How'd I Miss My Coming Out? (Part 2): They Call It "Xanadu"

Originally I had something completely different planned for Part 2 of How'd I Miss My Coming Out?, but then I watched the Tony Awards on DVR and it sparked something.  It doesn't help that AfterElton's love for Cheyenne Jackson has slowly created my own mini-obsession with that tall drink of water so this week we're getting a little light in our skates as we reminisce about Xanadu.

There were a couple things I worshiped as a kid that were pretty damn gay; I'm talking things I would have traded a whole set of Garbage Pail Kids cards for or possibly even sold my little sister on the black market if it meant keeping these things in my life. Yes, I was that dramatic in grade school.

One of these treasures from my youth was Olivia Newton-John and the other was roller skating. So imagine my glee when in 1980 I realized that these two great tastes go great together!

Xanadu was one of my first obsessions and one of the first signs that my parents should have picked up on. It's not every day that you'll see a little blonde kid dancing in his living room with huge headphones on and Electric Light Orchestra contributing to early onset deafness. 

Not only did I think I could sing just like Olivia, I thought I was a roller skating king! I was like lighting on skates (just ask Gina P., whose tail I whooped in the Chestnut Hill Elementary School gymnasium with the entire school watching ... that's what I thought) and practicing moves was as common as piano lessons in my house.  Linda Blair had nothing on my Roller Boogie!

I had the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on vinyl and knew every word by heart.  I can't tell you how many nights were spent singing those famous love songs into my pillow and thinking in my head that I sounded exactly like my girl Olivia. "Suddenly" never sounded so good as through the vocal chords of a pre-pubescent girly-voiced boy who thought he could match Olivia's wispy soprano. 

In my bedroom I was a singer and in my driveway a disco dancin' derby boy who could skate in circles while clapping and chanting "X-A-N-A-D-U" until the sun went down.  My head was full of singing, dancing, skating through walls and lots of neon, it was fab-u-lous!

I'd seen the film so many times that I could recite the hilariously cheesy dialogue and alone with a broom stick, I too could dance like Gene Kelly, who knew?  I wanted to be Kira, that renegade Muse who couldn't help but disobey the parental unit (in this case Zeus) for a chance at true love and one last perfectly choreographed group skate.

One summer I created homemade fliers and posted them around my quiet suburban street inviting all of my unsuspecting neighbors to a special basement treat.  I didn't care that my magazine cut-out method made it look like I was kidnapped like Patty Hearst in a basement - I was putting on the most entertaining show of 1983!  A one man show, reenacting the visionary musical masterpiece that had captured my little pink heart, and the housewives of Upstate NY would love it!  I'd call it Danadu!

Long before Cheyenne Jackson strapped on his tube socks and roller skates, I had a vision of bringing the forbidden love of a Muse and a mortal to the masses. Kira and Sonny Malone would live forever ... in my basement!

I laced up my skates, put the needle on the record and rolled through the musty sleeping bag I'd flung over a pipe as my stage curtain and made my magical entrance. I 100% believed that Kira and her Muse sisters were magic and that nothing stood in their way. I brought that to my performance as I skated past the washer machine, dusty weight bench and Christmas decorations belting out every word of the Grammy Award-winning "Magic" with style and grace. 

I was a vision cloaked in the faint neon glow of a black light!  Seriously, it's amazing what kind of special effects I thought a stupid black light would make in a damp dark basement because I was certain a big neon blue aura was surrounding my 50 pound frame, just like in the movie!

Sadly, the only person there to witness my broadway debut was my Mom and the dog. *record scratches and I stumble over a disembodied Barbie leg*

In the moment I didn't care that, much like the song, my basement was "a place where nobody dared to go..." It was just about living and breathing Xanadu. It brought all of my dreams to life and it made me a happy little unsuspecting gay boy. 

Looking back on my obsession, there's a slight chance that the burning sensation Xanadu gave me had something other than a love of skating and incredible pop ballads to do with it. It may have had a little something to do with Olivia's leading man, Michael Beck.

Michael Pec Beck

With his feathered Farrah do and exposed muscular chest, Michael Beck was quite the sex symbol in the early 80's.  That "tortured, poor artist" thing was attractive even to a 10 year old; little did I know how that would play out over and over again in my 20's.  HELLO!

I think he's why I fell in love The Warriors when I was barely a decade old.  Obviously a film about rival gangs roaming the boroughs of New York was highly inappropriate viewing material for a child but it had Xanadu's Sonny Malone all sweaty and hot, baseball mimes and roller skating bullies!  What's not to love?

In high school my friend Mo and I would sit in my car and sing Xanadu at the top of our lungs.  It was fun and reminiscent of our youth.  It was magical how we used to float across the roller rink with the wind in our hair as Olivia Newton-John drifted through the stale air. 

It was a world that was a little more Gene Kelly than R. Kelly and one where a boy could be schooled in mythology and the ways of love thanks to a movie musical called Xanadu.  

Cheyenne Jackson

I have yet to see the Broadway production starring Kerry Butler and out fave Cheyenne Jackson and I don't know that I ever will.  I'm worried that the tone will be one of mockery and that it will be too campy to capture the spirit of the Xanadu I know and love.   And to be blatantly honest, I highly doubt either star can hold a candle to the hot hot heat I created in my basement over 25 years ago.  I'm just sayin'...