THE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS OF A BUDDHIST AMONG BAPTISTS
• Reverend Father Antonio Hernández, O.M.D., A.B.F.
Founder of the Independent Order of American Buddhist Fathers
suriak@yahoo.com

---

MY BIG, FAT GAY ~ GOTH ARTICLE We've all had just about enough with all this screaming about gay marriages. Let people marry whomever in hell they want!

Perhaps the above impressive literary masterpiece of a sentence just flew out of me because I am a gay man. Because I know my readership is restricted to about three kindhearted folk, my coming out on the internet won't make any difference. My coming-out party was decades ago, anyway.
BUT I hope to send this article around the block a few times, as I once did with myself.

Many pals of mine have been asking for a gay-oriented article from me, and I know they need to have their literary glands examined for stones. Others have begged me to write a Goth article, which I admit I've been promising even more than I've been procrastinating. So here's a two-in-one for everyone.

GOTH is a subject near and dear to me because I am a Goth. Not a Visigoth, Ostrogoth or Gaudigoth. A genuine, moody, broody, dressed-in-black-to-the-nines die-hard Goth. No one is old enough to recall how it all started, and I'm not about to deny or acknowledge any personal experiences from that era. When I was three years old, my sisters used to drive me to the huge, ancient cemetery (it was in the dead center of town, people were dying to get in, ho ho ho). They followed their raving loony of a toddler-brother at a discreet distance; petulant wrath would rain down on them if they dared to disturb my meditations. I wanted to be left in the cemetery- in an actual grave.
All the music that's fit to enjoy is one of my domains. Rarely do I hunt for specifically "Goth" music because I can find Goth in anyone from Dvorak to Satie. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-minor is pretty Goth; the poor slob came home from a trip and his cute young wife was already buried. He wrote that for her, poor young Deborah Bach. With that kind of legacy, who needs Razed in Black?
Naturally I listened to Bauhaus. Of course I ran around blathering (in a low hiss) about Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, back when everyone thought that was a pathetic attempt on my part at speaking Norwegian. Black was my second skin. But Goth is so much more than music, poetry, painting and drawing. It's about everything. If you can't see this, you don't deserve to be called a Goth. You deserve to be called a Roman.

GAY is who and what I am as well. Don't pay attention to those sons-of-bitches who say a refrigerator father, a smothering mother and a milquetoast sissy-boy thrown in a blender equals gay. We are born this way- don't believe me? How often do we ask children if they like their own sex better than the opposite? Take it from us, we all know exactly which side of our muffin is buttered, and we know it very early.
Today I'm a celibate Buddhist monk. I have grown fat and old. My blunt friends tell me I resemble a cross between that lugubrious Stooge, Curly, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. These things shouldn't be social death sentences, but they are, in the gay and Goth communities. My pale skin, doleful stare, massive black robes and canesword don't impress anyone (least of all me). At any rate I don't pretend to be a vampire or a werewolf; I've got enough problems fending off crack-baby Chihuahuas on the street.
So I will not bore my dear readers (one day that will be in the singular) with drivel about my massive crush on Elijah Wood [I COULD MAKE YOU SOOOOOO HAPPY MY DEAR BOY]. Nor will I pine about the downward spiral of my old hero, Boy George. It would not cross the pitted quagmires of my mind to try figuring out what an "Obi-wan" is (rumors have it that an Obi-wan is an original Goth- young Goths won't tell me). I won't complain about how the only gay support group in our region shuns me like a bubonic-carrying swarm of fleas.

Instead, let me regale you with a rapid-fire list of glorious experiences: A frigid autumn night's frolic in the middle of the cemetery (with I'd-rather-not-say-whom). Wild martial-arts-demonstration-dancing with fiery beauties at the local gay establishment. Screaming Goths (WHY did we go??) at a Bangles concert back when they and Goths were even less known than they are today. Clandestine, Victorian, Byronic meetings in steaming countries where everyone minds their own business.
See? It ain't all Sadsack Droopy-drawers like some believe.
Most of it is, but not all.

© Reverend Antonio Hernández, O.M.D., A.B.F. Jan '04
suriak@yahoo.com
More Lifestyles and Comment

Home

© Hackwriters 2000-2004 all rights reserved