CSotD: JEI, and some thoughts about corporate hippies
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Here's the opening panel of a cartoon by Bill Roundy called "Orientation Police: I'm gay. I date men. Some of those men have vaginas."
You should click on that link and read the rest of it.
I think the timing is good, because society has begun to stop turning away from "alternative lifestyles" but remains, at this point, pretty ignorant. And by society, I mean, "me."
But I don't feel alone, and this comic seems to be not "Too Much Information" but rather "Just Enough Information."
That is, I wasn't asking for a full plumbing schematic, but he addresses some issues that I have been curious about and some I didn't think about but immediately became curious about, and he does it with some jokes but without clowning.
He makes it seem normal, and normal is a good thing, because it's in short supply and is key to the whole idea of accepting other ways of being so they stop being "alternatives" and just become as none-of-your-business as any other sexual stuff.
Talking about your sex life in detail is creepy and inappropriate no matter how mainstream it is. Straight men who talk about banging their wives are not in "alternative lifestyles," but they are certainly jerks. Equality means that gay people who go into similar detail should be considered jerks also, but, well, we're not there yet.
So he explains some stuff which will not only be news to straight folks but to some not-straight folks as well and I admire his patient tone of "Look, this is how it works, okay?"
And I realize that some people don't want to be considered "normal," but that's not my issue to deal with.
What I mean #1: Back in the 80s, I worked at a paper where one of the guys in the back shop was gay. It was a very blue-collar community and the guys in the back were your basic beer-and-pickups kinds of union members. They all knew that the guy was gay and nobody particularly gave a damn.
He wasn't "out." He just "was." He didn't try to act straight, he didn't try to act gay. He set type and laid out pages and whatever and talked about his home life pretty much as much as anyone else, which wasn't a hell of a lot.
What I mean #2: There was a little boy who used to come down to the park with his mom and his dog. He was kind of clingy and show-offy and increasingly bothersome, and it seemed that a five-year-old should be getting past that phase, but what the hell, right? This past spring, though, he began to show up in dresses and we kind of wondered where that was at, as did his mother, she told me later.
Finally one night when she was giving him his bath, he said, "Mom, I think I was born wrong," and so they talked about it. He'd apparently been pondering the issue and he even had a name picked out.
So now she comes down to the park with the same mom and the same dog but a different name and she is much more relaxed and fun to be around, and her mom says she's doing really well in school and is happy for the first time in seemingly forever.
I don't care what her name is or what she wears, but I like being around her and I didn't much like being around him, and I'm all in favor of whatever produces that result.
So my take on this whole deal is that we are going to need some more comics like this one, to air the issues and get people up to date on things we haven't talked about.
The goal is not to then "shut up" because it's inappropriate to talk about being gay or trans or whathaveyou. The goal is to shut up because only losers prattle on about their sex lives in detail. Having a little class and some self-respect is an equal-opportunity opportunity.
What I mean #3: Years ago, back when I hadn't been married all that long, we had next-door neighbors of roughly the same vintage, and we also had a large lilac bush, and one day the husband asked if he could clip a few lilacs to give to his wife and I, of course, said yes.
Then, as he walked away with them, he said, "This is a sure piece of ass tonight!" and I thought to myself that the actual sure thing was that he was a pathetic douchebag.
That, my friends, was TMI.
Today's cartoon is JEI.
A toast, to the founder of today's comic feast:
Matt Bors has been finding some interesting comics to post at the Nib, for which reason I'll be adding it to my limited blog roll with the next edit, which might happen today.
Some of what he puts up there I like, some I don't, and that's true of all such sites, but this one is consistently challenging, and that makes a difference.
It is healthy to have someone who is not a suit doing the selection, though the benefits of that can be, well, short-lived.
At least it was in music, according to Frank Zappa, whom I interviewed in 1986. I think much of this applies to comics at the moment:
Peterson: Maybe you can clear this up, if I've
swallowed one of the great American myths, but it seems that there was a time
in the Sixties, after the British invasion, around the time of people like Jan
and Dean, where it seems like the record companies were going around to the
garage bands, signing them up apparently on the theory that if you throw enough
shit at the wall, some of it sticks.
ZAPPA: Well, that theory is certainly not in
operation right now.
Peterson: Even ten years ago, a group like Meatloaf
came around, and it was like the Monkees, they sat down and said, "What do
we need to make a successful rock group?", went out and recruited it, and
put it together. It seems far less likely to me that a bunch of guys can put
together a band and somehow make records, maybe a Brian Epstein discovers them
and they end up in the spotlight. It seems much more controlled from the
corporate headquarters.
ZAPPA: That really took effect in the Seventies,
when corporate rock really blossomed. I think it works something like this: In
the 60's, you had a bunch of old cigar-chompers running the record company. They
knew there were bucks out there, but they were so out of touch with the market
that it was a hit and miss proposition. So some wise guy sometime said,
"We're going to hire a corporate hippie." The corporate hippie first
winds up carrying coffee from office to office and working in the stock room,
and the next thing you know, the corporate hippie becomes an A&R man. After
the corporate hippie makes a little money, he then moves up into the echelon
and he becomes a cigar-chomper, and at that point, you have the breeding ground
for corporate rock, where the ultimate decision of what is aestheic and musical
is made strictly by accountants and people who consider themselves to be cagy
businessmen. It is absolutely not about music. Take a look at what goes on the
air. It is not about music.
So the message is, let's keep people like Matt away from the cigars. They're not just bad for your health, man. They're bad for your industry.
I mean, I wish him success. But not a whole lot.
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