Dance BB Dance! January 1983 This is a special journal about the awakening of BB. It's a weekend which altered them to the core. Happily... they were never the same again.
(July 2020 NOTE: Soon after this journal we found a big box of cassette tapes at a thrift store. Mostly 50's and 60's music. The playlist below came from the best of those tapes. We adopted them as their dance songs and choreographed a dance for each song.)
(October 2021 NOTE: I found the journal about the mix tape. It's been added to this journal.) BB's Dance Mix May 1983
Select a music library from the list
Written January 1983
I can't believe what they did last night, and they want to do it again! Sooner or later I'm going to write every detail of the weekend. OK, I started off at the end and I want to tell how it began. So, from the beginning now.
Since the day we fell in love BB have been way too interested in looking at other women. With no first hand experience they bug for my perspective, and want juicy talk about my experiences with women. No explicit detail is enough for their curiosity.
Several times we drove to the far side of LA to be sure no sailors would be around, so BB could relax and have fun. The topless bars we found are all old and gross. The nude clubs are worse. None of the dancers try and they all look like they're on drugs. BB thought I was nuts telling them about Vicki's bar in San Diego, how alive it is and how beautiful the women are. They thought I was lying about the only nude club on B street.
This will be easier if we can all get in the same duty section, and we'll have twice as much liberty time together. For now it took weeks before all three of us had Saturday and Sunday off. It was a special weekend. We drove to San Diego in Bren's car and planned on sleeping in it. It was too cold so we got a motel room.
First thing Friday evening I showed the girls to Vicki's bar. Holy cow they went boot camp crazy! Saturday night was worse when boot camp liberty had the bar full. Later we went to a couple off B street topless bars that were even better than Vicki's. I heard about them after boot camp but they really needed a car. I talked BB out of going to a nude club until Saturday night, to build anticipation.
Saturday morning we searched the Navy bases in San Diego for my friend Cindy. BB wanted to meet her, become friends with my friend, and probably had other thoughts since I told them she's more than just smarts. By 11am we gave up on finding Cindy and rode the train to Tijuana. Plenty of scummy girly spots there, but not much fun for them. Mostly we pigged out on cheap street food and walked back across the border.
Saturday afternoon and most of the day Sunday I relived my time with Vicki and took BB along. We did a bunch of things Vicki and I did. It was nice sharing my love with my loves. There has to be a way to find her. She should have written by now.
I made BB sit with me in the YMCA movie room, eating popcorn and drinking sodas. The movie was bad but I didn't care. I wanted us to have that as a shared experience for the rest of our lives. It represents the last hours of my bad years missing Tami. You gave me a new life BB, with love, happiness and a beautiful future. I love you. Somehow it doesn't take away from my love for Tami or Vicki. Maybe one day soon we'll see them.
(2020 note: since finding this journal six or eight months ago, I've cried hard when reading what I wrote in January of 1983. Nearly 38 years later my feelings for all four of them are unchanged. I love you girls. 25 years since BB died. 37 years and 12 days since I last held Vicki. 41 years since Tami was last seen, with only two contacts since... and it makes no difference. I still feel as though I'm going to die without all four. It's not right. It's not fair to have been deprived of them for so long, to have lived with 4 deep loves in my heart and none in my life.)
Saturday evening BB and I went to the B street nude club and I couldn't drag them out. We were there 7 or 8 hours while BB made the party for everybody. They flirted with the dancers in a way that shocks me, acting like full fledged lesbians with a lot of experience. They had those women creaming their G-strings at the thought of having both of them at the same time. The place has little rooms where they take boot camp boys to get naked and lay down with a naked dancer, to have a Polaroid picture taken. It's pathetic when those boys do it. They pay as much as the woman can get. Several dancers asked BB for pictures and the girls did it, no charge. The dancers just wanted to see BB naked. BB just wanted to try being naked with another woman.
We sat in the pervert pit except for nude ins. That's when they pass a boot camp's Dixie cup (white sailor hat) in circles around the pit. Whoever has it when the music stops, gets on stage and starts stripping to the music. Soon the dance floor is full of naked new sailors and strippers. A nude in. Not me, those dumb boots are all bouncing around up there with erections. BB stayed in the pit and bailed out fast when they realized what happens. Shoulda listened to me.
The dancers were really disappointed when we left. BB led them on until each one thought we'd go home with her. Back on base in Long Beach Sunday night, we sat in the car in the mole park parking lot and talked about women for hours. BB can't decide if they want to be exclusive. I've had enough sleeping around, but BB never have and they are their only girl experience. I love you girls, I have no problem supporting your choice.
The last several weekends we found nice topless bars in LA. BB are kids in a candy store. More mature, but they still remind me of the endless string of boot camp boys in San Diego. Whooping and hollering for the women they're trying to get excited, they've had fun.
I'm trying to decide if I think last night was too much. They got too involved with the club manager's girlfriend. She invited them on stage and they did it. Girls, I love you, but you can't dance. You made a pile of tips by being two women in love with each other, not for the performance. You need Vicki to teach you.
BB, this will be in the trunk tomorrow night when I'm on duty. I know you're reading it. The bush needs to go. Women in the female berthing compartment will just have to deal with bald BB in the showers.
To wrap this up, we're doing a hedge trimming party Thursday night in a cheap motel someplace. They want to clean it up before Friday night. Girls, Vicki and her friends were pro. They waxed each other. Didn't look like it hurt as much as you think and it was soooo.....
