by Cam Lindquist
We are everywhere. I know you don’t need me to tell you that, but it is nice to be reminded once in a while. Recently I moved from out in the suburbs into the city. Now that I live in the city, I realize that even in a midsize town like Charleston, NC, the density of Queers is greater the closer you get to downtown.
West Ashley, the section of town I live in, is everything North of Red Top, South of “The Crosstown”, East of the Wappo Cut Bridge, and West of the Ashley River – hence the name. It was the original chic section of town for those who couldn’t quite afford to live downtown, but still wanted to live in the city. Even though it is an established section of town, it is still considered a great place to live. Mostly free of less than desirable neighborhoods and filled with the peripheral culture of city life, West Ashley is home to the largest piece of the gay pie – your Average Joe’s and Josephine’s.
So where do those people, the average gay people, fit into the rainbow food chain? Well, to understand that you must understand the almighty social set up of civilized gayness.
You see gay society is like a pyramid, or a pink triangle (take your pick), with three levels. At the top, of course you have our King and Queen – King Ellen Degereres and Queen Elton John. Ruling the gay world one sip of tea at a time, Ellen’s being herbal and Elton John’s being of the afternoon variety, they offer a balanced reign of all things under the rainbow flag.
Underneath them you have those folks that are what the world sees when they see all things purple: Drag Queens, Dykes on Bikes, Circuit Bois, Party Grrls, Madonna, Rupert Everett, Melissa Etheridge, Michael Thomas Ford, and Candice Gingrich. The flashy, the gender-bending, those who stand out in a crowd – even when the crowd are all men wearing high heels - the movie stars, singers, writers, and political activists fill the second tier. Basically anyone who could be clocked as gay just by name recognition or just by looking at them. Yes my friends, it is stereotype profiling, and it is wrong, but it is the world we live in!
The third and final level of the gay hierarchy is filled with everyone else. Sure it sounds plain and simple, even boring. But it really isn’t. These people live the most extraordinary lives, even more so than our royalty at the top! You see, unlike those who have money and live in a world where it is spent, traded, and toiled over in massive quantities, the Everyday Queer lives in the real world. By day these people have one foot in the workforce, complete with car pools, office politics, traffic jams, grocery shopping, laundry sorting, dog walking, and mopping the kitchen floor. But when evening comes they become the back bone of international culture and entertainment. Allowing the creativity to bubble over, fueled with a raw desire to make their mark, to add to the lighter side of the world just a smidge, and to get what God gave them out there for all to enjoy.
Don’t think you know these people? Think again! They are writers with day jobs, magazine editors who run websites to pay the bills, aspiring filmmakers who sit behind a desk catching shoplifters, interior designers who work on a carpet wholesalers sale’s floor, videographers doing documentaries who give the morning traffic report, sculptors who frame your prints, and furniture designers who work the retail lay-a-way counters.
It is these people who write the scabs that become movies, the blurbs that go into readers digest, the idea girl behind your favorite sitcom, the person who came up with the Lo in J-Lo’s latest pair of jeans. They are fashion, entertainment, culture, and the arts in its rawest form. Selling their ideas to those higher up the chain, practically giving away their essence just to see it in its fruition.
But their reward is greater than all the sheckles in all the towns of ancient times. Because they reap their reward twice. First, they see it in all its glory. Just knowing that Hollywood’s hottest new act will walk across that red carpet wearing a one of a kind bracelet a lesbian in the Midwest made is payment enough. When the top 40’s latest and greatest song was written by an almost unknown bisexual guitarist from the greater Northwest. Or that the blurb that made everyone laugh in the latest issue of the nation’s most popular magazine was actually written by a Transgendered woman from New England.
Then they get to tell everyone. You see, it isn’t cool when Celine Dion brags about her show in Vegas, or even if Madonna told the world that her last tour grossed more in record sales than any other before it. They would be vain, self-centered, and egotistical. But while Jim still works sewing buttons on coats in a factory, she can tell all the other girls about her poem becoming a country music wonder for an up and coming new artist over and over. Jessie “hates to brag,” but when she wrote the scab for Something to Talk About, starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid, the sister was a lesbian.
Again and again over an ale at the local pub, over coffee at the corner Starbucks, and in the car on the way to another MCC picnic - they are drawing from the interest of their underpaid, but highly appreciated, accomplishments.
So all hail the average people! Those who love to create, hate to work, but do them both and keep on going. We are everywhere you know. Down in the trenches, doing their bit making the world a bit better to live in. It is these little things and these average people that are becoming more and more visible as gay people are becoming more socially integrated.
And in my little section of the woods, West of the Ashley River, I see these people every day in our mini-mecca. I see them going about their daily tasks. But what’s more important is that the other people, the straight people who live here, they see them too. And as their friends, family, and neighbors they see the fabulousness of their creative gay side, but they also identify with their average side. The side that goes to work, drives in the car pool, and shops in the same grocery store.
And every day, someone becomes straight but not narrow because they can finally say “hey I see gay people everywhere, and you know what. They aren’t so different from me.”
