From the ‘Blast-From-the-Past’ file, The Telegraph (Feb. 20), a British newspaper, knows where the body of the homosexual lover of English King Edward II is buried. Sir Hugh Despenser (perhaps of favors?), the favorite boyfriend of the king, became so rich (real inside trading) and despised that when the king’s wife and a certain Sir Roger Mortimer tossed out the king in 1326 they immediately executed Sir Hugh. He deserved, they said, to be publically executed four times so he was ‘hanged, and, still conscious, castrated, disembowelled and then quartered before his head was displayed on London Bridge.’ A sort of long-range jigsaw puzzle figured in the body’s identity: records show Hugh’s wife (oh, yes, what a soap opera cum horror show) received only his head, thigh bone and a few vertebrae to bury. The body found in Hulton Abbey’s graveyard is missing just those pieces.
From the ‘Beat’ file, The New York Times (Feb. 16) lets you know where to hear the recently discovered earliest recording of gay poet Allen Ginsberg’s reading of his epic poem, Howl. Ginsberg had hitchhiked with his fellow Beat poet Gary Snyder to Portland, Ore., in 1956, where he was recorded on a reel-to-reel machine at a student hostel at Reed College. You may hear him at www.reed.edu.
From the ‘India’s Changing’ file, Rose, formerly Ramesh Venkatesan, hopes to be the Indian Oprah. The New York Times (Feb. 20) says the 28-year-old, American-educated Web site designer is a transitioning transsexual who expects the TV show she’s been hired to host—which has the potential to reach 64 million people—will open eyes gently on hush-hush sexual matters. Rose has had major problems with her family (her mom hides Rose’s saris) and Indians in general, saying ‘India was very progressive about this [variant sexuality] until the British came and imposed a Victorian sense of morality, which still remains.’ Rose says the U.S. isn’t much better: ‘There, people were aggressively homophobic.’
Roger Ebert, in a reprint of his classy review of the classic movie What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? from the Chicago Sun-Times (Feb. 17) quotes Victor Buono, Baby’s piano accompanist, as saying in real life, ‘I’ve heard about actors being asked, ‘Why have you never married?’ They answer with the immortal excuse ‘I just haven’t found the right girl.’ No one’s asked me yet. If they do, that’s that’s the answer I’ll give. After all, it was good enough for Monty Clift or Sal Mineo.’
Father Andrew Greeley, in the Chicago Sun-Times (Feb.13), is taking flack for his belief that celibacy is not the cause of clergy sexual abuse of children. The practice is just as pervasive, he says, among married Protestant ministers and married Greek Orthodox priests, although not quite as covered up. Perhaps the father/sociologist will now take on the fall-back argument of many critics who say the abuse is due to gay clergy.