Archer's Omnibus of Oddities, Mischievous Exploits & Sundry Tales of Insubordination

By Jesse Archer

A queer collection of essays and short stories from a former columnist at Out Magazine. Jesse Archer spins his most shocking escapades into editorial that is sometimes salacious, often incendiary, and always irreverent. From Manhattan to Burning Man to North Dakota's Corn Palace, follow the totally true adventures of a gay man with a lot to learn. This volume includes a decade's worth of outrageous tales, some of which may involve black sheep, masculine bottoms, forbidden fruit, Cyndi Lauper, sex parties, AIDS cures, ironic suicides, prison pen pals, Fire Island survivors, a high school hero, and how to ruin your best friend's wedding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jesse Archer
• Release date: Aug 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370361625

Jesse Archer

Jesse Archer grew up in Oregon, and graduated from the University of Southern California with a BA in Theatre and Cinema-Television. He has since lived in Paris, Buenos Aires, Capetown and New York City.As an actor, Jesse stars in the gay romantic comedy films Slutty Summer, A Four Letter Word, Violet Tendencies (which he also wrote), Going Down in La La Land, Half-Share, Into The Lion's Den and others. He contributes editorial for including The Advocate, Huffington Post, and Out Magazine. Jesse currently lives in Sydney, Australia where he volunteers as a North Bondi surf lifesaver.

Book preview

It's been ten years since my first column appeared in Out Magazine. Some of the views, impressions, and disorderly conduct that follows has been published elsewhere; some has not appeared anywhere, but the majority comes from my years as a columnist for Out and for that honor I owe its editor-in-chief, Aaron Hicklin. I'd also like to thank their entire editorial team, as well as Matt Breen at The Advocate and Noah Michelson at The Huffington Post.

In making my columns personal, readers have often taken them personally. From the man who sent money wanting to adopt me, to the priest holding me accountable for gay youth suicide, I received fan and hate mail in equal passion. I have at times been tempted to clarify or to offer postscript concessions, but in the end I write for a reaction – and also as a reactionary to today's constant chorus of self-righteous outrage. A queer life is a subversive one, and I try to resist the impulse to offend if it means telling a truth.

Of course, truths can change. Like an old photo, it can be curious or even cringe-worthy to look back and see how your past intersects with today. Charting society over the past decade, it's remarkable to notice how battle lines have been re-drawn; what still hits hard, and which touchstones no longer carry the same weight. Above all, these stories are only a product of my own experience as a white gay male of his time and place.

On these travels I'm most grateful to those along for the ride. Thanks for the fodder! And for always knowing that whatever shocking thing I might do or say – I did it for the story. Special shout outs to my elders, friends, fellow misfits, and all those fuckwits who sharpen my talons. Thank you Bam Bam for the cover design, cloud backups, and for being a reluctant evangelist for the brink. Love to Simon, my parents, and my partner in crime, Cool Dan. This one's for you.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

One Final Status Update (2011)

Jesse Archer, Come on Down! (2010)

The Clarinet Player (2007)

Corn Palace or Bust (2010)


Grandma Must Die (2009)

Two T-Cells Walk into a Bar… (2014)

Boys Just Wanna Have Fun (2008)

Six Feet Blunder (2009)


Down Under the Pump (2007)

Survivor Weekend (2007)


Paradise Lost (2007)

Bella Zsi-Zsi Farrah Fawcett Larue (2013)

Forbidden Fruit (2006)

Bottom Pride (2008)


Poppers Are Dead. Long Live Poppers! (2013)

Mid-Life Crisis, Squared (2013)

Avenue D for Done (2007)

Upper East Side Rebellion (2007)

The Love Connection (2007)


Full Disclosure (2007)

Smut with Strangers (2013)

Wedding Eulogy (2007)


Jeffrey (2007)


The Inheritance (2007)

Don't Cry for Me, Guatemala (2006)

Out in Africa (2008) 


ESPN Interrogation (2008) 


Bringing up Gayby (2008)


Urinal Man (2008)

Change of Heartland (2008)


Sex, Lies, and Spinach (2009) 


Dire Straights (2009)

The Dark Side (2007)

Friendship Fallout (2012)

Playing Detective (2013)


My Prison Pen Pal (2014)

Holding Out for a Hero (2015)

The Great Repression (2006)

Sex and Sensibility (2015)

Living In Remarkable Times (2014)

One Final Status Update

Right before he hung himself, my friend Arron typed one final status update on Facebook. His missive was notable for its bilingual pith: Adios, my loves.

Moments later came the first response: Where are you going, handsome?

Arron suffered from addiction via a self-loathing that was undoubtedly facilitated by the mother who immediately swooped in to steal his valuables, burn his body and toss the bits into the Hudson river. A few weeks prior, Arron creepily told my friend Dan that he’d tried to kill himself twice and the third time he wouldn’t fail. Dan endeavored to lighten the mood with positivity, to pooh pooh the pity.

