Portrait of Dorian Brown - Part 2

Me dyeing my beard brown is not to get more attention, it's just to hold onto the attention that I’ve always gotten and rightfully belongs to me. Unfortunately I have no proof of ownership and there is no deed or contract that would hold up in court. I do have eye witnesses though, the other gay men my age who remember when I first arrived in the Castro 16 years ago, a time period which I affectionately call "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" from the movie of the same name.  Of course in my mind I was the T-Rex.  No one wants to be the Brontosaurus. I see them and they see me and we acknowledge each other with nods of respect as we stomp by.  "Good to see you are still alive," we think as we smile and wave. What are they thinking when they see my schizophrenic beard go from gray to brown to gray to brown again. I feel a particular shame in front of the ones who have fully embraced their grayness and are at more peace with themselves than I obviously am.
   Since I started writing this blog 2 months ago, I have been ready to embarrass, expose, humiliate and thrown myself under the bus whenever possible for yours and my entertainment.  This topic, however, hits me right at my core, and revealing it publicly strips me naked. It's no secret to anyone in my life that attention is very important to me. Revealing this about myself is like Liberace revealing he was gay.  If he actually had ever revealed it--which amazingly he did not--even on his satin and fur covered King Louie XVI in-laid gold canopied death-bed. The fact that everyone knows this about me doesn’t make it any easier to actually talk about.  For some strange reason, admitting you enjoy attention is as off-putting as admitting you are a pedophile. Even Hollywood stars won't admit they thrive on attention even though achieving attention is the single greatest purpose of their lives. It shows a lack of humility, even if the humility is false. With that said, I would like to confess that I have loved getting the attention I have gotten and I do not know how to live without.  I am hoping that just by writing it down for everyone to see, I will get a little closer to the place where attention is not so important anymore. 
     So why do I need so much attention? What could have possibly caused this? The fault, of course, lies where all fault lies--with my mother Priscilla. She is the most fun to blame, and the most obvious. My mother is one of the great attention mongers of all time. Even her name mongers attention. I mean really, what Jewish woman is named Priscilla? Only pilgrims and drag queens and Elvis' wife are named Priscilla.  My mother was more of a walking installation than a normal person. She went beyond just dressing herself; she decorated herself, like other people decorate a room. I never knew who would be stepping out of her closet--a 1920's flapper, Annie Oakley, Esmeralda The Gypsy, Cleopatra or Captain Hook's wife in a big-sleeved pirate shirt, baggy pants tucked into tall black boots and an eye-patch for effect. She had outfits from all different eras, and coats and jackets with shoulder epaulets from wars she never heard of. She didn't care who won the wars, just as long as the clothing looked good on her. Every year to celebrate the Kentucky Derby she dressed in equestrian riding gear and rode around Great Neck in our Cadillac instead of on a horse. She wasn’t shy about hats either, and would put anything on the top of her head: an old turban, a fez, a beret, a fedora, a pillbox, a sailor cap, a black bowler, even an old safari hat from the 1930’s like she was dressed for the hunt. It was even worse in the winter when she could add to her wardrobe all the different fur coats and hats she borrowed from my father's used fur store. She had my father make matching raccoon coats for him, her, my brother Mitchell, my sister Melissa and me. In the name of family unity, the five if us would go out on cold Sundays all in our raccoons, causing a commotion wherever we went. She made it feel like it was totally normal and what to expect.  Add my thick glasses and my stutter to the raccoon coat and the level of attention got even worse. I was teased relentlessly, more than any other boy in school, making me very well known. That's the thing about being the most teased and always chosen last for any team --- it puts you in a very special light that you share with no one else. The boy who got picked second to last never experiences what I always felt.  The only other one who experienced that level of attention I got was the boy who was picked first.  This means that the first picked and the last picked are more similar than they realize.  