THIS IS AN ADAPTATION OF THE STORY I PERFORMED FOR SHOW & TELL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
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Tina Turner (hereafter T2) made escaping escaping domestic abuse glamourous. It was 1984, the same year as Farrah Fawcett’s TV movie about beaten wives who retaliate, The Burning Bed. T2 was the comeback of the decade. In the book I, Tina, co-authored with MTV news anchor Kurt Loder, she tells how she left Ike.
After over 15 years of alleged spousal abuse, the two principals of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue were riding in a limo in Dallas, kind of like another famous couple once did. T2 had on a white pantsuit. Ike wanted her to hold onto a melting, half-eaten candy bar. She complained that it would make her all chocolatey. Ike backhanded her.
She writes that something in her snapped. She found courage. She said to him, “I ain’t takin’ your licks no more.” She fought back, hard, all the way to the hotel. Post-fight, Ike fell asleep, and T2 took her purse and left, never to see Ike again. She had 35 cents and her name.
When a gay goes to choose his diva, who he chooses says a lot about him. The mid-’80s music scene was an embarrassment of riches (heavy emphasis on embarrassment), star-wise. Which diva is a 14-year-old boy to choose? Prince? Michael Jackson? Cyndi Lauper? Madonna? Eh, she was bigger with the girls, who all dressed up in their black jelly bracelets, fishnets, Wayfarer sunglasses, tousled high-lighted hair, etc. Anyway, Madonna had no Ike. (Her epigone, Lady Gaga, likewise has no Ike. Not interested, thanks! I’ll stick to octogenarian sex kitten T2…)
Her mentor/ex Ike Turner is widely considered to have played on the first rock-’n'-roll record, “Delta ’88.” T2, in her 50-year career, has earned the title of queen of rock ‘n’ roll and retained it, fighting off all comers. So choosing her as one of my main divas bespeaks my particular gay persona.
A mere 14 years old, I didn’t know I was gay at that time, I just knew I wanted to be Tina Turner.
The song titles on her multi-platinum comeback album, “Private Dancer,” told a story. The bittersweet hope of “Let’s Stay Together,” the feisty challenge of “Better Be Good to Me,” and finally the jaded worldview of “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” — what’s love but a sweet old-fashioned notion?
When the Private Dancer Tour came to Detroit, I had to go. Twice. I was not old enough to drive, so my mom dropped me off. (She didn’t like this album, though, and she let it be known to me: The title song, “It’s about prostitution, isn’t it?” she objected sternly.)
Yes, I went to the concerts alone. I didn’t have any friends… period. Let alone ones that wanted to see T2 with me.
From the deluxe concert program:
“Tina Turner does not smother a song in lipgloss a la Diana Ross” (Ouch! Take that, Miss Ross!) “nor does she give it the sanctified treatment of an Aretha Franklin…” (Had to go look up “sanctified” in the dictionary…) “No, her preferred technique is to slam into a song with the several megatons of natural energy at her disposal and send the whole shooting match careening over the top at the highest speed available.” (Wooo!)
“And all sort of spotty” (Had to look this up, too. I think it means acne.) “white boys sitting in London and gazing wistfully into the mirror listened to her and loved her and almost wished that they could be her, because what is a Jagger or a Stewart if not a would-be Tina Turner?”
Wait, what does the liner notes’ writer mean, “almost”? What does that mean? ALMOST? No, just “be,” without the almost.
What? She was almost 50, I was almost 15… She’s black but according to Ike never wanted to be. I’m gay and according to me wish I weren’t. What is the special kinship between white gayboys and black women, especially strong black women who triumph over abuse? Ah, maybe there’s your answer. Surviving the beatdowns is one.
At the concert, the seats were filling up fast, and I had to choose one either way in the back or way in the front. I made a snap decision to go to the front, but soon found the loudspeakers were earthsplittingly loud. My whole body was shaking and I was mortally afraid of permanent hearing loss. So I scurried over to one of the last empty seats, right in the middle of the theater, next to some African American ladies who were very spiffily dressed. I babbled to them my reason for moving, about the eardrums and such. They didn’t really react, but I sat down anyway.
Then their man came back from the concessions stand with a cardboard tray of pop and snacks in his hands. He looked me up and down disapprovingly and in a booming voice said, “Excuse you.” “They said I could sit here,” I protested. Nope. No one wanted me there among my sisters, so I skulked back to the front of the theater. Where I belong, I guess. I shook my head, though, that these ladies were putting up with this mean man, their own potential Ike Turner. Not cool.
T2 came to the stage and I didn’t care about my eardrums anymore. I maniacally wrote these notes on a piece of paper, to reference later when I got home:
SHE’S GOING TO CHANGE HER CLOTHES
OUTFITS: LEATHER PANTS AND COAT, SHINY TOP, LOW CUT / ACT 2: “PRIVATE DANCER” OUTFIT: Yellow spanish [sic] mini dress, pink sash, which she used for everything.
Any good diva must embody transformation, even multiple ones. Tina transformed herself from poor little Anna Mae Bullock in rural Tennessee to a world star, a legend. Surely if I kept practicing the “What’s Love Got to Do with It” walk — the switching, jivish two-step in stiletto heels and a black leather miniskirt — surely I could transform into such a being, too. A sexual tigress! With a big majestic mane, blood-red lips, and the best legs in history. T2 made it seem possible to have a sexuality! It was the first glimpse I had, besides the sun-faded and rain-warped page torn out of Playboy that I found in a field once, and it looked good. The raspy voice was key, too. At heart, that voice is deeply androgynous. It also is the best kind of voice for expressing ferocious pain.
My diva worship stayed relatively private until I escaped my boring suburban milieu and went to college. There, I met another male homosexual worshipper of T2. His name was Craig. I don’t know if it was conscious or not, but Craig was in his own abusive relationship, the intensity of which rivaled Ike and Tina. Talk about walking the walk!
Craig’s Ike, who carried the white trash name of Randy, knew that Craig liked Tina Turner, so he commissioned this portrait. That’s Craig on the right, Randy on the left, and Tina Turner, from her “Break Every Rule” album cover, in the center. When I recently got my hands on this Polaroid photo, the mutual friend who gave it to me pointed out something I never realized, even though I’d known about the painting’s existence for years. Apparently Randy had Tina painted in between the two men so the painting would not seem so “gay.” You know, a picture of two men like that could be misconstrued as what it actually was: a gay couple.
Tina to the rescue! Despite threats, guns, and stalking, after nine years Craig had his white-pantsuit-and-candy-bar moment. He told Randy, “I ain’t takin’ yo licks no mo’.” And walked away.
Tina is still my rock. When Ike Turner transitioned in 2007, Tina once again modeled classiness for us all. She had a short press release put out by her publicist that read, in its entirety: “Tina Turner is aware that Ike Turner has died. She will have no further statements.”
Living well is really the only revenge that lasts.
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