PALM PILOTS

I recently read Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin (Back Bay Books, 2021) and several of his remarks have left me thinking about how much things have changed. It’s an app world now but do apps deprive us of experiences? Indeed, Lin asks, “Is it enough to have a gay bar in the palm of your hand?”

 

I’m an old fogey. Searching for men on Grindr or some other app feels like using the Sears catalog to pick a package of underwear or, to modernize thinks only slightly, browsing the IKEA catalog for a new living room chair. 

 

In truth, it’s rare that I shop for anything online. I don’t like Amazon. I also don’t like how things are presented, how I can’t try on an article of clothing first. (“You can just send it back,” friends say.) I’m an in-person shopper. I like the experience more. I appreciate seeing things displayed in an actual room. I like the element of surprise, finding and buying something that was not on my list. 

 

Books come to mind more than any other merchandise. I’ll sometimes order from Amazon or, when I’m feeling more righteous, directly from the publisher, when a local bookstore doesn’t carry a particular title. Typically, however, I ask the bookstore owner to order me a copy. I have a long list of BOOKS TO READ on my Notes app on my phone. (That’s an app I love as a writer!) Still, I discover new books in stores and follow instant whims, the new treasure suddenly shinier, the other titles still saved on my reading list. 

 

To be sure, there is a lot I don’t miss about gay bars. I don’t like that the space inherently fosters a drinking culture. I’ve known many gay people my age who have struggled with alcohol. If the problem didn’t start in gay bars, these places certainly didn’t make the addiction any easier to deal with. I also don’t like how I might spot a cute guy only to never establish eye contact. So often, it felt like people looked right through me or past me. 

 

Still, there was the music. I loved how people would rush the dancefloor when the deejay played Madonna’s “Vogue” or when CeCe Peniston sang “Finally.” I could freely dance on my own or drag some or all of my gang onto the floor with me. 

 

That was part of the good stuff. When we went to a gay bar it wasn’t all about picking up a guy. I learned early on the odds were much greater I’d be going home alone. A little attention might be nice but, if not, it was a social night with friends. Dancing, laughing, catching up. If I hadn’t constantly hoped for—i.e., obsessed about—a boyfriend, gay bars would have been the source of even better memories. I met some of my best friends at gay bars or made the shift from acquaintances to good friends. Something about smiling and sweating profusely together while staying on the dancefloor for a fifth song in a row—anything by the Pet Shop Boys—will bond you.

 

Lin’s question again: Is it enough to have a gay bar in the palm of your hand? 

 

Old fogey says no. It doesn’t have to be a gay bar—later I got really into a gay volleyball league—but there’s something special about actual instead of virtual queer spaces. Sure, my answer is part of a more general sentiment: “Get off your phone!” In a real queer space, you can’t curate your experience as much. And that’s a good thing. Just like I find treasures in a bookstore, you come into contact with people whose thumbnail profile pic you’d have passed over. Conversations occur for a range of purposes, not just about whether someone is hookup material or has boyfriend potential. 

 

I should point out that I’m an introvert. If I’d had an app for meeting guys back in the day, I might never have ventured to gay bars. It would have been more convenient. I’d have saved gas. I’d have been spared in-person rejection which is worse than online crickets or ghosting. I know gay bars have changed. They seem to host a lot of drag queen shows that attract straight women. I hear some of my peers complain about this, but gay bars are trying to survive and if serving brunch mimosas to Suzie and her seven besties helps pay the overhead, then bring on the drag brunch! It’s partly because so many gays are hooked on apps that gay bars have a different clientele. We’ve relinquished what was once almost exclusive territory.

 

I may be part of the problem, too. It’s not apps that are keeping me away; it’s age. I’m partnered and well-settled. I don’t need to tell a stranger my coming out story. I don’t need a ten-dollar glass of ice with a few drops of vodka. But, yes, I would still really love to dance! However, even in my heyday at the bars, sixty-year-olds were not the common patron. Gay culture has always had an ageist element. But maybe it’s the same in the general population. Sixty-year-olds aren’t the target club goer where dancing is a prime part of the entertainment.

 

My last venture out was to a gay pub which isn’t quite the same thing. I was there to attend a memorial for a friend whom I’d met thirty years ago at, yes, a gay bar. Good times, sadly all in the past.

 

 

 

  

HAS THE LINE MOVED?

Never thought Kevin Spacey coming out would have people talking. But, from what I’m seeing online, there is some division on sideline sentencing and whether there is any guilt at all.

I don’t think anyone can convince me that he didn’t cross the line in making the moves on a fourteen-year-old actor. Some people offer the vague defense that many minors go to bars and lie about their age. Not the case here. Spacey knew Anthony Rapp and he knew the guy was a boy. It wasn’t at a bar; it was at Spacey’s space. Could alcohol have played a role? Sure. I just don’t know how drunk you have to be to think it’s okay to come on to someone who is fourteen.

The bigger debate centers around those gay bars between men, not minors. One man says he was groped by Spacey at a bar and suffered Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome as a result. That’s where many seem to side with #TeamSpacey. Some say the other guy must have been homophobic to have such a strong, lingering reaction. Others say groping is a normal act in gay bars. There is no history of gays asserting power over gays, like the advantage men have had over women. Men can be cavemen and, without a woman in the mix, one can expect caveman actions. There’s never been a social check to tell gay men that groping is not okay in a gay environment like gay bars.

I was offended the first times I was groped. What just happened?! Often, the contact came on a crowded dance floor or as a friend and I circulated through the swarms of men packed into a West Hollywood club at midnight on a Saturday night. It was like that grade school “prank” where someone taps you on the shoulder, you turn around and no one claims responsibility. It would happen over and over as classmates laughed. Annoying until you figured out who did it. Then you laughed along with the group, relieved to finally be in on the joke.

In the crowded gay bar, anonymous groping happened. One friend or another would say, “I just got my ass grabbed.” Depending on the groper and or the gropee, the reaction was “Ewwww” or “Congratulations!”

I was always incensed. To be sure, I wanted to be noticed. I wanted a boyfriend and, in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, the gay bar seemed like the best option. (Seems sad when I type that.) An ex of mine in L.A. said I had a perpetual deer-in-the-headlights look to everything. And he meant everything, gay or otherwise. Like I was some country bumpkin when I was actually a nice, naïve Canadian boy who happened upon Los Angeles by way of Texas. (It stunned me that everything about that self-description was considered a turnoff to most guys I met.)

For the record, I never took my shirt off in a gay bar either.

Part shyness, part body image issue, part common sense.

As long as I didn’t share anything about myself, I remained grope-worthy, at least to a few. Some weren’t even all that drunk. I never suffered PTSD. Groping was part of the gay bar ambience, along with all that smoke that seeped into my clothes, skin and lungs. The fact I found groping offensive made me feel like a bad gay. If it was someone I wasn’t into which was almost always the case—friends said I was too picky (Uh,…thanks?)—the grope was too forward, too creepy. On the rare occasion, I thought the guy was hot, the act left me confused. Is that like a bad pickup line? What am I supposed to do now? Grope back? Why couldn’t he have just said hi?

“You just need to get laid,” a peripheral friend would say. But then he’d disappear for the rest of the night to,…you know.

To be sure, I wanted to be noticed. I wanted a boyfriend and, in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, the gay bar seemed like the best option. (Seems sad when I type it.)

“You can’t be so sensitive,” a closer friend said. “And don’t you think he’s kinda cute?”

Miss you, Mary.

The answer was usually “No” and occasionally “Not anymore.” And then ten or fifteen minutes later, I’d say goodbye to whoever was still present in my little group of barflies, walk back alone to my parking spot, closer to The Beverly Center than the bars, and drive home, wondering, What’s wrong with me? Is this what gay is all about? Wasn’t the theme from the “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” supposed to be my song? What if I don’t make it after all? (Maybe I should’ve been more literal with my inspiration and followed Mary Richards to Minneapolis.)

My indignation made me a fuddy-duddy. I was out but still an outsider. Frequently I’d ask, “Is this all there is?” although I learned to keep the question in my head after the fuddy-duddy label. (I gave it to myself. People would just hear me rant, put their drink down and say, “Yeah, I think I’m going to check out the scene at Micky’s.”)

Basically, the feedback I got—expressly or otherwise—was that groping was just part of the gay bar scene. It’s what gays do along with drinking too much, taking Ecstasy and staring at the crotches of go-go boys. Too much real conversation was overrated, a buzz killer.

I revisited L.A. a few months before I turned fifty (I’m still pretending that was just yesterday) and some of the same friends and I found ourselves back in the same West Hollywood Clubs. There was a déjà-vu as the peripheral friend dumped us within the first forty-five minutes, leaving with a muscled twenty-something as though nothing had changed. At Rage, we danced and I got groped by a sexy man two decades younger than me. Instead of outrage, I was flattered, a sad reaction to what I’d always shunned. I knew all too well that I’d reached pasture-grazing status in the gay world. I didn’t have a beach home in Huntington Beach or drive a Mercedes or have personal trainer sessions three times a week like my ageless, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life peripheral friend. This ass grab made me feel noticed and younger. The guy didn’t even flee the bar when I turned and he saw my face in the admittedly dim lighting. Later, my group drifted to Revolver and yet again I got groped by another attractive younger guy. Still no indignation. Still flattered. I was a hypocrite. I was that desperate to feel young again, to feel looked at—even with a leer—instead of being looked past.

Maybe it is time for a new etiquette in what few gay bars remain. Before my time, I’d heard about sex in dark corners and backrooms but, at least to my knowledge, those things were the lore of an earlier generation. And, thankfully, I never had to figure out the colored hanky codes. We’ve done away with smoking in clubs. Perhaps it’s time for kamikaze groping to be retired, too. Should be easy to do away with. Anyone who wants random contact can hookup online or at some outdoor site that’s widely talked about on other internet sites. Maybe the clubs can turn up the lights a notch and people can actually get to know one another through sustained conversation. If we go retro, let us “Vogue” without that extra hand movement. Can we stop the anonymous groping in bars or is this still the wishful thinking of a (hypocritical) old fogy?

SO WHAT IF HE WAS

In the New York Times today, there’s the headline: “In Hunt for Answers, F.B.I. Follows Claims That Orlando Gunman Was Gay”. The possibility first surfaced as a Pulse patron was interviewed by a CNN reporter. He’d seen the killer at the club before. Said hello. The interviewee’s partner had talked further with the future murderer.

Please, no, I thought. Don’t let someone so savage be one of us. If any good can come from this nightmare, it is that there will be more open discussion about acceptance of LGBT people and the harm that comes from continued anti-gay religious dogma and political rhetoric. The haters look for anything to deny culpability. I shudder to hear them shoot back with, “He was one of you.” They’re not saying it yet. Even the haters—at least those not affiliated with a certain heinous Kansas church—have the sense to shut up for a while. But they’ll twist and distort anew once the next scary bathroom ordinance comes up for a vote or another baker bemoans a message two grooms want scrawled on a cake.

One of us.

We’ve all heard for ages how he who doth protest too much may be fighting something internal. The fag haters may very well be gay. The thinking is that the vial they spew deflects any shadow of suspicion. It’s an interesting argument and, yes, I’m sure that on occasion it is true. But I doubt that is true of the majority of anti-gay men. And I cringe that gay men hold onto this belief. It smacks of self-hate—I know you are, but what am I.

Thus far, according to The Times, FBI investigators “have not found any independent corroboration—through his web searches, emails or other electronic data—to establish that he was, in fact, gay.” Whew.

But what if they do? How could a man so conflicted about his sexual orientation take out his wrath on a group he may have been raised to shun? How could gay men have become the enemy? Wouldn’t it make more sense to turn one’s back on intolerant religious views? It’s futile to ruefully wish for logic regarding a cold-blooded killer.

There’s also the possibility that he had faced rejection by gay men. Repeatedly. After the massacre, there was much talk of gay clubs as being a refuge, a spot where one can stop checking one’s mannerisms and a place for celebration, maybe even connection. Sure, on any given night, all that is possible, but let’s not get too fanciful. I can recall many a walk back to the car feeling overlooked or flat-out rejected. I loathed the go-go boys, gyrating on a podium in well-packaged thongs and taking away any chance I could establish eye contact with spellbound above-average Joes. The go-go boys were merely scapegoats with six packs. Sometimes it can feel devastatingly lonely in a gay bar. Could negative experiences, combined with an upbringing of gay intolerance, have triggered the killer to snap? Again, too often we try to search for rational factors to explain irrational acts. We’ve already spent more than enough time thinking about and for the killer.     

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is quoted as saying, “People often act out of more than one motivation.” To be sure, the killer espoused radicalized views of terrorists. He wanted maximum carnage. But Pulse nightclub was a conscious choice. Gay, Latino men were targeted.  Lynch went on to say what has been said over and over since the massacre: “This was clearly an act of terror and an act of hate.” Whether he was or wasn’t gay, a range of influences—familial, religious, cultural, social, political—contributed to the fact that he hated gays. At this point, who he was is immaterial. It’s the contributing factors that bear scrutiny. These are the areas that must continue to evolve. They require our continued focus. Any further focus on the killer is a fruitless distraction.    

WHISKEY & A GO-GO

To my parents, I’ll always be fifteen. And to my dear L.A. friend, Benny, I’ll always be twenty-five. In most cases, it feels great when people think you haven’t aged at all. But sometimes it’s a hindrance. They associate you with a particular time in life and, along with lack of aging, comes lack of growth.

