dance hall days

i got an email from colorado aids project about a fundraiser called backtracks (october 11 at exdo events center $10) and it got me thinking about dancing. it's funny to me. if i look at the list of friends on my fb page, let's say, i realize that about half know me in my present incarnation. person living in recovery, counselor, and hiv activist. but then the other half know me as i was before these days came into being. these friends and confidantes knew me when something black-something earring, nipple pony round-up, collar up syndrome(it's first time around) and techno-pop and crossover basslines ruled the day- and certainly the night-my dance hall days.

now i can't change them, nor would i even considering doing such a thing. i had a blast from 1975 until 1988 doing the club thing. after that, it became something very different. but during those times, i lived, i laughed (a lot), and i loved. the camaraderie that was instilled in me during all those after hours parties and all those tribal chants on the dance floors really helped lead me to the person i am now.
and i have a much better understanding of what makes younger gay men tick because their trials and tribulations are not so very different from my own path.

on this saturday, i salute once again my dance hall days. and i salute the dance hall days of now. gay men's culture has almost forever found gay men meeting and socializing in some very alternative and intimate ways and no doubt will continue to do so. we set standards, we set trends, we say yes to pleasure, we have forged new paths.

long live dance halls. long live gay men. lord help us learn to love each other and take care of each other with deeper intention each year. we definitely have shown we know how to work it.


today's sound choice is a frankie knuckles remix of thompson and lenoir's "work it to the bone."

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...

dark knight

i think i started to get a crush on him when i first saw "empire of the sun". he was so young then and it wasn't a sexual desire, it was a fraternal one. that morphed a bit when i saw "little women" with susan sarandon and wynona ryder. he was so goofy and with such a peaches and cream complexion. but he looked a tad more kissable. when "american psycho" hit the screen, i knew i was hooked. so imagine my disdain when i read the news of his unfortunate scandal with the english press.

the following article is from college candy and i am drawn to it's tone:

Because no one in the CC office wants to believe that Christian Bale is the type of guy who would flip out at his sister and mother randomly, we’ve been following this story every step of the way (I mean, it’s a matter of possibly kicking him out of our fantasises forever…it’s important). Here’s what we’ve learned this morning:

1) His mother used to be a clown. Legitimately.
2) He may or may not have a short temper (which may be due to the fact that he plays tortured dudes all the time)
3) His sis allegedly asked him for a loan of 100,000 pounds (roughly $200,200), and he said no
4) His mom allegedly insulted his wife, and Bale went all “Oh no you DIDN’T!” on her ass
5) Bale’s family “never wanted to ruin his night” but felt they needed to “teach him a lesson”

Aside from saying what he had for breakfast the day of the blow up, reporters are doing their best to dig through Bale’s past and find some deep, dark poison in his soul or something. Our hypothesis? The guy has a bad temper, has been stressed out for a while, had a giant fight with the fam, and because he’s a celebrity that “row” turned into some kind of Battlestar Galactica implosion in the media.

So yeah, Beautiful Bale isn’t out of our fantasies yet…we just may reconsider challenging him to a rousing game of Battleship…because that sh*t gets heated.

i had been holding on to the following clip for awhile. the sounds are very much aligned with part of my dance hall days, but i thought it was a little apropos for this post if i give it a battling superhero theme. i love this cut, and it definitely heralded in the diversity that was exploding onto dance floors across our nation reflecting the social change that was taking place. rap music was quickly morphing into hip-hop and racial borders were being redrawn at every turn.

java- your sproing will certainly love this one, too.....

now, on to the work week

something special

image credit: romain laurent

We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn’t control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn’t make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn’t seem to be of real help to other people—Pg. 52

from emotionalsobriety.org


today i woke up much later than usual, knowing i have a full day off, (the first in a long time) and full of gratitude for the direction my life is headed. i never would have guessed that i would find myself without so much drama, or at least without the drama i have not dictating my moods. what a shift.

a colleague and i met with an attorney yesterday about incorporating our efforts with the i.r.s. if i am to be a steward of monies for some educational programs for guys with hiv then i don't want to be held financially responsible if something quirky happens. this step also could easily lead to receiving more grants for the type of work we are doing. and there are at least two more programs i would love to see happening here in denver.

the attorney is a friend of mine from the program and he was giggling to himself, because last year, as we jogged the park together and shared stories, he kept saying i should be doing exactly what i have started to do here.

