"No, wait, stop right there," said Sam.
I feathered on the brakes, but had no idea what she was talking about, because we were miles from any exit.
"Not the car, the radio," she said, reaching over to pick up my phone and hit pause. "I wanted to talk about that."
The song was Weezer's Pink Triangle, about falling in love with a girl who turns out to be a lesbian. I'd mostly been zoning out while Sam vaped next to me, and we kept going down the road while she tapped at my phone. It was lazy interstate driving with hardly any cars around, no need to touch the gas or brakes, just cruise control all the way and stay between the lines.
"Alright, here's the lyric," she said. "Might have smoked a few in my time / But never thought it was a crime." She looked at me. "Is that about gay sex?"
"This is what you wanted to talk about?" I asked.
"Yeah, absolutely," Sam nodded. She repositioned herself with her leg tucked under her so she was angled at me, and it made me want to do the same, but I had to face the road, since I was driving. "Like, it's a song about being gay, he says 'everyone's a little queer', I want to get your read on this."
"Is Rivers Cuomo gay?" I asked.
"I think he's a little queer," said Sam. "Like, that's something that people who are a little queer say, 'everyone's a little queer', I don't think that's something that comes out of the mouth of someone who's a Kinsey 0."
"I mean the other interpretation of that line is that he was smoking pot or something, right?" I asked. "Rather than smoking pole?"
"Don't say that, that's offensive," laughed Sam. "It makes you sound homophobic."
"Women can, notably, also smoke pole," I said.
That made Sam laugh harder. "And now you sound like a douchebag!"
"I just think it would be weird to casually say 'yeah, I've sucked dick' in a song like that," I said. "Especially circa, uh, mid 90s. I do feel like reading it as weed makes sense. And ... can't we just look this up?"
"Death of the author," said Sam.
"No, come on, the author is a construct, you read Foucault's 'What is an Author?', don't tell me you didn't," I replied.
"I read The Order of Things and swore off Foucault," said Sam. She ran her fingers through her hair. "But my argument is about what the line means, and you're saying, 'hey, just go look up whether Rivers clarified that, or whether he's bi', and I don't hold with that."
"Right, but why?" I asked.
"Because it's fun," she said. "It's fun to look at a lyric like that and say, 'but what did he mean by this'."
"I mean, I'm driving, I'm not going to look at my phone," I said. "So if you want to keep spitballing, that's fine. But my read is that he was talking about smoking a penis. It wouldn't make sense for him to dip into talking about drugs for a single line in a song that's mostly about falling in love with someone who has an incompatible sexuality."
"I think 'smoking a penis' is somehow worse than what you were saying before," said Sam.
"But I think trying to tease apart an artist's work and say 'wait, are they gay or what' is kind of gross, I guess," I said. "I mean, yeah, he made that song, he put it out there, but there are ways of interacting with a work that get kind of, uh. Uncomfortable."
"Did you ever see the movie It's Pat?" asked Sam.
"No idea what you're talking about," I replied.
"Okay, so, there was this movie, which came from an SNL sketch, and the premise is that there's this person, Pat, who is really androgynous," said Sam. "And the joke is, no one knows whether Pat is a man or a woman, and Pat will say things that seem like they confirm one way or another, but it'll turn out to be some dumb joke. Like Pat will fall and say, 'aw, my nuts!' and then the other characters sigh with relief, because now they know Pat's gender, but then Pat pulls some crushed walnuts out of Pat's pockets."
"Jesus," I said. "You know how people say 'no way you could make that today'? I think in this case, that's actually true."
"I think if they had the balls, they could do a fucking great Pat sketch," Sam laughed. "Like, they're sitting in a circle and everyone is giving their pronouns, and Pat just says, 'whatever pronouns you want to use are fine with me'? Or, Pat has a gay pride flag on Pat's desk at work, and no one can figure out which flag it is? Pat says 'everyone's a little queer!' and people sit there all uncomfortable because is the implication that Pat is queer, and in what way?" She snapped her fingers. "Pat says 'I'm post-op' and no one knows which way."
"You're bringing this back around to Pink Triangle, right?" I asked. "And, for the record, I think the premise of 'isn't it fun and interesting to investigate someone's gender or sexuality' is kind of, uh ... suspect."
"Yeah, absolutely," Sam nodded. "But there's a line there, right, where what Pat is doing is just living Pat's life. And what Rivers is doing is leaving somewhat ambiguous, deniable hints in the art he makes. And I think that's a lot different. If the artist puts something out there, it's an invitation to talk, isn't it? You can't make some art and then say 'also, no one talk about this aspect of it'."
"But if he'd said that, we'd just death of the author it, right?" I asked.
"Sure, of course," said Sam. "That's what you do." She sat back in her seat. "Alright, we can continue with the song." She looked over at me. "Was that better or worse than the I Kissed a Girl discourse?"
"Oh god, so much better," I replied.
"Nice," said Sam. "By the end of this road trip, we'll have figured out how to have a conversation."
