It doesn’t matter if you have blonde, brown, red, or any other color hair. It doesn’t matter if your height is not proportionate to your weight. It doesn’t matter where you are from. It doesn’t matter how you were raised. It doesn’t matter what skin tone you have. It doesn’t matter if you’re broke, rich, or somewhere in between. It doesn’t matter what your level of education is, what your I.Q. is, or what your social status is. It doesn’t matter whether you have faith in Jesus, Buddha, or Vishnu. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Totalitarianism, Communism, Democracy, or Fascism. It doesn’t matter if you are straight, gay, bisexual or asexual. There are many things that separate us from one another which can arouse contempt in the human heart, as well as jealousy, anger, or insolence, but there is one thing, one universal truth that I think we can all agree upon: Ivan Drago was Rocky Balboa’s toughest opponent.
I’m not saying that Rocky IV was the best of the Rocky films; I’m not. The best of the films could be and probably will be debated until the end of time. What I am saying is that Rocky’s opponent in that movie, Ivan Drago, was the toughest that Rocky ever faced. You can’t say that Apollo Creed, from Rocky and Rocky II was the toughest, for Ivan killed Apollo in the ring in Rocky IV. Killed him! Clubber Lang, played by Mr. T in the third Rocky, did defeat the Italian Stallion early in the movie, but was easily conquered once Rocky stopped selling out and really focused on some hard training thanks to Apollo Creed’s guidance. And don’t even get me started on Tommy “The Machine” Gunn from Rocky V. That guy had a mullet; he was a joke.
Rocky IV did have some great heroic aspects that I turn to when I find myself in hard, desperate times. Rocky didn’t fight Drago to keep his heavyweight belt around his hips. He didn’t fight for any money. He was so motivated to avenge the death of his friend Apollo that he traveled all the way over to Moscow to fight Ivan on his own turf, on Christmas Day! Talk about will-power. And underneath this blood-feud between these two boxers was also the fate of the free world. The U.S.S.R. versus The U.S. of A. Communism versus Democracy. The boxing match was a metaphor for which country is the mightiest in the world. The 1960's had Neil Armstrong. The 80's belonged to Rocky Balboa.
I never found college to be extremely difficult until my senior year, and it was the Rocky Balboa I found inside of myself that got me my diploma. My senior capstone course, the final, hardest course I had to endure in my time at Temple University was called, “Studies in Modern American Literature,” and for the first time at college, I was eager to impress. I wanted to wow them. I wanted to triumph. I wanted the graduation committee to look at my final thesis paper and say, “This kid’s got talent. He’s going places. We should have offered him a scholarship!” They were going to say this, for I was going to buckle down and study hard. No laziness, minimal drinking, just balls to the wall reading and studying, and in my corner was Jeff, my collegiate confidant who had signed up for the same class.
Our classroom wasn’t set up like most classrooms at Temple University. Our class met in what looked like a large boardroom. A grand oak table, about fifteen feet long, stood in the middle, surrounded by cushioned chairs. Jeff and I sat at the far end, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the students. There was a total of 12 students when class began: three males, and nine females. The teacher, an extremely tall, completely bald, jovial man who looked like a soft Michael Stipe, handed out our syllabi. Immediately, something was amiss.
On the syllabus, before the course name was even mentioned, was a small legal abstract stating that there will be no discrimination against teaching about the homosexual lifestyle. Jeff and I gave each other a quizzical look. Our professor, who spoke in an effeminate British accent, slightly lisping, stated that we the students were going to read novels dealing with homosexual identity and lifestyle from the year 1920 to the present. I looked at the rest of the class, but they didn’t have the same look of shock and disdain that Jeff and I did.
After all of the introductions were made, who we were, our hobbies, intended goals in life, etc., a young girl with short, jagged hair raised her hand.
“I would just like to say that I think it’s great that there is a class like this. It’s refreshing to talk about gay and lesbian issues in an open environment.”
Instantly, the teacher shot down the girl’s excitement.
“Actually, we are going to stay away from female homosexuality and instead only focus on male homosexuality.”
I heard Jeff’s hand slap his forehead.