my sponsor has been talking about the three layers of sobriety lately. there is chemical sobriety, emotional sobriety, and spiritual sobriety. the first one i have begun to get a handle on, however the other two remain a mystery. he has started work with another addict on emotional sobriety, and he asked if i would be interested in joining the work. this is a natural direction for me to take, especially considering the events of the last 3 months. i need to understand how powerless i am over my emotions and how to recognize this. i will start to do the work.

this song takes me back to dance hall days. the nyc peech boys. i think keith haring did a cover for this 12 inch or maybe it was the album. i remember parking on the dance floor with my friend freddy colberg (now at the dance hall in the sky), it would be around 5am, and and he and i would find ourselves understanding the lyrics of this song on what we thought was a spiritual level. now that spiritual understanding is not punctuated by drugs and alcohol- other than lithium, my hiv cocktail and 2 vanilla lattes. life really is something special. it has been quite a journey to here- one i never dreamed of making this far. and a healthy starting point each day is that gratitude being ground zero for me.

dance hall days

the early 80's-there was an air of "anything is possible" mixed with "leave no stone unturned" or "live every day like it's your last" i think. there was so much creative energy flowing everywhere. cultures were mixing, gays and straights, whites and people of color, skinheads and fashionistas, and agreement fields were mobile and so were lines drawn in the sand.

techno pop was making a real thrust into the heart of american culture. it was supplanting traditional hard rock on many of the airwaves and disco in many clubs. a new wave of music and culture was being heralded in. i heard orson welles declare that he didn't care for the drum machine because it didn't create a rhythm or a beat that was connected to a human spirit. that a mechanical beat had no soul.

i don't remember feeling that tho. it seemed to me that much of the music that was playing during my dance hall days was soulful. it had soul and it had smarts. at least the tracks i liked- homosapien by pete shelley, pretty in pink by psychedelic furs, add it up by violent femmes, bizarre love triangle by new order, and of course, almost anything by yaz.

we held court in dance halls. we watched parades and we attended wakes. we cheered teams and we got rained out. we witnessed theatre and we laughed and cried. we became chameleons and changed our colors to suit our backdrop. and with much going on in the outside world that held very little allure, it was always a pleasure to slink into the darkly lit arenas throbbing with bass and packed with fashion victims, storytellers, bohemians, and freedom riders. goth seemed so quaint then because it was very appropriate to dress up the idea of death and darkness.

i remember visiting my friend paul for the last time in the hospital in 1985. he was a shell of the beauty i had once known. a skeleton really. he had suffered with thrush for over a year 1/2. food hadn't tasted good to him for a long time. he wasn't able to keep what nourishment he did eat down for very long. he was tired. he was weak, he was frustrated, and he was preparing. i had tested positive about a week earlier and he knew. he was in his third bout of pneumonia but he was always happy to see me. i read to him and told him some gossip about the club and the club kids. he died later that week. thanksgiving day as a matter of fact. but the music continued and the dancing remained. as it should i dare say. and the last words he spoke to me were "you take care of yourself".

funny, i didn't even know how to do that really before i was positive. and i knew i had no clue now. but is shook my head indicating that "indeed i will".

in my world, the 80's really did herald in quite a "situation". and of course so many us were screaming "don't go" silently to many of our friends. we didn't know what this tidal wave really was washing over us and we didn't want to know. let the rhythm take me cuz i don't know if i can take much more of this.

so paul my friend- all these years later, maybe i am finally getting a clue as to how to take care of myself. it feels good to finally get it. i still miss you.

pssst- dance halls days is a series of posts. if you are interested in reading more just type "dance hall days" in the search bar at the top of this blog. and i have embedded an "alternative" dance hall days playlist in finetune in the sidebar. click it and hava listen if you like.

dance hall days

i have posted a psychedelic furs album because of the fashion aesthetic. this was the look that penetrated many of the dance halls that i went to in new york, san francisco, and chicago. in my circle we called it "something black, something earring".

one fantastic place has a very sweet and solid memory of my clubbing days of the early 80's for me. i had lived in chicago since '74 and so was pretty in tune with any scene that was happening on the near north side. we called it "newtown" or "lakeview". it was before halsted street became a homo mall. gentrification hadn't happened and you could still get a 3 floor brownstone or gray stone for a price that didn't involve swallowing.

