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"Dee"
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Tributes by Jeph Johnson
Dee was a topless dancer who danced in Portland, Oregon in the mid-1980's. She was a delight to watch, putting everything she had into her act.
She was one of the first people I befriended who lived in an entirely different realm than the white middle class family I had been blessed to originate from. So beautiful and ridiculously seductive, during her stage show she’d saunter off stage and come up behind me with a smile on her face, pull her shirt over my head, and nicely rest her full-sized breasts on each of my shoulders. This attitude bent the rules quite a bit, but Dee was never one to follow rules.
In the “Just Say No/Meese Report on Porn” era '80s, most of the girls became heavily involved in drug use and prostitution. Dee was no exception. The feast or famine income of her occupation and long odd hours of faux-sensuality lent itself to a life prone to abusing many drugs.
Her big brown eyes, long black feathered hair and glowing face remain etched perfectly into my mind alongside lookalikes Joan Jett and Phoebe Cates. But perhaps more importantly, unlike the other dancers, she had a fresh willingness to be friendly. Other dancers were told to keep a safe distance from the "patrons." Dee knew she wouldn't make anyone too happy doing that. It was not uncommon for Dee to tag along to Denny's with my friend and I for breakfast after her shift ended at 4:00 a.m.
This was back in the "juice bar” days, which enabled me to watch adult entertainment as a teenager, while keeping alcohol away from the young, innocent erotic dancers. They turned to cocaine and speed instead.
Dee opened my eyes to an entertaining new world that I am still drawn into zombie-like: The mystique of erotic dancing.
But the most important attribute Dee displayed was her fascination with my writing.
I actually had my most important interest interested in something I was doing, which seemed a complete roll reversal! This intrigue, whether genuine or contrive, secured her spot as my "all-time favorite" stripper.
She called me "Picasso." To this day, I'm unsure of her reasoning. I don't know if she was so dim-witted she thought Pablo Picasso was a poet, or if she was equating Picasso synonymously with "artist". I like to think of her as both childishly innocent and wise beyond her occupation. She probably was both, but in the wrong order. I've added this "Picasso" element of her personality into my screenplay "All the Best Poets Sit in the Smoking Section."
The L.A. bands Motley Crue and Guns 'n' Roses were the pied-pipers of the spandex generation, so she ended up, as so many pretty young dancers do, going to California to make the big time.
A month or two after she jettisoned Portland some other dancers at the club told me she had been brutally murdered and dismembered by some crazed lunatic.
Dee exited the world as quickly as she had left me; without even a goodbye.
She still dances seductively through my poetry and prose, with feathered hair, racoon mascara and lips that I like to think were meant to smile especially for me.
"40 (For Dee)"
I drove myself in my very first car
Traced constellations star to star
I saw them shine and many more fade
While living in the dark blue shade
My journeys were unpredictably late;
I became captured while they all escaped.
These memories molded me into a man
Albeit one difficult to understand
One light took the shape of Dee
And beamed from on high above me
She used red lipstick and young woman hips,
Big brown eyes and ample tits
To portray to my nineteen-year old mind,
Still living at home, what I wanted to find.
I used frantic rhyme, and my naive charm
To convey to this stripper she should be in my arms
Tears came to my eyes with her sexual thrusts
She was my first experience with unrequited lust
"Oh Dee, please use your discretion
While playing upon my obsessions
I’m needy and my first impression
Is that we together are pure perfection
Instead you turn the wrong direction
Misinterpreting what was truly affection"
"42 (For Dee, too)"
I climb onto this blue light stage
Sending these boys into fits of rage,
I do it all so nonchalantly,
Ya see, no one gets all he wants!
I shine too bright to be considered
And cover every face in glitter
Pretty boy hair metal rocks loud and proud
Helping me raise the pulse of the crowd
Stare at my legs...my ass...my breasts
At your worst I'm at my best!
Seducing with my wild cherry dance
All through my delusionary glance
They scream so loud it hides my flaws,
And it is backed up with hoots and applause
Thundering from this different guy
Who screams so loud, yet appears so shy.
So cute, but in a different kinda way.
Not man enough to make a play.
I think I'll buddy up with him
I'll shine so bright and act real dim
But why now does he introvert
At early breakfast after work
When in the atmosphere he seeks,
That light he had now seems so weak.
"Oh Picasso put across your intentions,
Make your life an open convention
Your feelings for me there's no preventing
Just budget for them like you are renting
Because when I come to dance at night
I am really not the only light
Just the brightest one you see from there,
And the only one you must beware
For I can permanently alter your view
Turn your perception of love askew"
