Gay Bloggies

my guiltiest pleasure?

OPRAH, OPRAH, OPRAH!

i debated over this, really. i mean, oprah's not a guity pleasure...is she?

IS SHE?!

oprah, goddess of the earth. big, black, beautiful woman. she's amazing, incredible, powerful.

somehow, though, there is a definite desperate housewife connotation to oprah fandom. you just see marge in her living room, using her ab roller, watching nate berkus re-do someone's apartment.

I REJECT THIS!

winter makes me cold, lonely, depressed. i bought oprah's 20th anniversary dvd set last year, and i'm still pulling it out to cheer me up. i love little mini-marathons chock-full of toni morrison and mothers of murdered children.

i'm not kidding. if you have netflix, give the set a rent. you'll get the radio flyer full of lard, and african kids getting new sneakers, and tears GALORE. i cry a lot. almost as much as when i watch extreme makeover: home edition.

There are two things one must keep in mind when hearing my views on nature versus nurture:

1. I have a queer older sister, two queer uncles, and I assume a handful of extended relatives are of the same persuasion.

2. I saw a lot of boobs when I was little because my dad had a lot of Internet porn. That said, my first moment of sexual arousal came at a period where I had barely started puberty, with no physical indications. It involved a fake picture of Mel Gibson reclining in a waterfall. His fake penis was very large, and I wanted very much to touch it. (Yes, this image above is the one in question! I Googled it.)

--

So, nature? Nurture? I'm incredibly inclined to lean towards the former, with related aspects corresponding strongly to the latter. I mean, I don't view sexuality as cut and dry. There are a lot of aspects to my sexuality that are related to problems in my upbringing. Visual-physical disconnects (I love straight porn), fetishes, roles, drives--to me, at least, these things aren't just aspects that are determined at birth.

I absolutely believe a lot of my parental--specifically paternal--issues shaped a lot of my emotional and sexual development. There's no defining factor or moment; it's more of this amorphous blob of events that led me to where I am. Sexuality is so wrapped up in a larger emotional realm, and my emotions were shaped by a lack of a father, a mother who was always at work to compensate, an outcast status throughout school, and other things, large and small. That said, I had queer feelings before I knew I had father issues, so it's far from the end-all and be-all.

So, as Hillary might say: Diamonds, pearls, nature, nurture...Can't I have it all?

So, I've never said this to anyone, much less my blog audience, but--let me take a deep breath. OK. I...can't read.

Hm. Maybe that's a lie. What I should say is, I haven't been able to finish a book in two years, give or take a few months. The last one I read was probably House of Leaves by Poe's brother, Mark Danielewski, or my favorite book, White Noise by Don Delillo. You know, I always say that's my favorite book, but now that I reflect upon things, it doesn't seem that strong of a recommendation.

I'm a fan of effective and creative syntax, and a real lover of language. The fact is, I just simply don't have the attention span for novels. I take in enormous amounts of information, in the form of blogs and magazines; I subscribe to New York and New Yorker (and, if it existed, I'm sure I'd get New Yorkest). The half-dozen novels I bought this year, though? I haven't finished any of them.

This isn't necessarily a ground-breaking admission, but I tout myself as such an intellectual, and the book is such an integral part to that image that I always act like I read so many. I've listed books in my Myspace favorites that I haven't finished. In college, I would finish the first few chapters of every book and then complete them with Spark Notes; in turn, I always had my hand up in class to analyze the book as if I toiled endlessly coming to those conclusions.

What's my main point? There's no shame. I think I'm one of many, to be honest. And I don't think we need to play this game of pseudo-intellectualism. I'm a former English major, and I'm absolutely ambivalent towards literature. So what? I like facts, I like non-fiction, I like practical data. I'm going to turn my shame into a big, yawning finger to the condescending world of academes.

...Oh, and I hate poetry.

So, I'm Scott Anthony. People always ask me if it's like Mary Kate. Well, no, not quite. My birth certificate does not list Scott Anthony as my first name, but my mom used to called me "Scott Anthonyyyyyy!" in an endearing Filipino rage when she was mad at me, so it sort of stuck with my friends and loved ones.

I've lived in NYC for the past three-and-some-odd years. I was a good student in school down in North Carolina, and was all set to go to a great state school, or whatever kids are supposed to do. That all changed after visiting New York in my senior year of high school. It was oppressively muggy, the subway system scared the shit out of me, I felt in over my head...and I loved it. I immediately made plans to move up here, and everyone thought I was insane. I had no plans. Now that I think of it, I guess I may have been insane in the paradigm of practicality, but I think that's a paradigm within which I've never really bothered to exist.

So, I moved here, and was homeless for a good month or two before falling into step with a drag queen and getting a bunch of bar work: go-go dancing, barbacking, door, etc. It was actually pretty amusing to do the door and drink at gay bars at barely 18, and turning others away because they weren't 21.

Last year, I applied at Columbia on a whim and got in. This tends to bug people I tell, people who worked their asses off and still were rejected. I spent the year doing studies, and kicking total ass (3.6 GPA)...and then I ran out of money. Of course, Columbia doesn't care, so my life now consists of paying off the year and then going to a state school. I always view life with no regrets. It sucks that I made the dean's list there but didn't get any more money, but it's a good résumé builder, and it's another rock in life that I've climbed successfully.

Everything works out for a reason. Going there made me realize I have absolutely no desire to live a life of academia. My goal is to go to a grad school for Oriental medicine. Right now, I'm paying bills through bar work--I never stopped--and day jobs (my current one is an Apple reseller on 23rd; you may know it?).

From naïve Southerner, to homeless New Yorker, to go-go boy, to Ivy Leaguer, to bartender: I'm really just enjoying life, and knowing that I've always done things on my own terms, and always will. It's a good feeling, no?

xxScott Anthonyyyyy!

P.S. Visit my blog!