Category Archives: Who’s Counting

Looking back at all the loves and relationships in one lifetime

Toby Dancer [Adrian Chornowol] – Musical Genius

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There are times when I’ve wondered how and why it is that in my early years as a young adult I attracted so many damaged individuals in my life and I realized that it was because I was so damaged myself and yet within that broken mind set, there was a self-preservation that kept pushing me into the light and survival with an instinct that would not allow me to go past destruct mode.  As I truly believe everything happens for a reason, I must also believe that those hurt individuals that I met throughout those years were put in my path for mutual benefit.  One such person was Adrian Chornowol who saved my life.

AC SMPAdrian Chornowol grew up in Edmonton, Alberta a classical piano child prodigy.  When I met Adrian, I had been told I had only a year to live so I packed up my bags told my family I was going to do some traveling, jumped on a train and headed west to Edmonton to visit a girlfriend and my god daughter.  I was still dealing with the Hodgkin’s disease and all the prescription medication but was functional.  I got a job teaching and selling modelling programs at John Casablanca’s a top international modelling agency and quickly became their top agent and instructor.  One evening I decided to drop in at the Four Seasons Hotel to listen to some music and have a drink.  I heard this beautiful piano music coming from the lounge area and stopped to listen.  Sitting at the piano was this incredibly gorgeous man in a black tux running his fingers over the keys playing with hypnotic precision.  I couldn’t resist and sent him over a drink with my thanks for his music and then left to go down to the dance club.  Shortly, after he followed me down asked if he could join me.   We had a drink, a dance and planned for a date the next day.  Actually it turned out to be breakfast.  There was an immediate connection and within a short period of time I had moved in with him and his roommate Rich.

Adrian at the time had his gig as Musical director at the Four Seasons, Musical Director of the TV show Sun Country, his fusion band and produced an award winning album “Cowboyography” for Ian Tyson.  If that wasn’t enough, we then decided to open our Talent Agency and Modelling Agency “Chornolwol Music and Modelling Agency” rented space in downtown Edmonton and were very successful.  We actually were one of the first agencies to video tape bands to use as promotional tools.  We traveled to Hawaii twice, toured the mountains of British Columbia to Vancouver and when I got ill flew to New York.

On a more personal level Adrian was struggling with his sexuality and it definitely started to affect our relationship.  I just did not know how to help him other than to encourage him to get out there and try to find himself.  Meanwhile my health started to deteriorate and I ended up in the hospital with the possibility of more treatment.  Adrian did not believe that chemo or radiation was the way to go and before I knew what was happening I was being whisked off to New York, installed in a townhouse on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn during the hottest month of the summer.  Then the next day put on a train to Floral Park New York to see Dr. Cole.  How Adrian found this doctor I never knew but by the time I got to him I was pretty sick and had lost a lot of weight.  I was on multiple medications including heavy opiates.  The first thing Dr. Cole said to me was “so you think you are going to die” of which my response was “yes”.  He then said “well that is not going to happen, but you are going to get a lot sicker then you are now” He took all my drugs and gave me a bunch of vitamins, and list of foods I could eat.  Then set me up with the program at his clinic where I would arrive everyday get hooked up to an IV with Laetrile and DMSO for pain.  It was quite the experience sitting in these big chairs talking with the other patients about their experience most of it very positive.  But, Dr. Cole was right I got really sick and the reality was it was withdrawal from all the medications.   There were moments when I truly wanted to die for the pain of it all.  Adrian was there for me throughout it all, crying with me, holding me while I throw up, feeding me and carrying me to the clinic when I could hardly walk,  After a month and a half, I was finally a walking talking, functioning person again and it was time to go home.  We were to continue the treatment at home for a few more months.  Legally at the time, It was okay to the purchase the treatment and bring to Canada but it was not okay to administer.  So, Adrian and I flew back to New York so he could learn how to administer the treatment but, in the end our roommates mom who was a nurse administered for the duration.  After about 3 months, we flew back to Dr. Cole for a checkup and I was cleared.  On the way back I made an appointment with my Toronto oncologist Dr. G. Scott who ran a bunch of tests and basically said “he did not know what I had done, didn’t want to know but basically I was healthy and cured.”

