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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 2008)
a j justout JANUARY 4. 2QQ8 That Was Then Early essays reveal more than expected y holidays are always filled with nostalgia—comfort food, family time, old ornaments on the tree— but this season was particularly memory-jogging. I spent most of Christmas Eve rummaging through vintage videotapes with my brother, who is determined to find a classic commercial with “The Kite Man” warning kids about the dangers of playing around power lines. We never did come across that public service announcement, but we did discover a disturbing spot, circa 1983, inform ing viewers that AIDS is not airborne. Yikes. The walk down memory lane continued when Mom dusted off a bunch of my long-lost school papers. As a lifelong writer, I was fascinated to see how my style has evolved through the years. Many of these assignments came during my bleak middle school days, when I started to find myself attracted to naked boys in the locker room but didn’t know why. As a result, I was a straight-A M student who hated being at school. A typical detached poetry assignment went like this: I know, I know, I know a lot. 1 do go to school, but like it—I do not. As a defense mechanism, I conjured up plenty of bullshit about how much I liked girls. This freshman essay was about my “first crush,” Joanne Mayberry: She always seemed to be wearing the same type of things every day I knew her. These dresses were sexy. They were long. And they had flowers on them. And they came way down, below her knees, down to her dark socks! Ah! Pretty unconvincing, eh? When I was 14, we were asked to predict our lifestyle in 10 years. Here is my warped vision of the future: Of course, I will have a wife. I will prob' ably have met her while in college, at the dorm. She will have to be a very good listen' er, natural and, of course, pretty. And check out this suggestive story about three astronauts on the first manned space voyage to Mars who encounter three female aliens: To escape this misery, 1 would write bizarre fantasies fueled by my obsession with television, particularly game shows and soap operas. This one was about a time machine: They were very attractive, so we decided not to shoot. "Can we go back to Earth with you?" they asked. “Sure!" we answered quickly. When all six of us got back, we married. And I think I’d better not tell you the rest! I only have vague memories of my parents fighting before their divorce. So, I want to go back to the days when I had two parents still in love, like on television. Guess I had a dirty mind even back in elemen tary school. By the eighth grade, I was downright kinky in describing “the ideal dinner party”: In another paper, I penned an elaborate dream sequence in which I was a contestant on The Price Is Right. Pay attention to my word choice: I would invite numerous celebrities. My invitations would be written in gold leaf on 18th century fine' milled onion paper. They would be exclusively hand delivered by my least favorite star, Ricky Schroeder, on a leash. Even in a thing for bears. 1 was competing against a man named Ollie Archibald. Of course, he was a real queer. What the hell? I have no recollection of using “queer”—or even knowing what it meant—in the sixth grade. My internalized homophobia must’ve been creeping in already. Clearly, I knew I was different, but as a teenager the main thing that set me apart from the other guys was that I was hooked on the daytime serial Santa Barbara: The strongest evidence of my future as a homo? I was constantly writing about bears: an essay about grizzlies; a story about my beloved stuffed teddy, Joey; and my first-ever school report, dated Feb. 15,1979: When spring comes there [sic] mother teaches them how to hunt and catch fish. They are strong and can hurt you, so don’t get too close. Some bears are nice to you when they are tamed. They, having not even watched the show for one Well, it’s nice to know some things never second, tell me it is girlie. They tell me I’m stupid, and change. assume soap operas are all the same and different from all other shows. However, I don’t think soaps are ' Arts and Culture Editor JlM RADOSTA needs your stupid, I think these people are. feedback. E'mail him at jim@justout.com.
