It’s no secret: I love the Seattle Gay News. Over its 4,000 years of publication, the SGN has distinguished itself as the closest thing the publishing world has produced to a Showgirls, by which I mean an unfailingly bizarre parade of oddball humanity and jaw-dropping failure.

As with Showgirls, it’s hard to pinpoint just what makes the SGN so reliably mind-boggling. Is it the hilarious typos? (“Fighting Addition in the Gay Community a Top Priority”). Is it the awesome headlines placed atop stories by arts reporter Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid? (For The Lady in the Water: “A classic kid’s ‘boogeyman’ film that’s good for adults too”; for A.I.: “A.I.: More Kubrick than Spielberg, but still good.”) Is it the syndicated features on auto repair used to fill out the paper during slow weeks? Is it the regular columnist who wrote of his battles with blackouts and seizures in the paper’s front section then advertised his skills as a sensual masseur/pro-dom top in the back? Yes, yes, and YES!

More than anything, the SGN is a relic of the bygone era of gay journalism, when gay writers could only get published in gay papers, and the only requirement for getting published in gay papers was to be gay and have something to say, no matter how divorced from reality or grammar.

I leave you today with an example of the kind of sweet gay kookiness that regularly finds its way into the SGN. The following appeared on the paper’s letters page of last week, also known as the most significant week for gay rights in Northwest history. Nevertheless, the SGN found room to publish this, under the title, “A Harried Older Gay Man” (sic throughout):

Recently a friend asked me about how many different hair styles I have worn throughout the years. Although I watched many Gay men change hair styles throughout this time. I didn’t make any real efforts to change my looks via hair cuts. There have been a variety of different hair styles throughout the years including long hair, business cuts, short styles, buzz cuts, totally bald and perms. Although I have escaped some of those different styles, I did use several varieties of mousse, aerosol sprays, hair tonics, and balms. When approached about coloring my grey hair, the answer has always been NO. I don’t feel comfortable with the thought of being blonde, redhead, or brunette. Signed, a harried older Gay man

I love you, SGN!