
“I looked to my left and saw it coming from over a hundred feet away. As I stood mid-block in downtown Cleveland, a place where the entire company had openly admitted to being scared of, I suddenly felt the most helpless I ever have. The only thing I could think of to do was to turn my back as the group of twenty drunken fraternity boys stumbled closer. I brought out my phone, something to take my focus, and watched David cross the street towards me. As he stepped up onto the curb, the pack of boys passed by us. I thought maybe for a second I had avoided what I still knew was coming and then I heard it. To tell you the truth, for something so vivid in my mind I know that I can’t remember the exact words; strange how the mind can choose to blank out something when it wants to. It’s like looking into the sun, so blinding, vividly bright, but out of focus at the same time and you can’t look for too long. "Its a bunch of fucking faggots" I heard at an alarming volume. I stood in stunned silence as he and his cronies walked away.”
Before I started my writing on this website I played around a little bit with blogging on MySpace. The words above are from an entry almost exactly a year ago and it doesn’t surprise me, but still pains me, to say that the same thing happened only hours after entering Detroit last week. As much as I disliked Cleveland, Detroit rocketed up the list of despised cities.
After a long day of rehearsal, David, Blaine and I decided to walk to the Hard Rock Café, which was only five minutes from our hotel. Like the events in Cleveland, I could see what was going to happen a mile away. Positioned in front of us was a group teenage boys that we were going to have to walk through to reach our destination. As a child I faced relatively little ridicule from my peers concerning my sexuality but it hurts more as an adult than it ever did in my youth. What began as harmless teasing (“Oh look it’s Jon Bon Jovi! N’sync baby!) quickly escalated to “Fucking faggots get your asses out of here. This is Detroit, faggots!” and various other slurs which are burned in my ears. Doing my best to hold my head high and walk through the crowd of boys as they swarmed around us like animals, only to continue yelling as we passed, I was having a hard time not being visibly shaken. I don’t know if it is possible to really do “well” in these situations, but I handle them especially badly. To be yelled at and taunted by a group of ignorant teenagers for your physical appearance is a cruel reminder of what is wrong with this country. While I should be able to accept it as ignorant teenagers, it gets me thinking of where they find that this behavior is acceptable. We are living in a society where harassment is everywhere and the intolerance is being passed down from generation to generation. When will it stop?! With an administration in office telling the country that my lifestyle is immoral and punishable, can I really expect it to?
Last election I remember reading an artical in the Times about how it was almost impossible for New Yorkers to fathom a Republican winning. As some of the readers have commented, unfortunately its just difficult to get a grasp on what the country is like when you are living in one of the bigger metropolitan areas. Homophobia does occur in New York, albeit rarely, but something about it seems more violent in other areas of the country. When I walked through these boys as much as I doubted the possibility, physical threat didn't seem too far off. Socioeconomic levels always play a part in aggression and as some have said, while that doesn't excuse it, it begins to become more understandable. It just seems strange to me that with a group of African-American teenagers, they weren't able to see the startling similarities to the words they were screaming at us and many that have been directed towards them over the past few decades. What does it take to break this cycle of ignorance and have a live and let live attitude?

(Blaine displays that what you do in your free time shouldn't be anyones business. If you want to eat jerky, eat jerky.)
While I mean no disrespect to people that live there, needless to say Detroit is on my shit list. The neighborhood we were staying in was desolate and I closed myself in my hotel for the majority of the weekend. It is in places such as Detroit that tour suddenly becomes a lonely existence and remaining positive is difficult. Finding activities to occupy yourself is increasingly challenging especially when you feel you are at risk of being harassed as soon as you step outside your door. Even sitting here typing makes me physically pained to think about it.
Fortunately another event would come to the forefront of the weekend and scare the shit out of me; I got thrown into a part I had never done. Another result of tour is that people begin to get fatigued which leads to injuries and emergency substations for different parts. In the three years since I joined the company I have never gotten thrown into anything with no rehearsal, but there is a first time for everything. During class on Saturday I was just going about warming myself up when I was informed that I was needed for the Aristocrat section of “Swan Lake” that evening. Last month I was switched to a new spot but I felt confident that I knew the material. However, I am nursing a hurt back and sprained toe and have also never done the material in rehearsal. Doubt began to trickle into my brain. After a moment of my mind telling me there was no way I could succeed I realized this was an opportunity that would let me dance a part I was longing to do. The challenge wouldn’t be my body but my mind.

(Idleness can lead people to do strange things.)
Between shows I did my best to review the material and try a few things out which only made me more nervous. Some people do well under pressure but I have never been one of them. If only I was capable of tricking my mind into forgetting about the pressure and the nerves but then I would have to add magician to my “special skills” list. Before I knew it the curtain was up and suddenly I was doing the same scene I have done countless times before but from a new set of eyes. Peering across the stage I saw the spot where I should be standing filled by someone else and felt my feet planted on a new square of the floor. Once the dance began I knew that if I successfully got through the first entrance I would have the confidence to make it the rest of the way. While that is a lot of pressure to put on yourself, it is unfortunately the masochistic fashion of a dancer’s brain. Lowering myself to my knee after a triple pirouette I took a moment to breathe as I scanned the audience with (what I hoped was) aristocratic elegance only to get up moments later. A few arm mistakes and one stumble later, the cannon launch was over and I was still alive. Any fear I had about jumping at the opportunity to dance the role was gone and I laughed at the person I had been only minutes before. Fear can disappear so easily and were I to have this challenge thrown at me again, I have the building blocks to attack it with more maturity. Of course, there is a time for maturity and a time to throw it out the window…that time was only a cab ride away.

(Aristocratic and alive.)