My Date with the Country-Western Star

Nashville, Fall 1991

I spent the fall 1991 semester in Nashville, where I studied Hebrew at Vanderbilt Divinity School, taught English at a state college, outed a Medieval knight...and dated a country-western singer.  At least, I thought he was a country-western singer.

I'll call him Randy.

We met at a restaurant near near campus, when he saw me trying to translate a passage from the Hebrew Bible and came over to ask if I was "a Christian."  Turns out he went to Bible college, planning to become a missionary, but dropped out, and now he was working as a waiter and at a guitar store while honing his musical craft.

Naturally, I started going to the restaurant for lunch almost every day, at the end of the rush when he had time to chat.

Randy was a country boy, all about fishing, hunting, working on cars, and following sports, but he never mentioned a girl, so I figured he was gay. Besides, there was something about his open face and appreciative smile that made my gaydar go off.

Nashville was the country-western music capital of the world, so I started trying to impress him by listening to Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Charlie Pride, and Roy Acuff.  I couldn't stand the dismal, depressing, ballads about being poor, tired, hungry, lonely, rejected, replaced, and generally miserable, but if they helped me get into Randy's good graces, it was worth the depression.

I asked his opinion of Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks,  and Randy Travis.

I did extensive research, until I was able to talk to him about the history and genres of country-western: honky-tonk, rockabilly, country pop, the Bakersfield sound.  Bluegrass, banjo pop, Outlaw Country, Western Swing, neotraditionalism.

After a few weeks of buttering him up, Randy finally made his move: "I'm performing this weekend.  I know it's not really your kind of music, but...you know, if you want, you could come.  And maybe we could have dinner afterwards."

Randy's gig was in the Paradise Park Trailer Resort, a dark, dingy redneck bar downtown where the floors were coated with Astroturf (I'm not kidding).  There was lawn furniture against the walls.  There was a Spam exhibit.  The other patrons looked like refugees from Duck Dynasty. 

I got there at 9:00, just as Randy was going on.  He walked onto the small, dingy stage with guitar in hand, nodded at me, and sang:

Farm people, book wavers, soul savers, love preachers!  Lit to pop and nobody is gonna stop!

It sounded familiar...wait...was it "Stop," by Jane's Addiction?

Then:
That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight, losing my religion, trying to keep up with you.

What kind of country-western singer performs "Losing My Religion," by R.E.M.?


And then his own composition:

The world keeps on turnin'
I can't decide if it's night or day
Your jaws keep on movin'
I can't decide if you know the way

Protest conformity, rage against the machine, raise your fist against the injustice of the world!  Indie rock!

All this time, I had just been assuming he was a country-western singer!

Later, over dinner, I praised his song effusively.  Randy said "That's a relief!  You're such a big fan of country-western music, I didn't think you would find anything to like in indie rock."

"Oh, I'm versatile," I said with a suggestive leer.  "I can find something to like in just about everything."

Which Story Actually Happened?

These stories are all based on real events, but I always take some artistic license, combine two events into one, make up conversations, change details.

Some changes are to protect people's identities. About 3/4ths of the names are made up.

Sometimes I can't remember everything.  If I don't know the exact name of the restaurant I went to in Barcelona 20 years ago, I'll look one up.

Sometimes trying to include all the people and events would be too confusing.

And of course I have to make some changes, to turn an incident into an interesting story.

Can you figure out which story actually happened the way I wrote it, and which was modified?

Childhood

A, I visit my Indian cousins, and play a game where I get to tie the older one up and fondle his penis?

B. Two older boys teach me about oral sex in the church parking lot?

Answer.  B.  When I visited my cousin, I pulled down his pants, but his brothers intervened and "rescued" him before I got to do anything else.

High School

A. In Switzerland for a Nazarene conference, my friend and I sneak into town, and dance with a Swedish leatherboy at a bar?

B. A week after figuring "it" out, Dino the Golden Boy invites me to a 4th of July party involving naked guys sliding into each other?

Answer: B.  We did go to the bar in Switzerland, but I met the Swedish leatherboy in another bar in London years later,

College

A. I trick the boss from hell into revealing his Trouser Snake, running out from the bathroom into the store, still fully aroused?

