For nearly a decade Rufus Wainwright has been an elephant on my gaydar that I have been trying to avoid. But now the jig is up, let the circus begin—I am going to a Rufus Wainwright concert!
The first time I heard Rufus sing was on the radio while I was attempting to study in the little café across from the Grant MacEwan City Centre campus. His debut album was out and he was coming to Edmonton for a concert. Although there was something about him that I was curious about, there was also something about him that made me shake in my proverbial boots. At the time I found him too naked in his theatrics, too obvious in the unburdening of his soul. He was this un-fully realized yet larger-than-life figure whose presence I felt better ignoring.
My attempt to avoid him was, of course, born more out of my mistrust of homos in general than anything to do with him, but still I preferred to keep the idea of him trapped in judgmental purgatory. I was not ready for Rufus.
As Rufus became famous many people found a kindred spirit or a musical role model; I, for the most part, saw nothing more than a lanky, messed-up homo. He was like a gay older cousin I didn’t want to be compared too. Yet I was struck with pride when he appeared on the big screen in Scorsese’s The Aviator and I remember suppressing a swoon the fist few times I heard his cover his cover of “Across the Universe.”
The first real crack in my armour came thanks to my friend Aaron. He was letting me use the button maker at his studio while he did some errands. In his absence he left some music on and, as it is with repetitive tasks, I fell into a rhythm with the button making, a trance that found me really digging what I wrongly thought was a Fiona Apple album. When Aaron came back, I finished my button making and said, “she’s great.” “Yeah he is,” he replied. “I like this Rufus album.” I choked back a protest and vowed to do some downloading/investigation.
After listening to a few tracks online I couldn’t bring myself to download any. My guard was back up—as I listened, all I could hear was the voice of a husky feminine man, and this was well before I found beauty in husky feminine men. Although I didn’t purchase any of Rufus’s music that day, I did find myself more open to reading small articles about him and took note if he was mentioned in the press.
For me, letting Rufus in was dangerous. I feared that liking him would change me. It was part internalized homophobia—like, who does this guy think he is that he can so freely be out while the rest of us keep one hand on the closet door? I wondered: if I liked Rufus Wainwright, would I become more nellie?
I also feared what others would think. It’s silly, but at the time I wondered what consuming all that was Rufus would say about me. If I swallowed Rufus what would my breath smell like?
On my journey of attempting to embrace Rufus, I realized that aside from being gay, the brother is queer! A gay man is one who has sex with other men; a queer man is one that adorns lady’s stockings and a man’s double-breasted blazer to recreate a legendary concert of a long-dead, tortured singer. A gay man makes another man his life partner, but a queer man finds himself in Germany drowning in German Romanticism a reaction to living in post 9/11 America, then making art out of the experience. Slowly, in Rufus’s work I was seeing inspiration, glimmers of light.
Little by little, as I let these Rufus facts illuminate my mind, he become more acceptable to me—and, at the same time, I was becoming more acceptable to myself. When I first heard and discounted Rufus I was trying desperately to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Before I ended up dropping out, I think I spent more time in that little college cafe daydreaming of what I might do after I graduated than I ever did on homework. Fast forward to a month ago when I said, “Yes… Hell Yes” to the offer to attend Rufus’s concert and I realize that I have stopped deciding what to do with my life and instead find myself just living it.
Once I became brave enough to accept myself for all my gay attributes and dramatic tendencies, enjoying Rufus was easy, enjoyable, rewarding. So if at the concert you hear what sounds like an elephant clapping wildly, you will not be mistaken: it will be me and the acknowledged elephant clapping as much for Rufus as for ourselve
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