Age is a State of Mind, Somewhere Near Nebraska

What a year it has been! After surviving the odometer rolling over to 40, I had a year of sabbatical. That gave me plenty of time to think about my mid-life crisis next steps in my career. It turns out that I needed to make some important adjustments to my plans. Now I have a new writing project, hints of which can be found in this post. I also have a new attitude about returning to the soul-crushing service that had drained me of ambition before my leave. Seriously kids, stay clear of administrators who take your labor without gratitude.

I also feel much better about being in my forties than I did at this point last year. Sure, my local supermarket has started sending me targeted coupons for adult incontinence undergarments. In my heart, I know that I am at least two years away from needing to take advantage of them. Most of the television that I watch also seems to be sponsored by reverse mortgages and joint-pain supplements. At least the marketing demographic profiling appears consistent.

What I mean to convey is that there is a new GayProf in town ‘cause I’m feelin’ good. Get a smile, get a song, for the neighborhood. There’s a new GayProf in town on his own two feet and this GayProf is here to say with some luck and love –- Wait, that might be Alice, not GayProf. Although I had heard that she doesn’t live here anymore.

Whatever the case, another year means taking a moment for some much needed comparative stock with where other people happened to be at this same point with their lives. Won’t you join me as we find out what it meant to be 41?

If I were Johnston McCulley at age 41, I would have invented my most enduring and popular character, Zorro, four years ago. I would continue to write Zorro stories for another thirty four years.

If I were Truman Capote at age 41, I would be finishing In Cold Blood this year.

If I were Ronald Reagan at age 41, I would marry Nancy Davis this year. I would also become the host of General Electric Theater. This is not to say that my career might have hit a dead end. My last starring role, however, would have found me competing for screen time with a chimpanzee. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

If I were Diego de la Vega at age 41, it would have been seventeen years since I set out to foil injustice with nothing more than a rapier, mask, and long flowing black cape.



At 41, if I were Montgomery Clift, I would co-star with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable in The Misfits this year. I would also be nominated for an Academy Award for Judgment at Nuremberg.

If I were Marilyn Monroe, I would be dead.

If I were Pancho Villa, this would be my last year as a military commander.

If I were Linda Lavin, I would be starting my second season in Alice.



If I were Queen Isabella I of Castile, I would complete the brutal so-called “Reconquista.” I would also issue my Alhambra Decree, expelling people of Jewish faith from Castile and Aragon. Finally, I would send Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic to claim new lands for my crown. It would be a year that would show me not to be a particularly nice person.

If I were Pierre Trudeau, I would be an associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal.

If I were Clark Gable, this is the year that I would lose my wife Carole Lombard in a plane crash.

If were Corky Gonzáles at age 41, I would organize the Chicano Youth Conference, the first of its kind and a major milestone for the Chicano movement.



If I were Candice Bergen, it would be another year before I would be cast as the eponymous character in Murphy Brown.

When Murphy Brown turned 41, she had been sober for one year.

If I were Gene Roddenberry, I would be working on launching the show The Lieutenant. It would be another two years before I started production of Star Trek.

If I were legendary folklorist Américo Paredes, this is the year I would earn my Ph.D. It would be another two years before my most famous work, With a Pistol in His Hand, would be published.

If I were Dorthea Lange, I would have just become famous for my photography documenting poverty and suffering during the 1930s.



If I were J. Edgar Hoover, I would have just started as Director of the newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigation. Civil liberties everywhere would take a giant step backwards.

If I were Bayard Rustin, I would be arrested in Pasadena, California on charges of “sex perversion” with two other men who were with me in a parked car. It would be another ten years before I would be the logistical mastermind behind the March on Washington.

If I were Douglas Fairbanks at age 41, I would make the film The Thief of Bagdad. It would have been four years since I originated the role of Zorro on film. Next year, I would have the audacity to play Diego de la Vega’s son in the sequel Don Q, Son of Zorro despite being sixteen years older than the character.



If I were Mae West, I would be at the height of my film career, releasing Belle of the Nineties.

If I were Mary Tyler Moore, this would be my last year playing Mary Richards.



