Previous Next 

 
Sep 08 2010
This Was The Night Comments (26)

DVD PlayerScreenSnapz001I used Sam Fox to come out as gay...she later came out as gay!

300x245_samanthafox After 23 years and more than a few disappointments, I now possess a rather good video record of my first time on stage—lip-synching and performing BROADLY to Samantha Fox's "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)" at Flushing High School's 1987 "Mock Rock"!

Samantha Fox cover for Touch MeThis was the look I was aping

I was not an outgoing type, so doing this was a watershed moment for me as a person and as a (then-closeted) gay kid.

The original S-s-s-s-samantha, S-s-s-s-samantha Fox!

I'd given up on ever seeing a video, but Lori, a kind classmate, happened to comment my Facebook that she had a copy. She happily sent me her Beta (!) original and I had it transferred today and...voila!

Video and my critique after the jump...

I could listen to the cheers at the end over and over...like Dietrich...

First of all, I look like a cow. But I learned the hard lesson Samantha Fox already knew—disproportionate natural breasts really make a thin girl look thick! And I've never worn white since except in socks. I do still have to admire the lifelike jiggle in my Matt-made bazooms, which were balled-up T-shirts inside a half-T-shirt with baby-bottle nipples.

I have a masculine body—broad shoulders—so it's hard for me to ever look thin anyway. But I could've benefited greatly from a good corset. And I spent so much time on my top I forgot what every girl knows—guys like something to grab onto down below, too. No, the other side. I'm saying I should've stuffed the back pockets of those cut-offs. I have no ass. "Ends of the World" is a graphic working-out of this situation.

6a00d8341c2ca253ef00e54f87725e8834-800wi My cut-offs were a cut below the rest, and yet still as nice as anything Sam wore back then. The wig is atrosh, but pretty funny. I was in opaque stockings to hide all the shag. 

I'm not sure if the copy of a copy on YouTube will show this, but I was spot-on with my lip-synching. My dance moves were early MTV meets Benny Hill and while repetitive (and too hurried—I was petrified) definitely did what they were supposed to do, which was make people laugh at the shock of seeing square peg Matthew Rettenmund doing all this suggestive stuff.

And yes, people, on school property, I writhed around on a mattress and touched my fake ta-tas to an auditorium of my screaming peers in 1987. I deserved my trophy just for showing up and getting out of there alive. (Everyone was very supportive. I got no negative feedback.)

After the show, I did this performance once more—out of drag—at our senior prom. (Incidentally, I've dressed like a woman three times in my life: fourth grade for Halloween, this "Mock Rock" and a Halloween in the early '90s when I went as Theda Bara.)

Maybe I should return for our 25th reunion in '12 and do it again. I can assure you my styling and choreography would be flawless as I've picked up a few tricks over the years. (Don't say it.)

Now that I've seen it, I can't express the relief that this was saved from oblivion. Next, I need to hunt down the single video known to have been shot of my only acting gig, as Alan in Torch Song Trilogy at University of Chicago.

Share
   

COMMENTS