Jon-Henri Damski: Queer Thinker, Gay Writer

Part II: Community Chronicler and Word Banger

by Michael Spitz

As Outlines/Nightlines columnist Jon-Henri Damski gets set to retire this fall, due in part to his cancer-related illness, we continue this month with the second of a three-part series on his career as an activist and writer. Damski's newest book, Angels Into Dust, volume one of a series of books based on his stories, is now available from Firetrap Press at Unabridged and People Like Us bookstores.

Jon-Henri Damski is certainly the consummate professional, never having missed a deadline in 30 years with Gay Chicago, GayLife, Windy City Times, Outlines, and Nightlines: As Richard Cooke, good friend, one-time coat check boy, trash journalist, fellow lecherous old fuck and grandmaster of the shiteating grin comments: "Henri's very methodical, theological, even. He really delves into his writing and has developed his own mindset. We've always written for rival papers, but we've never been competitive, per se, because I've mostly gone on about disco and mischievous madness. I mean, half the time, I honestly don't know what the fuck Henri's even talking about! My mission has always been to think of a good story that would embarrass the hell out of a guy like Damski, but I can't think of a goddamned thing, at least in his case. I mean, he's basically un-embarrassable, since he honestly and openly doesn't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck, either, which is why we can sit around every day in the Unintelligible Coffee House and not murder each other!"

Cooke, a Chicago suburban native, rolled back into town from New York City around 1976, conning his way into a scribbling gig with GayLife as the local spincritic and shameless bullshit promulgator. With each gay generation perhaps three or four years long, 1976 seems like ancient herstory, characterized by Jimmy Carter, The Shah of Iran, The Bee Gees and Peter Brown's "Dance With Me," Jesus. Cooke's first column, "Barflying," appeared opposite Damki's "Nothing Personal," which by chance happened to get published in Gay Chicago News. Reminisces Damski: "I was born with bad eyes and dyslexia, so when I first came to Chicago and wanted to write a column, I checked the phone book for the address of what I considered to be the newspaper of that era, GayLife. Accidentally, I got the listing for GC News, and sent them my stuff, instead. All of a sudden, Ralph Paul Gernhardt called me back, 'Oh! Another Mark Twain! Genius! We can use you! Come on over! Write for us!' So that was the official start to my career in Chicago typo journalism."

Cooke and Damski display yet another study in complementary, completely compatible, opposites. "Fundamentally, what Damski and I have in common is our shared status as dislodged individuals, freaks who haven't really found our particular place or niche, and don't even want to - We just kick back, and enjoy the day as it comes. We're both contrarians, too, you say 'yes,' we'll say 'no,' if only to stir shit up, expose some of the bullshit, fight for what we believe in, if there's anything even left. Remember, Damski's no spring chicken, how old is she anyway? Eighty-, ninety-years-old?" The shiteating grin returns, an eclipse at midday, god that noon moon can be bright! Have another espresso, Dick. "But he remains a big fighter when most of the rest of us old farts have burned out: He keeps chugging along, has given the community an unalienable contribution. This guy writes, goddammit, and writes with integrity and total devotion."

Damski outlines his creative process: "I start out with something clever, a quirky observation about something banal, a backdoor, backroom analysis of what's in everyone's face, yet gets taken for granted. Then I go into what I call 'quasi-modo' - Instead of employing logic, I construct an 'as if' situation, making suggestions, hiding the obvious, exposing the hidden, somehow telling stories along the way. It's not like I'm making a hard argument, just stating disconnected facts. Some of my readers work much harder than I do, but that's fine. I like games, and words offer an excellent opportunity to play them. I might come across sometimes as scholarly and aloof, but I find my grounding wherever I can, I carry around my rock, it's not like I'm distant & cruel." To verify both assertions, Damski produces a large stone from his pocket, and tosses it onto the Formica Granny's Diner table top. A waitress, swinging by to fill coffee cups, doesn't take any notice. Presumably, she's seen that rock before.

