Death Comes to the Arch-GayProf

Okay, maybe not literally death. Still, this past week I have battled strep throat. It might not have been the most ill I have ever been in my life (that would be an e-coli infection I once had), but it was still quite unpleasant.

Sometime last Saturday, the swelling got to the point that I felt like I was choking on my own throat. My tonsils grew to the size of robin eggs. I don't mean the bird, either, I mean Burt Ward.

Before this, I didn’t even know where my tonsils were. I always thought tonsils were some mythical invention created as a plot device for television shows like The Brady Bunch. It turns out they are real and they react badly when infected with bacteria. Even with antibiotics, my body has taken ten days to fight off the infection.

Of course, this was perfect timing for work on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Why not lose several precious days to make really sure that it is never ending? Then again, the pain and fever kinda made the NERPD seem like a low priority.

Something else about strep? I couldn’t sleep – at all. The pain was too severe. This left me looking to sweet, sweet television to soothe the pain. Let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing on at three in the morning, except the occasional rerun of Roseanne and infomercials for “magic” towels that soak up twice their weight in water. I think that I might have ordered two in a fit of fever.

Falling asleep worried me anyway because I feared that my throat would swell shut and then I would die. Being on the macabre side, I then wondered what my obituary would look like. I am pretty sure it would be along the lines of this:

GayProf, the most desirable man on the blogosphere, died of a super strain of throat-eating bacteria yesterday in his cottage in Midwestern Funky Town. He was thirty-three – the same age as Jesus when he died. Many people are already drawing the parallels.



GayProf was unsuccessfully treated by doctors with a round of antibiotics, proving his parents’ proclamations from his childhood that doctors didn’t do anything and weren’t worth the waste of money. It is said that he had only visited a doctor’s office around a dozen times in his entire life.

In recent months, GayProf lived in quasi-seclusion as he worked on the brilliant, but unfinished, Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Some people suggested that his blog, the vehicle of his tremendous fame and popularity, had suffered as a result. A few even stated flatly that he should really “pull the plug” on it. “What CoG needs,” one friend recently told him, “is a bullet.” He probably feels very guilty for that now.

Although he was one of the most adored bloggers (among those who were gay, male, part-Latino, and a professor), he was a shy and unassuming presence in real life (though still really glamorous). Many people considered him the intellectual and spiritual leader of our nation. Others thought he was just some goofball guy who liked Wonder Woman a little too much. Whatever the case, he is dead now.

The nation is in shock and mourning. "I never expected that he could die," one citizen exclaimed, "Or, if he was going to die, I thought it would be from TaB related cancer."



Not much is known about GayProf’s early life, except stories about his birth and upbringing in his beloved New Mexico. Those who knew him best said that he gave a prayer each morning thanking the goddess that he was not be born anywhere else in the U.S.

Untangling the myths from the reality for the early part of his adult life has vexed tabloids and biographers for decades. Most accounts suggest that the people of New Mexico decided to send an emissary to the rest of the U.S. to teach them their superior ways of being and knowing. After an exhausting athletic competition, GayProf became that emissary. A less realistic story states that he simply decided to attend graduate school.

Whatever the case, he worked hard in his role as emissary, often living in the most conservative and backwards parts of the nation as a sort of reverse-missionary. At the tender age of 21, he entered graduate school. It was his first challenge in this new role. GayProf (then fighting injustice as GayGradStudent) was unexpectedly surrounded by ultra-conservative white evangelicals. Coincidentally, GayProf was frequently seen with his best friend in the town’s local bars trying to quash out the pain of it all.

GayProf’s biggest challenge, however, appeared when he accepted a job in the dreaded state of Texas. Never before had GayProf witnessed such extreme and blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, gluttony, and meanness as the people of Texas provided. “Never trust a state that assassinated a president,” GayProf often stated.

It was during that pivotal moment that GayProf took his message of peace, love, and sensible shoes to the global internet. He covered a wide-ranging array of topics, including gay porn, Charlie's Angels, racism in popular culture, Charlie's Angels, misogyny, and circumcision (and occasionally a post on Charlie's Angels).

GayProf's real identity became the subject of much speculation. Many people even theorized that there was not a single "GayProf." Instead, they imagined that there was an entire legion of GayProfs who all contributed to the brilliant blog. Well, until people actually thought two seconds about it. I mean, how many gay, Latino professors are there in the world? His "secret" identity was kinda obvious and maybe even a bit lame.

Fame brought attention. An avalanche of articles and television programs obsessively followed GayProf’s fashion choices, his tastes in art, music and literature, and his thoughts on politics and history. A few complained that GayProf wore his sexuality on his sleeve, literally:



In private, though, GayProf had become exhausted fighting losing battles to make Texas civil. He found reprieve at an institute in the Boston area. Though only there for one year, news of his death has crippled the historic city. Plans are already underway to change the name of Beacon Hill to GayProf Hill. “Our city was founded to be an example of the best in human endeavor – to be a beacon for all others to emulate,” one Bostonian stated, “If GayProf didn’t embody that spirit, I don’t know who did – or who could.”

