WARNING: This Blog Post contains objectionable language, but only used as part of a true story.
I graduated high school over half a decade ago.
High school for me was a time where I made incredibly daring fashion choices, rebelled in some of the most rebellious ways, dated an amazing girl named Amanda who was my better half at the time and my backbone in a era when emo wasn’t a word, indie wasn’t adjective and rock and roll wasn’t in Walmart.
What I mean is, people like me..errr..guys like me were ridiculed in the most vicious sense. Guys like me, meaning artists, or straight men with good fashion sense. I couldn’t wear the wild hair or the tight jeans or not be on the basketball or baseball or football or track team without being labeled as a “fag” or “gay”, and what infuriated those that chose to think those things about me and publicly say those things to me, is that I never let up and I never gave in. I just got more radical and more rebellious.
It was that weird time in Music and culture when aggressive rap rock and male chauvinism was the mainstream. A film like Bruno, the new mockumentary about a gay Austrian fashionista that shockingly depicts gay sex acts, while it exploits homophobia and bigotry in America , couldn’t exist and if it did was direct to video or HBO only.
It wasn’t yet at the point where calling people faggots in public was kinda un-pc, and Ellen DeGeneres wasn’t a talk show host, she was a lesbian that came out on her sitcom, only to have her sitcom tank in ratings and face cancellation shortly thereafter.
It was a brutal time for gays. What’s more, it was a brutal time for non-gay gays like me. No one ever talks about the stress and brutality that those types face.
But it’s 2009, and there is a black president and Ellen Degeneres has a hit show again. Bromance is a word considered in most regular joes’ vocabulary and everyone, including those that tried to make my life hellish in school, are now wearing tight skinny jeans.
So one would think it was safe to walk outside again right?
Gays and “non gay” gays have been accepted and there is no hate anymore. Everyone is made fun of by everything nowadays, and therefore all hate and bigotry is extinguished.
That was the very mindset that I had become comfortable in, and the very mindset that lead me into this flashback of scary scary high school bigotry days.
My trip to the mall in Temecula (the town I grew up in, and where I am visiting now and seeing family) wasn't totally planned. First of all, the mall here is a joke. It’s been given a facelift, a faux high-fashion makeover complete with high-end fashion boutiques, expensive restaurants and parking meters. It’s not a wonder to me now that my ragtag friends from the town of Hemet used to take the half hour road trip to my town of Temecula, what they called “The Mini OC”. It is just that, a wannabe city trying hard to have that carefree image of acceptance and art and culture, but in fact is a snap shot of 1999, where BMX bros and Active Ride Shops were the cool. The leaders of the pack. In all my days spent in supposed uptight and conventional towns like Provo Utah, I have never seen the face of hate quite like I have in good ol’ Temecula, where if you are being yourself, your a cock-sucker.
That’s exactly the slur I was slammed with while innocently waiting for my movie to begin at the theatre. The movie ironically, was Bruno.
Being in a band, even a signed one, does not make you safe from anything. Remember my Fame is Dead declaration? Well i have now learned, Cool is Dead.
I decided to walk around the mall and brave the halls of boring and uninspired standard mall stores. Yes under the guise of being a “cool musician dude”, I thought it was safe to troll as I please. I came upon a Macys, where i remembered they sometimes have sales on Ben Sherman clothing.
All of a sudden and unaware I looked like a “cock-sucker” (because they are so easy to spot) I was attacked by a group of youth I would like to call Glamis Guys and Glamis Girls.
(check this link if you don’t know what I'm talking about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuYC1Se-WWc)
Out of no where one of the Glamis guys, adorned in his dickies shorts and BMX rideshop hat and super bro soul patch and awesome gauged earrings and really rad tattoos, started addressing me with a lisp, one of those “cock-sucker” lisps. He started by making fun of my hat, a purple beenee, saying it was fierce and special. Then he began to call me a dick-sucker and said “burn cock-sucker burn”, as he walked away with his awesome posse.
I didn’t do a thing. I sort of stood there completely stunned and shocked at what had just happened. One could say I had it coming, perhaps because I was wearing a purple beenee, or skinny jeans or a black v neck tee. Had I deserved it? Had I brought it upon myself, and therefore should I have just rolled that shocking and abrupt slam off my back?
No one, gay, straight, black or yellow, should ever have to withstand any sort of
un provoked bigotry. I am all for, in fact a huge supporter of poking fun at yourself, and making fun of society and ridiculousness in society. Most of my friendships are based on making fun of each other. But that is allowed. Why? Because I love my friends and family, and they know that. They know that I wouldn’t ever cross the line on purpose, especially to hurt them intentionally.
