Gay Bars

It's amazing how important bars are to gay men. Just being honest here. Think of what we do to have a bar life. Many of us become drunks. Many contract dread diseases because they became drunk and stupid in a bar. Amazing as it may sound, many of us buy our houses to be close to the bars, or at least our favorite one.

We'll plan vacations around the bars we want to hit. And when the plan is something else we'll usually discover where the bars are along the way and hit them.

We meet our friends at bars. We fall in love in bars. Some even have sex in bars.

We join softball, volleyball and basketball teams in bars and dash out to conquer our rivals.

Gay bars tend to cluster in an area of town, sometimes two. It's rare that you find them spread out far and wide. And, of course, where the bars are, so are the other gay oriented businesses: leather shops, sex toys and novelties, book stores, shi shi restaurants, etc. And around these areas, gay people tend to buy and rent their real estate. When they call it a 'gay community' it's a pretty apt description.

In some cases it's hard to tell what came first. Did the bars choose the location because of the proximity of their clientele? Or did the clientele choose the hood to be close to the bars. Maybe it works both ways.

I've been to gay bars all over the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, Argentina, Brazil, Great Britten, France, the Netherlands, and Italy.

I remember a trip to Italy about 15 years ago. With no real itinerary (the way I like to travel), I stumbled around and bumped into all kinds of interesting stuff. Then I stumbled upon the Cinque Terre - the Five Lands. It's a hilly area along Italy's west coast, nort of Pisa and South of Genoa.

The region gets its name from the five small villages that line it from top to bottom: Cornigula, Rio Maggiore, Vernaza,. . . and two I can't remember. The towns are joined only by goat path and train and enjoy the charm and small town feel that such isolation brings. These five villages are also some of the most breathtakingly beautiful I've ever seen.

In Vernazza, there is a church. It's a chapel, really, a small thing that would accommodate maybe 100 people. It is the village church, the one all residents attend. I walked in one afternoon to get a look and took a pew seat at the back. I glanced about the yellow glow of the afternoon sunset taking place outside. It was a Spartan place; nothing was done for comfort, or decoration. There were no cushions, no gilt, no stained glass.

I had a bit of an Epiffany sitting there in that glorious light. This little church was the heart and soul of this village. This church is why people lived here. To leave would be to leave their church and give up their community. The roots of these lives and this church go back generations together, entangled and holding on to each other. This is where they are Christened, Baptized, Confirmed, Married, Honored and Burried. It is as much a social place as a religious one. It's where the town comes together . . . to be together. It's what makes this village a village.

I've always had such contempt for churches. Not the physical buildings - I love the architecture and the gaudiness. It's the concept of churches that bugs me. I never understood why we needed them. Even if there is a God, even if Jesus is the Son of God, why to we need churches to stand between us and our spiritual essence? Why to we need Priests and Pastors to interpret the wishes of our God? Isn't our relationship with him personal? And therefore in need of no interpretation from anyone but ourselves.

But sitting there that day I got it. The church was their community center.

And the gay bar is our community center. The Loft, down the street from me (one of the reasons I bought my condo) is my community center. The Loft is my little Village Church. It serves the same function as that little church in the Cinque Terre. The bartenders are a little like Priests or Pastors. They welcome the people, listen to the stories, dole out advice, poor sacramental beverages . .

Just as in church, music plays a large role in the appeal of such places. A good DJ will pull people in and keep them there and a good juke box can do the same. In St. Louis, I went to JJs Clubhouse for a beer. It's a dark leather/levi place with the usual dart boards and pool tables. For music they had a juke box. Someone had filled it up with dollars and chosen an hour's worth of crap music, stuff you'd never want to hear in such a place: I will survive, I've never been to me, Flashdance (What a Feeling), Anita Baker - all of this sweet chick stuff. You'd expect to be hearing the Stones or George Thorogood or Greg Allman. Not that there's anything wrong with girl songs. It's just that belong in frilly bars, not ones filled with big, bearded, leather harness wearing bikers.

Today you'll see quite a few tea-totalers in gay bars. They'll be standing there with their club soda and a twist or O'Douls. In other words, you don't necessarily come to drink. That's not the point. The point is community and the bar is where you connect with.it.

I know my tone at first here was rather contemptuous. That was my evil straight ghost-self looking down and judging. Truth is, I think we are blessed to have these institutions to bind us together, just as Vernazza has its little church.