word finding

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:02 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> Apparently, neither you nor Tyler wastes much time watching prime-time
> "comedy," arnold. ;-) It's become a cliché that the tall, broad-
> shouldered,
> stunningly-handsome, blind date will turn out to be a gay guy who
> thinks
> that he has a date with another guy, whose name is "Sam," and not
> with some
> chick protagonist named "Samantha" who's merely nicknamed "Sam."
> BTW, have
> you ever seen pictures of John Rechy when he was in the prime of
> life? From
> the chin down, he nearly out-Aahnolded Aahnold in the latter's Mr.
> Universe
> days, though Rechy's day job was professor of English at USC.

i'm sorry, but you don't get it.  what i was writing about was not
the truth of the world (in which gay guys are in fact athletic  etc.)
but the perceptions of most people (in which athleticism is
antithetical to homosexuality, in which fags are essentially
automatically unmanly).  lord knows i wish the world were different
from the way it is, but i don't think i can deny this reality.

in the *real* world, there are plenty of sports-minded gay men.  and
seriously buffed gay guys (an enormous number of them, actually).
that's not the point.  what i was talking about was large-scale
perceptions, and these are not encouraging.

by the way, i'm pretty sure rechy was never any kind of professor at
USC -- instructor, i think, or maybe lecturer.  this is not a
reflection on him, but more on USC.  certainly, he was never on a
tenure track.

i think i will have to take a vacation from ADS-L.  it's feeling
pretty toxic right now.

arnold

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