The warmth of cold cold Chicago

I flew to Chicago because there was a Howard Hawks festival happening at the Music Box, and my favorite movie, Only Angels Have Wings was playing. I’ve never seen it on a big screen. Chicago was my home and I still feel in many ways it is my home. Only Angels Have Wings was the pretext. I don’t think I’ve ever flown to Chicago to see a movie before. 2024 was a terrible year, and we’re not out of the woods yet. I was hired for a massive project and I’m coming up on a year of working on it. It’s an amazing opportunity but I am worn out, particularly since the project arrived at the same time my mother had a health emergency. It’s been very very very hard and has required massive unforeseen life changes for all of us. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now with this project – which really has been incredible – but writing takes energy and focus, and this project was huge, and I had to summon bandwidth every day to keep going. All while racing to and from hospitals, and meeting with accountants, and bank managers and being there for my mother and helping my siblings when I can. I’ve dreamed up plans for what I will when I am done for real. Take a trip, for one. Do nothing. Hang out with my family. Not having enough time and feeling under the gun of a deadline has dominated my life for the past year. And so I was like, “I’m flying to Chicago for Only Angels Have Wings.”

I stayed with Mitchell and Christopher. Their highrise apartment looks out over Lake Michigan, which was frozen, gleaming white out the window. There were snow flurries and the cold was bitter. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in cold so extreme that my face hurt after just 10 minutes of exposure. Let’s link to this old chestnut. For the first two days, I didn’t leave the apartment. I had to work – of course – but I did it from the comfy surroundings, as the snow fell, and as TCM played in the background. Mitchell made fried matzoh. We ordered food. We talked endlessly.

We watched Ru Paul’s Drag Race. We had in-depth impassioned discussions about all of the queens. We judged them, we discussed the different challenges. I am not as deeply immersed in Ru’s world as they are, so it was a crash course. Mitchell and Christopher’s friends Brad and Jason, who live just a block away, came over one night (we ended up seeing them three days in a row: I said to them in the car, “Okay, so the three of us are basically friends now, okay?”)

Mitchell and Christopher’s coasters featuring men born on January 8th.

Saturday night they all took me to something called the Grelley Duvall Show, which can’t really be described and Mitchell and Christopher refused to tell me anything beforehand. It is the brainchild of Alex Grelle, and his shows are events. He’s been doing them for 10 years, and each show is different. He’ll do a David Bowie focused show. He did a Nosferatu show. He works on them, he puts them on when they’re ready. I’ve never seen anything like it.

We were all crammed into the small Chopin Theatre, and there he was, lying asleep on a slab as the audience filed in. Over the next hour, we saw him become Shelley Duvall, of course – perfect imitations, in the outfit from the Shining (blue dress, red tights), he sang, he danced, his ensemble was amazing, as was his band. There were video components (often put together by Mitchell’s friend Parker, whom I met and love). Everything was so informed and sophisticated and outrageous, not to mention absurd – it wasn’t “too cool for school” – it was a RIOT. The sense of anticipation in the audience was intense. There was a line out the door. It was a freezing cold night. “Where my gays at?” he yelled during the first number. Screams and cheers.

I was totally captivated, and then at the end, he sang “Backstreets”, for his Bruce-Springsteen-loving father, whom he described as “my big straight father who loves his gay son”, and he sang “Backstreets” for his father, and it was as though he was the Boss. Like, it didn’t matter that this was a tiny theatre with maybe 100 seats. He was in a stadium. I was overwhelmed by it.

Especially in these terrible days with homophobia and anti-trans hatred (and legislation) coming from the highest offices in the land. It’s been devastating and infuriating, and people are struggling. My dearest friends. My community. A crowd gathered together like this, suffering and scared but still loud and proud – and also FUNNY – and ABSURD – and filled with irony and a love of art and beauty and humor and each other – makes you grateful to be alive, and that you are among THESE people and not those who want to take away the rights of other people. Who for some reason feel threatened and mad by they/them pronouns, or whatever. We have so little time on this earth and this is how you spend it? Thank GOD, seriously, that I am with artists, storytellers, drag queens, bohemians, goofballs, people who know everything about Joan Crawford or whatever. My people since I was a child. I found them when I was young and for that I am so grateful!

