I “liked” a friend’s post on The Facebook the other day.  In and of itself, that was no surprising feat…I apparently “liked” 13k and change posts last year.  That shakes out to just under 40 “likes” a day.

Perhaps I have a problem.  Maybe I just like “liking” things.

But this post was a video of three Jeeps daisy chained together – not that way, Diezel – pulling a semi through the snow and ice.  This seemed to inspire him to want one.

Me?

It made me think of back when I had my own Jeep.  I went back even further to when I was a fresh faced lil gay boy in Long Beach, CA and some of my earliest Chrisisms.  This was before the big metrosexual and hipster fashion movements that kind of make most men look gay-ish, if for no other reason than guys finally started to see the value of maintaining an appearance.

Thanks, Queer Eye.

So, back in the day I used to look for tells. Sure, those hungry eyes were a dead giveaway, but even closeted guys have those, so the tells I usually looked for were those that indicated someone was out, or at least peeking through the crack of the closet door.

To be honest, I looked for more tangible tells versus behavioral tells.

My favorite tell was usually expressed crassly – go figure – as “If they drive a Jeep or a Volkswagen, they’re fair game!”

Chrisism.  And it was pretty damned accurate.  At least in the LBC.  At least in the early 90s.

I was a little confused by a beach buddy of mine – Alicia – because she also drove a Jeep, but I figured that out later.  She actually helped me a lot with my perspective on dating and relationships.  She said to me once that a partner had to be someone you could play with, talk with and argue with.  When I think of my relationships through that lens, I can still see which of those values was missing in each.  But, look at me, gamely trying to get comfortable on a two-legged barstool.

It seems my higher level thoughts on Gays have A) been formed by women; and B) resulted in a blanket statement Chrisism.

You can bet that I “borrowed” Alicia’s little truth nugget and folded it into my psyche.  Another woman whose words shaped my gay-world view was Anne Rice.

In reading her Vampire Chronicles, one of the characters explained a Vampire’s choice of fashion – basically – as the comfort of the style from when they were turned from human to vampire.

I wonder if she called her little observations Anneurisms.

This totally works for me with gay guys.  Sure, you get those gay guys that continue to try too hard to remain current  as they age, trading H&M style for Saks and designer brands as they age and their expendable income grows.  That eventually becomes an indictment of its own.  I’m the type that maybe overcorrected – maybe – and lives mostly in jeans, tee-shirts and sneakers.

But wait!  That style is vaguely Seinfeld-ian so I still kind of fall into this fashion “rule”.  I even eschew the $300 fashion denim in favor of good old Levi’s. That’s arguably a practical choice versus a default setting, but it could easily go either way.  My flat ass looks flat all the same no matter how much I spend on the denim that flaps loosely over it.

There are, however, much more obvious examples to be seen if you choose to distract yourself – er…if you choose to look for it.

Brands like Polo and Hilfiger – not the new stuff with those big, Kardashian-ass-sized logos on them; the classic style…that old guys wear.

Color pallets are another fun tell.  Where does one even find 90s era pastels anymore?  But there they are, just slightly not quite current.

Fortunately, we aren’t faced with a mixture of the gay/vampire fashion sense…ruffled shirts and velvet or brocade overcoats died with Liberace.

This topic came up on a wine tasting tour with The Silver Fox, Little Buddy and 2.0 and myself.  LB exclaimed that it would be a great game show idea, but instead of gay or vampire we could rotate the “or” to something more realistically confusing.  Like gay or British or gay or hipster or gay or poly.

Because vampires aren’t real you guys.

Given the way gays flock to drama like hummingbirds to sugar water, this idea could potentially be a lot of fun.  It’s like RuPaul’s Drag Race minus the Drag.

Somehow the dramatic potential caused us to veer into riffing on soap opera titles when we considered names for this venture that will never see daylight outside of this blog or Hood River, Oregon.

Maybe it was the wine.

The one title that I recall was As The Gay Turns.  I’d work on it a little, but it’s totally a DNGN idea.  For all of you non-Star Trek fans, that would be a “Does Nothing, Goes Nowhere” idea.  It was just the Little Buddy and I amusing ourselves and giving the Fox and 2.0 an opportunity to discuss more serious things without us interrupting them.  Or we were trying to show them how clever we could be…you decide.

Although, a creators credit on what would obviously be a Bravo TV program wouldn’t be terrible.  I think I deserve some sort of compensation for having to see people rock a pair of topsiders 30 years after they were fashionably relevant.  At least wear them with a little irony.

Love and dated fashion, yo!

And pizza.

And wine.

Wine not?

Thanks for indulging this lil ramble.