Read GAY REALITY : THE TEAM GUIDO STORY Online
Authors: John Chaffetz
GAY REALITY : THE TEAM GUIDO STORY (7 page)
“IT’S TIME to get to the ‘fame’ part. I mean just how long do I have to stand in the wings?”
It didn’t take long at all. The show starting airing and Team Guido, all three members now, became instantly recognizable, not just from viewers of the Amazing Race, but those who tuned in and saw the trio on the CBS Early Show and “Rosie”.
“It was fun,” smiled Bill. “We got mobbed a number of times in New York, very rewarding for one’s ego. Our website started to get, literally, thousands of hits, publications were calling for interviews. It was wild!”
“Rosie O’Donnell really took to us,” said Joe. “She was so nice and so generous to us. And, of course, she loved Guido, but who wouldn’t?”
“Sure there was some negative stuff on the internet; gays are always fair game to some of the idiots out there, but overall it was just wonderful,” added Bill. “We started making appearances at all kinds of events. It was terrific.”
“We also took some real razzing and kidding, particularly from people close to us, like Michael. During the Race we really screwed up in Paris. To this day, Michael will still occasionally ask, ‘Didn’t you guys actually live in Paris for quite a while?’ We try to just laugh it off.”
IT’S A wonderful house. Nestled up in a bevy of stately trees and mature landscaping, not far from the heart of bustling Laguna Beach. A combination of residence and office, decorated so as to captivate whoever visits. Neon signs, a bit of
glitz, memorable art, nostalgic photos. Alive and fun and the headquarters of the publisher of “The Blade”, a gay magazine which debuted in 1992.
Bill La Pointe, 5’6”, sandy hair, hyper, clever, aggressive and trim. Surprisingly a smoker, but so polite. As we sit in his glass enclosed office, he rises and moves next to a window, which he opens, so as not to intrude on me with the smoke from his cigarette. At 62 he looks 50. He is bright and deep, with high energy and a cultured mature overview of all that is gay America.
“Richard Hatch and Team Guido were so exciting. It was real. They were equal with the other teams. I wasn’t devastated that they didn’t win. I wouldn’t have cared if Richard Hatch had lost. It was just so real; the challenges.
“How they played the game was intriguing and terrific. They were so natural, so exposed, so real. Joe and Bill made headway.
“Now that their show is over, let’s see where they take it. I don’t know if they’ll succeed; I hope that they will. I didn’t sense, during the show, that they thought of themselves as role models. But I hope they’ll do just that”.
IN CONJUNCTION with the airing of the show, a website, developed by Joe and Bill, became a reality.
Teamguido.com
(still very much in operation today) immediately began to attract huge numbers of hits and thousands of e-mails. For the most part, the messages conveyed all sorts of comments on the show, more positive than negative, often poignant and touching.
It was no surprise that viewers had definite feelings, aye and nay, about how the Race was going and how Bill and Joe were playing. Interspersed among these were occasional words of encouragement, offered because of gay bias, but there was also some spewing anti-gay disparagement.
“There were a few, early on, that were just damn vile and sick”, said Joe. “They really got to me and I got furious. I thought about blasting back, but I figured anyone with that much venom wasn’t really reachable, so I just typed out ‘Fuck you’ and sent it back at them.
“It didn’t take long until I stopped reading the website threads altogether. I told Bill he could do whatever he wanted to, but I passed”.
The show was over, the guest appearances on interview programs slowed down considerably and Team Guido began to contemplate its future. Thinking quite realistically, Bill and Joe knew that there were certain areas of the gay community in which they might be able to exert some positive influence and others that were no doubt out of the question. Each time I met with them, together or individually, we talked at length about gay reality in this, the very beginning of the twenty-first century. Beyond these meetings, my sessions with various others, gay and straight, helped me to crystallize the very big picture. The components are varied, individual opinions are diverse.
BILL SITS across from me and I ask him to contrast coming out now as compared to when he did almost thirty years ago.
