That’s, right, male “escort.” NOT male “prostitute.”
The distinction is very important here. As Mike Jones, author of the recently released memoir, “I Had to Say Something”, repeatedly reminded those of us who attended a public reading and Q and A he hosted at Minneapolis’ Magers and Quinn Booksellers, he performed duties for most of his clients that went way beyond sex. However, it must be said that the bump-and-grind was the key - if not only - component of the three-year escort-client relationship he had with his most famous patron, defrocked pastor and founder of Colorado’s New Life Church, and defunct leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard.
That appeared to be the case from the excerpt that Jones, who, at fifty, could pass for thirty thanks to a physique that would put the current Governor of California to shame, read from the opening pages of his book. Diving right into the fateful day the two men first met in the flesh after some preliminary getting-to-know-you’s over the internet, the Colorado-based preacher - who, as the world knows by now, presented himself to his massage therapist as a “businessman” named “Art” from “Kansas City” and who, in subsequent calls for service, always identified himself over the phone as “Art from Kansas City” and never simply “Art” - arrived in a full-dress business suit. This would be the case for every one of their nearly monthly encounters, signifying the preacher wanted to be prepared in the unlikely event he ran into any parishioners or associates at the Denver-based motel Jones operated from. Another constant that was introduced at this first meeting was the customer’s insistence that the shades be drawn and all lights turned off before he removed one item from his presumably sweat-drenched suit. This applied even to the candles the masseur lit for the occasion, and which, presumably, were never brought out again - at least not for illumination. This demand for darkness, plus the abashed look that “Art from Kansas City” often had in his eyes, suggested to Jones that bags of shame loaded down this customer’s outwardly ramrod straight shoulders.
Those bags were filled by Haggard’s constant awareness that he had a wife and five children back in Colorado Springs, who were under the impression that Dad was repairing to the motel at least once a month for three years to “work” on a very important “book”. That “Art” happened to be a man with a wife and kids who found out late in life that he was gay should not, of course, have been the source of the self-loathing. It was the fact that, during all the years he fumbled in the dark with Jones and other hired hands, he passed himself off as a model of “one-man-one-woman” values who, at the pulpit and over the airwaves, condemned gays as “not worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven” and who, when interviewed by a religious television network about a gay pride march in Denver, snidely queried, “Why don’t they also have a murderer’s pride march?” This last interview, which was among several TV broadcasts that revealed to Mike Jones the identity of his Darksider client in the summer of 2006, was also among many public utterances that planted the seeds of resentment in the devoutly Methodist body builder’s soul. This resentment was based on the fact that he, himself, had to fight all his life to be open about his sexuality and work against the type of phobia that his visiting evangelist was a very effective proponent of.
Mind you, the fact that this particular buyer, who steadfastly failed to beware, was a man of some sort of cloth did not surprise Jones. As he explained to one of the attendees at Magers and Quinn, who asked how he could not have known for three years that the man who paid him $200 a session plus gratuities was leading the faithful in one of the nation’s largest megachurches, his client base was culled from the two major industries of the Colorado Springs area - the military and the ministry. And the fact that the pay phones that Haggard, like nearly all the other men who patronized Jones, used to avoid cell phone track records, had an area code that was decidedly not from Kansas City, provided additional pointers to his most likely profession. What Mike did not realize until the day in August, 2006 he pumped iron at his health club, and saw on a television that was uncharacteristically tuned to a God channel, was that he was a heart beat away from a Super Pastor who was working with the powers that be to stop gay marriage (though, to Haggard’s credit, he did support civil unions) and other civil rights for homosexuals.
And who who was most likely high as a kite on methamphetamines during much of this time.
As the world also knows, meth, in all its various formations, played a regular part in the encounters between these two deliberate strangers. Jones, in answering another book store customer’s query about his own involvement in that particular realm of the senses, admitted that he had experimented with drugs. But the mystic masseur insisted that he had no interest in meth, and that it was provided by, and scarfed exclusively by, his mysterious guest. This led a woman seated in front of me, inspired not only by the line of inquiry but also by Jones’ declaration at the beginning of the show that we could ask him anything at all about his personal life, to raise a follow-up query. This regarded rumors that the model of moral rectitude snorted the powdered form of the analgesic off of the muscle man’s rectum.
