BYE GEORGE

This is feeling like a trend. Bowie. Prince. And now George Michael. I’d add Natalie Cole to the list as well. (I’m just glad Joni Mitchell seems to have pulled through.) So now it’s time to end the trend. Let passing away be passé. Lionel Richie, Madonna, Phil Collins, you’ve got to live until you’re ancient. No one will remember you. Except other ancient folks and, when these other ancients reminisce about you dancing on the ceiling and pretending cones were your breasts, the young ‘uns will just think the old coots are having a delusional moment. Morphine and memory challenges will do that.

But back to George. His death may not come as a surprise. He’s had problems over the years. Maybe he was never supposed to have the spotlight solely on him. Maybe Andrew Ridgeley served a purpose after all. I think the Brits followed his problems more than those of us on the other side of the water. Here, he went from scandalous to a joke to obscure. We moved on. This is the land where we need to know about parking tickets issued to neighbors of fifth cousins of those Kardashian sisters. (Don’t ask me to name them. I’ll only sidetrack you with an analysis of Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Inception.” You won’t be able to argue. But we’ll go back to normal talk, disparaging Starbucks while nonetheless slurping down our caramel mocha half-sweet non-fat frappuccinos.)

See what I’m doing? I’m straying. Because I’m not sure what to make of George’s death. I didn’t know him. I wasn’t part of his circle of friends. I wasn’t even a neighbor of a fifth cousin. I never had a backstage pass to allow me to forever tell every acquaintance my one takeaway: He said hi—well, not to me, but to a hotter looking guy beside me—and I swear he had a distinct scent of green tea, scotch and pot on his breath. (Or maybe it was just Hubba Bubba watermelon.) No, all I knew was the George of MTV and awards shows and of one particular cassette that I’ll always consider a classic. (If only I had a device on which to play it. I'm an old coot who rather liked cassette decks. Bought my favourite George Michael cassette twice as all that damn ribbon had a tendency to unravel in my car radio system. Beloved tape decks had their flaws, just like all of us.)

I got much more from George than the nickel he got from me in royalties. I had a little crush on that handsome, blond-streaked bopper who first emerged looking way too happy in a CHOOSE LIFE t-shirt. At the time, I thought Wham! was another one-hit wonder. Like Kajagoogoo. And Haircut One Hundred. Oh, those pretty pretty Brit boys. George’s debut act—was it even a band?—didn’t deserve continued success, not with an exclamation mark in its name (just wrong!) and an odd song with a “Go Go” tagged on the end. (A Go-Go(s) tangent: I always thought Jane Wiedlin should’ve had as much solo success as Belinda Carlisle.)

But Wham! lived on because the lead singer had more than good looks; he had a voice. And despite “Everything She Wants” and the solo hit “I Want Your Sex,” I always felt there was a sensitive man wanting to emerge, wanting vocals to matter in the pre-Adele era. “Careless Whisper” gave us a window to something greater. I always felt “A Different Corner” and “Jesus to a Child” would never have been released as singles if George had been a lesser pop star.

I will admit that I enjoyed seeing him shake his stuff in those faded jeans in the “Faith” video as much as anyone else. And I enjoyed all the gay chatter. 

Is he?! 

But what about Brooke Shields? 

He was a master at feeding us an infectious hook, from the dopey “I’m Your Man” to the slick “Fastlove,” from the cheery “Freedom” with Wham! to my favorite single, his solo “Freedom ‘90.” These were the songs I danced to in gay clubs between Madonna, Janet Jackson and Bananarama videos. George gave us a good time. Over and over again.

But he went from pop icon to artist with the release of “Listen without Prejudice, Volume 1.” “Praying for Time” haunted against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis. The song begins with a plea for charity but ends in the kind of uncertainty that fit the period:

It's hard to love, there's so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it's much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time.

“Freedom '90” represented an artistic shift in its absence of the singer in the video, something that must have given record execs ulcers even as they dropped hundreds of thousands into a delicious fashion video with the supermodels of the day. (My roommates were obsessed with models at the time and we argued playfully (?) over which model was supreme. Being the prideful Canadian, I always went with Team Linda.) Behind the gloss of the video and the groove of the music, the lyrics begged for us to see George as he truly was:

Heaven knows I was just a young boy,
Didn't know what I wanted to be.
I was every little hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy,
And I guess it was enough for me….

But, today, the way I play the game is not the same;
No way.
Think I'm gonna get me some happy.
I think there's something you should know.
I think it's time I told you so.
There's something deep inside of me.
There's someone else I've got to be.

But nobody—other than the gays—wanted George to be anything different. And, really, George already had the gays in his back denim pocket. I’ll always believe “Listen” was grounded in a real relationship with a man but no one wanted to see that. Or maybe I wanted to see that too much.

The album didn’t get the sales or the recognition it deserved, perhaps because its songs demanded that the listener actually think, perhaps because he didn’t want his ass or even his face to be a part of the promotion, perhaps because his record label wanted to teach him a thing or two about corporate conformity.

When news broke of George propositioning an undercover police officer in a Beverly Hills park bathroom, I took perverse pleasure, not in seeing a star humiliated—at least not that much—but in finally having confirmation that Georgie Boy was one of us. Hell, he could be mine! If only he’d look beyond urinals or bathroom stalls in public restrooms. (I don’t have a clue where exactly the propositioning occurs. I’m more concerned with there being soap and a hand dryer that works even just a little. (They never work beyond “just a little,” do they?))

