GRIEVANCES DELAYED BY PURPOSE

Stop telling me that my feet are flat and my legs are funny and I’m awfully sturdy, no wonder I can jump high, too bad I don’t look like what you want. Ok, ok, I’m done. I happen to think my legs are pretty hot and let’s not get me started on my arms. They could rip your arm right out of its socket. I’m just saying…

Part of being a dancer is learning when an audition is about your dancing, your skills, or your looks. You can have style, you can have ingenuity, you can have skills; but if they’re looking for someone to fit a costume they’ve already had made… you’re sunk. I don’t take those personally. It’s not about me. But when I’m NOT at an audition where the principle object is to find ladies who look good in a thong, I happen to take it personally when after taking a glance at my feet the aging dancer and her paunchy associate remark on “what a pity it is” that I have feet that “resemble yoga-blocks”. Well, fine, and your shirt looks a bit tight over your stomach just now, and you should really have that vein on the back of your knee looked at.

It’s bad enough that I’ve had the world-wide reality of plastic surgery slapped across my naïve Midwestern face since I moved from Wisconsin to Florida, but to have my 30-some-year-old body held up against 20-year-old bodies by 40-year-old instructors who say “20-something, don’t be impressed with 30-something because look at her… just look at her. You might not be able to jump like that, but would you really want to get all those ugly muscles in order to do it?”

Or when I caught the flu and came back to class 5 pounds lighter, heard “You look good! Lost weight?”
“No, well, yes, but not intentionally. I got horribly ill for 5 days and had to take another week off to recover.”
“Oh, but you have a wedding coming up. Did you get sick so you could fit into your dress?”
“Um, no, I just got sick.”

Upon my return, from my wedding, I was completely well and that 5 lbs of wellness had made its way back to my life. But my mind had some catching up to do after I was hit with, “Oh, you’re looking bigger. Did you keep the weight off long enough to fit into your dress?”
“Uh, um… It was a great wedding… I am so happy… Just glad to be back dancing now.”
What I didn’t say was “You know, I could, with my sturdy body, drag you forcefully into the 21st century.” Or, I could just go home and write snarky little things about you. My choice, I guess.

Talking, or in this case, writing snarkily after a particularly harrowing encounter with the exceptionally tactless population of Miami never fails to remind me of a man who managed to throw a little thick skin over my shoulders in my mid 20’s.

At an imposing 6’4”, Tony is always finely shaven and has a penchant for designer duds befitting a truly worldly gay man. Tony could tell you who started each House of Fashion worth mentioning and the procession of successors who continued the line in their awe-full and terrible wake. His style isn’t limited to merely dressing for success; every day is a sensation waiting to be made by fashion. If we were faced with a busy Saturday night at our restaurant, Tony would dress for battle. He would stride through the door at 4:30 sharp in tall lace-up black leather boots, a kilt by Burbury, and an exquisitely matched Tom Ford top set off by a black leather wrist-cuff. On the first day of true winter in Minneapolis, he’d flourish a Helmut Lang jacket taking care that the buckles on its dominatrix-inspired straps would clatter on the table and announce his presence. Tony could tell you every place to get high fashion at full and discounted price in Minneapolis and would, if you were worthy, take you by the hand and introduce you to the people who would memorize your style, size and means to purchase and from thenceforth never fail to give you a little jingle if something came in befitting of your personage. Tony, and Tony alone could instantly rally the troupes to throw a French Brasserie-style dinner party at his home complete with furniture spirited away from cafés by willing servers and managers, bohemian statues driven over from friends’ bibelot shops, absinthe and wine brought by bartenders from their own stocks, food bought at cost from a restaurant owner and a chef tending the kitchen all out of the goodness of their dark little hearts. Oh yes, such events can be thrown together easily for a few thousand dollars by any person with ready money, but Tony could manage this all with little to no cost to himself because people wanted to do it for him. .

The best thing about Tony is that he always has a ready word for those who dare to meet him with adversity and it is always, astoundingly, a good word. “This woman came up to me calling me an ‘idiot’ for telling her a table would be available in 15 minutes when she’s been standing around for 16. I just looked at her and told her ‘What a lovely blouse you’re wearing!’ and she couldn’t help but smile, the bitch.” Yes, Tony is a man for whom appearances seem to mean more than a child’s life and his sordid past reeks of hedonism and idle trouble, but what I learned from him over the years under his wing was more that how to meet a disparaging remark with a compliment. It’s that you must enjoy the visual and physical pleasures in life while working like a dog and behaving like one as well. Even if the man you’re leashed too has just kicked you, you still greet him with a wagging tail because if it doesn’t make him a better person, you will still be the better for it. Oh, yes, go ahead and let it all out later, it can’t be healthy to keep it bottled up inside just don’t let it get to you in public. Delay your airing of grievances until you’re among friends because what an angry person wants right now is a fight and only you can deny them the pleasure.

I’ve never met someone with more regard for the seemingly frivolous fashion and gossip of the world, but I’ve also never met someone who held such sway with his staff and co-workers. He hired misfits and artists who cared more for their drugs and tight jeans than selling you a plate of pasta, but they worked like slaves for Tony because he would do the same for them. I’ve lost track of him over the years, but the words that fall off my tongue each time I encounter a person utterly devoid of tact and decency, will be all Tony’s.

The last time I saw him was when he came to a show of mine, the first time he saw me dance and one of the last times I performed in Minneapolis. It was two days after the I-35W Bridge in downtown Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people and injuring 145 more, and he related his account of the event. He happened to be riding his bike under the bridge at the moment it began to collapse and narrowly escaped serious injury from falling debris. Tony then nonchalantly remarked that he turned back to the rubble in order to pull people from their sinking cars in the river with, I might add, no evident regard for the Prada sneakers and Dolce and Gabbana Man-pri’s I knew he routinely wore while biking. Well, of course. Tony had purpose, he had class and above all, he had great timing.