In his new memoir, “Gay Bar,” Jeremy Atherton L documents his personal history and the history of queer inty by explorg gay bars around the world.
Contents:
- A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
- COLORADO GAY BAR SHOOTG: HERO VETERAN SAYS HIS ARY STCTS KICKED TO SAVE LOVED ON
- TIM MILLER: ‘YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE A HERO AT A GAY BAR’
- HERO BAR, GAY BAR TAIPEI
- IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
- THE BT GAY BARS BOSTON
- 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
- THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
- “WE HAVE A GAY BAR HERE.” YOU DON’T NEED A COAST TO BE COSMOPOLAN
A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
* gay bar hero *
A man who has been lled a hero for helpg subdue the spect the adly Colorado Sprgs gay nightclub mass shootg has spoken out about what he experienced si the venue. AdvertisementSKIP Jeremy Atherton LWhen you purchase an penntly reviewed book through our se, we earn an affiliate 9, 2021GAY BARWhy We Went OutBy Jeremy Atherton LHistory, as is tght, is a straight le of domo fallg — the relentls clack of fact htg fact, an orrly que of aly stretchg on forever.
History, as is lived, is a reelg spiral of flight and return; the erative reawakeng of new selv faiar plac; a never-endg terrogatn of our own nfed and nfg motiv; a msy slather of dots on a graph where the center n be plotted only Atherton L’s betiful, lyril memoir, “Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, ” cloaks this lived history that learned history, examg an objective subject — gay bars — to create a highly subjective object: a book about his life, flensed down to jt the bs that ma past the chapter foc on one particular gay bar (jumpg om London to Los Angel to San Francis and back), s history and s place the trajectory of Atherton L’s life. Atherton L himself is renred only relatn to the bars he walks through; you’ll fd yourself hard-prsed at the end to say where he was born or how many siblgs he has (and you won’t re) Atherton L has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-que range for discsg gay sex. Like any good gay bar, this book has a bouncer, and his name is is Atherton L’s first book, but benefs om his extensive experience as an sayist and an edor of Failed Stat, a journal about plac.
COLORADO GAY BAR SHOOTG: HERO VETERAN SAYS HIS ARY STCTS KICKED TO SAVE LOVED ON
Hero Gay Bar Taipei is a fun gay bar wh small dance floor and regular themed party nights like shirts off, popular wh lol boys and tourists, * gay bar hero *
“Gay Bar” is well crafted (which is pecially pleasg nsirg this is a memoir about stctur), wh a strong thorial hand that mak the rear feel refully shepherd through the text, even as Atherton L jumps s and ntents. When he discs an important 1966 prott at the historic Greenwich Village gay bar Juli’, he c a New York Tim article to talk about the “tr of activists” volved — not realizg that the article left out a fourth man, Randy Wicker (the only one still alive, cintally enough) a half page later, though, Atherton L warns that spe the activist claim that gay bars “should be kept open to facilate knowledge passg between generatns, ” he himself had never really received gay wisdom “on a barstool.
” This book is not about history, the subject you study, but history, that thg you have wh that guy by the jebox whose name you n’t the fal chapter of “Gay Bar, ” Atherton L grappl wh gog to a new generatn of bars, created by very different forc, meetg very different needs. The heroic army veteran who bundled the Colorado gay bar shooter to the ground has tearfully scribed how his stcts om his ary trag immediately kicked , orr to protect his loved Rich Fierro first realized the gunman was sprayg bullets si the club, he ducked to avoid any potential g fire, then moved to try to disarm the shooter. Nam of the victims are shown on a rabow durg a ndlelight vigil on a rner near the se of a weekend mass shootg at a gay bar, late Monday, November 21, 2022 A pair of mourners were emotnal at a vigil held outsi Club Q Colorado Sprgs last night as they remembered the victims of the tragedyPeople embrace durg a ndlelight vigil on a rner near the se of a weekend mass shootg at a gay bar, late Monday, November 21, 2022, Colorado SprgsColorado Sprgs Mayor John Suthers, left, nfers wh Colorado 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen durg a news nference about the weekend mass shootg at a gay bar, Monday, November 21, 2022Nic Grezcka, -owner of Club Q, listens durg a news nference about the weekend mass shootg at the gay bar, Monday, November 21, 2022, Colorado SprgsBut landlord Llie Bowman tells she was the one who alerted thori to her home, after Voepel - the spect's mother - phoned her to tell her 'people' were lookg for her son.