Damski got to Chicago in the mid-'70s, when he was 36, and people took him for 26. He likes to mention how when he was 17 in his native Seattle, people thought he was 36, so somewhere along the way, an inversion occurred, one that transformed his entire attitude. Chicago his threshold, his Cave of Platonic musing devoid of any Shakespearean misanthropy, his exodus from home town allowed him the freedom to finally and completely escape the shackles of convention. A Generation-Xer decades before Mike Milken and Kurt Cobain, a gay hippie chemically straight, a devoted Beatles fan in a Rolling Stone culture, gay writer to the intellectuals and a die hard queer among the gays, Damski embodies, on page and off, the quintessential Colin Wilson Outsider.

"I've always been aware of myself as a freak: The 'JHD Look,' t-shirt with necktie, has been my trademark fashion statement, neither here nor there, embracing everything and nothing - Punk before punk was cool, I was simultaneously inside and outside the drug scene. I lived it, never did it. I was the one who hopped on board the Cosmic Ship, just loved that Tim Leary stuff, while my favored role was as the Designated Space Rider. I knew all along that if I wanted to write crazy, and act crazy, and dress crazy, I didn't want to do the drugs, because then detractors would have an excuse, and say 'Oh, that's because he's on drugs.' I always sit and fly in the smokers' section, even though I don't smoke: The company's better. I report with a clean sheet ... . Doing and dealing at the same time is a bad idea."

"Jon's drugs of choice are sugar and coffee," adds Arthur Johnston of Sidetrack.

That Damskiesque approach, one of concurrent inversion and extroversion, inverted foreground and background but mostly playground, characterizes much of his work.

"Somehow, I manage to touch both levels. I give you what I can, when I want to: No need for additional comment, all I promise is a queer thought. When Limelight [nightclub] first opened, it was such an important place you couldn't get in, Sun-Times reporters trying to bulldoze their way inside with their press passes. But I chose to stay outside, since that's where the real story was! Michael Omega and I would live this same kind of inside/outside life. One night we both trekked into the Glory Hole on Wells with a boom box. While on the other side of the wall, Omega cranked up a Patti Smith tune, instantly offending the whole indigenous gay sex group - It often got so bad they'd chase us out of places with baseball bats. We turned the gays into queers, at least in an antagonistic way, which was only proper, and very much in keeping with our style. Meanwhile, we were just trying to have a good time, express ourselves as free agents, without an attitude or party line. No horizontal or vertical leverage. The big mystery about us, about our whole perspective, was that there wasn't any mystery at all. You can say exactly the same thing about my writings, all my work."

Cooke continues: "By the time I got to Babble, writing my '10,000 BTU's' column in honor of my air conditioner, Henri just wanted to push me into everybody's face, 'cause he gets off on shit like that. So, I snooped around, and usually found some juicy stuff that would subsequently get me into lots of trouble. My editor Malone would read my shit, turn to me, utterly appalled, 'Is this monstrous bullshit true?' and I would scratch my chin, grin and say, 'Uh, I don't know - What do you think?' Henri's always been a great support mechanism, telling me that if I persisted, I'd be the most-read columnist in town. He was right, because the second my crap went to press, the phone started ringing off the hook, every faggot in town wanting to sue me! Bogus fundraisers, effervescing dishonesty and unconscionable corruption on every level, my only question would be the one they could never answer, which was: 'Where's the fucken money?' What money?! Meanwhile, I catch a respected restaurateur washing his soiled Calvins with her tablecloths, while I relate an adventure in my own food emporium, the Bazooka Cafe, one involving autoeroticism in the basement on a slow morning and turkey sandwiches with extra mayo. Of course, there's many a fine Chicago establishment where my illustrious presence is now no longer welcome, but that's the price you pay for being a responsible journalist with balls. Who, me worry? They don't pay my check. Besides, I'm not proud. I work, for chrissakes. I'd even peddle my ass, if I only could ... ."

