Genre

Between June 7th and October 4th, 1995, 27-year old aspiring comedian Benny Goldschmidt received major yawns and was booed off the stage of virtually every major comedy club on the East Coast after telling jokes involving a heterosexual spouse. In frustration, he crashed the Comic Triangle awards banquet for top comedy entertainers of the year and attempted a string of Henny Youngman style one-liners. “Take my wife, please!” he shouted again and again as he was dragged offstage by New York City’s finest. No one laughed.

GENRE staffer Dan Perlman visited Mr. Goldschmidt for this exclusive interview in Bellevue Hospital’s lock-up ward where he is under observation while awaiting trial. Mr. Goldschmidt was under fairly heavy sedation, but even in this condition, his speech was punctuated with outburts of pathetic jokes.

GENRE: Mr. Goldschmidt…

Benny Goldschmidt: Benny, please.

GENRE: Okay, Benny. Let me ask the obvious question. Why would any aspiring comedian in the ’90s use such stale material?

BG: You mean the straight stuff, right? What’s the difference between a blond cocktail waitress and…

GENRE: Well, yes. Heterosexual comedy is just passé, don’t you think?

BG: Hey, I’m on the edge, you know, very Lenny Bruce. Talking about the people who just don’t get talked about anymore. My mother-in-law is so-o-o ugly…

GENRE: Lenny Bruce was talking about oppressed minorities.

BG: That’s just my point. Straights are the oppressed now, you guys get all the good gigs. My girlfriends gives such good…

GENRE: You can’t be serious.

BG: Of course I am. I called Arsenio, I called Sally Jesse, I called Oprah, I called Phil. I told them I do straight material and they hung up. I called Geraldo and offered to do gay material, you know, what did one fag say to the other fag…I even called Regis Philbin…

GENRE: You called Regis Philbin?

BG: Yeah, he sympathized, but said he didn’t think he could use me before 1997, and no stuff about women. My act is women. I love women. As a matter of fact, let me tell you about the time I loved two…

GENRE: Excuse me, but don’t you think comedy changes? People don’t want to hear heterosexual stuff anymore. The jokes are just plain old, like cooties jokes we used to tell in grade school. We outgrew them.

BG: Let me tell you, there’s always a place for the classics. Ministers, rabbis, priests, lawyers, wives, mothers-in-law. Did ya’ hear the one about the farmer’s daughter?

GENRE: You’ve certainly got a handle on bad jokes – everything from borscht belt to raunch…

BG: Bad? Bad? Somebody’s got to preserve these jokes. I think of myself as sort of a Jackie Mason, Bob Hope, Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kinison all in one. Hey, do you know what the face of a married man looks…

GENRE: You think of yourself as Bob Hope?

BG: I got to. It gives me my edge. Besides, I want to do military shows, you know, USO kind of stuff. So this WAC comes up to me…

GENRE: You want to try that out in front of the lesbian militia?

BG: Like I got a shot. They got this trio of queers doin’ the shows. And some drag queen from L.A. looks like Whoopi. You know, that’s not her real name. So my friend asks me, is it true about black women…

GENRE: I’ve got to ask. Why crash the Comic Triangle awards? It’s for gay comedians.

BG: I had to make my point. I mean, I can tell a joke about blowin’ the chauffeur and sittin’ on barstools upside down as well as anyone…

GENRE: Wait a minute! That’s the kind of joke you’d tell about us. Not what we’d tell about ourselves!

BG: Yeah? Whatever. I had to show them that straight stuff is funny. You ever hear the one about my wife and the lost credit cards…

GENRE: But the stuff isn’t funny. No one laughed.

BG: Yeah, well, they didn’t give me enough time. I coulda got those pansies rollin’ in the aisles. So this burglar breaks into my house…

GENRE: Yeah, yeah, we all know that one. “Take my domestic partner. Please.”

Genre is a gay “lifestyle” and travel magazine. It was launched in 1992 by three entrepreneurs, two of whom shortly thereafter left to found QSF magazine. I went with them…

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! The cry of the French Revolution. Except, of course, it was Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité! The first two make perfect sense as things to have rebelled in favor of. But why the proletariat were championing group campus living when they were already stuck in squalid communal living situations is beyond me.

My knowledge of fraternities comes from such exemplary sources as Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds (parts I through III). When I first came onto campus, the vocabulary quickly became part of everday life. Rush was something that came in small brown bottles and made our hearts race. Pledge came in lemon scent and didn’t leave streaks. And haze was something that obscured the view early in the morning.

