After a short, uncomfortable sleep, and as I got nearer to Los Angeles, I found myself thinking about Mikey and Hadley when they were young.

Like Mikey’s group and Hadley’s role in  it: it sort of said where they were both going.

Mikey wanted to call the band The Marionettes or the Figurines or even the Manikins but those names were all taken. So they just called themselves the Dummies. The only competition there came from Crash Test Dummies, a Canadian group.

Mikey had already found out how to make people laugh. The Dummies were not into contemporary stuff like Nirvana or Prodigy. They were about slightly campy versions of emerging rock standards with a lot of acting out: Sympathy for the Devil and Blur’s Common People, for example.

What was special was the choreography. Hadley was a cheerleader for a while and later persuaded some of the girls to join the troupe that performed with the Dummies. The girls worked out the routines together but Hadley styled the costumes.

They found other students to film and edit the routines. Depeche Mode was a favourite and sort of set the standard for the videos.

Mikey has turned 35 as I write this. If you are away from your children a lot when they are young, you at least make sure you remember their birthdays.

I am very proud of Mikey. And he is gay.

These days the moment when a son tells his Dad he is gay is regarded as a defining moment in their relationship.

But with me, it was Elsa who simply wrote to say that Mikey had something to tell me on my return. That was just over two years after Julie died. Mikey was about to turn seventeen.

That let me know that whatever he had to tell me had already been processed. Maybe his Mom had already guessed and talked to Elsa about it before she died.

I had seen the horrors of Aids in Africa and lost one college friend to the disease. That was my first thought, that he might suffer such an awful death. But of course I didn’t mention that.

I just said: “Are you sure about this?” and he just smiled and said “Yes, Dad. The symptoms are quite clear.”

I guess the clues were there. He was in all the plays in High School and loved the musicals best of all. His triumph was when he sang the part of Seymour Krelborn in the Little Shop of Horrors. The “Suddenly Seymour” duet, which he sang with Sandra Buksbazen, got a standing ovation.

But he was not that convincing as a conspirator in Julius Caesar!

Besides, he never had a girlfriend, although towards the end of his time in High School he “dated” Sandra. That was probably just because they both had the same ambitions. Sandra went into show business under the name Russet Roberts, but it does not seem to have worked out for her.

Elsa was always quite gruff about Sandra. “Perfectly symmetrical. All the bits in the right places”, she said, implying that was really about all you could say about Sandra.

I think Mikey was quite special for Elsa.

Today he is a big supporter of the Trevor Project, which provides helplines for young people confused about their sexuality.

That makes me wonder what Mikey went through in his teens.

Anyway, he is now a professional actor. After some uncertain years, he is in a successful sitcom about three families. In the sitcom, he and his gay partner have adopted a little girl. They are dazzled by her beauty.

His Dad is also a character in the series and sometimes the Dad ribs him and says things like “you thought you could learn everything you needed to know about fighting from West Side Story, eh?”

I never could have said anything like that.

I read his Twitter feeds. (He has thousands of followers). His best friend in the cast seems to be the beautiful Peruvian actress who is his father’s second wife in the story. He adores her and she seems to have a great affection for Mikey.

I couldn’t sleep. The hotel had a rooftop garden. I looked out at the city, excited about what the next day would bring,