The Todd Glass Situation (19 page)

I also decided not to talk about it after the show, when I went out with a group of comedians, because I didn't want to create a situation where people would say, “Oh, so
that's
what it's all about now.”

For the first time, I really understood how much it must suck to be that person who's dealing with racism or sexism and gets accused of “pulling a card.” Look, do people sometimes bring race or gender into situations where it's just irrelevant? I'm sure that they do. But I'll bet that the majority of the time the feelings are warranted. And I'll bet a lot of those people do exactly what I did that night—I sucked it up and turned inward.

And then there was the radio show in a southern city that I will not name. There are moments, when you're writing a book like this, when you look back on a negative experience and you don't want to give the responsible parties any credit for what they've done. So I'm not going to tell you who these guys are. It's enough to say that these aren't the kind of radio hosts who say things that are poignant or from their hearts. These are the kind of radio hosts who intentionally say stupid, uneducated shit hoping to stir up controversy. Once in a while, they succeed. They know who they are. I like to think that by not mentioning their names, I kind of limit their options to, “Hey, see right here, those dumb guys that he's writing about? It's us!” Or maybe
they'll embrace it, handing out copies of the book and telling people, “We're the assholes in chapter 36!”

I had no intention of bringing up my sexuality on their show. My only agenda was to do what I'd done the previous twenty-nine and a half years: be funny.

But they brought it up. One of their very first questions was this: “If you were going to kiss one of us, which one of us would it be?”

Look, if you've ever seen a comedy roast, you know how merciless comedians can be. I can take it and, when necessary, I can dish it out, too. “The truth is,” I answered, “I wouldn't kiss either of you ugly motherfuckers. I'm a halfway decent–looking guy with a halfway decent career and, if I'm going to kiss somebody, I'm going to kiss somebody good-looking.”

That got a laugh. But they kept going. And going. One dumb question and snide remark after another. Anything can be funny if it comes from an intelligent place. But this situation was in a different area code from anything resembling intelligence. So I stopped being funny and tried to check in with these guys to see where they were coming from.

“Do you think I was born this way?” I asked them. “Do you think this is a choice that I made?”

I actually have to give them credit for what they said next, because at least it was honest. “No,” they replied. “We don't think that people are born that way.”

Later that night, I was still steaming about the interview. I was talking to a few people after a show, recounting what had happened, when a waiter at the club, a straight guy I'd never met before, said something that really stuck with me. “I get why you want to prove that you were born the way that you are, but
who the fuck cares? I'll tell you this: Those guys chose to be uneducated.”

I realized he was right. It couldn't have been easy for those guys to ignore so much logic, so many facts and studies. Talk about a fucking choice!

A few nights later I was back in Los Angeles. I'd just done a set at the Improv and was hanging out backstage with a few comics, including Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis. I was telling a story that involved Chris.

“Who's Chris?” Zach asked.

I could feel the familiar ache starting in my belly. “Chris,” I said, holding up my fingers to make air quotes, “is my ‘friend.' ”

And for a second, I felt horrible.
Why couldn't I just have said “boyfriend”? Everything that I've been through over the last few weeks . . . Have I really made any progress at all?

Until Sarah said, with that adorable way that she says things, “Aw, look at you, Todd . . . You just had a breakthrough!”

Maybe a year from now I'll be able to use the word “boyfriend.” Maybe I won't even need the air quotes.

The
other day I was driving with a friend of mine when he asked me, out of the blue, “Hey, I know this sounds a little campy, but how's life been?”

Not too long ago, Chris and I broke up. Under normal circumstances, I might have kept this private. But given how many lies I've been telling my whole life, I'd like to try to live the rest of it without telling any more. I'm not going to go into all of the details as to why our relationship ended, but I will say that neither of us did anything wrong.

I don't want this to sound like a downer. Of course it's sad when you break up with someone who you've been with for fifteen years, but we're handling it amicably, with love, care, and patience. We even returned to couples therapy for a few
sessions to help us remain friends. We still talk all the time. Part of Chris will be in my fiber for the rest of my life, just as I'm sure that part of me will remain in his. I'm not negating the days when we both get depressed, but we should both be proud of the way we're handling this. We lasted longer than most marriages because we did a lot of things right. It's still a journey, but we're headed in the right direction.

I still don't like to use the word “gay.” Maybe I'll always have too much baggage associated with it. I don't really like saying that I've “come out of the closet,” either. Why couldn't it be something a little more manly, like “stepping out of the garage” or “busting out of the toolshed”?

My act continues to evolve. It started slowly, making air quotes for audiences when I talked about my “girlfriend,” earning big laughs from the people that knew. But it was hard to fathom the idea of coming clean in front of a crowd that didn't.

Before a show in Amsterdam last July, my friend Daniel Kinno suggested I talk about it onstage. I was scared shitless. I wasn't ready. But I remembered yet another piece of advice from Louis C.K.: “If you don't feel ready, talk about
that
—talk about not feeling ready.” That night, I made another joke about my “girlfriend,” adding the air quotes.

But then I kept going.

“The only problem is, I don't really have a girlfriend. I have more of a guyfriend . . . Folks, if I'm not honest about this, Daniel is going to scream at me when I get offstage. So are you all crystal clear on what I'm telling you? I've managed to perform onstage for thirty years without talking about it, so it's a little difficult.”