Unwilling to return to the cesspool-state of Texas once his year in Boston was up, GayProf took a new position in the more laid-back atmosphere of Big Midwestern University at Midwestern Funky Town. For the first time in his academic career, he found a somewhat serene environment to explore historical questions. “What I remember most about GayProf,” one colleague stated, “was that he really knew how to make a cocktail. I mean, did he have a drinking problem? Totally – But it was like drinking heaven when he pulled out his shaker – and he was a good bartender, too.”



In his final days, former students had gathered on the lawn of his modest cottage burning candles and singing songs of praise. “GayProf was a certain type of professor,” one crying student confided, “You weren’t necessarily in love with him when you were actually in his class -- and his star-spangled short-shorts took some time getting used to. He also made you do a lot of work. Given that so many of us are lazy and feel entitled, this frequently created resentment. As time went by, though, you realized that he was the best you would ever have. Who will take care of us now?” The news of his death resulted in large scale rioting across the campus and the burning of several classroom buildings.

GayProf, however, was not free of controversy. Anonymous commentators on his blog frequently left poorly worded and ill-conceived complaints.

Some others remarked that his trademark goatee left him hopelessly trapped in the nineties. Still others feared GayProf’s unhealthy and dark obsessions. “Why does he have so many dishes?” an anonymous critic told this reporter two years ago, “I mean, do you really need a separate luncheon set from the 1940s and a dinner set from the 1960s? It just isn’t natural.” Today, those critics are undoubtedly burning with shame.



GayProf kept a modest and chaste personal life. It was said that he never bedded anyone before really knowing him. Well, at least until he knew his name.

GayProf is survived by his cat, who may or may not have been gnawing on his corpse when discovered by police. His body is in state at the round-capitol building in New Mexico, draped in the familiar red and yellow flag of that sacred place. Canonization proceedings are expected to start sometime next year.

Alone and Dead

Classes resume tomorrow at Big Midwestern University. I am having a hard time coming to terms with this ridiculously short winter break. Most of my peeps who work at other universities don’t go back to work until after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Even my nephew’s public school starts later than we do.

Nobody has really offered a satisfactory explanation about why we must return so early. All they promise is that I will be grateful when the semester ends in April. That seems like cold comfort. I am exhausted now. My current fantasy-life focuses on sleeping for a week (Maybe I have mono?). Alas, I have to earn those coins. Back to the classroom for GayProf.

Perhaps one of the reasons that the university is going back so early is because they figure there is little else to do in Midwestern Funky Town in the middle of winter. Well, we have nothing else to do except shovel snow. Let me tell you, that shoveling shit is for the birds.

I lived in the Midwest for six years in grad school, so this isn’t exactly my first time at the Ewing Bar-B-Que (so to speak). During those years, however, I lived in an apartment. This meant that somebody else always shoveled the snow out of my way. When they didn’t, I could curse them out. Now, when it snows, I just curse. On New Year’s Day, I awoke and opened my rear window to see this:



Oh, my fate is a cruel one. Why – WHY – does my driveway need to be so long? At least Bourbon keeps me warm.

Of course, the snow isn’t just hard on my aching back and little stick arms. Just as when I lived in Boston, the snow kills my interest in having any type of social life. It takes forever for me to lace and unlace my winter boots. They are such a hassle to take on and off that they work better than a chastity belt. Given that I live somewhere where the state flower is an icicle, this means I am in for some quiet introspection over the next few months.

All of it contributes to making this my least favorite part of the year. Faithful readers of CoG know that we consider the period between New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day the dreaded and bleak void time.

Seemingly I am not alone in my estimation of this time of year. Over the past couple of weeks, two friends of mine had almost identical conversations with me. They don’t know each other (in fact, they live in different parts of the nation). Yet, they both expressed the same measure of forlornness.

My friend in New Mexico felt that his life was passing him by and wondered aloud if he would ever find a permanent boyfriend. When I pressed him about his reasons for why he wanted a boyfriend, he expressed his fear of dying alone. Or, more accurately, he fears that his death will occur without notice.



This was repeated with a friend in MFT only a week later. They both speculated that, if they died tomorrow, it would take weeks for anyone to find their body. This struck me as an odd reason to want a boyfriend.

True, I have sometimes had similar macabre thoughts. Anyone who lives alone surely speculates about how long it would take before somebody noticed their absence. We all shudder at the notion that our untimely demise will only be discovered because some neighbor complained of the “smell.” Nobody wants to be that story on the 5 o’clock news.

