Terry A. Goldman: Our Ter Bear

A Cute Guy On The Cruise, Derek and Terry - March 2002

We were friends for 23 years or as Terry would say “at least twenty-five.” He was always counting because it counts, but also always overestimating how long it had been. Perhaps it's the arduous nature of being my friend, that it always feels longer than it is. Or perhaps it was because of the winding road we traveled along together: across a nation and time, bridging two centuries like a wishbone. A journey that has now so abruptly ended. 

Maybe it is fitting that we met as friends so long ago in a way that no longer exists, on a BBS, a bulletin board service called Delos. It was barely the internet, just a local number to connect computer modems. Virtually no one had photos in the dark ages of dial-up and as we talked, we both agreed it was a strange way to meet anyone. But filled with trepidation, we did meet as people did then, at The Abbey among the old terracotta statues and stale pastries. And then, so simply, we were friends. 

I remember 1994, the bare wood floors of his new apartment, the light through the large windows. His myriad complaints about the unreliability of the service workers he hired and wrangled at Universal Studios. And how much fun we had through the rest of the 90s, hanging out together with our mutual friends on endless nights at the movies or house parties or Revolver. 

As a kid, I thought it was ludicrous that Laverne and Shirley would move to Los Angeles and everyone from the Pizza Bowl in Milwaukee would somehow join them. But just as Dennis Hensley joked when he visited me in Manhattan, we did improbably have our own spin off of sorts in the big apple when Terry moved there a couple of years after I did. And in between we had a raucous and memorable mess of a cruise to Mexico where the ship hypnotist turned Terry into a local celebrity and the thin wall between our adjoining cabins was an endless topic of conversation. 

When I think about Terry, I think about how truly good he was. I gave a toast at his wedding but what I remember most was driving Terry and Doug back to the hotel after it was over because he had thought of everyone else’s transportation out of the park but his own. 

Suited Up For Terry 2012

I rehearsed my speech relentlessly and especially the ending. I wanted the toast to be lovely and funny because our friendship was always full of laughter, but I knew the range limitations of my own reed thin voice and I wanted everyone listening to know when the tone shifted, how much Terry meant to me as my friend, my dear friend, for all these years. 

My mom had me when she was young and she likes to say that we grew up together. That's how I think of my time with Terry. We were so young when we met and we really became adults together. Our jobs grew in importance, we grew as people, our lives changed and moved around, but the fun never ended. So many bad movies, so much joy. 

I wish I was writing another toast and hearing Terry’s generous laugh. I hate writing these things, not just because I have already written too many, but because it can never be enough to replicate who someone is. A hug from Terry was a wonder that words can’t convey. How do you talk about someone who was relentlessly full of life when that life lives only in your memory?

Terry hugs Paul - Mexico March 2002

After the cruise, our friend Paul had made a memories DVD for all of us who had been there, and a few years ago, Terry asked me for mine after his no longer played. “I’ll make you a copy!” he promised, but now like Terry himself, it lives only in my mind. On the cruise, the hypnotist had convinced Terry that he had a small precious bird in his hands. In true Terry fashion, he loved and protected the invisible bird with all his heart. And for all of us who knew Terry, we felt the same of him. But then, in the time it takes to snap your fingers, we opened our eyes and he was gone.  

Together in 2008

"16 years. That's how long we've known each other. I think you are the only person I have in my life (besides family) that's been around that long. Thanks BBS! I hope you have an amazing birthday, I love you!!!" - Terry Goldman, on my Facebook wall, Oct 28, 2008. 

The City By The Gay

Just for the record, when I first moved to New York City, I was hired at a company that worked on the redevelopment strategy turning The Nashville Network into Spike TV. And in between, it was our beautiful missing link The National Network (aka The New TNN). And there, I toiled away writing hilarious puns about Pamela Anderson on Baywatch (“Double Vision”) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Set Your Phasers On Fun”) that populated the website. So I would like to take credit for the current passion for puns in everything from The Daily Show to Morning Joe, even though a pun is truly the lowest form of comedy. So don’t think for a minute that my pun headlines are a riff on current popular culture. I am just reusing bits I did eleven years ago. And they were no fresher then than they are now, my friend.

