October 6.2000 * Just owl 43
Continued from Page 1
RW: You told Qenre you’re having more
sex than ever with younger guys these days
because either you can buy them or they
want to sleep with a famous writer.
EW : [Laughs] I think I was bragging. That
interviewer kind of wound me up.
RW: It reads that way.
EW : He was very cute, very impertinent,
and 1 think 1 just sort of took the bait. I kind of
went crazy in that interview. The whole time 1
was giving that interview I was thinking, "My
editor is going to crucify me for this.”
RW: You’re back in New York now. How
has it changed in the 15 years you were
gone?
EW : It’s less bohemian. I can remember
meeting an awful lot of people in the arts who
were gay who were quite serious and kind of
nerdy kx)king— which is sort of one of my
types, 1 mean 1 like nerds— and now they’re all
so buff and so perfect and materialistic, 1
think.... It is amusing. 1 like to go to the Big
Cup (in Chelsea] and hang out th ere.... I’m 40
years older than anybody else in there, but still
1 will sometimes meet people who don’t know
who I am and we’ll just be sitting at the same
table drinking our lattes and we’ll start talking.
And of course, the generalizations I’m making
are only about the surface look of people.
When you dig deeper, you always find that
people are quite interesting and very different,
one from the other. It’s sort of interesting to be
at the red-hot center of the movement even if
you feel out of sync with it. My boyfriend... is
35— and he’s a very young-looking 35— and he
feels quite alienated from that whole world,
too, because he’s a writer and he’d rather spend
his time writing than going to the gym, so even
though he has a nice, natural body he’s not a
brontosaurus.
RW: It looks like you still haven’t had to
take any H IV drug cocktails.
EW : T hat’s right.
RW: It’s been, what, 15 years or more?
EW : I was diagnosed in 1985. I’m sup
posed to be som ething called a long-term
nonprogressor.
RW: You still have normal C D 4 cell
counts?
EW : I haven’t even had them tested in a
year, but the last time I looked they were like
high 600s.
RW: That’s great. T hat’s like the lower
end of normal.
EW: I feel lucky. I don’t take any credit for
it at all. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke, and I
sleep a lot, but I don’t think that has anything
to do with it. I think it’s genetic. I’m awfully
happy to have been granted this reprieve
because I feel like I’ve been able to write a lot
of books. From the time I saw you (in 1988] till
now I’ve written God knows how many books.
RW: How did America strike you after
being gone for so long?
EW: A lot of great things. O ne of the
advantages of a thriving economy is that every
body is moving up, or seems to be, in the
world. I mean, the man who drove us down
tonight, he’s from Chile, but he’s studying to
get his MBA. In France, somebody who’s your
chauffeur would probably be a chauffeur for
bfe; that is what he would do. Same thing with
a waiter. Waiter is a profession in France, and
people do it their whole lives. Here, most wait
ers, if you tease them a little, they drop their
formal manner and are just guys. And if you
arts. Here, there’s no tradition of honorable
a lot of pain for gay people.
talk to them— you can talk to them, first of
poverty left. Poverty’s always sort of despicable
all— they don’t hide behind a professional
now in America. There’s very little of that old
RW: I agree with you, yet the experience
mask as they do in Europe. Secondly, once you
bohemian spirit that would say, “Well, you’re a
of being an outsider often bred within one a
dig a little bit deeper, you find out that they’re
great artist and you have 10 loyal followers and
healthy skepticism of all kinds of things that
studying art history or are in premed or some
that’s enough.” Now, everybody wants to have
were handed down from on high as the way
thing like that. There’s a tremendous climb
the movie version and the house and the sec
we were supposed to be and the way things
upwards in this society which is very exciting,
ond house and the yacht and whatever. T h at’s
are supposed to be and what you’re supposed
actually. People are very optimistic here, and
the only way that people can really measure
to do with your life. Once you realize that
cheerful, I think. Sometimes they’re stressed
excellence now.
that which had been handed down to you
out because they’re overworking. But there is
about sexuality was wrong, it gave you the
this kind of optimism which I knew when I
RW: I think the gay movement in this
skepticism of: Do I want to get married and
was a kid in the ’50s and in the early '60s but
country has won the war and just has battles
have 2 .2 kids and live in the suburbs and
which vanished really from America, especially
left to fight. 1 think if we stopped formal
work for a corporation and ride the subway
New York, which went through a period of
activism right now, things would keep pro
train? A lot of gay people never ask those
gressing until we had full equal rights. With
bankruptcy and danger and crime in the 70s
questions now.
assimilation comes a loss of what we had that
and then the recession in the ’80s. This is one
EW : I agree. I think that’s true. If you look
made us special as a subculture, perhaps.
of the high points now in American history,
at the titles of books like Virtually N orm al or A
and 1 think people should be aware of
Place at the Table, those are the aspirations
it. There’s a down side, which is a kind
of a lot of gay people now. I think it’s partly
There's a tremendous climb upwards
of dumbing-down of America, a kind of
because o f what I was talking about— this
triumphalism that Americans all feel—
old-fashioned bohemianism died because of
in [A m erican] society which is very
that they are the best and the most—
economic reasons; it was hard for people to
which brings about a kind of chauvin
go on living with a part-time job that
exciting, actually. People are very
ism, I think, a lack of interest in other
would allow them to be artists in the rest
optimistic
here,
and
cheerful,
I
th
in
k
....
cultures. In the gay world, gay culture is
of their time. Everybody has to have two
jobs now just to pay the rent. The other
sort of floundering at the moment, I
There's a down side, which is
thing that happened is that a lot of the
think, in a way. A lot of gay book shops
a kind o f dumbing-down o f America,
more interesting people in the gay commu
are having trouble hanging on. In
nity died off, and they didn’t get a chance
France, there’s a special law that you
a kind o f triumphalism that Americans a ll
to
transmit their values and their culture to
can’t discount books, so the big stores
a younger generation.
can’t discount books. All they can offer
— that they c are the best and the
is more books. That means that there
most —
which brings about a kind o RW:
f Maybe the bohemians are still
are more bookstores in Paris than in all
here, but so many other people have
of America. Every little bookstore is
chauvinism, I think, a lack o f interest
come out of the closet that the bohemians
preserved because they can sell books as
are
a tiny minority now.
in
other
cultures.
cheaply as the big store. It’s sad to see
EW : T h at’s right. That could be. I can
the death of so many gay Kxikstores
remember in the ’50s going to a gay bar on
which have been something like a com
EW
:
I
think
that’s
true,
but
I
don’t
think
it’s
the
outskirts
o f Chicago called Louis Gage’s,
munity center for gays; in many towns, that is
too high of a price to pay for all the good
and there you would see the one couple in that
the community center.
things that will come with it. People should
area where the woman was black and the man
have
the
right
to
get
married,
to
leave
their
was white, you’d see the people who are physi
RW: Is France less materialistic and con-
apartment to their lover of 20 years rather than
cally challenged, you would see all kinds of odd
sumeristic?
to
their
siblings
who
they
haven’t
seen
for
people that didn’t fit in at the bar, because the
EW : I think so, especially in the arts. What
years.
People
should
have
the
right
to
adopt
gay bar was a place for odd people. Now, even
America used to have and France still has is a
kids, to announce frankly and openly that this
gays who are slightly odd feel uncomfortable in
group of young people who don t make much
is
my
partner.
The
old
culture
had
tremendous
most gay bars, if you’re tix> old or tix> fat or t<x>
money and don’t expect to ever make much
benefits,
but
it
had
bigger
problems.
It
created
something.
money, and all they desire is excellence in the
in
>