If I were Reies López Tijerina, this is the year that I would lead an armed raid on the Rio Arriba County courthouse in New Mexico.

If I were Gloria Swanson, it would be another ten years before I would play faded star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulvard.

If I were Lyndon Johnson, I would start my first year in the U.S. Senate.

If I were Murphy Brown's boss, Miles Silverberg, it would have been sixteen years since I started working at FYI.



If I were Ellen Burstyn, this is the year that I would dodge projectile vomit in The Exorcist. It would be another year before I would win the Academy Award for Best Actress for my work in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.

If I were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, my former secretary would release a tell-all book about working for me this year.

At 41, I would return to my role as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek:The Motion Picture if I were George Takei.



If I were Jimmy Carter, I would be in the midst of serving my second term in the Georgia State Senate.

If I were Oscar Wilde at 41, this would be the year that I would try to prosecute my lover’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, for libel. That would turn out not be such a good idea.

If I were Guy Williams, this is the year I would start playing Professor John Robinson on Lost in Space. It would have been four years since my last television appearance as Zorro.

If I were Billie Holiday, I would release my album Lady Sings the Blues, my last for Clef Records.

If I were Isabel Allende, I would win Novel of the Year from the Chilean government for my book The House of Spirits. It would be another twenty-two years before I would write Zorro.

If I were Chris Christie, I would have no moral compass.

If I were Lily Tomlin, this is the year that I would make 9 to 5.



If I were Martin Luther King, Jr, I would have been dead for two years.

Jane Fonda, at age 41, starred in the film Coming Home. I would age another two years before I teamed up with Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin for 9 to 5.

If I were Scott Walker, I would be a college dropout.

If I were Kate Jackson, I would be starring in the short-lived sitcom Baby Boom.

If I were Pearl Bailey, this is the year that I would release Pearl Bailey Sings for Adults Only, one of my best.



If I were Elizabeth Montgomery, this is the year I would make the controversial television-movie A Case of Rape.

If I were Batman, I would be a knockoff of Zorro.

If I were Farrah Fawcett, it would have been a year since I starred in Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story.

If I were Ted Cruz, I would be totally nuts.

If I were Dick York, this would be the year that I would be replaced by Dick Sargent as Darrin Stephens in Bewitched.




If I were Jaclyn Smith, I would be starring in Rage of Angels: The Story Continues. Disappointingly, the titular angels would have no relation to Charlie.

If I were Bobby Jindal, I would be completely delusional.

If I were Cher, this is the year that I would star in Moonstruck, for which I would win an Academy Award. Snap out of it!



If I were Dolly Parton, I would record the much acclaimed album Trio with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt.

If I were Tyrone Power, I would be touring the United States and Canada in the play The Dark is Light Enough. It would have been fifteen years since I portrayed Zorro.

If I were Wonder Woman, I would age another 2,450 years before joining Patriarch’s world to fight crime.

Life Continues at Forty

GayProf’s ol’ odometer rolled over yet again this past June. At some point I expect that I will be due for a tire rotation. For those keeping tack, I have now entered the forties. Growing up, my mother had a plaque hanging in her bathroom with the phrase “Life begins at forty.” The optimistic assessment appeared juxtaposed to a lesser-known Rockwell painting showing a bored middle-aged woman sipping coffee with an inattentive husband buried in the newspaper. Less ironic than cruel it seemed to me.

Such pervasive messages about aging can really warp us. Even I, my dear and loyal readers, succumb to doubts. Then I think about where other people happen to have been in their lives at 40. It turns out that for many people life really did begin at forty. Well, except for the ones who were already dead. Their lives were never quite the same. . .

Whatever the case, as we all know, I use my birthday as a time to take stock of my life by making comparisons to others’ life journeys, real or imagined, at the same age. It is a little ritual that we have at CoG. Just play along and it will be fine.

If I were Oscar Wilde at age 40, I would write both An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest this year.

If I were Zebulon Pike at age 40, I would be dead. It would have been nine years since I published my journals about being captured by Spanish authorities in New Mexico. It would have been six years since I was blown to bits in the War of 1812 at the Battle of York.

If I were Rosalind Russell, I would make the film Mourning Becomes Electra this year. It would be another ten years before I would play Auntie Mame on Broadway.

