FEBRUARY 1976

HIGH GEAR

Page 9

VALENTINES AQUARIANS

PARTY

FEBRUARY 12th

AMERICAN HOTEL & RESTAURANT

AKRON, OHIO

Randy!"

ON THE ROAD

WHEN THE

LIGHTS ARE LOW

by Don Avery

Having the advantage of having lived in three major cities, Cleveland, New York, and San Francisco, I've had the pleasure of coming in contact with a lot of gay bars. Although there are a number of intermediate bars in these towns, most gay bars fall into three categories, dance bars, communal bars, and leather bars.

In New York and San Francisco you find people drift-in and out of all kinds of bars, but in Cleveland it seems most gays go to a certain, or certain type of gay bar.

Myself, when I was younger I only went to dance bars. Usually I went to the Change (now departed) or Twiggy's.

I shared the common mentality that anyone who went to the Six-Twenty was "old" and that anyone going to the Leather Stallion was "sick."

I was one of the young vain "artistics" high atop platform shoes, lanquidly sipping sweet drinks, peering out at the crowd with two bored eyes, wondering why someone hadn't discovered me yet and made me a star. The standard line was "where did you buy that shirt" and we said it in hopes that the young vain boy we were talking to, would come home with us and that it would be a "real" experience.

Everyone I talked to then was bored of Cleveland, and thought that New York was "the only place to go." Fortunately I did go to New York and soon realized how naive my attitudes had been.

I'm not putting down dance bars. In Cleveland I go to them often. But every now and then I run into an old friend who "hasn't seen me in ages" and "wonders where have I been keeping myself." I reply that I've been around, but I often go to the Six-Twenty or Leather Stallion. Their face becomes a mask of amazement and secretly they wonder if I'm perverted.

Of course this sort of attitude isn't confined to dance bars.

One evening I was with a friend at the Leather Stallion.

Someone my friend knew walked up to him and started a conversation. During the course of their conversation, the other guy remarked that he had recently gone to Twiggy's, but soon got bored of all the "queens" there.

I took a good look at this "man" standing there in his leather boots, wearing black leather pants with studs around the crotch, a black tee-shirt and a black leather jacket, a little black leather cap with its vinyl viser tilted at an angle over his eyes.

It was obvious that apparel was his criterion for manhood and that he rarely thought clothes were merely a matter of choice and I wondered if his attitude was really that much different from the guy in a glit tering tee-shirt, baggy pants, and standing on platform shoes thinking that anyone wearing leather is "sick."

At the Six-Twenty I usually feel at ease, but sometimes I make the mistake of not smiling. If I'm not smiling, within five minutes some friend will come and ask if anything is wrong. Whereupon I reply, I appreciate the concern, but I'm really just resting my jaws. Whereupon he replies (cutely), that it takes less muscles to smile than it does to frown. Whereupon I retort that perhaps for you it takes less muscles to frown, but as for me, a whole evening of smiling usually leaves my face numb. Whereupon he reassures me that if anything was the matter I could certainly talk to him. Whereupon I remind him that the last time I had confided in him, the very next day I overheard my situation being discussed by a number of mutual friends in wry tones. Such is the life in a communal bar.

I like going to bars, but it seems different atmospheres produce different attitudes.

Unconsciously or consciously we all choose an image. What's important is if our image limits us in the acceptance of another person's image, and what we sacrifice in the maintenance of our own choices.