By Jeff Walsh
As the keyboardist for Faith No More, Roddy Bottum bent the stereotypical image of the "gay piano player." His melodic piano capped the band's monster hit "Epic," which until his piano solo is a rollicking metal-rap song. Bottum plays the melody at the part near the video's end where a fish is flipping around on the dirt.
By Jeff Walsh
Gina Gutierrez was born in San Francisco, and lived only an hour away from it throughout her teen years. In 1990, while a senior in high school, she was prominently featured in the educational film "Gay Youth." She then attended Hampshire College, in the queer-friendly Amherst, Mass. But now, Gutierrez is living in a small town in Puerto Rico. Her close-cropped or shaved head seen in the video, is now waist-length. Her "little boy body" in the video, as she calls it, is now more filled out.
By Jeff Walsh
"Are you taping, I hope?" Camille Paglia asks instantly upon answering the phone in her office in the Humanities Department at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Initially, it seems like an odd question, until the rapid-fire magical mystery tour through Paglia's thought process on gay teens begins.
The only thing more depressing than opening your email account and having 0 messages is opening your second account and having 0 messages there, too.
Okay, I know... actually lots of things are more depressing. But this morning that one takes the cake.
Should I have just Kissed him?
Well, my predicament over what to do about the new guy who liked me and the old one who liked me again is over. New things happened, I decided, and I am very happy with my decision.
A week ago, I went to a play with some friends and the old guy drove. I sat next to him in the front seat and we flirted the whole time. When we got back, everyone else went to bed and we went back to his place to watch a movie version of the play we had seen. We ended up getting closer and closer, laughing more and more, and I finally brought up what happened back in January. It was awkward at first, but we talked about it freely and even a little jokingly, and I got some satisfying answers. It was as if he undid everything that had happened, as if he erased all of the bad feelings I had back then. He even said that the reason his relationship didn't work out was because he thought about me too much, and that he had prayed and considered the matter a lot and determined that he made a mistake when he said that we would make better friends than boyfriends. I was skeptical, but I started believing him the more he talked. I mean, why not believe something so positive? So then we started making out for a while, and despite our efforts to the contrary ("We need to set an example," "We're higher species; we can control ourselves.") we ended up doing a bit more. By the morning, as we saw the sun rise, he was calling me his boyfriend. So that's how that happened.
The view zooms in onto me as I am now, vulnerable but bursting with potential. I am building an armada of accepting friends with whom I can take on the entie city. My gayness becomes less and less ignorable, but my confidence grows as I gain success in shows. Soon no-one can cut me down by spewing, "Fag!" because I am too strong. Too strong, too smart, too involved...and high school, the horror which everyone must crawl out from, instead launches me into fame and fortune. And meaningless sex...black-haired men and sculpted adonises weave in and out between my legs as I rise through my career...
Sitting in rows thinking about womens bodies drifting in and out. Room is full of god fearing christians.
"We've got to save our youth. They are lost. That MTV has had a plan for their lives since they were born. WE have a plan for our childeren. To make them and army for the lord. Aquire the Fire. Your childeren will come back a new. There is hope. We will turn their lives arround from the sins the world presses on them"