Elijah Wood Dumps Roger for Jason Bateman

New York, October 1999

For about a month, Yuri has been dating John Benjamin Hickey, the 36 year old actor who starred in Love! Valour! Compassion! and Finding North, and now plays Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret on Broadway.  Not his usual type -- balding, rather sallow chest, not a gym rat.

Well, he does have one characteristic that Yuri likes.

I think Yuri is star-struck, dating John for his address book rather than his wit, charm, and physique.  Who wouldn't accept a date that involved meeting  Nathan Lane and  Liza Minelli?

Yes, we shared.  I'm kind of interested in that address book, too.

When Yuri invites me to dinner at John's house, I assume it will be a standard West Hollywood party, with nudity and oral sex, and guests including aging mega-hunks that I had crushes on in the 1970s: James Naughton, Matthew Broderick, Tom Wopat, and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Instead, there are just four of us -- the fourth, apparently my blind date, is Roger Rees, who I remember as Robin Colcort, Rebecca's crush, on Cheers (1989-1993), and as the Sheriff of Rottingham in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).

Not at all my type: I like short, husky, and dark-skinned, and he's tall, thin, and gaunt, with an unattractive long face. I like working-class "regular guys," and he's a sophisticate.  I'm a teetotler, and he likes his wine.

But I figure, Rees probably has an address book even bigger than Hickey's.

Besides, to quote a show tune, "In the dark they are all the same."

"I can't tell you how refreshing it is to meet a mature man for a change," Roger tells me, fondling my knee under the dinner table.

"I'm only 38..."

"38, eh?  Brace yourself -- the tidal wave is coming.  Ever since I turned 40 --er, 40-something [he was actually 56], the twinks have been positively throwing themselves at me.  Why, I just broke up with the most obnoxious Cute Young Thing you can imagine."

Great -- he's on the rebound.  I glare at Yuri for setting me up with this guy, big address book or not.

"Granted, he was cute, but a pretty face is no substitute for substance."

His hand works its way up to my crotch.

"And he dumped me out of nowhere, when he found someone that he thought would further his career -- Jason Bateman, can you believe it?"

"I dated Jason Bateman's ex..." I say, trying to steer the conversation away from Roger's Cute Young Thing ex.  "Porn star, gigantic penis...but nothing compared to the guy I met in Texas."

Too late.  Rees has already begun.

Too late.  Rees has already begun the story.

New York, Fall 1999

Roger's first love was the theater, and regardless of how much Hollywood beckoned, he was determined to stay put, in the Manhattan he so dearly loved.  He only took the role of Dr. Croft, an evil mad scientist sort who runs an asylum for amnesiac and dying children (in The Bumblebee Flies Anyway), because he could stay in New York, and because he was a fan of Robert Cormier, who wrote the original novel.

He hadn't anticipated a problem -- most of the cast consisted of actors in their teens and early twenties, and age 40-something, Roger was a full-fledged twink magnet.  Half the cast wanted to date him!  Or at least go down on him in his dressing room.  He usually had a rule against dating costars, but some of them were very persistent, such as 18-year old Elijah Wood.

"Oh, I hate him!"  I exclaim.  "An insufferable kid in gut-wrenching movies like 'Radio Flier' and 'The Good Son.'  He manages to drain the gay subtexts from everything he does, even 'Huck Finn.'"

"He took his shirt off in 'Flipper,'" Hickey adds, "Giving the teen dream crowd something to dream about.  Not me, though."

"Well, he's a little more mature than that by now," Roger says.  "Not much, but a little."

Eventually a cute face and persistence wore Roger down.  "Look, I know we have some chemistry together," Elijah said one day, cornering him in his dressing room."Why don't we just admit it?"

Roger allowed a kiss and a grope, but then broke away.  Who was this young succubus?  "We both have jobs to do here...." he stammered.  "We can't let something so mundane as sexual attraction get in the way of our art."

"Well -- the filming won't last forever.  What are you doing for Christmas?"

So  after the filming was over, Roger agreed to some simple, uncomplicated dates -- a walk through Central Park, a quiet dinner at home.  The most public they got was seeing Liza Minelli at the Palace Theater.

Elijah was very, very horny.  He wanted to go down on Roger three or more times a day -- even in his salad days, Roger could never have been a match for that voracious appetite, and now his libido was waning.  What about kissing and cuddling, just holding each other as the darkness enveloped them?

Then there was the porn -- gay and straight -- the three-ways -- the discussions of women's breasts and vaginal whatchamacallits!  Disgusting!  Apparently Elijah was into everybody and everything.

"How big was he?" Yuri asks.

"Not very, maybe 5" aroused," Roger says.  "And anyway, he was strictly an oral bottom, into giving head but not getting."

"I wonder how he handles it when he's with a woman," I say.  Then, embarrassed, I figure it out.