Should I have been born George Blanda, I would play professional football another eight years before retiring.

If I were Malcom X, I would have died last year.

Had I been Billie Holiday at age 40, I would be working with ghostwriter William Dufty on my autobiography Lady Sings the Blues.

If I were Paul Walker at age 40, I would die unexpectedly in a fiery car crash.

Mae West, at age 40, made her first two major movies She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel this year, both with Carey Grant.




If I were Carey Grant at age 40, I would be starring in Arsenic and Old Lace.

If I were Miguel A. Otero, I would be governor of New Mexico.

If I were Will Rogers, I would be in the midst of a three-year contract with Samuel Goldwyn. It would be another three years before my syndicated column started appearing in The New York Times.

If I were The New York Times, my headlines would include a public feud between Rear Admiral Bancroft Gerardi and Acting Rear Admiral John G. Walker in the U.S. Navy.

If I were Pearl Bailey, I would release my album Gems by Pearl Bailey this year.




If I were Cabeza de Vaca, I would land at Tampa Bay, Florida with the doomed Narváez expedition. Only three others of the original 600 would survive with me.

If I were Tecumseh, this is the year that I would establish Prophetstown, My charismatic leadership would make this town into an early base for a confederation of tribes committed to challenging U.S. incursions into the Great Lakes region.




If I were Stella Payne, this is the year that I would get my groove back.

If I were Lorraine Hansberry, I would be dead.

If I were the nation of Mexico, Queen Isabella II, Queen Victoria, and Napoleon III would all have signed an agreement to force me to resume my loan payments. This would start the time in my life that we would later refer to as the Second Mexican Empire.

If I were George Eliot, I would publish my first novel, Adam Bede, this year.

If I were Myrna Loy, this is the year that I would film The Thin Man Goes Home.

If I were either Nick or Nora Charles, I should seriously be considering joining Alcoholics Anonymous.




If I were Frances Drake, I would reach Sierra Leone this year.

If I were Captain James Cook, I would be making my first voyage across the Pacific Ocean.

If I were James T. Kirk, I would be the youngest admiral in Starfleet and the Chief of Starfleet Operations. Apparently, though, that just wouldn't be good enough for me. This is also the year that I would use the V’Ger incident as an excuse to displace William Decker as Captain of the Enterprise in a futile effort to reclaim my youth.



If I were Elton John, I would win my libel case against The Sun for publishing stories about me paying young men for sex.

If I were Eusebio Kino, I would abandon the Misión San Bruno in Baja California and return to Mexico City. Many indigenous people likely spent the year hosting parties as a result.

If I were Freddie Mercury, this is the year that I would play my final live performance with Queen in Knebworth Park.

If I were Popé, it would be five years before I would be one of 47 religious leaders arrested by Spanish authorities for “witchcraft.” It would be another ten years before I became a key leader in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

If I were Huey Long, I would break with FDR and oppose the National Recovery Act on the grounds that it catered too much to business interests.

If I were Álvaro Obregón, this is the year that I would become president of Mexico.




If I were Ellen DeGeneres, my sitcom would be cancelled this year.

If I were Emiliano Zapata, I would be dead.

Were I to have been Mark Twain at age 40, then I would publish The Adventures of Tom Sawyer this year.

If I were Muhammad, I would be visited by Gabriel and receive my first divine revelation.

If I were Divine, I would be starring in Lust in the Dust this year.




If I were Colonel Sanders, this is the year that I would start preparing fried chicken for folks who stopped at my service station in Corbin, Kentucky. It would be another few years before I perfected my herb-to-spice ratio. *cough*MSG*cough*

At age 40, I would decide to visit my brethren, the Israelites, if I were Moses.

If I were Andy Warhol, Valerie Solanas would shoot me.

If I were Stan Lee, this is the year that I would create Spiderman.

If I were Jame Michener, this is the year that I would publish Tales of the South Pacific which would inspire the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

If I were Captain Jean-Luc Picard, I would be in command of the USS Stargazer. It would be another nineteen years before I took command of the Enterprise.

If I were William T. Riker, nobody would care what I was doing at age 40. Poor Riker.




