Where were the Lesbians?
Hey folks. Just a few words in response to Matthew T. Everett's [April 19] cover story, "Growing Up Gay":
While I applaud the Metro Pulse's initiative in giving a very public voice to Knoxville's oft-silenced GLBT (gay lesbian bisexual transsexual) community, I am disappointed in the narrow scope of the piece. Reading your article, one would think that Knoxville's gay and lesbian community is populated only by men, and that they are the only ones who have had difficult and heart-wrenching experiences coming out to family and friends and continuing to live in some degree of painful secrecy and/or persecution.
The gay women of this city are represented by one lone woman, who garnered a whole three paragraphs out of the entire piece. Her experience is explicitly cited in the article as the exception to the rule, the one example of how growing up gay "is not always bad" or complicated.
If your aim is to represent the experience of being gay in Knoxville, you have to recognize the implications of representing all of the difficult, painful aspects of that experience with only the stories of men. According to your article, Ms. Reeves is fortunate enough to have had a seemingly smooth coming out experience and, one gathers, lives in blissful lesbian harmony with her Knoxvillian sisters.
While I am happy that at least one lesbian in this city is able to claim as much, I believe that, as good journalists, the folks at Metro Pulse should have recognized and acknowledged that this piece was more about what it means to be gay and male in Knoxville. While we gay women share much with our male counterparts, our story is not the same. Knoxville is a difficult place to be gay, for men and for women.
Nevertheless, thank you for this piece, despite its omissions. I would love to see your publication delve even more deeply—there are so many voices that remain unheard.
Jessie Shires
Knoxville
Mis-taken Identity I
After reading the recent article [April 19] entitled "And There's Unreal" I'm a bit dismayed about how your reporter approached Johnny Knoxville with such insincerity. There is much more to the man than the sketchy story that you presented. His claim is true about being the original Johnny Knoxville—a 1990 home video exists with him in his regimental attire in a short interview at a local party. Your article breezed over Mr. Knoxville's true merit in favor of the contest between him and the MTV lampooning imposter.
There is also the fact that he was a developer of holograms in the late '60s long before it became a mainstream curiosity. He is a master photographer and a LASER buff from that era as well. This should have been mentioned as well.
Go ahead, Metro Pulse, and embrace the hack with the stolen name, the MTV carnival geek who is besmirching Knoxville's gentle name on national TV. Maybe he is Metro Pulse's favorite as the real Johnny Knoxville (a lame idiot with no taste who is joining in with so many in the media showing Knoxvillians as primitive dunces, too kind and shy to stand up for themselves). Compare him to the inventor of the electric motorcycle, the philosopher, writer and artist as well, then maybe Metro Pulse can write about the "Unreal."
David O'Dell
Knoxville
Mis-taken Identity II
I've known the real Johnny Knoxville [Citybeat, April 19] since Oct. 31, 1993 when he showed up at a Halloween party at the office of his friend and confidant John Fairstein at DRA, Inc. in Knoxville. I have pictures from that occasion that show the General in full military regalia.
Please help this man maintain his identity. There's nothing so sad as a loss of identity, when a man with a name becomes a nonentity. No crude compensation ever suffices to help overcome such identity crises.
Jeff Dobson
Knoxville
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