You Need BLOOD Like I Do

You need love like I do, don't you?

I can tell by the way you look, when I'm looking at you
You need love like I do, don't you
It seems like I'm looking in the mirror, when I'm looking at you

YOU NEED LOVE LIKE I DO (DON'T YOU ?)

(Barrett Strong / Norman Whitfield)

The year was 1976. I turned 18. The draft was over. I could legally drink. I could vote. I came “out” the closet. I gave blood for the very first time.

I did not think much of it back then. I was never afraid of needles. I will never forget how my mother cringed and told me to look away the first time I had blood drawn at the doctor’s office. Well that was all I needed to hear as a rebellious youth. I watched the entire process totally fascinated. Hey do you need me to help you find a good vein? I know, I am kinda weird like that.

Living in Baltimore, I was a senior at Northwestern High School when the class of ’76 sponsored a Red Cross blood drive. I was one of the first to line up and donate the gift of life. It didn’t hurt to get a free glass of juice and chocolate chip cookies afterwords. Plus I was doing something to help somebody.

After all, we need blood.

It was a regular practice of mine. When asked, I gave. It was no big deal. I liked juice and cookies. Let me be clear, I never sold blood for money like a drug addict. (I am weird, not desperate.) I spent a lot of time working with drug addicts in my theater company Actors Against Drugs. A dude said to me one day, “You would have made a great heroin addict. You have great veins.” (A back handed compliment never made me feel so uncomfortable.) It reminded me of the good and bad that comes from the fluid that flows through our body.

You need blood like I do, don't you
I can tell by the way you look, when I'm looking at you
You need blood like I do, don't you
It seems like I'm looking at your veins, when I'm looking at you

Living in Baltimore in the 80’s at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, I saw more needles in the streets than I could care to count. The cases of people contracting the HIV virus were being connected to blood supplies. Drug addicts exchan

ged sex for a drug fix. Addicts were sharing dirty needles. Needle exchange programs started popping up. Now this precious gift of life was becoming the gift of death from a new virus spread through blood.

New processes and filtering the blood supply became standard to dispel the panic that was spreading through hospitals across the nation. Hemophiliacs were getting HIV from blood supplies and these were children who never had sex or did drugs. Things were changing.

The first change I remember was at a Black Expo USA in the early 90’s. The Black Expo was a great place to target African-American consumers. It was a traveling show that showcased art, culture, music, crafts, and fashion as well as health awareness. I lined up as usual to the Red Cross booth to give blood. I read the information card which basically said if you had taken intravenous drugs or had homosexual sex, your volunteer efforts would not be required. At the same time it reassured people the blood was checked a

nd tested and was completely safe. I was confused. I had passed my HIV test. Should I give blood anyway and not check off the “homosexual sex” category? I became frustrated and walked away. Hell I can buy my own juice and cookies. I stopped giving blood.

Years later I was working at a hotel and the HR department was doing a blood drive among employees. There was huge number of immigrants with poor English speaking skills and very few people were signing up to donate blood. They were sending representatives to each department exerting “pressure” (or explain how safe the process is) to employees.

My married heterosexual supervisor who was irritated by the intrusion made the comment, “You have the perfect “out” of the blood drive. They don’t want gay blood.” The comment did not bother me in the way you might think. I was an openly gay employee. What bothered me was my supervisor was on Craigslist setting up another lunchtime date with a (female) stranger.

From the National Prevention Information Network:

Heterosexual black men with multiple sex partners – not bisexual men who secretly have sex with men – are responsible for high rates of HIV among black women, according to a senior CDC official.

Seems like it was only yesterday

When my mama told me don't fall in love with the first guy that comes your way

He was handsome and nice but I took her advice and passed him by

Years have passed and don't look like love's gonna give me a second try

Boy the look on your face tells me you understand

Could it be your love life's like mine needs a helping hand 

Well, well you need love like I do (don't you?) 

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