Queer Eye for a Rabbi

My radio producer volunteered me as a subject for "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." I doubt I'll go through with outing myself on national TV as an unprocessed hillbilly, but I am intrigued by gay men having become the straight man's "messiah."

"Queer Eye" is based on the premise that heterosexual men are today's coarse savages who need their chest and back hair (wait, isn't that a rug?) waxed. Bad-mannered brutes and barbarians with apartments that look like Beirut. Unlettered in stylishness, unschooled in being gentlemen, they need to be rescued from their boorishness by the guys they used to give wedgies to in the locker room.

In one recent episode, the Fab Five poured into the home of a quiet cowboy with two brain cells and one eyebrow. His apartment looked like a barn and smelled like a stable. His five o'clock shadow made him the twin of Uday Hussein. He planned to propose to his live-in girlfriend.

The Fab Five made it clear that in his primitive condition only a she-wolf in heat would agree to marry him. So they plucked his eyebrow and taught him how to make chocolate mousse. Presto. "And on the sixth day, the Fab Five created man."

As I watched this clueless cowboy being taught how to clean up after himself, dig wax out of his ears, and speak romantically to a woman rather than his horse, it suddenly struck me that this is exactly what the women in my life did for me.

My mother taught me how to tuck my shirt in and how to keep my room tidy. If I used foul language, she'd wash my mouth out with soap.

My wife taught me how to act like a gentleman, especially in the presence of a lady. If I ate with my mouth open, she would gently rebuke me. Before I gave a public speech, she'd straighten my tie and take the lint off my jacket. And because her face lit up when I bought her flowers, she taught me chivalry and the power of the romantic gesture.

But how can women teach men these things today?

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