v

Five years later. The memories are still clear, but less obtrusive. We're pretty much all still here somehow. The last five years haven't been the greatest, but I wish you'd stuck around for them. I don't cry anymore, I don't scream anymore. I think I'm just numb. Does anyone really get over this kind of a loss anyway? We go on, but do we ever really get over it?

Be at peace, John. We'll never forget you.

muriel and binky

By the time I met Lee, she had already used at least seven of her nine lives. She was a silver haired lady whose deep blue eyes betrayed the wisdom of many pasts. Still a very dashing woman, it was obvious she had been a great beauty in an earlier time.

And what a time she had. Private school, finishing school, a debut, a career as one of the hottest fashion models in New York all by the age of twenty two. She told me how she was making so much money that she was able to keep a second apartment for a year so that her parents would not realize that she was living with her penniless artist beau.

He had been the love of her life, although it was not for lack of opportunity. Her romances were many and included none other than Henry Luce, Jr, for whom she retained great feelings even sixty years later. And she amassed a lot of experience in both love and life.

Her second husband, an top ranking executive at CBS, stole her away from her first in a scandal worthy of Mad Men. They shared residences in Sutton Place and Bermuda. She claims she drove both her first two husbands crazy and was taken to Bellevue twice in strait jackets herself. Then to top it all off, she married her cousin.

She had long retired from romance, a game to which she realized that she was not particularly adept, when she met John in the mid-seventies. He was twenty years younger and coming to terms with his orientation. He dressed outlandishly in order to deflect attention from his gayness. She was the perfect foil, Karen to his Jack. They became great friends and hosted fabulous parties. They had dinner party nicknames for each other, she was Muriel and he was Binky. They had a grand and rich friendship which endured some thirty years. There were dinner parties and fun and trips and boyfriends and heartbreak and texture, texture that wove them tightly together in a way that only old friends understand.

And there was comedy. We all sailed the Caribbean aboard the brand new Queen Mary 2 in the spring of 2005. After the ship returned to port, there was a memorable weekend in New York. The highlight of the weekend was Saturday night at the Rainbow Room. John wore his finest suit and Lee a two piece sparkling dress, the skirt of which, in the middle of a dance with John, suddenly fell to the floor. At that moment she revealed her disdain for undergarments. John was mortified, and rushed her to the door, although recalling it subsquently made them both roar with laughter. To this day I somewhat wonder if it had been accidental.

One cold December night Ken and I took her to dinner at Windows, atop the Transamerica building in downtown LA. Ken had his chauffeur Michael and his deep blue Rolls-Royce for the event. We were dressed to the nines. Ken decided to stop for an after-dinner drink at the Abbey, a We Ho gay nightspot. Michael wheeled the Rolls-Royce up to the front door and we piled out. Lee looked and acted like a movie star, so we decided to let her have her fun. We gave her a sufficiently vague movie star name, Helen Taylor, and began fawning over her. "Is there anything you would like, Miss Taylor?" The crowd did the same. People began whispering to me "Should we know her?" "She's done films" was my reply. I neglected that they had been primarily Super 8's in her own backyard. She danced in the center of the room surrounded by mesmerized gay boys. It was magical. We howled about it on the way home.

One Bastille Day we all met for dinner and I was asked to drive her home. On that journey she told me about her life as a model in New York after the war, and her life with the artist. They lived together for over a year, maintaining two apartments as a ruse to keep her parents from discovering. They were both deeply in love, although he was struggling with a deep depression caused by his wartime service. The relationship ultimately failed, she observed, because he had seen so much death, he couldn't see life. She ultimately had to choose life, she said.

She was shattered when her Binky died, but did not lose her own will to live. At age eighty-four, she looked me on the eye and said "I'm not done living yet". That following spring we rode Ferris Wheels at Santa Monica park. She was as feisty as ever.

But the last year her health declined and her will faded. She began to let us all know that she was ready to move on. She passed away quietly on Saturday. Last night I made an exquisite Martini and drank a toast to Binky and Muriel. They're together again. I wonder if Heaven knows what it's in for.

the eagle has landed

That was John's code. It meant that he had gotten some last night. I would see this message scrawled on a business card left in my cubicle.

It was 1985, and I was working for a major corporation in Michigan. John was my most intense post college friendship,we were like frat brothers who hadn't met until after graduation. He was my IT support person, and the term "Metrosexual" was probably coined to describe him. Our first post-work adventure was shopping at J.L Hudson. I should have had an inkling.

We became close friends, traveling companions, drinking pals and bong buddies. Living in a rust belt town with very limited sophistication, we learned to travel. We traveled for shopping, for movies, for concerts, for adventures. I saw Betty Blue, the Psychadelic Furs, Sid and Nancy, The Pretenders, and Blue Velvet because of him. He had friends in Chicago. I wanted to see the Prairie Home Companion in Minneapolis. He wanted to experience Boxing Day in Toronto. By now we were also workout buddies, and we had both noticed a certain spark in the shower, although we both double dated with women. By now I had noted that my future was elsewhere, but I was yet to act on it.

