BIG TIPS
MAY 3, 1996 GAY PEOPle's ChronICLE 27
The ultimate question for M.T.: Is there a God?
by M.T. “the Big Tipper” Martone
Put down that copy of Better Homes and Gardens' Fifty Ways To Spring Into Spring— For Pennies! I see you with that issue of Met Home drop it right back into your Heywood Wakefield magazine rack! Here's the hot craft tip of the season: make your own bricks. Yes, you heard me, bricks. Heavy, yet not serious; hard, but not difficult. I just cast a bunch of these babies for a garden border, but you could make a doorstop, or, um, a paperweight.
Go get some "topping mix" (heh heh) at the hardware store. Like the Ben and Jerry's smooth editions, it's concrete without the chunks. This stuff is caustic and hard on lungs, so put a bandana over your nose and mouth, and wear goggles if you have some to mix the stuff with water. Latex gloves are great for more than just sex here: don 'em. Dump the slop (texture: between stiff oatmeal and wet sandcastle sand) into heavily Vaselined cardboard boxes the size of your desired bricks, then stud the moist surface with marbles, dice, broken pottery (sharp edges submerged), Fisher Price people, mirror bits, broken watches basically anything that won't rot or rust outdoors. Rip off the boxes in nine or ten hours, and voila! Righteous lawn ornaments that give garden gnomes a run for their money.
Dear MTM,
My lover is the most brilliant thing in my life. We met over three years ago, and quickly fell in love, and have been living together for about a year. She's beautiful and strong, kind, creative, smart, and the most loving person I've ever had in my life. We have some things in common and the usual number of differences, and have worked through our share of disagreements about issues that are more or less central to who we are as individuals and as a couple.
One difference haunts me though. She was raised in a very religious home, and although she doesn't go to church now, she believes in God. I haven't had much inner struggle around this issue, I just never have had any reason to believe in God, and I don't feel obligated to do so because that is something important to my lover.
She's never tried to change the way I think about this, but recently when her grandmother died, she said that she was glad that she was in heaven, and she looked forward to seeing her again. Then she said that she was glad that death didn't mean a permanent end to time together for people who loved each other.
For some reason, I've been feeling really guilty and threatened ever since she said that. I even brought it up with her, but I can't figure out what is specifically upsetting about what she said, so the conversation didn't really go anywhere. Any insights?
Oh, God
Dear Damned If I Know,
Of course you're distressed. You love her, and you're afraid that you may be standing her up for eternity. Now, I was raised in a strict Catholic home, and while that's had a lot of impact of my life (my closets are immaculate, I collect rosaries, and I could produce a fundraiser spaghetti dinner with my spumoni tied behind my back), it didn't really answer the questions I've had about the existence of (a) god.
What you're experiencing, though, may indicate that belief or faith are not always predicated on what comes from within you. If you feel guilty and threatened because you are afraid your girlfriend is indicting your absence of faith, that's what you can talk to her about. If you feel fear because you've been ignoring some nagging feeling that there is some god, and you need to figure out what that means to you, you may want to work on that yourself.
I like to think that if there is a god, then that power knows damn well we're not quite sure what we're doing here, and can't get too down on us for being puzzled. Meanwhile, I kind of like the idea of some sort of god being in each one of us, and although to like and be comforted by an idea is not faith, it works for me in a D.I.Y. spirituality sort of way. Who knows? Good luck.
Dear Tipper,
S-O-S. I feel like I've fallen and I can't get up. Through a string of events, I find myself in a desperate spot. Here's the story:
A few months ago I was looking for a job to help pay the bills during my freshman year in college. Through my parents, I found that an old family friend with a small business was looking for an assistant, or better put, a gopher. It was my best option at the time, so I took the job:
Now I'm about as gay as they come and my boss must have figured that out early on, because one night he made a play for me. Foolishly, I gave in and we ended up having sex in the shower at his place. My boss is extremely attractive and I couldn't turn down his subsequent advances. He still pays me a good salary, but all I do is meet him at a motel every lunch hour and perform anal and oral sex on him. The sex still blows my mind, but I'm having misgivings about the relationship. For one, I feel like a whore since I'm being paid for sex. Secondly, I want a real relationship, and know I can't have one. You see, my boss is married and has children. He'll never give up his wife because her money is staking the business. I'm addicted to his body, but I want the relationship to change. Advice?
Dear Lady Marmalade,
A Kept Man
You're being paid a good salary for being a gopher during your first year in school?
"Performing" oral and anal sex? I'm getting the ol' fake letter feeling right here, but I'm game. You may be unintentionally helping the hundreds of fresh-faced college youth who will be in this very situation this summer, yet will be too busy "performing" to dash off an e-mail to me.
Unless you're really connected, most jobs you get during your first year in college will probably be much harder on your body than your mind. It's pretty much due to sexism and our culture's puritanical history that having sex for money is a less honorable service than, say, filling bottles of Old Spice or working the Whack-
A-Mole game at an amusement park. You do have a relationship with your boss, but it's an economic one, not an emotional one. The odds of that changing and your going back to fetching coffee are slim, and you know he won't leave his wife. Either keep doing it and be a proud whore, or prostitute a less erogenous body part like your burger flippin' hands.
Send your questions to M.T. Martone, care of the Chronicle, P.O. Box 5426, Cleveland, OH 44101; or fax to 216-631-1082; or e-mail Chron Ohio@aol.com.
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