Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton L – a gog out memoir | Autobgraphy and memoir | The Guardian

Contents:

• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
• MY FIRST NIGHT BACK AT A GAY BAR
• "FOR THE MORNG GAYS": THE IMPORTANCE OF LGBTQ-OWNED F AS SOBER, QUEER SPAC
• REEVALUATG THE GAY BAR
• GAY BARELECTRIC SIXTRACK 8 ON FIRE  PRODUCED BYSTUART BRADBURY & DAMIEN MENDISMAY. 20, 20031 VIEWER49.3K VIEWS14 CONTRIBUTORSGAY BAR LYRICSGIRL!I WANNA TAKE YOU TO A GAY BARI WANNA TAKE YOU TO A GAY BARI WANNA TAKE YOU TO A GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARLET'S START A WAR, START A NUCLEAR WARAT THE GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARWOW!AT THE GAY BARNOW TELL ME DO YA, A DO YA HAVE ANY MONEY?I WANNA SPEND ALL YOUR MONEYAT THE GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARI'VE GOT SOMETHG TO PUT YOUI'VE GOT SOMETHG TO PUT YOUI'VE GOT SOMETHG TO PUT YOUAT THE GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARWOW!YOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARYOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARYEAH! YOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARYOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARSUPERSTARSUPER, SUPER, SUPERSTARYOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE3EMBEDCANCELHOW TO FORMAT LYRICS:TYPE OUT ALL LYRICS, EVEN REPEATG SONG PARTS LIKE THE CHOSLYRICS SHOULD BE BROKEN DOWN TO DIVIDUAL LUSE SECTN HEARS ABOVE DIFFERENT SONG PARTS LIKE [VERSE], [CHOS], ETC.USE ALICS (<I>LYRIC</I>) AND BOLD (<B>LYRIC</B>) TO DISTGUISH BETWEEN DIFFERENT VOLISTS THE SAME SONG PARTIF YOU DON’T UNRSTAND A LYRIC, E [?]TO LEARN MORE, CHECK OUT OUR TRANSCRIPTN GUI OR VIS OUR TRANSCRIBERS FOMABOUT
• FOR THE LOVE OF GAY BARS
• HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

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 – A GOG OUT MEMOIR

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.

Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive. " 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. 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. 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.

MY FIRST NIGHT BACK AT A GAY BAR

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.

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 ”.

"FOR THE MORNG GAYS": THE IMPORTANCE OF LGBTQ-OWNED F AS SOBER, QUEER SPAC

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. 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.

REEVALUATG THE GAY BAR

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.

My wdows were down, mic blastg, arm out the wdow, when I heard : the siren ll of the homosexual—Gaga bumpg om the speakers of the newly renovated (and absolutely geo) pat at Chill Bar. "When people thk of gay spac or queer spac, they immediately thk of a nightclub or bar — maybe a ltle hole the wall, " he said. Growg up as a queer, Black women Louisville, Kentucky, Arielle Clark said that she felt like there were certa "ton" she wanted to meet to feel at home the muny: She wanted to attend Kentucky Pri and meet other LGBTQ people, and then she wanted to get to some kd of gay bar or nightclub bee that's where everyone spent time on the weekends.