B. My professor at a small religious college in the Midwest invites his advanced students to a handcuff party?

Answer: B. My boss did come running out of the bathroom, but he wasn't aroused.

West Hollywood

A. A Ginger Boy for Christmas.  Fred and I go to JRs in Rock Island and pick up a Ginger Boy, who ignores me, and a few years later Dick and I go to the same bar and pick up the same Ginger Boy, who gets ignored by Dick?

B. Gershom, the Orthodox Jewish guy who had never been with a Gentile before, and asked to practice on me, so we did it in the kitchen, with our boyfriends waiting out in the living room?

Answer: A. Gershom and I did practice before his big date, but in private.

San Francisco

A. I dated Kevin the Vampire, who had special powers, like you couldn't see him unless you wanted him to?

B. The Amazing Invisible Boy, who came back to my apartment, couldn't explain the brown stain on his shirt, didn't understand contemporary references, and vanished without going through the door?

Answer: B.  Kevin was not nearly as vampire-like as the story suggests.

New York

A. I meet famous composer Andrew Lloyd Webber at a party, and he gives me a ride home in his limo, and we stop for tacos?

B. Visiting Rock Island for the holidays, my 14-year old nephew asks me "how gay guys have sex," and Yuri and I take him to the park and demonstrate gay kissing?

Answer: B.  I talked to Andrew Lloyd Webber, but didn't get a ride home with him.  That was Tom Wopat.

Florida

A. Janik the Frisian Bodybuilder, who I met in the Horseman's Club in Amsterdam, invited me back to his small town in Friesland?

B. When I was in Arizona, cruising in the Navajo Nation, I finally met a Native America guy, except he turned out to be white?

Answer: A.  I didn't meet anyone in the Navajo Nation.  The jogger pickup actually happened in Albuquerque.

Ohio

A. The Huber Heights Horror, who I drove 20 miles at 2:00 am to date, only to find out that he completely misrepresented himself -- older, fatter, and smaller than his profile, and only into a hookup, not a date?

B. I go on a spiritual retreat, get a Catholic priest as a roommate, and see him tenting as he becomes aroused in his sleep?

Answer: B.. #A was actually two incidents combined.  The Huber Heights guy didn't misrepresent himself, except that he wanted a hookup instead of a date.  It was another guy who said he was 30, muscular, with a Mortadella beneath the belt.

Upstate

A. I take Troy to his first glory hole, and promise that I'll be the guy on the other side, so he can practice, but before I get a chance, he hooks up with a French Canadian farmer?

B. Lester, the Shy Boy at the Bathhouse, whose friends told him that he couldn't leave until he had been with five guys, or one guy five times?

Answer: B.. Troy didn't really hook up with anyone in his video booth












Plains

A,  At a comic book store, I pick up a boy with cerebral palsy who has Daddy issues and wants to rip my clothes off?

B. I go to a heterosexual dinner party, and hook up with my host's college-age son while everyone else is having dessert and coffee in the next room?

Answer: B, of course.  In #A,  I didn't pick up the boy with cerebral palsy at a comic book store, with his father standing right there.  It was at a bar.

Converting the Fundamentalist Boy

Upstate, September 2010

The Freshman came into Sociology of Religion class ready for a fight.  I knew all the signs.

He was Hispanic, tall, broad-shouldered, with short dark hair, dark skin, and a round open face.  A muscular physique, but not a football player.

Intense, one of those front-of-the-room hand-raisers.  The first to get to class, pull out his notebook, and sit with his pen ready to take notes. And frown with disgust at everything I said.

He rarely interacted with the girls in the class, always sitting next to boys and choosing boys for partnered work.  Probably gay.  Maybe he didn't know it yet.

There was a King James Bible atop all of his other books, even though the Bible was not one of the required texts for the class.

I knew where he was coming from.  I grew up fundamentalist, with three sermons per week that were mostly quoted Bible passages, Sunday school and NYPS classes that were mostly Bible studies, plus extra points for reading your Bible daily and extra extra points for carrying it around so you could witness to the world.