(2020 NOTE: The songs above were the mix tape we carried to nude clubs where BB danced. I've been listening to BB's songs several times a year for over 20 years, whenever I can't stand missing them. One day Susan found the album/directory on my hard drive. The directory name told her what the songs were. From then on she got jealous every time I played BB's songs.) June 1, 1983
Yesterday was spent driving home from Long Beach. It's my eighth year here. Home in plenty of time yesterday to watch the sunset on our pick-nik table in the park on Tami's 22nd birthday. I have to start the drive back in a few hours, to get to my bunk before midnight. After two hard days driving I'm going to need five hours sleep before reveille. I should be enjoying myself instead of worrying about that right now.
Last night I wrote about "Sunset In The Park" as the sun set in the park. This is supposed to be about BB's mix tape. Get on track!
Back at the Love tree in Hall park. It's been a while since I wrote here. Nothing has changed since the first time. All that's missing is the four women I love. The Love tree is better shared.
On to the mix tape...
BB wanted their own music to dance by, with no thought of what it should be. One day at Sergeants in LA, there was a big box of old cassette tapes. Excitement was high when one of them spotted the box. Both scrambling, grabbing tapes from the box and quickly evaluating... no... country... this one is big band, can't dance to that... Elvis? Never! The pile of reject tapes on the table, was soon too big and overflowed onto the floor.
Bev cried in disgust "Nothing good here!" Bren responded "It's all too old." I suggested "It needs to be 60s hits for the club crowd." With 50 tapes remaining in the box, all those that weren't quickly rejected, the man accepted our $3 offer.
It was March then and still a cold wind blew in from the ocean. We three sat quietly studying our find on a near empty Santa Monica Pier. Each sat silently with a Walkman. Bad sounds blaring in our ears. Rejecting more while viewing and queing some, to eventually share for consensus. We selected tapes for the DJs to play.
BB danced and tested many songs, waking up in the "No Roach Motel." It's been difficult getting the DJs to cooperate, playing one song each from several tapes. It's also difficult to keep the tapes que'd. Last night, K-Mart provided a big pack of blank tapes. I spent about six hours in the kitchen creating one master tape, and four hours this morning making four copies. I'll make four more before driving back.
September 2020
I found one of the tapes in my parents garage in the late 90s. It was old and nasty with no chance of playing, but BB's tiny writing was all over it, reminding me of the songs we chose. Our options were limited. We chose songs from tapes that were in a big box in a thrift store in Long Beach.
Unlike any other dancers, BB put on a real show. They had a routine for each song and it drove sad pathetic fat balding 30 something men crazy in the 80s. These songs were chosen for that audience, it's songs that are very popular with men who grew up in the 60s. Except for Queen. That song was chosen because BB kicked ass to it.
February 19, 2021
Today is our 38th wedding anniversary, by date. It's Friday so tomorrow is the third Saturday of the month, our official anniversary. I've been thinking of them, of course, and mostly remembering the best times. That's not the usual case on our anniversary. I usually think more of the years without them. So here's a thought from today... thirty-eight years later.
I used my Walkman to queue the tape, before giving it to the DJ. If they chose Queen to start, then BB refused to come out of the un-dressing rooms until the DJ started the song. Sometimes I had to go back and bitch at DJs to get them to start the music. The dummies didn't understand and tried to force BB to do the normal thing, stand on stage looking stupid while they waited for the DJ to start the music.
I would give anything for a video of BB coming out of a dressing room, stomping and clapping to the beginning of "We Will Rock You" as they danced past tables of pathetic desperate men. On stage they weren't just dancing, they were living the music and loving us. It was obvious to everyone who saw them dance. 30 seconds into Queen and every guy in the place was crowded around the pervert pit, tossing bills to them.
Today I fear I'm going to die soon and there'll be nobody in the world to remember them. I doubt anyone anywhere actually misses them, or thinks of them. All we're leaving of ourselves in the world are these web pages, and Google's policy is to delete after two years of inactivity.
Why couldn't my life have been filled with the love of the women I love? That's all I've ever wanted since I was ten years old. I'm intelligent enough to have managed anything I wanted from the universe, but I never wanted anything else. I taught myself four languages in three months. I could have done anything.
As honestly as possible, I often analyze my life without my loves. I've looked and ruled out the possibility of self fulfilling prophesy. I didn't create the situation, it was just bad circumstances. It's just the life I got. It could have been much worse. I could have made people, only by accident of course. Or worse, I could have never found true love at all. That's the thought which helps me understand "most" people's blind view of the universe.
I look at the pre-programmed life most people live and it makes me very sad. I thank Tami for my avoidance of it. At fourteen, she was already certain she'd never make people. Before she told me that I had never considered a life beyond what the lunatics push as the only option. Get married, make people, white picket fence, grandchildren and etc... The instant of Tami's declaration of a life different from the program, was a major turning point in my life. It gave me options to consider. It gave me inspiration. It gave me hope. It came on one of our very first meetings, perhaps laying in the grass in her front yard, the second time we saw each other. ❤❤❤❤
Tami,
I've loved you even more than I could have imagined. I constantly wonder if you've remembered me as more than as a passing love from your childhood. Your letter in 2004 gave me hope that you still love me, and think of me. More than hope, it clearly said that you think of me and want me. I desperately need to hear the truth of it, straight from you. I need to know if I've been loved or forgotten all my life.
I still can't imagine how we lived our lives apart, but I suspect jealousy has something to do with it. It's an emotion I don't understand because I have no point of reference for it. Jealousy is certain to be the cause of you never ringing your doorbell. The 2004 letter made that clear to me.
I love you more than words can tell. My only need in the universe has been to tell you I love you, for you to finally know that my promise was kept. In one way or another, all the pages on my Google site are dedicated to telling you about me. I may not know jealousy, but I know fear and indecision. I don't know how yet, but I'm going to find a way to give you the chance to read every word. It's the only real reason I did any of this.
