Hello from Bear and Curadh, a podcast from the Land of Awes Information Services.
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I love you, Curadh.
I love you, Bear.
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This is episode 129 of the Bear and Curadh Podcast.
We're going to talk about things you did before coming out of the closet.
That's kind of funny.
It's a good subject.
It's going to be interesting to hear what you have to say, because you never -- since
I've what?
Well, you're never -- you're never with a woman in the front.
You don't mean it.
So it'll be interesting to hear you're asked, "I have you ever been on a date?"
But I have had colds before, like just like now, so I'm likely to cough and my voice is
likely to be bad, so there we go.
All right.
So here we go.
I'm browsing the underwear ads in the Sears catalog.
I remember doing that.
Do you?
You probably don't even remember a Sears catalog.
No, I remember this.
It was kind of long.
I thought it was really cold to get them, because it's marked the time of the year for
Christmas.
You can go through the catalog and mark off all the toys you want, and browse the men's
sections and they'll look at the underwear section.
So you marked all those that you want to?
No, I never did that.
You marked all the men that you want.
Yeah.
At least I think they had hair on the chest.
It's kind of like Amazon before Amazon existed.
Yeah.
You could find anything on that thing.
So did you remember browsing the underwear section?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Did you hide the magazine?
No.
Well, I don't know if that's going to know if it's missing at the end of the year.
Mm-hmm.
So, why didn't you look at me that way?
Obviously yours went missing.
No, actually, Tenet.
I had found a playgirl, so I had the real thing.
Yeah.
So.
You know, they've determined that playgirl has always been a gay publication.
Oh, really?
That's like 90% of their subscribers were gay men.
Oh, yeah.
I'm not surprised.
Mm-hmm.
Probably 90% of the people who posted it were gay, too.
So.
Mm-hmm.
Taking off Kins or GI Joe's pants and being horrified.
Well, I never went to look for their genitals in the first place.
I wasn't surprised when there was nothing there.
Were you?
Uh, yeah, I, I think you think there was something wrong with you, the year and more than what they
had.
I don't know.
I think even at that age, I realized that it was iconic.
It wasn't supposed to represent reality.
Yeah.
That's funny though.
I do remember when the anatomically correct dolls came out and there was an anatomically
correct version of Michael Jackson and there was this comedian who made this big deal about
exposing, uh, pulling the pants off the Michael Jackson dolly, pulls them down and there's
nothing there.
Mm-hmm.
That's funny.
That's sad, but it's funny.
I mean, you can never get away with that today, but that's funny, um, feeling different and
isolated in a moment.
I don't know.
You have to be gay for that.
I think that's a standard puberty.
I do remember thinking I wish there was a pill I could just take and that would be normal.
Really?
Mm-hmm.
I never got that depressed about anything like the, well, would you say that was depression
or?
I don't know, I didn't thought about it.
Yeah, I don't know, um, I, I, I think it's a standard to feel isolated when you're a
teenager.
I think it's a standard emotion that you go through.
Mm-hmm.
I mean-
And you've got all those hormones that you've never had before?
And the world's against you and it's no one understands you and, you know, don't fake
air quotes, you know, and like, you know, I got answers to everything and nobody knows
me and, you know what I mean?
So, you know, I've, no one's been in my shoes before and no one's walked, you know, walked
on my pants, it's all that stuff, but I think that's a pretty standard fare for her.
Probably.
So, even more for gay kids?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I think so because no matter how much it's becoming more acceptable, people are still
judging and it's still that fear and they're still, I imagine, you know, you hear all these
stories on the news about parents being supportive, but you know what I mean, it's a story about
the parents not being supportive and these homeless kids that are on the street and they're
out there and that's what's that.
There is a, I think it's called the Laramie Project, it's a group that does counseling over
the phone of gay youth.
Okay.
And the day after the presidential election, their calls went up 1,000%.
Oh, I bet it's going to really get worse too.