there was a proliferation of buildings which had hailed as swedish social clubs in former times. one incredible one would be opened by joe shanahan which he called "metro". i remember before he took it over, it was called centerstage and had hosted a couple of great shows including a grace jones "taped" show that had some memorable technical challenges for ms. jones.

but as an addendum to his big show club "metro" there was an addendum dance club that opened around '82. it was called smart bar. michael connelly was the premier dj and i remember feeling as if i'd had my first mint julep after a long drought after hearing his sets. he didn't follow the beat to beat mix that almost every other major club and disco jock had been using. he was far more creative and took us on aural joy rides with johnny cash following a clash song which then was followed by an old school rap record maybe with a bauhaus tune. on and on the eclectic mixes would ensue and we found ourselves not feeling formulaic or a part of the borg, but more sailing on an open sea with the wind changing every so often and not much predictable.

smart bar also heralded a rap night which was unheard of here-to-fore in chicago. there were persons of color all over the club and the culture clash was immediate and another burst of fresh air. there certainly were difficulties and challenges, but i think most of us felt that this change was long overdue and we were happy to weather any uncomfortableness in order to promote progress. funny side note- my friend jill bar tended there and would make me howl when she would describe her absolute horror at a customer ordering a vsop gimlet.

i remember the club was set up like an apartment with different "themed" small rooms connecting shotgun from the front to the back. i think i remember one being a doctor's office. i always liked that one. i could get a check-up whenever i needed. or better give or get an exam at will:P

my dance hall days taught me a lot about socialization and some more of the world. in true "youth" style, i certainly thought i knew it all, but i definitely knew i wanted equality and progress. i also had begun to harbor some fear and resentment, mostly around aids and america's response to it then. talk about feeling like personae non grata... i mean it seemed like we were being targeted as lepers. and i hadn't even tested positive yet. and when i was in smart bar or medusas, i didn't have to think about it either. i mean let somebody else work it out, right? the administration was completely ignoring our existence. and maybe if we pretend it's not there, we won't have to deal with it. (i'm sure this still happens today)-
some dance to remember... some dance to forget

and for me, the following song will always reprezent the smart bar. it was part of the fabric of that first year of the club and later the club became an integral part of chicago nightlife and culture. it was what so many of we "alterna-gays"(tragically hip, anything but disco-except for sure cheap trick) were thinking and feeling in many respects in those days. in many ways, it was " the message" for a bit of those days.... don't push me... 'cuz i'm close...i'm tryin... not to lose my head... huh huh huh

bare

image credit: gladys

Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
And between the two, my life flows.

only once have i ever really had a romantic relationship. i was 19 or so. i have always gotten ridiculous crushes and tried to make friends or more with guys by the clever technique of having sex. but on one occasion in my life i completely did have an honest-to-goodness live-in boyfriend who i was mad for.

we had met while working together at a gay bar in chicago called "cheeks". (lol) and we kinda flirted a bit for awhile and then decided to play for a while. and then the dating and the moving in together just kinda came freely. we shared a 3 bedroom apartment in the de paul university area with 2 hetero female nurses. it was all very reminiscent of "tales of the city" with the comings and goings of all the friends and lovers. i think we were together for 2 years. i thought it would last forever. or maybe i didn't really think that, i can't say for sure.

i know that when he quit the bar to work in a restaurant on rush street, our lives changed, too. he was a flirt. and that's what he remained. i understand that because i'm a flirt as well. but, i didn't expect him to stay out most of the night at a co-workers birthday celebration only to find him knobjobbing the birthday boy in a parked car in front of our apartment at 3am.

i wasn't ready for that twist. and i got so angry that i threw things. and i left that night, and things were never the same between us. you know, i think that i was more changed by the level of anger i experienced than by the blowjob action in the car. i think i was frightened by my own emotions so much that i may have shut down emotionally after that. i think it validated in me something much more core. that i really could never have a relationship because somehow i wasn't worthy. i have never really let anyone else in since.

i have dated a few guys since then. there was an 18 yr old dreamboat who glommed (?) onto me in the mid-eighties for about 6 months. we played around a bit and we played house a little, but i never took it seriously. he ended up befriended my group of friends just as i left chicago to shake a devastating cocaine habit i'd picked up after testing poz.

and there was a really sweet guy from boulder who was dj'ing at a warehouse party i went to the second year i was in denver. he was amazing, really bright, funny, he was getting his phd, he was an artist. and i didn't feel like an alien when i was with him which is monumental. but i got just so close to him and then some huge security door slammed shut inside me and i turned away. i think i feared getting hurt again. i probably also re-engaged those unworthy thoughts. pretty sure that's what happened anyway.