I told a couple of jokes about “busting out of the garage”
and how I preferred the term “partner in crime” to “boyfriend.” (What's my crime?
Disobeying God!
) Then I did another hour of comedy that didn't have anything to do with my sexuality. The applause at the end of the show felt great, but it felt even better to realize that, for the first time ever, every single person in the audience knew the truth about me.

Every day I've been reaping the benefits of being honest. Gone are the days of having to tell small lie after small lie until the weight of it all starts to feel like it's going to crush me. My friendships are more honest. If I'm feeling happy or sad about something that happens in my love life, I don't have to tell people that I won the lottery or that I'm upset about an argument I had with my mom.

So how's life going?

Pretty great!

How about you?

How's your life going?

I'm
guessing that if you've read this far then you're probably already in agreement with some or maybe most of my social views. But I get a lot of emails from all sorts of people with all sorts of beliefs, so I know there are people out there who don't think the way we do. I hope some of these final thoughts will provide you with ammunition to deal with these people in the future. And even if you already agree with most or all of the points I'm hoping to make, sometimes it's important to preach to the choir—it helps us to remember that we're not going through this world alone. We're all in this together.

Obviously there will be some people who, no matter what I say here, will never let it sink in and affect them in the way that I hope. I'm talking about openly hateful people who refuse to let go of their preconceived notions and join the rest of us in the twenty-first century. My first choice, of course, is that they change, learn, or evolve past their hate. But if some people can't be helped, maybe all we can do is wait for them to die and hope they don't cause too much damage before they do.

But there is a different group of people who I desperately want to reach out to—the people I like to call the “90-percenters.” These are people who consider themselves to be open-minded and forward-thinking individuals but are still, whether they're aware of it or not, hanging on to some last little bit of prejudice or misinformation.

Maybe you're a person who doesn't have a problem with gay people in general, but you still wish that they'd drop the marriage debate. Or, while you don't consider yourself racist—you might have coworkers or even a few friends of different ethnicities—you'd prefer that your kids marry within your own race.

This is a very dangerous line of thought.

A while back I got an email from someone asking me if the fact that they didn't support gay marriage made them homophobic. “I don't have a problem with gay people,” the person wrote. “I just don't know why they need to get married. What's wrong with the civil unions?”

First of all, the argument sounds a lot like an “open-minded” person from the 1950s asking why black people need
to use the same bathrooms as whites. “Didn't we give them their own bathrooms?” Doesn't sound so open-minded today, does it?

But the fact that you're going to look ridiculous later isn't the dangerous part. When you're 90 percent okay with something, it's easy to convince yourself that your beliefs aren't really hurting anybody else. “Maybe I don't support gay rights,” someone might say. “But it's not like I'm tying kids to the back of my truck and dragging them to death.” That's true. But the people who do commit this kind of violence aren't necessarily drawing the same distinction between themselves and you. They think of themselves as directly aligned with you and your ideas, and that the major difference between you and them is that you don't have the balls to do what they're doing.

“But Todd, I don't have a problem with gay people—let them do what they want. My son's roommate is gay and he's a great guy. We had him over for Thanksgiving last year. I just wish they'd stop with the marriage thing—that's between a man and a woman.” Fine. But do you know what a really homophobic person just heard you say? “Gays aren't equal.” That last bit of hesitation on your part might be all the motivation they need to commit a horrible hate crime. And the worst part is that they feel like they're doing it in your name. How does that make you feel?

Now is the time to step up and get to 100 percent. Maybe you're wondering exactly what that means. Shortly after I came out on
WTF
I got an email from a young father struggling to do right by his son. They were at Home Depot picking out a color to paint his son's room. The kid wanted pink. “Why don't you pick another color?” the father suggested. “Maybe blue? That's a little better for boys.”

When the boy refused to change his mind, they scrapped the whole idea and went home. Later that night, his father had a chance to think about what happened. Why does it matter what color he wanted to paint his room? All he was doing was trying to express himself. A really evolved parent would encourage this kind of free expression, not stifle or make him feel bad about it.

Let's be clear: What this father did was far from the worst thing in the world. This wouldn't have been a monumental case of fucking with a child's psychological well-being. But—and this is the part of the story that really resonated with me—why mess with your kid on any level? Why not strive to always be the best, most caring parent you can be, no matter how small the gesture?

To the father's great credit, he went back into his son's room and asked him one more time which color he wanted his room painted. And the best part? Dad was hoping that it was still pink.

Now if you're already there, you should be commended for that. But even if you're at 100 percent, you can still do more. Don't sit quietly and wait for the rest of the world to catch up to you—give the world the help it needs to move along.

Let's say you're at a dinner with your family or coworkers and someone says something—it doesn't have to be overly hateful, but still narrow-minded or prejudiced. Why not correct them?

“Well, because what they just said isn't
that
bad and I really don't want to ruin everyone's night by making a big scene.”

But what about the people at that table who are directly affected by those comments? Maybe there are gay people
there. Maybe someone has a gay child. Or maybe they're simply evolved, open-minded human beings. How do you think they feel?

I can tell you from experience that standing up for them in that moment would make their night. Don't worry about ruining dinner for someone who doesn't give a second thought about ruining someone's life. It doesn't have to be a big fight that ends the night or a five-hour debate that spoils dinner—a well-placed sarcastic jab will let people know where you stand and make them less likely to make the same comment again, at least when you're around.