The Derelict Daughter

    

There were early indications I'd be a problem in the Hall household.

In 1983 I was nine years old and was getting ready to go back to public school after my parents pulled us out of the public school system for my entire 5th grade. I spent that school year either in the dubious Learning Tree “private school” run by my parent’s church friends, The Brilliants, and then the remainder was spent at home because it didn’t take more than a semester before organizationally and financially falling apart. My parents chose to homeschool the 3 school age kids (while also caring for 1 toddler and 1 infant) for the rest of the school year. My Lost Year, educationally. I was reading at a 9th grade level and The Learning Tree was only teaching 1st grade basic arithmetic, so although I missed the boat on learning fractions and decimals, I devoured Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff being a clear harbinger for the type of men I would later seek out.

If my mother were to reflect back to when her third daughter began to go towards the darkness it would be when music, via MTV started decaying the culture in homes all around our cloistered Mormon tract neighborhood. It was forbidden in our house- all cable TV was immoral in the eyes of the Church, but her third daughter was looking outward and had found some Worldly friends at school who had working mothers or worse, divorced single mothers who had cable TV in their homes. And worst of all, these corruptive worldly unaccompanied minors would come home from school every afternoon to empty houses and occasionally, gross older brothers and would watch these graphic videos and suggestive celebrities on cable, getting sullied while unsupervised. Not at my parent’s house. We had some considerable monitoring of media influences.

By the age of ten I was already jaded towards the Church. I had done the required baptism at age 8, when my parents and grandparents compelled me heavily to choose to be Mormon forever. It was hardly a choice. My mother had enough children so that I started to realize I could easily fade into the background, and being invisible was to have agency. The loud ones caught her attention, and the quiet ones could slip away undetected to adventure outwardly. 

My mother had me sharing a bedroom with Kelsey, the Golden Boy they had 5 girls trying to conceive. I hated sharing a room with an infant, so I had begun sneaking into my father’s basement office at night to sleep on the pull-out sofa he had in there. Increasingly I spent more and more time in his office, avoiding the family noise, squabbling, and parental monitoring. It was the room right under my parent’s bedroom and looked unlike any other room in the house. It had wood chip paneling, giving it a cozy den-like feeling. It was still a rough carpentry and carpeting job, done by hand by Dad. When my father was a Bishop in our Ward he needed a private place to counsel ward members and to do important Bishopric paperwork or whatever Bishops do. He had a large grey military-issue metal desk and a black rotary phone sitting on it. I was delighted by the privilege of having a secondary phone in that room, where I could theoretically close the door and make any kind of phone call without being monitored. Except, of course, unless she picks up the upstairs phone while you’re on the line- she used to try to listen in but I could tell. 

This was also where my Mother would say she failed me. Allowing me to have privacy in a room with a phone was dangerous and irresponsible for a parent to have permitted in 1984.  My father also kept his science fiction collection on built-in wood shelves in his office. Kept away from curious little hands, sequestered above a 3rd grader’s eye level, there were 2 shelves full of Azimov and Heinlein and the like. Including my aunt’s, his younger sister’s, Tolkien-like fantasy novels “The Elves in the Otterskin” and the “Sword and the Satchel”. Elizabeth Boyer- though we knew her as Aunt Betty. 

He served a mission in Sao Paulo, Brazil before marrying my mother, and had brought back a collection of Portuguese books and comics (Mom somehow let him keep) on the other wood shelf on the opposite wall in his office. These were not very Churchy things to have around- these shelves were discreet depositions of his brief time out in the World. I wonder if my father knew that I had found several vulgar cartoon images in those foreign paperbacks and had privately referred to them many times while hiding out in Dad’s office.  If only he knew that he had planted seeds of sin himself by leaving those available to me. 

Eventually, my Dad was rotated out of the Bishopric so my parents allowed me to officially move into the office room. They moved out the sofa bed and dad’s large desk, but I kept the library of worldly literature and the phone! At age 9, I had my own room for the first time since I was an infant when we still lived in the old house and there were only 3 children. I still can’t believe my mother let me go right to sin downstairs- she should have seen it coming. She still did her parental duty by rummaging through my room and reading my journals while I was at school, just to be sure I wasn’t placing illicit phone calls, and wasn’t listening to MTV music in secret, as far as she could detect. 

What we were (barely) allowed to watch was Saturday night’s Solid Gold, with host Marilyn McCoo. That’s how Mindy knew about Rick Springfield, who was her celebrity crush when she was 11. At our house, we spent Saturday night getting ready for Sunday (there’s a whole Mormon primary song about it) and I imagine the parents tolerated Solid Gold because the girls would hold still long enough to get curlers or braids in their hair before bed. The price we paid to watch was to endure the parent’s displays of disdain over the gratuitous hip gyrations (and my heavens, Rick Springfield’s ear piercing!?) under constant threat of having the TV turned off or the channel changed, should the subject matter become too scandalous. 

Dad would amble by on his way to the bedroom where he mostly hid, would catch a glimpse of the dancers in their French-cut leotards and would fume, stomp and twist his face into a grimace, saying “That’s disgusting, why do they dance around naked like a bunch of weirdos! Nobody wants to see their privates. PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!” and then would go back to watching MASH on his bedroom TV. The World was worming its way into the Hall household through the television and possibly through the phone. 

