ON THE GOOD SHIP LOTTAPOOP

 This past Friday night, I did what any 52 year old gay man would do--- I went to a costume party as Shirley Temple, tap shoes and all ( Actually I was Burley Temple, a much less lollipopish and much more hairy version of Shirley).
        It all started a week before at Graham and Paul's house from a conversation about the Grand Jury papers finally being made public from the JonBenet Ramsey case. This led to another conversation about child beauty pageants, which led to the topic of child stars, which led to Shirley Temple, which led to me impersonating Shirley Temple throwing a temper tantrum, which led to the birth of Burley Temple.
          Ahmed and Doug, two great guys who have an annual Halloween costume party, insisted that I come as Burley, which I scoffed at like I did every time they invited me. I hadn't done Halloween in over ten years, and had not been to a costume party at someone's house in thirty years. Graham and Paul wanted me to go too, and they  started daring me to do Burley in public. 
       " It's so easy compared to the old costumes," Graham prodded me. " All you have to do is stomp around and be a brat. That's what you do anyway."
        My ex-boyfriend, Drew, joined in the prodding, and promised he would dress-up and go to the party with me, which meant we could probably have sex after.
        "And I have old tap shoes you can borrow!" Drew said with pride, which only a gay man can do. 
        I actually started to picture it in my mind. Stomping around in tap shoes the whole night would be really funny. I thought about it for a few more minutes, then said I would do it. " But only if I'm allowed to be pouty, disagreeable, stubborn, throw temper tantrums and not talk to anybody there," I told all of them as I counted off each demand with my fingers. 

     Graham had played a big part in my more elaborate costumes so there was a special Halloween connection between us, on top of our very close 19 year friendship. He thought it was great for me to let Halloween back into my life and let that part of me come out again. He was so shocked that I was actually going to come out of Halloween retirement and go to a costume party that, at first, he didn't believe me. 

    I didn't completely believe I would do it either, until I found myself online later that night Googling 'Shirley Temple', which I can guarantee no other gay or straight man who was online on Saturday night at 1:00 AM was doing. 
     I realized I didn't know anything about Shirley except four things:

1. the drink.
2. the first line of 'On The Good Ship Lollipop', which is 'on the good ship Lollipop'. 
3. she became an ambassador with a hyphenated name. 
4. that she pissed off Mae West (who I love)  by being voted 'Most Popular Actress' three times in the 1930's.  

   First, I wanted to know whether Shirley Temple is still alive or not. This is usually considered to be one of those straightforward kind of questions, of the 'yes or no' variety. When I typed Is Shirley Temple dead? I quickly learned that 2013 was the wrong year to ask that question. It's a touchy subject, especially after Shirley Temple received a million condolences offering sympathy for her death that never happened: 

Shirley Temple death hoax spreads on Facebook

     Rumors of the actress’s alleged demise gained traction on Saturday after a ‘R.I.P.   Shirley Temple’ Facebook page attracted nearly one million of ‘likes’. Those who read the ‘About’ page were given a believable account of the American actress’s passing:“ Our beloved actress Shirley Temple has passed away.  She will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.

                           AAAAA   THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE TO 
                                             R.I.P. Shirley Temple'

From what I'm gathering, this was not the first time that her death had been rumored. There seems to be a whole online controversy over it, and has become enough of a topic to generate it's own websites and search results:

• Dead or Alive? www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/tnames-nf/Temple+Shirley Use this page to find out if Shirley Temple is dead or alive. Very user friendly navigation and includes a search function and interactive quizzes.
• IS SHIRLEY TEMPLE DEAD OR ALIVE?!!!!!!en.mediamass.net/people/shirley-temple/deathhoax.html
• Shirley Temple Black Died‎ www.ask.com/Shirley+Temple+Black+Died‎ Search for Shirley Temple Black Died Look Up Quick Results on Ask.com
• Searches related to”is shirley temple dead?”is shirley temple still alive:

                   shirley temple dead 2011
                shirley temple dead 2009
                shirley temple dead 2013

               where does shirley temple live

 All of these rumors can't be because people want Shirley Temple dead. No one in the world would want Shirley Temple to die. It would be like wanting Santa Claus to die, if he was actually real. 

