My Queer Sense of Humor

"How are you, how's Larry and what's green and goes a hundred miles an hour?"

John had answered the phone on the second ring and chose to answer the third question first. "Kermit" he replied-- correctly-- "in a blender."

It was just about noon, and we were going to The Rep that night, the Yale Repertory Theater, which was presenting Tim Miller's presentation piece My Queer Body. It's a monologue of essay, drama, humor, rage, lament and hope, cataloging gay life and loss-- and love-- in an America infected with AIDS and bigotry.

John is my friend. Larry was his lover, and Larry was dying from AIDS. John had arranged for Nance to sit with Larry, who had not been eating or drinking for almost thirty six hours by the time I made my phone call. I was concerned for both of them, so I kept it light. And John played along.

"Good," I responded, "what's green and brown and goes a hundred miles an hour?" This time he didn't know, so I supplied the answer: "Same frog, a week later."

"Yuuukk!" he replied. And then he returned my gesture with a little humor of his own. "I've got good news," he exclaimed, "we can go to the show tonight because I don't need anybody to watch Larry!"

That was his way of telling me that Larry had died that morning.

We do this. We talk like this. I don't know when, but we've learned to think like this. We lubricate our conversations with humor. When the gears start to grind we retreat, and apply some WD-40 to our dialogue, because we have to live, and this is a method we've learned for carrying on.

Tim Miller has another way. He retreats into an imaginary volcano. He spent about half of his performance there, pulling images, lovers, memories and philosophy out of the core. He has a place to go, and challenges us, by his very performance, to ask ourselves: where do you go? Where do you go when you are alone? Where do you go when you are misused? Where do you go when you feel as small as a grain of sand in a vast and apathetic universe and when you remember, again and again, that you exist for no more than an instant of life between waking and sleeping?

He asks us this, and rails against those other grains of sand who make our lives more difficult, who are willing to taunt and beat us and even kill us if we, by our very unapologetic existence, continue forcing them see themselves as they really are: Alone.

We are alone. We are the ones who have cried every day and no longer know how to cry at all. Tim is talking to all of us and asks, over and over again: Where do you go? And is that a healthy place? He knows that we must retreat occasionally.

But he dances and taunts, dreams and jokes and tries to pull us, by the sheer power of his unaided personality-- alone, if necessary-- back to the daily grind of gears. The work. Practical work. Political work. Apolitical work. Any work, so long as we do not drop out and retreat into our own volcano long enough to become consumed.

Of course, Tim Miller is a gay man, talking mostly to other homosexual men. I'm straight. Still, on a scale of one to ten Tim Miller is at least an eight and a half in my book and besides, he liked my shoes.

Another joke, that. Another swift sideways glance in to the mirror of my own eyes. In to a world that Tim brought us together to see, and to celebrate.

There is much in life that I dare not look at, dare not remember, and am-- rightly or not-- afraid of. And so I joke. This is where I go. This is where I can be found. I laugh when I hurt because all of the tears have been beaten out of me years ago.

I'm older now. I may be too old to change. I've sunk inside of myself and I sometimes feel as if I am lost in a desert. No passion. No comfort. No nourishment. No company. Just thirst, and tiredness. I have my memories, but when I survey the landscape I can see nothing but endless sand and barren bones.

This is where I was met last night by a presentation artist named Tim. He knows this desert that I still inhabit. He's still dancing. I'm still laughing, but not much is actually funny any more. Thanks, Tim. Thanks for trying. But it might be too late. I feel like a frog in a blender. I'm just waiting for somebody to throw the switch.