How'd I Miss My Coming Out? (Part 6): Lost In Your Eyes

Every kid looks to their parents for guidance and inspiration but when I was a kid, I turned to the writers and philosophers that spoke to me, that touched my soul and eventually helped shape the gay man I am today.  When I was just a tween, leaning out my bedroom window staring at the stars on a beautiful summer night, I'd recite passages from these incredibly insightful minds and ponder what life had in store for me.

If I was feeling particularly crushed by let's say Jen Bowerman, these words were offered from my lips to the heavens above: "coulda been so beautiful, could've been so right, could've been my lover every day of my life..."

When I botched my lines in rehearsals and everyone made me feel less than Corey Haim I'd put my misstep into perspective by reciting the following mantra: "step by step, heart to heart, left right left we all fall down..." 

On those nights when the world seemed to offer endless opportunities and the sky was the limit I'd recall a great poetess and her words of encouragement and world domination: "the future belongs to the future itself and that future is Electric Youth!"

What were you expecting, Ayn Rand and Sophocles?  My childhood mind-melders were the bubblegum pop princesses Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Martika, and sometimes their counterparts Expose, Paula Abdul and Wilson Phillips!  I turned a cold shoulder to the great minds every Tom, Dick and Harry looked up to and found a bouquet of knowledge in the fluorescent lights of a KMart instead of the dusty dark caverns of a used bookstore.  

While I like to think I grew up a hardcore kid (straight-edge punk), the reality is that while I loved listening to alternative and punk music my immersion into that culture was preceded by a dirty little obsession with candy-coated cuteness that not many other boys my age would admit to.  

I was the kid that carefully cut a slit in the knee of my peg-legged acid wash jeans to emulate my idol Debbie Gibson and her iconic Out of the Blue album cover by drawing a lipstick smiley face on my exposed skin.  I'd have dreams about hanging out in that convertible of hers with the wind blowing through our frosted blonde and Aussie-sprayed hair, shaking our love.  I was so infatuated with Debbie Gibson that I even bought that cherry infused toilet water she was pimping, her Electric Youth perfume.  Obviously I was as straight as the day is long...

A few years earlier my sugar addiction came in the form of Kids Incorporated and my infatuation with a girl named Martika.  Sure, everyone now talks about Jennifer Love Hewitt and Fergie getting their start on the show but for me it was about that tall exotic brunette.  She reigned supreme (while often singing The Supremes) at that malt shop and she stole my heart.  After she left the show and my Kids Inc. obsession died down, I almost passed out when she hit the music scene with Toy Soldiers in 1988. 

I was in the 8th grade and shared a room with my older brother who used to threaten to break my Martika cd in half because I played it so much. He'd make fun of me as I put Toy Soldiers on repeat and lay on my bed getting all teary eyed with each and every play of the record.

Just as I thought I could sing like Olivia Newton-John, I was certain I could shriek just as well as Martika when she'd hit that chorus. He'd be playing Punch-Out and I'd be screaming from the other side of the room: "bit by bit we're torn apart; we'll never win but the battle wages on..." It was heartfelt and empowering and damn I wanted to be her...

But not as much as I wanted to be Miss Tiffany Renee Darwish, bopping around a mall in Paramus, NJ!  My cousin Lynn and I knew every pseudo-spirit finger wave, every "step-dip" move and just how to tossle our hair in that Tiffany way.  "I Think We're Alone Now" blew my mind and I studied every frame of the video for inspiration. 

I wanted to play on the train tracks and sing in the recording studio. I wanted to have long red hair and wear a bedazzled jean jacket while hanging out a car window.  I wanted to hit The Penn-Can Mall in Central New York and perform for the masses with 31 Flavors and Great Expectations in the background. I wanted to orbit around planet Tiffany.

I scooped up every copy of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat and Bop I could find and plastered my walls with all things Tiffany.  When she toured with New Kids on the Block it was like a dream come true until I found out she was dating Jonathan Knight ... she couldn't score Jordan?  I mean, she was Tiffany and the best she could do was the genetically impaired of the two Knight brothers?  While I expected more from her, she actually taught me a lesson.  Tiffany is responsible for teaching me that looks weren't everything and I eventually embraced their awkward geek love. 

They were my JFK and Jackie-O; my Prince Charles and Lady Di; they were Brangelina before Brangelina ever was ... they were Tiffathon and I was in shambles when they broke up.  It was the end of an era.

"Could've Been" had new meaning.  It was no longer the song that made me cry when Mike Seaver sat outside the pizza shop watching and longing for the love of his life Julie as she tossed pies in slow motion on Growing Pains.  It was now the song that personally spoke to my loss and heartache: Tiffathon was no more. It was a new anthem for what could've been on a cold and lonely night!

I learned about love, loss, passion and fashion from these teen queens.  I didn't get my education from the school of hard knocks, I got mine from the land of lollipops and bubblegum and look how I turned out ... Debbie Gibson, Martika and Tiffany gave me hope for a new generation — my generation — and we were electric!