This post was submitted by Michael

Michael takes a turn filling in for Zack’s Ramblings today.

When I helped start this website, I had a general notion that people outside of the gay mainstream are everywhere.  It was a general notion, only because I haven’t been everywhere myself to note and document the atypical queers throughout the country or the world.  This past weekend, I had the opportunity to visit two cities and meet members of our community face to face.

The first step of this trip was to Long Beach, California, a smallish city tucked neatly under Los Angeles.  The visit there was two-fold.  First, to attend and schmooze at Cut & Paste Rock & Roll, a queer rock and crafts festival that we helped sponsor.  There, I met a bunch of like-minded individuals, many of whom had already found TNG on their own, and many others who were interested in joining our community by writing for the site or helping organize events.

Fast-forward a few days to find me and my boyfriend spending a lazy Sunday afternoon at a bar ignoring the Super Bowl with a friend of mine from grad school and two friends of his whom he met in Long Beach.  The five of us spent the afternoon laughing, talking, joking and otherwise making lasting memories.  A quick venue change placed us into an empty bar where we took over the jukebox.  What started off as an evening of shared interests erupted into a full-on, raucous, sing-along, impromptu dance party.  A dance party of five.  No one else seemed to mind that we filled the bar with our music and our voices.  No one else was there.  And for a good hour or so, I was at the best gay bar I’d ever been to.  We’d found our peers in Long Beach, and we had a sense that there were more of us out there in the LA area.

Fast-forward a few more days.  The boyfriend and I were meeting up in San Francisco with a great couple who we’d met over the Equality March Weekend here in DC.  We’d spent a practically magical evening with them at our house, eating dessert and drinking wine, talking about all the amazing similarities we shared as individuals and as couples.  This past week, we got together in SF where the four of us teamed up to fix a delicious dinner of DIY tacos to a soundtrack chosen by one of our new-ish friends.  We sang along, talked about music, food and our lives.   Oddly enough, after dinner our friends took us out to a gay bar in the Castro for a night hosted by one of the former TrannyShack drag queens.  The four of us found spots on the dance floor and seemingly moped along to some really bad house music and unidentifiable remixes of some classics.  (Whoever decided to remix-to-death Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill should be taken out and shot, along with the DJs who decide to play the abomination.)   While the crowd was edgy enough, there was something same-old about the whole thing.  After what was likely less than an hour teetering on boredom, we jumped in a cab and headed home.

These last two experiences draw an interesting contrast.  In one circumstance, a handful of friends old and new head out to an empty space and create their own experience and have a blast.  In the other, a similar set of people head out into a packed venue and are nearly bored to tears by monotonous music and a vapid crowd.

These experiences have lead me to believe that the mission of this site is still very valid and true, and even in places like San Francisco, there are opportunities to provide queer folks with a variety of different experiences and outlets for creative energies.   If anyone would like some advice on how to start a party or dance night under the TNG banner, please contact me at michael@thenewgay.net.  I believe that we are indeed everywhere, we just need to coax our peers out of their niches and start building community.

---

First time here? See what we're all about... Get involved... Send us a tip!...

---