     People just want to be part of the great loss that her death will inevitably be. She's transcended stardom and has become almost an historical figure who is tied to America's hope and greatness. Shirley Temple is nothing less than a national treasure. The problem is that people like to bury their treasure.

       So far, the public has killed off poor Shirley three times. The first looks  like it happened in 2009, then again in 2011, and then Facebook last May. This phenomenon  should be given a name-----  Bury Shirley Early Syndrome. 

       The main symptom is believing that Shirley Temple is dead when she isn't.The worst thing that could happen would be for it to become an epidemic. It cause can mass premature mourning. People everywhere, believing rumors they hear about her death and starting different rumors themselves. It could become as well-known and widespread  as 6 Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon, except in this case it would be 6 Feet Under with Shirley Temple.

       It took almost an hour online for me to be absolutely certain that Shirley Temple wasn't dead. By that point, I was as so lost in Shirley Temple Land that I couldn't help listening over and over to the YouTube clip of her singing  'Good Ship Lollipop'. I played it so many times that I could have developed Diabetes. After the fifteenth time, I  started to revise it to suit Burley Temple until there was nothing sweet left about it ---
  ' On the good ship 

   Lollipop
   Its a sweet trip                          

  To the candy shop                       

Where bon-bon's play                

 On the sunny beach                  

 Of peppermint bay...'

HOW DO BON-BONS PLAY?
THESE ONES LOOK 
PRETTY LAZY TO ME.

 ' I took a big shit            

 And I heard it plop
 It made a big mess
Someone get a mop 
The bon-bon's make me pay
On the sunny beach
 With diarrhea the whole day...'
      
       Even after I sang ' Good Ship Lottapoop' to Graham, he still didn't trust that I was going to come to the costume party until I bought the pink and white gingham dress. ( I found it for $8 the first day I went looking for one at Out Of The Closet on Church and Duboce, which I took as a sign from God that it was time to put on women's clothes again). 

     Drew helped me get the curly, brown wig, and also tracked down a pair of large Mary-Janes at PayLess Shoes , which he was able to screw his old taps into.

            A blond himself, Drew did 'blond-on-blond', and went as Peter Berlin, the 1970's self-proclaimed gay icon who was a cross between the Marlboro Man and Farah Fawcett. Peter was Thom Of Finland's blond muse, and the muse of many other men as well, especially in dark, gay movie houses across the country. He was an artist, and at the same time, was a piece of art himself. A real Gay Superhero, with a Superhero body and a Superhero penis. He shot his own photography, made movies which he starred in, and even designed his own clothes, proving to the fashion world that buttons were unnecessary. 

   I ALLOWED MYSELF TO BE THE SWEET AND SUGARY
             SHIRLEY TEMPLE FOR ONE PICTURE.

     BUT THEN IT WAS BURLEY TEMPLE FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT

GRAHAM'S PARTNER PAUL WINS  THE AWARD FOR PERSON LEAST LIKELY TO EVER BE ACTUALLY CAST AS 'LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE'. HE LOOKS  A

'LITTLE TOO OFTEN TANNIE ' FOR THE ROLE.

 GRAHAM'S DUCT-TAPE LIPS ONLY COST HIM THREE

 CENTS TO BUY AND TAKE FIVE MINUTES TO MAKE,  BUT 

THEY HAVE QUITE AN IMPACT.  PAUL'S CURLY RED HAIR 

IS MADE OF DUCT-TAPE TOO, AND SO IS GRAHAM'S 

SKIRT, HIS JEWELRY, AND THAT VERY FETCHING THING ON HIS HEAD, WHICH IS EITHER A HAT OR HAIR.