I’ve read that George never embraced his coming out. He didn’t want to be the trailblazer. And who can blame him. His career in North America dried up after the bathroom incident. No more U.S. charting singles, even with the buzz-generating “Outside” video. Sam Smith et al. have no idea what homophobia was like back in 1998, particularly for an artist whose sexy looks were part of the draw.

And so a mega-star with ten Number 1s and twenty-three Top 40 singles flamed out. But I continued to have my “Listen Without Prejudice” binges. It was part of the soundtrack to many of my road trips and, just two weeks ago, I spent a Saturday night playing my own George Michael marathon, even discovering a new gem, his Rufus Wainwright cover, “Going to a Town.” Admittedly, I have less than stellar weekends, but there was renewed joy and appreciation in listening to the man sing.

We’ll always have that. It’s unlikely that he would have had any kind of musical resurgence. The real tragedy is for those who knew him personally. I don’t know how he died but I hope it wasn’t at the hand of one of his demons: drugs, depression or a combination of the two. George Michael helped define my days of coming out and the years that followed. He added feel good moments to the process. I’m not sure he ever gave as much to himself.

I’m still listening, George. Without prejudice, but for now with great lament.  

SELFIE-STEEM

Our ‘90s selves would be appalled by our post-millennial selves.

Or at least mine would.

Seriously? You take pictures of yourself and post then on the Internet? Why the hell would you do that? And what do you mean everyone’s doing it? Don’t f*^k with me. What has gotten into you?

‘90s me is rightly shocked and horrified. I used to be so skilled at ducking out whenever anyone someone started to fiddle with a telephoto lens attachment or set up the tripod. (Back then, there was sufficient warning to make my getaway.) I’d lock myself in the bathroom and say something about an eggplant allergy to the person banging on the door. Yep, that kept them at bay. Click away! By the time I re-emerged, they’d have used up their roll of film and we could go back to casually debating whether Madonna was becoming irrelevant—Who invited the straight guy?—or discussing which “Friends” character was the funniest. (Please. It was always Phoebe.)

Never wanted any photographic evidence of my physical existence. Big nose. Hair always overdue for a cut. Bulging eyes. Stick figure arms. A gut that screamed for a massive diet to lose ten pounds. (It was always ten pounds and it was always an extreme diet.) Excessively wrinkly elbows that should always be concealed by long sleeves. Retro WHAM! t-shirt…What was I thinking?!

‘90s me would never have imagined that I’d post goofy selfies on Facebook. People “Like” this sort of thing? Mercy likings, no doubt. Surely they were forced to dim their screens. There’s no way those elbows improved.

And ‘90s me would have me committed—okay, re-committed—for having the gall to post a shirtless selfie. Not just once. What are you trying to do? Incite politicians to make selfies illegal? When did you become an activist about world issues? Shirtless?! An extreme activist. It’s mind boggling.

Truth is, I’m not so far evolved from ‘90s me. I can still pick apart my physical state. And yet, the selfies are not so horrid. My body seems to have finally bulked up a tad. The gut doesn’t look as large. (I’ve downsized to the eternal quest to lose five pounds. Dieting is a way of being.) Still, that dang phone camera is never far away. Every time I’m in a hotel room, I snap a shirtless selfie.

Why? It’s hard to chalk it up to vanity when I am only mildly less repulsed by my looks. It’s part of an evidentiary expedition. Frankly, I don’t believe all the other shirtless selfies. They don’t look half bad. Everyone can get one good photo, maybe two. Trick mirrors, no doubt. I have to keep testing things. I need to return to sanity and that solid sense of unworthiness. I snap. I’m not appalled. Sometimes I’m almost satisfied…but for the five pounds and those freaky elbows.

Posting shirtless selfies?! Not as an activist statement? Not as an act of terrorism? (Okay, to be accurate, ‘90s me wouldn’t have mentioned terrorism. It wasn’t such a buzzword then. We were too concerned about the fact that Backstreet Boys may have actually nailed a couple good tunes. Boy band credibility threatened to upset the entire social order.)

Sorry, ‘90s me, I can’t really explain it. At least, not in a satisfying way. I post selfies. And, yes, even, shirtless selfies. Surely, there are selfie self-help groups, but I live in too remote an area. (Yeah, ‘90s me would shake his head at that, too. You moved where?!)

I’m selfie-aware enough to sense that I am seeking superficial validation. I’m stuck there. Not because I want to dwell on that. Believe me, I’d love to get past obsessing over physical imperfections. (At 50, I know they are cropping up with greater speed! At my most recent appointment with my skin cancer doctor, I kept pointing out questionable blemishes. “Age spots” was her declaration for each and every one. I should be glad be glad she didn’t say “melanoma” and I was, albeit taken aback nonetheless. Age spots are the new acne.) Like everyone else, I post selfies to fictionalize my life. Look at all the fun I’m having. Look at how great I look. (Never mind that I had to delete another ninety-nine less appealing, more true-to-life shots.) I need people to throw some “Likes” and some “Favorites” my way. Self-esteem has evolved to selfie-steem.

I’d love someone to know me more intimately, to see the humor, the kindness and perhaps the intelligence…when it comes to subjects other than posting selfies. Still, for now, surface “Likes” are all I can garner.

This is chronic adolescence. Low-level validation means far more than it should. But that’s the window. That’s the first impression. Disappointment in that domain means there is no second look.

Note to selfie: I’ll be glad when you’re gone. And as for you, ‘90s me, I’d love for you to stay in the archives as well. (Can’t believe you put a Backstreet Boys earworm in my head.)

Maybe the next time I book on hotels.com, I’ll request a room with no mirrors. That will be the new trend. It’s only a matter of months before more of us enter selfie-recovery.