On the subject of the good old days, my ex-boyfriend Curtis is in town. Years and years and years ago, I spied him across Revolver and bravely gave him my number as he was leaving and then he didn’t call. For three years. But eventually he was moving a desk and found my number which had fallen behind it and finally picked up the phone. As it happens, the number I gave him was for my friend Paul's apartment where I had been staying temporarily at that time and purely by happenstance was back there, sitting waiting for Paul to get out of the shower, the night Curtis deigned to call me back and I happened to answer the phone. Please note: if I am close friends with someone, I will wash their dishes if bored, answer their phone when they are in the shower, or sort through their mail even if they are standing right there, so if you value your privacy or personal space, it is probably not a good idea to be my close friend.

Revolve!

Once upon a time, there was a gay bar in West Hollywood called Revolver. Through it’s signature revolving front door were the matte black walls that became the cave of my nocturnal existence for much of the 1990s. So many nights spent lusting after a now dead bartender with too many cats, watching a drag queen named Diva and hanging out with my best friend Paul. I laughed in a shower of napkins to “Zip” from Pal Joey, got robbed at gunpoint out front, went home with a few regrettable characters, and night after night after night, happily floated down a long river a booze.

I was reminded once again of Revolver tonight as I watched Matty spin happily around in the revolving door of a swank apartment building on Seventh Avenue. The doorman was not amused, but I was. Watching the happy Matty spirit I know so well warmed me on a cold winter night. Earlier, I joined him at a terrific restaurant called Il Bordello down on 23rd at Tenth. He was having dinner with Gray and Greg and two women (code names: Short Stuff and The Quiet One). Matt was supposed to join me at Ronnie's birthday party at Splash, and he asked me to come to the restaurant to scoop him up on my way over. However, once there, Gray treated us to a wonderful meal of appetizers and cool cocktails and the staff plied us with tasty raspberry shots. Suddenly, we were in for the long haul.

After a truly marvelous time at Il Bordello, we all piled into taxis and headed for another party somewhere on Seventh Avenue "on the way." The boys got into one cab and I joined the girls in the second. Not knowing the address of the party, I just told the driver to "Follow that car." Short Stuff was giddy. "Just like in the movies!" She was even more elated moments later when I insisted on paying for the short cab right. "You are ladies. My mother would reach across the continent to kill me if I let you pay." Apparently chivalry as far as they had known was quite dead.

The Seventh Avenue party was in a beautiful apartment filled with gay guys I had never seen before. Aside from Joe who was there and already quite drunk when we arrived, I didn't know a soul. Even Gray seemed not to know anyone, well almost anyone. The party was equipped with two hunky shirtless bartenders, one blond, one brunet (something for everyone!) with true swim bodies (long arms, long torsos, long necks) who were as straight as their perfectly formed spines. The blond one had apparently tended many gay parties over the last year or so and over time Gray had struck up something of a friendship with him.

As nice as the apartment was, the decor didn't make any sense to me at all. The art was impeccable, including two Bruce Weber Chop Suey prints of an Israeli soldier on one wall facing a pretty Nazi soldier on the other (very Pinkie and Blue Boy), but the furniture was awful. It all looked like it had been thrown together over years of moves from one place to another. A leather sofa from his first apartment, a fabric armchair from his parents, an armoire from his last house, a faded oriental rug his grandmother left him and a glass coffee table from the Z Gallerie circa 1993. Gray pointed out a six foot folding table in the corner set up for an abandoned attempt at a second bar. "That is an art installation" I tried to assure him, refusing to believe someone in this nice of an apartment would have so tacky a piece of furniture.