I’d experienced professors doing this type of thing before. In one of my summer courses, titled “Popular Fiction,” the course description stated that we would be reading detective novels and other works that were sold to the masses and were not considered classics. Instead, what the teacher did was use her own interpretation of the word “popular” and decided that comic books could be put in the same genre. Sorry, not comic books, graphic novels.
After the end of the first class of our capstone course, Jeff muttered in the elevator, “You’ve got to be kidding me. No fucking way. It’s just not gonna happen.”
Upon getting back to the apartment later that day, I found that Jeff had made it home before me and had switched out of the class.
“I suggest you do the same,” he advised.
I searched for different capstone courses to enroll in, but capstones are about 1/4, sometimes even 1/8 the size of a regular class. They were all full. Jeff had managed to snag the last seat in some British Literature course. Ivan Drago had given a devastating right hook and now my Apollo Creed was nothing but a twitching lump on the canvas, taking his last breath. I was on my own.
“Screw it,” I said. “I just need to take this last class, then I can read whatever I choose for the rest of my life.” I was going to avenge Apollo, to show him that I was going to go toe to toe with that foreign 6'6" professor and prevail. A good villain never goes without a decent nickname, so for the rest of the semester I dubbed my teacher, “The Beast From the Near East.”
On our first full length class, The Beast asked us to name some derogatory terms for homosexuals, “since we are going to be seeing these terms in the literature for the semester.”
Every one sat silent for a few moments.
“C’mon, don’t be shy,” The Beast said. “We should be able to openly discuss these things if we are to discuss the readings for the semester.”
A girl at the far end slowly raised her hand. “F-faggot?” She said.
“Yes. ‘Faggot’, or ‘Fag’ is a pretty popular term,” the Beast said in his lisped British accent. “Any one else?”
“Homo?” Another one said.
“Yes. ‘Homo’, short for homosexual. Homosexual is a proper way to label it, yet, when it’s shortened to homo, it sounds so insulting. Why do you think that is?”
I raised my hand. “Butt Pirate.”
The Beast nodded slowly. “Yes, ‘Butt Pirate’...”
I raised my hand. “Flamer.”
I raised my hand. “Queer Bait.”
I raised my hand. “Pillow Biter.”
I raised my hand. “Rump Thumper.”
Surprisingly, The Beast didn’t take offense; he was even laughing a bit along with the class. My puny punches didn’t even phase him. Instead of being insulted, The Beast simply took the terms I gave him and tried to discuss why and how they were used in society, except for “Rump Thumper;” that one was pretty obvious.
Another problem that arose from my aggressive approach towards the class was that the next time we met, The Beast was no longer sitting on the far side of the room. He was now sitting directly next to me for the rest of the semester. It was going to be tougher than I thought.
Suffice it to say that when it came to the novels themselves, I was never compelled by them; they weren’t really my cup of tea. They all followed a very simple formula: A young man is confused sexually, an older man takes the younger one under his wing, the young man is still confused though, and he is either raped, commits suicid
e, or gets murdered. In between the beginning and end are long descriptions of the naked male body. During class we would discuss the novels, our opinions of the novels, thoughts, queries, things of that nature.
I found the opinions of my other classmates to be dry and cliched. Although The Beast wanted an open and relaxed environment to discuss whatever was preying on our minds, people were still overly P.C. Personally, I really didn’t want any part of what anyone had to say about the texts. I was completely indifferent to the whole scene. I’m not going to ever jump in the back of a pickup truck and terrorize homosexuals, but I’m also not going to march in a gay pride parade. I just didn’t care. Wasn’t it okay that I didn’t care?
After the reading of one particular novel, a girl in the class said, “I thought the book was so romantic, so eloquently written. It truly was love between two men.”
I raised my hand. “What about on page 28, where the narrator describes two men peeing into each other’s mouths?” I highlighted the important parts.
Sometimes, to give us a real feel for the oppression the writers of gay novels faced at the time, The Beast would hand out copies of their book reviews from well-respected newspapers. I recall one really slanderous review from the 1960's that we read. One of the girls in class discussed her hatred for the reviewer’s intolerance.
“It’s despicable,” she said. “that the New York Times would print something so nasty and cold about someone because of their lifestyle. It’s-it’s just so ignorant.”
