The Straight Years — A New Website and a Look Back at How it Used to Be

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

Got this tweet this past weekend from LogoTV —

The premise is people who are out now showing old pictures of themselves when they were pretending to be straight — or simply hadn’t figured out how to come out of the closet.

Back when I was a pre-teen/teenager, there were three people on television that I knew were gay: Paul Lynde on The Hollywood Squares, Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game, and Billy Crystal’s character, Jodie Dallas, on Soap. And that was it! At least that was it in my little insulated corner of the planet. No one talked about gay and straight. Were these my role models? No, thanks. That’s not it. I’m not like ANY of these men. (Although, I LOVED Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly — they were the epitome of hilarious to me in the 70s — I did not connect the dots.)

Charles Nelson Reilly made the 70s a little bit funnier on Match Game. A gifted actor, teacher and director, the Tony-winning Reilly filmed his autobiographical stage show, The Life of Reilly, shortly before his death. |Image: nndb.com

TV’s center square, Paul Lynde, was bitchy and campy and threw out one double entendre after another on The Hollywood Squares for years. Also known for stage and TV work, including memorable turns as Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Lynde died of a heart attack in 1982 at age 55. |Image: crewmagazine.

Billy Crystal as Jodie Dallas in Soap. Allegedly gay throughout the series’ 1977-81 run, Jodie had several relationships with women. Granted the show was an over-the-top spoof on soap operas, but commercial director Jodie was nobody’s idea of a role model.

Things weren’t that much better in the 80s, when Steven Carrington on Dynasty was television’s gay standard bearer. Carrington — played by Al Corley and then recast with Jack Coleman — like Jodie Dallas before him, had far more romantic entanglements with women than any gay man I’ve ever met. Then again, “conversion therapy” and attempts to go straight were seen as serious back then, as ridiculous as it sounds now. There was no touching, no actual affection shown between two men on TV then; not in those days when, after his 1985 death, the world was shocked to learn that Rock Hudson was gay.

Looking back on those “straight years,” I think that simply because they were there and we could have a conversation about them, Jodie Dallas and Steven Carrington began to pave the way for networks like HERE and LOGO and superstars like Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell and Zachary Quinto and George Takei and Anderson Cooper and Neil Patrick Harris and shows like Glee and The New Normal and Will & Grace and Brothers & Sisters and The L Word and Queer as Folk on cable and the networks and Husbands and The Outs and Eastsiders and Submissions Only and Hunting Season online and iconic couples like Kevin and Scotty, Luke and Noah, Lindsey and Melanie, Will and Sonny and, hell, Jack and Doug on Dawson’s friggin’ Creek just to scratch the very tip of the iceberg.

I finally figured it all out in my mid-20s and came out publicly after attending the 1993 gay march on Washington. Being surrounded by the largest crowd I’ve ever seen on the National Mall, I decided that I wasn’t alone. I had back up in case coming out was a terrible idea.

It wasn’t. It NEVER is. I just wish my “straight years” hadn’t lasted quite so long. Maybe they wouldn’t have if I could have seen more of myself on television, in the movies or in literature back then.

The Corner Bar was a 1972 summer replacement series on ABC that is credited with the first recurring gay character on American television. Played by Vincent Schiavelli, “Peter Panama” was reviled by gay activists at the time for playing up all of the worst gay stereotypes. Schiavelli, far right, is pictured with cast members Gabriel Dell, J.J. Barry, Shimen Ruskin, Bill Fiore and Joe Keyes. |Image via sticomsonline.com, watermarked argentaimages.

Stuart Milk On LGBT Rights: ‘We Still Have A Long Way To Go’

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

“There’s a misconception that we have now achieved everything but marriage equality, and that’s just not the case. We still don’t have societal equality,” Milk said. “You can ask any African American, any Latino, if they were not treated equally somewhere along the line. Whenever you have a group that can be marginalized, you have to be vigilant in protecting those rights. Equality requires constant vigilance and it doesn’t end with same-sex marriage.

“We can legalize all day long, but we need to change the conversation,” Milk added. “For so long we’ve taught the message of tolerance. But tolerance is such a low bar. Who really wants to be tolerated? As I always say, we need to celebrate diversity, not just tolerate it.”

via Stuart Milk On LGBT Rights: ‘We Still Have A Long Way To Go’|Huffington Post

I agree. Then again, tolerance is something. By and large, we are edging away from tolerance and into general acceptance, but it’s a progession. It’s immensely frustrating to be sure, but it’s happening. And, actually, it’s happening on an astonishing pace, not only in the U.S. but throughout the developed world.

Unfortunately, it remains important that Stuart Milk must prompt us to remember that the pleas of his uncle, Harvey, for gay people to come out, to stand out, to be proud, and to serve as models are still extremely important to our daily lives. But, thus far, we’ve been so successful in changing minds and opinions, we can have a day where this picture is (rightly) celebrated!