We were told that the Bible was literally dictated by God, word for word, to the human authors. We didn't even call it the Bible, usually.  We said God's Word.

Obviously if God wrote it, it had to be perfect, flawless, with no errors, no mistakes, no lies.

If the Bible said the world was created in six days, obviously that's what happened.  God would know, wouldn't he?

Methuselah lived for 969 years.  Check.
There were 2 or 7 of each animal on Noah's Ark.  Check.
Joshua caused the sun to stand still.  Check.

It took me years to acknowledge that Mark 13 didn't exist in the earliest manuscripts, that the book of Daniel contains words that didn't exist at the time of Daniel, that some of the Pauline Epistles were written in a polished, erudite Greek totally unlike that of the Apostle Paul.  That none of the writers of the Bible expected it to be taken literally.

This Freshman was just starting his journey.  He had stormed into the classroom ready to defend God's Word against attacks, probably planning to win the souls of the Professor and the entire class.

 I had to work carefully.  I didn't want the Freshman storming out of the class in anger and dropping.  If he was gay, he needed this class.  Most internalized homophobia is due to a mistaken belief that the Bible promotes anti-gay hatred.

My tactic: don't dispute the literal meaning of the Bible.  Turn it against him.

I started slowly, with an easy one: the story of Sodom.

"None of the Biblical writers thought that the sin of Sodom was same-sex activity,"  I said.  "It was a lack of hospitality to strangers."

The Freshman's hand shot up.  "What about Jude 7, which says that the Sodomites were punished with eternal damnation for going after 'strange flesh.'"

"Strange flesh, sarkos heteros in Greek, wouldn't mean same-sex acts -- hetero means 'different.'  It probably means an attempt to have sex with strangers."

On like that.  Leviticus.  Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman.  Abomination refers to ritual impurity in ancient Judaism, like eating pork or mixing cotton and linen fibers.

Romans: Men burned with lust toward one another.  The Apostle Paul was referring to a specific case in which heterosexual men engaged in same-sex acts.  He was not aware of the existence of gay men.

Colossians:  arsenokoitai and malakoi shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.  "Homosexuals" is a mistranslation.   Arsenokoitai is a vulgar slang term, similar to our assholes, meaning basically jerks.  Malakoi means "soft."

The Freshman looked like his head would explode.  He frowned, sighed, thumbed furiously through his King James Bible.

"But it says 'effeminate!'  That must mean gay!"

"We need to look at the original Greek manuscripts, not a translation."

"But God guides the hand of the translators, so it means exactly the same thing in English as in Greek!"

And on and on.  Sometimes it felt like the class was taking place between me and the Freshman, with the other students merely onlookers.

The breakthrough came when I mentioned the MCC, a gay Christian denomination.

"It must be weird going to church when God hates you," the Freshman said, "Singing praises the God who is going to send you to Hell.  How can they deal with it?"

I was getting annoyed by his pig-headedness.  "They don't think God is a bigot," I said.  "Their reasoning is, why would God be homophobic?  Or prejudiced against any minority group?  Actually, a large number of Protestant denominations agree: Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists..."

A few days later, the Freshman showed up during my office hours.

"Do you happen to have the address of that gay Christian church?" he asked.  "I want to go there and..um...witness to them."

"There are several hundred in the United States.  The closest is in Albany.  But be careful -- you'll be outnumbered.  The congregation numbers around five hundred."

"Five hundred!  Come on -- you're exaggerating.  There aren't that many gays in the world!"

We moved on to other topics for the rest of the semester, so I didn't know if the class helped the Freshman overcome his homophobia or not (the quiz questions were all neutral).  He got a B+, and vanished, like students usually do.

Late in the spring semester, the Freshman came into my office again.  "Thanks for telling me about the MCC," he said.

"Did you find your visit enlightening?"

He grinned.  "You could say that.  I'm dating the pastor."

Hey, these stories can't all be about me hooking up.  I do have other interests, you know.



Ok, ok.  here's a naked guy to tide you over.

See also: The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality at gaychurch.org