Diary Friday

I thought of this journal entry this morning because of the following post, by the tragically unhip (and happy) Ken Summers, over at Emily’s – where a Bee Gees discussion arose.

Any time the Bee Gees are mentioned, in any way shape or form – I think of this guy I dated for a brief season, a member of the Triumvirate. (How completely goofy.) But whatever – it’s blog-shorthand for those of you who read me regularly.

This guy I dated (John) was a disco FREAK. He took it seriously. He loved it. He was passionate about it. He was a geek about it.

I met him when I was doing a show in Ithaca, New York – a great show, which we did to great success. I was actually, when I got to Ithaca, still pretty upset about aNOTHer member of the Triumvirate, who basically ended things with me. But then I met John, and we were off to the races.

There are MANY amusing stories about our time in Ithaca – one of them being he and I appearing on a small local-cable talk show. I still have that tape, I’ve only watched it a couple of times, but every time I do, TEARS of laughter stream down my face. It was a local cable station – The cameraman literally looked like John Lithgow in World According to Garp. He was a big tall line-backer of a man, dressed completely as a woman, with clip-on costume jewelry, etc.

Then John and I were introduced to the talk-show host, who was COMPLETELY wall-eyed. Literally, we could not wait to get out of there to go roll about in the grass, in spasms of laughter.

Wall-eye interviewed us, on TV, for HALF AN HOUR. Which meant he asked us the same questions 25 times. I tried to be gracious and succeeded. John tried to be gracious and did not succeed.

He and I were in the middle of our romance, so we … I have to say … look a bit disreputable. My hair is long and wild, John did not dress up – was wearing black jeans and a flannel shirt.

Wall-eye asked us if we were enjoying our time in Ithaca, and what we did during the day, when we didn’t have shows.

I opened my mouth to extol the beauty of the waterfalls, to talk about walking up the hill to Cornell, to say how much we loved the churches in town – but John beat me to the punch and answered bluntly, “We sleep.”

At one point, Wall-eye says to us, “The show is very violent. And you in particular –” (he looked at me. Or at least I think he did. It was hard to tell.) “You get knocked around quite a bit. How do you avoid getting hurt?”

I opened my mouth to give some gracious answer, and John interjected caustically, before I could speak, “You should see her knees!”

Which … was so inappropriate on so many levels. I am laughing right now. I gave him this look, like: shut. the f***. up. PLEASE.

It was how he said it. The undercurrent being: And lemme tell you, gentlemen, I have seen this girl’s knees.

I had breakfast with John last summer, when he came to New York, and he brought up the whole “You should see her knees” moment. He said, “I was such an asshole. The entire time we were on that show, with the Wall-eyed host, and the cameraman-slash-woman – I was just making fun of it.”

The Wall-eyed host. The cameraman-slash-woman. Tears of laughter.

Anyway. LONG tangent over. The following entry is really about how he and I made up from some stupid argument – by going out to a disco club – and dancing for 3 hours. And what began the orgy of dancing? “Tragedy”, by the Bee Gees. Of course.

September/October

We sit in local cafes in our grunge flannel, jeans, and retro glasses, and read our books for hours. He is reading Brando’s biography, I am reading Howards End. We walk and hold hands. I take care of him. I cook for him. I had an out-of-body experience staring into one of his eyeballs. I don’t know how else to describe what happened. It was 2 a.m. and I fell into his eyeball and that is all that I have to say about THAT.

And yet – for me, there’s still *****. And for him – there’s Rebecca. I dream about ***** every night. John refers to *****, cuttingly, as “the Baby Boomer”, in a very hostile tone. “You’re thinkin’ of that Baby Boomer now, aren’t you?” “You hear from the Baby Boomer lately?” One night, we were sitting in the little Elf House [Ed: The other woman in the show and I were put up in this little house – which was so small, with teeny single beds, and a teeny narrow staircase, it seemed like it was built for midgets. We all referred to it as “the Elf House”] , watching TV, not talking, and suddenly John said, and I didn’t hear him the first time – “Your Baby Boomer friend’s a lucky guy.”

I said “What?”

