So, the reunion was a blast, as predicted. A lot of people couldn't make it, thanks to tight budgets and the coming Depression II, but it was really great hanging out with a least part of "the gang" again. We visited most of our old haunts around the city, and discovered a lot of new places. Some highlights....
* We attended the Friday night meeting of the current gay youth group in Pittsburgh. A few of us shared our stories of coming out way back in the olden days of the 1980s. And, we heard from the new generation about coming out today. It was such a great experience...that is, until I realized that the new generation was born in the 1990s.
* Our reunion happened to coincide with Pittsburgh's 250th Anniversary Celebration. The fireworks display was like the opening to the Beijing Olympics. 17 launch sites around Downtown. Crazy cool. And, I'm not even a fireworks person.
Tomorrow, I'm going home. It's really home, in more ways than one. I'm going to Pittsburgh for my 20 year reunion. It's not my high school reunion, which I wouldn't even consider attending. It's a weekend reunion of my gay youth group. I'm going home to walk down memory lane with the people who saved my life, and helped me to define myself. I can't wait!
To celebrate our 20 year reunion, I've reposted a little story that appeared here at the Lair a couple of years ago....
In 1988, a small group of disenfranchised, but glamourously resourceful teenagers, myself included, formed a Gay youth group – Pittsburgh’s Growing Alternative Youth. Our mission was to welcome, educate and empower the next generation of Steel City queers, as well as to greatly expand our social circle and dating possibilities. We took up a campaign of guerilla marketing – infiltrating high school libraries and stuffing any medical or psychology book with an index reference to “homosexuality” with flyers for the group. We networked at Gay cruising spots and outside Gay bars. We posted flyers in the womyn’s bookstore and the universities’ student unions. We grew from meetings of 4 or 5 to a weekly attendance of over 60 in just a few months.
A local Gay minister and activist, Lou, helped us get organized and encouraged us to take on the world. We had weekly speakers, presenting a range of topics. Herman, a charming, elderly African-American gentleman came to tell us what Gay life was like for him in the 1940s. Kathy, a licensed counselor, came to speak to us about ways to improve self-esteem, and Don, in a 2-part workshop, “Eroticizing Safer Sex,” taught us how to protect ourselves in a newly dangerous world. We watched “Torch Song Trilogy” and “Desert Hearts” and planned monthly under 21 parties at local Gay bars.
In 1990, Chris, my roommate, and a member of the youth group with a long history of depression and self-esteem issues, ended his own life. I think many of us felt that we had failed him – failed to be a good enough family when his family wanted nothing to do with him. We failed to take him seriously when he joked about suicide and when he made theatrical attempts that we thought were “just for attention.” Jason and I were the leaders of the group, and after Chris’ death we lost interest, and the group fell apart (some time after it was reincarnated into a less educational, more social entity).
But, I look back now, and I don’t see failure anymore. I often meet Gay people in their 30s and 40s who are struggling with issues that we were able to address in our teens. Through Growing Alternative Youth and with Lou’s help, we learned more about Gay history and culture before we could legally enter a Gay bar, than many middle-aged Queers know. We had opportunities to grow at a time when, unfortunately, many Gay people are stifled by internalized homophobia.
I realize now that we didn’t fail Chris. We more likely succeeded in keeping a lot of other Gay kids from following in his footsteps.
I'm not a microblogging Twitter-type guy, but it's been a crazy busy week for me. So here goes.
Estelle Getty and Randy Pauschboth passed this week and I'm sadder than I probably should be. The world really lost two exceptional people, but I'm grateful that my era coincided with theirs.
I'm not thrilled about some of the side effects of the high cost of gasoline...rising food costs, "fuel surcharges" on everything, and the fear of financial ruin that has just about everyone spooked. But, honestly, I'm ok with $4 gas, or even $5 gas. We finally hit the point, where Americans are making real lifestyle changes. Automakers can't make hybrids fast enough, and they can't give away SUVs. Bicycle and scooter sales are through the roof, while Hummer drivers have, almost overnight, become pariahs on the road. Everyone seems to be planning their trips more to make the most of a tank, and I really am noticing significantly fewer cars on the road. And, in some ways the gas crisis has the potential of possibly slowing things down and bringing us a little closer to each other. As a totally anecdotal example, Tony, me, and our friends have been taking long group walks on the beach and the boardwalk and "just hanging out" as cheap entertainment...and it's been great. If the gas crisis causes us to give up some designer names and latest gadgets and take up spending real time with real friends...then I'm all for it.
I've got a crazy reality tv crush on Matt Cady of Fanny Pak on "America's Best Dance Crew." Just thought I'd share.
The gay blog-o-sphere had a near meltdown this week that rivals the Bear Sterns / Indymac implosions. It seems that Cooper of Cooper's Corridor wasn't Cooper at all. "He" was probably my favorite writer on these internets, and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. And, for even more disappointing gay blogger news, Scott-O-Ramais closing his doors, and it looks like Frankie is scaling back.
This summer should've been my 20 year high school reunion, which I wouldn't even think of attending. But, in October, Tony and I will be heading to Pittsburgh, for a 20 year reunion of our gay youth group, Growing Alternative Youth. I cannot wait to see the "old" gang again.
Finally, this pic of Betty on the ferry to Fire Island, snapped by the adoring paparrazzi. After all these years, she's still feeh-irce and I fucking love huh.
