I met Jose G. back when I first started karaoke. He had a beautiful voice and the kind of looks that would make a lesbian question herself. But I’ve learned he’s much more than a pretty face.
PGN: So Jose Gamalinda …
JG: Jose Lito Domingo Gamalinda. It translates to “Little Joe,” “Sunday,” “Pretty Deer.” Domingo is my mom’s maiden name. I use Lito as a state name.
PGN: Very musical. And you’re from a place with another unusual name, King of Prussia.
JG: Yes, I grew up there, though I was born in the Philippines. My father came here first and then a year later the rest of my family came here: three older brothers, my mother and me.
PGN: How old were you when you moved, and do you have any memories from the Philippines?
JG: I was 6 when we left. I remember we had a big yard; my grandfather was a farmer. We had all kinds of fruits and vegetables in the back. We had a big starfruit tree that I would climb with my cousins. My parents were into gardening and there were dahlias and all sorts of beautiful and exotic flowers everywhere. It was a gorgeous place.
PGN: Have you been back?
JG: No, I’ve never traveled. I should. My family went back in 1997 for about a month when my father’s mother died, but I wasn’t able to go with them. It’s crazy. I’m very detached from my own culture.
PGN: All boys in the family, that must have been a lot to handle.
JG: Yeah, they wanted a girl but got me. I do date boys, so that’s kind of close.
PGN: What’s the most trouble the Gamalinda boys got into?
JG: Nothing really, we were pretty good. I mean, one time I was playing with my next-older brother and he did something that got me angry and I threw my toy at him. If hit him in the eye and he got a blood spot on the inside of his eye. My mom was furious but I didn’t know any better. I didn’t mean it. For the most part, we all got along. My older brother was the task master: He made us do all our chores and if we didn’t he would wake us in the middle of the night like “Mommy Dearest” to finish them.
PGN: What did your parents do?
JG: My mom was a stay-at-home mom, though she did some part-time work doing collating, and my father was a chemical engineer. He’s pretty smart. They’re both still alive. He used to travel the country and check out the furnaces in different buildings and places. I would go into his office and he would be working on these big blueprints. They are both the nicest parents you could imagine. They always wanted the best for us.
PGN: What did you want to be when you grew up?
JG: I always wanted to be involved in the arts — all my brothers and I did. We were all very gifted but I seemed to excel. I studied fine arts at Temple University.
PGN: When did you realize you liked boys?
JG: I think at about 11 I was already checking out the boys in the neighborhood but I didn’t come out until I was 23, so there were some pretty frustrating high-school years. I had all these crushes on the high-school jocks but didn’t know what to do about it. A lot of stories, though.
PGN: Such as?
JG: I played football and on more than one occasion … well, for instance when I was a freshman, the sophomore captain took me under his wing. And when we’d come out of the showers, he’d towel off right in front of me by my locker even though his locker was all the way on the other side of the locker room. It was totally erotic. When it came time to pick someone to initiate, he chose me. Initiation meant that you did whatever the upperclassman told you to for the week. He’d take me into an empty gym and we’d spot each other lifting weights, and it was like, oh my God, he’d spot me while he had me lying on the bench and his crotch would be hovering right above me and he kept getting it closer and closer until someone else walked in. There were numerous instances where things came close to happening but I wasn’t out yet and didn’t know what to do. [Laughs] I do now! I should see if I can find him on Facebook and see what’s up.
PGN: Speaking of things you know how to do, how long have you been bartending?
JG: Let’s see. I worked at Woody’s for 21 years. I was a bar back for two to three years and then I jumped behind the bar with no training and started bartending. Fortunately, I’m a fast learner. I’ve been at Knock — Bill Wood’s restaurant — since last March. I’ve had other jobs in between too.
PGN: What are the worst and the best things about bartending?
JG: There’s not much of a downside. I love what I do. I guess the schedule: You’re working when most people are off. And because we keep late hours, the diet. It’s hard to get off at 3 a.m. and not come home and eat, but I’m trying to stop that. As for the best part, I’d say the social aspect. Most of the relationships I’ve been in were with either coworkers or customers that I met at the bar. Even with the breakups, there were no regrets; they were all people I was meant to meet. And everybody knows you. [Laughs] I may not always remember your name, but I usually remember the face and what you drink.
PGN: You’ve been sharing aspects of your recent breakup on social media.
JG: Yeah, it’s been really hard. It really rocked me. Usually when you break up with somebody, it’s after the relationship has started to wane, to run its course. You stop having sex and it’s, ah well, let’s just be friends. This came out of the blue and it’s hard to understand. I feel like I’ve been left high and dry and I’m still really invested sexually and emotionally. I’m not wired that way. I can’t be that much into someone one day and just stop the next. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It really hurts.
PGN: Tell me about your music and how it’s helped you cope.
JG: Well, I’ve graduated from karaoke — which is where I met you, Suzi — and I’ve gone from singing other people’s songs to singing my own songs. I’ve been writing poetry since I was a kid, so it was a natural extension to go from that to making my own music. The songs just come to me like that [snaps fingers], especially right now. From the break-up alone, I’ve probably written over 30 songs.
PGN: What instruments do you play?
JG: I played violin from kindergarten all the way through 11th grade. I was in orchestra at the same time I played football.
PGN: What other things were you involved with?
JG: I was also in choir and I ran track and cross-country. Currently, I play something called a McNally strum stick and I love it. It’s a perfect accompaniment for my voice. The synergy is beautiful. I was walking in front of Reading Terminal and had it with me and started playing a song and people stopped and came over to hear me play. They even started tipping me! I should start playing in Rittenhouse Square; I might make more money than in bartending.