They're saying right now that it's watching the, the Sunday politics news that he's already
got his kid set up where he's going to basically do an executive order day, the day he gets
put in office of, well, I'm just, I'm, I'm sure the rumors are going around and scare tactics
by clicks.
No, that's true.
He didn't do that in his first presidential election, he probably won't do it in this one
either.
No, he'll probably get around to all that before he's done.
Man, hopefully, hopefully he doesn't get around to any of it because I mean, basically like
they were talking about, if he deported everybody that was here illegally, he'd be about the size
of two main ends, which in New York City's put together.
I have a theory about that.
I don't think he's going to actually deport anyone.
Right.
I think he's going to have camps built and put them in camps, like in term in camps, like labor
camps.
Okay.
Because there's going to be all these businesses who don't have migrant workers who are going
to complain.
And then he'll say, well, I've got all these people in these camps that can do that work
for you at slave labor prices, make it another business, make it another slavery.
It's not going to be so scary, but then I could say there we go, we, we, we diverted right
off the topic.
Let's get back to the topic.
Feeling dead inside when friends or family say that gay people are sinful, disgusting and
abnormal.
I never felt dead inside.
How do I put this?
I just knew to keep an eye on that person, or not to trust that person again.
Wow.
Would have mature way of thinking of it.
Why?
Are you being serious?
Those kids wouldn't think to isolate themselves from family.
Yeah.
Just because you're related to me.
Don't mean Jack.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Yeah.
It's.
You're more of an East Coast person, no, where people drop people all the time here in
the Midwest.
It's not really that way.
Yeah.
I mean, I'll cut you off in a second.
I mean, I got no problems with it.
I guess I don't know why, I mean, it's just, but I mean, it's for surviving youth, that's
a good attitude to have, I think.
No.
But yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's my thing, you know, we just, so trust that
person, keep an eye on them.
And so far, it's coming this far, and I don't, you know, I mean my, my circle of friends
is small but very tight.
It's a, a good piece of advice for growing up pre-gay or growing up before coming out anyway.
No.
So, I mean, it's what is, what it is.
Trying to figure out what to do about that awkward, straight, go crushing on you.
I think this has happened to us both, but we handled it in totally different ways.
Yeah.
How did you handle it?
I tried to blend in, I tried to date her, it didn't work, didn't, you know, just, I, she had expectations
that I couldn't fill.
I imagine you went a little further than that.
Oh, I, yeah, I, I played the whole, I don't, because, I, I pretty much was around the corner
of the home plate to be full-fledged married and all that stuff, so, yeah, I've done the
whole thing.
So, um, if that had happened, if you had gotten married and had kids, you probably still would
have come out eventually.
It just would have been a lot worse, a lot worse, because I probably, well, probably would
have had kids and, I mean, it would have been fair, and I'm, I'm very thankful to this day
about it, and it said, you know, that I'd just come out the way, you know, now it all worked
out.
Because it wouldn't have been fair, I really wouldn't have been, you know, it was a whole big,
big lie, and that's when, you know, really, you do, you do need to come out as when you, when
you're lie, you start affecting everybody around you.
It's a certain politician that needs to learn that.
Yeah.
I keep coming around to this, don't I?
Yeah.
I'm not over it yet.
No, no one knows, and we have a right to be still upset about it, so.
Only living with the sheer horror that someone will find out must scary.
This.
Definitely this.
This was very horrifying.
Especially in prokiel school.
Yeah.
You see, my mind was, my, I didn't have those thoughts really until a later on, and I didn't
know really, I think I was gay until, probably in high school college.
Well, yeah, I didn't come out until I was 19, it didn't act on until I was 24.
But, um, always knew that there was something different about me.
Yeah.
I guess I, I guess I knew I was different, I guess I just, um, you were probably better at pretending
and blending in than I was.
Probably.
Because you were one of the popular kids.
Probably.
Yeah, I could have probably, like you said, I could fade, like fade in and be, be, be, you know,
popular, play the sports to all that stuff, and that's what I did, so.
