Evan Peterson
Footnotes on Early Twenty-First Century Pop
Culture
Does it
make me hip that I’m a homo?
I pick up
the latest copy of Entertainment Weekly,
the
magazine with the appropriate initials, “Ew.”
And like
Harry Potter casting his latest spell,
Penetrato
Sphinctorum! The publication is filled
with
queers of all genders and colors-
white,
off-white, and tan. We’ve emptied the closet
and we’re
on every other page, being gay,
writing
books about being gay, looking gay,
and making
straight men look gay, because News Flash!
All us
inverts are vain and all heterosexual males
are slobs
who need us, need us, to dress them.
Damn. I
knew I was stylish, but I didn’t know
that my
existence was in style. I suppose I could sneer,
one hand
cupping my opposite elbow, the other hand
waving a
very thin cigarette, and I could say,
“Fuck that
Queer Eye gaysploitation bullshit!
I’m here,
I’m queer, and I am not for sale!”
But I know
I am. And I think it’s fabulous.
I don’t
really care how we invade the media.
I don’t
care if we become the pets of the Emmys,
using
Golden Globe awards as paperweights
as we type
away at our thick coming-out memoirs
and option
the movie rights to Oprah. You can call
me an
opportunist, you can squint your gray eyes
and talk
about how I sensationalized and exploited
myself,
Gay Poet for Sale! But I have halo for miles,
and the
fact that I shine it with Astroglide makes it sparkle
all the
more. Because maybe one day, fifty years
or so from
now, this poem will appear in a Norton Anthology
of
Contemporary Poetry, next to a brief biography
calling me
“gay poet for sale,” and the by then obscure
references
will be footnoted, and a bunch of straight
college
kids will read it and find the little number 3
at the
bottom of the page where it says, “3. Astroglide
was a
turn-of-the-millennium lubricant favored by homosexuals
for use
in anal intercourse,” and to them it won’t seem odd,
or gross,
or scandalous, it’ll just be a footnote,
and I am
really looking forward to being footnoted.
Evan Peterson resides in Fort Lauderdale where he
writes and works. He has one self-published chapbook, Viscera,
and is currently composing a second tentatively titled The Pantheon.
"Footnotes" was a performance piece that he is happy to see on the
page. Evan satirizes pop culture but secretly yearns to be a household
name. | 