Thursday, September 25, 2008

Accent Á Goo (Pt. Two)

Affecting an accent, yeah it pisses me off, but not in every instance.

If one is a 'Mo (short for homosexual), one may acquire the gay accent to whatever degree they see fit, and I'll tell you why.

I know all gay men weren't raised by people that speak like Ru Paul (can I get a snap up in here?). I know that when little gay boys were first venturing into the sandbox, they weren't rolling their eyes going "Hooker hand me that red shovel! You trannies build it, but girlfriend's got the interiors!" No, it didn't happen that way, but most of our sweet, gay friends did not have an easy time of it coming up, and I think they had to suppress their real selves for the most part. The gay accent may be who they truly are, so I leave it to their discretion as for its usage.

When I was in 4th grade (8 yrs old), my friend Tom and I worked in the library together at lunch recess. He came to school as a woman for Halloween that year (I was a gorilla and won the costume contest, eh em, home sewn bitches!) and I remember people picking on him and calling him all kinds of things. I didn't really know what "gay" was in suburban Michigan back then, but I adored Tom and punched a few faces so that it never happened again. He did have the gay accent then, but I don't think he even knew. I haven't a clue what became of him, but he was my first gay, and I'll never forget him.

It's such a shame that these harmless aspects of people were so maliciously sat on when we were kids. Parents didn't give a shit if their sons tortured animals or other kids, so long as they weren't wearing yellow pumps while they did it (dark blue may have been allowed, I'm having my people look into it).

I wonder how it is growing up in Australia though, because to me, everyone has the gay accent there. Did they invent it? I watched the Aussie version of Project Runway, and it is clear by looks who is queen or king, but not by accent. They take that sibilant "S" to a whole new level down under. Even David Sedaris would sound like a het-het there!

I love the gay accent. Lovey love. Other accents I dig are the New Mexico accent (yep they have one) and northern British ones, like from Manchester and Liverpool. I like Scottish and Irish the best of all, as I can barely decipher what the hell they're saying half the time.

I was once in a band with this guy from Dublin. We were pretty trashed one night and he was going on about the boards in back of his apartment complex. The rest of us just stared at him with our eyebrows meeting our hairlines. Finally, I figured out he was talking about "birds" not "boards", but it took two drunken UN translators, a soap commercial, and a deck of tarot cards to help crack the code.

I leave you with this old clip "How To Speak Irish" - it's kind of lame but I dug it as a kid. I hope it doesn't offend my new found Irish friends as I want to have torrid affairs with you all (at the same time - oh yeah).




1 comment:

Admin said...

You're hilarious! You grew up in Michigan...I grew up in North Dakota...