Apparently, the elements are VERY EAGER to make sure I keep thinking about my ten-year college reunion this coming week. There have been a few exchanges on our mailing list that reminded me of why I love my college friends enough to stay in constant contact even though I’ve been across the Pacific for nearly a decade. One of them was initiated by my (straight, married) sophomore-year roommate:

Less than two months to the Pride Parade, and I’m stuck without the final two lines for my marching song. The goal is to associate patriotism with tolerance, so the last line can’t start with “Keep your eye on…” which would be kind of fear-mongering rather than joy-exclaiming. Ideas?

GAY PRIDE MARCHING SONG

He’s a grand old fag, he’s a high-flying fag,
and I’m trying to say that he’s gay
He gets-it-on, with men-in-thongs,
he makes love in both night and day
He just wants to screw, just like you, you and you
and of that I can say nothing bad
[missing line #1]
[missing line #2]

The intended choreography at “you, you and you” is to point to random people in the audience, suggesting unity. I suppose additional verses could be good.

The only thing that offended me was the the thong part; guys look gross in thongs, and I bristle at having it assumed that I don’t know that. In fact, I’m almost more offended at the implication that I think guys in thongs are irresistible than at the implication that I’m a promiscuous ho. Of course, a few friends of ours did pounce on the sex-only part, for which I was grateful. It must be said, though, that Pride events tend to be so sex-centered that my buddy’s suggested lyrics here would be relatively tame in context. Anyway, there was also some give-and-take over whether it was okay for him, as an outsider, to use the word fag. Then I got an e-mail from another, equally close, friend from the same group referring to this post and claiming that I’ve been doing very little to add color to his settled life with risqué stories.

So for a few daydreamy minutes, I thought it might have been kind of cool to go to homecoming. There are a handful of professors and advisors that I didn’t have time to see the last time I was in Philadelphia, though we keep in contact. And who knows? There could be some people that I don’t even remember I’d like to see, loner that I am.

On the other hand, I don’t know whether I really need the thrill of, say, walking into Smoke’s and knowing that there’s no way the bouncer’s going to feel the need to make me state my name and birthdate for the microphone. Or staying up all night talking politics with the full prior realization that, even by the time it’s 5 a.m. and someone’s Mazzy Star album has played through four times, we won’t have solved all the world’s problems.

So I figured I’d make a donation–I’m a satisfied, if not yet nostalgic, alum–and then forget about college until the two or three friends who went had their reports.

Today, I’m reading Eric, minding my own business, and I see he has posted that the Carnival of the Vanities is up. I don’t really get into the blog carnivals, but this one happens to be hosted by a blog that’s run…where?

Naturally, where I went to college.

So, okay. Uncle! Uncle! I am clearly not going to get away without some sort of ritual cosmic nostalgia wallow. I will spend the appropriate weekend wearing only red and blue, listening to Last Splash and Republic and The Rhythm of the Saints and In Utero and maybe watching Singles. It’s not the time or place for throwing toast, but I’ll do that, too (with a fresh towel laid out on the kitchen floor–can’t abide crumbs, you know), in the hopes that the ghost of Ben Franklin will be propitiated.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 5th, 2005 at 09:14 and is filed under misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.