It was on a weekend trip to Dad's cabin in a Michigan winter that we managed to land the Eagle ourselves. The cabin had a gas powered sauna, which once warmed up, allowed our relationship to find a new level. He admitted that he was bisexual in words moments before he demonstrated it in gesture. At some point his wrist somehow made contact with the heating element, causing a burn which he wore as his mark of retribution for weeks to come. It was one of many inside jokes we would have. And it was the first that I began to notice a pattern of him disappearing for a while after the Eagle landed. But he always came back around, and the situation repeated itself.

I guess it peaked on our trip to Europe. We had both scheduled vacation for the same week. The entire office knew where I was going, and John created a cover story of a camping trip. Only our General Manager's secretary knew the real story, and we sent her a post card from Paris. Paris was wonderful. Our first night there we shared the company of a girl named Gina, on subsquent evenings we somehow got by without her. We discovered early on that wine was cheaper than Coca Cola, so we drank heavily and fucked like dogs. His regret spirals were conveniently short in duration by then, and pretty much gone by nightfall. And while I never thought of him as gay, it became clear that he was enjoying himself. Perhaps this was his week to just let his guard down and live. I must admit he did it well.

Things cooled after that trip, as I had suspected they would. I was now ready to be out, and steered accordingly. I believed he was bi, so his needs were much more supplemental in nature. We spent less time together, although we remained friends. I transferred to Chicago, he took a job in Denver. We saw each other a few times after that. He came up one weekend to Chicago, I spent thanksgiving one year with his new girlfriend and himself. We spoke of the past landings of the Eagle in code.

I guess the letters stopped shortly after I moved to California. I saw him on a flight to Atlanta in the summer of '97, he wore a wedding band and a few extra pounds. We exchanged pleasantries but neither seemed compelled to stay in touch. Our paths were divergent by then.

It was on a whim that I typed his name into google and found a memorial site in his honor. Cancer, at age forty-eight, leaving a wife and two surviving children. Damn. Very sad.

I recall one conversation over Guinness Stout where he asked, "Where are the friends that we are going to know for the rest of our lives?" I wish I had been that friend for him. I'm certainly grateful for the adventures we had.

For John, in remembrance of Paris all those years ago, Edith Piaf from the year of his birth and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.




Rest well, my friend. No regrets.

iii

On this third anniversary of his passing, at an annual retreat where we have all been together so many times, he should be here with us.




John, you are loved and missed today and always. Thanks for being my very special friend.

queens on the mary

In remembrance of John on the third anniversary of his passing. Originally posted in March, 2007.

This week I received a mailer promoting the RSVP transcontinental gay cruise on the Queen Mary 2 and my mind immediately flashed back to my first RSVP travel experience.

A couple of Christmases back, my friends John and KJ (hereto known as the Ubercouple) created a very memorable Holiday- they invited six of their friends to accompany them on an RSVP Cruise of the Mexican Riviera.

We were all tremendously touched and excited, and eagerly planned what would be a most memorable voyage. As it would be my first cruise aboard this particular line, I had lunch with a friend who had more cruise experience. "It's a great trip, you'll love it", Blair reassured me over sushi. "Just too bad it's so hard to get a drink on that ship." I just about fell into my miso soup.

Okay, talk about a deal breaker. I immediately telephoned John and told him of my dire warning. Given how we collectively viewed Vodka as a food group, this would require a plan.

"I'll talk to KJ and call you back", he said, trying not to show too much concern. I imagined a Vodka ambulance meeting us at the docks. KJ thinks of everything. The next day, John called back very calm. "It'll be fine", he reassured." We'll just all bring two liters of Ketel One in our luggage. That way, we can have a relaxing drink before dinner". Or before breakfast, if needed.

Soon we were on board and sailing away with a Bon Voyage party. We immediately noticed that others had probably made the same observation as Blair, because the cruise line had apparently stopped off in Singapore and filled the ship with Asian love slaves, young girls positioned every thirty feet or so who were taught to say "drinky, drinky". While this was very reassuring, it soon occurred to us that we were awash in booze. That night over dinner, we hatched a plan. We decided to have a massive private cocktail party the last night at sea and use it all up. That would give us a week to see how many people we could meet and invite.

I was all in favor of the party, but I reasoned, that if we were going to have a private cocktail party with smuggled booze aboard an Ocean Liner, the only civilized way to serve drinks was in stemware stolen from the ship itself. So that evening, after our round of Martinis, John had us fill the stems with water so they would not be cleared away. We stepped smartly out of the dining room with our Martini stems in our hands, and this began to amass glassware. My cabin was deemed the official stemware repository, because I had the least luggage, and my roommate, a drag queen from San Francisco, spent the entire week stoned on hashish brownies and so was unlikely to notice.

