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Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, indeed!
You'll never see me on that cable television show. They don't have the nerve.
A gay friend approached me one day and spoke, hesitantly, like someone about to voice a criticism he wishes he didn't have to.
"I want to thank you," he said, "for the things you have written about gay rights and gay issues. Sometimes they have a lot more impact coming from someone who is straight."
Then he got serious.
"You know," he said solemnly, "sometimes guys go through some sort of midlife reassessment and think about things differently, and sometimes they even find that their sexual orientation has been a lie."
I began to interrupt, but he cut me off.
"If that's the case," he said, "we really would rather you stayed in the closet."
I assured him that was not the case but was curious as to why he would want me to stay closeted.
"It is," he said, grinning, "the way you dress."
And that came after several years of me taking fashion tips from him.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a new Bravo cable show, has to elbow aside a few stereotypes and a lot of sensitivities to get its product in front of the viewers, a privilege I don't have, so please note the following disclaimer: Not all gay men are fashion plates or fashion conscious. Not all straight men are hopeless slobs who wear their hats backward.
That done, the show's premise is that gay men who fit the stereotype of being familiar with eyebrow waxing, seaweed wraps and fabric coordination can take straight men who fit the stereotype of not knowing what to wear or when and how to wear it - and who wouldn't know a dessert fork if it was jammed into their skulls - and remake them.
Oh yeah? They'll never get me. And I can provide references.
Back in my early 30s, I shared a house with several other people, including, off and on, a young gay man from whom I learned a lot about gay issues.
One boring night I forced him to go with me to a bar where things sometimes got a little rough and where the crowd was cut from a fairly coarse weave.
"Next week," he said, after our return home, "it's my turn."
As we were preparing to go to a now-defunct bar that was then the center of Tampa's gay scene, I asked him what I should wear.
"Actually," he said, "nothing you have is satisfactory, but that shirt with the floral print is the least objectionable item in your closet."
I explained to him that I did not want to come on as a tourist, there to stare at the bar's customers, but that I also didn't want anyone to think I was there looking for companionship.
"Don't worry," he said, "you are far too old and frumpy for anyone to bother."
That statement, and the fact that he turned out to be right, led to several sessions of me standing in front of a full-length mirror asking myself: "What am I? Dog meat?"
It is true that the passing years and a laid-back lifestyle probably haven't helped me come closer to any pretense of sartorial splendor.
For me, it is basically denim shorts and T-shirts most of the time, with solid color T-shirts for dress-up and tie-dye for more casual wear, plus Hawaiian shirts for places that require collars and buttons. I will also put on long jeans for more formal occasions, and I actually own a suit for funerals, weddings and costume parties. (I go as a Republican. Scares the heck out of people.)
I get two haircuts a year. Trim my eyebrows with a razor when they droop down into my eyes and cut my fingernails, usually while driving, with the scissors on my Swiss Army knife.
I've never been wrapped in anything more exotic than a quilt or smeared anything voluntarily on my face or known the name of the fabric (other than denim) in any article of clothing I have worn.
I would make my challenge to the show formal, but I have, already, literally, made gay men cry.
And it wasn't pretty.