Running short of time, I dragged Matty out of the party and down to Splash. Once there, I expected Ronnie to be in the small VIP room above the DJ booth, but instead they set up a segregated space off the dance floor for him in full view of everyone. I felt like I was an animal in a zoo, with people peering in at me minding my own business inside the monkey house. This was the price of fame I have always been unwilling to pay. It was reality TV, without the TV. Ronnie was dancing and having a good time, and Matty ran into Itay Hod, who I last saw last year briefly in a car ride to a party. At the time I was distracted by Gary and other things, and it was hardly the kind of encounter to build a lifetime of friendship on, so I didn't bother to say anything. In any event, it didn't matter because almost as soon as I was saying hello, I was saying good bye.

Matty accompanied me out onto the street outside Splash, where I hurriedly hailed a cab to take me back to the train station. Just past where I left David in the capable hands of Steven that fateful night so long ago. Matty hates it when I end my blog postings all wistful and looking up at the stars. He would really hate some kind of crappy extended metaphor right here about revolving doors and people coming in and out of lives and things constantly moving in a circle but never changing. So instead I will go back to that moment when we emerged from the revolving door on Seventh Avenue on our way to Ronnie's party. The real point at which this story began. The door was spinning and Matty was struck by inspiration. "Revolve!" Matty declared triumphantly. "That's your blog right there." He rubbed his hands together excitedly in that way that he does, knowing that he had the right answer. And he did.

All About Eve

"Is this the most over-hyped night of the year or what?" Cyd Zeigler asked rhetorically at Henry's swank New Year's Eve party. For me, it is often the most dreaded night of the year. So much sweating and anticipation. Where to go. Who to go with. Forced to drink champagne against your will and then stumble through the virtually incomprehensible auld Scottish lyrics of Auld Lang Syne. And for what? To see how Dick Clark is fairing since his stroke? Note that Anderson Cooper and Ryan Seacrest seem to revel in working the holiday since they can assiduously avoid kissing anyone personal at midnight? It's all just a lot of show. No wonder the older I get, the more I just want to stay home in bed.

On Friday night, Mike and I met up with Cyd and his wonderful boyfriend Dan at Barracuda. Earlier in the evening, I had been roped into hours of joyous heterosexual mayhem by Elaine Miles, the best friend of my newly discovered half sister. I had sipped $600 a bottle red wine while I came to realize from their foreign party rituals that I don't spend much time in groups of straight people anymore. It was a bit like discovering a lost civilization. But moments later, a cab had whisked me down to homo town and I was back in my noisy, ass-grabby element.

Cyd and Dan are a sensational couple with a romantic love story straight out of 1940s MGM. Like Enchanted Cottage with homosexuality but without the disfigurement. Unfortunately, our work schedules are so dramatically different, it is rare that we get to spend much time together. So when they suggested Mike and I join them at a party on New Year's Eve, we jumped at the chance. As it was, we had headed to the bars on Friday night to pick up copies of HX for some ideas of what to do on the big night. Going to a house party with Cyd and Dan was the perfect solution. A room full of strangers but also a couple of built-in reliable conversationalists too. Even Mike, who hates meeting new people and going to parties, seemed to approve of the idea. And, we figured, if the party sucked, we could always wander down to Therapy and have a few drinks in public. As if to make our plans even more fateful, on New Year Eve, the drunk trains run well past their usual killjoy time of 1:50am, guaranteeing us an easy way home no matter when we wanted to call it all quits.

So, Mike and I headed off into the city with a bottle of champagne and a bottle of vodka in a brown paper bag. Mike thought we should have put it in more discreet packaging, but it's December 31st, I think everyone knew exactly what we were carrying. Plus Mike brought along mini bottles of rum to warm us up along the way. He chugged his as a shot before boarding the train, but I kept mine in my pocket. By the time we got to the city, my short nap on the Metro North Train made me hungry. Unfortunately, everything in Harlem was closed except for our tried and true Popeye's Chicken. I ordered a chicken strip combo, and poured my mini bottle of rum into my medium Coke and drank it on our way down to the party near Columbia University.

We got to the party and it was in a very glamorous new building with fresh wood paneling in the elevator that Mike insisted on sniffing like he was a junkie and the elevator car was made of modeling glue. We hung up our coats and wandered into the sea of cute guys. We struck gold! It was just the right party to be at. Tons of food and booze and cuteness. We set about immediately to get smashed off our asses.

