I love Lansing...well, East Lansing. I go back there at least a couple of times a year, three weeks in the summer for camps, usually once to visit friends and go to a game and/or once or twice for tournaments with teams I'm coaching. It's fun. It's relaxed. It's safe. There's always the threat of a riot. Them Spartans love to riot. And break stuff. It makes Stonewall look like a gallery opening. Tear gas can be fun in the right context.
For the homos it's a pretty sweet setup with a few minor flaws from the usual nutjobs and the usual moans about too little to do and not enough places to go. Hell, Saugutuck is the gay city of the midwest. If cities can have sexual orientations, that one is gayer than a hot pink sweater on Clay Aiken's dog...or oddly shaped ferret...your choice.
In the ten years (ouch!) I've been going to East Lansing, I've yet to meet a woman who didn't come out of the womb looking for a homo to cuddle with.
Example #1: Every women's volleyball player that I've ever known. Hell, they want to go to the gay bars more than I do. Can I hear marketing to the gay community? They wear skin-tight tops with spandex to work that attract gay men more than Cirque du Soleil.
Example #2: I got dragged to the Riv by a friend for his roommate's birthday. Jason's roommate was a petite little thing with big boobs and...just picture your typical sorority girl that was too good for Greek life. She wasn't drunk yet, so I didn't feel bad buying her a shot. I gave her a hug, wished her a happy birthday, handed over the shot and then....realized I was the only guy in the bar whose eyes weren't glued to her chest. Having not been in a Big Ten manly-man bar since my last jaunt to Murphy's in good ole Champaign in 2001, I was a little out of practice. I tried to turn the flame off and considering sidling up to the nearest wall to wipe some of its smeared testosterone onto me. Of course she noticed it and I could see in her eyes the thought formulating..."You're a big homo..." "Will you be my best friend?" I tried to distract the inevitable with a strategy that Jason and his roommate had cooked up. "We went to high school together...You don't remember me do you," I asked. It didn't work. How was I supposed to know only Jews lived in West Bloomfield?
The only time in the 6 years I've been going to gay bars (or being "out") in Lansing that anything has ever happened was this summer. I was walking into Spiral to watch the fourth-to-the-last Queer As folk when two kids on bikes rode by and yelled out, "That's a gay bar." My, I thought, the Michigan Visitor's Bureau has kids riding around identifying buildings for people? I found it informative and helpful. I thanked them.
On my last afternoon in East Lansing, I had to go back to a Hawaiian BBQ place in a strip mall south of campus...L&Ls. Hawaiian plate lunches in central Michigan? Yeah, pretty f-ed up. I dragged some other coaches/friends and headed over there yet again free of guilt. I burned about 5,000+ calories a day for three weeks, a little heart attack on a styrofoam plate was most deserved. The four of us parked, walked in, ate, talked, laughed and then hit the inevitable wall where sitting upright becomes tiresome.
Walking out to my car, I saw something I could only register as a prank. Written in chalk on the ground in front of my car was: "Fag" with an arrow pointing toward my license plate. I'd been drive-by chalked. Or walked-by chalked. Or, for the hate crimes statistics bureau...Just Chalked.
The very first thought that went through my head, I swear, was, "Who the hell carries chalk around?" My very next thought: "What beautiful block lettering." Hell, even the lines of the arrow were straighter than Pat Robertson's outlook. Mike, Jason and Josh looked like they were watching me deep throat a banana...again (ha! as if.) Incredulity and curiosity. They swore they didn't do it. I didn't have time for that. I was trying to think of a witty comeback while simulatenously trying to figure out why my navy blue toyota corolla looked gay enough to get Chalked. Now, I know part of my license plate says DVA. But, I SWEAR that the damn Wisconsin DMV gave it to me randomly. I'm not that cheesy.
All I came up with was, "That's Mr. Fag to you. And what nice lettering you have."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment