There's a video that's going viral, and it is pure poetry. It involves local queer comedian Robin Trevino of GayCo who wanted Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana to cater his wedding. Not because the pizza is good or even that he particularly wanted pizza at his wedding, but because Memories Pizza made news when the owners said they would not cater a gay wedding.
I asked Robin a few questions about his video, and he caught us up on what happened next.
Well first off, how was the pizza?
The pizza looked terrible, but it tasted okay. I put it in a cooler in my trunk so it would stay fresh and then heated it up during the show. People thought it was pretty okay. It looked like a dried out floppy mess, even when it was fresh.
What backlash, if any, have you gotten?
All of my friends and family got the joke. I have an improv friend who is a minister and he wrote to congratulate me because the story made it to his soccer blog in England. He appreciated the joke and thanked me for being as kind as I could be, given the circumstances of the bit.
All of the bloggers and news outlets have been very kind and understanding. They get it. Two years ago, I decided to stop reading comment sections, but of course I had to read the comments on my own story. I'd say 90 percent of the comments are negative. Even on gay blogs. The great debate has been over the definition of the word catering. It reminds me of Bill Clinton's "It depends what your definition of the word 'is' is." I enjoy my trolls, though. They're awful and stupid, but they're mine and I love them. I feel like all the nice people of the world gave up on comment sections years ago, and this is what we're left with. It's ugly, but it makes sense that the worst of us are trying to keep up the fight, hurling insults into cyberspace. When this blows over, I'm resuming my ban on comment sections.
Have you heard any word from Memories Pizza?
At first, Memories would not respond. Then they spoke to The Blaze and said, "...He found a now-viral video that showed a gay man ordering pizza from his restaurant and then triumphantly serving it at his ceremony 'silly.'" GayCo's official response was, "Yes, it was." They definitely missed the point. They feel like they didn't cater our wedding because they didn't know what the pizzas were being used for. Of course, that was the whole point of the joke. "Memories Pizza Unwittingly Caters A Gay Wedding" was the title of most stories. Oh well, if it helps them sleep at night. God knows that they bought ingredients, cooked food and took money for pizzas that were consumed at a gay wedding. The last I checked, they did not cancel my credit card transaction after they found out what I used the pizzas for.
Tell me more about 50 States of Gay. Was this specifically for Indiana?
50 States of Gay is GayCo's newest revue. It's not necessarily sketch comedy or improv. It's more like a variety show. Each week we pick a state out of a hat at the end of the show, and the cast of six has a week to create their own individual bits for the following performance. We opened with Massachusetts, so I played a flamboyant actor who pulled audience members to read scenes from Good Will Hunting. When it was Georgia, I dressed up as a giant peach, playing a fifth grader giving an oral report on his home state. Then we picked Indiana. The second I read the slip, I immediately thought of Memories Pizza. This week was Louisiana, and next week is Alabama. We run through Halloween, Saturday nights at 7:30pm at Under the Gun Theater.