No. 162 – Rough Boys

Performer: The Who

Songwriter: Pete Townshend

Original Release: Empty Glass (Pete Townshend)

Year: 1980

Definitive Version: Charity broadcast, Los Angeles, 8-24-89.

I remember the first time I saw the video to this song on MTV. It was while The Who had Face Dances out, which I didn’t like. Jin says I need to give that album a re-evaluation, but with the exception of You Better You Bet, everything has left me cold. It was like Pete Townshend got old before he died.

Rough Boys … now THAT was The Who. Pete’s rocking hard in the video, windmilling, ticking off the snooker players, being Pete Townshend. THAT’s the energy I want to see when I see Pete play with The Who and not the quiet, sullen punk wannabe in, say, Don’t Let Go the Coat.

Years later, just before the Who’s reunion tour, this song took on a different meaning when everyone briefly thought Pete was trying to come out of the closet. Then again, considering the lyrics, maybe it was a meaning I never understood in the first place.

Yes, I had no real understanding of homosexuality growing up. I mean, I knew what it was, but I didn’t know anyone who actually was gay, at least outwardly. It still was kept pretty hidden except in big cities and other communities where gays could feel safe.

One such place was Wabash, which makes sense. It’s an all-male school, and because no women are around, there’s a different vibe during the week. The need to posture as part of the mating ritual comes out only on the weekends. The rest of the week, you’re just trying to get through classes.

Of course, when my friends heard Wabash was all male, I got a few sideways glances, but I didn’t have enough of a religious upbringing to reflexively condemn homosexuality as evil. It didn’t bother me; I’m not gay. Yes, but, others might be. And … what? I’ll be recruited into the lifestyle? See? No one in my circle knew anything either. We all were bumpkins.

When I got to Wabash, I soon realized for the first time that, yes, I truly was among at least a few gay men, plural. I didn’t know anyone per se. It was all rumors and whispers, as in, hey, so and so is gay. It wasn’t hateful, per se, but maybe there was some derision in the speculation, I don’t know.

I still didn’t care. That was my first big awakening in how I’ve come to view the gay community. I care as much that so and so is sleeping with some guy as with some girl—not at all. It’s not my business. The only way it’s any of my business was if someone came on to me. I’ll deal with it then. As it happened, that might have happened without me being aware of it happening.

I met Ed my freshman year. We were in English 18, which, as you probably don’t recall, was the class I added after realizing I wasn’t a scientist and dropped physics. I don’t remember exactly how we met, but at some point in October 1982, he told me he was going to Columbus and offered to give me a ride home and back if I wanted during fall break. Yeah, sure. Thanks.

That was the break where I told everyone at home that I wanted to depledge the Fiji House. It also was the break where I told Beth I wanted to reconnect with her in a big way, that I had kept her hidden out of duty to my fellow pledge brothers, because I didn’t want to burden them with one more thing they had to remember. (We had to memorize the names of brothers’ girlfriends or face punishment.) Put another way, I wanted to come out of the closet to people at Wabash about Beth.

When I left Wolcott Hall soon after, EVERYONE in Wolcott Hall knew about Beth. It was difficult to walk out in the hallway on the third floor and not see me in the phone booth at the end making a long-distance call.

It was in that context that Ed and I grew to be friends. We did a little Christmas shopping together in Indianapolis, and in January, he asked whether I wanted to go to Chicago for a weekend. We’d stay with his mom—who was almost a dead ringer for my mother—in Crown Point, da Region. Yeah, sure. Why not?

Saturday we went into the city for the day. I’d think we did something during the day, but I can’t remember what. That night, he took me to dinner at an old-school prime rib restaurant called Lawry’s, as in the seasoned salt.

If you aren’t familiar with Lawry’s, in the main dining room, you’re seated in banquettes side by side. That seemed a little weird, but what did it matter? The quality of the prime rib, which was fantastic, was all that mattered.

We then saw a movie downtown, The Verdict, and drove back to Crown Point. The next day, we hung out at Ed’s mom’s home, because I wanted to watch Washington administering a sweet beat-down on Dallas in the NFC championship game.

It was a fun weekend, and I appreciated Ed picking up the tab at Lawry’s—as he promised to do all along—be it was expensive (even though neither of us ordered any booze). It was from that visit that Lawry’s became my go-to restaurant for the next decade. I took both Jin and Scott there for their 21st birthday. I took Laurie there for her birthday a few years ago.

Now, with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight, I’m not so sure that I might have been oblivious to a deeper purpose behind that trip for reasons I’ll explain at a later date.