Corona | Coming Attractions

Get a load of this...Jimmy Johnson on Survivor!

www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/cast/21/jimmy-j

Between this and the Extenze commercials he does, I've lost alot of respect for him.  And I am a Cowboys fan.

I've seen a total of maybe three episodes of this show in my life. Never really did it for me. That said, I guess I'm watching this season. Why? My mother told me to. Turns out the boyfriend of a friend of the family is on the show this season. If you're watching the show, Colton's the one.

The friend of the family is a cool dude, but his boyfriend is a little annoying. There aren't many openly gay people living in and around my hometown. I don't blame those who don't live openly for not living openly. It's fuckin' Alabama. The majority of the people living there are angry southern protestants dripping with anti-gay murderousness.

Anyway, I guess I'm watching to show hometown solidarity. My mother assures me Colton is high-larious ("You can't not love him!"), but I don't see it. She assures me our gay cousin ("He's such a card!") is also high-larious, but I don't see that, either. Basically, these are the only two gay people she knows. On some level, I think she appreciates them for the novelty of their being gay.

Well, she has a problem saying "gay" for some reason. She has no problem saying "flamer," but she tapdances around the word "gay" without ever saying it. I think she might think it's not PC to say it. Why she has no problem saying "flamer" is anyone's guess. Maybe she thinks it's OK as long as it's euphemistic. I've heard my grandmother refer to gay people as "rubber wrists." She also has a problem saying "gay."

Anyway, I'm starting to think my mother thinks all gay people are funny.  Maybe this comes from her assuming gay people have traditionally been called "funny" because we're supposed to understand them to be patently humorous? I dunno. Seems a little condescending, but maybe that's the spin she has to put on homosexuality to think of it in a positive light. I know she had a rough time about a decade back when I told her I was attracted to men and women. 

At least she's a little more open-minded than my grandmother. My grandmother can barely process the idea of homosexuality or interracial relationships. She used to tell me she was "terrified" that I might one day bring home a black girlfriend. Then she assured me that she wasn't racist, and that she was just thinking of all the hardships our potential children would have to live through if they were to have to grow up half-and-halfers. (What hardships, you ask? Again... Alabama. Because, see, in my grandmother's mind, I eventually come to my senses and return to Alabama. Forever. And happily. And how.) 

My grandfather, who was often very ashamed of me for being, as he saw it, a hippie tree-hugger (he came to this conclusion because it was clear to him that it wasn't in my nature to want to slit the throat of every Arab I met), told her to prepare herself for the worst. I would eventually bring home a black girlfriend just to spite and shame them, he said. He was wrong. I knew better than to bring her home. Plus, I had told her enough about home to make her come to the conclusion that going there wouldn't be in her best interests.

But back to my grandmother being barely able to process the idea of homosexuality:

I lived with a string of gay roommates. (I'm a graduate student in a German Lit program. There aren't all that many straight dudes.) She met two of them. The first one made no mention of his sexual orientation, and she never figured out he was gay. She did, however, notice he was "polite," and kept repeating this. ("Your roommate is very polite, Beau." "He's really quite polite." "I'm amazed at how polite he is.") She got on fine with him. My mother spoiled the secret with the second of the two. Before she knew, she and he interracted without any sort of problem. After she knew, she stammered around him a lot, and would scoot away when he sat too close.

Whenever Barney on HIMYM says "Damn it, Ted," I think of one of Goiter's gay roommates.

You're referring, of course, to Sebastian.