“Certainly it is somewhat easier now, but that is more accurate on both coasts than it is in the middle of the country. The geographical differences are huge. Anyone in the Midwest, in particular, can have real difficulty in being accepted. Sure there are pockets of ‘safety’ like Chicago, but, in general the acceptance is so very limited; it’s been proven over and over. The strong survive, but gays need to get to the coasts to really be free.
“One’s employment has a great deal to do with whether one can risk coming out. I’m sure that there are some really major stars who are terrified of coming out. Gays like to work for themselves, make their own hours. Things like carpentry, plumbing, handyman jobs. Then, of course, gays are big into the hospitality industry, bars, restaurants and the old reliable entertainment, and airline flight attendants.
“Gays, by the very nature of our society, often become very adept at protecting themselves. ‘We’ know how to hide, cover up, be undercover. The toughest fields for that are the military and often politics. You’re at risk for opening up and risking punishment or being ostracized.
“For me, real estate has not been a problem. I need to be all things to all people and I can do that. It has been perfect for me and I haven’t compromised myself to be successful. It just works. Even when I need to hide myself, to make a deal work, I am able to do that. I have
never
let my sexuality come between me and what I’ve wanted!”
FREQUENTLY, IN my many interviews with gays for this book, I had been told that there is little love lost between gays and lesbians. Consensus comments
that “gays and lesbians team up to campaign for causes, but little else” and “we are far more tolerant of lesbians than they ever are, or will be, of us!”
Now I am sitting at a small, outdoor, coffee shop table in the Dana Point Harbor. Across from me sits *Terry Breen, just beginning to gray, she exudes sensuality, great smile, attractive, with beautiful blue eyes, perhaps 5’6” and an obvious athletic, fit body.
“I was raised as a heterosexual and, to be honest, I don’t know if maybe I’m bisexual. I was married at twenty and had three kids by age twenty-six. I got divorced twenty years ago. That was ‘82 and since ‘85, I’ve been almost exclusively with women. I did have a relationship with a man in 1994. The world perceives me as a lesbian, but I can’t say that I’d never go back to a man.
“For the last six years I’ve been very committed to my partner. I expect that we are each other’s last one. She and I are very much alike. We look at people as individuals in every respect: race, age, gender, etc.
“I think as many as 50% of lesbians are really just like me. Not militant, not flag-waving, none of that. Half the people in my circle, you know, lesbians, have been married and many have children. We have sons who are with women and daughters who are with men.
“My first ten years were very camouflaged. I had an absolute double life. Mainly because my parents didn’t know. Not telling them? I thought I’d die. I was, oh, so afraid of losing my parents. Both my brother and my father were wonderful. No pressure whatsoever, totally accepting. But my mother looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You’re going to go to hell!!!’ So, for awhile, I let her think that she got to me.
“About six weeks later I gave it right back to her. I’d had enough of that shit, plus ten years of ‘hiding’. I told her, ‘You aren’t my God. I lead my own life!’ Since then she’s tested me a few times, but she’s really kept quiet on the subject.
“I took a stand and I think that setting my boundaries with her has helped her to understand; at least for the most part. I know her thinking about me has changed—and for the good. I was hiding who I was for
so
long. When I can be completely open I can give so very much. I am such a different person.”
IT IS not to say that all those in the homosexual community have tossed in the towel as relates to organized religion. Many still attend religious services, some of which are conducted by practicing gays and lesbians. On the other hand a great
many, gays in particular, feel that they have been excluded from the “in-house” practice of their religion.
•
Terry Breen
: “I’m a woman of faith and it used to be one of my major problems, and one of my life partner’s as well. I couldn’t handle it. I struggled to resolve it. My church pretty much expelled me. How crazy! I took steps to talk it out in a pastoral meeting in Santa Monica. A female, straight, pastor said comforting things to the two of us, but that didn’t alter our feelings of estrangement from the church. What I finally got to, my means of settling it for myself, was to kind of go my own way. Jesus only ever spoke of love. That’s what I choose to believe and that is how I live my life. I’m pretty much at peace with the situation as of now. I think that’s the case because of my own philosophy, that all I have to touch people with is really just me. I question whether, in my lifetime, it’ll really get much better.”