Benny and I were great friends, maybe even best friends, during the five years I called Los Angeles home. We became roommates, commuter mates, tennis partners and AIDS Project Los Angeles volunteers. But before all that, we were bar mates.

We met under false pretenses at Studio One, a large West Hollywood dance club. I stood alone, drink in hand, trying to look like I was having a good time. This was 1990, before we had hand-held devices to make being alone in public seem desirable. I had the choice of staring at the overly generous supply of ice cubes in what was ostensibly a rum and Coke or ogling the thong-clad go-go boys standing on block platforms. I chose ice. Benny fed me a lame line about being from out of town. As the eternally polite Canadian, I began to orientate him to the WeHo environs. Give me a safe topic and I can become chatty instead a shy, mumbling geek. It only took a few minutes before we realized he had just graduated from the university where I was attending law school. The truth came out. Benny was no stranger to West Hollywood.

What may have been a pickup line evolved into something far better. Right away, friendship seemed like the more obvious path. Instead of a one-night stand, we have a relationship that has lasted almost twenty-five years.

I laugh robustly whenever Benny and I get together. The frivolity is refreshing. But there is depth to the friendship as well. We shared crushes, anguished over breakups and grieved over Buddies who died from AIDS. We went through the Rodney King riots and the Northridge earthquake together. (At the time of the quake, my recent ex and Benny’s boyfriend both lived near the epicenter. We couldn’t reach them. In a panic, we rounded up groceries and drove to their houses, dropping off supplies.)

Despite all we’ve gone through, Benny still sees me as some sort of WeHo party boy. While living in L.A., our weekends began Thursday night and stretched through Sunday afternoon beer busts. For a while, all roads led to Rage. Or Micky’s. Or Revolver. Or Motherlode. Or Arena.

Or all of them.

Yes, it was fun. We’d dance and do laps at one establishment and then move on to the next. We’d talk in code about hot men we’d never dare approach. (It’s always nice to have a bar companion with completely different tastes in men. We never competed over hypothetical hookups.) There was a fair share of drinking, but I think Benny has a distorted recollection of that part. I slowly nursed a couple of drinks, primarily sucking on ice cubes. I knew when to stop. I never wanted to lose control. My hearty laughter, however, gave a different impression. People often thought I was plastered. I’ll have what he’s having. I just enjoyed celebrating a reprieve from law studies. And as our social group built over the course of the night, I was always the first to leave. I’d had my fun—the good, clean kind—but I knew I’d get depressed if I stuck around too long and let it sink in that I permeated a sexual invisibility. With drinks and dreamy men, I knew my limits.

I’ve seen Benny—and his husband—twice now on this summer stay in L.A. The agenda is what it always was: pre-drinks at a quiet bar followed by more drinks at the gay bars. The only thing that’s changed is someone at the first bar always offers us complimentary shots. Still the polite Canadian, I drink the whiskey and the vodka, knowing that my drive home has just been delayed.

Benny’s husband seems particularly amused by my shyness and my extreme pickiness in men. He sees how my laughter only goes so far. It becomes his mission to crack my uptight core. And how better to do that than by handing me dollar bills and imploring me to stuff them in a go-go boy’s Speedo, right?

Wrong. I am quick to fold my arms or shove my hands in my pockets. There is no way that’s going to happen.

“Why not?” he asks. I just shake my head and stare at my shoes. It would be positively Victorian of me to speak my mind: “It’s impure.” That’s the short answer. It’s prudish even in word choice. The longer essay involves my extreme dislike for go-go boys dating back to that perennial long-weekend era. All eyes on the gyrating thongs. How was I supposed to compete? Besides, I like something left to the imagination. I don’t wish to engage in the post-dollar drop-off interview: Did you see it? Feel it? Was it all him or stuffing? I’ve just started seeing a great guy. I don’t need this kind of play. 

Benny’s husband persists. He doesn’t know twenty-five-year-old me. While others fantasized over sex with the go-gos, I imagined grabbing Tanya Harding’s crowbar and knocking them all off their freakin’ pedestals. Go on, git. I came to this bar looking for love.

I suppose I’ve always been screwed up.

He brings a go-go boy to me. The go-go boy pouts. Surely he’s not used to working this hard for a measly buck. It is Benny or Benny’s husband or one of their newer friends who must feed the briefs. Probably what they wanted all along.   

I spend another hour and a half nursing a bottle of water. I block out thoughts about how environmentally wasteful it is to drink from plastic. For the moment, Mothers Against Drunk Driving provides the louder message. The whiskey must go. As must the next go-go that is ushered my way. Sometimes it sucks to be that eternally polite Canadian.

