greglaviolette.com/blog

blog

An Unspectacular Life, Part 11
06/10/09

This chapter should have come earlier in the story. When I edit, Part 11 will
be inserted between part 4 and 5. I've embedded a couple of relevant videos
below. Be patient with me and this new blog format. It's a lot of work. I
will move all of the much appreciated comments over.

PART ELEVEN

There were two movies that influenced my young perception of what life could
possibly be. Both were musicals (of course) but not the standard kind of
musical that the old queens loved where the characters broke into song and
dance without warning or reason. The music and dance in these two musicals
were an integral part of the plot and to me, seemed so natural that I was
sure that people in big far away cities routinely sang and danced in public.
The first of these two movies, "Fame" was released in 1980. In case you
haven't seen it, which I can't imagine, it's the story of a bunch of kids who
go to New York City's School of the Performing Arts. The movie starts with
their auditions and follows the incredibly fortunate students who were
accepted through to their graduation. When I was fifteen, these peers of mine
were the most interesting, exotic people that I had ever been exposed to.
They were my age but their lives were so much more complex and interesting
than mine and of needless to say, filled with song and dance. Not
surprisingly, the character that I associated myself most with was
Montgomery. He was the awkward introverted gay drama student. When I first
saw the movie, I hadn't yet come out publicly, though I had stopped telling
myself after I masturbated to pictures of models in GQ that that would be the
absolute last time that I ever fantasized about men. I had come to terms with
being sexually different and the fact that men excited me in a way that women
couldn't. It was a monumental event in my blossoming gayness to see a
character in a movie that was somewhat like me, except really homely. Even
though I related most to Montgomery, I wanted to be Coco. She was a triple
threat; singer, dancer and actress. She was confident and fearless, though
sensitive. She was career oriented and driven to success even if the road to
fame meant showing her teenage breasts to a slimy New York City kiddy porn
photographer posing as a talent scout.

The high school experience of my fictional big city Fame friends was the
antithesis of my own. My life as a fifteen year old student was a nightmare.
I was chubby, a little effeminate and a complete social wash out. Halfway
through my second year, I transferred to another school. My excuse was that
the school that I was transferring to had a better arts department and the
high school that I was transferring out of was Catholic and I had lost my
faith. The truth was that I wanted another chance at popularity and there was
absolutely no way that I could rebrand myself if I stayed. Popularity, like
fame, called for drastic measures. At least I wouldn't have to show my chubby
boy breasts (which were actually larger than Coco's).

Switching high schools didn't provide me with the popularity boost that I so
craved. It wasn't so much that I wanted to hang out with the popular kids, I
just wanted a little recognition like Montgomery got from Ralph and Doris.
Montgomery was not part of the in crowd at the School for the Performing Arts
but he did occasionally hang out with Ralph and Doris who were part of the
ruling class and that gave him a sense of belonging, except for when Ralph
and Doris made out. That feeling of belonging, plus a little dancing in the
halls, was all I wanted but what I got instead of musical numbers in the
halls was called faggot. So I did what a chubby, painfully unpopular teenager
did; I became bulimic.

I didn't realize that I had been bulimic until years later. I simply ate
laxatives like candy because it was so much easier than calorie counting. It
only took about two months of supplementing my diet of ice cream, Doritos and
cheese burgers with chocolate flavoured Ex-Lax until my body revolted and my
appendix ruptured. I was rushed to the hospital with sever abdominal pains
and was operated on immediately. The operation was called an exploratory
because the doctors weren't sure what was making me double over in pain. I
spent a week in the ICU on a drip and another week with the general sick
population. John and Drew came to visit. Drew pointed out that I would
probably never be a GQ model now (one of my fantasy careers along with
Broadway choreographer) because of my new rather long scar. The combination
of laxatives and major surgery took over sixty pounds of my frame. I was much
thinner, though I would gain back a lot of the weight. As an adult, I realize
how insane my actions were but if at fifteen years old I knew that popping
Ex-Lax would have ended in so much pain and mutilation, I would have still
done it. For me, there was nothing more emotionally retching than being a fat
gay unpopular teenager at high school.

The second movie came to me first as a single on the radio. After one listen,
it became my instant new favourite song. It was sung by Irene Cara who played
Coco in, "Fame". The year was ninteen-eighty-three, the song was, "What a
Feeling" and the movie was, "Flashdance". I saw, "Flashdance" six times at
the cinema. I was obsessed with the movie, which really was more like a
really long music video. The story was of Alex, a Pittsburgh welder by day
and stripper (who never took off her clothes) by night. Her dream was to be a
serious dancer, a ballerina, but she had to overcome her personal sense of
inadequacy. Her journey was mirrored by her friend Jeanie's own attempt to
make her dream reality. Jeanie was a figure skater and wanted to join the Ice
Capades but during her audition, she fell while skating to Laura Branigan's,
"Gloria". Alex, on the other hand, managed to achieve her dream. She also
tripped and fell during her audition for the Pittsburgh Ballet but got up and
tried again and totally nailed it. I wanted to be Alex but was terrified that
I'd end up like Jeannie.

"Flashdance" appealed to me on so many levels. The soundtrack was amazing,
the cinematography was beautiful, the story was inspiring and Alex's style
was easily adapted to my own. After my first viewing, I bought an oversized
grey sweat shirt and cut the collar off. I wore it over a white tank top. The
sweatshirt hung halfway to my knees. I paired it with my trademark oversized
and cropped plaid pants. I rounded out the look with my well worn black
Converse sneakers and the sweater sleeves-come-leg warmers (I mentioned the
leg warmers earlier but failed to give credit to the movie for fashion
inspiration). I wore the sweatshirt and leg warmers to the cinema for the
next five viewings. I went in costume. "Flashdance" was my, "Rocky Horror
Picture Show". Except for the pirouettes, I could do the, "He's a Dream"
number (that's the one where water comes splashing down on Alex while she's
dancing on stage at the strip club) and I could take off my tank top under my
sweatshirt just like Alex took off her bra in front of her rich boyfriend,
Nick, in her amazing warehouse apartment. I so wanted to be Alex. I wanted
her talent, her boyfriend, her apartment and her success. But instead of
working to achieve what she had, I just imitated her. When I was eighteen, it
never occurred to me that hard work was needed to achieve goals. I thought
that there was always an easy way, like taking laxatives to become popular.