LOOSE LIPS SINK LOLLIPOP SHIPS 

                          WIGS OFF TIME!

    "HELLO, MY NAME IS BALD JEWISH TEMPLE.
     HAS ANYONE SEEN MY COUSIN BURLEY? "

                                           

       

             
       
          WATCH BURLEY TEMPLE in 

          I'M NOT TAPPIN'

                    

                          ALSO,  ' HAM ON HEELS' IS RE-ENTERED
                                     NOV 1st  IF YOU WANT TO
                          SEES ALL THE PAST COSTUMES. ENJOY!

                              HAPPY HALLOWEEN- LOVE, GARY

THE CLOCK STRUCK PRISCILLA 9/20/13

Hey- I'm still alive, still stuttering, and am ready to blog again. I had no idea this would turn into such a long break but I guess it was what I needed. 
     A Birthday Blog is the perfect way of re-starting. I just wrote 52, and have attached 50 & 51 to it. The three share a common theme so they can be read as a group. The Birthday Blogs are very short and very Priscilla.  I'm working on the finale to STUTTERVILLE now and will be finished soon. I promise.--- Gary,  a.k.a. Stutterpuss

     I'm turning 50 tomorrow. Well, I'm turning 50 at exactly 4:40 A.M. That's the time I was born, and it's the time my mother calls every year to wish me Happy Birthday. She doesn't have to set an alarm clock because her vagina instinctively remembers and wakes her. I'm woken up instinctively too, by my arms and legs thrashing around trying to escape out of my bedsheets. 

    When I moved to the West Coast into a different time zone, the Birthday phone call got more complicated. My mother's vagina and my thrashing limbs became out of sync from the three hour time difference. It forces her to do either addition or subtraction when she wants to call on my Birthday, which is enough to confuse her every year. Sometimes the call comes three hours early at 1:40  A.M. Sometimes it comes at 2:40 A.M. when she thinks its only a two hour time difference. It's astounding how many years she has made some kind of error in her time calculations.I even made up a poem for her to help keep the times straight in her mind:

              Gary takes a morning pee
            three full hours after me. 

     Unfortunately, it relied on her either remembering the poem itself or remembering where she put it, which has proven to be too much to expect.
     So off to bed I go with my cell phone right next to me. I may not know exactly what time the call will come, but when that phone rings at 40 minutes past something, I'll know who it is.

                                             *
     
           I grabbed my ringing phone in the dark.
       "Happy Birthday Pooh!. It's 7:44 here so  I know it's  4:44 there. Proud of your ol' Mom for finally getting it right?"
       I chuckled into the phone before I gave her the news. " Ma, I hate to tell you this, but I was born at 4:40, not 4: 44. That was the one thing you've gotten right all these years."
      " Are you sure? I could swear it's 4:44. I even have it written down here so I would call at exactly the right time," she said with certainty.
      " Sorry Ma. I know you tried but it's definitely 4:40."
      "  Oh shit," she groaned. " You're right. I just remembered what 444 was. It was the number of my flight coming home from Africa. I was reading it when I added it to my scrapbook last night. It must have stuck in my head. That's what happened,"she laughed at herself, then groaned a little more in exasperation. "It always happens when I see two numbers that are close." .
     " It was only one '4' off.  You came close at least," I laughed.
     " You're never going to believe this but something inside was telling me to call you at 4:40"- (that would be her vagina)-" but I just sat there staring at the phone until 4:44 because I was so sure that was the right time." 
     " Ma,  what makes it  so special is how you manage to get it wrong so often. It's all part of the call for me. Don't worry about it, it still counts," I chuckled then yawned. " Ma, I have to hang up and sleep a little more. Thanks for the birthday call. Love you.Goodbye." 
     " I love you too. Bye-bye, Pooh."

 The lesson of this little story is an obvious one: Never ignore what your vagina is trying to tell you.