It turns out that Henry, our party host, wasn't a stranger since I met (and lusted after him) at a karaoke night with Cyd some months earlier. Mike knew instantly that I liked him because he was completely my type, although he wasn't the only one. There was a cute guy named Justin acting as one of the party hosts and he was also adorably blondie pie, though in a different way from Henry. Henry looks more like Daniel Craig as James Bond minus 20 years of rough living, while Justin looks like Torrance's unsupportive college boyfriend in "Bring It On". Justin was very solicitous to everyone in the room, so it was impossible to feel special when he would get kissy and grabby. It was still welcome though. Turns out he was 28, not 22 as I first suicidally suspected, and he had an equally adorable boyfriend hosting with him named Dan, who didn't seem to mind how flirty he was with everyone.

The party was in full swing for hours after the ball dropped, but Cyd and Dan were ready to drop before 1am. Once they left, Mike and I kept drinking and tried to meet a few of the other drunk strangers at the party. I got into a deep discussion about developing nations and how clean water programs, the Life Straw (perhaps the innovation of the early 21st century) and Heifer International lay the groundwork for economic development with a guy who specialized in such things but probably preferred to make out than explain the complexities of emerging economies in Africa to a drunk college dropout. I was just trying to show an interest in his work, which did not interest him in me at all. Later, we ran into a friend of Cyd's named Sergio, who had initially been driven away by our feverish discussion of the pending Iowa caucus. We do like our deep discussions at shallow gay parties, don't we?

Much drunker and later, Sergio took a second crack at us and found a much lighter conversation going on. The discussion evaporated entirely when we decided to make out instead of chat. And let me tell you, it was just what the doctor ordered. I didn't get his number. I didn't want to go home with him. I just wanted to spend a few moments at a party talking about nothing (his favorite color is red) and kissing intermittently. After all, it is New Year's Eve. The night of the year designed for making out with a stranger. And so much better than the year I randomly made out with Paul's friend Manfred after he had thrown up in the gutter outside Revolver. However, all good things must come to an end. Mike and I left to take one of the drunk trains home and I gave Sergio one last good kiss good bye. And that was the end of the that.

Now boozed up but good and happy after an hour of canoodling, I sailed into Grand Central Station and fell in love once again with its simple grandeur and the thrill of the crowd. No one told me but it turns out that Grand Central is THE place to be on New Year's Eve after midnight. In lieu of striking clocks and abandoned glass slippers, it is a sea of hot young drunk straight guys, smiling and having a blast. Everyone is infused with the joy of the night, boisterous and friendly, waiting for their respective trains home.

The party continued on our train, although it quieted somewhat as one by one, the passengers passed out in their seats. We did get caught at one station while the police were called aboard to deal with some belligerent passengers. Later, an attractive red-headed woman ran into her old friends who were sitting around us. The boys had given her the charming moniker "butt lice" and it was "butt lice" herself who explained that her friends had been the rowdy boys who had been pulled off the train. Another local mystery solved, although the origin of her nickname remains purposefully unknown.

A little after six AM, the train pulled into the station and Mike and I made our drunken way up the hill. Dawn was just starting to break and the town was covered in a slight foggy haze, blurred considerably at the edges by my drunkenness. By the time we walked up the hill and turned into the driveway, the dawn's early light was making its way slowly through the clouds, dramatically lighting the night sky above the bare tree branches and filling the yard with an eerie blue glow. It was all so beautiful to come home to. My home.

Eight is my lucky number, I thought as I tumbled into bed. And this year is 2008. So maybe this will be the year it will all fall together. This will be the year my luck returns in force, and all the pieces fit together the way they should. I already got a little lucky at the party, so there is no reason to think that kind of luck won't last all year long. I pulled the covers up to my head, nestled into my sea of pillows and drifted off to sleep with visions of my happy new year to come. Just the perfect ending to a perfect New Year's Eve.

