I think, though I’ve known of my attraction to men since I was 5, I haven’t been gay. Or at least by some external measure. And by some others’ external measures. In the 70s it was about your depth of amour for Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. Judy had some amazing performances (Born in a Trunk…) and Barbra has a great voice, but not my primary groove. What, Cher? then Lady Gaga? honestly, I don’t even know (really I could throw some other names out there; I may not be attuned to it but I do hear things).
It’s been British blues rock, rock, some psychedelia (my first concert, before ever partaking of any altering substances and before their commercial success, was Pink Floyd at a college auditorium in 1970, HS sophomore). That was splintered with various bits of jazz, folk, blues, prog, all forming a shifting and sometimes uneasy alliance that is me. So, atypical on a few fronts I found my way into the gay world of San Francisco in 1976.
Jumping way ahead…2013…with the energy to focus on creative, I met Steve Fleitz (Gecko), a ceramic artist who was involved in the faerie movement.* As a sort of invitation to the group, he suggested I take Oak as my name. I attended a Faerie Gathering at Short Mountain,TN and shared faerie spaces in Northern California. When Gecko met Waz (an earlier ex, circa 1986-1990? :: with that name perhaps his own sort of reclamation naming?), he heard Gecko refer to me as Oak. Waz generally called me by my last name, so he combined the two and - Roak was minted. I added the “y” as a playful flair. But back to the outsider portion of the story…my interests and focus were anomalous to him…not socially or culturally gay (enuf?), Gecko asked “are you sure you’re not just a straight guy who like dxxk?” I’d met the arbiter of gayness! Oak, Roaky, my youtube handle is CloakedByRoak. I used that channel for a few things but not much anymore…though I have a few ideas for a project there.
The other one…I’d lost my favorite email handle “orisit” when I left Comcast service. That was already taken on gmail, usurped by an orisit wannabe. At a stage of not yet advanced age but wanting to take a name that was positive and propulsive, awesomerelic was birthed. Now please know - I may be(coming) a relic but I’m no more awesome than anyone else. Awesome…a favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor or perfect mashed potatoes. How was awesome relegated to such…commonness? Eddie Izzard has long performed a piece about this.
But truly - it’s all awesome. We are and even I am, though I’m generally loathe to express such self-aggrandizement. This brings up one of my favorite words, quite allied with awe - ineffable. I read Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (whose title inspired the name of the band The Doors) in my early 20s. To this day, his description of light and dark, patterns of shadow, is recalled and aligns with my awe in nature. In the book he shares his experiences shaped by mescaline…or revealed by…?
From the French window I walked out under a kind of pergola covered in part by a climbing rose tree, in part by laths, one inch wide with half an inch of space be tween them. The sun was shining and the shadows of the laths made a zebra-like pattern on the ground and across the seat and back of a garden chair, which was standing at this end of the pergola. That chair - shall I ever forget it? Where the shadows fell on the canvas upholstery, stripes of a deep but glowing indigo alternated with stripes of an incandescence so intensely bright that it was hard to believe that they could be made of anything but blue fire. For what seemed an immensely long time I gazed without knowing, even without wishing to know, what it was that confronted me. At any other time I would have seen a chair barred with alternate light and shade. Today the percept had swallowed up the concept. I was so completely absorbed in looking, so thunderstruck by what I actually saw, that I could not be aware of anything else. Garden furniture, laths, sunlight, shadow - these were no more than names and notions, mere verbalizations, for utilitarian or scientific purposes, after the event. The event was this succession of azure furnace doors separated by gulfs of unfathomable gentian. It was inexpressibly wonderful, wonderful to the point, almost, of being terrifying. And suddenly I had an inkling of what it must feel like to be mad. Schizophrenia has its heavens as well as its hells and purgatories. I remember what an old friend, dead these many years, told me about his mad wife. One day in the early stages of the disease, when she still had her lucid intervals he had gone to talk to her about their children. She listened for a time, then cut him short. How could he bear to waste his time on a couple of absent children, when all that really mattered, here and now, was the unspeakable beauty of the patterns he made, in this brown tweed jacket, every time he moved his arms?
The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, 1954
*Noting that I share this with some apprehension. As outlaws the homosexual communities developed cultures of their own. In the UK, its own language, polari. Slowly there was amalgamation and/or acceptance, which was hailed by many LGBT+ folks and their allies. But for some this absorption was erasing a decades-built distinct heritage. I recall my mother shared about how her Italian-born mother pushed her to be American, but then, over time, many parents encouraged a more combinational cultural identity. The hyphen’s status was elevated. So my hesitation comes from revealing some of the insider info about gay history, though I’m no insider by many measures. Truly - I am. And it’s all online anyway!