the one thing i can surmise from these three situations is that i run. i shut down and i run because i am afraid. i might be afraid of being hurt. i might be afraid of being rejected. i might simply be afraid of being seen as i am. maybe the persona that i show the world begins to become transparent and i cannot handle that. maybe i am afraid i actually appear to others the way i see myself. maybe all this and more is true.

so have you gathered that i wasn't good at intimacy? the concept and the execution of getting close with someone else remain elusive. it is part of my healing process to look at these issues and release them. because clinging to them holds no benefit for me any longer. it may be somewhat late in my life, but it's the only time i have felt safe enough to try.

on thanksgiving i did a post called "the day i stopped dancing". i now think it an acknowledgement that this past year marked the time in my life i have started to dance again. and as i write this i slyly consider a series of posts i do here called "dance hall days" which fondly remember the days in my history when dancing was an everyday part of my reality. one specatular aspect of this is i don't have to be loaded in order to remember them or process those feelings. that's real progress for me.....and thank goodness for that. oh i'm not in love. i'm just baring some truth and hopefully releasing some barriers to love.

"You know you're dancing when tears of pain and happiness blend in with your sweat" ~anonymous

dance hall days

photo: club rapido amsterdam


as you have probably noticed, i have a thing for pop music. i love music, i love dance music, i love lyrics, i love music that makes me think and feel. so i have begun a series of posts entitled "dance hall days". this allows me to highlight some of my favorite dance floor anthems from over the years and also to remember what my life was like in those times. i believe that being gay is essentially being part of a tribe. a good portion of my tribe's history has taken and still does take place on a dance floor, especially our rituals. stonewall was a dancehall too, i believe. coming out, celebrations, courtship, mating, group conscience all take place in tribal fashion in dance halls, clubs, and parties around the world. i'm only a warrior who loves his tribe. who understands and is following his spiritual path and trying to follow his heart.

i remember so often that there seemed nothing more important than to be in the right corner of the dance floor, with the right group of friends, with the right mix of pharma, and the right song playing as our backdrop. that was a pinnacle for the weekend, for the month, or for the hour. it was festival, it was celebrant, it was ritual, and it was tribal.

this is a tune by faithless: the lyrics speak to me because i have used clubs as churches. i have worshipped and mourned there. i have grown there, i have gone there to be seen, and i have hidden out there.

my life has certainly changed, but i think the younger warriors are still participating with this ritual de la habitual(LOL). i am certain i will continue to love and look back with fondness on my dance hall days.

FAITHLESS LYRICS

"God Is A DJ"

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's a natural grace
Of watching young life shape
It's in minor keys
Solutions and remedies
Enemies becoming friends
When bitterness ends
This is my church [3x]

This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
It's in the world I become
Content in the hum
Between voice and drum
It's in change
The poetic justice of cause and effect
Respect, love, compassion
This is my church
This is where I heal my hurt
For tonight
God is a DJ
This is my church

dance hall days

my last entry of dance hall days was so much fun for me. i actively remembered a time when the world was still spinning for me and life was much more carefree. that post was lovingly posted and published on icp. i encourage you to check it out and support the carnival of pozitivities. i love the carnival and i really love it's mission, which includes a much more global personal view of hiv/aids.

my dance hall days did include using drugs and alcohol, but i don't remember that as being the focus. i was also learning about relationship, about community, and about possibility. being around so many different people with so many different backgrounds and so varied interests, my interests and the possibilities i could see for my life expanded too.

it was a time in my life to test the waters, test the rules, reject the status quo and redefine for myself the rules i would try to live by. i had been "out" for about 6 years and really perceived that i had hit the jackpot. i had found a subculture that would work for me because it embraced difference(to a degree), it questioned authority, and it celebrated self-expresion and creativity.

underground was just that- hidden from the mainstream much like avalon. it was the beginning of alternative culture and spawned many different variations of that theme. punk, goth, mod, skinhead, all those subcultures rumbled across the cities like wildfire. all demanding discernment from each other, but all seemingly interconnected.