Back To The Future

Hollywood, USA. April 1996

I am on top of the world. As I blogged before, I have my insanely cushy job at SONY, working Special Events on the old MGM lot. I am making more money than I had ever made in my whole life. I had access to awesome swag (Mary Rielly nightshirt, anyone?) and I was able to get my long suffering friends into glamorous movie premieres featuring big stars (Peter Weller! Neve Campbell! Ricki Lake!). And yet, all of my wildest dreams coming true didn't make me the least bit happy. If anything, it just made me more sad. And then, after only nine months of glitz and excitement, I was unemployed again, a combination of my own lack of ambition and a boss hopped up on Phen-Fen. What followed was a manic-depressive summer of highs (sex with Mitch) and lows (a string of low paying crap temp jobs), yet a collision-course that sent me careening into the career I have today. Subsequent years of intense alcohol abuse would normally be enough to wipe it all away, but now it comes flooding back like Christina Applegate's memories on Samantha Who? thanks to my good friend Paul Horne's retro blog: The Horneblower.

Holed up for two months in a string of world class spas in Thailand with nothing better to do than dredge up the past and report on the seedy present, Paul has finally put his creativity and vast tech savvy to good use. I highly recommend his current and past blog, although for me, the joy and the heartache are all in the past. Things begin with a bang in the premiere issue with our attendance at the Sharon Stone naked Oscar bid "Last Dance" which Paul describes as "In a nutshell: Sharon Stone/Death Row/Made-for-TV Movie. I could barely hear the film over Derek's snoring, but from the wisp of a plot I could find, you could cut the tension with a gossamer thread. I did think the anguish of the death penalty debate was effectively "fleshed out" when a prime witness--who happened to be a stripper--could only answer questions while gyrating in pasties over Rob Morrow. " It was not however "our movie" (studio speak for a film we had made). I had met Jeff Hare a few weeks earlier. We were both publicists at studios (I at Columbia-TriStar, he at Disney) so we agreed to swap movie premiere invites. He sent us off to "Last Dance" at the Director's Guild and I think I was able to return the favor once before I got shit canned three weeks later. I don't remember sleeping through the movie but pretty much everything else, from Faye Dunaway alphabetizing the candy to Sharon Stone's death stares on our way out, feels completely accurate.

As I leaf through his blog, I can feel the countdown to my demise at SONY. The following week, we are at the premiere of "The Craft," my last movie at the studio, and I was once again talent escorting, this time at the VH-1 Honors. Although as I recall, I got there late or they didn't have an assignment for me or something because I have no recollection of the event outside of waiting behind the Universal Amphitheater for a shuttle bus. See! The alcohol is working! Just so long as I never decide to write a memoir. I click the link to week three and bam!, I am already unemployed.

Paul makes no mention of it but when I see his movie review for Twister "Ooooh... windy. If you can't see it now on a big screen with a big audience and surround sound, then wait for the ride at Universal." I know exactly what week it is. I am fired but don't care because I have tons of money saved up and in severance, and I have just reconnected with Mitch. Our fateful meeting for coffee at The Abbey (remember when they used to serve coffee) turned quickly into five solid hours of sweaty sex in his apartment. I could have stayed all night, but in those pre-Moviefone days, my unemployed ass had agreed to buy everyone's tickets that morning at the Chinese Theater and everyone's Friday night fun at the opening night of Twister was sitting in my shoe on the floor.

However, I don't dwell on what happened to my life for long because I am quickly drawn into Paul's classic, brilliant stories including "You Can't Throw It Away -- It's A Cookie" (scroll down). But he really hit his stride with "Cafe Gal." The Horneblower led to an extremely brief stint as a columnist, writing "Enough About You" for Detour until the magazine folded (though not before his brilliant first column Starbuckers appeared). Then undaunted by the failure of Detour he went and launched his own magazine HERO.