GAY BARELECTRIC SIXTRACK 8 ON FIRE  PRODUCED BYSTUART BRADBURY & DAMIEN MENDISMAY. 20, 20031 VIEWER49.3K VIEWS14 CONTRIBUTORSGAY BAR LYRICSGIRL!I WANNA TAKE YOU TO A GAY BARI WANNA TAKE YOU TO A GAY BARI WANNA TAKE YOU TO A GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARLET'S START A WAR, START A NUCLEAR WARAT THE GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARWOW!AT THE GAY BARNOW TELL ME DO YA, A DO YA HAVE ANY MONEY?I WANNA SPEND ALL YOUR MONEYAT THE GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARI'VE GOT SOMETHG TO PUT YOUI'VE GOT SOMETHG TO PUT YOUI'VE GOT SOMETHG TO PUT YOUAT THE GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BARWOW!YOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARYOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARYEAH! YOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARYOU'RE A SUPERSTAR, AT THE GAY BARSUPERSTARSUPER, SUPER, SUPERSTARYOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE3EMBEDCANCELHOW TO FORMAT LYRICS:TYPE OUT ALL LYRICS, EVEN REPEATG SONG PARTS LIKE THE CHOSLYRICS SHOULD BE BROKEN DOWN TO DIVIDUAL LUSE SECTN HEARS ABOVE DIFFERENT SONG PARTS LIKE [VERSE], [CHOS], ETC.USE ALICS (<I>LYRIC</I>) AND BOLD (<B>LYRIC</B>) TO DISTGUISH BETWEEN DIFFERENT VOLISTS THE SAME SONG PARTIF YOU DON’T UNRSTAND A LYRIC, E [?]TO LEARN MORE, CHECK OUT OUR TRANSCRIPTN GUI OR VIS OUR TRANSCRIBERS FOMABOUT

The Stonewall Rts, also lled the Stonewall Uprisg, began the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn, a gay club loted Greenwich Village New York Cy. For stance, solicatn of same-sex relatns was illegal New York such reasons, LGBT dividuals flocked to gay bars and clubs, plac of refuge where they uld exprs themselv openly and socialize whout worry. However, the New York State Liquor Authory penalized and shut down tablishments that served alhol to known or spected LGBT dividuals, argug that the mere gatherg of homosexuals was “disorrly.

FOR THE LOVE OF GAY BARS

But engagg gay behavr public (holdg hands, kissg or dancg wh someone of the same sex) was still illegal, so police harassment of gay bars ntued and many bars still operated whout liquor licens— part bee they were owned by the Rights Before StonewallThe first documented U. Police raids forced them to disband 1925, but not before they had published several issu of their newsletter, “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter.

In 1966, three years before Stonewall, members of The Mattache Society, an anizatn dited to gay rights, staged a “sip-” where they openly clared their sexualy at taverns, darg staff to turn them away and sug tablishments who did. When The Commissn on Human Rights led that gay dividuals had the right to be served bars, police raids were temporarily Stonewall Inn The crime syndite saw prof terg to shunned gay clientele, and by the mid-1960s, the Genove crime fay ntrolled most Greenwich Village gay bars.

In 1966, they purchased Stonewall Inn (a “straight” bar and rtrant), cheaply renovated , and reopened the next year as a gay bar. And was one of the few—if not the only—gay bar left that allowed were still a fact of life, but ually rpt ps would tip off Mafia-n bars before they occurred, allowg owners to stash the alhol (sold whout a liquor license) and hi other illegal activi.

HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR

Stonewall's LegacyThough the Stonewall uprisg didn’t start the gay rights movement, was a galvanizg force for LGBT polil activism, leadg to numero gay rights anizatns, cludg the Gay Liberatn Front, Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn), and PFLAG (formerly Parents, Fai and Friends of Lbians and Gays) the one-year anniversary of the rts on June 28, 1970, thoands of people marched the streets of Manhattan om the Stonewall Inn to Central Park what was then lled “Christopher Street Liberatn Day, ” Ameri’s first gay pri para. ”In 2016, then-Print Barack Obama signated the se of the rts—Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and the surroundg streets and siwalks—a natnal monument regnn of the area’s ntributn to gay Gallery The Stonewall Inn is a bar loted New York Cy’s Greenwich Village that served as a haven the 1960s for the cy’s gay, lbian and transgenr muny.

At the time, homosexual acts remaed illegal every state except Illois, and bars and rtrants uld get shut down for havg gay employe or servg gay patrons. Most gay bars and clubs New York at the time were operated by the Mafia, who paid rptible police officers to look the other way and blackmailed wealthy gay patrons by threateng to “out” them. Here, protters monstrate outsi the New York gay bar, Christopher's the early hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raid by police wh no warng.

Sylvia Rivera was a Lata-Amerin drag queen who beme one of the most radil gay and transgenr activists of the 1960s and '70s.