lo.redjupiter.com writes,
Born Tommy Dorsey in Santa Barbara, California in 1933, he was the oldest of ten children and was raised Catholic. Although he contemplated studying for the Catholic priesthood, he ended up joining the U.S. Navy, from which he was eventually expelled for homosexual conduct. In the 1950s he then began a long career as a performer in drag shows centered in San Francisco's North Beach;a district which served as the Castro Street of its era and which also hosted such fringy populations as the Beat poets, drug dealers, coffee-house anarchists, and jazz musicians. In his shows he was billed as "Tommy Dee, the boy who looks like the girl next door." In the 1960s Tommy deepened his use of alcohol and drugs while joining the hippie movement as founder of a large, still well-remembered commune. In his North Beach years, Tommy Dee shot heroin with Lenny Bruce, partied with the late Carmen McRae and claims to have "discovered" Johnny Mathis--although McRae used to argue with him about this, claiming, instead, that she was the one to discover the young singer.
During these years he had frequent injuries, overdoses, and run-ins with the police. He once said "Sometimes I'd wake up hung over in jail. The first thing I'd do was feel to see if I had my tits on. This would tell me whether they had locked me up on the men's side or with the hookers on the women's side." In the late 1960's he began to sit zazen with Suzuki-roshi and his life began to change. He was eventually ordained as a Buddhist priest by Richard Baker, Suzuki-roshi's successor, and given the name Issan. (...)(...) Issan Dorsey, as Zen priest at Tassajara and City Center in the 1970s and early 1980s, did not see himself as any kind of Buddhist missionary to the gay community. In fact, he made fun of the macho, middle class, consumer values of gay San Francisco. Those were the years when jeans and lumberjack flannel shirts were the official uniform for gay men and when doing drag or using "Miss Names" were not politically correct activities. Years before the founding of Hartford Street Zendo, when the first meeting of a "Gay Buddhist Club" was announced, Issan scoffed at the idea. "Buddhism is Buddhism, practice is practice," might be a summary of his initial response. At that time, in those last, pre-AIDS years, his major preoccupation was with the idea of starting a soup kitchen in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. (...)
(...) Before there was even any clear name or understanding of the disease, Issan regularly visited a young gay man in San Francisco General Hospital who had what we now know was AIDS. Taking Issan aside after one of his visits, a stern and disapproving charge-nurse commented to him that this particular patient had probably had more than 400 sex partners. Miffed at the woman's moralistic tone, Issan terminated the conversation: "Only 400 partners!" he said loudly, as if on stage again, "Is that ALL?" (...more)
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