But yeah, trying to think of me, and sports wasn't a refuge for me.
Yeah, sports was a refuge for me, so it was a way for me to escape.
Feeling dread when your parents would say, I need to ask you something, my parents never
did this.
I'm pretty sure my parents must have many times, but I don't know that I thought that was
the question they were going to ask.
My dad just more, more give me a warning talk one day, if I find out you're gay, you're out
of the well.
That was it, pretty much, but it was a firm talking to, so, and he was serious, but they were
trying to come to that, so.
Not understanding the fascination with tits that other guys have still don't get it.
Me neither.
Just, maybe it's because they don't have them, they're curious about them, but they seem inconvenient
to me.
Women don't have finances in men don't want to play with them, I mean, but I don't, the big
sad things are bad, I mean from, I don't get it, I don't, I'll never get it.
All my straight friends always say that I'm a big man when I get drunk, I don't know why,
it's probably because I get stupid, and floppy back, I don't want to know this.
I just heard from my husband, that's hilarious, it's seen that, it's like I was playing
ping pong back and forth.
I have never done that.
You would never do that, that's why you would be mortified, you would be, you know, a great
night, you're mortified that we were even talking about this, so it's not a clientele, one of
my classic movies, but yeah, it's one of the dumb things I used to doing, I was younger and
better drink.
So, now that I'm embarrassed, the dread of your relative is asking if you have a girlfriend
every holiday.
Yes.
Yeah.
It was probably easier for you than you had one for a while.
But there were two girls that I sort of dated.
The one that I asked to the junior problem and the one that I asked to the senior problem.
But that was the question my grandmother had every year at Christmas.
Who you dating?
Bring your girlfriend over.
Yeah.
No.
But my thing, I mean, I didn't really have a girlfriend in high school.
I didn't have many girlfriends in high school.
And then college was different.
But the thing was, like, I lived in New Jersey, so like, I had one serious, serious girlfriend
in college.
I was the girl that I probably would have married.
She's been, she's been the way else in New Jersey.
But other than that, there was no other girl that I dated from here that it's been the
way in New Jersey.
There was no seriousness there.
I never got that far.
So I never had a way about that.
And then also my grandparents, they died while I was in college.
And then my mom never really, my mom, my dad died while I was at a college.
I was with my ex, then, but they never really came up about, you know, probably knew not
to ask.
Well, because I mean, like, before that I had that one girl who lived with me for the summer.
So you know, you said, I mean, that had me covered for quite a while.
But you, you know, praying that the other boys don't ask the question, which girl do you fancy?
Well, it sounds like we're from the 50s if you ask it like that, but we're from Britain.
We're from Britain, yeah.
I never, it was another thing, I mean, there's never, I mean, maybe more so like in great school,
and stuff like that, but there's more of a childish type of, you know, like a little, like,
keep lying, stuff and stuff.
So, I mean, did you ever, were you ever confronted?
I have this feeling that that's a question that I got and didn't like, but I can't think
of a specific.
Yeah.
It must have happened, but I don't remember the details.
I'm not gonna be true.
Being bullied for being gay before you knew you were gay.
Yes.
You really?
Yes.
Especially in PE class, really.
That wasn't a sports person, so if you weren't athletic, you were a girl.
So, then they would pick on you that way.
Yeah.
That's good.
Sorry.
But yeah.
Yeah.
I was never really bullied, so I mean, anytime, like I said before in this podcast, I was almost
bullied.
I put a stop to it, so I never, yeah.
I don't remember even bullying or, you know, I don't remember being, hearing anyone being
bullied for being gay.
I don't really, here's never really.
There was one guy in my PE class, he was like the number one athlete, and he got in trouble
in the locker room for doing something I don't remember what.
And I thought I had seen him in another part of the locker room whenever that happened.
I think something was taken or something, and I said to the coach, I said, no, he didn't
do that.
Well, it turned out he did, and I just didn't see it that way.