===============================
     

  At the time I turned 50 last September 20th, I wrote THE CLOCK STRUCK PRISCILLA to explain how each year on my birthday, my mother Priscilla attempts to call me at 4 :40 A.M., which was the exact time of my long-ago departure from her vagina. No matter how hard she tries, she is always thwarted by either time zone changes, alarms set too late, phone numbers dialed incorrectly, misread penciled-in numbers, wrong area codes, and by her greatest enemy of all, simple math. 

    The three hour time difference between East and West Coasts has continued to vex her since I moved here 17 years ago from New York. 
      Last year she called thinking my birth time was 4:44 A.M. instead of 4:40. This meant I would have had to spend an extra four minutes trying to get out of her vagina. I assured her she was wrong, horrified at the thought of how much  more psychological damage four extra minutes stuck inside her would have caused me.
   When I turned off the lights and left my phone on, I wondered when the call would come. At 1:05 in the morning, the phone rang and I fumbled in the dark to answer it. It was my Nameless Booty Caller, or NBC. He must have gotten encouraged when I answered the phone, but was quickly discouraged when he heard "Mommy?" 
     I fell back to sleep but shot up from my pillow when the phone rang again. This time I had my glasses under the pillow ready so I could see who was calling. The caller I.D. read 'Priscilla' so I quickly answered it before the call went into voicemail.
     "Mommy?"
     " Happy Birthday Pooh!"
     " What time is it?' I immediately asked, dying to know if she screwed up again.
     " It's 7:40, which means it's 4:40 there, right?" she asked with guarded excitement.
     " Congratulations Ma, you got it right!" I cheered her in the darkness.
     " I promised myself I wouldn't get it wrong on your 50th birthday," she said, proud of her great accomplishment. 
     "Ma, what did you just say?" 
     " I said I didn't want to get it wrong again. Like you always say I do."
     " How old am I again?" I asked with  suspicion in my voice. 
     " You're 50 Pooh. The big one."
     " Oh Priscilla," I laughed. "You just gave me the best birthday present."  I paused a few seconds to laugh more and enjoy the moment. "I don't know how to break this to you Mommy, but I'm 51 now, not 50. That was last year."
     " Gary that's impossible. I would remember you turning 50. I counted it out on my fingers to make sure. 1962 plus 50 equals 2012. And Mitchell is two years older so he's 52."
     " Ma, I was born in 1961, not 62. So I'm 51 and Mitch is 53."
     " Oh my God, I can't believe I got that wrong. I never got that wrong before," she groaned. " I give up already. It's impossible."
     " Ma, the more times you get it wrong, the better the odds are of you eventually getting it right, " I laughed again. 
     " Why do all my children think it's so funny? It's hard remembering everything. You try having three children whose ages keep on changing," she defended herself as if this was a common dilemma that all mothers face. "It would be much easier if ages didn't change so often. Birthdays never change. That's why I'm so good at remembering them. I don't even have to write them down. How about some credit for never forgetting any birthday of any one's in this family."
     "It's true Ma. That is without doubt your specialty."
     " So don't laugh at me every year. You know I try."  
      " Ma, I love when you don't get it right. It's the highlight of every birthday,"I smiled in the dark. 
    " Next year, I'll get it perfect," she vowed.
    " If you do I'll never speak to you again, " I warned before saying good night and thanking her for the call again.
    " Goodnight Pooh, I love you."
    " I love you too."

 =============================================

         It's 12:09 A.M. on September 20, my birthday. This is the one day a year I allow myself to write about my mother's vagina. Luckily, her vagina is not on my mind a lot, except for seeing it every time I've closed my eyes for the past 42 years, ever since she did her naked bicycle pumps and jumping jacks  in front of me when I was 10. But this is not the time to complain about her vagina. This is the time to celebrate my mother's vagina. I want to thank it and salute it. After all, it was responsible for My Great Escape, as I call it ( I think a movie was made with the same name).