A couple of weeks ago, Elijah came as Roger's date to a party at Liza's apartment.  Among the guests was Jason Bateman, who Roger knew from Hollywood: 30 years old, rather a nebbish sort but still cute, with a pretense of naiveté that had gotten him into more bedrooms than Jeff Stryker dildos.  He was as horny as Elijah, with an open relationship with his girlfriend, carte blanche to cruise everybody and everything in sight.    

Roger gamely introduced the two, then wandered off in search of more stimulating company.

Awhile later, he saw them still talking.  Maybe standing a little too close...but well, nothing wrong with that.  Probably comparing notes on the horrors of being child stars, the poor tykes.

Still...was Jason starting to tent?

Roger forced himself to back off and talk to the other guests.  When he looked again, Jason and Elijah were both gone!

Very bad form -- you don't abandon your date at a party! Could Elijah be going down on Jason right there?  Enraged, he started searching for them.  The living room...the parlor...the music room...the kitchen.  The master bedroom...

They wouldn't be in the master bath, would they?  But...the guest bath was too busy...if they wanted seclusion.

The door was locked.  Roger dangled the knob.

"Just a minute!" Eliza called.

Roger was too embarrassed to search the rest of the apartment.  He got his coat and left.

Elijah called the next day:

"Sorry to ditch you, but I couldn't let Jason get away.  I really need someone who has some ins in Hollywood.  Broadway is great, but..."

"That's fine," Roger said, gritting his teeth.  "These things happen.  You either have chemistry, or you don't."

"So, could we come over later to share?  Maybe I could go down on you while Jason is topping me?"

Roger hung up on him.

Was Roger Telling the Truth?

Roger Rees was a celebrity with a long-term partner, and so had nothing to gain by inventing a celebrity hookup.  And Elijah Wood has been the subject of countless gay rumors, although he dismisses them as "the fantasies of people with too much time on their hands."

But Jason Bateman hasn't been the subject of many rumors.  And I'm actually surprised that the sophisticated, elitist Rees would know the former teen idol, who hadn't yet become famous for adult roles.

By the way, I did go down on Roger before the night was over.  About 7.5", uncut.  And an even bigger address book.

See also: My Date with Andrew Lloyd Webber; Sausage Sighting of Richard Grieco

Ari, the Linguist on My Sausage List

Columbus, Ohio, September 2007

People who hear about the various languages I've studied always ask "Why didn't you become a linguist?"

Because linguistics is not about world languages.  It's about phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, how ui changes to eu in some dialects of Farsi, but only before glottal consonants.

But that doesn't stop people from trying to fix me up with translators and polyglots of various ilks.

The latest, when I was in Dayton, was Ari, a professor of linguistics at Ohio State, about an hour away.

"He's got four of the five traits you find attractive," my friend enthused.  "He's a gym rat, religious, a swarthy Mediterranean, and gifted where it counts!"

So we exchanged a few emails and photographs.  Ari was muscular, in his mid-30s, dark-skinned, with curly black hair.  He said he was born in Israel, and moved to the U.S. when he was five years old.  He was a lapsed Orthodox Jew.  And a linguist!

Sounds perfect.

One Saturday afternoon, I drove into Columbus and met Ari at, of all places, an upscale hot dog place -- Dirty Frank's Hot Dog Palace.

"So Hebrew must be your first language," I began.  "It's fascinating that an extinct language was revived..."

"I don't remember much Hebrew," Ari said.  "I did my dissertation on Tlingit, a Na-Dene language of British Columbia and Alaska.  It has fifteen pronomials, which vary depending on the locative.  For instance, if you're going out to sea, it's dak-dei for a n-dei locative, but daki-naa for an n-naa locative."

"Many of the Native American tribes had third genders..." I began, hopefully.

"No, Tlingit doesn't have gender categories.  But it does have telic punctuals..."

"It's very important for your telics to be punctual."

He stared.  "Um...I just finished a paper on Jingulu, an Australian aboriginal language with six cases."

"I'm interested in Australian aboriginals, too" I said.  "They have a culture dating back thousands of years...."

But Ari wasn't interested in culture.  "Jingulu has four genders: masculine, feminine, neutral, and vegetable, but everything rounded is masculine, like kiyinarra, which means vagina."

This was probably the first time that I ever heard the term vagina on a date.  It didn't increase my amorous expectations.

"The Basque word for man is gizon, which is similar to the phrase big penis in ancient Sumerian," I tried.

He frowned.  "You're not trying to suggest a Basque-Sumerian link, are you?"

"No...um, I was just...."

"The interesting thing about Basque is its compound benefactive case.  Have you ever heard of a compound benefactive before?"

And it went on like that, through dinner, through browsing upscale clothing at Torso, through "a beer" at the Exile, and back to Ari's apartment.

"Not a problem," I thought.  "Being gifted beneath the belt can more than make up for a few hours of boredom."

He was.  My friend who set us up hadn't exaggerated.

But:

He wasn't.  He spent every moment of our time together with his mouth open.  Talking!  Directing, exhorting, commenting, murmuring.

I tried a variety of ways to shut him up, but to no avail.  He kept talking.

