1974

the 1970's were a tumultous decade for many gay people. stonewall had ushered in the birth of new energy all over the states. it had become imperative to come out and to be seen as gay.

1974 was a very tumultuous year for me. i was in my 2nd year of my 2nd year of high school (didn't attend much of the 1st try) and i was a loose cannon. i had been sexually active for years already, but my hormones had gone haywire. i could barely be in my skin at any time of day or night. i had already been getting high pretty regularly.

i was living in the chicago suburbs and had been going traveling on amtrak to hang out a gay bathhouse in andersonville (man's country) once or twice a month. i had even hung out at the bistro, the annex, and pq's. impressive because i had only been 15.

my mother had been in an unsuccessful relationship. she had been drinking heavily and was moody and depressed a lot. naturally, i felt it was my fault, as i was a darling narcissist. so on my 16th birthday, i left home and moved in an apartment with a puerto rican drag queen named danee'. she was doing shows around the smaller clubs, like carol's speakesy broadway, and then on halsted.

but before i moved out, i attended my very 1st gay pride parade in chicago in the summer of 1974. life was all so astounding for me at that point. i remember the revelry, and i remember the camaraderie. i felt i truly had found home. i didn't stand out as the only sissy. the only queer. i didn't stand out much at all- (a different kind of trauma to be discerned much later on).

the journey that unfolded from that point had more circuitous nuances than i could have imagined. but at least i didn't have to feel as alone i had in my life thus far. happy pride weekend! pride and 1974 are two of the best things that ever happened to me...

dance hall days

me and my crew circa 1979...
we called ourselves the vee dubs. actually it was vwsc etc. the virginia woolf secret club.. we got together, read gay classics from the likes of virginia woolf, vita sackville west, kerouac, ginsberg, burroughs, doris lessing, and others while we drank cheap wine and envisioned our lives elsewhere. paris. london. or maybe athens, georgia (home of the b-52's). note the plastic key ring on my belt loop. that was one of our trademarks. keys were very chic in gay men's culture then. if you wore them on your right or left was a signal of top/bottom.

we intensely wanted to be just like a street gang. we saw "warriors" and were enamored. but we were queer. not tough at all. at least not kick ass. but we could turn a phrase like there was no tomorrow.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” Jack Kerouac

sometimes it only takes a song(or 4) to whisk me back to my "mad ones" days. and for me these are some of those songs. i just hear any of these songs.. the riffs... those vocals... the bass lines...and i'm transported back for a minute or two. i can almost hear the bassline of blondie's rapture in the making. and there are definitely connections to chic and vaughn mason and their roller boogie magic.


it wasn't all about cocktails and drugs (thought they were plentful) as much as it was about the groove. the internship. about testing our limits and spreading our wings. trying new flavors and surfing the scene. saying "yes" to pleasure. urban. hip. downtown. uptown. alternative. they were called clubs because we belonged there..

go ahead and have some fun.. i did! try it out...

fool around

for some strange reason i started thinking about rachel sweet and her ultra sweet voice. in 1978 and '79 i used to listen to her "fool around" album over and over. funny thing, i thought she was so great, but no one i ever knew ever heard of her. my friend mark stephens and even bought a pair of pumps (yes that's right) because on the back on one of her singles she was wearing pumps with jeans and we thought that was the "t".



sidebar- we wore those pumps to 3 parties and 2 shows (including rachels sweet and grace jones). mine were spectator pumps-mockup above. we had so much fun fooling around and thought we were "the shit".

anyway, she ushered in the 80's with a remake of "everlasting love" with rex smith. the sales went nowhere, but i love that song, both the original and their remake.


here is what i found about her on wikipedia


rachel disappeared for a few years and then re-emerged with an appearance in john waters' "cry baby" playing the granddaughter of polly bergen(in voice only). she also did the first music video in 88 for the original "hairspray". you can see her "hairspray" video(circa 1988) here


here's what one reviewer said:

This one brings back the memories. Rachel Sweet was a 16 year old junior at Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio, when FOOL AROUND was released. I had lived in Akron for fifteen years at the time, and something was in the air, the feeling that the town, a truly miserable place to live, was going to break out musically, with bands like Devo and Tin Huey and The Bizarros getting major label deals and expatriate Chrissie Hynde waiting in in the wings. Rachel Sweet, in such esteemed company, was almost an afterthought to the self-consciously hip among us, given that her pop stylings never approached the avant guard, cutting edge groove that groups like Chi Pig were able to toss off. It is accordingly remarkable to listen to FOOL AROUND, some three decades later, and to be floored by how good it sounds from beginning to bonus-track(s) end.
read full review here

if you haven't heard of rachel sweet or haven't heard her for awhile, i would recommend it. hava listen. as a matter of fact, i would urge you to download the tracks of fool around and see if it doesn't really stand the test of time. tunes like "who does lisa like" and 'stay awhile" are in my eyes(ears) simply spectacular..

who knows, maybe she was only fooling around. even now, 30 years later, i think she's pretty damn sweet.

Rachel Sweet - B-A-B-Y 1978
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