If I were Noël Coward, I would write This Happy Breed and Present Laughter this year.

If I were Pontiac, it would be another three years before I would attack Fort Detroit and start my eponymous war.

If I were Mary Richards, I would have been fired from WJM-TV three years ago.

If I were Walter Raleigh, this is the year that Elizabeth I would imprison me at the Tower of London.

If I were Mary Tyler Moore, I would win my fifth Emmy award this year for playing Mary Richards (and the third Emmy for that role).




If I were Harvey Milk, this is the year that I would be fired from my job as a financial analyst after protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

If I were either Jamey Carroll or Derek Jeter at 40, I would still be playing professional baseball.

If I were Meriwether Lewis at age 40, I would be dead. It would have been five years since I shot myself in the head . . . twice. Or somebody shot me in the head twice. We aren’t really sure what happened. My personal guess is that he suffered from an unrequited and totally gay love of Thomas Jefferson. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.

If I were fashionista, Alexander McQueen, I would die this year.

If I were GayProf, I would be starting a year sabbatical after two years of intense departmental service.

If I were Steve Carell, I would be appearing in Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s single-seasoned sitcom Watching Ellie. It would be another three years before I would make The 40-Year Old Virgin.

If I were astrophysicist Donald Clayton at age forty, this is the year that I would propose that the isotopic effects of condensed anomalous dust within supernovae could be found in meteorites. – Or something – I was never good at science.

If I were Vivian Leigh, I would suffer a major breakdown while filming Elephant Walk. I would be replaced by Elizabeth Taylor.

If I were James Baldwin, I would join marchers in Selma, Alabama demanding justice.




If I were Tennessee Williams, this is the year my play The Rose Tattoo would appear on Broadway.

If I were Marlo Thomas, I would star in It Happened One Christmas, a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life. I would make a subtle political statement by taking over the Jimmy Stewart role with Cloris Leachman taking up the task of being my guardian angel.

If I were Katherine Hepburn, I would make my fourth film with Spencer Tracey, the forgettable The Sea of Grass.

If I were either of my parents at age 40, I would have three children. The oldest, now twenty, would have moved out of the house. The youngest would be thirteen.

If I were Jaclyn Smith, I would star in the film Deja Vu.

If I were Dolly Parton, this is the year that I would purchase the obscure theme park Silver Dollar City and rename it Dollywood.



If I were William Clark, this is the year that I would complete my comprehensive map of the West. It would become the standard reference for a quarter century as trappers, traders, scientists, and other U.S. citizens became increasing interlopers on other people’s lands.

If I were Jesus, I would have been dead for seven years.

If I were Farrah Fawcett, I would star in Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story.

If I were Paul Lynde, this is the year I would first appear as the prankster warlock Uncle Arthur on Bewitched.

If I were Cher at age 40, this is the year that I would stun viewers of the Academy Awards with my Bob Mackie original. It would be another two years before I would win an Oscar for Moonstruck.




If I were Kate Jackson, I would star in the quickly cancelled sitcom Baby Boom this year.

If I were Jonathan Swift, I would be in London advocating for the government to provide the same subsidy to Church of Ireland clerics as it did for the Church of England. It would be another fifteen years before I would pen Gulliver’s Travels.

If I were Wonder Woman, I would age another 2,451 years before joining Patriarch’s world to fight crime.

Baby, If You've Ever Wondered

Another year has elapsed in the adventures of GayProf. We are starting the end of my thirties and it ain't pretty, people. Fortunately, I was able to have per-celebrations visiting VUBOQ and his Amazing Friends. There was much eating and drinking and climbing of broken escalators.

Apparently the Supreme Court also decided to give me an early gift by declaring me almost-human. Well, almost-human as long as my home state's legislature or court thinks of me as such. Whatever the case, as we all know, I use my birthday as a time to take stock of my life by making comparisons to others’ life journeys, real or imagined, at the same age. It is a little macabre habit tired gimmick ritual that I have. I’m not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

If I were Andy Travis at age 39, it would have been six years since I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio from my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico.



If I were Dolly Parton at 39, I would contradictorily record two songs entitled “Real Love” and “Don’t Call It Love" this year.