today's entry into dance hall days is a classic from the late 70's/80's. it wasn't played in all the clubs i frequented. but it was heard in the off-the-beaten path ones(where i had the most fun). it is a classic to me and is connected to early techno. slam-dancing was not unusual then and neither was this thing we called-kick dancing. and please note that the images cut to this song are banal, but i chose it for the song.

and don't lyrics like... let's make love- before we die- really foreshadow some things that were to come? (again, in the vid menu bar, there are other versions.. grace jones... trent reznor with peter murphy live(damn good!).

deep dish dreams

i have been following the prometa stories with keen interest. it's such a great promise- medication that will quell the desire to re-use meth and cut back on cravings. a person takes it long enough to get through their first months of staying away from crystal and they are able to withstand the urges and come out on the other side clean.

if you read the literature and the studies that are put out by the developers, you get a sense that finally this meth thing might have an end in sight. the numbers are amazing and the legislation all looks good for a new entry in the fight against meth.

i have been following a series of posts at lifelube, though and have come to believe not much of what i was hearing from the drug manufacturer. the politics that are littered throughout the undergarments of this story are all too familiar. please read matt simonette's coverage of a public inquiry.



as is usually the case, there are some financial irregularities mixed well in the story too:

[See past posts on Prometa. LifeLube is concerned about this company- Hythiam - pushing a very expensive treatment protocol for alcohol and crystal meth addiction - with no scientific proof other than small, open-label studies. Read this item from The News Tribune today in Tacoma, WA and you can see why there is cause for for this concern across the country...]

it is advisable to beware of quick fixes, of potions and pills, as they might have an effect, but doubtfully hold the promise of a cure. what ails our tribe is more likely a spiritual malady that can be overcome with forgiveness, love, and understanding. oh and hard work. i mean, a person just might not be able to stop a vile nasty habit by just taking a pill and talking to an expensive psychiatrist. they might benefit more from talking with someone else who has taken the same journey and learning how to develop new habits, new beliefs, and new dreams and giving of themselves to their community without an expectation of reward or receipt. how is this too high a price to pay for mental and physical well being and peace of mind???

when the rain washes you clean, you will know....

Written by stevie nicks.

Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down
Its only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat.. drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost...
And what you had...
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when its raining
Players only love you when theyre playing
Say... women... they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean... youll know

Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions
I keep my visions to myself
Its only me
Who wants to wrap around your dreams and...
Have you any dreams youd like to sell?
Dreams of loneliness...
Like a heartbeat... drives you mad...
In the stillness of remembering what you had...
And what you lost...
And what you had...
And what you lost

Thunder only happens when its raining
Players only love you when theyre playing
Say... women... they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean... youll know

dance hall days

every once in awhile, i do a post with this title. dance hall days were incredible. they were the celebration before our collective ship hit that iceberg. 1980-1983. that's when our titanic sliced her belly, started to submerge, and the evacuations began. that's when it all changed. that's when we saw the panic, the lifeboats, the heroism, the cowardice, and all the rest of the tales of mice and men. that's when history moved. i do remember the joy. i remember the colors. i remember the joie de vivre. i remember the laughter.

so i go back to those days now and again, because i loved so much of my life then. and because i need to remember. i took them for granted. i thought those glory days would last forever. and i know since i have foolishly done many unattractive things to try to keep those days alive. but they drifted into the mists like avalon with so many lost in the undertow along with them. and i now know that there is a morning after.

this sounds so somber and it's not my intention. i do hold sadness when i remember these days. but i hold joy along with it. my laugh was lighter then. my stride was gayer, and my heart was much more open.

so i arrived at melancholy place because i was surfing youtube and i came across this vid. omg- sharon redd performed at medusa's in 1983 or 84(can't exactly remember). she was talented. she had been a backup singer for bette midler and had then gone out on her own. she had a few hits. i had a blast with her when she performed with us. i do remember a little drama at the end of the "evening" which i think was actually 8 or 9 am. we did trip the light fantastic back then. i witnessed drug induced paranoia which i had never seen before, but would experience first and second hand in the years to come.

sharon left our world in 1992, i believe. it was aids-related. she earned her place at my table of memories. she was a warrior, just like so many i know. and she left our world a better place with the gifts she shared with us.

i encourage you to look at some of the other clips offered on the menu bar of this vid. "beat the street" was a sound i remember really loving at the time. but i chose this one for it's absolutely quintessential 80's flavor.

i wouldn't trade those days. can't anyway, but wouldn't if i could. i am so thankful i lived in and remember my dance hall days.