One result of An American Family was that I became a gay role model.
For the naysayers that claimed 'American Family' revealed us to be vacant, unloving, uncaring morons of the materialistic '70s, this image will be proven wrong when Mom and Dad remarry... Make no mistake. This is not to emphasize the sadness of my demise but rather emphasize the love of my family and friends.
In 1970, television ate my family. The Andy Warhol prophecy of 15 minutes of fame for any and everyone blew up on our doorstep.
Too pop for punk, too 'old school' for the New Wave, Mumps were a '70s era New York rock band, out of time.
My reasons for declaring a sexual preference had to do less with the pursuit of personal freedom than with the lust for pure shock value.
Proclaiming a sexual preference is something that straight men never really have to bother with.
Coming out is a means of redefining oneself, of claiming membership in a lifestyle and a social order with distinct values. Chief among these values is honesty.
Scrawling 'I'm gay' in lipstick on your parents' bedroom mirror may demonstrate a personal signature of the highest style, but is not particularly sensitive to their feelings. Upon hearing me utter those words almost twenty years ago, my own mother did what and self-respecting middle-class mom would do: went directly into a seizure.
Perhaps there is no agony worse than the tedium I experienced waiting for Something to Happen.
In retrospect, the most unnerving aspect of being openly gay was that it turned out to be as disappointingly normal as being straight.