It was Tim’s 1990 Bastille Day fete – one of those events that always brought all the Pittsburgh underground youth tribes together. There were the Carnegie-Mellon hipsters, the patent-leather creeper ambisexuals, the edgy industrial-punk queers, the militant Act-Up-ers, the Point State Park theatre majors, the disaffected Dithridge kids and the should-be-in-New-York-but-stuck-in-Pittsburgh clubbers. And, of course, no party of that era in Pittsburgh alterna-gay history could have even been mentionable without the attendance of the residents of 227. Most often just referred to as the Queens’ House, 227 North Neville St. was a sort of hip, debaucherous gay frat house, certainly not affiliated with any sort of higher learning institution. Erik, Thom, Jason, Michael, Joel and a changeable entourage of minor characters who, generally, had simply forgotten to leave after the last Queens’ House party a month or two ago were the epicenter of all things cool, fun and irresponsible.
It was a muggy, sticky summer night and Tim’s house was packed to its Victorian-era rafters. Having been around the scene for a few years already, I knew most everyone, but I’ve never been much of a mingler or a chit-chatter so I headed straight for the living room dancefloor. Back then, DJs at house parties were a luxury and a rarity, so days before a party were lost assembling mixtapes of underground alterna-dance music. Rare New Order and Pet Shop Boys 12” remixes imported from Japan, Nitzer Ebb, Xymox and Book of Love. And of course, the perennial white label pre-released Madonna du jour.
Stimpy pulled me off to the side, and asked if I could somehow get whoever was in charge of the music to play a cassette that he’d brought. He handed his cherished cassingle to me. I looked down at it, and then never looked at him the same way again.
I met Stimpy a few months earlier, through our gay youth group. Tim had known Stimpy in high school, and brought him to the group and the scene. Stimpy seemed like a nice guy to me – but a little nerdy and a lot needy. Years and years of school torment left me susceptible to over indulge my first experience of in-group status.
It sounds a bit more new-agey than I’m comfortable with, but I really was feeling a connection to some new energy – a 100th monkey-style pull. And, when I saw that cassingle that said “French Kiss” on it, I knew – I knew – that Stimpy was feeling it too, and that I had just completed another necessary connection. We got the tape played, and everyone danced to the sound of the future.
A year and a half later, the vague pull that we felt turned to outright restlessness, and Stimpy, on a total whim, instituted his SEARS (Sell Everything And Run Swiftly) sale. Within 2 weeks from his decision to leave Pittsburgh, found himself at roommate referral in San Francisco. Shortly after arriving, he, and about 20 of his new best friends, called me from a pay-phone at one of San Francisco’s first raves – the Whoopy Ball, and Stimpy’s picture was plastered in NewsWeek as a visual of the new cyberdelic youth movement on the West Coast. Two weeks later, I was headed cross-country in a Renault Alliance with $300 and some techno tapes.
It’s been 15 years since we stepped off the edge, and became who we are. We live in different cities at the moment, but we still talk nearly every day as though we’d just seen each other yesterday. Most people wouldn’t believe the things that we’ve seen together, and that doesn’t matter to either one of us. We were a part of the revolution that no one knows about, we stood on top of the mountain and watched the sun rise and we’ve laughed ourselves out of the absurdity of 1,001 tragedies. We were the children of house.
In 1988, a small group of disenfranchised, but glamourously resourceful teenagers, myself included, formed a Gay youth group – Pittsburgh’s Growing Alternative Youth. Our mission was to welcome, educate and empower the next generation of Steel City queers, as well as to greatly expand our social circle and dating possibilities. We took up a campaign of guerilla marketing – infiltrating high school libraries and stuffing any medical or psychology book with an index reference to “homosexuality” with flyers for the group. We networked at Gay cruising spots and outside Gay bars. We posted flyers in the womyn’s bookstore and the universities’ student unions. We grew from meetings of 4 or 5 to a weekly attendance of over 60 in just a few months.
A local Gay minister and activist, Lou, helped us get organized and encouraged us to take on the world. We had weekly speakers, presenting a range of topics. Herman, a charming, elderly African-American gentleman came to tell us what Gay life was like for him in the 1940s. Kathy, a licensed counselor, came to speak to us about ways to improve self-esteem, and Don, in a 2-part workshop, “Eroticizing Safer Sex,” taught us how to protect ourselves in a newly dangerous world. We watched “Torch Song Trilogy” and “Desert Hearts” and planned monthly under 21 parties at local Gay bars.
In 1990, Chris, my roommate, and a member of the youth group with a long history of depression and self-esteem issues, ended his own life. I think many of us felt that we had failed him – failed to be a good enough family when his family wanted nothing to do with him. We failed to take him seriously when he joked about suicide and when he made theatrical attempts that we thought were “just for attention.” Jason and I were the leaders of the group, and after Chris’ death we lost interest, and the group fell apart (some time after it was reincarnated into a less educational, more social entity).
But, I look back now, and I don’t see failure anymore. I often meet Gay people in their 30s and 40s who are struggling with issues that we were able to address in our teens. Through Growing Alternative Youth and with Lou’s help, we learned more about Gay history and culture before we could legally enter a Gay bar, than many middle-aged Queers know. We had opportunities to grow at a time when, unfortunately, many Gay people are stifled by internalized homophobia.
I realize now that we didn’t fail Chris. We more likely succeeded in keeping a lot of other Gay kids from following in his footsteps.