We are everywhere. I know you don’t need me to tell you that, but it is nice to be reminded once in a while. Recently I moved from out in the suburbs into the city. Now that I live in the city, I realize that even in a midsize town like Charleston, NC, the density of Queers is greater the closer you get to downtown.West Ashley, the section of town I live in, is everything North of Red Top, South of “The Crosstown”, East of the Wappo Cut Bridge, and West of the Ashley River – hence the name. It was the original chic section of town for those who couldn’t quite afford to live downtown, but still wanted to live in the city. Even though it is an established section of town, it is still considered a great place to live. Mostly free of less than desirable neighborhoods and filled with the peripheral culture of city life, West Ashley is home to the largest piece of the gay pie – your Average Joe’s and Josephine’s.
So where do those people, the average gay people, fit into the rainbow food chain? Well, to understand that you must understand the almighty social set up of civilized gayness.
You see gay society is like a pyramid, or a pink triangle (take your pick), with three levels. At the top, of course you have our King and Queen – King Ellen Degereres and Queen Elton John. Ruling the gay world one sip of tea at a time, Ellen’s being herbal and Elton John’s being of the afternoon variety, they offer a balanced reign of all things under the rainbow flag.
Underneath them you have those folks that are what the world sees when they see all things purple: Drag Queens, Dykes on Bikes, Circuit Bois, Party Grrls, Madonna, Rupert Everett, Melissa Etheridge, Michael Thomas Ford, and Candice Gingrich. The flashy, the gender-bending, those who stand out in a crowd – even when the crowd are all men wearing high heels - the movie stars, singers, writers, and political activists fill the second tier. Basically anyone who could be clocked as gay just by name recognition or just by looking at them. Yes my friends, it is stereotype profiling, and it is wrong, but it is the world we live in!
The third and final level of the gay hierarchy is filled with everyone else. Sure it sounds plain and simple, even boring. But it really isn’t. These people live the most extraordinary lives, even more so than our royalty at the top! You see, unlike those who have money and live in a world where it is spent, traded, and toiled over in massive quantities, the Everyday Queer lives in the real world. By day these people have one foot in the workforce, complete with car pools, office politics, traffic jams, grocery shopping, laundry sorting, dog walking, and mopping the kitchen floor. But when evening comes they become the back bone of international culture and entertainment. Allowing the creativity to bubble over, fueled with a raw desire to make their mark, to add to the lighter side of the world just a smidge, and to get what God gave them out there for all to enjoy.
Don’t think you know these people? Think again! They are writers with day jobs, magazine editors who run websites to pay the bills, aspiring filmmakers who sit behind a desk catching shoplifters, interior designers who work on a carpet wholesalers sale’s floor, videographers doing documentaries who give the morning traffic report, sculptors who frame your prints, and furniture designers who work the retail lay-a-way counters.
It is these people who write the scabs that become movies, the blurbs that go into readers digest, the idea girl behind your favorite sitcom, the person who came up with the Lo in J-Lo’s latest pair of jeans. They are fashion, entertainment, culture, and the arts in its rawest form. Selling their ideas to those higher up the chain, practically giving away their essence just to see it in its fruition.
But their reward is greater than all the sheckles in all the towns of ancient times. Because they reap their reward twice. First, they see it in all its glory. Just knowing that Hollywood’s hottest new act will walk across that red carpet wearing a one of a kind bracelet a lesbian in the Midwest made is payment enough. When the top 40’s latest and greatest song was written by an almost unknown bisexual guitarist from the greater Northwest. Or that the blurb that made everyone laugh in the latest issue of the nation’s most popular magazine was actually written by a Transgendered woman from New England.
Then they get to tell everyone. You see, it isn’t cool when Celine Dion brags about her show in Vegas, or even if Madonna told the world that her last tour grossed more in record sales than any other before it. They would be vain, self-centered, and egotistical. But while Jim still works sewing buttons on coats in a factory, she can tell all the other girls about her poem becoming a country music wonder for an up and coming new artist over and over. Jessie “hates to brag,” but when she wrote the scab for Something to Talk About, starring Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid, the sister was a lesbian.
Again and again over an ale at the local pub, over coffee at the corner Starbucks, and in the car on the way to another MCC picnic - they are drawing from the interest of their underpaid, but highly appreciated, accomplishments.
So all hail the average people! Those who love to create, hate to work, but do them both and keep on going. We are everywhere you know. Down in the trenches, doing their bit making the world a bit better to live in. It is these little things and these average people that are becoming more and more visible as gay people are becoming more socially integrated.
And in my little section of the woods, West of the Ashley River, I see these people every day in our mini-mecca. I see them going about their daily tasks. But what’s more important is that the other people, the straight people who live here, they see them too. And as their friends, family, and neighbors they see the fabulousness of their creative gay side, but they also identify with their average side. The side that goes to work, drives in the car pool, and shops in the same grocery store.
And every day, someone becomes straight but not narrow because they can finally say “hey I see gay people everywhere, and you know what. They aren’t so different from me.”
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