i mostly don't remember shit about my past, but i do remember the night the above picture was taken: it was at a party in austin on a chilly night in late 1979, in the first semester of my first year at the university of texas school of architecture--the gayest school in the most liberal university in the most liberal city in the lone star state, at a time when it looked like gay was gonna take over the world.
four years older than most of my peers, i typically exuded the kinda smiling confidence evident in the above snapshot, but truth be told, it was all a lie--i was scared shitless somebody was gonna find out i was as queer as half my classmates.
while most everybody else in my class partied and fucked each other senseless during our five years there, i mostly kept to myself and fended off advances with lame excuses.
downside of that cowardly decision: i'm the emotionally-stunted wreck you see before you today.
upside of that cowardly decision: virtually every hot guy who hit on me back then has been dead for at least fifteen years.
[btw, i still have that down jacket--it's held up much better than its owner.]
4 comments:
i think your down jacket is probably missing Austin. i'll be happy to take custody of it and show it around its old haunts if you'd like.
what i'm really saying is that, although i was 9 in 1979, i would have had a big old crush on you.
and that jacket.
While it is true that a lot of those gay architecture students died of AIDS -- because guttermorality was right in the prime age group for that to happen -- it is also true that not everyone did.
Your post reminds me of the play/movie Jeffrey. Perhaps you mike recognize the similarities?
judi: i dunno who appreciates that more, the down jacket or me.
noblesavage: while it's true that not every sexually-active gay man back then succumbed to the plague, i was one of those low life-force types who undoubtedly would have. my flame flickered low even then.
as for "jeffrey," i've never seen it.
You should rent the movie. It's probably better than whatever you saw last night.
As for your self-deprecating remarks on your own survival, I am reminded of a friend of mine -- now he's about 62 -- who has been known to say "All the fun ones died."
What he meant by that is those that survived AIDS were not much fun then and definitely, not that they are old and cranky, even worse today.
Perhaps Will has some thoughts or a different view?
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