I became accustomed to the attention, even if it was bad. It's like what they say about bad press still being press. I never asked for it, so you see it wasn't my fault. It was only my fault after I started creating it for myself. It happened when I was 15, when I was ready to flip and become my opposite equal. I knew exactly what to do because I had been watching it from the outside for so long. I got contact lenses, started working out and became the class clown. I didn't have to bother with making myself known because everyone already knew the former me. The transformation shocked everyone, especially my family, but it made perfect sense to me.  It's like moving to San Francisco from New York. They are the furthest apart from each other on opposite coasts but the closest to each other in their political influence and importance to gay culture. It's a strictly lateral move, each city being the only other alternative for the other. Nothing appealing lies in between.
  The hallways in school, once war-zones I would scurry through dodging bullies instead of bullets, became my stage. I couldn't wait for each class to end so I could count how many people I could say hello to before the next class started. Instead of being first into my seat I was usually the last, and had to be told to sit down and stop talking. Sometimes I got in trouble for passing notes and even got sent down to the principle's office, things that only happened to popular people. Places I used to dread like the cafeteria and The Student Lounge became my favorite spots to be. Wherever people gathered was where I wanted to be. It got worse after high school when I moved into the city and started going to gay bars, gay beaches and gay gyms, where my hairiness turned into a real commodity. Even my stutter started working in my benefit. It disarmed people, and actually became alluring to some men, something as a child I never imagined my stutter would be. I also never imagined that going bald would work in my favor as much as it has and would keep the attention coming. 
  So there it is, a lifetime of attention. One of the few constants in my life. Something I could always count on. I don't know how to let it go yet, even though in actuality the attention doesn't need my permission or approval to leave. Seeing how easy it has been to get a lot of it back just by dyeing my beard has been too tempting to resist. I get 5 years back in five minutes, which is much easier and far less extreme than what other men are opting to do to themselves. They spend thousands of dollars playing an endless cat 'n mouse game on their faces, trying to chase away every imperfection.  Luckily for me, I'll never have to make the decision to have work done or not for the simple reason that I don't have the money. The choice is made for me. It's the men who have the money who are faced with a real dilemma.  They can play the game if they want to. The division is happening already. Only the poor will grow wrinkled as they get old.
    No one comes to mind more than my dear, dear, dear Australian friend, Michael V. He is grossly over-paid and strangely under-wrinkled.  He has a very senior position in Human Resources for a huge company and is responsible for occasionally hiring but mostly firing people, a job perfectly suited for someone as proudly vile and contemptuous as him. I've been anxiously waiting for him to age but he’s had the same baby face for 15 years.  Last time he visited San Fran I still had a gray beard and he made sure to point out my aging.
"Thank you for getting old enough for the both of us, darling. It's very thoughtful of you," he pecked my cheek and patted my back." It's amazing how every time I see you Gary, you get older, and grayer, and balder, and poorer, and I think even shorter."
     " I don't understand. How do you look the same year after year? What are you having done?"
    " Everything you can't afford." 
    " You can't keep it up forever"
    " As long as there's white rhino horns and blue whale blubber left in the world I can."
Michael V is coming to visit in a month and he has no idea I'm dyeing my beard now. I can't wait to see his face. Even if he says something awful I know he's going to like it.  And when we walk together I'll be sure to point out the attention I'm still getting. I realize this is just stalling the inevitable and sooner or later I will be facing my greatest fear, but hopefully by that time it will no longer be a fear. Hopefully it will just be something to laugh about like everything else in my life seems to be. Eventually all my body hair will be gray and I'll have to swim in a tank of "Just For Men" Medium Brown to keep up the charade. 
   Just give me a few years to re-adjust myself. They say that for every 5 years of an ended romance, it takes one additional year to get over it. That means since I've had a romance with the attention I've gotten for almost 50 years, I should be totally over it in only 10 long years. What a relief! 

THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN BROWN Part 1

        To dye or not to dye, that is the question. Every two weeks  I have to look in the mirror and decide if the man with the gray beard deserves to stay or the man with the brown beard needs to return. Is dyeing one's beard dishonest, desperate,and superficial, or in fact is it absolutely appropriate for a man like me? It has become my personal "Sophie's Choice". True, having a Nazi make Sophie choose which child she keeps and which child he takes is the worst choice anyone would ever have to make, but at least she only had to make her choice once. I, on the other hand, am going to have to make the decision to re-dye my beard 26 times a year, possibly for the next 30  to 40 years, for a grand total between  780 and 940 times. Even the thought of it is exhausting.
      I went  for advice to the four men who know me best and who once loved me most, my ex-boyfriends. Unfortunately, I forgot they are also the four men who love to make fun of me most. After they were able to stop laughing at me, they each gave me their honest opinion.  Brian, boyfriend number three,  hates beards on anyone no matter what the color because they scratch his asshole. This of course disqualifies his opinion. Grant, boyfriend number four, the youngest one and the one  who is truly most attracted to older men regardless of their graying, thinks dyeing my beard is ridiculous. This disqualifies his opinion as well.  Pepe, boyfriend number two, who I saw in New York after I dyed my beard for the first time last August, didn't  even remember me having a beard, which totally disqualifies him and ends our friendship ( just kidding, honey. Love you).  Scott, my first and longest-lasted boyfriend of nine years and best friend in the world who I have spoken with everyday for 33 years, had his opinion too when I saw him and his boyfriend Jason of 17 years in Upstate New York on the same trip I saw Pepe. He was the only one who thought dyeing my beard was a great idea. But Scott is also the one who has bared witness to and suffered through every subsequent painfully stretched-out, heart-wrenching break-up after ours that I pulled him into with countless late night long-distance calls he and Jason had to listen to as I repeated the same complaints and stories over and over like second-hand smoke coming through the phone receiver into their lungs. Scott is also the one who has to deal with my more recent phone calls over the traffic accidents between my ego, vanity, and aging that are becoming more mangled and bloody. He is at the point that he will agree with anything including my brown beard that stokes my confidence and keeps me from having a mid-life meltdown which he and Jason would have to suffer through with even more phone calls. This disqualifies Scott too. Sorry, Scott.  I can't even trust my new boyfriend Alex's opinion in the matter. Alex is still blissfully blind to my fatal flaws and is at the dreamy stage where he thinks I'm an amazing boyfriend who looks great with my beard gray or brown. This, along with the fact that he himself is graying a little, doubly disqualifies him. A lot of good turning to all of them did.  
      I can't believe I'm going through this dilemma.  I was one of those men who vowed I would never dye my beard. But I also once vowed to never get a cell phone or a computer, which was changed to a vow of never texting on my cellphone or joining a cruising site on my computer, which was then changed to a vow of never sending naked pictures of myself on the cruising site I joined or on my phone, which was then changed to never sending a cock shot, which then had to be changed to never sending a picture of my hard cock. Needless to say, that vow has been broken too.  What is it with me and my vows? I used to be great at sticking to them, when I was younger and more self-righteous, and my stands were more black-and-white. Now it's all about brown-and-gray. I'm not as certain anymore about what is right and what is wrong, nor am I as self-assured. I never thought I would fall victim to this new kind of insecurity. I always thought that my overly abundant confidence in how I look could withstand graying and I wouldn't loose any of my street appeal. It was only a  year ago that I actually became aware  of what I  call 'The March Into Invisibility'. We're all on it, but some marchers are marching faster and some are marching slower; some are digging their heels and being dragged along, and some trying to march backwards. And then there are those who have always been invisible and don't even know the change is happening. That's the overdue reward they get for having to live unnoticed their whole lives.  Ironically, they turn into the lucky ones.
     Dyeing my beard has turned into a slippery slope. It's embarrassing to admit, but I've started to plan my social calendar around it. Even more embarrassing is the fact that I actually have changed plans to go out a few times and rescheduled them for after I re-dyed my beard . I've dealt with addictions before, but who knew that beard dye would be my biggest weakness and greatest challenge.  Heroine addicts chase the 'brown dragon'.  I'm chasing the 'brown dye'. When it wears off and I'm back to gray, I pass by mirrors and don't recognize myself. The last major shift in my appearance happened when i went bald, over 20 years ago, and since that time the same man has stared at me from the mirror until now. 

    What makes it harder is that my face is aging faster than my body. In pictures it looks like someone photo -shopped an older man's head onto me. My body has been exactly the same since I was 20 and I've stayed the same weight since high school (168 lbs, for over thirty years, give or take 1/2 pound. Annoying, isn't it? or even more accurately, aren't I?). I still work-out just as much, but the gym doesn't have any machines for the face. The neck is the closest they get. The face is the thing that shows most and is the thing you can exercise least, yet another example of God's cruelty. 
      When I dye my beard, my face actually matches my body again. We have a reunion every 14 days. I look in the mirror and he smiles back and nods. I go out onto the streets and get looked at the same amount as I did when I was  five, even ten,  years younger  but by day 14 the brown is almost all replaced by gray and  I've turned back into my grandfather again. The first time I dyed it I was both thrilled and appalled at the difference in attention it immediately brought. I couldn't believe it all boiled down to my beard color. Everything else was exactly the same as it was when my beard was gray: same clothes, same smile, same strut, same  friendliness. I seem to be a different man depending on my beard color in the world's eyes, even though I still feel like the same man inside. Occasionally, I  do have moments of clarity and  realize how absurd I'm being and that I had a great time in my younger days and got all the attention I ever wanted and  now it is time for a  different phase, but it's followed by a wave of panic which is then followed by a trip to Walgreen's for more "Just For Men" Medium Brown.

   My  built-in Geiger counter is so fine-tuned  that I immediately feel any shift in the level of attention I am  getting.  The grayer I get, the more invisible I become, especially to young, which there are more and more of every year that I get older. This is a natural process that every person eventually goes through yet there is no rule book to follow or manual to guide us, especially for older gay men. And even more so for older gay men who still want to be noticed. 
     The big questions that have to be asked are, "Why do I need so much attention and how can I get past it?" Well that's a whole other blog, isn't it.