Mashup #9

All Things British and Beautiful

This one combines several lovely things:

• Doctor Who
• Hugh Grant *le sigh*
• Absolutely Fabulous
• Rowan Atkinson
• slightly veiled inappropriate jokes….

The Countdown is on #2

Doctor Who is back April 23.  In the meantime, enjoy the new Red Nose Day charity segments featuring our friends Rory, Amy, and the Doctor. 

Tomorrow: What do you get when you cross the Doctor, Mr. Bean, AbFab, and Hugh Grant?

Laugh of the Day #37

I very much identify with this series of videos.  I’m proud to be disappointing.

Disappointing Gay Best Friend - GOIN' OUT from mikalabierma on Vimeo.

Ghosts of Gays Gone by #1

A Radio Reading

The uninitiated might not realize it, but there’s more diversity than you’d expect in the sphere of gay Mormon blogging.  Blogs range from conservative to liberal, married to divorced, agnostic to faith-filled, and so on.  It’s not often I voice my appreciation for this diversity, but I hope that the same can be said of my observations here.  Naturally, we can’t agree with everything we see, but the only way to understand is to read opinions and experiences that challenge our own.  (Some specific nods go to Original Mohomie and Invictus Pilgrim whose experiences and modes of thought/examination differ from my own).

As I prepare another exhibit for the Utah Pride Festival, my thoughts turn again to the past, especially to the recent past.  I remember  a time when I felt like a bad person for enjoying Ellen’s 1990s sitcom as a kid, a time when I thought homosexuality didn’t exist, a time when I thought being gay was as much a choice as experimenting with drugs. 

Well, time moved on and I grew up, realizing the world wasn’t the picture that I’d painted.  I’m still adding figures and changing the palette.  I’m still learning to add dimension, light, and shadow to that canvas.  Every story and every life seems to enlighten that vision a bit more, and though my life can’t be bound to a canvas (or a metaphor for that matter) I feel this process of revision—Socrates’ “examined life,” if you will—makes me a thankful person.  In preparing to leave Utah, I find it a cultural trait that I hope to keep intact—a process of perfection.

A wonderful radio story brought me to this observation in recent weeks.  It’s a This American Life episode from 1996 with the theme of Double Lives.  The first part of the program is devoted to closeted married men and explores the dilemmas of shielding that identity from a child.  The first act presents the perspective of Susan Bergman, a woman whose father AIDS before coming out to his family and dying.  The second act is a conversation with a man explaining why he doesn’t share his sexuality with his two adult daughters. 

The program is provocative and perhaps distressing in the presentation of two people on two sides of very similar stories.  It’s telling of our own situations as well as those of men just 15 years ago.  I’d recommend it for a good reflection.

Man Harem Inductee #8

A note before today’s post: I’m still here.  I’ve been rather busy for the past months and I’m working through several projects.  Hopefully, you’ll hear more from me more regularly very soon.

Today’s post starts with a bit of a confession.  In 2003, one of my dreams was to work for NPR.  As it so happens, this week they have an opening, but I’ve moved past that dream.  I recall writing an essay (for a one-credit workshop on the art of autobiography) comparing my childhood hometown in rural Utah to Mayberry and Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone. 

I’d confess to mission companions that some days I missed the voices of Diane Rehm, Fiona Richie, and Ira Flatow as much as my family and friends.  As a result, I gained the reputation of “Elder granola-hippie-metro-commy-touchy-feely-smarty-pants,” but

c'est la vie.  If that’s a bad reputation, I’ll proudly stand by it, I thought. 

Upon my return, I auditioned for a spot on the local station, but my stutter got in the way.  Writing, literature, and research took precedent, and I moved on.  I also moved on as I met some radio personalities.  Listening, you create a certain face to go with the voice, the intonation, the sense of humor. Then one day, you run into a personality at a random meeting and it’s like watching your father take off the Santa Claus suit.

Then, sometimes, it’s just what you’d hoped for all along. 

Ira Glass

One of the best dates Chedner and I have had was Netflix-ing our way through the TV series This American Life.   I’d been a fan of the radio series from the first time I’d listened to it almost a decade ago. 

I suppose a lot of relationships is being able to share joy in all of its forms and in this particular instance it was shared appreciation for humor and insight into the human experience.  That said, it was also pretty obvious we appreciated our host, Ira Glass.  His humor and his charm managed to come across better than I’d expected—enough so that I teased Chedner about having some geeking out fantasies as we watched, which I admit is obvious projection. 

Experiences like these—the ones in which we admit to sharing feelings we’re perhaps embarrassed to share initially—have been a learning experience.  It’s easy to endear yourself to someone you understand, or, rather, someone you work to understand (and work to be understood by). 

Sure my fantasy of a nice, nerdy Jewish boy with a geeky voice and hipster glasses may seem like an odd piece of me, but there is comfort in the fact that I feel like sharing every single nerdy schoolboy shred of myself with someone for the first time in my life.