If I were Paul Lynde at age 39, this is the year I would make my first appearance in the television show Bewitched. My role was not Uncle Arthur (which I would originate at age 40), but rather the outlandishly mortal Harold Harold who attempts to teach Samantha how to drive a car.

If I were Mr. Carlson, it would be another five years before I hired Andy Travis as Program Director of WKRP.

If I were Paula Deen, I would be a racist idiot.

If I were either of my parents at age 39, I would have three children. The oldest would be nineteen and the youngest would be twelve.

If I were Oscar Wilde, this is the year I would produce my play A Woman of No Importance.

If I were Lyle Waggoner, this is the year that I would leave The Carol Burnett Show to play the role of Wonder Woman’s boyfriend, Steve Trevor. Aside: The realization that I was the same age as Steve Trevor sorta made me feel better about aging.





If I were Harvey Milk, this is the year that I would move to San Francisco for the first time.

If I were Che Guevara, I would be executed this year after failing to incite revolution in Bolivia.

If I were Dick Sargent, this is the year I would replace Dick York as Darrin Stephens in the television show Bewitched. Apparently, Elizabeth Montgomery liked to hang around the gays. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

If I were Les Nessman, I would have met Andy Travis last year. Aside: The realization that I was the same age as Les sorta made me want to kill myself.




If I were Adam West, this would be my last year playing Batman. I would, however, continue to do the Batusi on demand.

If I were Venus Flytrap, it would have been ten years since Andy Travis convinced me to quit my job as a science teacher and become a DJ.

If I were Marylin Monroe, I would have been dead for three years.

If I were Miguel Antonio Otero II, I would have been governor of New Mexico for two years.

If I were Mary Richards, I would have been fired from WJM-TV two years ago.




If I were Johnny Fever, Andy Travis would have freed me from playing music by the Hallelujah Tabernacle Choir in order to play rock’n’roll last year.

If I were Jesus, I would have been dead for six years.

Anna Nicole Smith died at age 39.

If I were Pearl Bailey, it would have been ten years since I appeared in Variety Girl with Bob Hope.



If were Leonardo DiCaprio, this is the year I would bore audiences with yet another film version of The Great Gatsby.

Activist Harry Hay officially launched the gay-rights group known as the Mattachine Society at age 39. Given it was 1951, he was considered quite daring.




If I were Sofia Vergara, this is the year I would be voted the “most desirable woman”.

If I were Billie Holiday, this is the year that I would first tour Europe and release my LP Billie Holiday for Clef Records.

If I were Alois Schicklgruber, this is the year that I would change my surname to “Hitler.” It would be another 13 years before the birth of my evil-incarnate son Adolf.

If I were Audrey Hepburn, this is the year that I would marry Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti.

If I were Dinah Washington, a.k.a. “Queen of the Blues”, I would die of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills in my Detroit home this year.




If I were Jennifer Marlow, nobody would know my age by my own design.

If I were Octavio Ambrosio Larrazolo, I would be practicing law in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It would be another twenty years before I would be the first elected Mexican American governor in the United States.

If I were Jenny McCarthy, this is they year I would pose for Playboy. Everyone else would wonder how I ever became famous in the first place.

If I were GayProf, I would be under the delusion that people still know this blog exists.

Jaclyn Smith at 39 was reigning as the “Queen of Television Mini-Movie” by starring in both George Washington and The Night They Saved Christmas.

If I were Kate Jackson, I would be diagnosed with a malignant tumor after my first ever mammogram. It would be my last year as one of the titular characters in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.

If I were Cher, I would have created the film production company Isis and filmed one of my most memorable roles as Florence “Rusty” Dennis in the movie Mask at age 39.

If I were Jacqueline Kennedy, this is the year that I would become Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.




If I were Barbie, I would become a Nascar driver this year because, why not?

If I were Spartacus star Andy Whitfield, I would die this year of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

If I were Franklin D. Roosevelt at age 39, this is the year I would contract my paralytic illness.

If I were Farrah Fawcett, I would win critical acclaim for my acting in the film Extremities.

If I were Wonder Woman, I would age another 2,452 years before joining Patriarch’s world to fight crime.