After The Rainbow

                         

I'm not going to the Pride parade today for a bunch of reasons:

1) I have work to finish that I could have done yesterday if I hadn't spent the entire day drawing and playing with buster.

2) I couldn't find anyone who actually wanted to go to the parade with me, and there are few things in the world that make you feel more alone than being by yourself whilst among a couple hundred thousand people. 

3) I don't, as a rule, really like parades. I say this even though that time I saw Coretta Scott King at the Constitution Parade in Philadelphia was pretty cool, as was watching the giant Charlie Brown float sail pass the Dakota that Thanksgiving I lived on the Upper West Side. Oh, okay, and seeing Hillary Clinton march in the 2000 Pride Parade behind a truck playing the theme from Shaft ("That Mrs. Clinton is a bad motha--Shut yo mouth!") is a cherished memory. But in general, I find parades loud, overcrowded, and exhausting.

I have been thinking this week about the Stonewall riots and the origins of the Pride Parade. It's been 45 years since patrons of the Greenwich Village gay bar, many drag queens among them, fought back against the habitual harassment of the NYPD and touched off several nights of rioting, and in the process became the impetus for the modern gay rights movement. 

Earlier in the day the funeral of legendary entertainer Judy Garland and drawn nearly 20,000 mourners just a few short miles uptown. It's difficult to prove a causal link between the two events, even though Judy had a legion of gay fans and her funeral was a huge news story both in New York and around the country. Still, it's hard to imagine that she wouldn't have been on the minds of the patrons of the Stonewall Inn that night, as both homosexuals and New Yorkers.

I read several articles this week (some scholarly, others not so much) that worked hard to debunk the notion that there was any correlation between the funeral and the riots. One went so far as to claim it was actually insulting to imply that gays would only stand up for themselves when their "camp icon" had been taken from them. 

I understand the inclination to distance oneself from anything iconic, campy or otherwise, when trying to stake out  your own identity. Personally, I was mortified when I found out that Barbra Streisand was considered a gay icon. In addition to feeling exposed, I also learned that my affection for her was neither unique nor particularly special. I was devastated to realize that I might actually be a bit of a cliche.

I suffered from (and if I'm honest, sometimes still do) a form of internalized homophobia. But when I am finally equal in the eyes of the law, (we're not quite there yet) fee to sleep with, marry, raise children and estate plan with whomever I choose, what will it really mean if I continue to judge and censor myself? If I don't embrace my love of Barbra,  my love of Judy, of Ethel, of show tunes, of Provincetown, of fresh cut flowers, of fruity rum drinks, of Lily Tomlin, of the Flying Nun, of drag queens, of both the color purple and The Color Purple, and a host of other things considered culturally queer, than what have I really gained? It is not enough to be equal. We must, all of us, be ourselves in all our complicated and sometimes embarrassing glory, even if what we are is, at least in part, a cliche.

As for Judy Garland's funeral and Stonewall, I certainly do not believe it's insulting or embarrassing to think this "camp icon" played a part, even a very small one, in our struggle for equality. History books are filled with inaccuracies half-truths, and flights of fancy, and there's no reason to think that Gay History will be recorded any differently. And in the end, at least in this case, I don't think the truth is quite as important as the overriding message and the end result.

Show Your Pride

The Tale of Bebe and Pookie

I've decided it's time to make a confession and publicly tell the tale of Bebe and Pookie (and me, of course.) This tale has everything, and by everything I mean cute dogs, talk show appearances, an animated fashion designer, a performance by Deborah Harry, and me telling a bold face lie to a celebrity.

Up until the day I adopted Buster two years ago, I yearly suffered from a very specific form of Spring Fever. Like clock work, no sooner would blossoms appear on the trees and  buds would poke their little heads out from the soil, than I would start feeling overwhelming pangs to get a dog.

In 1997 I gave into temptation and adopted an allegedly full grown dog named Tess from the North Shore Animal League. The first day I had her I was walking her on 45th Street near Broadway and she jumped up on the legendary songstress Margaret Whiting, who gently admonished Tess in her husky alto voice by telling her, "Now Tess, I know you're excited but you've got to be a lady!"

