Donna Summer: “God Made Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve”

Donna Summer’s reign as the Queen of Disco ended with little fan fare. Like a needle ripped from a spinning record, the sound of her voice on the radio screeched to an end. Music lovers seemed to suddenly tire of her style. Summer was branded as the queen who invented music that queers like– disco music. By 1990, most music fans had written her off. Despite her fall from stardom and a lack of popularity, there was still an official fan club in existence twenty years after her dominance of the Billboard charts. My partner, Bruce Miller fell in love with a man he met through the Donna Summer Fan Club. He left me for a true Donna Summer fan.

 A quarterly newsletter, printed on what was obviously stolen copy paper from a forgotten office somewhere at Casablanca Records didn’t offer much news about Donna Summer’s musical career. According to the periodical, Donna was always busy in the studio working on a new album. There were several articles written about Donna’s new artistic venture– oil painting. Bruce made me read the newsletter. I laughed as I breezed through his first issue. It was poorly written, typed haphazardly, and editing was done in pencil. The fan club’s president used a Xerox machine as a printing press. I felt sad when I realized just how far Donna’s career had crumbled.

 “Because we are a couple and should have a joint checking account.”“No. Hell, no!”

There was a classified “Become a Donna Summer Pen Pal” section on the last page of the tacky, Xeroxed fan club paper. That’s how they met, as pen pals, through the official Donna Summer fan club. I thought their union was creepy and to this day, refuse to spend much time with my old boyfriend Bruce and his new lover Michael.

They are like co-donna-dependents. My hate for them has nothing to do with the fact that my man was stolen from under my nose. I get e-mails all the time from both Bruce and Michael– links to new Donna Summer songs, invitations to commitment ceremonies they are having on the

Brooklyn Bridge 

Brooklyn Bridge

, YouTube videos from the past, and Myspace references to the woman who should have put down her microphone a long time ago.

 According to the newsletter, Michael owned a vinyl copy of a rare Donna Summer record– “Sometimes Like Butterflies” that Bruce just had to get his hands on. Bruce popped a letter in the mail addressed to Michael via the official Donna Summer Fan club. Michael placed an ad in the quarterly indicating that he had in his collection an original copy of Bruce’s favorite song in the world. (The song was actually on the “B” side of another Donna release from the early ‘80, but because technology was changing, it was nearly impossible to find a copy of the record that Sometimes Like Butterflies was on.)I spent many countless nights shopping in record stores in the Village with Bruce, trying to find a copy of that record. We went through countless crates at the old Tower Records store in the

East Village and begged the owners of Disco Rama and Record Runner to try placing it on special order. Bruce was obsessed in getting his hands on a copy of that record. 

East Village and begged the owners of Disco Rama and Record Runner to try placing it on special order. Bruce was obsessed in getting his hands on a copy of that record.

 Five days after sending the letter to the fan club member who owned the vintage vinyl copy of Sometimes Like Butterflies, Bruce’s new pen pal friend, Michael came to our house for dinner. I was ordered to prepare steak au poivre on a gas grill because we were having a very special guest for dinner– a guy who had a copy of “Sometimes Like Butterflies”.“Thank you for convincing me to try the Donna Summer fan club. I can’t wait to meet this guy. He sounds cool. He’s from

Hawaii 

Hawaii

. You make the best steak in the world. I love you so much,” Bruce sang as we got out our good china.

 “There. Is that better?” Bruce asked me. “He just loves this song, Michael. He loves it. He can’t get enough of it.”

 Bruce managed to squeeze Michael’s copy of “Sometimes Like Butterflies” from his pen pal’s collection. Bruce traded his autographed copy of the album “Bad Girls” that Donna Summer signed for him personally when he was 16. (Actually, it was not an original Donna Summer autograph. Bruce signed it on Donna’s behalf. To this day, after all these years, in their cute little West Village love nest, a copy of that fake autographed record hangs on their living room wall.)Yes I’ve been to dinner at their house several times over the years. Gay divorces are nothing like straight ones. I’ve tried to remain friends with my old partner Bruce and Michael, “the Dole Queen”, as I have bitterly referred to him on occasion over the years. They invited me to their house warming. I thought it was a sweet gesture. I had a new man at the time. What was I to be jealous of? I laughed secretly when I saw the autographed copy of Bad Girls framed and mounted on the wall of their apartment next to an original Donna Summer painting called Jazz Man that they bought at Trump Taj Mahl in

Atlantic City. 

Atlantic City.

 “This painting was only $5,000 and I got to shake Donna’s hand,” Bruce boasted as I studied the painting that Donna had done. I thought it was wonderful that she briefly left the recording industry to pursue other venues in the art world.

 The trade-off of Donna memorabilia was what both subscribers to the Donna Summer fan club were looking for when they first paid their annual dues to the members only newsletter organization. We had Michael over for dinner a lot. Bruce and Michael became as inseparable as Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer on the cover of twelve inch single, “Enough is Enough”.

 “Do you remember when the claim surfaced that Donna Summer made the statement– God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve? Well it’s not true! ” Bruce remarked. “It’s all a made-up lie, created by a Jewish homosexual writer who wrote that article in the Advocate just to ruin Donna.”“Yes. They burned all her records in a bonfire in the

West Village 

West Village

. Gays were so upset with her for saying that AIDS was God’s way of punishing gays,” Michael added.

 Just as dinner was about to be served, after I sprinkled fresh parsley atop the medium steaks, Bruce jumped from the table, went inside and blasted Donna’s latest CD “Mistaken Identity”. How rude of him. I was about to offer my theory on the has-been disco diva. I wanted to suggest to Bruce and Michael that AIDS itself was the demise of her career.

 I believed that she never really lost popularity. There is a simple reason she was almost forgotten. Most of the people who loved Donna Summer music and bought her records had died. Bruce and Michael never stopped to think of that fact. The music was so loud. I couldn’t say a word. I lost the thought moments later.Michael blamed the lack of record sales on the owners of

Casablanca 

Casablanca

Records– Donna had a falling- out with her management company, not to mention the bad press. I felt sorry for all three of them trying to understand how someone once so adored could suddenly be forgotten on the radio. I didn’t say a word about what I figured out regarding the thousands, if not millions of gay men who died from AIDS and the impact they had on Donna Summer’s career.

 “No, I’m just trying to get you to shut up and listen to me for a change. Do me a favor guys; don’t sneak down into the basement to make-out anymore, especially while I’m out here cooking. I don’t care where you do it at. I’m leaving this relationship. I’m done with you both. God made Adam and Eve; not Adam, Steve and me.”

 

This short story appears in the

Cat Oars Fiction Collection

“Love to Hate You, Baby”

Available here…