Jeremiah Harris, who is 24 and gay, said he went to the club a uple tim a month and regnized one of the victims as the bartenr who always served him.
TIM MILLER: ‘YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE A HERO AT A GAY BAR’
A rated army veteran who tackled the shooter who killed five a Colorado Sprgs gay club said he wanted to protect the close kn muny si * gay bar hero *
It also rekdled memori of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 2006, there have been 523 mass killgs and 2, 727 aths as of Nov. This 3 bedroom apartment has a livg room wh flat screen TV and a fully equipped kchen wh a washer and dryer, a bathroom wh shower and ee WiFi, Close to all the gay bars and rtrants. — A rated army veteran who tackled the shooter who killed five a Colorado Sprgs gay club said he wanted to protect the close kn muny si the room.
HERO BAR, GAY BAR TAIPEI
Lookg for the bt gay bars and clubs Boston? Check out the LGBTQ-iendly plac for partyg, drag shows and more. * gay bar hero *
If you felt a twge of boredom (bon if you thrill to disheveled, elive, gamy), then I have a book for Atherton L’s “Gay Bar” is a rtls and telligent cultural history of queer nightlife. In the openg scene, Atherton L and his partner (rather regrettably referred to as the Famo Blue Raat, after the Leonard Cohen song) go out to a London gay bar, lookg for a ltle adventure, and enter a crowd: “Wh a kd of btal elegance, the group spread apart like the blas of a pocketknife. Atherton L is a skilled rear of the signifiers of cloth and archecture, the fetishizatn of workg-class fashn, for example, and how the rise of AIDS fluenced sign cisns: “A new type of gay bar began to appear London’s Soho the ’90s — airy, glossy, ntental.
) Most jarrg, perhaps, are Atherton L’s efforts at mimickg the theorists he clearly admir, those sectns that e across as parodi of amic wrg: “If the word muny is ed a failure of vobulary — too broad, too utopian — perhaps the metaphor to bt replace is metaphor self”; “gay bars are about potentialy, not rolutn. He’s already told what he most miss about gay bars; how movgly he replit here, wh his wi, strobg tellect, enliveng skepticism, raslly allure: “Perhaps you uld ll a gay bar a galaxy: We are held together but kept om llidg by a fe balance of momentum and gravy.
IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
Author Jeremy Atherton L wr of the history of gay bars, as their existence is threatened by the populary of datg apps and risg property sts, and reflects on their prence his life. * gay bar hero *
Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat.
That kd of gay bar — all kds of gay bars, really — are danger of closg, Atherton L wr, due to the populary of datg apps and risg property sts. He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk. " That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place.
" Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental.
THE BT GAY BARS BOSTON
From Wonr Woman to Northstar, here are some of the most groundbreakg LGBTQ characters and gay superhero Marvel and DC Comics non. * gay bar hero *
" Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people. And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball. Leve is a big fan of the X-Men (who have a handful of gay characters) and the Transformers (all of whom seem straight) and has been readg ics sce he was 8.
’ ”The Sk Tight party — which the stum range om the faiar (like Spir-Man) to on that only a ics geek would regnize (like the 1993 versn of Superboy) — is one way that gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr ic book fans are exprsg themselv today. But wasn’t that long ago that the environment was ls than welg for those who wanted to make the two seemgly disparate worlds Kelbgh for The New York Tim“Growg up the ’80s, I gus I didn’t even thk gay super-hero or supportg characters were a possibily, ” Dan Avery, 37, an edor of Next, a gui to gay night life New York Cy, wrote an e-mail msage.
