the times they make a difference.
-Jay is 75 -in 1963, he was 16. those were different times: being gay was taboo. if you were gay you had to hide it -a life-remembered experience that started on an escalator -important in that period of time to date girls. within a week or two in college he had a girlfriend -in 1967, while home on Thanksgiving break and a junior in college, he met Fern, the woman he would a few years later marry. the two saw off-Broadway shows together -it was a time when long distance calls were expensive so phone calls were short and letters were written -the following year, over Thanksgiving break, he told Fern he was gay. at the time, both thought he could change -Jay had at that time two negative gay experiences. he did not want the life he saw in the play Boys in the Band (Wikipedia.org) or the movie The Queen (IMDb.com) -he decided to move to San Francisco for the weather and because he would not need a car. He had no idea that it was a gay mecca -in SF, he started to meet guys but none of them wanted a relationship; Jay did -he proposed to Fern, who was then living in Los Angeles; the two married on Thanksgiving Day, 1970; after Thanksgiving weekend she moved in with Jay in the Marina, in SF -for a year, Jay led a double life. he found he could not do it any longer and told Fern. they divorced in 1971 -she was still young enough to get married and have kids; Fern stayed in SF for a while and then moved back East; she later married another man; the last time Jay saw her was in 2005 -Jake: monocultural is death, multicultural is life -in 1978, Jay joined the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus (Google.com), becoming, in time, its first General Manager -Jay, at 75 years-old, is in a stable, long-term relationship and happy with his life Though we talk in this episode about a future episode, after careful consideration, I suggested and Jay agreed that we stop with this one. I very much like ending the series with idea that Jay is happy with his life. He is. His life continues: he has traveled again to lands far away since the series ended and his relationship remains strong. Most importantly, in my mind, Jay continues to do what is most important: he is himself, and continuing to add to the world. Jake: 1997's movie In & Out (IMDb.com) with Kevin Kline Jay talks about his time in the chorus in acl3 transformational experiences (starting at 24:04) 43 minutes 12-06-22 debug comment |