“But as soon as the homebell rings
I’m gonna run to my locker
And gather up all my things
Then out the door” – The Supremes “Those D.J. Shows” (1961)
I’m gonna stick a little to the themes a few essays back for episode #2.
Granted, this is the brighter, sunnier parts of that gave bedrock to some of the darker, more adulthood concerns that intertwine love, longing and sometimes tragedy. It’s weird to feel in some ways I grew up in some weird version of The Wonder Years. The sentiment rings more true if I filtered my middle and high school years in particular through Todd Haynes interpreting the titular ABC comedy-drama that filled in some gaps of how both my parents saw the world.
There’s essential differences in how they saw the mid century modern world, tho. They aren’t white. Only my mother is a full fledged suburbanite from birth. They book-end Kevin Arnold and crew in age; Dad was born in 1948, Mom was born in 1961. Kevin is closer to my mom’s age as a character, born in 1956. The same Huffy ‘Banana Seat’ bicycles sat on my great grandmother’s patio that you see in the credits of the T.V. show. Where we lived were and are still dominated by various styles of pre and post World War II style suburban tract housing. Given what I’ve said about KDIA still holding music legacy down from up to 30 years before my childhood, jockeying for attention in my mind with Montell Jordan, you can see why it’s kind of hard to put a definite era on my teen years.
Where it starts to veer into something along the lines of subversion found in Poison and Far From Heaven all at once is actually how opaquely queer everything, and everyone was around me. It was kind of a fun house mirror too. Some of those that did have the privilege to openly join the Gay-Straight-Alliance taunted me for being so obvious but not participating. Part of it I wondered if it was envy that I was popular enough compared to them with those more heteronormative. They glossed over that I was enough of a mouthy threat to not get queer bashed either. I would also, from time to time, throw hands on the ‘popular’ kids to garner respect. I went to the the homecoming dance Freshman year solo, and didn’t get why in the hell I was there, other than I saw that you kinda ‘had to’ according to most movies and T.V. shows that told us about social rites of passage.
I didn’t go back, nor did I care to go to Junior prom either. The most interesting detail about the sunset of my adolescence was my first offer to be someone’s prom date came from a male classmate. It was in the parking lot in high school, behind his double burgundy hand-me-down late 80’s Buick LeSabre. I sadly didn’t say anything direct, weirdly in the limbo of not taking the ritual seriously. I deflected into saying I didn’t plan to go.
There was also the fear that, well, did I really want to spend the last 6 weeks until graduation making that much of a splash on campus. Instead, I was kinda coerced into going by the fellow theater geek that served as an ill fitting beard. I was actually pretty dressed up in a late 60’s sharkskin jacket and tuxedo pants/shirt from her mother’s thrift store. It was probably the first, and decidedly not the first time I could have passed for Levi Stubbs leading The Four Tops.
Last time I saw her, I was in Chicago for a wedding. It was an ironic weekend of trying to reconcile with my second boyfriend in America’s second city. He invited me to join him 2 years after I refused to move to Texas with him. After he got drunk and insulted me at said wedding, he just disappeared. So I wandered Chicago listlessly for a day, ending up having apple pancakes in Buffalo Grove somehow.
We went back to her apartment. Our prom picture was on the center of her mantle 7 years later. I was glad I had the excuse that the combination of her cats and carpet made my allergies go haywire almost immediately. I was dropped off at the nearest rail station with puffy eyes in desperate need of a hit of Benadryl. I roamed listlessly thru Chicago again, finally taking refuge with my baggage with other travelers sleeping in the terminal at O’Hare awaiting their first thing in the morning departures. I get in the weirdest situationships in my life because some else can’t let go. I’ve had no desire to go to Chicago really in 19 years.
That prom night, I looked across the floor, seeing the guy that asked me dance with a girl that he didn’t want to really be there with. There were glances in my direction as it was clear I just circled the mezzanine above the dance floor, trying to avoid the truth of the setting. I was never gonna belong to the performance of heterosexuality. I lost a chance to strike out into ‘adulthood’ doing something new, different, authentic that night. The other problem was there were other boys I wish had asked me. Therein lies another irony. Damien, who was core to writing a few yarns back, was on cross country running team. So was who asked me. So was my most illogical high school crush, good ole’ “my parents are so rich I have my own recording studio” douchebag. Accepting the invite felt a little too dangerously close to a social clique.