When such irrational thoughts take hold of me, I say to myself, “Get a hold of yourself and think positive thoughts. You won’t mind if nobody finds your body. You’ll be dead.”

When they doesn't work, I turn to my other reason for not worrying. Deep in my heart, I know that there is one special person in my life who I can count on coming to my house almost instantly if I disappear: My bartender.

Let’s be honest, my disappearance would greatly impact his child’s college fund. My drinking is his kid’s future. Nothing is going to keep him from those tips. Shoot – He would use the jaws of life to save me.



All the same, I have never considered the fear of having an undiscovered lifeless body the primary reason to find a boyfriend. My friends are relatively young men. One of them is my age exactly. This means he is very, very, very young. As far as I know, they are both pretty darn healthy. If they get into a relationship now, that little deathwatch of theirs could take several decades. It seems like they are kinda fast-forwarding to the end. What will they do in the meantime? Are they just imagining the boyfriend will enter their house, light a candle, and sit at their bedside until their time has come?

Okay, I understand their basic sentiment of feeling lonely. Still, it is odd to think that we want relationships for the worst times in our lives. When was the last time you heard somebody say, “I really want a romantic partner because my life is going so fantastic that I want to share that with somebody else? I am just having way too much fun for one person. I need to spread these good times around with somebody else.”

I never hear that. Actually, I often hear the opposite. “Boyfriend? No way, man, my life is too good right now. Relationships will just screw it up. Crap – Even saying the word ‘relationship’ probably jinxed me. I better go and have some anonymous sex just in case.”

Saying that they want somebody who will tend to their deathbed also sounds like they expect a lot of work from that boyfriend. 'Cuz you know it isn’t just watching them die that they want, either. They are going to expect you to call their family and work with the funeral home to give you a decent burial, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if they asked to proofread the many drafts of your eulogy before they kicked the bucket. Heck, you're going to have to fill the next forty years doing something.

All that death talk sounded too much like a job. Do they want a boyfriend or a live-in nurse? At least a registered nurse can legally give you drugs.

If you really want a boyfriend to do work, why not make it something that you can enjoy while you are alive? Forget the deathbed scenes and shoot for something that will make the here and now more tolerable. “Gee, I really want to put up some drywall in my basement and turn it into a t.v. room,” I’d like to hear, “Better get a general-contractor as boyfriend by this weekend if that is going to happen in time for the Project Runway finale. Oh, shoot, I also wanted to install that new sound system and needed a boyfriend who worked at the Best Buy. Looks like I am in the market for a menage a trois.” At least at the end of that relationship you wouldn’t end up in a pine box.

Immoral Minority

Jerry Falwell is dead. One can’t turn on a television or a computer without seeing his rotund face. I personally take no satisfaction in his death, though I can understand why many queer people might do so. My personal (though largely undeveloped) belief in karma makes me inclined not to wish harm on anybody. Of course, I also suspect that at about this time Falwell is awakening to find that God is really a Latina Lesbian and that she’s kinda pissed with him.

Falwell’s death, I am sure, is hard for his three children and the friends who will miss him. I can’t fathom that anybody thought that he had more sex appeal than Jabba the Hut, but he apparently also had a wife. They all cared for him and they are probably mourning now.

That was the problem with Falwell, though. While I recognize that he had value to those who surrounded him, he never recognized the same in me as a gay man. I (and other people like me) existed as merely an abstraction to him. Apparently it did not occur to him that I also had a life, people who cared for and loved me, and my own ambition in life. Instead of that, he saw all queer people as an indistinguishable group that was responsible for bringing God’s punishment to this nation on September 11 (along with feminists, anybody who had an abortion, and “Pagans”).

Though I wished him no harm, I also don't want it to be forgotten that Falwell created a tremendous amount of pain and misery for queer people in this nation. His rise in power came from tapping into people's worst homophobia. Because of his status, many people listened intently to his rambling. His religious message likely resulted in some casting out their own sons, daughters, or other loved ones.



Jerry Falwell and his cronies provided a critical lesson in why we need to be vigilant in guarding our civil rights. Not only did he prevent our attaining basic civil protections, he and his friends actually worked to rollback already established laws.

During the middle of the 1970s, many communities started to listen to gay activists' concerns for their safety and security. Indeed, by 1977 more than three dozen states or local governments had added sexual orientation to civil rights statutes that protected citizens against discrimination. Many people expressed optimism that queer people might actually be treated like humans in the United States. The Religious Right, however, would put an end to all of that.

Unexpectedly, Dade County, Florida became a battleground. Why do so many bad things happen in that county? Is it cursed? Was the whole county built on a cemetery? Did they only move the tombstones and not the bodies?