PGN: Out of your fine-art work, what piece would you hang over your mantle?
JG: Oh gosh. I work in a lot of different genres, it’s hard to pick just one: drawing, painting, photography, and I do a lot of mixed media, which incorporates a lot of styles. I do realism but doing abstract is really cool. But people can find me on Instagram and check it out for themselves. I guess I’d pick something from a series I’ve done. They’re photos but the way I shot them they look like abstract paintings. They look a little like Gerhard Richter meets Mark Rothko meets Georgia O’Keeffe, but with my own style! I have over 500 different ones from that series.
PGN: Have you shown them yet?
JG: I’ve done about 10 shows but nothing in an art gallery. I’d like to show them more, I’d love to show them here [in William Way LGBT Community Center].
PGN: Other than the bar, are you involved in the community?
JG: Not right now and I need to. I really should become more of a good Samaritan. It would probably be good for me as well right now to take my mind off things. I have a friend who’s just been diagnosed with MS who contacted me when I posted things about my breakup on Facebook. He was trying to console me but now he could use a little consoling because he’s feeling very lonely: He can’t get out and people have stopped visiting, so I’m going to get in touch with him and help out.
PGN: Yes, I saw your Facebook postings and you definitely do share. There’s a lot of very personal stuff that you expose.
JG: I’m a songwriter so that’s how I get out my emotions. People might not understand it but that’s how I cope. I write things down and share them. It shows you cared enough about the experience or past relationships to think and write about it. It’s my own form of therapy. It’s unhappy posts right now, but that’s because of what I’m going through. Before that, it was all positive stuff. He was my muse and sparked a lot of my creativity when we were together and then it was yanked away. It hurt and I write about it. I’d rather put something raw and real rather than, “Here’s a picture of what I had for lunch today.” Why not share something that means something? It may be TMI but I’m an artist so that’s the way I work. People think, He’s just a bartender and he’s had a ton of guys; he should be used to people coming and going, or think I should be more stoic, but it’s not that easy, not in this case especially. We should do this interview again when I’m happy!
PGN: Well let’s try to get to happier thoughts. If you had no budget, which painting would you like to own?
JG: There’s an Edward Hopper painting called “The Hotel Room,” which features a lady in her undergarments sitting alone reading a book and it has a certain melancholy about it. I did my own version of it with a gay twist. I met this porn star Mark Wolff and I posed him sitting nude but instead of a book in his hands he had money. I’ve seen the Hopper painting in person and it’s beautiful. I’d love to hang it side by side with my version. It would spark interesting dialog.
PGN: A sound you like and one you dislike?
JG: I hate when you can’t understand the lyrics because the artist melds all the words together or sings too fast. What’s the point of crafting a song if no one can understand it? It’s just babbling.
PGN: First kiss with a boy?
JG: It was pretty raunchy. I was 23 and so horny. I was walking around the city and I met this guy. We started kissing in an alley and we gave each other blow jobs. That was my first time with a guy.
PGN: Well you jumped right in.
JG: Yeah, soon after that I started working at Woody’s. The first time I walked in there, I was so nervous, but shortly after that I met a lot of the people who worked there, including Bill, at an AIDS-awareness program and when I applied for a job he remembered and hired me. He said I was funny. I went in because I had a crush on a bartender at Kurt’s — remember that place? He’d started to work at Woody’s and I ended up being his bar back, then his co-bartender and then his boyfriend. We were together for nine years. I’ve had guys casually but only had four real partners since I’ve been out.
PGN: Tell me something interesting about a family member.
JG: It’s not so much interesting as difficult: One of my brothers is bipolar. He’s been that way since high school and he really suffers with it. He can’t really function on his own; my parents have to take care of him. He’s been on meds since he was young and it’s affected his health, his liver. I’ve dealt with his mental illness so I’ve learned not to judge people.
PGN: What was your worst clothing disaster?
JG: When I was young, I was very experimental and at one point I went through a bit of a dandy stage. I was into Gwen Stefani and Madonna and I was flamboyant and fearless. Now I’ve toned it down quite a lot but for a while I used to dress like Quentin Crisp — black suit, marigold ascot and big floppy hat — and walk my Pomeranians through Rittenhouse Square. I look at pictures and I’m like, oh my God, it’s a drastic change from where I am now, though I do make my own leather harnesses; they’re beautiful with leather and chain mail with bracelets and brooches. It’s all glittery and you know we gays love anything that sparkles.
PGN: Do you still have dogs?
JG: Yes: Brando, Pacino and De Niro, the Corleone family. De Niro actually passed away last November, it was devastating. He was 15. I wrote three songs for him.
PGN: What was a favorite book as a kid?
JG: There was a book, I think it was called, “Will you Play With Me?” about a lonely kid. I used to read it all the time. That’s actually a kind-of homoerotic title!
PGN: Your most romantic moment?
JG: My ex, Steven, woke me up on my birthday and when I walked into the living room it was filled with yellow and orange balloons. We were going to New York and I was trying to hurry him up because I thought we were going to miss our bus. Turns out he’d rented a limo to take us there. It was very romantic. Our limo driver was June Bronty, who used to do the two-step nights at Woody’s. Our first stop was the male burlesque club The Gaiety and we brought her inside. It was so funny because there were all these guys with giant hard-ons parading around. It was a great time.
PGN: Back to your music. Where can people find you?
JG: I do a lot of open mics. Monday I usually try to do World Cafe Live and if there’s time I go to Fergie’s on 13th and then Fire at Fourth and Girard. Tuesday I go to Time on Sansom and then The Raven. Wednesdays it’s Connie’s Ric Rack. The weekends it’s back to work at Knock!
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