He repeated it.

I felt totally still and cold. “What did you just say?” I said.

He didn’t look over, didn’t repeat it, kept watching TV.

Leaves turning. Orange – gold – red – flame – purple – lit from within. Freezing nights. Warm blue-skied days.

I know how much I will miss this experience when it’s gone. I will miss this situation, knowing these people in this way. It won’t come again.

Ithaca: The Commons. Simeons. Rosebud Café. State St. diner. Sirens. So many disaster vehicles. There appears to be some inbreeding. Strange. Churches. John and I have fights on the sidewalk, then we go get Ben and Jerry’s or go to church. We went in one today. Presbyterian. Golden light streaming through circular window. Arched ceiling. Deep blue cushions on pews. Huge organ pipes. I feel like we have been in Ithaca for months. We go to the park, and sit in the grass. I put my head in his lap and he reads outloud to me from the Village Voice. Then we go and get Ben and Jerry’s. I am telling you, we get Ben and Jerry’s every day.

John’s parents came to the show. We have been spending every minute of every day together, so for two nights he hung out with his parents, and he missed me. He was obsessed with what I did during those two days. Mick and I went to go see Jurassic Park, and John was totally jealous. Ridiculous.

I take care of him. I’m good at it, surprisingly enough.

In a lot of ways, he and I do not speak the same language, but at the same time we’re both really good listeners. So – weirdly, it all works out.

One night, we had a fight. He got very mean. He apologized, but by then I was so hurt I could barely process the fact that he was apologizing for being mean, and then THAT pissed him off. We were in a loop. We didn’t make up.

But the next night was when he and I went to the “70s Dance Party” at Club Semesters. Just the two of us, and we had a f***ing BALL.

That was when I realized our compatibility. We didn’t even have a make-up conversation like: “Oh, I’m sorry I was mean…” or “I’m sorry I was a bitch.” No. What did we do? We went out disco-dancing for 3 hours straight. And then we were FINE. If only all misunderstandings could be solved in such a fun way.

Club Semesters was a totally bizarre place. Unclassifiable, really. It was almost like an underage dance club. Everyone seemed about 14 years old. Maybe it was like a high school mixer. They actually had a big long table with bowls of party snacks. Yet – they carded us heavily at the door. So there were probably a lot of fake IDs in the domain of Club Semesters. John himself got in with his fake ID. [Ed: Yes. I robbed the cradle. Scorn me not. I mean, he wasn’t in high school or anything, but he couldn’t drink yet.]

The lights were garish and elaborate, sweeping colored spotlights, flashing strobes, mirrored spinning reflecting balls – and smoke puffed out onto the dance floor. Totally disco, totally weird, and totally ridiculous.

It was enormous, too – like a massive Rec Room.

John and I had a ball, once we were danced out (and drenched), sitting over to the side and people-watching (doing a lot of people-trashing, I must admit.)

“God, let’s try to find at least one person in this crowd who has managed to maintain their dignity,” said John.

John has the potential to be the most scornful and the most contemptuous person alive. I guess I do too. We are misanthropes. Romantic misanthropes. Two peas in a pod.

Oh, I forgot to tell this part:

We were a little scared to go into Club Semesters, initially. We hadn’t been before. John kept predicting that they wouldn’t play real disco music, and they would just play 80s dance stuff, or confuse disco with funk (which was sacrilegious to him), or whatever: John loves disco, loves the Bee Gees, even pre-disco Bee Gees, and he is a total purist about the whole disco thing. So John suggested that we stand (this is so FUNNY now that I think about it) outside in the alley, where we could hear what kind of music they were playing inside, and make an executive decision on whether or not we wanted to go in, based on the songs.

Now, the first song we heard was “It’s Raining Men” – which is rather 80s and definitely not pure disco. Despite this technicality, I shot through the roof (well, not really – we were outside) with excitement. I am, to put it mildly, NOT a disco music snob.

John scorned my excitement with such contempt. He SNEERED at me. His estimation of me significantly went down and I blatantly did not care. I found his contempt hilarious. And John got such a kick out of it – because I know every word – and every nuance to the song – all their little “Go girlfriend” comments underneath the music – I did them all.

