SWIFTLY SPEAKING

I wanna be Taylor Swift.

Not for her nasally voice. I think I’ve got that already. Not for her fame. I wouldn’t be able to handle the paparazzi. (My side profile shots are frightening.) And not for her closetful of trophies. Nothing could ever top my fifth place ribbon I won earned as a seven-year-old in the neighborhood watermelon seed spitting contest. (In truth, there were no ribbons. But it was a moment. With six of us participating, it was the first athletic endeavor wherein I didn’t come last. A victory of sorts. I fashioned my award by tearing a strand from my bed sheet, thinking my mother would never notice. That’s another story...)

I want to fall in love like Taylor does. Swiftly. Did her name create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps I’ll change my last name. Forget Swift. I’m no groupie. How about Lovemore? Or Firstglance? No, I think I’ll go with (You Had Me at) Hello. Why not? If kids are getting names like Apple and 7, I am going to be James (You Had Me at) Hello. Nice ring to it, no? And I like the parenthetical homage to The Carpenters’ “(They Long toBe) Close to You”. No one else will make the link, but the name is for me.

Perhaps as James Hello I’ll become socially ept. (Clearly, I’ve mastered inept. Why can’t I be ept? No such thing?! By god, how am I supposed to right things?) Maybe the whole name thing needs more thought.

Back to Taylor Swift. This is a woman who falls in love. A lot. True, guys line up for her. Fame, money, trophies. Maybe I’ll go back to wearing my bed-sheet ribbon.

Joe Jonas.

Taylor Lautner.

John Mayer.

Jake Gyllenhaal. (Ah, Jake. This one was the keeper, Taylor.)

Conor Kennedy.

Harry Stiles.

These are all brief relationships. According to my trusty Wiki research, none has exceeded four months. But Taylor would never call them “flings”. Love. Truly, Madly, Deeply. (Aside: Whatever happened to SavageGarden?)

For me, it’s not about the fact the relationships end. My focus is on getting something to start. For the past decade, I’ve been this sad sack, stranded on a quasi-island, failing miserably at survival. Lots of rubbing stones together to try to make a spark, a fire. Nothing. No matches. No light.

Taylor believes in love. Taylor finds love. She is known for bashing her exes in song, but her lyrics are also laced with hope and romance. Listen to “Love Story” again. “Today Was a Fairytale”. Sense the longing in “Teardrops on My Guitar” or “You Belong with Me”. All summer her duet with Ed Sheeran, “Everything Has Changed”, squiggled through my brain like an earworm. It amused me as a tale of falling fast.

All I knew this morning when I woke
Is I know something now, know something now I didn't before.
And all I've seen since eighteen hours ago
Is green eyes and freckles in your smile
In the back of my mind making me feel right.

'Cause all I know is we said, "Hello."                            [As in (You Had Me at)!]
And your eyes look like coming home
All I know is a simple name
Everything has changed.
All I know is you held the door
You'll be mine and I'll be yours
All I know since yesterday is everything has changed.

The jaded part of me dismisses it all as the thinking of a young mind. So naïve. So open. I was that once. An ex (and his mother; both cynical) once described me as a deer in the headlights: innocent, hopeful, and wholly unaware of the harshness ahead. Now I am guarded. I’ve been cheated on, abused and, of late, completely passed over. Yes, Taylor, there is a country song in me if I can ever feel comfortable leaving off word beginnings endings and tossin’ ‘round apostrophes.

But I’d like to get back to being hopeful or, at the very least, suspending disbelief.

Hope is a start. Opportunity is another hurdle. Someone hold the door. Green eyes and freckles or not, show me that smile.

I can’t keep rubbing rocks together. I have no interest in being on “Survivor”. I need a spark, a flame, some warmth. Bring it on. 

Swiftly.

Highlighting Summer (What Makes a Gay Icon?)

