVERY envelope in mid 70s New York and having a lot more fun.  We kept journals for similar reasons (I’m writing these journals to capture my youth. When I’m 50 in an easy chair in Scotland I can pull them out and relive my teendom. It’ll be in an archaic lingo) and my musical tastes mirrored his; at one point we even were neighbors.

In his preface, written several years before his death last June, Hannah identifies the qualitative difference between our journal keeping.  It nails why his are a lot more readable despite the copious amount of alcohol and other drugs he consumed relentlessly.  

I noticed at the time, that mostly it was girls who kept journals, and they generally wrote only when they were upset. I was determined not to do this. I tended to write from jubilation. I wrote these at night in bed (if I was in any kind of shape to write), or in the morning over coffee. I didn’t write every day and as life accelerated I would miss notating chunks of experience. Indeed 1979 hardly gets a look in at all.  I don’t know why.

My journal keeping didn't begin in earnest until 1980, mostly because doing so on assignment for an enriched English class in high school had nearly severed one of my closest friendships when a girl who stole mine didn't like what I had written about her.  Unlike Hannah, I  wrote for therapeutic reasons, which meant there was a lot more whining (and character assassination) than celebrating. 

There's also the fact that Hannah had a much better idea of who he wanted to be and how to get there.  Shyness or self-consciousness was never an impediment; nor did he do anything to discourage the attentions of gay men who wanted to jump his bones.  In  other words, he worked it, hard, while I never considered taking advantage of any opportunities that might have come my way because of a shared sexual orientation.  Hannah played his cards very well and for the most part he depicts the queens (including Danny Fields, Rene Ricard and David Hockney) who encouraged his writing and painting with generosity aside from an unpalatable anecdote about Lou Reed that left me hoping that Lou had been pulling his leg.

I had a couple of eerie moments reading Twentieth Century Boy.  Hannah describes the Roxy Music concert that I missed at the Academy of Music in February 1975 because of my mother's death.  And it turns out we had only a single degree of separation between us.  Hannah had a roommate who played in a band called Marbles; I knew Jim Clifford, the bassist who, like me, worked "student hours" in the tie department at Bloomingdale's and sported a page boy like Hannah's.  Jim eagerly handed out copies of the Marbles' new single one Saturday afternoon (he's on the left) and invited me to their show at CBGB's.  I didn't go because I'd never heard of them.

Harvey Fierstein recently told Marc Maron that he became successful by saying yes to everything.  Hannah probably would agree.

The internet provided a final example of my eerie synchronicity with Hannah.  I wasn't really familiar with  his painting but look what I found!

"Blue Car" (2013)

Munich (1956)

FLASHBACK: Back To America (1957-1962)

After returning from Germany, Ken and Mary visited family in White Plains.

We spent a few months in Falls Church, Virginia, while Dad worked at the Pentagon, an assignment he hated.

Here's another rare family portrait, taken at my first cousin's house.

Norfolk, VA (1958)

Mary's bronchitis helped Ken get transferred back to El Paso in 1959. Of course we drove. Pool time on the road.

Ken and Mary bought their first home in a new suburban development called Milagro Hills.

They took great pride in it.

By 1960, I didn't need the training wheels or much encouragement to show off.

Ken in his dress uniform.

Investigating criminals at Ft. Bliss gave him plenty of time for home improvement.  I forgot he built the backyard patio.

As Ken would say, "pretty neat, huh?"

Keeping that lawn looking like a green carpet took plenty of effort.

And water.  Lots and lots of water.

Otherwise the city resembled a dust bowl.  The El Paso Times proudly printed how many consecutive days the sun had shined in the upper right-hand corner of the front page.

The Karmann Ghia looks as tiny as the Juarez airport.

The neighborhood kids adored Ken for this kind of fun.

Here I am with Mike Johnson and Luther Hitchcock. I idolized Mike (left), a year older than me. His father worked as an engineer for the railroad, just like my grandfather had. Luther (right) ate his own boogers.

Pat Grady was my other best friend. He lived in the house behind us and often climbed over the wall to visit. It looks like he's wearing a clerical collar.  We're both missing teeth.

.

Pat, Mike and Luther when they're a bit older.  As they say in epidemiological studies, all lost to follow-up now.

Mary's parents, Mary and Earl Ostrander, spent Christmas 1959 with us. I called them Oma and Opa, probably something I picked up from Hilda. They took the train from Daytona Beach, where they had retired several years earlier.

The back yard Beau Brummel of Milagro Hills.

I loved going to Daytona to see Oma and Opa, too.  Both Ken and Smokin' Mary quit while we lived at 5108 Marcillus.  The doctor told her she'd be walking around with an iron lung if she didn't.

Ken loved the fact that cars could drive on the beach.  He never would have made this mistake.

 

Florida offers plenty of activities to entertain animal-crazy grandchildren.  I only wish there had been a picture of me with the baby chick that Oma and Opa gave me one Easter.  Ken and Mary must have loved that.  They had to find a farm where it could live on the long drive back to Texas.