Saturday, August 30

For the Love of Jimmy

I love writing Lake Effect. It's one of the best assignments in City Weekly--reporting on Utah quirks. The Powers That Be have been generous enough to give me the latitude to do what I want with it, and I've tried to bring a certain perthonal touch to the assignment--even though I've probably made it too gay. (Note: This last link may not make much sense without the accompanying photo, which was of a posted flyer advertising "Ten Gay Days" of the Utah Pride Center's WinterPride Festival. But I was particularly proud of the pastiche.)

Sometimes I yearn for the days when I had 600, even 800 words to do what I wanted, to develop a logical argument or rant and rant the day away. Paring down my little diatribes to a concise 150 (or, sometimes, an extravagant 175) has been an exercise in parsimony. I've tried to pack as much punch in as small as a space as possible, but I've had to sacrifice every bit of airiness and every chirpy conceit--and there are very few who are willing to laugh at such a dense data download.

Here, from the old luxurious 750-word archive, is one I really like. Remember in late 2004 when Jimmy Swaggart threatened to murder any gay man who looked at him "like that"? (Me neither, but this will refresh your memory.)



"I’m trying to find the correct name for it … this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. … I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died." --Jimmy Swaggart


Here's the response I wrote, which appeared originally in Salt Lake Metro (now QSaltLake):

--

For the Love of Jimmy

I’m not really sure now what to do with my collection of Jimmy Swaggart porn.

Swaggart is the blue-haired televangelist who is just so hot, hot, hot — to gay men at least — he finally had to break down and make a death threat against the next faggot who looked at him “like that.” (You know the look he means. It’s the look gay men get when they become enamored of a semiliterate, puffy Bible-banger who makes his living bilking little old ladies out of their Social Security checks.)

Yes, it was a terrible blow to discover old “hot cheeks” Jimmy is absolutely, unapologetically, 100-percent heterosexual. My hopes of getting it on with him — of finally having the opportunity to touch that flaccid, withered, somewhat gray and quivering flesh — have been utterly dashed.

But there’s nothing that can be done about it. If he’s straight, he’s straight.

Unfortunately for hetero Jimmy, the lusty animal magnetism he holds for gay men the world over does not extend to women. This is a man who does, remember, have to pay hookers in order to get his rocks off.

Not that there’s anything especially wrong with hookers. As long as they’ve chosen their profession of their own free will and are allowed to maintain enough self-esteem to stick up for themselves and ensure they’re treated well, who am I to disapprove?

It’s just that, while I’m not one to disapprove, Jimmy certainly is. One imagines the entire time he was sweating, grunting and flopping around on top of those call-girls he could barely contain the feeling of disgust he felt for himself, for them, and for a world that could hold such temptations of the flesh. That much became clear the day he had his spiritual epiphany, causing him to make a tearful speech of public repentance, which — as such spiritual epiphanies often do — came immediately after he got caught.

It was this epiphany, this complete turnaround in his spiritual convictions, that first made me realize Jimmy could change — if not with the prayers of his aged and rather superstitious viewers, then at least with the everlasting love of the right man. After all, God didn’t make Jimmy a hypocrite — Jimmy’s just living the hypocrite lifestyle.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

Nobody is born a right-wing religious nut. Ask any right-wing religious nut — he’ll tell you the story of his conversion. Likely he started out as a normal hellion: drinking, carousing, doing drugs, worshiping Satan. The kind of person you meet every day.

It isn’t until, in a moment of personal crisis, he is recruited by a member of the nefarious, world-wide, right-wing religious nut organization. These are the folks who hang out at political conventions and in churches, on college campuses and in prisons, in a never-ending hunt for their next victim.

That victim is exposed to religious literature, tempted to attend revival meetings, even subjected to the laying-on of hands — and, unless something can be done quickly, the predators’ job is quickly done: The victim joins their ranks and becomes a predator himself.

It is a vicious circle, but the predatory practices of right-wing Christians are well known. Some even go door-to-door!