My two older sisters and I were very focused on getting our weekly Solid Gold, so we could know who was at the top of the charts, since we didn’t have MTV this was our line into the World. We also had radio stations that played the latest hits for cross-reference as to who is at the top of the charts. I never saw these charts, but I knew they were important in 1983. As Solid Gold dancers twirled and bent over in their themed snazzy leotards and gold lame headbands, in a never ending variety of skimpy outfits to dazzlingly dance out each number on the countdown, my father would come back out of his room, squint at the screen and ape revulsion and disgust at the rampant mullets, and displays of flesh and he would shame us for wanting to pervert our eyes with these losers. I am pretty sure there was a lot of cocaine happening backstage on the set of Solid Gold, and my father was sure, too- although we didn’t talk about drugs too much- it breeds too much curiosity.

One Saturday night on Solid Gold there was an appearance by the person who broke the ice and caused the sin to flow into me at the age of 10. This individual did something I had never seen before- and the name was even more puzzling. I had heard the new hit song on the radio while doing chores last week and again in the car on the way to school. It was unlike any of the rock music the Solid Gold Dancers were dancing out on the weekly countdown. The voice was lilting, like a woman’s but a deep baritone with a soul vibe. It was an ethnic sound (gasp!). And it had a really catchy chorus: “Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go-o-o!” I was curious while listening on the radio, but had no idea what I was about to see on Solid Gold. 

It was Culture Club's debut in 1983. 

Electrifying.

What was this? He’s obviously a Boy- the name says that, but ... .he was so beautiful, that was not a kind of masculinity I had ever seen. He was not that- he was something else. Dressed in a swishy tan suit with pantaloons and a frilly bow at his neck. His hair had plats of sparkling, fluttering ribbon and braids cascading down his shoulders, and a streak of blue hair underneath a precariously balanced felt hat. Boy George looked like Madonna, but a Boy!? His carefully sculpted eyebrows and campy shimmering eye-shadow mesmerized me- I was perplexed and captivated all at once. 

“Dancing around all fancy! What a freak!” Dad would interject from the hallway. But we didn’t have to change the channel yet. 

This was the first time I had ever seen androgyny. Up until this moment in time, my parents had successfully shielded me from gender offenders like David Bowie, T-Rex, and Jimi Hendrix and had done a great job screening out any historical knowledge about the sex, drugs and/or rock and roll culture from the 70’s. It was an informational blackout in our household. But Solid Gold pierced that Iron Dome of Protection and steadily chipped away at it, week by week while my parents helplessly watched. 

I had been allowed to listen to Mom’s Beatles records, she had A Hard Day’s Night and even Rubber Soul on vinyl- and also had The Doors and Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. Those were Dad’s. I had been allowed awareness generally about the 60’s and the whole civil rights, feminist hippie stuff, but it was a very vague, whitewashed version of the LSD influenced mass protests and the tuning in and dropping out of a generation slightly younger than they were. 

Seeing Boy George as the representation of Flouting the Faith, he opened the doors for my private research into other rebels and freaks. Mom liked 50’s rock, and would always switch the radio station back to the anesthetic Golden Oldies and would sing along rather than allow a Billy Idol song to be heard by the kids in the back seat. I had a taste for fancy men.

The next week on Solid Gold Culture Club was back, after counting down the latest hits with a 30 second snippet of the song danced out by the parade of Solid Gold Dancers, a different one in a different skimpy leotard for each song on the countdown.

The camera moved over to a single Solid Gold Dancer- the one with the high forehead, the Black one. She was in a bejewelled nude leotard and G-string and slithering around like a snake on stage to Duran Duran’s “Union of the Snake”, the number 2 hit song on the countdown. When the spotlight over her writhing glistening body and massive fluffy mane went dark it was time for the number one song to be performed before the Solid Gold audience. Because of the Solid Gold Dancer- this one in particular used to trigger Mom more than the other dancers, I could tell she was quickly reaching the limits of what the Spirit would allow in her household. We were on thin ice.

 I could feel the tension in the living room coming from Mom, just her command of silence was enough to send zaps of guilt and shame like lasers into all of us while we continued to watch- eyeballs unabated- we hadn’t reached the CHANGE THE CHANNEL level yet, but these dancers also really set my Dad off. So, good thing he wasn’t shuffling by at this moment- he would have stomped across the living room and turned it off himself dramatically, and then unleash preaching tirade onto his 3 oldest daughters about how devious and disgusting and terrible these corruptive influences were, and that if we cared about eternity at all we would stop being so stupid by insisting on watching this garbage. “It causes brain damage!” he would bellow with bulging eyes. 

But he wasn’t around for this week’s number 1 song of the week.

Marilyn McCoo, with her pointy shoulder pads gripped the microphone in her perfectly dainty hands and joyfully looked into the camera. She sealed my fate as a doomed saint when she announced the new number one song this week:  

“Performing their new number one song this week, THE CHURCH OF THE POISON MIND, here’s Culture Club!” And the harmonica began to wail. 

