An cisive history of London, LA and San Francis rells the sights, sounds and distctive smells of gay life om the 1990s to today
Contents:
- A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
- GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
- 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
- IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
- GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT
- GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L REVIEW – A LURID, LERARY NIGHT OUT
- GAY BAR
- THE GAY BAR: ITS RTO PAST AND UNCERTA FUTURE
A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
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. * the gay bar book *
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.
GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
* the gay bar book *
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. “Gay Bar” danc on the edge of that third space between fictn and nonfictn, a space often rerved for poetry. 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. “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.
'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
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. * the gay bar book *
On Irish televisn news, the headl rmed the natn that Panti Bliss, a brilliantly articulate mpaigner, had arrived at Dubl Castle, as ed she gay was all the rage jt then. Leo Varadkar, mister for health, soon to be taoiseach, had announced that he was gay, as did a former mister om the other ma party, as did a well-known TV news journalist. That day would not have been surprisg had all the bishops of Ireland arrived their fery to let know that they, too, wanted to jo our Gay Bar, a brilliantly wrten and cisive acunt of gay life Los Angel, San Francis and London, Jeremy Atherton L quot the cric Ben Walters on gay history that is “agile om fear and fettg, too often wrten whispers and saved scraps”.
I imaged a walk that two men of my generatn – I me to Dubl 1972 – might do to revis the gay plac that have gone, such as The Gym, a sna jt a stone’s throw om Dubl Castle, or Ingno, another sna, much favoured by prits. Photograph: Clodagh Kilyne/Getty ImagThe arrival of the big, loud gay venu Dubl me at the same time as other eedoms.
IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
In Barcelona 1975, when Fran died, there was not a sgle bar that was clearly signated as gay the cy. “Gays, ” he wr, “n relax a gay bar, people will say, but I went out for the tensn the room. He wr about a DJ his 40s lled B Statn John who “played ecstatic sets of arne dis … He was there to bear wns, to ttify, g rare tracks om what he lled ‘the goln age of gay’, the perd between Stonewall and Aids.
”But the ghosts his book are also those who created gay San Francis self, where there were 18 gay bars 1964 and “an timated hundred and eighteen wh a ”. Atherton L registers the nostalgia that me wh all this change, quotg Fouult: “I actually liked the scene before gay liberatn, when everythg was more vert. Some thgs give him the creeps, like a gay thrift shop: “I crged when I passed , imagg the store to be filled wh stuff svenged om the hom of ad queens … I hadn’t found a way to nsir the multifar story of my people – and to read wh, but not through, the disease.
When they stop shavg, their beards “were perverted, their bristl perfumed wh the sudor of scrotum” gay group, observed San Francis, “uld be tected om a distance by the stk … Each of them seemed to have a magnificent ass and be wrg a book.
GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT
”Atherton L wants to reimage a nnectn between “the goln age of gay” and the future. There were three bars that he and his partner lled the Triangle: “jolly Gee and Dragon, sordid Joers Arms and laid-back Nelson’s Head – a rpective five-, ten- and fifteen-mute walk om our buildg” wr well about another hntg the London years, the spectre of gay-bashg, quotg Neil Bartlett: “Those nights out were spirg – but the solary walks home were foolish.
London, 1986, was not a safe place for a visibly gay man like my twenty-eight-year-old self to be out alone after dark – or even by daylight for that matter. ”The closg of Atherton L’s favoure gay venu London seems to make the cy e alive for him. Gay Bar b memoir, history and cricism; 's a difficult book to p down, but that's what mak so readable and so endlsly fascatg.
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's ambivalent about the velopment, wrg, "I had to nsir whether gay bars promised a sense of belongg then lured to a trap.
GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L REVIEW – A LURID, LERARY NIGHT OUT
In a gay bar, am I penned to mory stat, swallowg drks that nourish my opprsn — have gay bars kept me my place? 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. " He's also spired to dig to the past: "Enough time has passed that gay bars, once a surge, have bee monumental their own way.
" 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.
GAY BAR
Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive.
THE GAY BAR: ITS RTO PAST AND UNCERTA FUTURE
" 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. " 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.