AKA William

Because the old school gay is fast becoming the new modern man, AKA William theater contributor Ben Rimalower will, every Thursday, document exactly how, when, and where everything old becomes new again.

Straddling the line between old school showbiz cheesiness and contemporary short attention span whateverness, Ben is the New Old Gay. He loves Patti LuPone.

There is a video on youtube of Whitney Houston performing “I Will Always Love You” at Radio City Music Hall in 1993 – the glory days – where some gravelly-voiced ogler (not me) keeps shouting out, “Sing louder. Louder!” In those days, Whitney could sing as loudly or as sweetly as she wanted, she was just taking her time building that particular song – she certainly got very loud by the end of the number.

Watching this poor-quality bootleg, it isn’t apparent whether Whitney could hear the buffoon; indeed, his yelling elicits no reaction at all from anyone. Surely, at least the people around him could hear the heckling – didn’t they mind? They themselves weren’t shouting directives at the stage – critically or otherwise, so why didn’t anyone say anything to this bozo? Even a simple “Shhhh.” Maybe they thought he was right.

From my first hit of the crack cocaine that is Whitney’s Herculean voice, I was hooked on the way her seemingly effortless ability (to sing any note any way she wanted to express a moment) stripped her songs of the artifice of vocal production, endowing her work with an intrinsic honesty even in its most virtuosic pyrotechnics.

When I was eight years old, I was mesmerized by the stories she told in such evocative classics as “You Give Good Love,” “All At Once,” “How Will I Know,” “Saving All My Love for You” and “The Greatest Love of All.” Speaking of love, I was also really enamored with such contemporaneous hits as Madonna’s “Material Girl” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” but – not for nothing – those songs sounded like productions, like products crafted to achieve a certain effect.

Riding in the backseat of my mother’s station wagon, I felt like Whitney was singing just to me.

A couple of years later, I remember “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” as the new Whitney hit played and replayed at a friend’s backyard dance party. The song and that sophomore album in general had a more elaborate pop sound and the distinction between Whitney and other big singers of the time withered.

As she graduated from the crown princess ingénue and her songs began to tackle more adult topics, she seemed less emotionally invested and her focus seemed to narrow to the music itself as opposed to the story.

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The New Old Gay: With You I’m Not Nothing

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The New Old Gay: Scabies and Bed Bugs and Crabs, Oh My!