This song title turned the Censor Dial immediately all the way to “Forbidden”. 

“That’s enough.” Mother sternly spat, yanking the last curler into Mindy’s hair. “Change the channel to something nicer.” She always spoke in a song, making it sound nice, but we all knew she was angry underneath her mom mask.

“Nooooo!” Mindy protested. Mom scowled with disgust as Culture Club’s intro continued. The title could not be more blatantly wicked. What has become of our culture, she was horrified. 

  I got up slowly, had to obey but….slowly, towards the large TV in the corner of the living room while the upbeat rhythm and screeching harmonica of the new number one hit pounded sin out into the room like a pulsing audible lava flow of damnation, every second counted until the channel got changed. “Hurry!” Mom snapped, recognizing the slow walking of a reluctant soldier and whipping me back into formation with a stinging glance from her bloodshot eyes, she enforced her morality boundaries hopefully before too much damage. I didn’t hurry fast enough though, and her urgency in getting this wanton display of shameful filth off the TV as fast as possible only served to generate more interest on my part. What IS a Church of a poisoned mind, anyway? What does that mean? Sounds bad! But intriguing!

I didn’t get to find out- I didn’t get to see Culture Club’s second hit performance, but the intro and then the denial to watch it was enough to make a bona fide pervert out of me.

 I punched 1-1 on the panel of the actual TV- we didn’t have remotes then, switching it to public television channel eleven. A safe channel. Back to a rerun of Lawrence Welk…..like an auditory and visual quaalude, calming and predictable, and so popular at one time I’ve heard. Welk was always what calmed mom down. Thank goodness! 

There were no other protestations, we sat quietly and watched the more conservatively clothed singers and dancers belt out boring ancient songs that did not have a good beat and made me feel sleepy to watch. My hair was braided, I was not sticking around for the end of the Lawrence Welk Show. The rot had taken hold in my brain. I was officially corrupt at that moment. 

Boy George was my touchstone who led me to seek Outer Darkness. 

If it turns out there is a heaven and I die and have to sit through the movie of my life while being judged at the Pearly Gates, that Solid Gold episode would be the part of my life that would prove where I first went wrong. I had slipped out of the cloister of purity and onto the pathway to Outer Darkness. Culture Club, but Boy George specifically is responsible for captivating my curiosity, then breaking my mind open to ideas about gender identity and expressions of individuality. To be ruined by this London Club kid who merrily put on a good performance and had a look so unique and different he was an instant spectacle in the US. Highlighted as some kind of oddity, both ridiculed and also followed closely with curiosity all about this man in this band who wears makeup like a woman but calls himself a boy- these were very verboten ideas in Utah, and probably still are to this day. 

His androgyny was dangerous because he wasn’t in drag, per se- he was not trying to be a woman, and made no pretenses about his sexual identity like many other pop stars did at the time (George Michael, famously)! He was openly gay and defied any gender norm I had ever seen and he seemed happy and like a lot of fun! I knew about transvestites, as we called trans folks back then. They were also obviously reviled in our household- perverts and filthy f*ags, according to Bishop Dad.  I found gender-benders fascinating and Boy George was the pinnacle of individuality and authenticity expressed, opposite of the Church's strict dress codes and pressures to stick to ultra feminine and masculine expressions. The inbetweeners like Boy George were troublesome flies in the ointment of what was most sacred in the Church: breeding. He was more than just a silly guy, he represented the sin of not reproducing an atomic family. There are no out queers in the Celestial Kingdom, so to glorify Boy George was to turn away from the celestial destiny my parents had mapped out for all of their children. Boy George has already made his choice. I had made mine at 8 already too, so if I were to turn away, I would go to Outer Darkness, aka Mormon Hell along with Boy George. I didn’t even know at that age what it meant to be gay, but if ever there was a queer, it would be Boy George, for certain.

After this revelation of a True Rebel I went on to emulate him in dress, acquiring a trench coat and a hat, braiding my hair and wearing men’s suit vests with costume jewelry and lace skirts and combat boots. I could be just like Boy George and I didn’t have to be a boy or a girl- just a mish-mash of both, why not? There was Culture Club merchandising at that time, and I had acquired a sheet of Boy George and Culture Club puffy stickers for my book covers and diary. I used Halloween as an excuse to do my most outlandish Boy George impersonation in a costume, with full Kabuki makeup and braids, shimmery long tunic and cropped pants to show off my heavy boots. A very upsetting scene for my parents, who looked the other way since it was, after all, just a Halloween costume. Maybe she will get it out of her system if we ignore it, it will peter out. I am sure that’s what they hoped. 

Well, they were wrong. I still dress like Boy George, and it's not even on purpose; He’s part of my identity now, all because my parents let me watch Solid Gold. I still identify with today’s Boy George, if you haven’t read any of his autobiographies, I do strongly recommend them. He has been through some things, and so have I, and we both somehow survived jail, scandal, court dramas, addiction and the struggle to be independent and authentic while also being protected by a unique persona- we aren’t that different. 

I’ll tumble 4 ya, Boy George,

Yours forever.