Outside of these conundrums was the person I spent the most time with. I never thought I could ever expect to even receive such an offer from them. I stayed safe enough in his shadow, even though time and time again he seems to forget I stand in it. I thought it far too lofty to actually be able to openly celebrate, to dance, to be romanced by who was your ‘best friend.’ Perhaps I looked in that direction the most on my prom night. That explains why a few months later, some wistful exuberance from a recently departed queer icon really caught my ear.
This is where “I Only Wanna Be With You” enters.
Wouldn’t you know it, Dusty Springfield’s debut solo single actually charted one position LOWERthan the Jackie Ross single from episode #1 in early 1964. Dusty, however, was able to nail down 2 more hot 100 hit singles before she hit some chart doldrums in 1965. Jackie couldn’t come up with a audience pleasing follow up, no matter how strong the initial effort. “I’ve Got The Skill” bragged about her talents but stalled at #89 pop. There was the controversy that she stole “Take Me For A Little While” from Evie Sands in 1965. Jackie was apparently cursed because she called out the game players, I guess.
It also helps that Dusty was a white woman associated with the influx of U.K. based “British Invasion” artists that dominated the American pop airwaves in early 1964. I have plenty of conspiracy theories, but I’ve always thought that the British Invasion was manufactured media white supremacy. The string of Top 10 pop hit records made by Black people for Black people that white people bought unabashedly during 1963 was a troubling trend. It may have been extremely threatening to the existing social order for arts & culture to come from the segregated inner cities of the United States. Also, quite plainly, The Beatles always sucked. They desperately needed the bolstering of mainstream media hysteria and that appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The Springfield number I had known for just as long, if not longer than the ‘other Miss Ross of ‘64’ song. It straddled oldies formats, just as much as Dusty’s own ‘Blue Eyed Soul’ leanings still defy categorization to a degree. I’d be foolish that it didn’t push a few buttons of regret of what I didn’t actually do in April when I heard it again. June lead to graduations that I wasn’t exactly satisfied with. Here’s where I’ve been playing the cruel joke on myself that I was Jackie Ross all these years.The reality is while I’ve acted that part, I was definitely deep down more foolishly Dusty Springfield.
I associate the bit of bombast with the night that defined my childhood closing. Adulthood was burgeoning a good 7 years after I had really paid attention to this Ronettes-lite effort from the other side of The Atlantic. It’s a song that confirmed what my desires, what my hopes were going to be. I’m very ‘all or nothing’ or… well, it took me until 36 to classify myself as demisexual (with a minor in fascinated and delighted by penises). More or less, the internal feeling of falling in love only sneaks up on me when I’ve deeply, and more likely, long term attached to you as a friend first.
When I know, I know.
I don’t know what it is that makes me love you soI only know I never want to let you go‘Cause you started something, oh, can’t you see?That ever since we met you’ve had a hold on meIt happens to be true, I only want to be with you
The biggest regret I’ve had in my life is that I grew up, and have lived in a world that even now, doesn’t truly make room for that process. I’m surely not the only one, but I’ve been historically out-of-sync with the courtship as ‘Shop Around’ reality that most people operate from. Even whatever the fuck we’re calling queer liberation is so sex as transactional need forward that, for me, is off-putting. I can’t associate pleasure with the pressure of rushing into an intimate act, no matter how much I may be desired to dance horizontally with.
It is not at all lost on me that Dusty Springfield was not exactly the most closeted of queer folks in the 1960s. Therein it’s telling that some ‘queer awakenings’ I’ve had, then practiced, are aligned significantly with her recording output. It’s not lost on me that the object of affection in her first solo hit isn’t assigned a gender. It’s not until “Wishin’ & Hopin’” that she’s addressing the pursuit of men. Even then, she’s in the role of advice, not exactly talking to the ‘girls’ like The Velvelettes are on “Needle In A Haystack” or The Marvelettes on “Too Many Fish In The Sea.”
