Some people know they’re gay from the womb. That’s me. Now, that doesn’t mean that I acknowledged it from the get go. Knowing and accepting are two very different things. When I was really young, I didn’t necessarily have a word for what it was. A few things stood out, though. First, I played ‘doctor’ exclusively with girls. Never boys. Second, I never spent time looking at other girls’ boyfriends, but I spent a lot of time looking at a lot of guys’ girlfriends. Third (and this was as I grew older), I never thought about dating — or anything else for that matter– with the opposite sex. Never. I mean it. To this day, I’m the world’s oldest virgin in that respect. I’m not curious. I don’t feel as though I’m missing anything (as some of the more unwitting have asked). I’m not interested in going there.

Now, all of this being said, there’s nothing easy about being gay. I have this argument with conservatives every day: It’s isn’t sexual preference. It’s sexual orientation. People do not just wake up on a Thursday and decide to be gay. People may very well wake up one day and realize that they are gay, but I can assure you that they’ve been gay for a long time.  I also propose that nobody would choose this life. Why? Because they have to put up with the assholes who argue differently. Like they know better. In spite of the fact that coming out now is easier than it was when I came out, I feel like I came out at the greatest time. And I feel as though I came out at the greatest time because there was a social support system in place that has all but been replaced by the Internet. Only, the Internet isn’t a very good replacement because it takes away the human element. The gay bars are what I’m talking about here people.

The best of times

Like I said, coming out in Boston was a freakin’ blast. It had the best bars, and not one was the same as the other. We always used to tell each other, “You don’t want to get involved with anyone hanging out at a bar.” But that didn’t stop us from taking them home (or going home with them). We just knew they weren’t ‘relationship’ material. Frankly, we all went out in a bunch just to have a great time. If we met someone, so be it. However, that wasn’t the goal.

In fact, it is here that I will tell you about my friend Lida, as straight as an arrow, who loved the bars and came with us whenever she could (much to her husband’s chagrin, as I recall). I remember that I used to be her cover in case anyone tried to hit on her.  There were a couple of other straight women who used to come out with us as well, but I cannot remember their names — although I can see their faces.

Boston had great bars, no question. For a general good time, there was Buddies. There were more men than women, but it certainly was a mixed bar. Great dancing. Loud. Wild. Crazy. I have this image of dancing to that frackin’ Patrick Hernandez song, “Born To Be Alive,” and the image is on the Buddies dance floor. I know I went off on this in a previous post about the tie between gays and disco. My guy friends used to love Sporter’s for a men’s bar. This was definitely a cruise bar; no question about it. I only went a couple of times. It was definitely not mixed.

For women, the best damned place in Boston was a bar called Somewhere, which was in the Financial District. This place was perfect. If you went upstairs, you could dance to the loud pulsing beat of the music. Downstairs, you could sit at the bar and stare at Jackie (the bartender that just about every woman that walked into that place was in love with), play pool or sit in the comfy area (complete with sofas, chairs and a coffee table) and just plain old shoot the shit. The music downstairs was provided by a juke box. Even the guys liked it here, although this bar was definitely for women and they got ADHD pretty quickly without the sight of men other than each other.

There was one other bar worth mentioning. It was a place in Allston, Massachusetts, called Our House. I have fleeting visions of this place, but they are always good visions. I remember it being a restaurant/bar set up — not like today’s Club Cafe in Boston. It was more a laid back environment. The place was really cool. If any of my friends are reading this post and remember Our House, I’d love you to comment and tell me what you remember about it!

My point is that we had a place to go. Now, places are gay on certain nights. The only problem is that we’re gay every night. Know what I mean? More than anything, the bars gave us numbers. They showed us we weren’t alone. We had our space where we felt absolutely safe being ourselves. I’m pretty open. I really don’t worry about what people think anymore. Times have changed in that regard. Gay people are now a part of the mainstream. But I still miss the bars. I miss the cameraderie. I miss having that space or zone. Back then –  during the 70s and 80s — the bars were critical to us and we spent plenty of time there.

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?

This is quite the flashback. One of my very good friends says this is something that could only happen to me. I’m not sure about that, but given my track record there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen to me. And it just so happens that this all started in a gay bar.

My friends and I spent a considerable amount of time in the bars at the time this took place, and I’m talking about the 70s to 80s time frame here. We spent a lot of time in Boston at Buddies, Somewhere, Darts and Our House (which was actually in Allston, I believe). Now it’s damned near impossible to find a gay bar, and that is very sad. Some places are ‘gay’ one night of the week. The only problem is most gay people are pretty much ‘gay’ full time.

Anyway, it just so happens that there was a pretty healthy bar scene in the suburbs as well. One place that served gay clientele (and still does to this day) is the Randolph Country Club. Been in business for years. We had been frequenting Boston bars week after week, then someone told us about this place called DiRocco’s in Tyngsboro. (I can find almost nothing on this place no matter where I look. However, I offer proof that it existed!) We tried it and liked it and went more than once, I believe. I remember the turn of events vividly on one particular trip there.

This woman asked me to dance. Well, we ended up hanging out together most of the night. She came over and sat at the table with me and my friends, the whole nine yards.  The whole evening it really drove me crazy that she looked vaguely familiar to me. At the time, I was working for a Fortune 500 high tech company and had been there for quite some time, but her face didn’t really ring that bell. The long and short of it is that she ended up coming back to my place in Melrose. Without going into the details, let’s just say it was a long, active and eventful evening. We really didn’t talk about much of anything pertaining to work or our personal lives. Until morning, and that is precisely when the bell rang on her familiar face.

Oh, yes. Turns out my new friend, we’ll call her Ilene, just so happened to be married to a guy that I interacted with pretty regularly in my job.  Yep. Same last name. And, guess what, totally unbeknownst to me, she also worked there.  Quaint. No? I can’t exactly remember what my reaction must have been that next morning as I was getting ready to go to work, but I know Ilene spent a considerable amount of time telling me not to worry because she had an “open relationship” with her husband. He wouldn’t care. Hell, she and I could even continue to carry on without fear! Fucking wonderful! Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. (Although, to tell you the truth, I had one hell of a time that night.)

This singular event in my life had so much potential for ugliness. It really did, considering that the three of us worked in the same building. I was lucky on this one. I told her that there was no way there would be a repeat of the prior evening because my Catholic guilt would get the better of me. (That was a crock of shit. I just didn’t want to deal with being in the same building with the two of them.) I was lucky that Ilene accepted that decision. And, even if her other half knew about the incident, he never let on. Bullet dodged. I would survive to make other really dumb mistakes. Stay tuned.

Writer’s note: The photo in this post is borrowed and depicts gay bar life in The Castro. It is used here strictly for effect. Some of what’s out there is really cheesy.