Thursday, March 14, 2013
THE PHOENIX FALLS BUT IT ROSE FOR A LONG TIME
This sad news from Boston.
It was a long run.
When I moved to Boston and, even before, the newly born news-weeklies, tabloid free papers, were part of my urban liberal/radical upbringing.
They were a source for all you could never find out in the straight media.
Many of my leftist opinions were honed by reading these.
I had NYC Village Voice and had seen a few similar rags from other cities as well but these were our very own radical and irreverent news and opinion sources.
These papers told about the local hot spots, the rallies, the places to volunteer. They had the "personals".
As a newly out gay man, I "dated" or "cruised" in their Personal sections. I didn't much like or want to be in the 3 Bs, bars, bushes or baths.
The ads which were a little slower and more complicated to work through were the precursor of today's on line hooking up sites.
You would send in an ad and then people would reply to a mail box at the paper. After a week, you would go down and get the mail. Then either answer or shit can them.
I answered a few ads and met some nice people.
My first real adult romance was with a guy named Mark who was actually Mort and was an art history prof at UNH. I met him on the first answer. It was like getting a hole in one on your first golf game. So to speak.
Then I met David who was a nice hippy kid and learned that not all of the answers would lead to sex but they could lead to friendship.
Things went so well that I decided to try it myself.
I only put in a few ads.
All got pretty good replies. I would usually go in after a week and then, I think, they only held it open for three weeks.
One latecomer was particularly interesting. A wise guy with a snappy response.
Can you see where this is going?
I called. He answered from his office. He was equally brash, almost snotty, on the phone. I loved it.
We agreed to meet after his work for a drink. He worked in City Hall so we decided to meet at the T lollipop sign at the Government Center subway stop.
As I stood on the steps of the T entrance and looked across the vast City Hall Plaza at the drones leaving the Hall, I spotted this smart looking guy with a kind if impish smile walking toward me.
Bingo.
We went to Peter's Plum, a now defunct bar on the Plaza and didn't linger long.
He came back to my place which was ten minutes away in Charles River Park.
I can still remember almost every moment.
I took him in with me through the back basement entrance past the dumpsters and into the elevators. I don't think I used the freight elevator.
We didn't make it to the second floor studio apartment without, well, the rest is history.
He never forgave me for going in the back way.
Our interactions were formulated from the very beginning. I still don't see what is wrong with the back way.
But we have been together for 38 years this April.
That is what the Phoenix means to me and why there is a tug at my heart to see it fall back down into the ashes.
It did have a good long run.
For this post, I googled "gay ads", "gay personal ads", every combination.
They aren't anymore.
But I did turn up gay related ads, commercials, a compilation tape of funny ones.
Some personals were intentionally pretty funny.
Labels: gay identity, gay life, gay marriage