While you can easily queer-code the respective Motown Girl Group hits as a “kiki session,” it’s far easier to interpret Dusty’s cover of a Dionne Warwick B-side about anyone after a crumb of dick. She didn’t pay as dearly as some of her contemporaries for queer coding or being actively openly queer either. She had a long term relationship with Norma Tanega starting in 1966, the same year she peaked in success in the United States with “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me.”
It doesn’t matter where you go or what you doI want to spend each moment of the day with you
I had been promised as an 18th birthday gift that the tall oak tree that I found shade under would moon passing cars. It was to happen after dinner as we drove back from that Italian restaurant to my house. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the place that was there before it was Celia’s in Atherton. I was disappointed with the rack of Lamb I ordered for myself.
I was a little bit annoyed, like I’m always annoyed, that I end up arranging my own birthday celebrations. The bum in question chickened out, either because he was driving or, well, you know, ‘what if’ you you were caught spreading your cheeks by someone you knew on Middlefield Road. For some reason, by the year 2000, being ‘cheeky’ was no longer being innocent like it was in the days of Porky’s.
A week later, our graduating class congregated at a Country Club with an indoor pool for an almost mandatory all night, drugs and alcohol free bender of sorts. Yo, trust me the cocaine was FLOWING at the private parties in my high school years. There was insane amounts of wealth floating around in those pre-dot com bust days. I got a surprise. The bum that chickened out on a full moon was pants’d, knowingly, directly in my face with a sly wink from a prankster. I guess it was known I was really curious. None of my friends really discussed sex with me in high school. Part of me didn’t force the subject, afraid that discussion would lead to arousal. I always assumed the general lack of safety and safe space to explore non-heterosexuality was mutually felt.
Was it the best ass I’ve ever seen in my life?
No.
It probably wasn’t even the best in terms of what I saw in gym locker rooms changing and showering after the swimming unit my freshmen and sophomore years. It was, however, pliable, a bit jiggly, with a decent heft to the slightly furry cheeks that was decidedly inviting. It wasn’t exactly quickly covered up either. A slightly grumpy hoist of the swimming trunks drew the curtains on the little peep show curated just for me. It seemed more annoyed with the truth of being called out for being too chicken to show off an area that desired attention. I heard some stupid reel today that when ‘dads’ joke, they aren’t joking. They’re just trying to make fun of the truth. There’s so many goddamn ‘dads’ in my life even today that I can barely tell if they want me to find the truth under their humor.
I think my face didn’t say anything, but I made sure to jump back in the pool to hide my arousal.
We returned to our school campus to a lesbian couple playing cover songs.
The prankster and the posterior got up to dance to that couple singing “I Only Want To Be With You.” The couple strummed their guitars as the rest of the class feasted on pancakes at 5am. Nobody noticed the song but me and… the pants’d and the prankster. They proceeded to get up to say to the strummed guitars grandly. I kinda choked on the dry ass obviously Kruteaz, not even Bisquick, pancakes. I ladled on a bit more imitation maple syrup from the jug sitting at the center of the table. This is probably where my love for being in diners on an all-nighter comes from. Maybe I’m always hoping for a little booty that only wants to be with me? Meet me over waffles tho.
You stopped and smiled at meAsked if I’d care to danceI fell into your open armsAnd I didn’t stand a chance
That early morning I looked, from the far right of the room, singing along quietly, artifice of sustenance on my breath, almost like a prayer. I prayed for an outcome that I had, out of fear, out of repression never got to really ask the divine for intervention until it was far too late. It’s not exactly a prayer that has been answered in the last quarter of a century, either.
I sing and dance it now with more intentionality than I did as a cavalier nowhere-near-grow person with very adult desires. I guess my wishes weren’t answered then because realistically it was a prayer of envy. These days it’s more a prayer of intervention. It’s one last hope for two people to have one happy ending. I watched and wished and hoped that I was in the spotlight instead of standing in the shadows. I had to grow up and realize that you can’t materialize fantasy into reality in a world that will make grievances out of loving the right person at the wrong time.
I hope I never have to live where I grew up ever again in my life.
DJ Larsupreme 