46 Ju st out *
October 6 . 2Q0Q
July 31
1 got them. 1 actually got tickets to Barbra
Streisands farewell concert in Los Angeles. 1
call my friend Jeff to share the good news.
“ How much did they cost?" he asks. “O h,
$375,” I mumble. “Each?” he gasps. “Where are
you sitting, in her lap?” Jealous bitch.
The way she i
A Streisand diary
by
M arc A cito
Aug. 8— B minus 44 days
Tickets have arrived safely. I was a little wor
ried some unscrupulous queen working for the
U .S. Postal Service might steal them. T he only
problem now is where to store my precious
cargo. W hat if the house bums down? Maybe I
ought to get a safety deposit box. “ Aw, c ’m on,”
my brother says. “You wouldn’t get a safety
deposit box for a pair o f airline tickets, and they
cost the sam e.” “ But this is B A R B R A !” 1
scream. Honestly, 1 pity these poor straight peo
ple— they can’t possibly understand the myster
ies o f Judy, Liza and Barbra. Together they con
stitute the G ay Holy Trinity: Mother, Daughter
and Holy Nose. A nd now, of course, we have
our own M adonna, too.
Aug. 15— B minus 37 days
Dreamed that I eloped with Jason G ould to
Vermont for a private, but elegant, civil cere
mony. A t our reception, M other Streisand
cries, “W elcome to the family,” then bursts into
“ Happy Days Are Here A gain.” Close family
friend Shirley M acLaine tells me it’s my karma
to be related to Barbra. I agree.
Sept. 7— B minus 14 days
Btxiked flight today. My partner, Floyd, and
I are flying down the day before, because if our
flight is in any way delayed I’ll end up on the 6
o ’clock news, one o f those out-of-control peo
ple detained for assaulting a flight attendant.
I’m embarrassed to admit we’re actually tak
ing three days off work just to go to a concert. I
try to make light of it with a customer in our
sign shop, saying: “C an you believe she sched
uled the perfonnances for a Wednesday and
Thursday night? W hat, she couldn’t perform on
a weekend ?” “Maybe she has plans,” my cus
tomer says, dead serious. “Maybe she does,” 1 say.
Sept. 15— B minus 6 days
1 go to borrow our friend Ed’s superpowerful
binoculars. They weigh about as much as a
brick and come in a carrying case the size of
my mailbox, but I don’t mind. I just wish the
case m atched my shoes.
Sept. 18— B minus 3 days
According to the W eather Channel, the
temperature in L.A. is 110 degrees. Despite the
heat, I’ve decided I’m going to wear my new
black polyester shirt with the real fake leopard
trim. If I get overheated I might just burst into
flames, but at least I’ll die happy.
Sept. 20— B minus 1 day
I tell everyone I see that we’re going to the
Streisand concert— the baggage handler, the pilot,
the rental car guy. I worry that I’m being indi
creet. Suppose some unscrupulous queen ovei
hears me and mugs us? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Sept. 2 1 — B-D ay!
I’m just a little nervous about getting
stuck in traffic, so Floyd and I arrive two
hours early. We pay $20 for parking and go
in. I chat with various people before the
show. “Are you a fan.7” I ask one woman.
“Oh, yes,” she gushes, “I even lost a job
once because o f her.” "Really, why?” I ask.
“Oh, I kind of stalked her," she says. Peo
p le... people who love Barbra are the
scariest people in the world.
We buy a bottle of water for $3.25.
“Geez, are they gonna charge for the air
we breathe, too?” Floyd asks. "Behave or
I’ll buy a $35 T-shirt," I reply. But we
both covet the shopping bag with the
monogrammed “ B” on it.
Barbra looks fabulous in a sequined
pantsuit revealing a butt you could
bounce a dime off of. The show is a
retrospective o f her life, but in some
ways it feels like a retrospective o f my
own. Like so many other gay boys and
Jewish girls, the soundtrack for my life
comes courtesy of Barbra. When I
fell in love with my best friend at
1 6 ,1 played “My M an” over and
over again, Barbra’s voice expressing what I
couldn’t myself. Eighteen years later, I still listen
to “Don’t Rain on My Parade” almost daily to
get me going in the morning. Barbra introduces
this journey into our shared past by singing “The
Way We Were,” and I start to cry and flap my
hands in front of my face in that inexplicable
way junior high girls do. Geez, the kids on the
school bus were right, I think— I am a big fag.
Sipping tea from a china cup, Barbra apolo
gizes for sounding hoarse (like we noticed),
explaining she normally doesn’t perform 40 songs
two nights in a row. This is what I love about her.
She could get out there and fart to the tune of
“Evergreen” and we’d scream for more, but after
all these years, Barbra still can’t help but reveal
her vulnerabilities. I can’t even imagine the pres
sure of having to sound as good as Barbra
Streisand, even if you are Barbra Streisand. It’s
her glorious triumph over these insecurities, time
and again, that inspires such zealous devotion in
her fans. She’s nearly 60 years old, and she can
still sing the paint off the walls.
Barbra greets the various celebrities up front
in the $2,500 seats— Elizabeth Taylor, Jack
Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman. W hen she
acknowledges Debra Messing from Will &
Grace, Messing, apparently so thrilled that Bar
bra knows who she is, leaps from her seat and
jumps up and down, waving her arms wildly in
the air. It’s a lovely moment and one the rest of
the 12,000 of us can understand. To identify
with a person your whole life from afar and then
to have that person recognize you— what bliss.
Me, I’ve planned out for years what I would
say to Barbra if 1 met her. I’m at a gala to raise
money for the hand dryers in the bathrooms of
the Clinton Library when my good friend Rosie
O ’Donnell introduces us. I take Barbra’s perfect
ly manicured hand in mine, look her straight in
the eye and say, “I’m sorry, dear, what did you
say your name was?” Barbra, o f course, is
charmed at my refreshing take on what must be
a tiresome ritual after nearly 40 years of fame.
Back in reality, Barbra slips her shoes off and
tells us although she’ll continue to record and
make movies, these concerts in L.A. in New York
really are her goodbye to live perfonning. “I’ve
been working since I was 11,’’ she says. “I want to
relax a little.” And referring to the dieting neces
sary to look so glam, she says, “I love food— I
want to eat!” She looks at Elizabeth Taylor in the
front row for support. “You understand, don’t you,
Elizabeth?” Oh, Barbra, if only you knew how I
dieted to look good for this concert, too.
Sept. 23
Ran into our friend Gary getting onto the
same flight to Portland. “ Did you enjoy the con
cert?” he asks. “They’re still drying the seat he
sat in," Floyd says. Gary tells us he spent $465
on a last-minute plane ticket to L.A. because
Madonna was making a personal appearance at
the Virgin (how appropriate) Megastore and he’s
always wanted to meet her and get her auto
graph. Geez, 1 think, what the hell kind of
obsessed nutcase does such a thing? j n
M arc A cito is the creator o f the comic strip
“The Boys N ext Door. ”
[Those rahu
Burlesque-style comedy skits and
lavish show-stqaoing group numbers.
From Seattle, Wa