Malone Sizelove, publisher of Gag, Babble and now Gab, knows a thing or two about getting his own ass sued. But she takes it all in stride, though, with bottomless drink and event comps, action photo montages of assorted drag queens and club freaks, and unique office ergonomics which allows him to sleep where and while he works. Knowing Damski from about town, Malone, a fellow queer-spirit and rogue reporter, when asked for a quote, said: "Let me smoke a joint and I'll get right back to you on this." Click.

Amid all the Damskian mayhem, however, a life lived and written within EdgeCity, a fall, toward one direction or another, was inevitable. But as Lori Cannon adds, "Jon-Henri, at one point or another, has written for every gay paper in this city. We've supported him unconditionally when the times were difficult, but Jon-Henri's always managed to bounce right back, pounding those keys exactly where he left off." Arthur Johnston sez: "He's like the NEA - When you cut budgets, he's the first one to go. He's been the highest paid and the lowest paid columnist in town, but he's always stuck to his guns. For example, one time between paper stints, when his money was particularly low, some friends, just trying to offer some helpful suggestions, went up to him, 'Well, hell, Henri, why don't you just get a job, wait tables or something. You know, if you're of the people, why not serve the people?' To which Jon blurted out: 'I have a job!' He's always had a very strong sense of his role, his job, that of documenting and analyzing our community, and he continually works very hard at it. The queer angle, no matter where it might be hiding, never escapes him. For example, he was the first to point out the homoerotic undertones prevalent during the male bonding we witness at Wrigley Field: He has the eye, his own unique, incredibly perceptive queer angle." Or, as JHD himself has observed: "Over the years, I've been even more stubborn than I thought I would be, thought I could be."

From Gay Chicago to GayLife to Windy City Times to his current tenure at Outlines and Nightlines, he's certainly "slept around," as Albert Williams mentions, while Henri's devoted readership has followed him, new recruits picked up at each stage, die hard fans never letting him go. "My strategy was to submit my columns at the very last possible moment before deadline, to preclude publishers from making any editorial changes, since the silent editor is my favorite kind. I got published enough until I got an audience, and then that audience supported me, one way or another. I'm reader-based, best proven when I wasn't even getting published. The readers have been there all the time, so much so that between writing gigs, the hustlers have even helped me out: They told their sugar daddies, hey, we gotta help this guy out, and they did. Sure, things have been tough at times, but I knew it'll all work itself out, and it has. What else is there?"

"Jon-Henri Damski can be likened to Chicago's own Quentin Crisp, minus the effeminacy, accent, and funny hats," sez Albert Williams, currently chief theatre critic with The Reader, formerly an editor with GayLife and Windy City Times. "Damski's Bill Burroughs without the smack, Homer with Rock 'n' Roll, Mike Royko without the bigotry, and, like Vernon Jarrett, the former Sun-Times columnist who was criticized for conflict of interest because of his civil rights activities, Damski's been one of the few writers able to cross the line effectively between journalism, poetry and activism."

After about five years with Gay Chicago, Damski found himself at GayLife as featured cover columnist. "He's eccentric in the very best sense of that word," adds Williams. The middle of the '80s brought changes, however, everything from AIDS to Jane Byrne vs. Harold Washington, biological, political and social transformation shaking the foundation of gay living and publishing. The tectonic forces pushed the favored writer off the cover and into Ringo Starr drag, six months of relying on a little help from his friends. By September of 1985, Damski, per usual, had found a fresh fag rag home, this time with the newly formed Windy City Times. "Many talented people defected to WCT," redlines Williams, "and getting Damski along for the show genuinely promoted the new publication and was a decisive force in making that paper a success - And that paper lost a lot of its heart, mind and soul when he left it."