After a brief spate of laughter amongst the audience, the host replied, with a smile and a shake of the head, “No. No lines off my ass.”
Nonetheless, Jones was fairly sure the Kansas City Bomber was often cracked on glass during many of his televised public appearances - particularly so in the footage of him featured in “Jesus Camp”, Rachel Gray and Heidi Ewing’s account of the frightening Pentecostal summer camp for kids, situated in the appropriately named Devils Lake, North Dakota. As viewers of the film should remember, one section of the movie concerned some of the Jesus Kids making a pilgrimage to Colorado Springs to see Terrible Ted rock the house down at New Life. The pastor, filled with confidence, cockiness and not a few crystals, approaches the documentarians’ camera with a gleam in his eye worthy of a thrash-club tweaker, and says, in imitation of the blackmailer he was probably terrified of one day receiving a call from: “I think I know what you did last night! Give me a thousand dollars and I won’t tell your wife!” The good people of New Life laugh with the confidence of team members knowing Coach will never let them down, and he continues on with a sermon that is one part James Dobson and two parts Don Rickles, little realizing that his worst fears would indeed one day be met (and that, thanks to the Oscar- nominated documentary, Jesus Camp would be shut down).
He and the glassy-eyed President whom he used to call every Monday also would not realize his double life and triple arrogance would lead to the crushing electoral downfall of the Republican Party in November 7, 2006. It was, in fact, on November 2, hardly a week prior to that golden day, that Jones would unleash the secret that would cause many of the Jesus Voters the GOP so desperately needed to stay home or vote Democrat. Their desperation was already quite severe, thanks to revelations the previous month about Republican Congressman Mark Foley’s naughty text messaging of underage male pages. Jones, in a slap to Pious Ted’s frequent insistence to the media that the evangelical right is “never political”, reminded the audience that his actions were entirely political, and were timed expressly to affect the upcoming election.
In fact, as he revealed to the attending faithful, he planned to rip the hood off the Bible master’s head two months earlier, by making an arrangement with a Denver television station (whom he told he was seeing “a very important political figure” without revealing his identity) to set up a secret video camera for his and Haggard’s next encounter. But, for some strange reason, after three years of regular stopovers, “Art” stopped calling. After initially wondering if someone at the station somehow figured out who Jones was talking about and tipped the preacher off, the escort realized the snub was probably due to a falling out the two men had during their last session - one that Mark regarded as minor, but, in Haggard’s narcotized mind, was enough to cause a permanent breach. Evidently, the source of Super Ted’s meth supply did a bunk, and he asked Mike to do the honors of seeking out a new source with cash “Priest” would provide. Jones said no, that while he tolerated drug use by customers in his presence, he would not directly mess with the trade.
Since it looked like the tweaker had gone off to seek out new playmates, Jones shelved the idea of revealing his true colors. But calls the following October to a favorite radio call-in show hosted by Peter Boyles on Denver’s KHOW, in which listeners expressed their support of Colorado’s upcoming “marriage protection” amendment by referring to homosexuals in ways that matched those uttered by hypocritical evangelist, drove Mike to contact Boyles with the same information he provided the television station. The radio host was willing to take Jones at his word in exchange for being the first media outlet to play the one bit of hard evidence the masseur did have on hand: a voice message in which good ol’ “Artie” discussed “getting together” at the motel later that night and bearing a satchel filled with “two, maybe three-hundred dollars worth” of his favorite tonic. Jones was given more confidence in making his decisive move when three other escorts contacted him and told him that, if necessary, they would come forward with their own records of Haggard’s patronage of their services.
On Thursday, November 2, as the world crackled with the lightning bolt in question, Horn Dog Haggard reacted to the armies of reporters descending on his lawn and office by denying ever having extramarital relations with anybody of any gender - and repeatedly asking, “Mike Who?” After two days of nonstop variations on the headline “Man of God Caught in Love Nest With Man of Steel”, he broke down and admitted that there was a “repulsive and dark” secret in his life and immediately resigned from New Life and the National Association of Evangelicals. Soon after that came the final statement he made to the press as he, his understandably distraught wife, and presumably homicidal children, prepared to back out of his driveway in his SUV. With a smile and a tilt of the head akin to a homemaker queried about his or her favorite brand of floor cleanser, the recently retired pastor admitted buying meth, but “throwing it away” without using it, and seeing a beefcake in a motel room, but just for “massages.” He then sped off the driveway, never to be heard from again until the following February, when he pronounced himself “100 percent heterosexual” thanks to some speedy scrubbing by professional “un-gay” counselor Tim Ralph.
