Chaos Attraction

An Evening With Dan Savage

2015-05-06, 10:08 p.m.

So tonight Dan Savage came to town. I knew a few folks in the audience with ahem, scandalous personal lives, and I certainly got to hear a few more stories while there that night! It was an interesting crowd--definitely plenty of "old" people, though also a lot of random empty seats even in the "front" area. And some older folks walked out during the Q&A, but who knows why there. Anyway, Dan is probably used to that. He was there in a "HUMP!" shirt and with his glasses on, was REALLY looking and sounding like Ira Glass. Which was amusing. He was interviewed by an English professor here who was clearly amused by the whole thing and said every time he said "buttfucking" she should get a dollar...and will get a lot of dollars. Dan was all "Hey, pot is legal where I live, want a pot lozenge?" onstage and she was all, "Sure." He claims to carry his laptop and his pot on him at all times, incidentally.

He discussed HUMP! (apparently all the films are deleted after the show and no cameras are allowed, so nobody's a porn star for the rest of their lives online), It Gets Better, ACT UP, and other things like that. I attempted to take notes after the lights came up a bit, so my notes are kind of halfassed. He mentioned that while he's down with porn, there's a lot of "angry man porn" that shames women for telling those men no. That explains a lot. He said he started the column as a spoof for the first six months--he said that Dear Abby and Ann Landers would answer gay questions with a lot of "Ewwww!...Well, here's some advice" tone to them, so he was doing that with straight sex questions. He also thought "Dear Faggot" sounded like "Dear Abby." (Uh...maybe that was the pot talking?) There was also a lot about how monogamy doesn't work and "monogamishing" is the right way to go.

The question and answer bit was the most fun. Like hoooooo boy. One guy got up there and was all, "I had this girlfriend for five months and she was totally cheating on me with multiple guys, so I e-mailed all of them and her parents too about it. Was that slut shaming?" Dan was trying to do the polite version of "Both of y'all are assholes and out of line" in his response...and then finished off with something like "and this guy's still single, ladies." I don't think I would have admitted to all of THAT in public, dude. There was also some girl who went to preschool with Dan's son DJ, who said she was interested in kink and wants to go to a munch, but is worried about creepy older guys. (To which I'm thinking, from what I've been told about the local munches, yes, you should be worried about this. Hell, I know one of those dudes is here tonight!) Dan felt weird about a kid his son's age going to a much, and was all, "Bring a buddy." Because going to a munch as a young single girl is "like chum in the water for some people." Ain't that the truth.

Dan also got asked about how some people on campus were pissed at him with regards to him and transsexuality--which is to say, he used to say a certain word made famous by Christian Siriano on Project Runway. Dan was essentially all, "well, people said it all the time back then before it became hurtful, and I actually have a kid's book on me from 2011 that used that word in the title" (Glamazonia the Super T-Word), and yeah, I stopped once people said it was offensive.

The final Q&A was a Ph.D student who REALLY wanted to clarify the difference between oxytocin and OxyContin, which Dan mixes up. Dan said to call the show with this information. And then the Ph.D student finished up by asking for a threesome with Dan and Dan's husband. Hoooooo boy.

Unfortunately, when I went home, I had to explain to my mom what I had been up to while she was at Bible study. GUESS HOW WELL THAT WENT.


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