My Own Private Pee-Wee
I’m not often moved to tears by a celebrity death. Sure, there were people whose work I admired, but the loss was theoretical. Some cut a little deeper because, through the magic of television, they had become friends and family, of a sort. Mary Tyler Moore’s passing hurt. George Michael. Freddie Mercury. This latest, cut even deeper. Paul Reubens, or rather, his mad invention, Pee-Wee Herman, was special. I saw his breakout film “Pee-Wees Big Adventure” three times at the movies the summer of 1985, countless times since on TV. Pee-Wee was poetry and art, mischief with heart. I wasn’t just losing a favorite celebrity, but a piece of myself.
I was lucky enough to see Pee-Wee in person in 2011, when “The Pee-Wee Herman Show” had a brief Broadway run. He was 58 by that time, and the greasepaint couldn’t quite hide the wrinkles or the beginning of a droop at the jowls. But it didn’t matter. He was back again, and the audience couldn’t get enough of him, even if he was a little slower, slightly less nimble.
At intermission, I was giddy from all the silliness, floating to the lobby on a cloud of Pee-Wee magic. And then I saw them. The lobby was filled with hundreds of Pee-Wees. Some sported red bow ties, some vintage Dodger’s uniforms or Boy Scout shirts or porkpie hats. Others didn’t wear a costume at all, they just looked…different…a little spiffy. Who could miss the unmistakable glint in their eyes? A crooked smile that bespoke of untold secrets dying to be told. Most of them, I imagine, were gay, but who could say? Paul Reubens himself never came out, not officially, but one could rightly assume. Pee-Wee shouted gay sensibility, a self-conscious ongoing commentary on camp. Pee-Wee gave license to all of us man-boys to come out of another closet, if even just for a night — to revel in the silly, delight in the devious, to relish making a fool of yourself.
“There are a lot of things about me you don’t know anything about…Things you wouldn’t understand, things you couldn’t understand, things you shouldn’t understand.” This is Pee-Wee talking to Dottie, the girl who pines for him in his first movie. It’s an admission without a declaration. He’s got secrets, and he’s not about to give them up. As a budding gay boy in the late 70s, I, too, had secrets, and if any of my adoring girl friends knew the real truth about me, they wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t love me.
Pee-Wee was the boy who never embraced adulthood. He was the loveable smart aleck who didn’t realize he inhabited a grown man’s body, managing at once to be subversive and innocent. Forever frolicking in his wonky little playhouse, Pee-Wee thrived in the world all boys imagined hiding away in a tree house, or under a tent of blankets in the family den, dreaming of a future of Rube Goldberg inventions with their best friends. Talking chairs and refrigerators, puppet pterodactyls and magic genie heads. He lived in a netherworld, where icky adult things like jobs and sex and relationships couldn’t quite reach him.
But I must confess. I have to come out of another closet. Something you probably wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’tunderstand, but something true. I, too, am Pee-Wee.
I was an old man of 50 when I donned my Pee-Wee outfit for a week of Halloween parties. I’d bought a used glen plaid suit from the Goodwill, tucked and trimmed it into shape with iron-on stitch witchery and a prayer. In an attempt to darken my gray hair, I used a temporary dye that turned out to be all-too-permanent. But who cared? By this time, I was all in. Bow tie, check. Squirting carnation. Double check. The finishing touch: a fresh face of make-up, a touch of the circus and some silent movie panache to complete the look.
I loathe parties, for the most part. And I hate showing up at a costume party in some elaborate get-up only to stand around and “mingle” as just plain old me. I needed to go further if this was to work. I couldn’t rely on costume alone. Now, some might say I was inspired, but it’s more likely I was possessed. For four nights, I was free in ways I’d never imagined. Free to be naughty. Free to be wicked. Free to be 100% Pee-Wee.
At our first party, Pee-Wee arrived in full force. Never once did I slip into standard Doug mode (hiding in the library scanning bookshelves or playing with the puppies in the guest room). Pee-Wee was the life of the party. He borrowed the host’s platform shoes (zebra stripe) for an impromptu performance of “Tequila,” much to the amusement of those accustomed to seeing the reserved Doug head-bopping in a corner. Later, when greeted with an As-salamu alaikumby a costumed sheik, Pee-Wee responded the only way he knew how: A salami ablu blu.
Everyone, I believe, had the best time, although the hostess’s twelve-year old son later admitted “Mom, Pee-Wee scared me.”
Not half as much as he scared me. And he wasn’t finished with me. Not yet.
There was the costume parade in the seaside town. There, amongst the kids in Princess, Transformer, and Ninja Turtle costumes, Pee-Wee arrived with Liberace (my husband Andy), as his date. Forty year old women were throwing themselves at me, taking pictures. I was a celebrity! But it wasn’t me. It was Pee-Wee.
The next night, my voice already hoarse and cramped from mimicking Pee-Wee’s trade-marked clenched-throat vocalizing, I was possessed on a dance floor, mugging and gyrating. Literally dancing in circles around an imposter Pee-Wee who didn’t know the difference between a glen plaid and a gray worsted wool! Ha! Ha ha!
At the next night’s party, a maniacal Pee-Wee, a monstrous Pee-Wee, took over. When having a discussion with lovely lady who revealed a recent divorce, Pee-Wee commented: “Isn’t it funny how some of us can’t get married…and yet you go running around willy-nilly marrying and divorcing like candy corn at Christmas.” Or some such thing. What Pee-Wee said didn’t seem to matter. Doug, however, was beginning to push back. It was too much attention, this Pee-Wee spirit. His barbs might have been forgiven by others, but they were beginning to sting from the inside. They were too tantalizing. Too within reach. Many actors admit that they find themselves in different roles. I began to wonder just who I was finding. If I stripped away Pee-Wee, would I still be left with the wicked? Was I hiding real venom beneath the mask? What had Pee-Wee released?
Given the chance, Pee-Wee would have taken over, and I would have, like some latter-day Renfield, succumbed to his service.
After the last party, I kicked off the shoes, tore off the plaid suit, wiped off the grease paint — and Pee-Wee vanished. I realized—after all that—I was the imposter Pee-Wee. Mine had no heart. No soul. I could neither mimic nor fathom Pee-Wee’s childlike wonder at the world.
Over the next few days, he tried to come out, a stray laugh here, or groan there, but he was banished. Pee-Wee said things that I wouldn’t dare, danced and laughed in ways I would never imagine, and pranced about endlessly, relentlessly. Given the chance, Pee-Wee would have taken over, and I would have, like some latter-day Renfield, succumbed to his service.
It was with great sadness I read about Paul Reuben’s passing. He was a genius, in my mind. He’d managed to cross-over from camp to cult to children’s classic, never altering his style, never changing his material. It was all there at once: the silliness, the innuendo, the bizarre and the bold. He was unafraid in his portrayal, uncensored, and so lovably provocative.
My Pee-Wee suit hangs in a closet, abandoned with togas and cowboy shirts from other parties. His voice now out of reach. But he’s there, I can assure you, if you look deep enough, past the old, tired eyes, the encroaching wrinkles. A bit of mischief, the hint of the goofy boy. There… if you know how to look.