A decade later, May 1995, and Jon-Henri again found himself looking for a home, this time due to allegations surrounding information released to Cooke at Malone's rag, Babble. Most queens not taking well to slips, however pink, Damski's reaction was typically unexpected: "I feel like a fired-up man, not a fired man," he told The Reader. As a Scottish Proverb states, it's certainly better to wear-out shoes than sheets. American translation: Better to be fucked-out of a job than to be fucked-up at one. Remember Crumb? (The cartoonist, not the composer:) Keep On Truckin', Daddy - Tenacious, stubborn, idiosyncratic and engaging, neither advancing age nor being forced along a scenic route through varied ping-pong publishing experiences deflected Damski from his seemingly bottomless, top-down enthusiasm, his banged words, or his faithful, patient audience. Tracy Baim, who had parted from WCT to start her own venture in May of 1987, Outlines and then Nightlines (now including Blacklines, En La Vida, OUT! and CLOUT!) , eventually hired the shipwrecked scribe a few years ago. "Mine is the only paper he hasn't been fired from yet," Ms. Baim summarized her Damski hiring decision to the media. Damski has been writing for Ms. Baim regularly since.

The sparks of editorial discord long ago extinguished in the dusty annals of outdated advertisement, mnemonic irrelevancy and the linings of many a bird and hamster cage, ex-publishers now come forward to accentuate the significance of Jon-Henri's role both as writer and activist. Jeff McCourt, publisher of Windy City Times, states that "Jon-Henri Damski possesses an uncanny ability to find the universal in the particulars of his stories. He's always given a voice to the voiceless. Damski is and always has been an important voice for the Gay and Lesbian Community, a voice formed from over 20 years of active participation and astute observation." Ralph Paul Gernhardt, publisher of Gay Chicago, concurs: "Damski writes with the highest standard of any gay writer in the country. He displays an incredibly elastic writing ability, and keeps himself constantly fired-up."

One wonders, then, why they let him go in the first place: Perhaps Damski's "non-linear" style of thinking has rubbed off on his ex-publishers, too. Anyway, Damski might have found himself repeatedly canned, but his letters of recommendation remain outstanding.

"I was a faggot inside a queer paper at [Windy City]," Damski qualifies. "I was a queer inside a gay paper at [Gay Chicago]. They all had a problem with my whole schtick. I do my work, but I don't associate well with people who imagine that they are my bosses. In the long run, it's a good thing. When I first came here to Chicago, I brought my rock [fondling the actual specimen as he speaks], so I say let's roll, let's hit rock bottom. That's all I had, but I held on to it."

The first to understand the line between capitulation and resistance, between running toward a situation and running away, Damski orbits only himself, shifting ellipses of a queer Spirograph powered by epicycles of chaos and crayolas. Like that Hubert H. Humphrey once said: "The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one." Damski, for a while at least, was stuck with Hubert Humphrey. "I always pay my rent first, and the rest somehow takes care of itself. I've studied Marx long enough to know what capital's about: There's a hitch to being poor, so we can't kid ourselves. You always have to take care of yourself. I rock, and then I roll. But I've made it! Living this funny way, the queer way I do, I'm immune to anyone's consultation. I'm a free man because I'm a queer thinker, not in spite of it." Indeed, brass tacks Damski insists on using a manual typewriter for all his work. "That's his style, completely in keeping with his cut of mind," sez Lori Cannon. Karl Marx also had a similar opinion: "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." "I tried to hook him up with a computer, teach him how to use it," remembers pal Vernon Huls, "but it just never happened." Perhaps that's a good thing as well - Imagine this queer thinker with a command of cut 'n' paste ...

Malone, finally pixilated, who's never hired Damski and therefore never fired him, who's with much perspicacity referred to Damski as "The Chicago Socrates," at long last adds his own editorial comment: "Jon-Henri is the grand pixelation of single pixels from anyone I have & will ever know. He's everyman, he's his own man, he's my man. Go Yankees!" All along, we've clocked JHD as a Cubs kinda guy, but whatever. Damski's certainly black and blue, though, inside and outside, those pixels still pixelating. Rock on! Oh, and don't forget yer stone.