It is fun to look back on it all now. The cutting edge technology of it all. Email newsletters! Cellular phones! My own AOL Keyword! Janeane Garofalo, movie star! I can't regret anything that happened there because it all set in motion the life I have today. Paul is back writing, and the technology has improved quite a bit since then. Now its RSS feeds instead of emails, blogs instead of newsletters. I am still friends with Jeff Hare, who left Disney for Warner Bros., but never did invite me back to another premiere. And I still have my Mary Rielly nightshirt. I kept it all these years and for a reason that didn't even exist back in April 1996.

eBay.

West Hollywood Is Burning

Perez Hilton was on the show tonight, dishing about celebrities for Tabloid Tuesday. Perez used to be on the show all the time when he was thin and living in New York and running Page Six Six Six. But then, the NY Post, egged on by eternal wet blanket James Edstrom, went after him and he became PerezHilton.com, moved west, gained weight, and became as enormously famous as he was enormous. He hasn't been on our show so much since then (busy with subpoenas and exploring the wonders of the House Of Pies, I suppose), but tonight he returned, and in time for a heartbreaking breaking story: West Hollywood was burning.

Micky's burned (ironic, apparently), and with it a million memories of my life in West Hollywood in the 1990s (also known as the last time anyone dared show their face inside that clap trap bar). When I was first coming out, Micky's was the first gay bar I ever went to. Michael and I were roommates at the time in Pasadena. I worked days in the drug clinic while he worked evenings for the Sheriff department, both unlikely careers for two young guys out drinking and dancing every single night of the week. We'd go to Micky's until close, then head to the Denny's across the street from our tiny apartment on Vinedo. Michael would head to bed while I would catch two hours sleep before getting up, showering and heading to the drug clinic at 7:30am. I am certain the drunks and staff could smell the booze on me and you didn't need to be a trained clinician to know that the wall I would hit each day around 3:00pm couldn't easily be satisfied with a Snickers bar. But I would leave at 4:30pm on the dot and race home to sleep until Michael returned from his shift and we'd start the process again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It was at the fire sale one night outside Micky's that we met the twink who invited us to the "after party" in someone's apartment in Hollywood and Michael met (and slept with) Eric Mueller. Michael and my friend Geoff basically stalked Ben Patrick Johnson through A Different Light next door until, tired of their shenanigans, I walked over to Ben and started a 15 year friendship. I met director Bryan Singer at 18 and over night at Micky's in 1996 with a teenager on his lap and a song in his heart.

The DJ at Micky's was the first (and certainly not the last) DJ I befriended. He had a "I won't play Vogue, don't ask me" sign firmly affixed to the glass on the booth. I danced many, many times there to Whitney's remake of "I'm Every Woman" in billowing print shorts, slouch socks and a backwards baseball cap, and I can't hear "Justified and Ancient" without thinking of that awful bar and those terrible clothes. Paul and I ended our longest day of drunkenness on the patio once, after starting with a seemingly innocuous brunch at Marix that turned into drinks at Micky's until dark. A day happily wasted.

My last trip home to Los Angeles in July was drenched in nostalgia. I haven't been inside Micky's in years but I stood outside it waiting for Ben to start his book signing at A Different Light, so many years after our first meeting there. Paul and Michael and I then had a drink at East West (formerly Revolver) and laughed about the good old days so filled with alcohol it's a wonder we have any memory of them at all. But with Micky's gone now, all we have are our memories. You feel old enough talking about a bar that used to be, but at least in the case of Revolver and East West, the bar is still there, just with nicer furniture and pricier drinks (hate it). With Micky's, it will make us sound especially old, like reminiscing about the Hippodrome or the Pan Pacific auditorium, although decidedly less historic and interesting.

When I called Paul tonight, he said, "Now all we can do is point to the sidewalk and say we threw up there." I didn't but Paul's friend Manfred did, on New Year's Eve, and then I made out with him. In retrospect, not a good idea. But I was young and foolish and figuring out my life. Like most everyone, I have ridiculed and derided Micky's for a solid decade, but now it's gone. In a way, it's like the death of an ex-boyfriend. I may have been over him for years, but now that he is gone, all I remember are the good times.