We saw The Grelley Duvall show in preview and a critic happened to be there. She clearly didn’t recognize the scene between Julianne Moore and Matthew Modine from Short Cuts, although she does capture and describe why these shows are so special, why he is special. Mitchell and I wondered how many other people got the reference to Short Cuts. It was a deep cut, so to speak, but we recognized it instantly. You will recall Julianne Moore is naked from the waist down in the scene, which Grelley Duvall conveyed in an ingenious way with what I am assuming is some jerry-rigged merkin. It was riotous.

Sunday morning a huge group of us gathered for brunch on Southport. Brad and Jason, the aforementioned Parker, Mitchell’s old bosses, a lovely gay couple who basically had taken Mitchell under their wing – Chicago father figures. One is writing a book on Edie Beale. I met them way back in the day but it’s been 20 years or something. They were so lovely! We chowed down, we talked nonstop, we then walked up to the theatre. My old stomping grounds. The route Miles and I used to take in between each others’ apartments, walking distance in those long ago days. Southport has changed a lot. It used to be a ghost town. It’s a bustling hub of restaurants now.

So good to be back at The Music Box!

Mitchell and I were the only two who had seen Only Angels Have Wings, so one of his plans was to have me give a little “talk” before the movie, just to contextualize it. I love Mitchell. We gathered in the little lounge off the lobby and I talked about the movie, what was going on, what to look for, where this was placed in Hawks’ career, how this movie is basically a prototype for any male-bonding dangerous-pursuit movie. The Right Stuff. Top Gun. Etc. It was so special.

Again: being with people who are warm and open, who know everything about interesting things, who make funny videos to play behind Grelley Duvall – skits and parodies – amazing talented warm gay men, the torch-bearers for culture, the ones who remember, who pass things on. Things like Short Cuts. Or Little Edie. There was nowhere else I would rather be, than going to see ONly Angels Have Wings on a freezing Chicago morning with a big group of movie-lovers, only two of whom I know, but by the end of our experience together we were friends.

After the movie, we cut through to the street behind the Music Box, where Mitchell and I used to live. I just wanted to see the old house. My last place in Chicago. The stoop where we used to sit in the sun. The window around the side – my bedroom window – which Miles used to climb through at 2 o’clock in the morning. Everything was still there. It gave me a weird feeling. Comforting but lonely.

The next morning, I woke up and walked to meet up with my friend Kate. We had breakfast at the little breakfast place next to Big Chicks, this legendary gay bar we used to frequent back in the day, and of course Mitchell and Christopher still do. I remember being there and the tiny space was so packed with people you literally could not move. Literally. It’s still there! I had never been to the little restaurant next door. It opened at 9 am sharp. My face was frozen by the time I arrived, after walking down Sheridan, just a block from the lake, battered with icy strong winds whirling around every corner. It was BITTER COLD.

Seeing Kate, too, just warmed my soul in such a lonely stressful time. It was warm and cozy, we drank coffee, outside it was icy and windy. We only met up for 2 hours but I feel like we talked about everything, caught up on everything, including the bad stuff, the sad stuff. She is a forever friend and I miss her so much. Grateful for her.

Mitchell came back to Rhode Island with me. We flew back that night. It was an incredibly turbulent ride. The most turbulent flight I’ve ever been on. We both were a little freaked. Especially since a ghoulish billionaire is messing with the FAA, because that’s just what we need. The wind in Rhode Island was massive. I got home that night and the wind was shaking my house. A little perk of living near the water. The reunion with dear little Frankie was very sweet. Coming home feels different now because he is here. (My sister fed him while I was away.) It’s hard to be away from my family right now.

My trip to Chicago already feels like a million years ago. I miss it already. But there are compensations.