For Adrian, it was proof that holistic treatments were an alternative to my cancer and he cared enough to pursue it no matter the cost.  It was also a diversion for him allowing him to stay away from dealing with his sexuality, but now with my crisis over it was time for him to try and figure out who he was and after a few months we both knew that he needed to go find himself and that our relationship could not go on as it was with him not knowing who he wanted to be.  So I prepared to return to Toronto and he to follow his journey knowing that we would always have a special connection and a relationship that went beyond the spiritual and physical.

I continue his story now with what I have learned through research and the internet.  Always searching  Adrian went to California, worked a cruise ship and continued to struggle for many years after we parted and eventually became Toby Dancer.  In 1998 as Toby Dancer addicted to heroin she wandered into Toronto’s  Parkdale Activity Recreation Centre, where she found a room. She sometimes played the piano, but needed coaxing. Zepheniah James, from Jamaica via New York, brother of the late Philip James of the Blues Busters, taught music at the Centre and slowly got Toby to play with him. They recorded two CDs. Toby also played music at the Emmanuel Howard Park United Church, and she was able to confide to the minister Cheri DiNovo, who was then a New Democrat Member of the Provincial Parliament and took a stand for the transgendered.   No other political party had the courage to stand with transgendered Ontarians at that time.  Tragically, Toby died alone at the age 51 of a drug overdose in 2004.

To continue Toby’s story you need to follow the Ontario Private Members bill introduced by Rev Dr. Cheri DiNovo in 2007 to add Gender Identity to the Ontario Human Rights Code known as Tobys Bill  in Toby Dancers memory. Cheri succeeded in getting Toby’s Act passed, which was an amendment to Bill 33, Ontario Humans Rights Code to include gender identity and gender expression, it is the first of its kind in North America. Finally becoming law in 2012.  Through this law Toby Dancers struggle is honoured.

AC familyI only found out about Toby Dancer in 2011 surfing the net trying to find Adrian and was so surprised and saddened.  As Adrian, he was my friend, confidant  and gave me life and I will always remember the wonderful times we had together in Edmonton and our travels.  In my mind’s eye I see him sitting at our baby grand running those beautiful hands across the keyboard at three in the morning, wrapping his arms around our big dog, sitting at the foyer at the Four Seasons grand piano and holding me during our train rides to Floral Park.   For the brief time together which included my family from Ontario we lived each day to its fullest.  Surrounded by music, love and laughter even in the emotional difficult times.  Toby now was and will always be special to me, remembered for her heart and passion and loved for who she was and what she gave to others even in her struggles.   She may have died alone but she was loved in her lifetime for her gift of music which she shared with us all.  I plan to make a trip to Toronto to the Emmanuel Howard Park United Church, where Toby Dancer is commemorated with a stained-glass window.  My thanks to Rev. Cheri DiNovo for ensuring that Toby Dancer had a voice and that she will always have place in the fight for equality.

Marriage No. 1 … but who’s counting?

Health, Life and Times, Personal, Who's Counting, , , , , , , , , ,

ringsAs I mentioned in a previous post during the mid 70’s I was being treated for Hodgkin’s disease. I was nineteen and had just lost my baby Cory, seven months old to a crib death and within six months was told that I had cancer which landed me at the Toronto General Hospital with Dr. George Scott. Over the next, few years I was in survival mode being treated with massive doses of radiation and chemotherapy. I was still in school, holding down a job at the Le Coq D’Or Tavern, the heart and soul of Toronto’s disco era on Yonge Street and still doing a few modelling shows all while taking treatments. The modelling helped me keep some focus on my appearance and health and I was always a clothes horse, a pair of shoes for every outfit in my closet. Lost all my beautiful hair but was able to wear very lavish wigs to cover the baldness. I remember waking up one morning and finding streams of hair on my pillow and feeling my head which was so soft and totally stripped of even the hair follicle. It was terrifying especially, because no one told me that this would happen.

