Savage Whiner.... er Weiner!

A Savage letter?

Right-wing talkmeister Michael Savage is raging against a report suggesting he was once a good deal friendlier toward gays.

Radar magazine reports that, back when he was a botanist known as Michael Weiner, the syndicated radio host was friendly with poet Allen Ginsberg. According to the mag, on March 8, 1970, Savage wrote to Ginsberg, who visited him in Fiji:

"After speaking to you on the phone ... I walked downstairs to the school courtyard, where a little-known black brother looks at me, takes my hand gently, we do some old-world lower East Side finger tricks, and he peacefully kisses the back of my hand - I do the same for his hand. I told him about our brief talk and he says, 'I must have felt the vibes.'"

Radar says the letter can be found among Ginsberg's collected papers at Stanford University. Ginsberg, who belonged to the North American Man/Boy Love Association, wouldn't seem to be on the "buddy list" of Savage, who once said, "The gay and lesbian mafia wants our children!"

But then, Radar reports, Savage's "thinly disguised confessional" novel, "Vital Signs," did have a protagonist who admitted he was drawn to "masculine beauty," saying, "I choose to override my desires for men when they swell in me."

Savage, who is married, calls the Radar story a "smear campaign" launched by "gay fascists."

"Maybe I have amnesia," Savage tells us. But "I never wrote such a letter."

posted by Stash @ 3:09 PM