In The Ladies' Room: Last Call
Recently, my roommates cleaned the apartment and found my long-neglected Netflix. They mailed in Baby Boom, which had been sitting on top of the television since November so I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail from Netflix informing me that Last Call at Maud’s, which I put in my queue on a whim one day, was in the mail and on its way.
One of the great things about my college was the ability to develop independent study courses; this enabled me to create a course called “U.S. Lesbian History,” or, “Amelie Learns Random Things About Lesbians Because That’s All She’s Really Interested in Anyway.” One of the first things my advisor had me do was to watch Last Call at Maud’s. Once I had made through the hassle of getting it out of the library (my habit of borrowing DVDs and forgetting to return them had caught up with me) I settled in on my futon and started watching.
I wasn’t expecting to be impressed. The era the movie focuses on, from the late 1950s to the late 1980s, has never been my favorite time period. Something about the aesthetics and the lighting, mainly. But slowly and surely, the movie sucked me in. Telling the story of one of San Francisco’s first lesbian bars, Last Call at Maud’s interviews patrons, bartenders and the owners as the bar is getting ready to close in 1989 after 23 years of operation. What was special about Maud’s is that it was more than a bar, more than some place you could go to get laid. While the bar served some political purpose, more than anything, it was a gathering place. As the women in the movie described it, it was a place to call home. But the bar wasn’t clique-y; the patrons all remembered that it was an extremely welcoming place. The bar was the place where birthdays and anniversaries were celebrated; each year there was an awards ceremony, giving awards to patrons to commemorate the year gone by.
What was interesting about watching the movie this time was the new perspective I’ve gained on lesbian communities and lesbian community building. As a junior in college, I’m not sure I realized the extent to which what they had at Maud’s was special. I knew it wasn’t available at my small liberal arts college, but I was hoping that it would still exist when I moved to a city. I knew that the softball leagues were gone (though probably just replaced by rugby leagues) but I still thought I’d be able to find some sort of cohesive community center, whether it be a bar or something else.
If you sum up all the time I’ve spent in D.C., I’ve been here about a year and a half in total. To some, that’s no time at all. But it’s enough time to start to see the trends and the gaps that exist in the city’s community. Working with TNG has helped me see those gaps even more.
The primary reasons Maud’s closed in 1989 was because the needs and desires of the young lesbian community changed; a place like Maud’s wasn’t what was wanted any more. It was clubs, bigger and fancier parties. It wasn’t about community building as much as it was about just having fun or having sex. I feel like it’s a little easier to be gay these days, so coming out doesn’t carry the automatic outcast status that it used to. Maybe a cohesive lesbian community isn’t needed anymore as being gay doesn’t mean you have to be separate from mainstream society.
While I’m in no rush to go back to the 1970s, when Maud’s was in its heyday, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out on something. There’s certainly a crowd and a “scene,” if you will, the real sense of community isn’t tangible to me. I know it’s not necessarily realistic, but what I find myself wishing for is a place like Maud’s, a bar where you go and actually interact with the patrons around you. A place that also sponsors summer softball, some place where everybody knows your name (cue the Cheers theme song).
What do you all think? Am I the only one who’s nostalgic for the close-knit lesbian community of days gone by? Am I just missing the boat? Is there anyway to bring the lesbians of D.C. together? Anybody want to start a summer softball league with me?
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I’ve been looking for where these spaces might exist in DC already…so far I’ve discovered the spoken word scene is chock full of queer ladies, and this week, so is the neighborhood dog park (usually filled with married straight couples). The Black Cat on certain nights, and once in a blue moon I’ll see a flock at Wonderland. no real predictability for that one, though.
Otherwise, Amelie, I guess we’re starting a softball league? I don’t even play softball.
I couldn’t agree with you more Amelie. I’ve been in the DC area for nearly 25 years (minus the 4 I spent in South Carolina for college) and it’s true. I was born and raised in the DC area. I can remember coming back for breaks and counting down the days until I’d get to leave the south and get back to real city life. And now, having technically lived in city proper for almost three years I’ve realized there’s a real lack of lesbian community in this city.
Being back in the city I remember what it’s like to step into the lounges, clubs and hot spots and be greeted with the DC cold shoulder. Everyone’s so busy making sure they look hot and hip they’ve forgotten how to socialize. And that’s not a lesbian thing, that’s a DC/ city thing.
Not much of a solution here to offer. Suppose this is more a bitching session. We all know there will never be a place or location like the Maud’s of 1970. And pretending to believe that we could bond together to create said place is fictional and hopeless.
No, Amelie, you have not missed the boat. Cheers to you for taking a peek into that not-so-old school lesbian sense of community. You’re longing for that dyke-loving joie de vivre that does seem lost here in DC. I have struggled in my two years in Washington to figure out if it is a function of time or of place…is it lacking here, or is it just disappearing everywhere?
There was something to be said for a setting sun, the clink of bats to balls, coolers, benches and bleachers full of women, young and old, fit and fat, laughin’, fightin’ sometimes, but just living, out and easy. And, like you said, if it’s not a softball diamond, it’s that old standby hole-in-the-wall place where you could come as you are, be who you are, jeans n boots or execu-drag, slide into a booth with friends, or just settle in with some familiar friendly faces. It’s the kind of place where intellectual and hardscrabble hang side by side with little, yet a whole lot, in common.
I always thought one of the best things about being a lesbian was being able to move someplace, anyplace, not knowing a soul, with the certainty that a new “family” would be easy to find. Not so, it seems, anymore.
Well, I live in Baltimore and there used to be a neighborhood lesbian bar (that even sponsored a softball team, I think!) but it’s now defunct.
There’s monthly ladies events, and a few lesbian bars, but I’ve visited these establishments and beside paying 6 bucks for a lukewarm Heineken, they never feel that warm or friendly. And it’s not just about crappy service or warm beer, but rather, as you point out, it’s about the absence of community. It’d be nice to have a laid-back bar, or some kind of alternative space, that was totally open and comfortable but also lacked uber swanky pretensiousness — where girls, grrls, women, wimmin, bois, brrls, dykes, trannies, stone butches, old and young, the tattooed, the pierced, the mullat-ed, could all mix and meet. Thanks for the rec. on the film– I’m totally going to watch it and I can already feel the nostalgia, the “dammit, why don’t we have a place like that around here?” and my all too familiar “I need to move to San Francisco if I want a rich lesbian community” reaction. And I know I live in Baltimore, which is like the ugly stepchild to DC, and I think ya’ll do have more trees and it tends to smell a little better over there :) but we’ve got doses of grit and funkiness and queerness that could potentially offer something to the ladies who like ladies too, and we’re only a short car/train ride away. Maybe the New Gay Girls of B-more and DC need to collaborate on some new venture or something.
I think is something that’s the same everywhere. My cousin is a lesbian woman and she talks to me about it. She says that it seems that every now and then, being a lesbian is considered ‘fashionable’ and women everywhere ‘come out’, only to get bored of it, decide they’re actually bisexual and then the real lesbians are left to deal with the shrinkage of the community.
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