It got worse from there. Tess gained 30 pounds in less than three months, destroyed my roommate's down comforter, and went berserk on a daily basis whenever we ran into a police officer on horseback. Luckily my suburbanite brother with a fenced in yard was willing to take her in.

I was scared off from getting a dog for a very long time, feeling rightfully so that I had not been responsible enough. Nevertheless, the first warm afternoon in April still set visions of puppy dogs a dancing in my head. Knowing this, in the Spring of 2003 a friend of a friend got me invited to a special taping of Isaac Mizzrahi's talk show. The episode: Doggy Adoption Day.

The place was set up like a cocktail party with audience members acting as guests, standing around chest high tables and sipping ginger ale out of plastic champagne glasses. About thirty dogs of all shapes and sizes were brought in to mingle with the party guests by a slew of shelters, including the one that so accurately estimated Tess's growth potential.

Isaac's special guests were Deborah Harry, who rocked the place with a version of Stand By Your Man, and Emmy and Tony winner Bebe Neuwirth. They each had a segment with Issac in which they discussed their love of pets, and then out came the dogs in what could best be described as a fur-for-all. There were German Shepherds, boxers, a basset hound, poodles, a liter of golden retriever puppies, and a small, predominately black chihuahua named Pookie.

It was difficult to spend more than a few seconds with any one dog as they roamed the studio both overstimulated and in search of treats, but when Pookie wound up in my arms, I did feel a pretty immediate bond. I had not come here seriously looking for a dog, I just thought it would be fun to see them all and be part of the show, and yet my heartstrings were definitely being tugged by this little fellow who indiscriminately licked my face upon meeting me.

I knew in my heart I was not ready to try it again, even six years after Tess, but my resistance was beginning to waver. Meanwhile, Issac and Bebe, accompanied by several men slinging video cameras and blinding lights on their shoulders, made their way around the room to talk to the perspective adopters, They got to my table and Isaac zeroed in on me.

"Jim and Pookie! Don't they look great together, Bebe!" he practically shouted.

"They do, Isaac, they do" she deadpanned, sounding like the straight man in some corny vaudeville routine.

I was getting the hard sell. I could feel the room staring at me as the light from the camera was blinding me like a bare bulb in some backwater interrogation room.

"Are you gonna take him home, Jim?" Isaac asked breathlessly.

"Well, I'm not sure, I..."

"Come on, Jim!"

"Yeah, come on Jim," Bebe chimed in gleefully.

"Well, I, I...YES! I'm taking him home!"

Smiles, cheers, applause. Oh shit, what have I done?

When the taping was over and Isaac, Bebe, and Deborah had gone on their merry way, I spoke with the agency that had been housing Buster. They were very nice and explained that no one was actually taking a dog home that day. An application had to be filled out and approved, and I was under no obligation to take the dog just because I had told a national television audience I'd be saving this creature from certain death at the pound. Actually, they emphasized the good I'd done just by encouraging other people to adopt. Okay, sure. I'm a freakin' hero for not taking the dog.

Anyway, I was off the hook, and although he had stolen a little piece of my heart, I did not take Pookie home. Six months later I'm standing in the autograph line at a charity flea market in Schubert alley, waiting to get my picture taken with Swoosie Kurtz (Swoosie Kurtz--that's another story!) and who is sitting directly in front of me at the autograph table? That's right, it's Bebe Neuwirth.

I feel immediately uncomfortable, and try not to make eye contact with her. but the line is stalled and I'm parked directly in front of her for several minutes. At this point it's almost insulting not to ask for her autograph. I say hello.

"You look familiar," she says.

"Doggy Adoption Day," I reply.

"Yes, that's right! You took that little dog...what was his name??"

"Pookie."

"Pookie! Yes, Pookie! How is Pookie?" she asked seeming genuinely interested.

"Oh, uh, he's GREAT!"  I just didn't have the heart to tell her I sent Pookie back to the pokey.

"Oh I'm so glad!"

She signed my autograph, "To Jim & Pookie--Peace, Bebe Neuwirth."

I felt bad about this for a while, and decided that if I ever met her again I'd tell her the truth. Either that or invent an unfortunate but peaceful demise for poor Pookie, but so far I have not seen her again. If you happen to run into her before I do, ixnay the Ookiepay talk.

#bebeneuwirth