Oh, am I enjoying Christmas Day-even though I'm not religious.
One of our recent e-mail dialogues made me think of a good former friend, co-worker, Rudi Steinert, who was also a former HIC board member, who passed away before Don Slater, though I can’t remember when. He lived across the street on Calumet from Tony and Don, where Dale Jennings lived before he went into the nursing home. He had relatives killed in the holocaust and was a very practical person. He got on the bus everyday and rode to a stationery store in Beverly Hills, and hosted several ONE/HIC events in his apartment.
He would pick up men on Main St. (Need I say more?) Then he would clean them up, feed them, have sex and return them to Main St.
The reason I bring him up, is that he would explain the reason behind this special ad as sent by Jeanne Barney. He said, the older you get, the more choosy you get. It is nature's way of saying, I know I can’t get the young cute ones, but fortunately, I don't want them if they have any defect-so I am more\ selective—I reject them before they can reject me. Sour grapes or something.
The ad Jeanne brought to our attention, from Craig’s List or some similar place:
One of our recent e-mail dialogues made me think of a good former friend, co-worker, Rudi Steinert, who was also a former HIC board member, who passed away before Don Slater, though I can’t remember when. He lived across the street on Calumet from Tony and Don, where Dale Jennings lived before he went into the nursing home. He had relatives killed in the holocaust and was a very practical person. He got on the bus everyday and rode to a stationery store in Beverly Hills, and hosted several ONE/HIC events in his apartment.
He would pick up men on Main St. (Need I say more?) Then he would clean them up, feed them, have sex and return them to Main St.
The reason I bring him up, is that he would explain the reason behind this special ad as sent by Jeanne Barney. He said, the older you get, the more choosy you get. It is nature's way of saying, I know I can’t get the young cute ones, but fortunately, I don't want them if they have any defect-so I am more\ selective—I reject them before they can reject me. Sour grapes or something.
The ad Jeanne brought to our attention, from Craig’s List or some similar place:
I can host in my Q-shaped apartment on 39th Street between Delancey Street and Ninth Avenue. Please, no weirdos, druggies, smokers, drunks, hippie-types, fems, fats or African American colored black Oriental Asians of color. Sincere only need apply.
6 comments:
Makes sense to me. I knew a guy through a friend who was a bit over the hill shall we say. His fantasy was to pick up a young street man, I say man, instead of boy, because I don’t want to imply that he would ever pick up someone underage (wink, wink) and take him home, shower him, and enjoy his companionship in bed. Of course he never did so. He would go the Tubs instead.
I wonder how much sex goes on today in the baths. But of course most of us would worry about some man we picked up as he might turn on us and attack us.
But then my main sex came from picking up hitchhikers. BUT I think I was ok as I had, sort of like they say, take some one to a public place first, have coffee and "test" them before you risk taking them home, and that was before AIDS, I had sort of a “test” interview. I would make hints and if they picked up as most did, they either let me know they were not interested or they thought about it and some got a hardon and that was it.
Ironically I pet the one man I lived with walking down 6th Street toward Pershing Square the day Kennedy was shot. Melvin was walking from the bus station to where he lived after being at mother’s near Riverside for some reason. I must have been in the car as we got to my apartment across Beverly Blvd. from Belmont High, and if you now, that is a hard to find place as it is where Beverly starts and lst st and 2d die for a time, etc. He found his way back though—he had a job driving/delivering and was just out of the Navy-21 and I was 31. So we lived together most of 13 years, and I think he and his partner Peter will be visiting here next month. I liked their place in NE PA and they have a place at the Hillside Campground near the NY border. Lovely country. Strange how friends and co-workers have scattered around-this is where I grew up of course, and is cheap and I can travel when I get money, so I like it.
Interesting. You never know where a friendship will start or mature.
I was always pretty lucky. I’ve lived near the beach most of my adult life. First, in Santa Monica near Montana. I had a great 1 bedroom apt. behind a house and over a garage. It was built in the early ’30s. It had character and I always had fun keeping it stylish. It had a small dining room which I used as my studio. as I am an artist. I used to do a lot of printmaking. I could walk to the beach, or ride my bike along the bike path. It was a fun way to meet people without having to go to a bar. I moved to Dana Point in 1981. I mad some good friends, now gone, gone too young. But the beach, parks and the Boom Boom Room were great fun and it was easy to meet people. I never had a bad experience, well, at least not a dangerous one.
As for the Baths, I know a coupe of people who have always enjoyed them. I know there are still some around. I don't know where though. Been there, done that years ago. At the time, it was exciting fun. and frustrating all at the same time. This was also before AIDS.
