Notes from inside "Mr Hetero" : IMC Worcester

Heading down Main Street, the first thing you saw was the flashing police lights.

The street was closed off in front of Mechanics Hall, and the steel barricades seemed out of proportion to the few dozen protestors who'd assembled to kiss or vigil in opposition to the event inside.

I headed around to the back entrance with the "Queer Kiss-In" contingent, and although I would have rather watched cute women make out on the street, I went inside and bought my ticket to "Mr. Heterosexual Massachusetts 2006."

As I entered the hall, the sound system was blasting U2's "In the Name of Love."

By 5:40, there were nearly 50 people in the room, including staff and police. Though the hall is said to seat 1600, a few hundred of these seats were in the balcony, which was not open for this event, and a large area at the back of the hall was left seatless.

A smattering of the crowd wore pink "100% Hetero" tees. I'd heard rumors of people planning to "crash" the event, but nobody wore pro-gay items. I myself wore a "It's Hard to Be Humble When You're From WEST VIRGINIA" ballcap.

Many of the attendees knew each other; all the handshaking and chatting was more like a church picnic than the crowd at an entertainment event.

The crowd was generally young and hip-looking; few gray heads in the audience.

Video was projected on a screen above the stage, showing ads for Crouse's book and Mr. Hetero-branded merchandise.

6pm--the official starting time. Close to 80 people in the audience. No more than 100, certainly. I'd heard rumors of local college kids turning out to disrupt the event, but the only college kids I saw were there to support it.

The crowd reminded me of the time, a couple years ago, when I went with some friends from junior high to a basketball game at Oral Roberts University. The people were conservative, Christian, middle- or upper-class, and thoroughly pleasant. They were happy, polite, and unlikely to cause trouble or turn ugly.

By 6:10 something like 140 people were there. The emcee came out to say that someone was late due to an accident on the Mass Pike, so things would be delayed.

Telegram & Gazette reporter Milton Valencia interviewed me at 6:15. What with the reporter:audience ratio being what it was, it would be a trick to not be interviewed.

He asked me why I was there, and I answered: "I always go to the circus when it's in town. And this is the circus." (Oh, how wrong I was.)

I also said I was disappointed that the press had concentrated on Tom Crouse's anti-gay attitude, without considering his anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and anti-most-Protestants attitude. The story, for me, was not just that the guy didn't like homosexuality, but that he was a nice guy who had trouble hiding the ugly part of himself.

As part of the interview, Mr. Valencia told me that the T&G had pursued Mr. Crouse's anti-everything attitude, but that they'd decided not to run anything substantial about it because of "an editorial decision."

At 6:25, Mr. Hetero started. John Mason (?), the "National Coordinator," welcomed us and introduced Tom Crouse of Engaging Your World Productions.

Mr. Crouse welcomed everyone, and took a moment to welcome those who disagreed with the event, mentioning that: "If you disrupt the event, that will mean a quick escort by" the Worcester police.

A young black pastor from Springfield said the opening prayer. (He was the only black face in the room.)

Crouse: "How many have listened to the radio show?" 10% of the audience raised their hands. Crouse had the manner of a stand-up comic. He told few jokes, but said even the most bland statements in a way that had the audience anticipating a punchline. Many internet critics have insinuated that he is gay himself, but he came off as both straight and charismatic.

At 6:30, he announced that there would be 7 contestants, selected from 30 applicants. There was no opportunity for anyone else to enter the contest, and, being the most macho man for a radius of several miles, I felt like the $100 first prize had been stolen from my pocket.

As many as 200 people were now present, about the number of tickets reported sold in Worcester Magazine.

Four women took the stage as judges, one young and three middle-aged. One was Mr. Crouse's wife. The seven contestants entered. Two of them were young men. One of the middle-aged men looked like my second cousin Denny.

Crouse explained that on his radio show they have a "politically correct baby" sound effect that cries when someone says something politically incorrect. He mentioned the mythical "war on Christmas." He then said "Merry Christmas," and asked the audience to respond, and a crying noise came over the PA. He tried this several times more during his intro, with little response from the audience.

I think that using the phrase "Merry Christmas" to thumb your nose at people is as bad as not saying Merry Christmas in the first place. Talk about using the Lord's name in vain.

To be fair, one person in the audience was enthusiastic about the "Merry Christmas" call-and-response: the guy sitting next to me.

The first event was to explain why duct tape is useful.

The first contestant used duct tape to remove his chest hair, with Mr. Crouse's help. If the local press is as sleazy as I suspect, they will run a photo of Mr. Crouse patting this guy's naked torso.

The following contestants were less wild.

In between the contestants, various disco songs played, making one question the hard-core hetero-ness of this event. (They included Kung-Fu Fighting, Brick House, Where Is The Love, and so on.)

Crouse then led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance in the name of "political incorrectness", although no flag was present. I bowed out, both because there was no flag and because the Pledge smacks of idolatry. Crouse then had the audience stand and say the Pledge to the absent Flag again. Some even saluted. Crouse said, "A lot of places, they're trying to do away with Under God," perhaps not aware that Under God was inserted because of a campaign by the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus. Crouse has called the Catholic Church an "evil web."

I don't approve of saying the Pledge out of anger. If having sex out of anger is a form of rape, what is saying the Pledge out of anger?

The audience had been handed ballots to judge the contestants, but many seemed unsure of how to mark them. They had no purpose, as it turned out.

While U2's "Mission Impossible" played, the next event started: the chip contest. The entrants blindfolded themselves, then raced to identify different kinds of snacks.