So what was this flat out bully thinking when he approached me, the perfect stranger, at the most public of public places, a shopping mall, where all walks of life roam, and where it self seems to get most of its look, vibe and culture from fashion and art, and dare I say it, gays???
I had a decision to make. Do I confront the bully, in turn confronting all of the bullies and demons and superbros from high school? Do I start a fist fight? Do I call them “cock-suckers” back?
No. I don't do any of that. In fact, i do something completely unexpected. I follow them. I follow them, on their ass and give them the kind of awkward embarrassment that they were trying to vocally inflict on me, except I do it in a more subdued, creepy way.
It couldn’t have felt more satisfying to do to this group of people what was completely unexpected. They expected me to stay quiet, and disappear into the clothing racks. Maybe they expected me to shout something back, only to mess up the wording and have my comeback come out all wrong. They expected me to be hurt, but they didn’t expect me to follow them. They didn’t expect me to stand 3 feet way from them at every stop they made, at the phone kiosks and the massage chair kiosks and the Pac Sun and the Buckle and the Sun Diego and the Hollister. They didn’t expect for me to open my mouth and start wailing like a loud baby when ever they would look my way.
My phone rang in the middle of my revenge scheme, and as I spoke to my A+R guy Evan on the phone, planning a portion of the future of my rock band, I remained in earshot of the Glamis Crew. At one point, a white shirted Glamis said "what’s up?" to me, as if we were old friends from church or he’d once been my waiter at Denny’s or something.
He forgot only seconds before, he and his friends had me pinpointed as the gay guy in the purple hat that was cock-sucking his way all around the promenade. It wasn’t until the main bully, the leader of the henchmen, motioned me to come close, the way a drug dealer motions an unsuspecting child on a playground or the way a cheating husband gets the attention of a prostitute. It was sneaky, quiet and in a way, friendly.
“Why don’t you get the fuck away from me and stop following us around cock-sucker” he said with the eyes of a hungry velociraptor. It was at that moment I did what I always wish I had done in school. When a bully had me cornered in a locker room asking me how much I like dick, or when a pretty popular girl duped me into thinking she was my friend in class, only to be rooting on the naysayers and haters outside of the class room, when i was dubbed gay or fag for wearing a Smiths shirt to school or a tie or polyester or the color pink or tight pants or having a picture of Bono on my folder. My comeback at that moment was for all the kids everywhere that dealt with a douche-bag like this in high school or any other time.
I moved the phone receiver away from my mouth, placing it more towards my chin, and though I was in a very public area of the mall, directly in front of mall security and two T-Mobile employees, I looked that douchebag square in the eye and shouted in an ungodly manner “Who the hell are you coming up to me asking for sexual favors and then ridiculing me like this. I have no idea who the hell you are you creep!”.
His face turned away, his buddies began to walk towards the exit and the actual gay T-Mobile employee asked the group to leave the mall. It was as if in his own way, he was getting a little revenge on his own bully from his high school days.
As they left, I took a cue from advice I received from Branden, and shouted “Besides, it’s $50.00 for a bj!”
Moments later Chris showed up, wanting desperately to punch one of the Glamis guys in the face. We couldn’t find them to do so, and so he missed his chance, and we hurried to the theatre.
Why I bring this up is, frankly, to announce I’m coming out!
No not out of the proverbial or sexual closet, no I am happy being my ambiguous and artistic self, and don’t mind if any of you think I am one way or another for laughing in Bruno (for the second time) or for wearing something flamboyant on stage or for saying I love you and meaning it to my closest dude friends.
I am coming out and saying, I’m OK with GAY.
What I’m not okay with, in fact quite anti, is Glamis Guys and Glamis Girls. Bros that think it’s still cool to call anyone they want faggots to their face, to use racist and prejudice slams as a way to lift them up in front of their friends. I am extremely anti those dudes that think it is still a requirement to be good at sports if you are going to be a straight guy, and that of you even think about wearing the color purple, pink or yellow, you are a flaming cock-sucking queen.
Even as I continue to believe in God, and the church of my youth, I proclaim my belief that Gays are OK by me, and that rights should be given to all. All except the Glamis Guys and Girls, those people need their rights of marriage and heck, reproduction, violently taken from them.
Maybe that will teach them a lesson.
PREACH
Tyler