I think you and I are more representative of homosexuals than the wild ones. And I think it would be interesting to do a sociological study of how different it is to have lived in a large city like New York and a small southern town. I am sure life in New York is different, then and now. I never thought of wanting to live there, but knew I wanted to live in L. A. and never had any fear of going there but I was not sure I could make it in New York. I also like New Orleans but never thought of living —but could visit 300 days a year. I think San Francisco is great, as is Boston, as they have charm. But they are expensive, as L. A. is now.
I assume most people have to live where they can have a job. I, at the time, not now, could have lived almost anywhere, but once I got interested in our cause, I knew I'd stay in L. A. and now live where I started in what is now a larger city, with riverboat casinos, a racetrack, and perhaps a cybercenter at the local Air Force Base (Barksdale) which will bring in lots of new people, as long as the military trust that all people have equal opportunities—I’m think that the “Jena” thing hurt our cause, but now we have a non-white governor.
Anyway, I’m enjoying the day, ready to eat again, and then watch tv, so hope you are enjoying it too.
Hope you're enjoying your day. Sounds like it.
Coming out, I remember feeling pressure to go to the bars in West Hollywood almost every night of the week because that's what most of my friends did. I didn’t. But my friends made me feel like I was wasting my time by not “getting out there.” I just didn't like living to make-out. That's not to say I wasn't horny all the time and wished I had as much sex as my friends. But when I did go out, I just seemed to do better when I went places where gays tended to cruise rather than the mainstream bars. I would go to the local bars in my area. They were a little seedy, but I liked them better than the West Hollywood bars. It was fun.
On the other hand, when I went to dinner with friends, I would join them and go to Studio One or the other bars. To me that was socializing. If I wanted to hook-up, I would go on my own, not with friends. I always found it rude when I’d be out with my “friends” and they acted like they didn’t know you if they wanted to cruise.
You know how you are attracted to someone who seems sexy and available to you and whose appearance you like. There’s a chemistry. Sometimes that person is not at all what your friends think is “your” type, or the type you would want to spend your life with. Well, I didn’t need the judgment. I was very private about my experiences unless it was someone who was going to become pat of my life for a while and I wanted them to meet my friends. I always thought once you cam out it was easy from there on. Once I came out there was a whole new set of pressures and frustrations.
That’s how life is. You don't realize that when you’re younger. You always expect a time will come when life is easy. You get older and surprise, there’s always angst about one thing or the other along with the good things.
Thanks for your experiences of dealing with things sexual—although in a way it is true even of just making general friends. I have not thought about how my experiences would work today. Or if I would change things if I could go back. I think I’ve said that is why I watch the TV show Journeyman. I ignore the plot in some cases, but use it as a way of thinking, as the main person goes back in time, but not too far back, so he in fact sees himself sometimes as he was when younger—I guess the setting is San Francisco. He meets a woman who is also a “time traveler” that he was engaged to as I understand it. But it does in a sense show how if he had done something different it would have changed his life as it is today. And the wife and son are troubled by his sudden disappearance and wife knows he sees woman he was involved with earlier, as does his brother who is a cop. It goes too far as it (the show/plot) mentions the possibility that he is part of some major plot by unknown forces, but he always does good, so the extras I ignore.
I also find it only slightly interesting in the other new TV shows, such as Reaper, whose folks sold his soul to the devil for some reason and he goes around recapturing bad guys who escape from hell. But what about the Pushing Daisies, where the man can touch someone and bring them back to life, but only for a minute-that makes it great trying to find out who killed someone but the plot involves him doing that for a woman he loved, and now she’s still around and he can’t touch her—a very strange situation, perhaps some homosexuals or even heteros face that when they are interested in someone they can’t have. And the character can’t tell other people about his abilities, which is also interesting. And last, Chuck, who has gotten all the information in his brain that was in the CIA computer, put there as, in theory, his old college friend is dying—but no, later he shows up, but once the CIA gets the info back, they will have to kill Chuck to protect the info as it is an issue of national security—but how would it be to have instant knowledge of almost everything, as your brain is the computer.
So I am conforming and watching TV more than reading. I do not go out as I don’t have a sex drive and (not just because my prostate has been taken out to keep me healthy) but I'm lazy and as I get older the day goes fast and it seems by the time I eat a time or two, feed the neighborhood cats, and read the paper, watch the shows, it is time for bed again. And I understand now what we don't much think about when we are young, that I am grateful to not hurt, to have a roof over my head and a car that goes and a little Social Security to keep me in food.
So how many other people have the same attitude I do? I have been a “crusader” and most people are not, but have to work to keep themselves or a family going and have only time to catch the news and hopefully vote once in a while. But apparently lots of people do go to church and give money to religion. I don’t. But I do think we need to know what religion is saying, as that affects us in politics, etc. So maybe that is a motivation for going for a drink. I just never got that habit. But I enjoy visiting now with email, so let me know what your thoughts are and news from your area.
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