THE LIGHT, THE WONDERFUL LIGHT!

       The Birthday Call is the greatest tradition that my mother and I share. As a matter of fact, it is our only tradition. Nothing else survived from all the years of fighting and being apart. I guess this is why it's so significant in both our lives.

     The fact that she gets it wrong every year is it's own tradition within the tradition. She has always been very clear with herself that her ineptitude has nothing to do with her heart, and that her love is a very powerful force even without having much talent or skills. She remembers every one's birthday so easily because her heart has a tremendous memory, much bigger than her mind's, which is relegated to remembering time zones and other facts that are boring to her.

      Before I went to sleep, I checked to make sure my phone's battery was charged and the ringer was set on high. I didn't want to chance missing the Birthday Call. I was actually excited about it. It's funny, I never thought I would say that about any phone conversation involving my mother. I've grown to appreciate the calls more just for the immense amount of love that I have absorbed from them even when I didn't want to.

    

                      *

      Well, just like broken clockwork, she fucked up 

again. 4:20 A.M., 20 minutes too early. A premature Birthday Call. But this time she was able to blame her new husband, Joe. She said it was his fault for waking her up at 7:20 instead of 7:40, like he was supposed to, so he could leave earlier. She was scared she would fall back to sleep after he left and not call when she wanted to. The whole thing made no sense to me, especially at 4:20 in the morning. 

     The important thing is that she was true to form and was able to somehow  fuck up the Birthday Call again. She kept the tradition going and didn't ruin her streak. And who knows, maybe all her Birthday Call blunders have brought me good luck over the years. 

    Imagine if she finally gets everything right when I turn 53, and suddenly  everything and everyone around me starts to unravel. How frightening. Luckily, it would take a perfect Birthday Call to see if that would happen. Personally, I think there's a better chance of being hit by an asteroid.

A BIRTHDAY CALL BLUNDER FOR
EACH YEAR I'VE BLOGGED. 
GO PRISCILLA GO!

                                             

 

To Whom It May Concern-

Please excuse Gary's tardiness. His dog Felon ate his blog.

     My mind has been elsewhere, rare as that is, with the first anniversary of Brian's death on April 14. This was followed a week after by the death of  my best friend Scott's mother, Janet Brandis ( which I will write about in the near future). Then this weekend I spent sitting, unfortunately on the toilet and not at my computer, with certain stomach problems (which I will not be writing about in the near future).
     I owe you the grand finale to  'STUTTERVILLE', and now that I am off the toilet and back at my computer, I'll get it finished as soon as I can.  Truly, Stutterpuss.
   
   

THE PETER PIPER PAPERS: STUTTERVILLE PART III

     It was costing $3000 to have the worst time of my life. That's one thousand dollars a week for 21 days of punishment.  I should  have figured anything called the Precision Fluency Shaping Program at the Hollins Communication Research Institute was not going to be at all fun or easy.

" Hard work and long practice
 can be oh such a bore,
with just the wave of two arms
you'll stutter no more! "

   No magic spell could save me. There was no way to cheat, no shortcut to take or detour to make. This was a problem because making detours and cheating happen to be essential to stutterers. It's part of what makes us so sly when it comes to changing the rules of verbal engagement. 

     The head speech therapist, Ross, and the rest of the staff of the Precision Fluency Shaping Program, or PFSP, knew all the 'tricks of the trade' used by stutterers and wouldn't let us get away with anything. We weren't allowed to avoid, substitute, or disguise any sound. It was like Fat Camp, except the staff just cared about what came out of our mouths instead of what went in.

                                       

The Basics:

The vocal cords
(or what looks like a vagina in my throat). 