•
John Daley
: “There is certainly no question that the Catholic Church is cold and unaccepting of gays who are out. One feels like an unwelcome outsider; it’s uncomfortable. I’ve actually gone to several other churches and taken in their services. I’m not bothered by the attitude or dogma toward gays by my church, because I’m my own person.”
HE IS on the floor, perhaps two feet away from where I am sitting, when he looks up at me with that incredibly adorable face and says, “You know, John, I’m really having a major identity crisis. I mean I am totally confused. I go on the ‘Rosie Show’ and each time she’s all over me. And I really dig it. So, does that mean I’m BI?”
MRS. BARTEK shows no signs of tiring, especially as she talks about the Race.
“I figured they had won. But they wouldn’t say a word about how it turned out. I had to watch to find out that they didn’t win. CBS must have loved them, or they’d have been eliminated real early on.”
Up until now, everything Margaret Bartek has said to me has me feeling like I am having an audience with the Queen Mother. That is until she looks me right in the eye and says, “You know that pair that won, you know, the two lawyers? They’re about as homosexual as Bill and Joe!”
When I ask her if she manages to stay busy, the regality gives way to good old Aunt Bea.
“I’m into everything. Boutiques, anything church related and lots of baking. My telephone recorder message starts out, ‘I’m busy baking so I can’t come to the phone right now. If you’ll leave a message’—oh, you know the rest.
“And I always listen to ‘1360’. I was the seventh caller a while back, and I won a trip to an Indian bingo place. I love bingo!”
I ask her for any other thoughts relating to Bill and Joe.
“Before the Race I sent them a copy of the prayer, ‘The Key to Heaven’. Bill told me that he and Joe said it every night during the Race and they’ll always say it forever.”
As I walk her to her car, a hotel guest passes, walking a dog. Without my asking, Mrs. Bartek offers, “I like dogs, just not in my house. That way I don’t have to buy dog food or clean up after them!
“Here’s my car. Look at my bumper sticker.”
It reads:
If Mary was pro-choice there would be no Christmas!
We reach her car and she turns to me and says, “I’m going to give you a little hug now.” And she does. I hold the door for her, close it and wave goodbye. As I head for my own car, there is a tear in my eye.
Seconds later a car horn beeps. She pulls up beside me, lowers her window, and hands me a number of copies of “Seven Graces of Mary.” With that marvelous smile she says, “Make sure to give these to people. I’ve handed out over 5,000 of them!”
And then she drives off. The tear in my eye slides slowly down my cheek. Margaret Bartek, a special, special person.
JOE’S OLD pal has relaxed completely and becomes more and more responsive to my questions.
“Are you gay?”, I ask.
“No, I’m BI. I always knew that I was attracted to both sexes, but it took a very long time for me to move on it as far as guys were concerned.”
John Daley is talking just matter of factly to me and I have no idea, whatsoever, that he is about to shock me.
“I was substitute teaching and had no real plan for the future. Joe was in San Diego and we talked about me coming out and living with him. We’d always stayed close. I actually visited him at Georgia Tech, Michigan and UCLA and we always wrote to each other; no e-mail in those days.
“At any rate, while I was thinking about San Diego, my father passed away, so I decided to stay here in the East. It was 1973 and IBM offered my mother, my brother and me jobs. We hired on and I’m still there almost 30 years later.
“So, I eventually got engaged and just before the wedding I made a trip to the West Coast. Joe and I drove north from San Diego and stopped for the night in San Simeon. He and I had sex that night. It was my first time with a guy.”
“And you are out now?”, I ask.
He pauses, smiles and answers, “Well, I got married, had twins, and also knew that I liked guys. Five years ago we got divorced, but luckily we’re still very good friends. I’m out with my kids, but until this book comes out, not with my ex.”
“She never suspected you?”
“In 1986, I clearly remember ‘knowing’ that she was going to ask me about Joe. Strangely, she never did.
“When my daughter was about 14, she came to my wife and me and asked, ‘How would you feel if I told you I was gay?’ I said I’d have no problem, one of my best friends, Joe, is gay. My wife said, ‘I would have trouble with it’. In actuality my daughter was really asking about a friend of hers, whose mother was a lesbian.”
