Swish: A Mini Review

We are still processing all of our pictures from our vacation in Mexico, picking the best pics and getting our water camera films developed, so while I want to share all sorts of cool and interesting information with everyone, I am going to have to wait for the time being. However, even without our fantastic pictures I can still give you a run down of something I did on vacation: I read Joel Derfner's Swish.

Swish: My Quest To Become The Gayest Person Ever And What Ended Up Happening Instead is a series of personal essays by Joel Derfner exploring some of the more stereotyped aspects of gay life. In other words, he set out to do some things that were so obviously gay so that he could discover what it meant to be gay in the process; things like Go-Go Dancing, going to Gay Summer Camp, becoming an Aerobics Instructor, attending an Exodus (international "ex-gay" organization) summit, and Knitting. Derfner jumps into all of these activities head first to experience them and comes out of each with an interesting story to tell.

Considering that I love essay style books, and that I love over-the-top gayness in my books as well, I was a bit surprised at what I found in Swish. Parts of this self-revealing tale is hilarious, other parts are sweet and endearing, and still others managed to find a way to alienate this reader. In general, I enjoyed the first couple chapters, pulled through with some encouragement, then landed on the last chapter just in time for me to not hate the book for deceiving me.

Initially, I sympathized with Derfner's description of himself: Neurotic, self-defacing, stuck on mishaps he made in the past. I think we're all a little like Derfner at times, remembering the time we made that completely inappropriate comment and feeling shame over it even years later or doubting ourselves so much we're frozen in action. When you get to the middle chapters though, particularly when he talks about his musical theater experience, you see a different side of Derfner's character: his elitism and contempt for those he sees as less than. If I had to suffer through one more mention of how he went to Harvard and that made him that much better than everyone else around him, I think I would have thrown the book out the train door. Thankfully, he redeems himself when he goes to the Exodus conference (oddly enough) and we see him learn an interesting lesson in humility and humanity.

Derfner's Swish is a very well written narrative. He'll point out to you multiple times throughout the book just how good of a writer he is and that anyone that misspells or uses incorrect grammar is worthy of criticism, which irked me. Truthfully, I agree with the notion that grammar is important. However, it is not the cornerstone of a person's worth. It's possible I hold this belief because I know if he ever read this blog or even this post, he would immediately shriek with distaste regarding my particular usage of the English language. However, knowing that much about his personality from a short 250-page collection does say a lot about how well he is able to convey himself and his message and his ability to craft a perfect sentence, paragraph and story.

That said, I enjoyed Swish overall. Although the middle section of the book dragged a bit much for me, it's possible it did so because I was expecting witty phrases and fun stories throughout but was instead met with hard tales of life. As a sum, I would recommend the book. It's mostly light reading which also finds a way to provide some depth in the process. Was it a great choice for a beach read? Possibly not. That's more Michael Thomas Ford's arena. But Swish certainly was a good read.

And A Gay Old Time Was Had By All

Anyone that says gay culture is not different from straight culture is misleading themselves, and I think the best way to observe the difference is to attend a Super Bowl Party that is packed full of gay men. The boyfriend and I hosted a small gathering of friends last night for The Big Game, and I thought I'd share a few observations on the party we had versus the parties I would attend in college:

Snacks

Every Super Bowl Party features tons of snacks and junk food. It's a signature of the event, like chocolate and Valentine's Day, they just go together. In college, the parties I attended usually featured loads of chip, gratuitous amounts of dip, various forms of chili and beans, sausages, cheeses, and a random sampling of salty meats wrapped around cream cheese. All of these things are delicious, and they are almost all gone by the end of the first half. At our Gay Super Bowl Party last night, our spread was just a tad bit different. We featured a fresh, hand-cut vegetable spread, seedless grapes, strawberries, watermelon, various bags of chips and crackers, and a few dips. Light dips. What was left over at the end of the evening? All the chips and dip. The grapes were gone, the strawberries killed and the veggie platter picked dry. I also have a feeling that if I had made any chili or homemade dip, those would now be wrapped and sitting in my fridge. Lesson: Gays love the fruits and veggies…. Or we're too self-conscious to eat the junk food in front of our friends. I won't say which it actually is.

Dinner

Dinner at most Super Bowl Parties involves some sort of chicken wings or maybe JTM burgers, which are subsequently served on paper plates (and inevitably the host never has wets naps). Our party was slightly different. Our first idea was to do burgers, but we wouldn't dare touch JTM burgers (I was criticized for buying them once… never again). So we decided to get some ground beef and make stuffed burgers and spice and flavor them ourselves and serve them will some tortilla strips and homemade guacamole. However, were got a bit lazy and decided to order pizza instead. Now, at this point, my college friends would have ordered Domino's or Papa John's, but not my friends. No, we had to get Giordano's Deep Dish pizza, commonly known as the best Chicago Style pizza in the city. Lesson: Even we the gays get lazy about dinner, we're still only getting the best.

The Game

At my college parties, The Game was the focus of the whole event. Chairs and couches were arranged in such a way that all the attention was on the TV at all times. Commercials were fun little breaks from the hard and trying effort of watching over-sized men pile on top of each other. And the perfect time to get another beer. My party last night was just a tad different. The Game was more simply a reason for us to get together and hang out. It was definitely on, but it just sat there in the background while we played some Euchre and Poker. Half the room did not know who was even playing until the game itself came on, and The Game was almost unanimously ignored, my boyfriend being the sole exception. This blatant disregard to the holiest of holy days in American life would have been unacceptable in the hetero world, but in our secluded gay household, I believe things would have been flip=flopped. Lesson: If you want gays to pay attention, make the players take their shirts off.

Drinks

What is the single most important drink for a Super Bowl Party? Beer. Preferably horrible, American Beer like Bud Lite. The kind of beer that makes you second guess the guy you're checking out because no man of any taste would be drinking it. What did we, at our gay ol' house, not have any of? Beer. None of it. In fact, we didn't really drink any alcohol all night. Most of us had partied way too much already throughout the weekend, so the idea of drinking more was not appealing, and another member of the party isn't drinking right now because there's just too many calories involved. If that doesn't scream blatantly, over-the-top gay, this will: We purchased six two-liters of soda, of which three were diet. At the end of the night, the three diet sodas were drained. The rest say sadly unopened, fully rejected by the Mary's in the house. Lesson: For us, Sunday's are a day of recovery, not a day to start a party. That was Saturday. Besides, we've got another 10 pounds to lose before beach season.

Conclusion

Even though there are glaring differences between my overtly gay Super Bowl Party and the average hetero party I would attend while in college, the point is still the same: to spend some time with friends and party. Say what you will, I don't think anyone really parties for the Super Bowl, but rather because it just happens to be on. I look at these things and get a little smile on my face because it's a great example of what exactly is different about us 'mos.

I hope you had a great Super Bowl weekend and had lots of fun last night, whether it be in the more normalized hetero fashion, or in fashion like us gays.