This last bit of news jibed with the one question I, myself, asked of the visiting beefcake at the Uptown, Minneapolis bookstore: if the names Michele Bachmann or Marcus Bachmann rang a bell. In case they don’t ring a bell to you, Michele Bachmann is a freshman Republican Congresswoman, from one of the “slower” districts of Minnesota, whose 2006 campaign, and entire political career, has been underscored by frequently undisguised and often goofy homophobia. More pertinently, her husband, Marcus, is, like Tim Ralph, a counselor who specializes in freeing people from the leathery bonds of homosexuality. Though Jones said he’d never heard of our home grown power couple, he asserted that those who provide “cures” for homosexuality are, by definition, struggling with their own gay identity. In response to that, I suggested that at some point he Google photos of Marcus Bachmann, and see if the good doctor looks at all familiar ...
As for the recently fixed hound from Colorado Springs, he and his wife, interestingly enough, are currently earning degrees in psychotherapy in, of all places, New Orleans. When Jones was asked if this is the last we’ll ever hear of this source of pain in James Dobson’s thorax, Mike said that he was confident Ted Haggard will rise again like a Goofball Phoenix and market himself as a repented sinner. The smart money is on this happening as soon as the agreement Ted signed with the National Board of Evangelicals (many of whose members apparently had been aware of their leader’s nocturnal habits for years) not to discuss the case for a year runs out. This makes sense, based on the number of television shows and documentaries he has stuck his Howdy-Doody-like visage in - particularly Alexandra Pelosi’s “Friends of God”, in which the raunchy rector proudly boasts, “Evangelicals have the best sex!” (“Thanks, Ted!” said Mike in response to this quote at the bookstore). And, like so many public figures on the right, as well as the left, Haggard is so arrogant he thinks he can talk his way out of anything.
As for the current Mike Jones (a name which, he told one curious questioner, was not an alias, though he admitted it sounds like one) he, too, has been forcibly retired from his source of bread and butter, due to his earth-shattering break of the “call boy’s code of silence.” Though he could potentially keep paying his bills for years to come by naming more names, he has no intention of spilling the goods on any more of the menfolk who stopped calling him after November 2 - and who, in addition to ministers and military personnel, also include numerous pro athletes. This probably has as much to do with professional etiquette as self-preservation. The Charles-Atlas-sized health nut, who bears a strong resemblance to TV workout pioneer Jack LaLanne, may be able to win any knock-down-drag-outs, but is no match for any weapons of minor or mass destruction most likely to be used by vengeful vendees.
What is truly sad about Jones’ current situation is that he doesn’t have much support from the gay community at large, many of whose organizations regret the fact that a man who helped to unseat a major figure in the Christian right and tip the scales of an important mid-term election had to be a mere “ho.” This snobbishness is unfortunate. Whatever one thinks of Jones’ line of work, the fact is he went into it as an adult without prodding from a Big Daddy (though he admits to having a great grandmother who was a Madame), and was merely fulfilling a demand by men who should have known better than to deal with their sexual orientation by arranging paid love shacks.
Hopefully, gay and other activist groups that seek to fight religious intolerance will regard even a male escort as a model of civic defiance in the same way they did Iraq-War-opponent Cindy Sheehan (at least, until she started boogying with Hugo Chávez). Without giving kudos to bold whistle blowers like Mike Jones, the country might let more Ted Haggards slip under the radar screen ... and more George W. Bushes win office. So, if you care about keeping our country out of the hands of those who turned it into an ash heap and international pariah, buy a copy of “I Had to Say Something: The Art of Ted Haggard’s Fall” and encourage your favorite social reps to stick up for the lonely trooper who wrote it. And if you have had an extramarital, drug-addled, polysexual affair with an important member of the Christian Right, the Republican Congressional minority, or the current Presidential Administration, don’t hesitate to contact your favorite blog, radio show or television station. We’ll be watching ...