The key strategy here was to raise your hand as soon as each round began, as Crouse did not accept shouted-out answers, and he was so slow getting the mic to the contestants that, by the time he could get the mic to you, you would have already judged the chip in question.

In the first round, a contestant (the eventual winner) guessed "Lay's Original" for what was actually "Lay's Classic," and a close audience vote gave it to him. I was glad to see that the audience almost disqualified his answer---this is the kind of hard-coreness I had paid $12 to experience.

At one point someone on stage began to bitch about people wanting to take "In God We Trust" off the dollar bill, which pissed me off. What about all the Masonic symbols?

Then there was a round of Miss America-style questions for the competitors, about World Peace, Starving Children, and so on.

One competitor was asked, "What is your passion?" He named several. Crouse then metioned that the guy was married, and the guy sheepishly said that his wife was another passion, though "She's kind of mad at me because I'm here." Why was she mad? This was not pursued.

One could not help but note three major Hetero things that were missing from this pageant:

* The Three Stooges
* Procreation
* Anything that might lead to procreation

Mr. Crouse's daughter Tina sang a religious song.

Then Jonathan Owens (?) from Indiana took the stage to talk about how he was healed from homosexuality. (There had been almost no mention of sexual preference up to this point.)

Mr. Owens grew up in a Christian home. His father was the pastor of his church.

At age 12 (1996), Mr. Owens became addicted to internet porn, which he viewed at an undisclosed location outside his home.

At age 14, he felt "attracted to men as well" as women.

At age 15, he was using alcohol and drugs, and decided he wasn't attracted to women. He was sexually involved with two guys. "I hated looking in the mirror afterwards." "I lived this double life."

At a retreat in 2000, at age 16, he had a conversion experience, and left homosexuality behind.

I felt for this guy. It must be tough to be exploring homosexuality while all the people around you condemn it.

At the same time, I'm not sure this guy was ever gay. Many, if not most, men have homosexual experiences in their teens. Many, if not most, of them feel sexual confusion. And most of them turn out straight before too long.

This was like inviting someone to be keynote speaker at an AA convention who says, "When I was 15, I got drunk a couple times. Really drunk. Haven't touched the stuff since."

Mr. Crouse then preached. "It's not about being homosexual or heterosexual--that's not the point." He favored the exclamation style of preaching, in which most statements are shouted, with the occasional statement in a normal tone of voice for contrast. His preaching style had no connection to his emcee style.

He tried an "altar call," asking people to come up and receive Jesus as their savior. No one was forthcoming, and Mr. Crouse invited several pastors up to the edge of the stage, then called for an intermission, suggesting that the audience might want to talk to the pastors.

Most of the audience returned after the intermission, and the contest continued. I was weary.

Next was contest "#3," which was the fourth contest by my reckoning. After blaspheming "Merry Christmas" a couple more times, Mr. Crouse asked the contestants to recount how they'd proposed to their wives, or how they WOULD propose, if they were not married.

This is the contest that the contestants were most excited about. Crouse had to interrupt one guy and kick him off the stage.

Another guy tried to get his wife to come onstage to reenact the proposal, but she wouldn't. The guy thought of using Crouse as a prop, but used one of the female judges instead. Mr. Crouse: "That wouldn't look good in the paper--him on his knees in front of me."

(This was possibly the last reference to sexual orientation of the whole contest.)

At 8pm was the fourth contest, "Open Talent." I was ready to go home. I'd been in the hall 2 1/2 hours, and the show had been going on for 1 1/2 hours.

One guy did a version of "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha," which bombed and was disturbing enough to make Napoleon XIII jealous.

The best talent began with the contestant saying "There's nothing more hetero than 80s rock and roll," then singing along with Journey's "Faithfully." His moves weren't much, but he sang from the gut. Mr. Crouse's wife saluted him with the devil horns, as did one member of the audience (briefly).

This was by far the most entertaining thing of the night. By standards higher than my own, this was the only entertaining thing of the night.

A couple guys did skits, which reminded me more than ever of the lame things adults would try at scout camp.

The fifth competition was ripping magazines in half. The first magazine was Sports Illustrated, a fairly slim one. The second was Oprah's magazine. Crouse: "I've been called every name under the sun because of this magazine." He denied any specific agenda behind destroyng Oprah's magazine. Supposedly someone called his radio show and suggested it, and it sounded like a fun idea. Supposedly there was no other agenda, and he didn't consider that people would search for an agenda and assume he was racist, misogynist, and so on.

There was lots of cheating on the Oprah magazine. Any way that you could cheat to rip up a magazine, these guys tried it.

Crouse: "I want to thank you for coming, for having the courage to come."

There was a standing ovation when he introduced the Mechanics Hall staffers who made Mr. Hetero possible.

Finally, at 8:40, the trophies were awarded. The "Journey" guy won. They got trophies, but no mention was made of the cash prizes. I was reminded of how $100 was as good as stolen from me.

Crouse described the Mr. Hetero competition as the "First ever. Last ever too, the way this one is going."

The PA played Queen's "We Are the Champions" and Crouse sang along. (How is this resisting the Gay Menace?)

My recommendations for future Mr. Heteros:

* Make the thing a celebration of heterosexuality. Nix the stuff about being saved from homosexuality. It derails the event, and attracts protesters.

* Find some way to not have to pay $6500 for police protection. Otherwise you'll end up deep in the red.

* Hold it in a church rather than a concert hall. You're not going to get enough people to fill the hall. There was a monster truck rally this weekend, which attracted all the real heteros.

* Don't ask people to pay to watch a bunch of amateur hams goof around on stage. It's kind of entertaining, but this stuff should be free, not $12 .

Leaving the hall, one woman said, "I wish it was more well-advertised."