From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: TheVoice, Mutual Admiration Societies, what have you (was Re: redefining masculinity)
Date: 17 Aug 1992 01:48:45 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <1992Aug17.072014.5557@wam.umd.edu> 
jns@wam.umd.edu (J. N. Shaumeyer) writes:
> arne adolphson (adolphso@mizar.usc.edu) accuses 
> *me* of being voice-ist [almost]:

I did nothing of the sort!
 
> > How sweet of you.  But then what would *you* know about being
> > disatisfied with one's voice, Silver Tonsils?  <Bats eyelashes> 
>
> Ha!  Me?  I go along with Jack: when I hear my own
> whiney, nasal voice on tape it *grates* on my nerves.

Whiney and nasal?  That's what *my* voice sounds like.  To me it
does, anyway.  Your voice is really delightful -- melodious, pitched
well, clear-toned.

> But then, who am *I* to dispute your evaluation?
>
> [GM, butch talker, seeks same for manly conversation.]

He's not a particularly *butch* talker, and we've never had
*manly* conversations, but if what you'd like to hear is a
*deep* voice with a hint of bluegrass, I suggest you give
Jack Hamilton a call.

> > Don't you think I'd sound, um, nicer, if my voice were lower 
> > and huskier?
>
> Not at all.  I like your voice; it's you.  I suppose
> that had it been lower and huskier it would have been
> you too, but it's too late now.  I don't see why it
> would be an improvement over your already Euphonious
> Voice.

*Euphonious*?!  Well, thank you.

Euphonious?

> I *am* interested in TheVoice, however.  I have been
> said to demonstrate it at times too, and I believe it.

I, too, am interested in it.  And yes, you do demonstrate it.

> Listening closely when a [straight] friend of my attempts
> his version of camp, with a try at TheVoice [which is an
> interesting test case because he does it *so* miserably], 

I have a gay friend who's absolutely *hopeless* at TheVoice.
Curious.

> it would seem to have more to do with emphasis, rhythm,
> and modulation than with pitch, although pitch might
> change its perception by others.

I suppose you're right about pitch.  Just listen to Harvey 
Fierstein.  I'm trying to think of what my friend Michael and
I sound like when we're trading insults.  Or what a friend of
mine from *years* ago (who since then has decided he's really 
straight, so he got married and now has two kids and weighs
almost 300 pounds) sounded like when we carried on conversations
larded with lines from movies. (His favorite, which he'd quote
whenever I so much as looked like I was going to touch something
belonging to him, was "Hey! Get your meathooks offa my radio!" 
[from _Midnight Cowboy_]; my favorite, which I'd say whenever
he told me he was going somewhere -- like the bank, or the
laundromat, or the bathroom -- was "That's big news.  Where
else *could* you go?" [from _Beyond the Forest_].  This sounds
terribly idiotic, I know, but you have to imagine two queens
carrying on an animated conversation in which each tries to 
outdo the other with obscure lines from movies.  I guess it
still does sound idiotic, but it forced me to pay very close 
attention to movie dialogue.  In fact, I'm still constantly on 
the lookout for inane lines, and not just run-of-the-mill
inane, but whoppers.)  

So where was I?  Oh yes, how Michael and I, and Jim and I, sound.  
I talk much faster when I'm doing that kind of thing, and I know 
I do all sorts of things with emphasis and rhythm and modulation, 
but I'm not exactly sure what it is that I do with them.

> Still, what's wrong with TheVoice?  Shame on you,
> Arne dearest.

I know, I know.  Nothing's wrong with TheVoice.  And I like it
from other men.  It's just that sometimes I wish I sounded like,
I don't know, Yul Brynner rather than Franklin Pangborn.  Although 
something tells me I would have had more fun talking to Frankie 
than to Yul.  Maybe I should join a gym and muscle up and forget 
about vocal coaches?

Arne