Portrait of the Young Artist as a Middle Aged Gay Man

I started dressing like a middle aged wealthy gay man when I was 9. I would wear a purple silk ascot, double breasted velvet blazer and penny loafers (with actual pennies in them) to Church on Sundays. Being raised by your opera diva mother does odd things to your psyche, what can I tell you? Every photo of me from this period I have a ridiculous expression on my face while making overly wide and flamboyant hand gestures. My hands literally scream out for a martini glass and long thin cigarette holder; the perfect props I had yet to discover. But did in later years with a vengeance.

I imagine breezing into Riverside Church every Sunday morning blathering, “HELLO I’M HERE! HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE! LET’S DO THIS COMMUNION THING! OOOOH IS THAT A MERLOT?”

I’d like to think it was all very Truman Capote but it was really all very Charles Nelson Reilly.

As I said being raised by your Opera Diva mother does odd things to you. I don’t know how my childhood best friend Marco dealt with me at all. He was my fag hag on some level I suppose.

I was emailing with Marco recently and when asked if he remembered that I dressed like a middle aged wealthy gay man when I was 9 he wrote, “Of course! You also went through what I call your ‘Meat Loaf’ phase when you carried a long silk scarf everywhere with your ascot and velvet blazer.” Dear god.

This bizarre fashion sense was not my fault really. Not only was I constantly surrounded by adults being highly paid for playing dress up in garishly colored and velveteen costumes but I am also color blind. Although I think this disorder was greatly exaggerated to me by my mother to keep Gypsy-esque aesthetic control over her one and only child, loud color schemes (like that of the Joker for example) deeply spoke to me.

I can’t really blame her. She was really primed for a daughter. Someone to trade jewelry and glasses and fake eyelashes with. My mother had custom made floor to ceiling illuminated towers for her glasses. Flavor Flav had nothing on her in the wild glasses department. I also remember the video for Kiss by Prince in which he is wearing a black leather rhinestoned jacket. A jacket my mother had already been wearing for over a year. But, alas, instead of becoming a stylist to the sexually ambivalent pop stars of the 1980’s, I was her fashion project I fear.

My father even got in on the action. Upon returning home from one trip to Paris, he presented me with a Red Leather Michael Jackson zipper jacket. Why he went all the way to Paris to get a Red Leather Michael Jackson Zipper Jacket for his weird son is beyond me, but it’s the thought that counts, no? I promptly and proudly wore the Jacket to the next Goddard Gaieties Square Dance. Where I did get a lot of attention. Most of it negative. The general consensus of the girls (at this point in my life still a very alien and terrifying group) attending that evening’s Goddard Gaieties Square Dance was I should have just stuck with the sleeveless Duran Duran T-shirt I wore under the Red Leather Michael Jackson Zipper Jacket and left the Red Leather Michael Jackson Zipper Jacket at home. Styleless preteen hussies that they were.

I would like to think my sense of style has finally normalized somewhat. Although I do still trade scarves, berets, pashminas and sunglasses back and forth with my mother and still periodically find myself considering dying my hair Joker green.