January 06, 2005
How Gay Is "Gay"?
Gay is getting another meaning expansion. It's actually not a new meaning really, but a recycling of a 6th grade meaning. For some reason, tons of people started using the word Gay again as meaning lame or dumb:
"That's Gay."
"Do you like Franz Ferdinand?"
"They're alright, but some of their stuff is kinda gay."
"I don't feel like going out tonight."
"Don't be gay, come on, let's go."
Avril Lavigne used it in an interview, which went to pains to explain what she meant by that. No gay rights group has denounced her at the time of this writing.
I don't have any problem with it, and seriously, neither do any of my gay friends who don't have major personality disorders. There is a sprinkling of people in my crowd who do have a problem with it. They share certain traits, but I won't go into it. One of them is a former roommate of mine, a sort of skid row alcoholic actress and devotee of self marginalization. And a fag hag. Absolutely had to get on the soap box when I declared a record she was trying to get me to like to be gay. Took pause, didn't catch the way back reference when we all used that word constantly, before any of us knew we were gay, or any of us knew anyone who we knew to be gay, etc, or the sheer silliness of it. Getting all mealy mouthed, and already slurring from drink, the best she could sputter was "you just caaannnnn't use that word that way!" The Movement, The Cause, it all started welling up in her bleary eyes. Another guy who I didn't suspect would be so damned PC (and isn't in many other areas of his life) confidentially mentioned to me that it bothered him that a friend of ours used the G-word often. Shit dog, I said, I use that word too. It's funny. No, he didn't think that was right. This from a guy who hits on waitresses. I said there's no connotation really, between Gay As In Dumb, Lame, Etc and People Who Like The Same Sex.
Gales of arguments could roil forth from that last sentence. There is a connotation of course. But I think using Gay that way is only pointing towards a sort of insipid stereotype that actually exists, and it's more a personality type than a sexual orientation, and it certainly isn't pointing towards the entire Alternative Lifestyle Movement. I know people who, when they were in the closet, didn't talk like Carol Channing, but now they do. That's gay.
For the record, I have gay friends, associates, clients and colleagues living and dead that I love and respect, I'm for gay marriage and I'm glad the issue got forked onto the table to wriggle and crawl for all to see and deal with - I thought it was too soon, but now that it's happening, the sooner the better, because it's going to take a long time, no matter what. In 1997 I was a drag show announcer at the Gay 90's. I was backstage and saw stuff that would make any rocker blush. I say Gay. I say it in front of Gay people. They think it's funny. Well one didn't, he scowled at me. He had a toupee that, if you pushed the knot of his tie, would spin around. That guy had 27 credit cards and he shot the balance around on all of them in perpetuity. He cheated on his boyfriend constantly, snorted a lot of coke and stole money from people if he didn't have cash. Wouldn't let his boyfriend smoke pot. It was horrible. They finally broke up, and he wound up living in a car and wearing the same cheap apholstered suit and trying and failing to beat any friends of his ex's up. That's not gay, that's just wrong.
I'm not saying that it's completely right to use the word Gay That Way. It's not quite, but it will be eventually. There has been no uproar. Probably because, as we all know, the word already has dual meanings. It means attracted to the same sex, yeah, but it (still) also means happy. It really does. I'm sure half the population of Kennebunkport pointedly uses the word in that context...
George: It's another beautiful day Barbara!
Barbara: The sun is shining and the weather is absolutely gay!
George: Let's have some iced tea and sandwiches on the porch.
And, I can say with authority that, as a child growing up in the midwest 70's, I (was) dressed gaily for every school and family portrait photograph from grades 1-6. In fact, I don't think there's any other way to put it.
Posted by Daniel E. Boen at 01:02 PM | Comments (6110)
The First Weekend In August Is The Hardest And Most Fatal
Arighggtt...
This is rather acerbic but it's a start...
Up and running. This is where I'm at right now: Uptown, Minneapolis, it's the Art Fair. It's a human aquarium, where you can find enormous people trucking in from NEW JERSEY to buy "crafts" and "arts":;:
"Arts" -> usually paintings of steer and Aztec sunrises
"Crafts" ---> painted bark with googly eyes glued on, things of that calibre
And people who ask you where they might find a bathroom. When I lived on Irving and Lake, somebody actually rang the doorbell to my 2nd level apartment and asked if their family could use the bathroom. Miserable tots peered around from the back of his knees. I said "$20/head". He was not impressed. He was getting mad. It's the same thing now, now that I live on 34th & Hennepin - You get a guy who can actually wear a yellow shirt and dark khaki shorts and yellow droopy socks and the same flattened Bass weejuns he's had since 1986 and some really freaked out Oakley shades walking down the street with his wife who has plump shiny legs and bad roots. And then he looks at you like you're an alien. You tell him he looks like Phil Donahue and he doesn't belong in your neighborhood. He growls like an animal and you pour your iced coffee down his fucking pants.
Or you get a pair of Barbara Bush clones in front of you waddling up the sidewalk at .2 miles per hour. They walk by Lund's, the tony grocery store where single women dress up to buy produce and find husbands (*seriously), and one Barbara Bush says to the other Barbara Bush: "I just love this Art Fair!" And the other one replies "I just wish they held it in a better neighborhood."
At first I thought "now I know what it's like to be a townie." But then the thought kind of changed to: "These people are human filth."
Ask anyone who's ever lived in Uptown what they think of the Art Fair, and you'll see that I am by far the most humanitarian of residents towards Our Annual Visitors.
You will see Keillor gently avalanching down the road on Sunday, wearing sunglasses and a wide straw gardening hat for disguise and for shade. He'll pick up a painted pine cone and sniff it loudly and wheezedly. You will probably find my sister, who lives down in Eagan, with her daughters and possibly her husband, and they'll be wondering why they came down, and the answer is because it somehow got into all of their daily planners, so it is nobody's fault. You will find freewheelin' Somalis, hanging out and nonchalant in their gold lamé pants and Ben Sherman shirts, talking on their cell phones. You will see the bicyclist who shot his agressor dead outside of Azia on 26th & Nicollet. That is one fucking weird story. And you'll see one or two people you used to know who wouldn't be caught dead at the Art Fair even five years ago. They've cleaned up, gone direct, and have completely lost their minds, and they know you know it. Offer to buy them a drink at the Uptown and they'll hold out a get away from me hand and smile and shake their heads to say "you my friend are in our past."
Posted by Daniel E. Boen at 01:01 PM | Comments (15173)
Old Stuff.
Ah, the next few items are from my old blog titled The EAT Police, which I tried last summer at Blogspot, which sucked:
The First Weekend In August Is The Hardest And Most Fatal
How Gay Is Gay?
Dumbass.txt
Thanks and enjoy,
DB
Posted by Daniel E. Boen at 12:57 PM | Comments (2190)