Jon-Henri Damski writes with integrity and honesty, never compromising that truth as he sees it, never hiding behind the myth of objectivity - Sometimes, though, he's called on the shots. A recent letter sent to him c/o Outlines, dexterously typed on bond paper ("You can tell this is the kind of reader who works much harder than I do," suggests Damski) and demonstratively polysyllabic, took issue with a recent columnski concerning "various homosexual sexual practices," as Vernon Huls tactfully puts it.

"My fist-fucking column was a huge favorite among the masses," elaborates Damski. Specifically, the Q-Scribe offered a humorous retraction of a piece he had written early on in his career. Suggesting then that such a sexual technique was "too radical, dangerous and potentially unsafe," and should be "left to lovers in a long-term relationship," he recently equated his attitude with what he deemed "Straight Thinking." Living in an era when justification in the eyes of the sexual majority is actively pursued by legitimization through mimicry and excuse, Damski judged himself guilty of buying into an alien, however pervasive, value-system. Acknowledging that such acquiescence would automatically put him in league with such illustrious company as closeted power-queen George Stephanopoulos, guppy apologist Andrew Sullivan and recidivist heterosexual Camille Paglia, to name a few "gay" personalities, Damski pulled a damski by dredging up a major boo-boo everyone had forgotten about to successfully remind us all about the importance of retaining our own voice, our own lifestyle, so long as behavior honestly matches belief.

Damski's epistolary companion and literary critic, however, saw the columnist's approach in the retraction as error extrapolated and interpolated to a

higher (lower?) level. In other words, by labeling the mistaken call on fist-fucking an indulgent and unwarranted expression of "Straight Thinking," Damski had merely substituted one artificial and unnatural value-system for another. To categorize an idea as a Straight Thought is to immediately posit its opposite; to insist that one paradigm is more applicable than another is to reconstruct the originally problematic duality, and foist it upon an expression of individual behavior that actually might lie completely outside the ken of judgment or even analytical interpretation.

Damski, aware of the paradox, takes the opportunity to revel in it. "Okay, so the guy busted me for being a Cartesian, not a true Queer Thinker, but so what? Words are just words, ideas just ideas. You play around with them, see where they can take you. Look at what's being said, for and about whom. Take it or leave it."

Damski, willingly yet sparingly succumbing to the Joycean, loves the study of word-origins. Perhaps the classical education is creeping through; maybe he digs the mind-fuck; then again, it might be a great way to generate copy, fill some space. Clearly, the point is to take language apart, demonstrate through the linguistic dissection that most hard ideas are founded in soft words. When you take the time to take the words apart, you discover that one thing actually means another, that all things more-or-less mean the same thing, or no-thing, depending on your mood and point of view.

"Etymology?" Damski smiles and shudders. "Sure, it could be my standing joke. That's what I taught at Bryn Mawr, while sitting down: The etymologies, the jokes. Sooner or later, of course, you keep doing it long enough, and you wind up doing hand symbols, Buddha in the cave, a puppeteer for plutocrats. But I've sought out those useful and enigmatic shadows, knowing them to be more descriptive and distinct than anything reflecting the light. A philosopher's mission should always be to go back into the cave. My cave ended up being Chicago. Low life seeks low life, and it's great to have some fine company, mine being aldermen and queers. But most people don't do that, they don't like the darkness, they want to ascend the Jacobean Ladder - Only to become editors! To be a good writer, though, you've gotta miss the corporate boat entirely, you have to stay faithful to yourself. Origin of the word FELON: The guy holding the whip on the boat, beating the slaves to row faster and harder.

"Today, felons are the politicians. I'm sea sick, though, feeling some nausea, so I stay in my cave, and laugh in the dark."