When news spread that the third time was indeed the charm, Dan and those in whom Arron confided felt massive guilt for not having done more to stop the self-destruct. Others felt miserable he didn’t reach out so they could attempt to save him. I know this because it’s all there, archived on his Facebook wall.

Sometimes, Facebook heaven sends me a surprise update. Do you think Arron wears underwear? Another friend (who died of an aneurysm) is continually tagged by a former flame in travel photos like the globetrotting ghost of a garden gnome. Still another friend is dead from a GHB overdose, but keeps popping up – he’s a mutual fan of Richard Dawkins! Recently, a Farmville pig wandered onto his property.

Nobody rests in peace anymore. The suicide, the aneurysm, the overdose. Distilled into how they died because their pages are a persistent reminder they are dead, not of how they made me feel alive. I’d like to believe a legacy is in memories made, not the unintended irony of a last status update. Not in a ghastly, never-ending funeral procession like Alzheimers or Amy Winehouse.

I love to remember my friends, but not this new element of surprise. Typing a message and his name appears as a suggested recipient. I’m sorry Arron, now is not a good time for me! Fuck off because today I’m angry. Stephen Hawking is trapped inside of a black hole and you couldn’t see the light?

Facebook is the modern day mausoleum, only now it is mobile. The mausoleum can travel to you, posing a digital age moral dilemma: Do you delete the dead ones? Faces, photos, their writing is on the wall. How can you click unfriend?

Cleaning, I find an old postcard from my long-gone grandmother, and it’s not a pretty postcard. El Paso is not a nice picture. But it’s her handwriting, now a limited edition collector’s item. I can’t throw it out, just the same as you don’t dare un-follow Elizabeth Taylor on Twitter.

Besides, a cyber cemetery takes up no space and you don’t have to drive to get there. It’s both eco-friendly, and did I mention hygienic? Here you can visit their walls and join the ultimate guest registry, grieving with others in a community of commiseration. Sometimes (chronically), I check in to see who over-shared. Obsessing on Facebook is more than just stalking your ex.

Their birthdays arrive and I stop by to watch the nostalgia and miss yous and Oh girl, you would not believe! scroll in. At times, usually drunk, I head to those walls to type something maudlin or to read the latest testaments and platitudes and humanity. I finally got that job, Kathleen is getting married, Because of you, I want to live.

Sentiments like these make me want to create a profile page for all the dearly departed. We could connect, suggest friends and memorialize them within the online patchwork quilt of a not-so-social networking website. They can all live on Deadbook. But to have them mixing and mingling here with us?

It might be different if they were in on the haunt. If one had the foresight to bequeath passwords and name ghostwriters, one could –Jesus was right! – live eternal. They could play vampire wars, share posts about quantum physics, definitely RSVP attending to the Fetish Ball. My friends might have gotten a kick out of that.

Wondering what they might have wanted raises a question we may all one day have to answer. Another heady end-of-life care question alongside whether you’d like to be revived if you stop breathing or if you’ll donate your corneas. Do you want us to pull the plug on your Facebook page?

Do I pull that plug on the suicide, the aneurysm, and the overdose? Could they care? Cyberspace doesn’t exist any more than they do. It only lingers, pregnant in the void, a virtual reminder to tell the living what you’re saving for their wall once they’re gone.

Jesse Archer, Come On Down!

The catchy theme song swells, bells are ringing, lights flashing, those immortal words and my dream come true: Jesse Archer, come on down!!! You’re the next contestant on the Price is Right!

The audience goes wild, the zippy music climaxes, and the camera finds me. My hands are at my face, fluttering in disbelief. I race to contestants’ row, and even though I run track for USC, I’m totally winded: Bob Barker is looking right at me. The immortal Barker Beauties are live backstage, perhaps poised upon… a brand new car!

Are you a winner, Jesse? asks Bob, and suddenly I remember I’m on national daytime television. Everything about me disappears. I sure am, Bob. I bellow. The voice that surges out is twelve octaves below my register, coated in a mysterious honky-tonk twang.

Thankfully, all attention has shifted to Kathleen, who wheels a gigantic popcorn popper out onto the stage. She was a scandal way back when, because Kathleen was the very first Barker Beauty of color. That blew over quickly once it became clear that black Kathleen looked just as good fawning over a Frigidaire as blonde Janice or Diane, or the redheaded Holly.

Now here she was, the girl who busted the television showgirl glass ceiling, caressing the spokes of this exquisite item up for bids. Giant wheels support the gilded carriage of an antique popcorn popper; it looks straight out of a Monet. Kathleen glides her pink manicure across the popper, playfully kicking up a heel.

What’s your opening bid, Jesse? I belch from the pits of hell, $1,000. I’ve only heard an oboe hit a note that low, and it terrified me. Households across the country pause to wonder if Bob Barker is performing an exorcism. But it didn’t sound gay, did it? Phew, because the year is