New York Story 2: Klaus Nomi & Keith Haring lectured on morality by George Elliott! Nomi & Haring get morality lecture from GE before they: become famous & dead of AIDS, & me : celibate & fameless! * (New York City...1979 give or take a year....midafternoon in a Greek chizburger diner on 6th Avenue.... A slim, short-haired & bespectacled young fellow is sharing a booth with a character who looks like a cross between Joel Grey in CABARET makeup & a Martian...Across from them sits an animated artist/mystic finishing a Norman Mailer-esque monolog over their occasional stunned protest... "...so if you can't win the affections of a beautiful woman, the only honorable thing to do is : stay celibate , cultivate that energy, don't masturbate, and certainly don't become GAY!" "That's George!!" -- came the Germanic, dramatic interjection of Klaus Nomi, the 'Martian', feeling the need to explain/apologise to his gay buddy Keith Haring after they'd been subjected to 5 or 10 minutes of such heartfelt (but annoying to anyone left of Hitler) arguments from yours truly extolling the virtues of seminal retention; troubadoric affection; the founding of orphanages with the energies otherwise wasted in homosexuality, etc., sounding outrageously like Schopenhauer one minute, Mailer the next, with a bit of Buddha thrown in & Crowley for spice! Yeah Nomi knew me well enough (from our collaborations onstage /backstage/ & recording) to appreciate how I wore my (often inactive) hetero proudly, next to my all-American ex-jock stripes... Plus my enjoyment of playing 'rough'... & young Mr. Haring could survive these verbal blows to his choice of sexuality without much problem. (He always subsequently said hi as we passed on the street, & stopped me once to snap a photo... So they pooh-pooed & brushed off the source & sense of what I may have been saying, & probably finished the evening in the embraces of several same sex strangers in dank dark spaces…after all , you're only young once, in this electric city where dreams & work & connections & the 'brotherhood' & the scene might conspire some fire under your ass & propel you to the fame & acceptance you've striven for... But woops-- you catch the AIDS & you lose it all... except the mysterious martyrdom of leaving your legacy to the world --too young- Had they but LISTENED! Rest In Peace, Amigos!