Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

sunglasses there was much to ponder and think about. Her confidence. Her beauty. The deep blue color of her eyes. The wet hair. The peaceful stance of her body language. She was one of those dammed mother earth women so connected to the universe, able to walk unafraid in the here and now.
    She didn’t waste any stares on me but I continued to watch her until I had a need to hear her voice. I can tell a world of things about a person if I can hear their voice, and so I asked if she knew anything about roses. It turned out she was looking for small white fencing to put around a little garden she was making. She said no and that was it. She moved on and I stood there thinking, my God I can’t let her get away. But that’s exactly what happened until, having gotten what I needed, I happened to end up behind her at the checkout counter. She placed her items on the rolling rubber and I placed mine behind hers.
    The cashier rang up her things and then continued to add mine to the collection. Megan indicated to the cashier that we were separate and I, for whatever reason, said I would pay for it all. Megan looked angry, as if I had assumed she needed monetary help. Or maybe she thought it was one of the worst pick-up lines she had ever heard. In any case, Megan began to walk away and I was trying to get the cashier to hurry up with my things, because I didn’t want to lose sight of her. I had no idea what I was going to say to Megan if I did catch her, but I had to come up with something.
    I come from an age where people were judged on what kind of vibe they projected. Megan’s vibe was positive, alive and hopeful, and there I was hurting and in pain over having ended my long relationship with Kimberly. I just wanted to be in the kind of company that had what Megan had. I wanted her inner peace.
    Again, unlike any relationship with a woman I ever had I did something quite remarkable that I have never done before or since. First, I managed to talk Megan out of her phone number. She must have wanted me to have it or she wouldn’t have given it to me. My initial guess was that she recognized me, but I was wrong. She is thirteenyears younger than I am, and “Jenny Take a Ride” was not a currency she could relate to. Now, after twenty years with her, I realize she simply saw me hurting and reached out to a fellow human who was obviously in pain.
    I said, “Take a couple of days and think about whether you’ve done the right thing or not. I’ll call. Then if you regret having given me your phone number tell me and you’ll never hear from me again. I swear.” One half hour after we had spoken I arrived home and dialed the number. God, I was embarrassed, but I needed to know if it was a real number or not. Instead of an answering machine where I would have the chance to hang up, she answered.
    Our courtship lasted well over a year. It was a year in which I was with several strikingly beautiful women. I was lonesome and I didn’t see my leaving Kim as an opportunity to find out about myself, which it was. One of my buddies suggested I might want to seek professional help. Find a way to deal with the loneliness and sadness without becoming entangled in a rebound situation. I followed his advice, but continued looking for female companionship. One of the questions my psychologist insisted I face was my awareness of my sexuality. It was a fair question, given my sparse and extremely infrequent encounters with men, but mostly always at a conscious level.

     
    There is a gay author who wrote a book called
Rock on the Wild Side
. His name is Wayne Studer. Mr. Studer refers to one of my musical compositions as the “most eyeopeningly ‘gay’ album I’ve ever heard by a sixties star of Ryder’s stature.” He goes on to state, pointing to one of my songs, “For all its tastelessness, it sounds happy, honest, and unpretentious; sexy, fun, and as gay as can be.”
    I have pondered this deeply, but rather thanmaking a dishonest proclamation about “At last I’m free and I’m coming out,” I think it is more honest to say that if I were to find a person in which love, true love, was the essence of a relationship for them, their sex would not matter to me. That is what I was on the verge of finding with Jurgen, the man, and that is what I have found with Megan, the woman.
    Megan and I talked on the telephone, wrote letters to each other from Europe, or even just from Michigan, went out on occasional dates, lunches,