Nearly eight years to the month I started this column, the time has come for me to say 'night-'night. It's been real, let's do lunch, K.I.T. have a wonderful summer, et cetera.
Seriously, though, I'm gonna miss this.
In early 2005 I was asked by Steve Moore, then editor of Out Las Vegas, to write what he saw as a Sex in the City column for gay locals. I told him I didn't want to write about my love life, which was boring, but I'd love to write about other stuff. I didn't know what, specifically, but figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it (every month). My debut piece was about the dilemma of who should pick up the check on a gay first date, since we homos have no traditional rules to follow like our straight friends.
(What a stupid premise for a column! Obviously the person who initiates the date should pick up the check. How was that ever not clear to me?)
Vanity led me to name it "Marrs Attacks," because I thought it sounded cool even though I wasn't a big fan of the Tim Burton movie. I still do like the pun, insofar as one can like a pun, but ever since reading "A Room of Jean's Own" in The Onion I have felt a bit like the self-centered cat-loving recluse they lampoon.
If I could start this column today I'd call it "Life Is Fucking Fucked, You Guys" and it would instantly seem 20% less narcissistic.
(Seriously, life is fucking fucked. I went on a three-day juice cleanse and weighed exactly the same afterward as I did before. How does that happen?)
I wish I could say I was retiring this column in the name of paying it forward and giving the space to someone who deserved it more. Or that I had some huge blow-up with Kirk and Tracy at Windy City Media Group and was being forced to resign amid a lascivious scandal of stolen photos and bisexuality. Or that I had simply wised up and devoted my career to investment banking because enough with this artsy-fartsy crap, already. But, the real reason is less interesting.
I've taken a new job that is going to have me writing for the local LGBT community, so I can't be double-dipping.
Scandalous!
Joking aside, I want to thank some people before I go. I want to thank Kirk and Tracy at Nightspots and Windy City Times for letting me write pretty much anything in this space since 2008. They gave me a ton of freedom on the page, and for that I am extremely grateful. Brent Meredith at Out & About Newspaper, Laura Grotz at Outlands and Reno Out, and Chris Campbell at QVegas also extended similar trust in previous years, and I am deeply thankful to them as well.
Enough about people you don't know. The rest is about you! This might be the first time you picked up this magazine (at a bar, drunk, looking for pictures of you with that hot shot boy from last Friday's shower contest at Spin), or you might be the fanatic who calls the magazine to report typos in the porn reviews. Either way, I want to thank you for reading. You have 100 billion things you could be doing with your time, and you chose to spend some of it considering my goofy drivel. I might sound sarcastic, but I'm not. You have my sincere gratitude.
The time you took to read this little column in its varying forms is time you could have put towards anything else, and I respect it. It's time you could have spent watching Drag Race, or playing Fruit Ninja, or even saving the world, but you chose to read this instead. I thank you for that.
I thank you for not saving the world.
Much love,
Homer
Follow Homer on Twitter @HomerMarrs