…but only just barely, if I’m remembering correctly. I would guess it was about 1989. But first, some background.
Suburban Swedish Baptist
OK, so there’s Conservative, and then there’s Conservative Baptist, and a bit beyond that, there’s Swedish Baptist. Combine with that an upper-middle-class suburb, wherein my elementary school had one person of color my entire 7 grades there. Zero people of color (that I can recall) for my 3 grades of Junior High, and one classmate of color (same year as mine) for the 3 years of High School. Oh, and in my Senior year, to my knowledge, two people who were openly anything other than heterosexual.
Suffice it to say, by the time I was an “adult” I had very little information to go on about how people different-from-us did things. If ever there was a TV show which hinted at any of these subjects, I didn’t know about it, as we weren’t allowed to watch it. Nor were these ever the subject of conversation at home – we were too busy discussing the heresy of the Catholics (“…no man cometh unto the Father but by me.”, so the idea of confessing to a Priest was crazy) – or the Jews (who killed Jesus).
So, yeah, I didn’t know jack diddly about anything.
The Original “Gay”
Believe it or not, in some ultra-sheltered enclaves of the 1970s, if someone used the word “gay,” there was a better-than-even chance it was meant to describe a heterosexual person who was joyous, carefree, and filled with jocularity. In hindsight, that may not have been the actual case, but if I had made any sort of benefit-of-the-doubt assumption, nobody in my sphere of influence would correct me on it, in order to protect my innocence. I was, after all, the youngest of the family.
Where To Have A Drink
So I’m in my mid-20s, in the time of my life that I was about due to experiment with perhaps behaving differently than my parents or my childhood peers. I wasn’t about to visit bars anywhere near where I’d grown up, for fear that I’d be spotted by someone who knew me coming out of such a place, and word would get back to my family. If I’m going to set out to see how other people live, I’m going to do it far from my home suburb. And I’d heard about an infamous place downtown Minneapolis called “The Gay 90s.” By now, I was pretty sure what they meant by that, but the place had been around since the 1920s, so I assumed it had probably originally been an example of that older meaning of the word. Utter ignorance on my part, but then, that’s me.
Six Bars
The Gay 90s has 6 bars. Something for everybody, right? I took that to mean that although a couple of them might be where gay people hang out, there’s probably others which are more suited to your average bloke. And when I arrived, I found there were twice as many women cheering on some male dancers as there were men. This reinforced my ignorant assumption that it was a very carefree, very hetero place, which just happened to be non-judgmental toward a homosexual minority crowd. I really don’t know.
Exploring I went, then. From the 1st bar with male dancers, I moved on to a Disco-like room. Then up the stairs to yet another room, where I heard and saw someone singing a song I liked and knew well. Streisand, something like that. They were really good… I mean spot-on. I carried my beer over to the only open table I could see, right smack in the middle of the room, and sat down. All the other tables appeared to me to be regular couples. The lady who’d been performing just finished, accepted her applause and cheers, and went backstage.
Then another lady came out. Oh my word, what luck! It was Cher! I had no idea she’d be performing in this little corner of Minneapolis, but doggone it, it was Cher! It can’t be, right? No way. But then she began to sing, and sure as shit, it was actually her… there was no mistaking that voice. Absolutely incredible.
And just when I might’ve thought my luck couldn’t get any better, Cher starts to come down the stairs at the front of the stage to perform and mingle with the audience, believe it or not. Then she spotted the one table in the joint with a young dude with a full beard, sitting at a table by himself, absolutely transfixed by this overwhelming spectacle of chance and fortune. Me.
Like a jungle cat, Cher comes stalking my way, belting out one of her huge hits, staring me right in the eyes the whole time. Starstruck, and virtually paralyzed, my jaw likely agape in awe.
Oh sure, she had gestured to some other audience members along the way, but I didn’t expect that she would actually reach down and touch me. Beyond belief, but to my amazement, there she was, Cher, reaching toward my face with her slender, delicate, gloved hand. It was just about the precise moment that she took a fistful of my beard that – with the now changed angle of the follow-spot on her – I noticed how large her adam’s apple was, and a hint of razor stubble peeking out from her stage makeup. I put 2 and 2 together during the next split second as “she” was pulling my face forward and “she” thrust “her” crotch and smacked me right in the nose with it.
The room exploded with laughter, hoots, and whistles, as they were all in on the gag, so to speak. They’d all spotted the ignorant dufus (again, me) when he’d walked in and sat down in the first place, and had probably all muttered to each other, “Oh shit, this is gonna be rich.” For this is the moment that dufus would learn what a Female Impersonator show was all about.
There’s no question I turned several shades of red, which only added to the entertainment quality of the experience for everyone else. But it only took me a few moments to realize it was all meant in good fun – no malice whatsoever. There are people in my family, and others I knew, who took themselves way too seriously, and would have been mortified by the encounter, but luckily I was never much like that. For a straight guy, I was pretty gay about things… and we all had a good laugh about it.
I never went back to the ’90s, but I’ve always remembered that evening fondly.
