April Winchell

If you’ve ever spent any time in my Multimedia section, you’ve no doubt noticed a small category called, Those Darn Homos. I started it a few years ago, when I came across some “party records” from the 50’s. These records were comprised of original tunes and parodies, all lampooning gay people by way of every tired cliche and stereotype imaginable.

To me, these tracks are almost like a menu from Sambo’s, or a mammy cookie jar; relics of a time when black stereotypes were used in advertising and entertainment. The only way I think they’re dissimilar is that our culture still openly displays tremendous resentment toward gay people, and does so with impunity for the most part.

For example, I find it quite interesting that anything weak or pointless is referred to in our lexicon as “gay”, and we mostly allow that. I wonder what the reaction would be if we started to label these same things as “black”. My guess is that Al Sharpton would have a press conference, but then, he does that when someone orders black coffee.

In any case, this section is horribly neglected, I admit. But I never found more than this handful of tracks, though I knew there were many more to be had.

Today, I stumbled on a few resources for these tunes, and was able to add several to this category! Yes, now we have songs about “dropping the soap”, “swishing”, “grabbing my nuts” and lots more high quality innuendo. Visit the Multimedia page for all the highbrow laughs you can handle.

In other news, our Teletubbies video is climbing the charts on YouTube. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.

Thanks to everyone for your kind words and comments, and for sendng the video around. I have to believe that if we do enough good work to get some consistent attention, someone, somewhere might notice and give me a job.

Or a Cease and Desist order. That’s also a possibility.