Tenacious LGBT heroine Edith Windsor, 84, took her fight against DOMA to the Supreme Court of the United States and won. Here she is holding a fan bearing her image at the New York City gay pride parade just days after her June 26, 2013 victory. | Craig Ruttle/AP Photo

For Adam Goldman, a Place That Isn’t Out to Get Him – NYTimes.com

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

(l-r) Hunter Canning, Sasha Winters and Adam Goldman star in the exceptional Web series, The Outs.
Photo: Interview/Unusually Fine Photography

Adam Goldman lives in one of those Brooklyn prewar buildings near Prospect Park where the buzzer doesn’t always work, and the vestibule and lobby doors are frequently left unlatched. “But I feel safe here,” said Mr. Goldman, the creator, director and star of “The Outs,” the cultish online TV series that chronicled the dissolution of a romance between two gay 20-something men in contemporary Brooklyn. “This apartment is a step up.”

via For Adam Goldman, a Place That Isn’t Out to Get Him – NYTimes.com.

Pretty good article about Adam Goldman and his Brooklyn apartment. I enjoyed his Web series, The Outs, immensely. I thought it was so well-written and acted. It was witty, urbane, gripping and had an edge. It was the opposite of the bland fodder which comes out of Hollywood. That’s why the note in this piece that Goldman now has “representation in L.A.” makes me want to cringe a little. I hope the Left Coast doesn’t eat him.

Why Rachel Maddow Is Right To Be Outraged

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

Why Rachel Maddow Is Right To Be Outraged.

Excellent piece by Saeed Jones on BuzzFeed. If you’re not familiar, the great Maddow went over the top on the air (and rightly so) criticizing Politifact for refusing to actually say that Martina Navratilova was correct — even after they checked the facts and found out she was correct — and called her response “half true.”

No one does righteous indignation as good as Maddow. This is probably because it is the province of the uber-smart and witty, which absolutely describes Maddow to a tee.

But Jones is no slouch, it seems, in that department. Here’s how he sums up:

And I have this unfortunate habit of needing to write essays when I’m angry. I sit at my computer, grating my teeth, hearing Zora Neale Hurston say over and over again, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

Supposedly objective dismissal of inconvenient facts as “half truths” or dramatics is more than galling; it’s oppressive. The questions, “Why does this matter?” and, “Why are you so angry?” are conjoined twins, both hissing that we don’t even have a right to our own outrage.

And Delaware Takes it to ‘Leven

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

In numerology, 11 is one of those ‘magic numbers.’ There’s some serious partying happening in Rehoboth Beach tonight!

Image: AFER

Boy Scouts’ Gay Debate — Religion Beyond the Right

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

“I find it perplexing the way the ‘moral values’ phrase is used,” said the Rev. Mark Greiner, the pastor at the Presbyterian church that Ward attends. “Concern for the environment, concern for workers’ rights: those are moral values,” he told me. “But the phrase ends up being limited to matters of human sexuality, as if Jesus was primarily concerned with what people did with their reproductive parts. It’s crazy-making.” Greiner wants the ban on gay scouts and leaders lifted.

via In the Boy Scouts’ Gay Debate, Religion Beyond the Right – NYTimes.com.

From Frank Bruni’s excellent column in the Times. It’s a great quick read. I am so appalled and disgusted at the Boy Scouts of America I just can’t see straight.

How The Supreme Court’s DOMA Ruling Could Upend The Immigration Debate

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

This is a decent analysis by Chris Geidner on BuzzFeed. It takes a very complex legal issue (made overly complex by the masters of over-complexity, the U.S. Congress) and makes it easy to digest.

Truth be told, this just infuriates me. I simply do not understand what the Republicans think they have to gain by ruining these peoples families.

Because the Defense of Marriage Act bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages, binational gay and lesbian couples — those where one partner is not a U.S. citizen — have been denied the ability to seek a green card that straight couples have been eligible to obtain for their spouse in a similar situation.

The legislation aimed at addressing this issue is the Uniting American Families Act, and it would create a new category, called “permanent partners,” that would make same-sex couples eligible for green cards. The “Gang of Eight” senators did not include the measure in their immigration reform bill, but LGBT advocates have been pressing for Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy to add the provision into the bill during the committee markup, which is slated to begin May 9.

via How The Supreme Court’s DOMA Ruling Could Upend The Immigration Debate.

The Final Pitch, the Last ‘Outs’

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Mark Blackmon

Hunter Canning and Tommy Heleringer on the set of The Outs. Image: The Outs Facebook page.

Today is the release day of the last episode of The Outs, the fantastic Web series chronicling the lives of young folks in Brooklyn. It’s achingly well-written and acted. It’s also so nice to see terrific stories about gay people where they are just part of the fabric of the landscape and not “quota fiction.” You know: Insert funny gay friend here.

WARNING: THE OUTS WILL HOOK YOU. YOU WILL WANT TO START AT THE BEGINNING AND WATCH THEM ALL. SEVERAL TIMES.

I’m just sayin.’

I’ve been riffing lately on the emerging importance of the Web in storytelling on scales both large and small. We are just at the beginning of trying to figure out how to do it, how to sustain it, how to fund it, and how to build an audience. The Outs and creators Adam Goldman and Sasha Winters have, perhaps inadvertently, become one of the standards in this new world that we can look to and learn from. O, pioneers!

Take it good one.

P.S. — I’m on the road this week and no time to sit down and watch the final episode, “Over It,” so, don’t ruin it for me!

More:
The Outs homepage, Facebook
Me on The Outs here and here and here