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By
Mitzel
This morning, as I was catching up with all the other gay publications, I read
Echo: The Magazine Of The Southwest, a sister magazine out of Phoenix, Arizona. I found it lively and informative. One page listed
community services: health clinics, lawyers, realtors, tanning salons, etc. Under the heading "Pest Control" was a business called "Rainbow Bug." I was captivated. Rainbow Bug. What would a Rainbow Bug be? An exceptionally
pretty butterfly? This set me off. Should we re-brand everything in the community, as Tony Blair wants to re-brand (something wrong about this word) the New Britain, and is anything staler than yet another shuffle at The
New Britain? In Gay World, a heart clinic could be Rainbow Cardio. A Mental health facility Rainbow Gonzo. A gay undertaker might be Rainbow It's-A-Wrap-O, gay plumbers could be Rainbow Crap-O, and a dry-out tank
could be named Rainbow Dypso. And, just for fun, a new hallucinogenic drug could be spawned: Rainbow Tab-O. You dig, Daddy-O?
Should the names for things have any connexion with what they are or do? Are languages and their symbols just more obstacles to communication? Why work at specificity when it's all just ignored
anyway? This is particularly important if you are a minority, outside the loop of the smug majority. For the outsiders, clarity and nuance become even more important.
Case in point. I witnessed my roommate go On Line for the first time in his life just the other day. I know: we get around to these things in our household more slowly than others-- and for some there is the
joy of doing anything for the first time, a joy that diminishes after 40 and is gone altogether, I swear, after 50, with the lone exception of the divine Dario Fo winning that prize. Roommate told our search engine to find us
some "gay porn." (We would visit the Maria Callas Museum later.) A directory promptly appeared listing venues of Gay Porn. He clicked on Hot Guys. We eagerly awaited what might come up! On the screen came the usual
spread of bosoms and gash-- just Showgirls all over again. We went back and tried another "gay porn" site, clicked it on, and up came more scantily clad gals with pussycat faces. We were both discouraged. Buy a $2000
computer, get on the Web, and Tricked Again! You hunt for Gay Porn and you get the same hetro spreads you've been trying to avoid all your life. I think folks who design Web directories know full-well what "gay porn" is, so why
the wrong offerings?
I recall back in the 1970s, I was invited to a friend's dinner party (he's now a big cheese in gay New York). I told him I was a difficult dinner guest as I am a vegetarian. He smiled: "I have lots of friends who
are vegetarians. It's no problem at all." I showed up for the dinner and was served a piping hot sauted chicken breast (back to bosoms, again). I said: "Richard, I told you I am vegetarian." Again that smile. "I know. I planned
this dinner around you. Vegetarians eat chicken." I thought to myself: what is the point? No one listens; people press right on with whatever they've set to do. I learned this from rich people-- the few I've encountered in my
time: they will smile politely, listen as you say your piece, and then go right on, blissfully ignoring everything you have just said.
The problem is with the world as constructed: there is more noise all the time, no one listens. No Controlling Legal Authority meets Oral Sex Is Not Adultery, as though anyone cared even about Blow Jobs
in the Oval Office, the blather, the ditziness, the football games. If things were any less predictable, I really would think we are trapped in a Borges short story. Into which would come a tome from Bruce Bawer,
Stealing Jesus. Framed as critique of the bible-thumpers in AmeriKKKa, Bawer's book is actually an apologia for his conversion to the Episcopal Church. What denomination he converted from I do not know, but I hope it was from
the religion of the Hebrews; a smart Jew would learn quickly that Episcopalians are truly god's chosen people!
In this world-- and for some reason the cultures of cities such as New York (advertising, broadcasting, theatre, self-promotion), Washington (politics) and Los Angeles ("Have a Nice Day!")-- it has come to
pass that The Truth just isn't there. It isn't that Truth can be an option in discussion, negotiations, etc. It's that with so many other options in play, some folks, working their own agendas, can't differentiate what is true from
other instruments for success. So Gay Porn equals Snatch; vegetarian means meat-eater, and oh, I didn't inhale. In such a climate if some player actually told the truth, it couldn't possibly shock because it would not be perceived
as a genuine article-- for many in that culture, something they have not seen in a long time. In an environment so polluted, only life forms on the order of Dick Morris do well.
I can't swim in that sea. Don't even want to. Don't even enjoy watching those who drown or float in it anymore. It's scary, made even more so by the fact that it's all packaged as entertainment, that hole
down which we probably already have gone to hell-- and, no, Bruce, not even the calm of the Episcopal Kirk can forestall Arbitron Armageddon. How to fight back? Why even bother? I will read Kafka and think of
metamorphosis, and turn into my own variety of that precious thing-- Rainbow Bug, burrowing, munching, flying, a lively thing, part Monarch, part ladybug, part dung beetle-- and, honey, I've certainly moved my share of shit!
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