Stonewall Bar and Its Renovation

This past Saturday as I walked to my friend Mikes apartment, I passed the Stonewall bar. Displayed in the window was a huge sign saying, "Closed for renovation", I wondered what kind of renovation? A few weeks back I heard that it was closing for good.

You would think with all the stories of gay liberation starting from of that bar, that someone with some money and clout in the gay community would turn into a museum.
Instead as community we just keep saving and spending our money for the next circuit party. I know over the years it had gone through some major changes, likewise so has the gay community.

If only the gay community had a place to look at pictures and stories of our past. They can also run it as art gallery with exhibits throughout out the year. I know so many men who have photos and artifacts that they would like to turn over to a place that can store them.

CBGB

This weekend the famous and infamous club, CBGB, closes in Manhattan. Tonight's bands are the Sic Fucks and The Dictators, and tomorrow will be Patti Smith giving the last performance before closing the doors for good. There is talk Hilly Kristal the owner will be moving all the contents of the legendary club to Las Vegas. Just what Las Vegas needs, less glitz and more glamour.

I have only been to CBGB a few times. I was once taken by my friend Patrick who brought along another guy he hung with. We were all about twenty-one years old and very much into the punk scene. When we arrived at the club they all knew this guy that Patrick and I had come with.

This guy was a small Irishman no bigger than 5"4, but very good looking, blond hair and deep blue eyes. He was very quiet which gave him an aura of mystery, and boy did he love his alcohol and drugs. His name was "Joe" and he, like Patrick and I, was into guys, but he never spoke about it. All three of us went to all male military academies such as Xavier and Xaverian. Talk about cutting loose after a week of strong discipline and schooling. The band appearing that night was the "Mumps" the legendary Lance Loud band. Of course Joe knew Lance, probably a lot more intimately then we wanted to know. Over the course of the night we drank beers and got shit faced. I usually never went downtown and the Bowery was as downtown as you could get.

I ordinarily went to a club called "Maxs Kansas City” and my friends eventually followed, giving up the seedy CBGB crowd and following me to Maxs.

Maxs is where we found bands like Wayne County now Jayne County, The Fast, Devo, Blondie, etc. I loved Maxs and really believed I was the youngest person ever allowed in. I was told to just hang in the DJ booth all night so I could see the band but not get caught for underage drinking. I started going there in 1979 when I was seventeen. The resident DJ was this “Louis Bova”, who I always thought was too cool for his own shoes. We had very similar musical taste.

Back to my friend Joe. Of course when he starting going to Maxs he became well known and I took a back seat to my old friends. I later found out he was giving some of the best head to guys he was meeting at the bar. One night he actually met David Bowie, and talked to him like he knew him his entire life.

Joe and I lost touch for a few years and I finally ran into him near Rockefeller Center. He totally wanted no part of me. I was excited to see him. He was all cleaned up and no longer gay, according to him. He was now a Roman Catholic priest. He was with a guy who looked like Wally from "Leave it to Beaver.”
Joe talked to me in a very monotone voice. He wanted no part of his past and I surely was part of his past. The brothers at Xavier had saved his soul.

A few years later, my friend Patrick, who had introduced me to Joe, died of AIDS.I later learned that Joe too had succumbed to the same disease. It was told to me that he never took any medicine believing that God would save him from this scourge, so the end was not pretty. His family never accepted his death from AIDS and neither did the church; they thought it was pneumonia
So when I think of CBGB, more than music comes to mind, my past comes flooding back and I’m sure that I‘m not alone.

People with Too Much Time on their Hands

I got back to my desk after a fire drill and heard about a plane hitting a residential
building in NYC. Being in the travel business I was glad to hear it wasn't a commercial aircraft but a small propeller plane. It turns out it was a Yankee player
who loved flying his own plane.

You would think after JFK Jr, Thurman Munson and John Denver people would abandon this crazy idea of flying a one engine aircraft, with no where to land in case of an emergency. Most of the times it turns out to be some rich dude with too much time on his hands, and he always takes up the wrong hobby.

I think about all those people in their apartments who now have to live some where else and for a few moments their lives were in jeopardy in their homes,not even on the streets of Manhattan.