    One of the first things I learned is that there is a vagina in my throat that I can't control. This vagina, also referred to as the voice box, has vocal cords that vibrate evenly and smoothly when speech is fluent. When I stutter, my cords vibrate improperly and clamp together, trapping a sound.
   This trapped sound is referred to as a 'block'. Imagine, if you will, my voice box is not a vagina anymore but instead is a wrestling arena. In this arena, a 'blocked' sound is in a Full Nelson until it breaks free and escapes.

  





























   
                                                The pressure that is built-up by each block varies, making some of my stutters bigger and more obvious. Those are the ones that are painful for other people to watch in person or listen to over the phone. When the sound is finally released, the force behind it can be quite explosive. This creates what is called a 'hard-onset'. This is not to be confused with a hard-on, which also can be quite explosive at times. It might help to think of a hard-onset in terms of a manhole cover being blown off or a volcano erupting, which, like a stutter is uncontrollable and quite a sight to see.

   




   

A block and a hard-onset were simple words turned into important concepts, and neither were tolerated by Ross. We were taught to identify these two tell-tale signs of stuttering so we could be sure to never be caught doing them.  

 Sharp, jagged sound waves
of hard-onsets that look like
 broken fangs (above),

compared to the sound waves
 of the 'gentle-onset' 
that fall perfectly into place 
in a flawless formation of
flowing peaks and valleys (below).

   'Gentle-onset' helps to control the initiation of sound. Each sound starts off as a very low amplitude vibration of the vocal cords. The amplitude gradually increases as the vocal cords vibrate more quickly, until the loudness peaks. A gradual decrease in loudness immediately follows until the sound ends at the same amplitude level that it began.

   This fundamental action of fluent 

speech occurs naturally in those of you who don't stutter. In your case, the vagina in your throat is calm and relaxed without you having to make any effort or give it even one thought. Your vocal cords allow  sounds to rise and fall with unwavering uniformity, similar to the superb symmetry of synchronized swimmers.    

   The gentle-onset is the gold standard of proper speech and the cornerstone of the entire Fluency Shaping Program. If we mastered it, the fluent world was ours to conquer.

                NORMAL SPEECH 
                 WITHIN OUR REACH!

 To master the gentle-onset, you must tame the gentle-onset. And to tame the gentle-onset, you must slow the gentle-onset. And I mean really slow. Words had to crawl before they could walk. At Hollins Institute, words barely crawled, at least at the beginning of the program. Each word was deconstructed into all it's different sounds. Then each sound was deconstructed into a beginning, middle and an end, lasting a full 2 seconds.

                                  The 2-second gentle-onset stretch

   For you to grasp just how torturously long the 2 second gentle-onset was, all you have to do is write down the word ' 'WATERMELON'. Then break it down into all the different sounds that make up the parts of it. The WA is two sounds, the W and the A, each lasting two seconds each, for a total of 4 seconds. The TE and the R are another two sounds equaling another 4 seconds. That's 8 seconds so far. Now add that 8 seconds to the 6 seconds from the three individual sounds of the M, the E, and L. The O and the N at the end is an additional 4 seconds, for a grand total of 18 seconds. Yes, 18 seconds just to say 'watermelon'! In other words, it would take the same time to count out loud to '18 Mississippi'.

                                       Watermelon said normally.

An 18-second long watermelon.

                                         

No picture of the 'therapy suites' was available 

but I did find this shot of break-time at a

Hungarian Maximum Security Prison

REDLIGHT DISTRICT  LOCK DOWN

       Ross assigned each of us a 'therapy suite', which was actually more like a 'therapy closet'. They were tiny rooms that faced each other with a narrow hallway in between. There was a built-in tabletop with a chair under it, with nothing else except a small, odd, black box sitting on the table facing the chair.

 

   It turned out that this black box, otherwise known as the Precision Fluency Shaping Program Voice Monitor, or PFSPVM for short, was going to be my new speech therapist. It looked like a basic ham radio. The built-in microphone didn't connect to anywhere outside of the box. There was no human listening on the other end, and no voice, machine or otherwise, to answer me back. The only interaction it offered was flashing one red nipple-shaped light bulb at me whenever I screwed up a gentle-onset. The Voice Monitor had the extremely precise and extremely annoying ability to detect any disruption of airflow or even the slightest hint of a hard-onset.  