Evers since 1825 and the first Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, gay college men have been subjected to the most difficult decision of their educational pursuit; Do we opt for the daily drudgery of the dorm or do we butch it up and try for frat life? Bastions of macho posturing would seem to me to be no place for a boy in heels. (Much like the military.) It couldn’t take too long for a gay pledge to figure out that Greek referred to an alphabet and a tradition, not a position.

So, why not a gay fraternity? There is, of course, the housing issue. Fraternities tend to be cheap, if communal, living situations. And dorms are certainly no place for your average queen. The idea of a gay fraternity, where we could let our hair down, loll around the common room watching television, hanging out in our underwear, and partying ’til we drop, is not new. Of course, until now, we called it a summer share. But then, Fire Island and Key West just aren’t what they used to be. (If they ever were.)

Debauchery, decadence, and degeneracy. The watchwords of fraternity life. Party time! Now, never let it be said that I don’t like a good party. But I refuse to be seen wrapped in my bedsheets. Especially if I’m supposed to be pretending I’m wearing the latest in toga fashion. Just who among us has the funds, energy or creativity to come up with a different très fab costume every single night of the school year, and still maintain a grade point average above the IQ of our last boyfriend?

I find myself trying to imagine the selection process for new frat pledges at our local chapter of Delta whatever. I know they claim that everything is now handled professionally. Hazing is a thing of the past. PLedges perform community service rather than polish frat brothers’ cars, drink quarts of vodka, and screw dogs. And I’m Princess Grace of Monaco.

Of course, most of what the typical “straight” fraternities consider humiliating hazing activities occurs nightly at our favorite gay establishments. I suppose the equivalent would be forcing our new pledges to do things like play spin-the-bottle with the cheerleading squad. Or maybe make them go to class wearing those pullover shirts with the little penguin over the pocket. And last year’s shoes. Better yet, make them dance the Hustle.

The final and biggest mystery of fraternity life has nothing to do with the local house, the frat brothers themselves, or even whether frat boys get good seats at the football game. (Football? That’s a sport, right?) No, the biggest mystery is the selection of frat names. I mean, just how did the Psi Epsilon Chi Xi Nu Mus get their moniker? How did the nerds in Revenge I get Lambda, Lambda, Lambda, name clearly more suited for us? How did we end with Delta Lambda Phi, when the obvious acronym is Phi Alpha Gamma? I imagine it’s done by some secret Greek council playing a game much like rock, paper, scissors.

Strangely, when I was on campus, the idea of joining a fraternity never came up. Of course, we didn’t have a gay frat, and my pink triangle probably didn’t go well with the ideals of the Alpha Omega house, or whatever it was. Though it did look cute on my ROTC uniform…but that’s another story.

Genre is a gay “lifestyle” and travel magazine. It was launched in 1992 by three entrepreneurs, two of whom shortly thereafter left to found QSF magazine. I went with them…

A NEW NOTEBOOK in hand, a small case filled with Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 pencils, my Buster Browns polished to a high gloss, trembling with fear. Wait. That was kindergarten. This is a first date. I should have brought flowers, not pencils.

Why did I call that 900 line (the one GENRE would never print)? You’d think I’d have learned from past experience. I called a 900 line once before. I gazed deeply into the eyes of my teddy bear as I imagined hands trailing lightly over my body, tickling those intimate spots. Did you know you can’t tickle yourself? It’s impossible. I opted for a dial tone and a cheese sandwich.

It’s been a summer filled with exploration. I set out to find love, amour, romance, eros, lust in the dust. I saw my first robin of spring on April Fool’s Day. It should have been a clue.

Recent advertisements in my collection of gay publications offered workshops to improve my love life. I could truly experience my inner self, my higher self, my lower self, my spirit, my free spirit, my gayness, myhumanity, my global oneness, and even achieve universal consciousness. I would take responsibility, enter my inner realm, find my hidden power, become my power animal, drum on drums, chant chants, and maybe (did I dare hope for it?) release my spirit energy.

I could do this in weeklong retreats, weekend enlightenments, or two and a half hour breakthrough workshops. I would be taught by such masters as ex-door-to-door salesmen, penny stock and junk bond dealers, holdover drug addicts from the sixties, and even one actual, real, authentic guru, with turban, and, I was assured, the cost was less than a trip to Tibet. Not.

Advice from my parents rose, unbidden. My mother advised, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” My father, every hopeful, “Marry a nice Jewish doctor.” According to my husband of May, (a nice Jewish doctor), it is anatomically impossible to get to a man’s heart through his stomach. I suggested an anatomical impossibility of my own.