And twenty-five.

SLEEPLESS IN PORTLAND

As mentioned in my last post, I am taking a breather from romantic comedies. And so when I spontaneously decided I needed to zip off on an American shopping adventure, I consciously bypassed Seattle. Best not to risk re-enacting rom-com movie scenes, hanging out at gorgeous float homes and precious beaches, stalking cute, witty single dads with meddling sons named Jonah.

On to Portland!

But first, of course, I needed to book my accommodations. My friends are into Hotwire and Priceline, bidding on unknown hotels. I’ve tried that and paid dearly for it, not from my wallet but in all the extra time schlepping back and forth from a Holiday Inn Express that was in a very liberally defined “downtown Victoria”. Bargain hunting has never worked for me. No playing games with hotel rooms. I searched for exactly what I wanted. No surprises.

I surfed the internet to find a trendy boutique hotel I’d read about somewhere a year ago. God bless Google. While it seemed like finding a needle in a haystack, I typed in “hip Portland hotels” and The Ace Hotel popped up. Kind of like a chic dorm. Definitely not your run of the mill Hilton or Holiday Inn. I was excited to experience something different. One of the advantages of traveling alone is there is no one to blame you if the booking turns out to be a bad move.

It was a long drive with many stretches of inexplicable stop and go traffic—no construction, no accidents. I searched the radio dial, half expecting to hear a DJ giving directions for a vehicular flash mob. Simon says go slow. Simon says go even slower.

Once I reached my destination, I pulled up and got my room key (on a dog tag chain which fell apart within three minutes in my care). As I unloaded items from my car, I spotted a young gay man having a drink on the outdoor patio of the bar directly across the street. No doubt about his gayness. His limbs constricted and jerked in the equivalent to a body-length Notice Me hair flick. Later, I left to explore the amazing Powell’s Books and identified other gay patrons on the patio. My, Portland is a gay mecca. Who knew?! Picking up a copy of the free gay rag, my gaydar suspicions were confirmed. My hotel was directly across from a gay bar.

Pure coincidence. I’ve had partners who wanted to base entire trips around gay bars, gay plays, gay coffee hangouts. I always resisted. When I travel, I search for vegetarian restaurants, not gay bars. With the club constituting my view from my hotel room, I wondered if I should pop over. And then the question arose, “Why?” What need did I have to connect with gay Oregonians? I wasn’t looking for a hookup and I’ve never been skilled at mindless chitchat. I decided to turn in early.

Of course, when a bar with an open patio is directly across the street from where you’re staying, sleep is a challenge. As the club got busier, the noise wafted up to my third floor room. My bed vibrated like one of those coin-operated “rides” I think they used to have in motels in Niagara Falls. Sorry, there’s a reason that “luxury” never caught on.

I putzed around my room, flipping through complimentary copies of artsy magazines I’d never heard of before surveying the other extras for hotel guests: eucalyptus body wash, cilantro conditioner and, most telling, ear plugs. While a thoughtful touch, they didn’t help. I spent a fit-filled night,

partially suffocating myself with a pillow as I tried in vain to sleep.

At daybreak, I finally found silence but my body had resigned itself to insomnia. My mind wouldn’t relax, a vigilante mentality taking over, just waiting for another noise to prove that any attempt to doze was futile. I gazed groggily at the wall in front of me. Each room at the Ace has a kitschy design. Since I came here to write as well as shop, it was fitting the entire wall was covered by a black and white mural of a boy resting his chin in his hands as he holds a pencil before an open notebook. Well, it seemed like a perfect touch when I’d checked in. However, in the light of the new day, staring blurry-eyed at a giant sized little boy from my bed was mighty creepy.

I needed to get out of my room so I showered, fuelled up on caffeine at the neighboring Stumptown Coffee and wandered the streets. It was just me and dozens of homeless folks. I think my zombie impersonation scared them. Whereas the night before I was regularly asked for money for coffee/transit/dinner, they’d suddenly cross the street as I approached in the early morn. I looked to be the needier case. Excuse me, do you know how to hook me up with a caffeine IV?

I did manage to recover at some point after a few catnaps, some extravagant clothing purchases, a walk through the Pearl District and an invigorating run along the Willamette River. Come nightfall, I thought about the if-you-can’t-beat-‘em-join-‘em option, but by then a massive sty had formed on my right eye and the club’s apparent glow-stick/pajama party theme was most definitely not for me.

My Portland adventure underscored what I already knew: my forays into the gay nightlife are a thing of the past. The only thing I regret is that I don’t have anyone else to blame for my poor choice in accommodations.