In 1977, Dade County passed an ordinance making it illegal to discriminate against an individual based on their sexual orientation. Suddenly a woman appeared on the national scene who would make Darth Vader seem like my Aunt Molly. Anita Bryant created a massive campaign to take away civil rights that had already been protected by law. While many people credit Falwell with launching an era of extremist-religious driven political organizing, it was really Bryant who taught him some critically important tricks.

Bryant, who had been a beauty contestant (for the scholarship money, I am sure) and also the pitchwoman for Florida Orange Juice, proved immensely shrewd at manipulating the media. Bryant told eager reporters, "I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before." Man, she wasn’t foolin’.

The Dade County ordinance seemed innocuous enough. More or less, it said that treating queer people unfairly was bad and would be illegal. Stop the bus, cried Bryant. She authoritatively stated that the civil rights measure was just an elaborate trick to launch a more sinister agenda. Bryant claimed that “hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that there is an acceptable alternate way of life.” Yes, Bryant suggested that evil gay folk had the audacity to say that it might be okay to not live your life like your parents lived theirs. Wouldn’t somebody think of the children?

Well, Bryant thought of the children – She thought they made a great centerpiece for her campaign as she organized a massive grassroots organization. Bryant knew the importance of the soundbite and quickly steered the debate away from civil rights. Instead, she created a distinction between people whom she personally saw as “normal” and her opponents, whom she dubbed “those people.” According to Bryant, the very fabric of society hinged on being sure that queer people could be fired from their jobs or deprived of housing (She would later ensure that queer people in Florida would not be able to adopt children).



Bryant milked homophobic stereotypes for every drop of attention she could squeeze out. Incendiary statements became her forte, especially as she exploited (unsubstantiated) claims about child abuse. The former Miss Oklahoma argued that queer people, allegedly cursed by not being able to have their own children, wanted everybody else’s. Once safely in our clutches, we would make short work of turning those children gay (I am guessing through a daily regiment of disco music, decorating courses, and fern gardening). The general public ate it up. When Bryant said things like “Some of the stories I could tell you of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals would turn your stomach,” nobody ever asked her to prove it.

She ultimately named her campaign “Save Our Children.” I guess calling her organization, “Treat Queer People Like Garbage” didn’t test well (though she did often refer to us as “human garbage.” Wasn’t she a delight?).

In the midst of all that circus, who should appear on the scene but Jerry Falwell? Already a well-know Baptist preacher, Falwell flew to Florida to add religious authority to Bryant’s histrionics. The press dutifully quoted everything that Falwell said about queer men and women. “So called gay folks,” Falwell warned, would “just as soon kill you as look at you.”

Isn’t that the truth? All that anal sex just drives us to kill, kill, KILL!

More importantly, though, Falwell took a look at Bryant’s success at building a massive grassroots political organization (not to mention raising a handsome amount of cash) based on the hatred of others. He figured he could do likewise. In 1979, he founded the Moral Majority (which was neither). Using his Old Time Gospel Hour television show, Falwell eventually enlisted seventy-two thousand ministers and four million lay members. He claimed that he and his loyal followers battled “secular humanists and amoralists [who] are running this country and taking it straight to hell.”



Who were these people who fastracked the nation to sulfur and brimstone? Falwell frequently named the true culprits as gays, feminists, and (sometimes) Jews. He said that he was fighting a “holy war” and never shied away from talking about his hatred of people like me. In 1981, he also learned that he could literally raise a quick million dollars by asking his followers “Do you approve of known practicing homosexuals teaching in public schools?” Practicing homosexuals? Silly, Jerry – If we don’t practice, how will we ever be any good at it?

Some twenty years later, Falwell continued to make the same types of statements and usually found success. “If we do not act now,” Falwell told his frantic audiences in the late nineties, “homosexuals will 'own' America!” Yeah, gays owning America would have been a real travesty given the great shape that heterosexual people have left it. We would have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn’t uncovered our secret operative, Tinky-Winky.

Of course, I don’t at all begrudge Falwell his religious beliefs. If he wanted to imagine me burning in hell for all eternity, so be it. My vision for his afterlife might be comparable. What I did mind terribly, though, was that he confused his personal religious beliefs with civil government. I also really, really, really minded that the mainstream media often gave him a free pass and rarely bothered finding counter voices to his message.

It is interesting to me that Falwell and his kindred spirits like to claim that being queer is a matter of “choice.” From my perspective, it is they who have a choice. They are actively choosing to believe in a hateful form of their religion. Clearly Falwell made conscious decisions about which elements from Christian texts that he wanted to believe and the others that he disregarded. Given his appearance, for instance, I am guessing that the sin of gluttony hit the cutting room floor.

To me, Falwell represented the worst elements of this nation. He used religion to tell people that it was okay to hate. In doing so, he made a fortune.