Periodical Magazines

Beside music journals, the only periodical I get is The Advocate, the gay and lesbian news magazine. Once in a while the magazine OutTraveler is also sent to me with the Advocate. The magazines arrive in strange clusters of two or three issues. For example, yesterday three magazines arrived, ranging in dates from June 2005 to November 2005.

I was browsing through the OutTraveler and they had lists of the best gay places to visit and stay and eat and cruise and blah blah blah. It read like a list of places to STAY AWAY FROM!!! Without even reading the magazine, I probably could have guessed half of the items on the list. Gays are so predicable and cliche.

It made me very glad to be here on Pohnpei. There are NO gay hang-outs, no "hip" hang-outs at all. Nothing to make you want to put on airs. So when I exercise, it isn't so that people can check me out at the clubs; when I dress up, it isn't to get noticed ... it's not about appearances.

The lure of New York, for example, has always mystified me. Sure, when I've performed there it has been an adrenaline rush. But I've always looked forward to leaving when I the show was done. Perhaps I'm too insecure to deal with the pressure of the city. Or perhaps my problem is that New York just has everything (food, entertainment, fashion), so I never need to make the effort to create anything for myself.

The rest of the world is filled with real adventure. Sure, no one knows where Pohnpei is. There is no theater, nice restaurants or gay community; all those things that are valued by the stereotypical gays. But there is a totally new and mysterious culture for me to discover.

I've done my time as a professional homo when I was assistant director for the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington DC. It was a lot of fun and was important to my self-confidence at that stage in my life. But to stay in that little world excludes too many wonderful adventures that have nothing to do with being gay. It's like growing up and leaving home - difficult, but vital.