Coming of age, so to speak, in the 1980's as I did placed many of us in the whirlwind of evolving social opinions and questioning of long-held beliefs. This not unique to my generation, I understand, but it's my experience, so shut up and listen. Write your own damn blog post about your life. Growing up where I did, being the only white kid on the block gave me a pretty unique perspective on racism that most working-class white boys weren't privy to. This also led to a different class of interactions with with the police and other institutions as well; but the overall topic here is changes in society and how our own personal growth either precedes this or lags slowly behind...
Homosexuality in the late 1970's and most all of the 80's was a topic that, beyond a crude joke here and there or calling your friend a "fag" when you were clowning around - was just ignored. Don't get me wrong, even as a young boy I knew "fag" was an insult and was pretty well hip to what it referred to. This was not just in my little corner of the world, either - this was the prevailing attitude in most of suburban life. Everyone I knew, top-to-bottom (no pun intended) simply ignored any elaboration upon the topic - we didn't know anyone who was homosexual (at least who would say so out loud or in private) and because I never really had much doubt about my own burgeoning sexuality, the subject just seemed kind of like just one more thing that did not concern me. I was no active detractor or someone who gained self-esteem from calling out anyone that I had even guessed could be gay. People in those bygone days still equated homosexuality with all sorts of ridiculous aberrant behaviors - mainly things like paedophelia and transvestisism , accusations we very well know now to be just the height of stupidity. Most of my friends parents were grown up children of the 1950's and 60's, a time when homosexuality was still widely considered to be some form of mental defect. unbelievable, I know - but nonetheless true.
Hell, this was a time when you could still walk into a bookstore (big chain bookstores, people. Not some hole-in-the-wall) and see a section of joke books alphabetized by the race of the jokes they contained. Being Bohemian, we of course had "1001 Polack Jokes". But it seemed that no one was free from a specified form of ridicule - all races and creeds were represented on the shelf. It was open season on insulting everyone, we just accepted it. While I do sincerely believe that people are way too fucking sensitive now, (see the very public crucifixion of Paula Dean; Good God show me a Southerner from her era who hasn't said the same thing she did their whole life or more recently, Riley Cooper, the idiot receiver of the Philadelphia Eagles. I bet he felt surrounded by like-minded people when he was shouting his ignorance at that Kenny Chesney concert) about language. Myself, I was "whitey" or "cracker" to strangers in my neighborhood on a daily basis and I was "white nigger" as soon as I left that same area. Life goes on, geez.
So, although I was not above bandying about gay jokes or clowning the mannerisms of some very effeminate boys that I went to school with, it was done very quietly among close friends. I was already too much of a target of ridicule and intimidation myself to ever be anything like that to another person.
But as I grew older and the late 80's loomed, I had seen and lived enough to understand that if Ronald Reagan (and by proxy, those who aligned themselves with him and his politics) was against something - that I should really at least re-examine my own thinking on it, he was dead fucking wrong about everything else, it seemed. With the rise of the A.I.D.S. epidemic and the innundation of stories in the media about it's victims and how it was almost exclusively a problem for the gay community, there seemed to be the beginnings of an institutionalized ignorance concerned with marginalizing the concerns of a large number of people. Even an extremely ignorant heterosexual (or at least trying to be, the girls weren't really cooperating at the time) teenager, it was easy to see that disregarding people over something that didn't really strike me as a lifestyle "choice" - I wasn't considering lofty topics like wondering if people were "born gay", but who would choose to be treated the way homosexuals were at that time? Th embryonic idea that there was no other option for these people was beginning to dawn upon my (very) slowly expanding consciousness.
This all crystallized in the middle of 1989, a year of tremendous upheaval and irreversible changes in my own life. As is my wont, this epiphany was brought about and delivered through music. Rap music had been my life but it had seemed to be taking a turn for the worse - it was everywhere now - on Mtv and in the press, places I had always felt had ignored this music that had been my world for 10 years by now. But, with precious few exceptions, I had lost nearly all enthusiasm for it. What I had become interested in its place was what was soon become known as "alternative rock".
After years of reveling music that related tales of life in rough circumstances and dangerous streets told with bravado and braggadocio, much like the world I was surrounded by, I became enthralled by vulnerable and confessional songs from bands like New Order, Depeche Mode, The Cure - my world had expanded as well as my realization of just how truly narrow my previous views had been, be they unspoken or not.
I was playing a new, to me, disc from Husker Du genius songwriter/guitar deity Bob Mould. It was his first solo album, "Workbook", the disc itself wasn't really knocking me on my ass that way that some of his previous bands' work had recently done. But that all changed when the album reached tack #4, a beautiful little song titled, "See A Little Light". I may have been a bit more receptive to the songs theme on that day at that time because I was in love with a girl who was also my best friend (yeah, I know...) who seemed very (very) conflicted about her feelings for me. As well as being absolutely surrounded by the impending explosion of my own parents marriage. This song was optimistic about love in a way that I could relate to - even in the face of the other person being confused about whether or not to really give it a try. I was instantly struck by the incredibly sensitive words and how he was pleading for a chance, almost as much as the very un-Husker Du-like sound. Jangly guitars and gentle pleading replaced the wall of guitars and punk pacing of before, he was unmistakably unafraid to admit his vulnerability and say what he felt.
I thought to myself, "he must be in love with the exact same kind of woman that I am".
Soon after, I found out that this song wasn't written for a girl and it stopped me in my tracks. Because of the culture around me and my own unspoken feelings I had never paused and really thought that a man could feel these things for another man. I felt stupefied, as well I should have - coming out of ignorance really should be an epochal personal moment that coincides with talking to oneself and saying, "was I really THAT fucking stupid?". Yes. Yes, you were.
This naked, afraid-but-still-going-to-try stab at love and that gorgeously dreamy optimism that only the full flush of that feeling can give to you - it's truly universal. It always had been, but I was just figuring this out. At that time I had only met a couple of gay men through friends and they were just flamboyantly on fire and completely over the top. That kind of behavior has always struck me as insincere and wielded merely for the shock value of how uncomfortable it made the straights in the vicinity. Please do understand, I am an equal opportunity curmudgeon - I despise with equal venom such flights of effrontery from heterosexual men as well - be it with shows of bravado, tales of their prowess, or public displays of douchebaggery towards women. Interestingly, many of the fellows are possessed of a disproportionate distaste for homosexuals and will not hesitate to let you know this fact. I have always thought that these men possibly doth protest too much. But, I digress...
So my deepest thanks and sincerely heartfelt gratitude to you, Mr. Bob Mould for enlarging my world and my brain - as well as my heart. Because these things so rarely work out how we wish them to, I will say that the girl I was in love with at that time I heard this song became my girlfriend eventually and it became a very up and down relationship for many years to follow. More down than up and ended quite badly, but the experience was very definitely for the best considering what was waiting a short time ahead of me. Eventually we grew up and I consider her now to be among my truest and most valued old friends, despite all the terrible times we had. I hope things worked out much better for Bob and the object of his affection, and even if it didn't...this beautiful little song is a worthy memorial to that eternal optimism that love fills us all with, regardless of whether our loves be a man or a woman.