I thought he didn't, and because I stood up for him, then he took a liking to you.
Well, no, no, definitely not.
I mean, stuck up for you?
Yeah, and a couple of cases in the locker room, yeah, he, yeah.
And then many, many, many years later I was back at that little town to do their fall festival,
and I saw him with his boyfriend.
Oh, he was gay?
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Huh.
Hmm.
It's good.
I thought you were going to say that he always knew you're gay or something bad's happened.
But no, that's good.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, it's good.
Only feeling comfortable with female friends.
No, I had female friends, but I had also good friends too, so I had both.
So I always felt comfortable with both sexes.
I had no friends, male or female, not in broken school, and not in junior high, high school.
Even in high school.
There was a group of guys that were sort of misfits, I don't know.
We sat together, but I wouldn't say that we were friends.
But I was in a Star Trek club.
In fact, I eventually became president of that Star Trek club.
And Star Trek is known for female fans, probably four to one female in the group, and I felt
most comfortable with them.
No, okay.
I'm just seeing that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, I had both guys and female friends, so both, you know what I mean, so.
I remember my father telling my mother that she was spending a lot of time dragging me to
all these Star Trek club meetings and stuff, and kind of like he wished that I was into sports
or something more local, that didn't have to take me to all the time.
And I kind of remember my mother said, I don't care if he joined a coven, he has friends.
So they were happy that you were getting on, you had friends, and it's good.
I've been really uncomfortable with sleepovers.
Never had one.
You never have been in a sleepover?
Never.
They suck.
They are.
They're not fun.
I mean, half of them I would go home because I wanted to sleep in my own bed.
I would get like a home sick, but it's a bunch of kids.
It's fun in the beginning, and then you try to stay up late and you're playing games and
stuff like that.
And then when it's time to go to bed, and that's when you, like I said, in my case, I wanted
to go home.
Then I had a lay in bed, lay in bed, wherever I was sleeping over to friends, I was like on
the floor, you know, if we were camping or something like that, just like in the backyard
of the house, basically lay there for about an hour, depending on if I'm going to get
up to call my parents, that of them come get me feeling bad that they came and got me to,
you know, me to get the lecture that we're never doing this again.
You're not growing up enough to do it.
All that stuff.
Yeah.
The sleepovers were not fun for me.
I guess if you count camping, my boy scout group went camping every month, no matter
when the weather was.
Yeah.
You did campouts.
They were just different than normal sleepovers.
And the one guy that I typically shared a tent with turned out to be gay.
We didn't know what gay was then, or, well, I don't know, that would, no, nothing ever happened.
Later on, I found that he told me he was gay and we got together and had a nice conversation
about things, but that's the way it goes, I guess.
That's crazy though, that's how things turn out.
Taking Am I gay tests?
Never ever took one of my life.
I don't.
It seems like I remember something like that, but there was no internet back then.
I think it was in a magazine or something.
I know.
Or did I ask you, like a penis between your left and my right, I don't remember.
I'm sorry.
I don't remember much about it.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, I never took one, so I have no idea.
Well, you should probably take one now, so you can find out if you're gay or not.
I'm pretty sure I am.
Being jealous of women for all of the attention they get from hot men.
Yes.
Really?
Uh-huh.
There was a guy, I also started a computer club.
Okay.
And there was a guy in that club that I didn't realize that I had the hot four, but I did.
And he had a girlfriend that, um, would everyone say, "Well, tell him he couldn't come to the club
meeting or whatever because of something she wanted."
Uh-huh.
I remember feeling jealous about that.
Really?
I can't say you've been jealous, like she has his, she's wrapped around his finger and
can pull it any time she wants.
I'm surprised I never thought you'd be a jealous type.
Well, I had to really think about this to come up with one.
Yeah.
That's what it was.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Don't jealous of other men, I think, have been.
And all the work they go through to look like that.
Um, I just, um, I don't know, am I, am I, you know, I don't know, I don't know if I could
jealous.
I don't know, would you say, "I'd get jealous"?