“Humidity’s rising…”
—Mm. Risin’.
“Barometer’s getting’ low”
—How low?
“According to all sources—”
—What sources now?

Insane. So with It’s Raining Men I was immediately hip on going in, and John was NOT. I kept saying, “If they are playing the f***ing Weather Girls, it’s gotta be a cool club!”

Of course, John harbored the exact opposite view. Snot.

The next song met with John’s approval (snot!), so we went in.

Long black entrance corridor, with black whites, so the whites of our eyes glowed, and John’s tight white T glowed, and everything looked very spooky.

We went in, scoped it out, I bought a beer, he, my underage boyfriend, bought a coke. We held back. We were picked out by a gleaming blue spotlight, this long column of light. Big muscle men bouncer types strutting around, sad girls wearing tight slutty clothes, all kinds of sad desperate adolescent behavior, and NO ONE was dancing. NO ONE. And yet also – there was this major Broadway-level light show going on. On the empty dance floor.

I had taken about 3 sips of my beer when we knew we had to dance.

And what was the song that was our call to dance? “Tragedy”.

This time it was John who shot through the roof.

He was a maniac with excitement. “I can’t believe they’re playing this! No one ever plays this! It is such a great song!”

He took my beer from me, put it down, and then dragged me out onto the dance floor. And he and I basically … well, we re-enacted Saturday Night Fever. NOBODY else was dancing. It was hilarious. John actually knows how to disco-dance – and he doesn’t dance it with irony, he doesn’t dance to make fun of the style of dance – he GOES for it. He does not make himself ABOVE that cultural moment – he LOVES that cultural moment. I’m not such a bad disco-dancer myself. We took up a lot of room (after all we could, because no one else was out there). Now this is embarrassing to report, but it is the truth: a clapping cheering circle formed around us.

John was in his glory. It was his fantasy. He has studied John Travolta, basically. He told me that when he was little, 9 or 10, he memorized the main dance number in Saturday Night Fever and he used to do it to entertain his parents. And then they’d have guests over, and they’d want him to do it for the guests, and it was too traumatic, and he would start to cry. Hysterical.

And – Dancing together erased the memory of the fight the night before. It was a huge release, for both of us. We danced until we were drenched in sweat. I would start to twirl away from him, and he would grab my belt buckle and yank me back, without missing a step. And let me reiterate: we were surrounded by a clapping crowd. We howled with laughter about that later.

It was the best thing we could have done, and it was so great – it being just us, and not the rest of the cast. We dig each other. We make each other laugh. He would imitate how I danced. I would laugh.

Also – we looked like nobody else there. The 2 of us in true Seattle grunge mode – in our battered jeans, flappy flannel shirts, and sneakers. John kept saying, “We look like grunge drug addicts compared to everybody else.”

For the second act of the show, John would put this brown stuff below his eyes – so that he looked like shit, like a man losing his grip, getting no sleep. It looked good. Sometimes he wouldn’t wash it off after the show: “I think it makes me look sexy, don’t you?” I would say, patiently, “Yes, John. It looks very sexy.” Yawning as I said it.

But the two of us looked like characters out of Drugstore Cowbow.

Friendly grungy black-shadows-under-eyes drug addicts, disco dancing in a club in Ithaca, New York. What?

Everything is so vivid now. I know I am running away from stuff. Running away from the Baby Boomer. I am not reflective right now. Everything is sensory. Nothing intellectual. It’s all about the taste of coffee, and the golden light inside the church. I am filled with awareness of the colored leaves and the cold and the stars and the crickets – all kinds of sensory stuff – John is a sensory experience, too. It’s not reflective. It’s sensory. I fell into his eyeball, after all. French toast, ice cream, book stores, cafes, coffee drinks, sitting in the sun, people watching, lying in the grass, the fallen leaves, John’s voice reading out loud, and he would keep checking to make sure my eyes were closed and that I wasn’t peeking. All of these simple things now ARE my life. I am wholly in them all.

I wish that it could go on forever.