Our plan worked smartly although it did probably increase our vodka consumption somewhat. "Have another Martini", KJ would say. "We need the glass". By midweek, my cabin clinked when people walked by in the hall. The nightclub chanteuse in the show lounge complained that all the big Martini stems had vanished. We looked sheepish in the front row and laughed about it later. We absolved our guilt by inviting her to the party.



The last night at sea, all was in readiness. I had spent the entire afternoon washing stemware, which was the price one pays for glamour. The party had grown way too large for John and KJ's suite, so KJ booked one of the lounges. For a private party. On board a gay cruise. And found a passenger whom he hired to play piano. Throw in a few trays of appetizers, a topless girl from Scotland, and a hundred newfound friends, and our little use-up-the-booze party probably ended up costing about the same as a base Hyundai. But everybody we knew in LA already had a car anyway.

We abandoned the stems at the party, along with the remaining vodka. All that was borrowed was returned, which was of course the plan all along. When people asked about the cruise, we told them what a wonderful time we all had. Most of all, John loved telling the story of the Martini Party. "Wasn't it the most fun?", he would reflect.




Yes, John. It was.

worlds away

Here is a digital revelation- the blogosphere allows us the unique opportunity to mourn people we never actually met.

Last Sunday was LA Pride. I arrived somewhat early. While waiting to meet up with friends for a pre-pride brunch, I was leafing through a local publication and found myself staring at the picture of a fellow blogger. It was a memorial ad.

We lived in the same general area, but I can't say I knew him. I read his blog and his comments, and exchanged infrequent emails. Does that constitute knowing someone in the digital age?

I know that he entered this life in a month when the first Gemini 1 spacecraft was successfully launched, the same month that also brought us Russell Crowe and Andy Bell. I know that his birth coincided with the release of an album called "The Rolling Stones", and that the following day saw the unveiling of the Mustang.

The New York World's Fair was open to an enthusiastic public before he was a week old. It was a time of unmatched optimism and postwar prosperity. The Good Life, it was called. The American Dream. Did he realize his dreams?

I know he was out in high school, which was pretty cutting edge for the early 80's. How difficult was that? I know he went on to college and then a successful career where he was highly visible in the gay community. Was it rewarding?

I know he survived the loss of a partner in the 90's and went on to find another loving relationship. Did he heal?

To have someone so close by, but not really know them. Worlds away, as it were. Is the Internet analogy merely an allegory for the truth of our everyday lives- that we can touch someone every day and not really know them either?

I don't know what happened to him, I only know he's no longer there. And I know that I feel a sense of loss. Our village, digital as it may be, has lost a voice.

For him, a prayer for peace. For us remaining, a wish for solace.

This song has been so on my mind today- Simon and Garfunkel, from the Concert in the Park

all things end

Last summer, when Mike's Dad was nearing his final days, I bought a dark suit against the hour of inevitable need. I was at a weight where my own suits did not look right, so I figured this one modest purchase would get me through this one event and then hopefully be relegated to the back closet.

Sadly, in the first week of December, the suit was used a second time to deliver the eulogy for my Mother. I was less than thrilled to find a repeat use for the somber garment.

Last night's call caught me off guard. I've known Dyna for nearly twenty years. We were all very active in the gay car club way back when. I've been much less actively lately owing to work, but still have a lot of old friends from that clan.

Dyna and Fred. Cybill and Mary Ann. Mame and Vera. Siegfried and Roy. You get the idea. Inseparable friends. Dyna was Lucy reincarnated in the body of a tall Swedish boy. Fred was bearded and bearish, but in a Cyd Charisse way. Very funny and outspoken, a natural emcee. The first time I met him was at a slumber party in Las Vegas in 1994. He was wearing thick black plastic framed glasses a'la 1960, a full beard, and a chartreuse baby doll nightie. It requires conscious thought to picture him any other way.

The conversation I recall most with Fred was not the last one by any means. It was 2002, shortly after a painful breakup of a five year relationship. He came up to me and gave me an understanding look and a big hug. "All things end", he said. The implied words were as loud as the spoken ones.

And sadly, all things do end. Fred was at work on Saturday when he began having difficulty breathing. A coworker called 911. By the time the ambulance arrived, he had suffered a severe heart attack right on the floor of Barney's New York. "At least it wasn't Target", Dyna reassured me.

He passed away in the ambulance en route to the hospital. He would have turned 50 in May. I'm in sort of a double shock- besides it being so sudden and shocking, it's also the first friend to die of a typical middle age male malady- a heart attack. Now that's a strange realization. I lost many people to the plague, back in my 30's. But such a sadly ordinary downfall is a shock to my system.

The suit will be used one more time, but that will not be the end. The 50th birthday party will go on as planned, albeit as a tribute. The ONLY way to honor Fred is with a party.

If you have room in your prayers, please remember Fred, his Mother and brother David, and Dyna. And all of us who will miss him so sadly and remember him so fondly.

A toast to you, Fred. I know you'll make a fashion statement in Heaven.

Here's a tribute for you from the fabulous Eva Cassidy. I hope you like it.