A friend once insisted that I never date a man who, A, lives with his parents, or B, sleeps in a twin bed. I had to investigate. A and B do not cancel each other out. This insight was ascertained during a particularly festive weekend with Mr. June. Ma June brought us breakfast in bed. Pa June mowed the lawn. I kept falling off the edge of the bed.

My ex-boss came to the rescue in time for Independence Day. “It’s just as easy to marry a rich man as it is to marry a poor man.” She’s divorced from two rich men, so she should know. I borrowed some preppie clothing and headed for a swank party. Champagne flute in one hand, canapes in the other, oohing and ahhing over bombs bursting in air.

Fireworks of another sort started with a corporate comptroller. He offered to whisk me away to a penthouse suite. He was everything a boy could want. Well, actually, he owned everything a boy could want. The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” began playing on my internal jukebox. I returned the chinos to my friend and slipped on a pair of well worn jeans. There’s no place like home. I signed on to a computer bulletin board. A self-described nice young man offered safer sex by modem. He sent me lovely strings of asterisks, exclamation points, and little oooo’s.

Which brings me to the 900 line and the potential Mr. August. He sent me a picture: Bronzed from the summer sun, pumped from the gym, faded button-fly’s, steady job wiht decent income. Movies, walks in the rain, Star Trek, he even reads! He probably leaves the cap off the toothpaste. I ring the bell, No. 2 pencils in hand.

Genre is a gay “lifestyle” and travel magazine. It was launched in 1992 by three entrepreneurs, two of whom shortly thereafter left to found QSF magazine. I went with them…

There was this priest, a minister and a rabbi. One of them said (and it really doesn’t matter which one, since they all said it eventually), “That is a sin.” I have to assume they were referring to some transgression of divine law as opposed to the twelfth letter of the Arabic alphabet or the Akkadian god of the moon – respectively, sin and Sin.

It’s a sin to tell a lie. It’s a sin to steal. It’s a sin to covet your ex-lover’s current future ex-lover. And this month, there are those who would remind us that it’s both a sin to be gay and a sin to have pride. One of those is listed in the bible and one is deep in the mind of your local bible thumper. (Thumper in this case not being the rabbit from Bambi.)

Gay pride. Two, count them, two sins in one. (I shall not discuss lesbian pride here, as according to the Queen, lesbians are a myth, and I find myself unable to argue with a lady holding a clutch bag and wearing a tiara.) There is one question which must be on our lips as we march down the streets of N.Y.-L.A.-.S.F.-W.D.C.-K.C. and Pierre, South Dakota: Do two sins make a virtue?

I suppose we must first look at virtue. My dictionary gives numerous definitions; goodness, standards and principles among them. I have noted that many of my gay friends are good striving to live up to their standards and not down to their principles. And they’re quite proud of it. Then there is chastity, innocence and virginity. Chastity, besides what’s-her-name’s daughter, is little more than an attempt to recapture innocence and virginity, and in the words of one famous wit, little more virtuous than malnutrition.

Perhaps our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, put this nonsense most firmly in its place when he said, “It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” If a little sinning is virtuous enough for the man in the tall black hat, who am I to argue?

We face many questions about pride this month. What kind of float the grand marshall will ride on. Whether or not to wear the spandex bodysuit. Whether womyn on Harleys (I am informed that “dykes on bikes” is no longer an appropriate expression) or fairy circles on rollerblades should lead the parade. These are the critical debates of our time of pride. Oops, I believe I expressed a non-politically correct idea there.

This leads me to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Can one have pride and be politically correct? The answer is, as best I can tell, a resounding “No.” I am informed that one can only be truly PC if you happen to be one of the many black-Native American, post-operative transsexual, Jewish lesbians with Hispanic surnames and a wheelchair among us. Extra points if you worship the goddess…so chances are, you don’t qualify.

Gay pride itself is a source of some mystery. If one embraces the view that sexuality is biological, then one may as well be proud of having an ear. Or even two. If sociological influence is your bag, you may as well just thank your parents and teachers for doing you this favor and on with your life. So what is all the celebrating about?

Would I have brought up the question without an answer? I think not. There is, of course, an untested theory. This is our one week a year to blow off steam, be as NPC as we like, toss all rules and regulations out the window. Wear a costume. Run naked through the streets. Get another hole pierced in something. Engage in activities no one we hang out with could possibly approve of, until we run into them doing the same.

No meetings to attend, no phone-tree calls to make, no appeals for funds to write. No ruts. Just a good, old-fashioned, all-American fun-fest. And that seems like a virtue that Honest Abe would have heartily approved of.

Genre is a gay “lifestyle” and travel magazine. It was launched in 1992 by three entrepreneurs, two of whom shortly thereafter left to found QSF magazine. I went with them…