Out in the Mountains

Backstage With the Flirtations

Four gay men in brightly colored shirts
sang into color- coordinated microphones.
“These are not mike covers; they’1'e mike
condoms. We practice safe sound.”

“Are there any self-identified straight peo-
ple out there?” “Well, you know, we have
to ask, because you all blend in so well!”
“We want to provide a safe and supportive
environment for our homosexually chal-
lenged friends.”

This is some of the stage banter that the
Flirtations keep up during a perfonnance.
A show can last two hours, as it did in Bur-
lington recently, and can touch women,
men and families. At the sound check prior
to the performance, a preschooler clad in a
Flirts tee shirt told them that he knew the
words to all of their songs. This merited a
special dedication of Fred Small’s lullaby,
which encourages the child within each of
us, “You can be anybody that you want to
be. You can love whomever you will.”
How wonderful to think of children grow-
ing up singing those words!

A Flirtations show is an emotionally
charged experience. Songs are thoughtfully
chosen, with a personal connection for one
or more of the group’s members. If audi-
ence reaction is any measure, I'm not the
only one who felt they often hit home.
Tears and laughter were rapidly alternating
responses. During a spoken piece, One of
Us, the Flirts share poignant and humorous
bits and pieces of their lives with us:

“One of us attempted suicide.”

“One of us ran away from home at age 15.”
“One of us learned to cook on his own E-Z
Bake Oven."

“One of us went to his high school prom
with his boyfriend.”

“One of us is a former U.S. Army MP.”
“One ofus has never seen a porno film...
but one of us has appeared in one.”

Backstage before the show Jon, Jimmy,
Cliff and Aurelio spoke freely during an
interview. As one might have surmised,
speaking freely is not out of character for

these guys. Having seen them perform as a
quartet and with Michael Callen as their
usual quintet, I was very interested in the
effects of Michael’s health on the group.
He has had full-blown AIDS since 1982, is
currently battling KS, and was not with the
group in Burlington. During an engagement
last summer in Provincetown, when all five
group members performed, they told the
audience that they had become a dysfunc-
tional family, and were participating in
group therapy during their stay.

Emphatically nodding his head, Cliff
agreed that they had been quite dysfunc-
tional at the time. Aurelio noted that they
had a lot of accumulated baggage revolving
around a number of issues, the biggest be-
ing Michael’s illness, their responses to his
illness and the issues surrounding death.
“Those are pretty big issues that, I think,
press all other kinds of buttons in families
that are going through the loss of, or having
to face a very serious illness of a loved one.
It really throws a wrench into the group dy-
naniics.”

Last July in Los Angeles they were all, said
Cliff, “acting out and acting up and being
very strange with one another.” That was
apparently the catalyst for seeking therapy.
“We spend so much time together”, said
Jimmy, “and work so closely together, that
there are aspects of each other’s per-
sonalities that drive us crazy. So when
something horrible happens, like facing the
loss of one of those family members, it’s
easy to focus in on someone’s personality
traits that irritate you.” Their P’town ther-
apist likened it to hammering your hand to
forget your headache. In L.A. that’s just
what they were doing, with four of them
ganging up on one member of the group.

The therapy experience was apparently suc-
cessful. What has made it work, according
to Cliff, is that they all care about each oth-
er. This became apparent in their discussion
and interaction. They listened to each other
(sometimes completing sentences for each
other), and used a comfortable humor

throughout the conversation. Although ra-
zor sharp, the wit was always sensitive, ev-
idence of their mutual respect.

Jimmy described Michael’s recent “amaz-
ing” recovery and subsequent regression
The group’s acting out returned, but there
was an awareness of the underlying causes.
Aurelio said that they could identify what
was going on, “Oh. What I’m REALLY
upset about is this. What is it that Michael
says?” Cliff responded, “This is not what
it’s about.” This last time they determined
just what it was about, and found comfort
in being able to identify their misplaced an-
ger and its cause. As a result, they were
able to be more direct about things, and

avoid what they described as the scapegoat ,

ploy.

The Flirts have four-part and five-part ar- .
rangernents of their material, although their '

first performance as a quartet was several
months ago. Their initial response to Mi-
chael's illness and the possibility that he
would sometimes be unable to perform was
to quickly find a sub. This turned out to be
a much more challenging and involved task
than anticipated. Although they have
worked with several people who, as Au-
relio put it, “might have been good Michael
substitutes for one reason or another”, there
was more to it than that “We weren’t able

to embrace them as a Flirt.” In their sub- ‘

stitute search they found someone who was
“okay.” This fell short of their needs. “The
bottom line,” said Aurelio, “is, I think it
has to be more than okay. It has to be -”
“Family”, finished Cliff. Aurelio agreed,
“It has to be family. It’s like you’re coming
into a family that’s already set. . . like an
in-law coming in. It has to fabulous vocal
parts, good sense of process, so it’s hard”

Although they described their first per-
formance as a quartet as tenifying, Jimmy
pinpointed the root of the anxiety and ter-
ror. “It’s very easy when Michael is with us
to go into denial of what his condition is at
this point, and I think having to perform as
four people is a major slap-in-the- facel

Montpelier
802-229-5220

Josie Juhasz, MA CCMHC

Specializing in Feminist Psychotherapy

Milton, VT

Some insurance (802) 8934816

accepted

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Licensed Psychologist
Certified Alcohol Counselor

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Certified Mental
Health Counselor

Burlington, VT
(802) 863-8162