I've never seen you jealous.
I think I did.
I don't think I've ever did anything to make you feel jealous.
I would be jealous if someone tried to eat on you.
So, yeah, I guess, yeah, I'd be jealous of another guy I had on you.
I would tell him, "Be jealous."
Hmm.
So, you're right.
You're right.
Good thing they don't do that.
But you're very handsome, man.
I'm wondering if maybe you just hadn't met the right girl yet.
Um, probably, but I can't think of a specific.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, with that age, you think, I think, um, every while, thought will go through
your brain.
You can give a million thoughts a day, so, you mean, it's safe to say that everybody would
think that.
Hmm.
I don't know if that's good or bad.
Why?
To think that.
If you may.
I mean, back then, I mean, right now, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think that.
Hmm.
But I think I, I've met the one, and I think it's you.
Yeah.
So, I've never had a thought like that in a long time either.
Yeah.
So, I don't think any woman's ever going to cure me.
Yeah.
I don't think so either.
So, you got to be crazy too.
Yeah.
Finding ways to get out of sports and PE, I bet you did this all the time.
Never.
I was one of those kids that wanted to go to sports and PE.
I kind of wait.
I think the, um, coach, at least in junior high or high school, I can't remember which
now.
I think he took pity on me because I knew how to run the mammograph machine.
Um, I was in the journalism class, so that was one of the things we did.
And whenever there was dodgeball, he would, we'd, we'd all be lined up to choosing teams,
and he would bring out a mammograph master and he would hand it to me and he'd say go make
up a bunch, like a hundred copies of these for, because I think he taught math or geometry
years, something like that, and, um, so that's what I would do while everyone else is playing
dodgeball.
Well, you got lucky then.
Yeah.
I would have played dodgeball, but yeah, yeah, that's funny, but at least he had a from the
fourth thought.
I guess.
I mean, this is one less thing he had to do.
Yeah.
But I think it was more of, you know, this poor kid is about to get laid up, I don't know.
Yeah.
So, I think he was more, he was looking out for you in order.
Could be.
He's probably gay too.
God.
All right, feeling a special connection to one of your closest male friends.
I don't think that ever happened.
I never had a crush on any of my, my, my male friends, never, never found any more attractive,
and that's like the ones that were my journey, were like, oh, and they found out that I was gay
in kind of disown means of like that.
Heard some of those, like, what do you do?
Looking at me, no, I didn't find any single one of my fraternity members attractive.
One of them, they were brothers to me, some were actually, like, would you consider brothers
and the majority of them I wanted.
Yeah, I never had any friends, of course, I never had any that looked like Steve Austin
either, so yeah, but yeah, that's funny to me.
Accidentally experimenting without realizing what you're doing and why I can't imagine me accidentally
doing anything.
No, you wouldn't, no, I don't think I did or did anything.
Yeah, it's just, it's, um, this was written by somebody that doesn't have our perspective
here, maybe younger guys are freer to experience, yeah, let us, we're old gay guys.
All right, crushing for a boy, you barely knew you existed that you could never be with.
Nope, nope, nope, no, pretty easy, I got boring quick.
Your friend's hot dad, the guy who was the scout master was pretty hot, okay, oh and
art, the winner, the priest in our church, hot hot hot hot in Harry and would take all the
ultra boys out to go skiing every year, oh, I bet, they talk about, you know, ultra boys
being molested, I wish I had been molested by him, so I knew you're going to say that you're
so terrible, sorry, you were wanting to go on that ski trip, you got a joke for us this week.
What do you call, oh, sleepwalking done, I don't know, a roaming Catholic, that's cute,
that's cute, I like that one.
We hope you enjoyed episode 129 of the Baehr incurred podcast, this is Baehr, goodbye, goodbye.
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You have been listening to the Baehr and Curadh podcast, a production of the Land of Awes
Information Services. We can be contacted via email using the address podcast@awes.com
and Awes is spelled A-W-E-S.
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