Out in the Open – IDAHO(T) 2014
Out In The Open, “My best friend is gay and although manly-ish, not as ‘Kurt Cobain’ about it as you” …
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A funny thing happened to me at work back in March.
I was sitting in the break room, jawjacking splatter films with Jennifer and Dylan, two of the workers on the front line. Anyway, the film American Psycho was brought up – certainly a good one, not one of my favorites, but a worthy watching, especially if you like your gore mixed in with liberal doses of black humor.
Jennifer mentioned that they had recently shown the film on the cable channel Logo. I said I was surprised, considering how hard that movie would be to edit for television, but at least it’d be a welcome break from the endless runs of Absolutely Fabulous and Ru Paul’s drag shows that seem to form the bedrock of that channel’s programming.
Jennifer looked at me sort of oddly and said, “How do you know about Logo?”
“I have digital cable, it’s in the cable package,” I replied.
“Well, so what? My mom has cable and she never heard of the channel,” Jennifer fired back.
“One of the bars I used to drink at back in Terre Haute played it on their TV constantly,” I said.
“Was it a gay bar?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you hang out in a lot of gay bars?”
“Yeah, I’m queer.”
Jennifer and Dylan both looked at me sort of funny, not sure if I was fucking with them or not. I had to hold myself back from laughing. Granted, I’m not a flaming pretty boy, but I’ve never thought of myself as exactly subtle either. I walked around work wearing a pair of rainbow suspenders (the last known straight guy to wear those was Robin Williams in the ‘70s) and I had recently invited both of them to a showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in Indianapolis.
Neither one of them were offended or anything, they were just surprised that this six-foot tall long-haired dude in the black metal t-shirt, dirty flannel, and leather jacket was a queer, a half-cocksucker, a certified ten percenter. Jennifer later told me, “I am however used to the more feminine gay guy. My best friend is gay and although manly-ish, not as ‘Kurt Cobain’ about it as you. It is kinda nice to see a less stereotypical gay male.”
I told some of the guys back home about it and they couldn’t stop laughing; me, the most militant bisexual in probably the entire state of Indiana was too subtle to be noticed in the “real world” of industrial postage meters.
It reminded me of something my buddy Kris told me a few years ago after I came out publicly, he said, “You don’t just come out once, you do it again and again.” I suppose he turned out to be right, because as long as I don’t have any of the stereotypical characteristic of what a young queer man is supposed to have, I’m gonna keep surprising people in the real world.
One last bit of advice. To my fellow queer rock’n’rollers: rock out with your cock out, boys. It appears we can get away with it right out in the open…