Yesterday, I reread a tribute article about Heath Ledger. When he died, gays were particularly effusive in praising him and embracing his legacy. That got me wondering, How does someone become a gay icon? Especially when they are not gay themselves. Sure Heath Ledger played a gay cowboy in “Brokeback Mountain”, but so did Jake Gyllenhaal. I don’t see Jake having the same status amongst gays. Even if he suddenly died—tragically at that. (And I would contend Jake is at least as good looking as Heath. Check out the promo shot for his new movie, "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time", in the July 24 issue of Entertainment Weekly.) Jake's got the acting chops, too. (I just did a check and he, not Heath, won the ultra prestigious MTV Movie Award for Best Performance. Heath and Jake shared the coveted Best Kiss honor.)

But this isn't about Heath. Or Jake. I started thinking back to one of my first entertainment idols, back when I was twelve. Did all fortysomething gay men grow up gyrating in the basement to the pulsating beat of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”? (Once, maybe twice, I mimicked the rhythm by plucking a rubber band. That part couldn’t be gay, could it? Geeky, yes. Unfortunately, I can't find the original version on YouTube. It seems everybody's got a remix or a hokey, sit-on-the-stool-in-the-family-room cover. Hey, listen to--er, watch--this gay-pleasing version of "I Feel Love" on YouTube. You won't see where the elastic comes in because there is a clapping effect instead. You won't care. Trust me.)

To a kid who was almost a decade away from the club scene, what drew me to a singer whose biggest album was “Bad Girls” a concept album paying homage to female prostitutes? I didn’t know a thing about drag queens back then so that couldn’t have been the link.

I didn’t know anyone who openly identified as gay at the time. I hadn’t yet figured out my sexuality. All I knew was every part of my existence felt awkward. Why did I take solace in all things Donna? Nobody observed my feeble batter’s stance during agonizingly long beach baseball games and suggested that I should stay inside and listen to a danced up version of a song about leaving a cake out in the rain.

Yet somehow I knew. Donna Summer was my idol. I had all her albums and the poster that came with “On the Radio” was displayed prominently in my room.

Right beside an oversized montage of Olivia Newton-John writhing in water with dolphins.

On a surface level, I was passing for straight. Gorgeous women adorned my walls. But why did I hang posters of Donna (and Olivia), not of Farrah? (My parents refused to let me watch “Charlie’s Angels” because they felt it was risqué. Oh, I’ll bet they wish they could have a do-over on that one! Might have even slipped a Beta video of “Debbie Does Dallas” under my pillow.)

I realize I am painting with an awfully broad stroke when I link Miss Summer with gay men of a certain age. Still, I think many of us connected with her. What drew us to disco instead of Pink Floyd? Somehow Summer fit.

It seemed to be destiny how I met my first love years later at a gala celebration to honor volunteers of AIDS Project Los Angeles. As an AIDS buddy in the early 90s, I had to attend monthly sessions with a facilitator to ensure that each of us felt supported as we, in turn, supported an APLA client. During a retro disco dance, I hovered in the background safely mixing with other volunteers who were already taken. When the DJ announced it was the last dance he played—what else?!—Donna Summer’s Oscar winning song. My facilitator came out of nowhere, grabbed my arm and tugged me onto the dance floor. I stood there, feeling awkward—somehow that never really went away—while he rushed off. Moments later, he reappeared with one of the APLA employees. “This is John,” he informed me. “You two really need to get together. Now dance.” We did. And we did.

The love didn't last, but Donna did. She continues to release new music. Some of her songs apparently still hit the dance chart. I find them on YouTube, listen a few times and that’s that. Like all aspects of pop culture, Donna Summer’s star has faded. But, on a Saturday night when I have nothing going on—and there are many such Saturday nights—I will often dig through my CD collection, passing over the ones by Barry Manilow, the Divine Miss M and Babs, and put on vintage Donna. Yes, the cake is gone and I will never have that recipe again, but Donna can still whet my appetite.