Comments on: The Brief Etymology of a Gay Bash

By: E. Bell

E. Bell — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:18:12 +0000

Louis, lots of people are icons of history (Stalin, Genghis Kahn, Idi Amin), but that isn’t enough to recommend following their examples. I actually have a fairly tempered view of Castro, believing him to have evolved into a dictator more as a result of global political forces (including American aggression) rather than through any plan of his own. In fact, I find the Cuban Revolution to be quite fascinating and worthy of admiration in some regards. However, you cannot ignore that Castro has become a dictator over time and that his views on homosexuality are worthy of condemnation by right-minded people.

By: Louis Price

Louis Price — Fri, 21 May 2010 03:11:41 +0000

Fidel Castro would always be an icon of history evethough he is against the U.S.’*~

By: E. Bell

E. Bell — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:01:33 +0000

Okay, here's what I found. First I asked Twitter friends. They made pirate jokes at me, so that didn't really go anywhere. Then I asked a historian of queer culture, who replied with the following:

I have not heard the phrase. If it is a reference to male prostitution and you haven't found any Latin links, it may have its roots either among the southern Louisiana French (where [Burroughs] lived for a while before he went to Mexico) or North Africa (from his days in Morocco). Another possibility is that it may be a reference to scoring drugs--hallucinogens, perhaps?

Drugs seemed the most likely to be documented so I checked that and sure enough, "El Perico" is used in various Spanish dialects for parrot or parakeet, as well as white coffee or snow, as in cocaine. (Sources: Urban Dictionary and Spanish Dict) On the other hand, you might still be right. This could be a double entendre (meaning both "Williams buys cocaine" and "William buys a male prostitute") turned pun when he actually ends up buying an actual parrot. This film, I believe, was part of a trilogy of Burroughs-penned short films directed by Antony Balch, so you might check into that and also find out where the films were created to get an idea of what the language and imagery means in those environments.

By: E. Bell

E. Bell — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:51:10 +0000

Hi Rick, great question! So far, I haven’t found a good answer, but I will ask/search around and hopefully come up with something solid. Regardless of whether that is/was a phrase in common usage, it seems quite likely that, given Burrough’s proclivities, his use of opaque metaphorical language, and the appearance of the “leather daddy” in the film, we might surmise that the film is suggesting something like what you have interpreted. Again, I’ll look into it some more.

For anyone else interested, the film is here: http://www.ubu.com/film/burroughs_parrot.html

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 04:42:03 +0000

This is a question more than a comment. I found on youtube a short film called “William S. Burroughs Buys a Parrot.” In it Burroughs goes to an apartment or residence and is met at the door by a young man wearing a motorcycle cap–the black ones with visors, similar to military hats or to Greek sailor caps. It appears to be the beginning of a homosexual encounter, and the title suggests to me a homosexual encounter based on payment for services.

Is “buy a parrot” slang for hire a male prostitute for homosexual sex? Or perhaps is the expression a joke in the film based only on the word “parajito,” as explained in your article, a double entendre, and there is no slang expression “buy a parrot.”