All is not lost, however. It is important to remember that being a right-wing religious nut is a chosen lifestyle. Remembering this can be difficult in an age when the Washington D.C. elite and the Republican-dominated media are constantly barraging us with the false message that being a right-wing Christian is perfectly normal, even desirable.

However, I was heartened to learn that there is no gene that causes people to be right-wing religious nuts. This meant that Jimmy, my Jimmy, could change! He could even — dare I dream it? — be mine!

Visions of our perfect love danced through my head: the birds chirping sweetly, his massive neck-jowls fluttering manfully in the breeze, his lips pursed, for once, not in a wrinkled expression of his disapproval, but in a kiss barely tinged with the sweetness of Fixodent. Not only was I looking at him “like that,” he was looking at me “like that” right back.

And then, with this — this public avowal of his heterosexuality and with his determination to kill the myriad gay men who look upon his sagging man-breasts with constant, unbridled passion — my dream was dashed to bits.

Right-wing religious nut? That I could live with … I could even help him change. But heterosexual?

No, there’s nothing that can be done about that.

Friday, August 29

Mallard Fillmore explained

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Thursday, August 28

Lake Effect: Aug. 28, 2008

This week's Lake Effect deals with TRAX ticket-vending machines.

Now, don't get me wrong: I love TRAX. I am a firm supporter of public transportation in general, and of Utah Transit Authority in particular. UTA does a great job, especially considering that a majority in the Legislature think public transportation is a communist plot to overthrow America and transport U.N. jackboots to our doors on some fateful red dawn.

It's just that, when you're in a hurry to get to work, and you've got a bunch of dollar coins in your pocket--Sacagaweas and Presidentials and even a Susan B. Anthony from the disco era for goddess' sake--and the stupid machine keeps spitting them back out at you even though it was that same machine that gave them to you the day before, and you can hear the shrill semitones of the "door closing" whistles as you're about to miss a Very Important Cover-Story Meeting--well, it's an easy enough decision just to say, "Screw it!" and climb onto the train.

And then, when a TRAX cop gets on at the next stop demanding a ticket, and you decide that an excuse like, "The machine wouldn't take my dollar coins!" sounds too lame, so you decide to engage in a little theatrical performance and start "searching" through your jacket pockets for the "ticket" you "bought" before boarding--making sure the TRAX cop sees that you've got at least 20 tickets on you from previous rides, because you're something of a packrat and never clean out your pockets, but at least you're obviously a regular ticket-buyer and not some slacker trying to defraud the system--and then the TRAX cop doesn't go for it, but keeps waiting and waiting and finally asks you pointblank, "Did you buy a ticket today?" ... well, then, of course you can't lie directly to his face (because of some weird thing from childhood) so you hang your head in remorse and say, "No, officer, I really didn't."

And you still hope for mercy, because basically you're just a good citizen caught at a bad moment, but then, when the TRAX cop makes you get off the train at the next stop with a bunch of teenagers who are obviously sluffing school and up to no good making really lame excuses, and you're thoroughly shamed during the 20 minutes it takes to be fined $100, while the TRAX cop wastes time flirting with those teenagers--which is kind of gross, really, because even though the TRAX cop is kind of hot, why isn't he flirting with you since you're much closer to his age?--and all the while, good upstanding citizens are looking at you and judging, just as you have looked and judged in the past, and you're thinking all the time about how the Very Important Cover-Story Meeting has already started, and everybody's wondering where you are ...

... well, at that point, you start to hate those damn ticket machines. That's all I'm sayin'.

Oh, the pressure!

Seems I'm being encouraged to begin actually contributing to this here nascent blog. We'll see how it goes; I do have the responsibility to focus the bulk of my blogging energies on Salt Blog, but who knows? Maybe I could become one of those prolific bloggers who manages to do everything--a blogger on the go!

And now I've used an entire blog post to write about blogging itself. How meta. !!!

So let's return to the days when laser beams came shooting out of giant toothpaste tubes and sparkly body-stockings were hot, hot, hot!!!



Why, why has there never been an action TV series called Tony: Roller Disco Manager? (And who wouldn't have hot "wheels" for Sally the skating instructor? Rrowr!)