Gay people have this affliction called Disco-itis. I know I’ve had it in the past myself, but I’ve been cured. This affliction is brought on by a combination of alcohol, banned substances and gay bars. The more you take part in those three things, the worse the Disco-itis becomes. I came out at the height of the disco scene. (I will confess to you that I think it’s barely a musical form, yet in a gay bar it was intoxicating — probably because I was intoxicated. I have absolutely no disco in my vast music collection to this day.)

Of all the ‘ladies’ on the disco scene those days, Donna Summer was by far the Queen when it came to music in the bars. Donna Summer. One of the biggest bitch homophobes on the planet. The woman who states to this day that AIDS is God’s punishment for being gay. And those aren’t her only homophobic words. I wonder who the fuck she thought was buying all her records? Did we collectively ignore that fact about Donna Bummer, or was that not the case back then? Either way, I don’t do Donna Summer. Anything that broad (and I mean this in the most derogatory way) has made doesn’t get through my front door, doesn’t play in my CD player and doesn’t grace my ITunes library. In fact, my being gay trumps any kind of music. No homophobes need apply…even those of the rock n’ roll variety (and we know they exist as well). Nobody I know would dare bring a Coors beer or Crackerbarrel cheese into my house either. And, by the way, don’t ever ask me to step inside a J.C. Penny. But that’s a post for another day. For this post, consider it a lesbian rant.

The thing about the gay bars and disco is that there are songs that become anthems and their makers become gay icons. Everybody has a different viewpoint — the songs that they see as anthems may be different than yours. One that stands out for me is Shame by Evelyn “Champagne” King. I don’t think that’s a universal song, though. I think most people will say something like, “Oh yeah, man, I remember her now!” But I do think that a song like I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor is a universal anthem. Two others that fit here are We Are Family by Sister Sledge and Lady Marmalade by Labelle (yes, that would be Patti LaBelle; pictured here in this post btw).

Then, there are those songs that you wish you could eliminate from the replay loop in your brain. Every time I see National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation, that little ditty called Born To Be Alive stays in my head for days and not in a pleasant way either. That’s the song that’s playing as they enter Vegas.  The artist was Patrick Hernandez. Patrick Hernandez? Who the fuck is Patrick Hernandez? Here’s another that fits here: Ring My Bell by Anita Ward. Anybody else remember these two songs and do you find them as annoying as I do?

Outside I wouldn’t put this stuff on my radio, but once I was inside a gay bar and after a few drinks (and does anyone remember Poppers?) my eyes would glaze over and it’d be the best freakin’ music in the world. That lasted for about eight hours. When you woke up in the morning, you felt about as guilty for enjoying that music as you did waking up to the person next to you. (You wondered what you were thinking on both counts.) At the risk of sounding like the Republicans currently in office, I pose this question: What if disco music was a secret government program designed to keep the gays under control?