Thursday, July 13, 2006
(11:39 AM) | Brad:
Gay Phone Sex or Radio
This morning I received a compliment attached to some career advice.I'd called Anthony, in fulfillment of my weekly "Anthony suicide watch" duties, but had to leave a message instead of talk him away from the window. "That's that, I figured. Ralph Luker must be smiling right about now," I thought to myself. Oh ... but rest easy, friends. Anthony wasn't dead. He had not not even jumped! No. He was probably just playing with the ferrets, which isn't meant to be, nor is it a particularly funny, euphemism. Whatever he was doing, he did it quickly, because I heard from him promptly. The message, which told me he was alive, and perhaps even rolling around in Deleuzian intensity, was simple: "Brad, you have a great voice. You should go into radio ... or gay phone sex?"
This, of course, is on par with "to be or not to be," is it not? Radio or gay phone sex? It has become a recurring set of career options placed before me, by others & by myself. My favorite post-paper comment I've ever overheard was, "I've no idea what he was talking about, but I could listen to him talk all day." What I liked about Anthony's phrasing, though, was that it was absent the normal preface "If all else fails" -- because nothing needs to fail for radio and/or gay phone sex to become realized. Indeed, the only thing that prevents them from coming together -- oh yes, laugh if you will -- is the FCC. No small hurdle, I realize. But a man with a reasonably deep, and I guess listenable voice can have dreams, can he not?
I love to speak. Which is not to say that I thoroughly enjoy talking. Get me in a room filled w/ people, and absent of alcohol, and you may not even know I'm around. Even in small groups, again absent of alcohol, I am not necessarily the most interesting person to be around. (All bets are off when alcohol [and, yes, humidifier] are present.) Oh, but I do love speaking into a microphone -- in fact, there is a photograph linked somewhere on the Weblog of me doing that, but this time not absent of alcohol. And I do love reading aloud what I've writen. Now, lest you think I'm arrogant, this is less for the quality of the writing, which is sometimes admittedly pretty shoddy (e.g., this post). No, it is simply for the masturbatory self-love of hearing the words. (In an update, I really YouTube me reading this post.) I've even listened to myself on tape before, preaching about the woman caught in the act of adultry but mostly just stealing text from a chapter written by Max Luxado, and loving it. At this point, gay phone sex (certainly in the Lacanian sense of self-love and homosexuality) & the commercial smaltz of (Christian[!]) radio are inching closer together, almost realized.
I wonder if this would forever keep Anthony away from that window. Either that or a fat grant.