  From the moment it first flashed it's red nipple at me, I knew this new plugged-in speech therapist and I weren't going to get along. Machines and I have never gotten along; I don't like anything that I can't charm or make laugh (another reason why I didn't like Ross).

    Hearing myself speak so slowly made it  hard  to focus and to even stay awake. It sounded like a Buddhist chant that seemed to echo in the tiny, bare room. Even though everyone's doors were shut, I could still hear the muffled drones of the other stutterers through the walls. It sounded more like a Tibetan monastery than a speech clinic. Occasionally I heard a loud accidental 'damn it!' or 'shit!' from someone else who, obviously frustrated with the Voice Monitor, forgot to curse with a gentle-onset.

       You would think that the worst part of the PFSP was being in the solitary confinement of my therapy suite while having to spend hour after hour  stretching out every conceivable combination of vowels and consonants for 2 seconds each. For me, having to leave my tiny room and join all the other stutterers at break-times was even more torturous.

      First of all,  I was  very disappointed in the group I got stuck with. I waited my whole life to finally meet other stutterers, and I ended up having nothing in common with them. There weren't any other Jews in my group, or  New Yorkers either, or anyone who was particularly funny, sexy or loud like me. What was most disappointing was the fact that there was not one other gay stutterer in the group. I was sure that there would be at least one, or maybe even a few.
   Having moved into Manhattan immediately after High School to study illustration at Fashion Institute of Technology and then moving into an apartment in Chelsea with my boyfriend Scott, I had become accustomed to there always being a gay presence around me. I wanted to be surrounded by gay people as often as possible to make up for all the lost time I spent with straight people my whole childhood. It was an entirely new reality that gave me comfort and strength. I had thought the days of me being the only gay person in a group were over. I didn't like the feeling I got when there weren't any other gays nearby. After all, it was 1982 and the gay rights movement was taking off, fueled by the start of the AIDS crisis a year earlier, and declaring one's gayness was a powerful political statement and tool.  

       I made a point of letting it be known that I was gay to Ross and to anyone else at the Hollins Institute who I felt the need to tell. When I was in my 20's, I  made it an issue wherever I went, and was happy to have it define me. I was creating an intentional distance between myself and straight people, even if they stuttered. Looking back now, it was probably the most inopportune  time for me to be in such a straight environment as the Hollins Institute in Roanoke. And the fact that I found my group as a whole to be particularly boring didn't help at all. I tried to join conversations during break-times  but I have never been able to fain interest. Hearing fluent people discuss sports, cars, the weather, and National Parks is boring enough, but hearing stutterers trying to discuss it is nothing less than a punishment. 

    What made it even worse was that all of us had to time ourselves as we had these boring conversations. Ross had given each of us a stopwatch that was to be carried at all times. He told us that we were to consider the watches to be   as important to our survival as pacemakers are to people who have bad hearts.  Whenever we were not in front of the Voice Monitor, we had to use the stopwatches to make sure that each sound of every word we said was still 2 seconds long. 

   Ross instructed us to use this 2 second stretch anytime we opened our mouths, even if it was for the most basic question or the most obvious answer. He refused to give any exceptions or 'time-outs', even if someone felt what they had to say was too important to be spoken slowly. We were not allowed to shorten sentences, abbreviate words or use the very handy 'never mind' or the even handier shoulder shrug.  Every sound had to be at the same slow speed.  Ross was like a very strict hallway monitor, except he was  patrolling our mouths instead of the halls. 