I'm going to resist the temptation to make a dirty joke about linguists using their mouths.

We dated a few more times -- he was nicely muscular, and very gifted beneath the belt (#6 on my Sausage List).  But I could never get Ari to shut up

See also: Getting the Chinese Food Delivery Boy into my Bed; 8 Harvard Yard Hookups

Body Shaming, Bullying, and Just Being Mean in Gay Communities

You grow up an outsider, constantly excluded, demeaned, and ridiculed for being gay.

You're called names, yelled at, told that you're a sinner, a pervert, a monster striving to destroy the society, as well as a frilly little lacy thing fit only for doing manicures and shopping for shoes.  You long for things to get better.  You long to find a place where you belong, a home.  And one day, you arrive.  You escape from the grim homophobia of the Straight World, find you way to West Hollywood or the East Village or another gay neighborhood.

Open up the closet door, watch out, here I come!

A new guy, nervous, scared, wounded from a lifetime of homophobia, but certain that here you will find friendship and love.

Instead, you are excluded, demeaned, and ridiculed.

Gay men -- your family, the place where you belong -- stare, snicker, and gossip about you.

Everyone travels in tightly-closed cliques, impossible break into unless you're dating one of them.

And dating is impossible.  The competition is rough, and you are constantly being rejected, for the most trivial of reasons,

You're too tall or too short, too fat or too thin,too old or too young.  Your chest is too hairy or too smooth.  Your penis is too small.  Your ears are too big.

I've never been shamed for my weight or size, but when I was a teen I got it for being too swishy, and in West Hollywood I got it for having a red birthmark on the back of my neck (of all the crazy things to notice!).  In the last few months my age has been starting to cause some "instant blocks" on dating apps.

I've never understood why many gay men are so quick to demean their brothers for a physical trait that they have no control over, as if it is a moral failure or evidence of weakness of character.

You don't get a small penis because you are a bad person or have an inadequate personality.  It's purely a matter of genetics.  And there's nothing whatever you can do about it.

You can't help getting older. It is a fact of life, not evidence of a moral shortcoming.

If you are fat or thin, you can theoretically go to the gym, but for many people weight management is very, very difficult, a life-long struggle with their metabolism.

Demeaning and rejecting someone on the basis of his physical appearance is known as body shaming today, but back in West Hollywood, we called it "being mean."

It's a form of violence.  It sends a clear message that the person being shamed does not deserve friendship or love, should not be seen in public, indeed does not deserve to exist at all.

That's a very strong message to be sending with a sneer.

In West Hollywood, my friends and I never refused to interact with people based on their physical traits.  If they said "hello," we said "hello."  And if asked to share a friend's boyfriend, we never refused, even if the sharing meant just fondling or going down on the guy for a few seconds.  It was basic courtesy.

This is a new world, but still, there are ways to be inclusive and welcoming without going home with guys you find unattractive.




1. Remove specific requirements from your online dating profile.  Reading "must be height-weight-proportionate, hung, under 30, masculine" over and over is like getting a dozen rejections without even talking to anyone.  Don't mention your tastes in men at all.  You won't be inundated by gorgons, believe me -- you're not all that. And it won't kill you to chat with someone skinny, swishy, small beneath the belt, or over 30.

2. Save Attitude for the rude guys.  In public cruising spots, people often give Attitude, pretend not to see, guys they are not attracted to.  Again, you can feel rejected a dozen times without ever interacting with anyone.  Save you Attitude for guys who make crass, boorish come-ons, and deserve to be ignored.









3. Talk to guys outside your comfort zone.  If you usually hang around with bodybuilders, talk to a fat guy.  If you like them under 30, talk to a 60 year old.  You'll find that they aren't much different from your usual contacts.  They have the same desires, dreams, hopes, and fears as everyone else.

4. Find something to like in everybody.  The most hideous guy on the planet has something attractive about him.  He tells bad jokes, has an interest in Star Wars memorabilia, or he spent a summer in Brazil.

If nothing else, he has survived a childhood of incessant attempts to force him to comform to the heterosexist mandate or kill himself.  He's still here.  That, in itself, is impressive.










5. Don't reject guys automatically.  Sure, you are especially attracted to guys who are muscular, hairy-chested, big beneath the belt, big-eared, between 40 and 50 years old, and have pierced nipples.  The gay world is small, and there aren't ,many guys who will fit your exact requirements, be into you and available, and have personalities that you can stand.  I would love to date some hairy bears in their 40s, but I'm surrounded by twinks, so I date twinks.

Try someone who does not fit your ideal of the perfect man. It won't kill you, and if after a date or hook-up you still don't like him, no harm done.

And maybe he'll cook breakfast in the morning.

6. Reject guys based on social criteria.  If you must reject someone, before or after a hookup, say "sorry, I don't think our personalities are compatible" or "sorry, I don't think we have enough in common," not "you're too fat" or "your penis is too small."  That is, something that is no one's fault, rather than a physical inadequacy.

See also: Is It Racist to Have a Type?