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SOUTHERN VOICE
NOVEMBER 3/1994
Why can't there be a rock-and-roll bar for gay guys?
In the midst of a blaring disco on an
otherwise not-so-busy Sunday night, a guy
I was talking with asked me this question.
Now, my immediate, instinctive reaction
was “Ugh,” but I listened patiently while he
made his points.
“This techno stuff isn’t music; Eric
Clapton is. Surely some gay guys listen to
this, and would come to a bar like that. Or
maybe it would just be me and the bar
tender.” I nodded, and after a little more
small talk, wandered off.
But as the evening wore on, I became
more and more intrigued by his question. I
mean, if it was just the music, there are a
zillion rock-and-roll bars across Atlanta that
would play him some Eric Clapton. And
after going to one, he could then show up at
one of the zillion gay bars that populate the
other half of Atlanta. He might not even be
the only one riding that particular circuit.
No, as I thought about it, the real ques
tion became clearer. “Why aren’t there more
gay men with similar interests to my own in
Atlanta? Other gay men who would like to
go hang out in a rock-and-roll bar?”
Now there’s a question. The simplest
and most unpleasant answer was the first
one that came to mind—that too many of us
who grew up with that music have already
died. And if this has also occurred to my
Sunday night friend, then perhaps he is as
uncertain and nervous as I am about what
life is going to look like in thirty years for
AIDS survivors. So many of my peers, my
friends, my potential boyfriends, are already
gone. Will there be anyone in the Gay Old
Folks Home to talk to?
But thinking a little further convinced
me that AIDS is not the cause of his di
lemma. Even though R&R is the music of
my generation, in my mind, it will always
be too closely tied into a culture that doesn’t
like me. And I couldn’t really imagine what
we’d be doing in a rock-and-roll gay bar
anyway—slow dancing to Pat Benatar?
No, Dr. Cotton’s diagnosis of his Sun
day friend’s malady is his strong sense of a
burden that falls on all of us, namely the
burden of being different, of not having
grown up to become what we were raised to
be.
I know that was a hard one for me to
deal with. The intensity with which I fought
coming out came from my instinctive un
derstanding that once I stepped off the path
my parents had put me on, there was ho
going back. My whole life would change,
and I didn’t know how. I fought that with
every ounce of denial I had, and I still failed.
The terrifying part of the question for
me is simple—What will I do? Because
once we step off that old path, where the
next step is so clearly laid out that we take
it without even thinking, there is nothing
clear-cut to replace it. Instead, it’s like find
ing yourself in the middle of a room with a
dozen doors. At that point, we have to
choose something, and choose it not be
cause our parents did it, or because I’m
supposed to do it, or because it’s easiest,
but because it’s actually what I want to do.
Should I leave town? Go back to school?
Open a rock-and-roll bar?
One of the great challenges we face as
gay people is always having to consciously
choose among so many alternatives in our
daily lives. From where we live, to how we
express our spirit, to how we dress, to how
we relate to one another, to what we eat.
Time and again we are denied the option of
being on automatic pilot. To make any
progress, we are forced to learn how to
make choices that express our true selves.
In contrast to the inertia of society at large,
which rarely seems to ever have to make a
choice, unless forced to.
Perhaps that’s why gay people exist in
the first place. Society needs people who
have to think about the choices they make.
For far too long now, too many people have
stayed on those well-worn paths, loving only
the people their families say it’s OK to love,
doing the job their parents did, living where
they live, going where they go, and not tak
ing the trouble to find a path for them
selves. When this goes on for too long,
society gets so far out of whack that things
start to fall apart.
In some sort of karmic, psychic, genetic,
instinctively healing way, our society knows
that if it is to survive, it needs a lot of
people who are not on automatic pilot,
people who have to think about the conse
quence of every action they takp, of every
relationship they form, of every place they
choose to live, or every job they take on, of
every person they love. And that we were
created as a people who so desperately need
to get off that path that we have no choice
but to do it, whether we want to or not.
If somebody doesn’t start thinking and
asking questions about what we do and how
we choose, then we’ll just keep pumping
the chloro-fluorocarbons into the atmo
sphere, and the nuclear waste into the earth,
and the pesticides into water, and the hatred
and bigotry and closed-mindedness into the
children, until things fall apart. I think we
came perilously close to doing that in the
1980s; on really bad days, I’ve decided that
we’ve already crossed the line and just don’t
know it yet.
This is not an easy path. It’s lonelier,
more dangerous, more exhausting than the
simpler path we chose to step off of when
we came out. It’s not for the weak, or the
lazy, or the go-along-to-get-along guy. It’s
a life that asks a lot of us.
My Sunday night friend knows this, too.
He knows that in an alternative universe,
there was a rock-and-roll bar for him. It’s
right next to the house with the mortgage,
and the wife, and the kids, and the dog. And
like me, he turned in a different direction.
And, to quote Robert Frost, “that has made
all the difference.” -
county system, e.g., Grady I.D.C.
Several years ago I was diagnosed. I
hold a very prominent position in a high
profile ‘good ol’ boy’ firm here in Atlanta.
I love my position and refuse to jeopardize
it by sharing my situation with my cowork
ers. Up to this point I have paid for all of
my health care out of my own pocket. And I
have been able to afford to because of the
fair business ethics of one local business
man that I located advertising in Southern
Voice. His name is Don Kriest, and he owns
Midtown Medicine Center, which is a full
service pharmacy.
Recently, due to an acute infection, I
needed I.V. antibiotics. Don now has a lo
cally owned and operated I.V. company.
The nurse was incredible, and his prices
seem to be about half of the national com
panies that I contacted, and we keep it within
our community.
Many times you have angry readers write
to you to complain, but rarely do you have
someone write in to thank someone for a
job well done. If my situation were differ
ent, and I didn’t fear losing my career, I
would love to publicly thank Midtowne.
They have been a godsend. But unfortu
nately I’ll just have to say thanks anony
mously to Southern Voice and Midtowne
Medicine Center/Home Infusion.
Sincerely,
A Devoted Reader
LETTERS
Treated right in Midtown
Many have read about the recent con
troversy over charges that some of the na
tional home infusion companies have been
raping their clients insurance policies and
paying a kickback to their referring physi
cian. This practice lines the pockets of the
greedy and exhausts the coverage of pa
tients. The patient then has no other re
course than to pay for their health care out
of their own pocket, or proceed to enter the
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