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HIGH GEAR

AUGUST 1976

MANSFIELD

IS FUN ON SUNDAY at the

INSIDE OUTSIDE

2854 Walker Lake Road, Mansfield

SUNDAY 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.

529-8311

MONDAY THRU SATURDAY 8 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.

Bring a picnic and come on down for.... SWIMMING.... FISHING.... DANCING

CLOSED Sunday, August 29th only

Directions: Take I-71 to U.S. 30. Go west on U.S. 30 to the second traffic light (about 5 miles) turn right at the light (Lexington-Springmill Road). Go two miles to Walker Lake Road, turn left. Go two miles till you see our sign on the right (two more miles).

BAR ON THE

NEW BAR

STRIP!

JJ'S DISCO

2402 ST. Clair

NO COVER

GAMES

New DJ

Tom Long

Cleveland, Ohio

8:30 pm

to 2:30 am

Formerly of Twiggy's

Free Brunch & Champagne

SILVER ANNIVERSARY

(25 YEARS) PARTY

Robert and John

SEPTEMBER 22, 1976

Cleveland's ONLY gay male movie theater!

ADONIS

ALL-MALE-CAST-MOVIES

on W. 9th between St. Clair & Lakeside

Air Conditioned!!

Mon.-Thurs. 6pm 12pm Fri. & Sat. 4pm-4am

Sun.

2 pm 11pm

Phone (216) 861-7496 for further information

YOU ARE UGLY

By LEON STEVENS

From time to time someone expresses the desire to have a place to associate "where there is more to talk about than sex," Some people brand bars and baths variously as "meat markets," "whorehouses," "cliquish," etc. I sincerely believe I have never heard so much crap!

Everyone of us goes to a bar or anywhere else where gays assemble to cruise. We cruise at bars, baths, rap groups, conferences, marches, religious ceremonies. If we want to TALK to someone, friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and clergymen will usually listen. If we require interlocutors with a homosexual life experience, it is not hard to find gay acquaintances, rap forums, switchboard operators, counselors, gay clergypeople or perhaps even gay bartenders. "Talk" is as ancient a pretext for crusing as any.

No one prepares an intricate coiffeur, sports his holiday best, takes his weekly bath and hits the hottest spots in town on weekend nights to "talk." Everyone cruises at least latently whether "married" or socializing in groups, Very likely, the reason you haven't been able to talk to anyone lately is because you haven't had any luck cruising anyone lately. You haven't had any luck cruising anyone lately because you're unattractive.

Most people seek out some kind of companion either for a stand or a lifetime, and they select such a companion on the basis of two criteria: a) he must look "decent." b) He must seem responsible enough not to strangle you or throw up on you that same night.

Many mistakenly believe they are primarily out to hook some one who is compatible. Bullshit! Our primary concern is that our object

all-

is good looking. Compatibility is a dividend. A flabby Nobel biochemist will restructure his entire concept of the universe around an American moose if he could land and maintain him. Of course, if you are a flabby biochemist with no moose, you'd say that was unthinkable, but if you're a biochemist with a moose, you will attack me as an elitist and argue that he is "an imaginative boy and in touch with nature."

LOOKS ARE EVERYTHING! Looks comprise the grid along which Our whole society is aligned. If Shakespeare had been slightly less Elizabethan, he would have said, "Looks maketh the man." Every American high school has a looks hierarchy. Four-eyed poindexters are not permitted audience with sculpted heroes. An intelligent dandy would rather keep company with a Tyranosarus Rex whose brain is in his tail than with a peabodied genius. There are no ugly victors on television, and

Hope for the gay alcoholic

we are trained to perceive slobs and trolls as conspirators from the netherworld. Unfortunately, close to 80% of the average hotspot crowd is composed of such ogres. Another 10% is worthy of sympathy, and the remaining 10% is honorable creamy cruisables.

We ail think we are candidates for the final 10% because although we may be plain, our personalities are sparkling. Once our inner selves are unfolded, our looks can take a back seat. Right? Wrong! 50% of the average weekend bar crowd departs at 2:30 as lonely tragedians. 30% goes home in couples and once sober can't believe what it did. Another 10% thank God for their calling and enter monasteries which brings us to the crowning, heroic 10%. Of this cruisable percentage, 5% goes home alone and frustrated because it has already slept with all the good looking guys in the city and no one has showed up from out of town; the remaining 5% has an exciting and fulfilling encounter.

The difference between a good friend and a lover is that the lover is bodily passable, and the friend, having physically failed, is a sympathetic dramatis persona. Granted, among the masses there is bound to be at least one sexually yoked Laurel and Hardy, but this rarity though fine in a romantic landscpe, has no statistical relevance.

We are all oppressed by a standard of sexual acceptability which is so intuitive it rivals instinct. Each one of us is terrified to talk about it for fear we might give voice to the unspeakable: I AM UGLY. To avoid this emotional disaster we keep looking for the right shirt, hair length, heel altitude, mouthwash and technique. The Holy Grail is trampled in the stampede.

If we could shop for sex the way we shop for food, always eating well and occasionally having a few spectacular meals, be it would the greatest transformation since the industrial revolution. We will continue to starve on Madison Avenue's sparsely rationed sexual archetypes as long as we continue to support THE GREAT WESTERN HUNK PANORAMA.

painting

We can only cure ourselves by owning up to the monstrous realization that WE ARE UGLY or pretty nearly so. We are suffering from a collective psychosis. We may attempt to cure ourselves by adapting the Zuni snake dance ritual, ie., by donning holiday apparel, ourselves and improving our spiritual Bus Stop, or we can approach our collective condition frankly. boldly and systematically. Most foods are at least edible and very likely delectable. This is because we were compelled to eat our spinach. Whose mother ever lectured him to shack up with a fat man?

We Care (216) 687-0416