I was at the last stages of my radiation treatments for this period. So, I was functioning and one night decided that I was going out to listen to some music, dance and just hang out at the club. I can still see the outfit I wore. Baby pink bell bottom pants, halter top and fuzzy baby pink bolero to hide the radiation marks. I wore my long wig and I was looking pretty hot and it is in this outfit that I met my first husband Glenn.

He was this six four black American up from Buffalo, New York. I spotted him as soon as he walked into the club, and he spotted me. Took him about half an hour to work his way over to my table with an opening line of “hey, pretty lady why are you all by yourself” my quick response was “I’m not all by myself I have a room full of people.“ He then proceeded to sit down and we talked about him mostly. I wasn’t about to get to personal about myself after all, I was just covering over a very sick shell playing at being well. We danced, and I truly enjoyed his height and aura of dominance. He was a Vietnam vet and at the time of him telling me about it I thought how exciting and romantic to have gone overseas and fought a war. Little did I know?

Our relationship progressed from that chance meeting to several dates over a few months and everyday telephone calls. He found me exotic, different and very sexual and I found someone to take me away from the insanity of what had been my life up to that point. I was in love with being in love and believed for once here is someone who is going to take care of me and protect me from all harm. For a girl who had never travelled it was so exciting traveling back and forth between Toronto and Buffalo. My best friend Di and I would even hitchhike between borders. [There are some very interesting stories on hitchhiking for another day]. When three months later, Glenn asked to marry me… OMG the dream of a lifetime to be married isn’t that the normal progression of a normal life how could I possible turn that down.

GMThe day of my wedding, I’m sitting in my mother’s kitchen bawling my eyes out and thinking to myself, I am making a serious mistake, but it was too late to change this course. I was not prepared to be whisked of that day to Buffalo to live and when I arrived it was culture shock. His mother hated me; I was not one of crowd. She was very skin colour conscious and in her mind I was a high yellow, stuck up slip of a girl with no street smarts. We lived just outside the projects. After a few months I realized that Glenn and his friends had some very serious mental health issues due to their tour in Vietnam. As veterans they were all very messed up. They all suffered from serious (PTSD) Post-traumatic stress disorder. A mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event such as war, symptoms included flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event. He and his friends drank and did hard core drugs a lot, just to cope with getting through their days. They talked about the shooting, and killing of the Viet Con all the time, his best friend Bennie who before going to war was in med school and was a medic during the war shot and killed himself shortly after our wedding.

After about eight months, our relationship became very strained and I suspected another women. I also did not follow the rules of black community, instead of working downtown Buffalo where every other person of colour worked, I got a job in white East Aurora, NY. Glenn was always suspicious and paranoid about everything especially when he drank and one evening after coming home from work I walked into his fist and ultimately the hospital. I told him before getting married that if he ever put his hands on me that that would be the end and when this happened, a week after my recovery I packed up my dog and few belongings and told him to drive me to Toronto. He dropped me off at a friend’s home and that was the last I ever saw of him. His parting words were “I hope you are kidding” and then three or four months later I received a notice of divorce on grounds of abandonment which I did not contest and was free again… Lots more happened during that one year period, being assaulted coming home one night, seeing a man get gunned down in the middle of the street, refused an apartment because I was black and just generally not understanding and being overwhelmed by the American black white conflict. I came from Canada, I was off mixed race and racism existed but it was subtle, with American’s it was in your face front and central. I wasn’t tough enough for that world and I realized it and got out. End of marriage number one and upon reflection it was a marriage of desperation on my part, I wanted so to be loved, cherished and normal with the husband, little white house with the picket fence and 2.5 children. The Barbie dream… but I’m no Barbie and this marriage was a lesson learned and I was quick enough to not become a victim for years as so many other women of that time did. Marriage number one ended but who’s counting….