   These break-times were when Ross really could show what an asshole he could be. But looking back at it, the breaks also revealed what incredible patience he must have possessed. A lesser man would have gone insane having to listen to as many stutterers going through the Fluency Program as he did over the years. In his defense, the job of head clinician required that he be the asshole he was. In a way, being such an asshole helped to make him the best in the world at what he did.

      Ross never slowed his speech to match ours so conversations with him were very lopsided. Answering him took ten times longer than he took to ask the question. It made any conversation longer than I ever wanted to have with him. But those conversations seemed quick compared to whenever I got trapped speaking to another stutterer. Conversations that should have been finished in two minutes were taking a quarter of an hour. Each interaction turned into an investment. So much effort went into every response that I had to force myself to participate. 

   The first person would click the on/off button of his stopwatch and stare down at the second-hand trying to time each sound of the word he was saying. In the mean time, the second person just stood there waiting. When the first person timing himself was finished, he would click off his watch and look back up. This was the cue for the second person to click on his stopwatch and begin his response, looking down at his watch's second-hand while the first person now stood there and waited. You can imagine how unbearable this  become, at least for me.

   A stopwatch had always  represented the quickness of things, but at the Hollins Institute it became the guardian of slowness. It made me aware of how incredibly slow 2 seconds can be. All the clicking and quick ticking became the background music for all our conversations.

               

    By the end of the fourth day, I could swear I was still hearing faint ticking in my ear as I laid in the bed of my hotel room unable to sleep.  I  was  dreading having to go back to the Institute in the morning and face another full day of the Voice Monitor's  flashing red light and The Stopwatch Sonata. 

                                                   *       

    I had hoped by the next day I would be more inspired about the program, but being back at the Institute in my tiny therapy suite suffering through more hours of the Voice Monitor's silent, flashing judgements was becoming unbearable. Time inside the therapy suite was dragging more and more each hour. Remember, this was in the 80's before PC s, cell phones, and any other technology that nowadays keep us from ever feeling trapped and alone. Once that door closed, it was me vs. the Voice Monitor. There was nothing else in that room to distract or interest me. The only entertainment  I had was to repeat an 8-second "ffFuuUUUuuKkk yyYYYyyooOOoo," over and over to the Voice Monitor.

    My mind was everywhere except where it was supposed to be. I couldn't focus enough to continue practicing with the Voice Monitor. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I could still hear the stretched-out muffled moans coming from the other stutterers as I put my head down on my arms folded on top of my workbook. But just as I was dozing off, Ross appeared on one of his random check-ins. He went from suite to suite at will, opening our doors without warning to keep us on our toes. I sprang forward in my chair just in towards the Voice Monitor acting like I was in the middle of practicing. He  stood silently against the back walland listened to me doing gentle-onsets into the microphone. He hardly ever commented on what was done well or what wasn't. He knew just his presence alone was enough to usually make everyone try their best. 

    " I told you the first week is the hardest, Gary. We start in the deep-end and then swim to the shallow part. This gets easier, but only if you do what you're supposed to do now. You still have too many hard on-sets, " Ross broke his silence and said.

    I wanted to complain to him but I knew he would make me say it stretched out with my stopwatch so I didn't bother. 

   "You should take this as seriously as you seem to take being a gay person. Your speech is as big a part of you as anything else, " he told me as he opened the door. 

     I sat stunned in my chair not knowing how to answer him.

  " And talk to more people at break-times. You don't have to enjoy the conversations or the people. That's not the purpose of speaking with each other here," he added, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone again with the Voice Monitor that was flashing it's red nipple at me.

    " He didn't mean speak to you more," I sneered at the Voice Monitor and unplugged it from the wall. "That should teach you," I grinned and stuttered at it.

       It flashed its bitchy red light to criticize my hard-onset without even being plugged in. 

        "How the hell did you do that?" I sneered at it again.

      I picked it up and looked at it's dangling plug, then turned the black box over to find that it ran on batteries as a back-up. " You bitch," I said, wishing it was alive for a moment so it could understand how much I truly hated it.