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| This article captures Ed Wood in his "Cliff Clavin" mode. |
Ed Wood died less than four years before the TV sitcom Cheers debuted on NBC in September 1982. Isn't that wild? They seem like they belong to two very different eras of popular culture, but they were closer than you'd guess. In fact, I think Eddie would have been a great character on the show, had it taken place in L.A. instead of Boston. From his writing, I gather that Ed was contemptuous of "beer bars" and "beer joints," but the man clearly loved to drink and to socialize, and a bar like the one in Cheers would have allowed him to do both. (Fun fact: Eddie's last apartment was only two miles from the Paramount soundstage where Cheers was filmed.)
In the 1960s, director Joe Robertson owned a bar in North Hollywood called the Surf Girl, and Ed Wood was a regular there, sometimes even showing up in drag. I bet everyone there knew his name. I can imagine a bedraggled Eddie coming into the bar after a hard day—his wig crooked, his makeup smeared—and everyone yelling, "ED!!!!"
In the past, I've compared Ed Wood to Cliff Clavin, the motormouthed, know-it-all mailman John Ratzenberger played so ably on Cheers. I think Eddie considered himself something of an expert on numerous topics, and he was not one to keep his opinions to himself. This side of his personality comes through in his writing occasionally. I've also referred to this as Eddie's "professorial mode" in which he aims to dazzle us with his knowledge. And this week, we encounter another sterling example of this phenomenon.
The article: "Never Too Late—Never Too Soon." Originally published in Boyplay (Gallery Press), vol. 2, no. 2, May/June 1973. Credited to "Dick Trent."
Excerpt:
So here were these fellows coming out of the fields for the first time and being told that they were homosexual, and that was the reason they couldn't make it with the girls. And the preachers simply threw up their hands in disgust. These boys, finding out that they were to love only partners of their own sex couldn't return to their original homes … they were banned to wander the wastelands of the cities without friend or future.
Reflections: A rambling nonfiction article, "Never Too Late—Never Too Soon" expands on the ideas expressed in the editorial from this same issue of Boyplay: homosexuals have been around a very long time but, due to prejudice and persecution, have had to live in secret until recently. Ed Wood addresses his readers in a rather formal way, like we're the jury and he's a lawyer giving his closing argument. Granted, he's a lawyer who showed up soused to the gills, three hours late, and it's not even the right courthouse, but you get the idea.
In making his case for homosexuality, Ed Wood cites a truly impressive roster of gay men throughout history. Here is where we see just how well-read Eddie truly was, since some of the names on his list are rather obscure. I will admit that I'd never heard of Greek lyric poet Pindar (circa 518 BC- 438 BC), Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), Russian art critic Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929), French author André Gide (1869-1951), or German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). In my investigations, I have found that these gentlemen led quite scandalous lives, often chronicling their homosexual experiences in prose. I think that's what brought them to Eddie's attention. Apparently, when Ed Wood visited his local library, he spent plenty of time poring over the memoirs of long-dead gay men.
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| A young recruit is tested in WW2. |
After that, Eddie further explains how homosexuality "certainly isn't something new" but that the records of it have been kept away in musty, dusty old vaults, well away from the general public. This is a curious idea that Ed revisited many times throughout his writing, as seen frequently in When the Topic is Sex (2021). I'd never really noticed that trope until When the Topic came along; now I can't ignore it. Eddie was truly convinced that there were secret rooms of forbidden books hidden in libraries across America! Meanwhile, anyone who dared to be openly gay was imprisoned or executed.
So what changed? How did homosexuals turn the tide, at least in America? Eddie attributes it, as you might guess, to World War II. See if you can follow his logic here. Young men from across the country, including those from small towns, reported for their induction physicals and were subjected to tests that determined if they had any latent homosexual tendencies. Many were told that they did, and this was their first indication that homosexuality even existed. That realization ultimately led to the sexual revolution and the more widespread acceptance of gays. It helped, Eddie claimed, that many of these young men had talents in the arts.
But when "Never Too Late" was originally published, America was again at war. Eddie doesn't often mention the Vietnam conflict directly in his writing, but this article is an exception. Interestingly, he describes the war as "recently concluded," which seems premature since the Fall of Saigon wasn't for another two years! In any event, he claims that those same old tests from World War II were used again and that those men with homosexual tendencies were still excluded from military service. Was this a good thing? A bad thing? It's almost impossible to tell because, by this point, "Never Too Late" has become completely incoherent. Eddie is just stringing words and phrases together in an attempt to sound profound. Like so:
But the individuals found they had another kind of taste … they were human and they refused to be humiliated any longer simply because they didn't like sex in the way somebody else liked it. They were individuals first … human beings … and they must find out why they should be kicked in the ass and the guy doing the Missionary Position is commended highly for producing more and more to the population explosion.
Incidentally, Ed Wood has shown his contempt for the missionary position and procreation in his other writing, so the sentiments expressed in "Never Too Late" are typical of him. For some reason, whenever he talks about the missionary position, he both capitalizes and italicizes it.
Ed Wood's own sexuality was labyrinthine, and his exact views about sex can be difficult to discern from his films, novels, books, and articles. I feel like, if you'd asked him about it, his answer would have lasted forty minutes, and at the end, you wouldn't really know any more than you did when you started! That's what reading "Never Too Late—Never Too Soon" is like. The most I can say for sure is that this article was at least intended for a gay male audience, and Eddie does what he can to be encouraging to them. He advises gay men that, if they want to be heard, "the voices must be raised above a falsetto."
Good to know, Eddie.
As for the meaning of the title, reader David Michael Taylor has some ideas:
His article's title would seem to refer to being gay. There was a song I heard at my very first Pride march (back when they were still marches and not parades) that had a chorus that began: "Better blatant than latent/Better latent than never." That's how I read this title.Ed was on the right track with WWII leading directly to the gay male sexual revolution, though not exactly as the way he portrays it. By making a point to persecute gay men, the military introduced troops to the concept that some men identified as homosexual, as opposed to homosexuality being limited to sexual behavior. By forcing gay troops to go underground, they laid the foundation for their lives outside the military.That persecution did continue after that war. My late friend Bob was kicked out during the Korean War for writing love letters to his on-base boyfriend. My late friend Richard survived his service by going underground. By discharging troops in cities such as San Diego, San Francisco, New Orleans and New York, the military inadvertently created modern gay male communities. I think he was being metaphorical about the dusty old vaults, but books that told the truth about sexuality that wasn't hetero were, indeed, hidden away and hard to find.
Thank you for sharing, David. He also forwarded a link to an article about queer veterans.