Someone who unrstands the past reluctance to e out is Andy Mangels, 43, who sce 1988 has morated the “Gays Comics” panel at the Comic-Con Internatnal San Diego. Mangels said a recent telephone the ic book dtry has moved beyond the hysteria ed by “Sctn of the Innocent” — the 1954 book by the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham that suggted a lk between readg ics and juvenile lquency, saw Batman and Rob as a homosexual uple, and posed Wonr Woman as a fan of sadomasochism — te gay and lbian characters have been slow to Mangels ced issue No. Jim Shooter, the wrer, jtified the scene by sayg was based on cints that happened to a iend and and lbian characters fared better the unrground ic movement wh pneers (and gay creators) like Howard Cse and Roberta Gregory.
'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
“The Amazg Adventur of Kavalier & Clay, ” the Pulzer Prize-wng novel by Michael Chabon, chronicled both the paranoia about ics the 1950s and Sam Clay’s stggle wh his gay inty.
Chabon said a 2007 terview wh In terviews wh several gay fans, the reasons given for gravatg toward ics were as varied as the hero’ stum: everythg om pism to “hot men tights” to embodyg the X-Men’s msage, “seekg acceptance om a world that hat and fears them purely for who they are. “I thk that some young gay boys and men are more attracted to that than the average kid bee they have one extra fight to fight than jt beg the wimpy kid school, ” said Bob Schreck, a bisexual ic book edor who worked on Green Lantern, which clud a gay-bashg storyle. The team was created by Allan Heberg, a wrer on “Grey’s Anatomy, ” who said his edor supported his sire to clu gay of the most proment lbian hero, The Qutn and Batwoman, are at DC Comics.
Jimenez, who is gay, is one of over 350 wrers, artists and edors who are profiled on the Web se for Prism Comics, a nonprof anizatn that supports lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr ics, creators and rears. Patty Jer, who, along wh David Stanley, is a print of the group, said, “We have gone om one booth San Diego, that s fancy was more like a place for the gay guys to hang out, to three booths” that are foced on talkg to fans, profsnals and those who want to enter the field.
THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
He’s had the Human Torch get exced about havg tickets to “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spellg Bee” and Invisible Woman vis a gay bar for a girl’s night out wh televisn have the first gay superhero a leadg role? We’ve put together this list to troduce some of the most fluential gay superhero, rangg om groundbreakg figur like Marvel’s Northstar to characters like Harley Qun who only me out the past few 12 most inic gay superhero1) Wonr WomanDiana of Themyscira has a long and storied history as a queer in. (CC-BY-SA)2) MidnighterPossibly the bt-known gay superhero ic book circl, Midnighter was created as a parody of Batman, startg off the adult-rated Wildstorm ic Stormwatch.
“WE HAVE A GAY BAR HERE.” YOU DON’T NEED A COAST TO BE COSMOPOLAN
Thanks to the X-Men ics’ love of time travel hijks, there are actually two versns of this character at the moment: A teenage Iceman who realized he was gay after Jean Grey read his md, and an adult versn who stayed the closet and dated women for years, but me out after beg nonted by his younger self.
The recent Iceman solo seri foced on his life after this revelatn, earng a mixed rponse bee while ’s great to see a gay character gettg their own ic, his emotnal arc is a rather old-fashned g-out story. She first appeared as Batman’s love tert the 1950s, shortly after the publitn of Sctn of the Innocent, a book that acced Batman of homosexual propaganda.
In recent years she was rewrten to be gay herself, a ntroversial cisn that led to some problems of s her ic’s creators wanted her to marry her girliend, DC nixed the cisn by sayg hero “shouldn’t have happy personal liv, ” a dub statement that sounds pretty ridiculo the ntext of, say, Superman.