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Just a Girl.....Thinking About George Michael

 George Michael.  Oh, George Michael.  His name incites something.  It stirs something.  It makes you feel some kind of way.  I know his name for sure does something for me.  It did back in the 80's and it still does now.  


When I was a girl waaaay back in the 80's, I loved George with Wham!  He was sexy and fun and mysterious in a way I couldn't even explain or understand.  It was a time period in which we were all still grappling with how we felt about gay and straight, what it all meant and how it did or didn't affect us personally.  Like most girls, I was bummed when I found out George was gay.  Not because I cared or thought it was wrong, but because it meant I (a girl light years away and twelve years younger) would never have a chance with him.  Disappointment!


His solo record, Faith, came out in October 1987.  I was twelve and I got it for Christmas on cassette that year.  I could have watched that slow camera pan up the ass of his jeans from the "Faith" video all day and twice on Sunday.  I mean.....I was 12, ya'll!  Just like Tom Selleck, Daniel Day-Lewis and Patrick Swayze, George was definitely a part of my, ahem, sexual awakening.  You know how some dummies say kids don't know what they're talking about when they say they like boys or girls at a young age?  Well, that's bullshit because I've known I liked boys from the jump.  And I DEFINITELY dug George.  The jeans, the 5 o'clock shadow, the single earring, the leather jacket.....I had no idea he was setting up a template of attraction that I would follow for all/most of my young and adult life.  Yep....I've got a type, y'all.  I do. 

(I also didn't know yet that he was Greek, but that might be a story for another time....wink, wink.)


One of my favorite podcasts recently made me stop and give more thoughts to my feelings about George.  The first episode installment goes through the early life of George up until the death of his first serious lover from AIDS back in the 1990's.  The second episode promises to get into his arrest at Will Rogers Park in 1998 and into his later life and untimely death at age 53.  


Like most teenagers, I outgrew George as I barreled into the Grunge Rock of my adolescence.  George had a moody sexiness for sure, but he was nothing like the moody sexiness of Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell.  As George and I both aged, I thought of him less and less.  But I do remember the pang of emotion I felt when he died.  It was like an old boyfriend that I hadn't heard from in a while had been lost.  And not just lost to me.....lost to us all.  And the circumstances of his death......dying on Christmas morning at the age of 53?  Years of broken hearts, legal issues, substance abuse....what happened to this once happy and sexy man of my dreams?  There's something especially sad about a man who brought so much joy to so many dying young and (very probably) alone and hurt.  

I guess that's why I choose to remember him young.  Smiling.  Bewitching us all with that devilish grin.  In the "You're Wrong About" episode, Sarah Marshall makes a point about how we don't ever know what's coming.  When we read and look back on history, we say to the people involved to "just hold on....it won't be long now".  But they don't know that at the time.  They don't know the fight/war/struggle will soon be over.  George couldn't have known what he was going to face, and that's good.  We all need to dive in with that devil-may-care-take-on-the-world attitude.  And we have to be grateful that he did.


Thank you, George.  Thank you.  You were a gift.  A gift too good to keep.  But I'm grateful we had you as long as we did.  

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