T.C.B. Takin Care of Business

I was a little boy with a dream. When I read books, I dreamed about the lives of the people in them. I dreamed I knew them. I dreamt of experiences shared with them.
I am a child of the 60’s. I remember the turbulent 60’s, the time of civil unrest, Vietnam War the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. His “I have a Dream” speech was a document of an era. What stays constant through my childhood was the music. The backbeat of the Motown Sound sets the soundtrack of my life.

I was 10 years old in 1968 when I watched a NBC special called TCB (Taking Care of Business) starring Diana Ross and the Supremes and The Temptations. Diana Ross performed ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story and dedicated the song to King’s memory. I remember being mesmerized when Diana Ross stopped singing dramatically in the middle of the song to quote part of the MLK speech:

Yes there’s a place for us
Somewhere a place for us
Yes there’s a place for each of us
Where love is like a passion that burns like a fire
Let our efforts be as determined as that of Dr Martin Luther King
Who had a dream,
That all god’s children,
Black men, white men Jews, Gentiles, Protestant and Catholics,
Could join hands and sing that spiritual of old,Free at last, free at last
Thank god almighty, free at last!


In 1986 when her bestselling book, Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, was released, Mary Wilson toured the country with her Dare to Dream lectures. Even today 40 years later, Diana Ross finishes her live concerts with the message, “Go for your Dreams!” In 1991, I thought my dreams had come true when I was selected from a nationwide search to be a host on the popular QVC Network. I was thrilled to work with celebrities like Susan Lucci, George Hamilton and Richard Simmons. The highlight of my career was being able to produce and host a 3 hour show dedicated to the art, culture and beauty of Africa.














All good things don’t last forever. My dreams of nation television host fame ended when QVC closed down one of its channels and let go several of their hosts. But as the saying goes when one door closes.. The dream of fame came in the guise of drag. A drag queen to be exact. I had the opportunity to work on the film, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. The resulting experience led to an award-winning one-man show about a drag queen where my dreams of paying tribute to the Supremes came to life on stage. As a little boy when my mother was at church , I would sneak into her closet and try on her clothes while singing the songs of Diana Ross and the Supremes.





God, to be 38 again with a 28 inch waist! Life threw me some interesting curve balls and I held on to my Dreams as well as my Supremes. In 2000 I had the opportunity to be an extra on the film version of DREAMGIRLS, the play I had seen on Broadway 25 years earlier. I had been inspired by the show, sang the lyrics, lip-synced the performances for most of my adult life. I had always drawn the comparisons of Dreamgirls to the story of the Supremes, but as I sat in that theater watching Beyonce, Jennifer Hudson, and Jamie Foxx in the finale number, I started correlating my own life to music that I loved so dearly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a21HB3MBtkU


The music of Diana Ross and the Supremes has been a songbook in the chapters of my life. It is my story of re-invention. Like an anthology of greatest hits, there is a little something for everyone. I have had many successes I am proud of and some I shouldn’t be proud of, but I am anyway. From nude model to stripper, from children’s storyteller to doll-maker, from QVC host to drag queen performer, I went after all my dreams with a Supreme theme in mind.



If you loved the Supremes, if you loved DREAMGIRLS, you will enjoy reading DREAMBOY: My life as A QVC Host and other greatest hits. If you have never heard of either, maybe this will spark an interest for you to go visit their music and you will see why I am such a fan. Hopefully I can convince you to be one too. After reading my memoirs, I encourage you to check out some of my videos on youtube and see for yourself the dreams I have dared to dream from the pages of my book.

Langston Hughes wrote:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Gloria Steinem wrote:
Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger wrote for the show Dreamgirls
You are my dream. Who could believe they were ever come true? And who could believe the world would believe in my dream too?

I hope you believe in my DREAM,

It's getting late, almost time for tomorrow...30 minb4midnight