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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1994)
2D T f»b r«a ry I t . 1 N 4 ▼ JOHN TERRILL • • • • "The chiefest words" 287-9370 More than 2 Decades Experience Residential/Plexes Tax-deferred Exchanges Msoc Buyer Brokerage B£'Rkf John Preston is a man of traditions—some old, some new ▼ by Grant Michael Menzies “A Realtor you can look up to” h. 249-8464 Bridgetown Realty You deserve a vacation... T~ Your Neighborhood I Get 1/2 OFF Hotels, Condos & Cruises. Discounts on Car Rentals & more! America** foremost travel program JOIN NOW FOR ONIY $49.95 Prestige Marketing Co. Call 503-241-9829 for immediate delivery Frame Shop! AFFORDABLE FRAMING WITH THE FRIENDLIEST SERVICE IN TOWN! Oh. by the way. we will be closed on Sundays until further notice THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT NEW HOURS: Tues,-Frl Sat 3302 S.E. Division SOS.2S8.1S23 11-7 11-6 ‘¡blocksEast of Natures WHEEL ALIGNMENTS & TIRES 2454 E. BURNSIDE • PORTLAND, OR 97214 Family Owned & Operated Since 1952 C R apid E ye T herapy THE SELF DISCOVERY PROCESS A revolutionary, completely natural and safe, breakthrough in the treatment of emotional stress (including PTSD, rape and sexual abuse) in a safe, private environment. R.E.T. effects your ability to act rationally and enhances your potential for self-development. D an B rewer , certified rapid eye therapist T he C omfort Z one . 2127NE48THAVE..28M989 i John Preston with canine pal y eyes,” says John Preston, “are the thing everyone has commented on since as far back as I can remember": They are indeed one very strik ing feature amidst many others, both physically and on a soul-level. You see them, and you see John Preston. Or do you? “It’s been the great opening line,” Preston chuckles, though his eyes, intensely blue, do not yet join in the fun. “You know, ‘Your eyes ^ — are...’ Fill in the blank. Demonic? Sensual? Cold? Welcoming? People have read into my eyes what ever they chose.” This is not ________________________ strictly true. What you see in Preston’s eyes is what’s happening inside. And what’s happening inside, be it de monic, sensual, cold or welcoming, is consistently quite intense stuff. Preston is always on the lookout for what fellow New Englander Emily Dickinson called “the chiefest words, the best words.” Perhaps best known as a writer of gay erotica (Mr. Benson), and former editor of The Advocate, he has served as editor of an important series of anthologies of gay literature. He has edited Personal Dispatches: Writers Confront AIDS, Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong, and most re cently, A Member of the Family: Gay Men Write AboutTheir Families (Dutton, 1993). One’s initial reaction to these stories of gay men’s memories of family is similar to the pain of hearing a small boy’s cries in the night—the one way a child has of grappling with his perceived fate, with the irre sponsible, the too well-meaning or the plain crazy adults into whose midst life sees fit to fling him. These writers have the power to resurrect and the tenderness to enjoy, the boy in all men—in them selves—that small figure caught by surprise wan dering the horizon in back of every man’s mind. Does he run in fear from, or does he approach with open arms, the man, the person, he’s become? As we sit in his room at the Heath man, which overlooks busy Broadway below, Preston explains, “This series of anthologies, along with the upcom ing Friends and Lovers, reflects something I was dealing with in a significant way at the time— Personal Dispatches,when I got my diagnosis. Hometowns, because I had to reflect on why I had moved back to New England, where I was bom, and why that was so important. Member o f the Family reflects many different dynamics that were going on with me. The motivation behind each of these anthologies was to go and ask other gay male writers, ‘How do you deal with this?”’ The 47-year-old Preston came out when very young—“Over 30 years ago,” he says. “And my parents had a terrible time with it. But over 30 years ago, we had no language with which to discuss being gay, coming out There were no youth groups, no PFLAGs, no books in the book stores, nada. As I look back on it, my parents had two major issues which I, as a young radical, thought were horribly bourgeois excuses on their part, and which I refused to take seriously.” A smile of recollection warms those eyes just a bit, like sun on ice. “My father’s issue was, ‘How are you going to make a living,’ while my mother’s was, ‘How are you going to be happy?”’ Preston explains that the final acceptance, as it were, of his gayness came when, as editor of The Advocate, he inadvertently picked up the tab after dining with his parents at one of Boston’s most expensive restaurants. In his family mythology, he grins, “The time John took Jack and Nancy to dinner at Locke-Ober was when Jack ceased to have a prob lem with John’s being a homosexual. If homo sexuality meant that his son could take him to dinner at Locke-Ober, then it was okay by him.”