“Uh-huh, yes, yes it is...” Beast said. “Any one else? Thoughts?”
I raised my hand. “I think the review is funny.”
“Why funny?” he asked.
“Because the reviewer is just so full of hate. It’s two pages of hateful nonsense. I bet his first draft was nothing but his hands slamming on the typewriter while he screamed, ‘Goddamn faggots!’” Then I chuckled to myself quite loudly imagining the scene.
The Beast never batted an eye at any of my comments. They were never truly insightful, they never got the class anywhere, and all I did was waste other people’s time. In fact, toward the end of the semester, I tried to push The Beast to the brink. He gave us our last novel assignment to read before our final thesis was due, and I raised my hand.
“So...I guess then we have...homo-work...?”
And I’ll be damned, The Beast laughed. It was the 10th round of the match, and the Beast and I were still standing toe to toe, exchanging blows; me trying to insult him, and he laughing it off. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my final thesis paper.
I needed to write 20 pages on some sort of homosexual topic. My final paper training montage consisted of me sitting in my basement, surrounded by gay literature such as, The Aging Homosexual Male, The Beauty of the Male Body, The Gay Midlife Crisis, etc. with empty cups of coffee surrounding me, as well as ashtrays full of cigarette butts, chewing on my pencil while reading about such terrible topics as male prostitution, incest, statutory rape, shameful suicide, sadomasochism, AIDS, herpes, Stonewall, Fire Island, genital warts, the 80's, golden showers, syphilis and anal sex. It was extremely difficult. I would pace around the basement, pumping my fists, yelling, trying to psych myself up; the ashtray growing fuller, the coffee pot emptying, the yellow Post-It notes blossoming out of the books, churning out page after page of useless arguments for five straight days.
After completing my final sentence, I realized that after I handed in this paper, I would have beaten The Beast. It wouldn’t be a knock-out, just a split decision. The weight of 4 years of reading, studying, reading, drinking, drinking, and drinking, was finally going to lift. That tedious collegiate mountain of mine had finally been scaled. I hit the print button on the computer, and as the pages poured out of my printer, I shook my fists at the sky. “Faggooooooooooo...!”
When I handed in my paper on the last day of class, The Beast From the Near East had a treat for all of us. He had compiled a list of other homosexuals who wrote novels in case we wanted to further our studies in the genre. I looked the list up and down and noticed that someone was missing.
I raised my hand. “What about David Sedaris?”
“David Sedaris?” Then The Beast rolled his eyes at me. “C’mon...”
“What’s wrong with him? He’s one of the funniest authors I’ve ever read.”
The Beast brushed off my comment.
“David Sedaris is only popular because of NPR. I will admit though, that his one story about working at the mall during Christmas had me laughing out loud, but–” He sighed and took a long pause. “It’s just that he never stops mentioning his boyfriend, Hugh. He just goes on and on about him. It’s like, enough already! I mean, don’t you ever get sick of it?”
I will never forget the look on The Beast’s face at that moment. After seeing it, I had realized what I had meant to do for the past four months which was to offend him. I had subconsciously been trying to offend him like he had offended me with his taste in literature, and just when I had given up hope, I succeeded. He was offended by the idea of a writer who wrote about being himself, who was only coincidentally gay, not a writer who was torn between his homosexuality and fitting into the every day world. Sedaris didn’t write about the alleged tragedy of being a homosexual, and over that The Beast was offended. Maybe if David Sedaris blew his head off out of shame, The Beast would call him a modern gay literary genius.
In that one moment where The Beast waited for my reply, I flashed back to the four months of homosexual maleficence I had to read every day, and how disappointed I was to find that “Studies in Modern American Literature,” was taken completely out of context by our teacher, who used it to raise awareness about his own agenda, and I came to a realization: my attendance was impeccable, my short papers were above average, my participation grade was through the roof, and there was no way my final paper was anything less than a ‘C’ grade. And seeing that thesis of mine sitting right in front of him, I knew I had my Drago against the ropes, and that no matter what I said to him, I was going to graduate college
I raised my hand.
Contents
A Changing of the Guard