Bring It: September 23, 2010: Gay Standard Time

There’s no time like Gay Standard Time, and that’s just another reason why I love my gays so hard. Just as there’s no one way to be gay, there really is no standard “gay time.”

People come out at different ages, and being out has various stages. The gay life cycle can be very different from “average,” but the gays of our lives also have their own special rhythm.

For me and much of San Francisco, the gay calendar year starts some time around the Oscars, Easter, or White Party. It builds momentum through Pride and then picks up pace through to Folsom weekend, which leaves us worn out and weathered.

The season changes somewhere in between Folsom and the Castro Street Fair, and allegedly our downtime begins, just in time for Halloween and then the “traditional” holidays.

I prefer holigays to traditional holidays, so while most people are organizing their Christmas ornaments and ringing in the new year, I’ll be planning group costumes and purchasing swimwear for the Atlantis cruise I’m going on in February.

Gay Standard Time is more like a law of nature than a time zone. There’s no set timeline for our rites of passage, and we’re more likely to mobilize or celebrate around the passage of laws than the passage of time.

Being gay is timeless, an organic and fluid approach to life that can profoundly surprise and delight, at any age. It’s never too late to go to your first circuit party or don drag, and it’s never too soon to become a fundraiser or join the gayby boom. And there’s no time like the present to start appreciating and questioning the legacy we leave by loving our gays, every day and every way.

As another huge year of gay goings on winds down, I’m looking forward to planting the seeds that will blossom come springtime, and to regrouping and recharging every time it’s the right time between now and then.

Bring It! August 27, 2010

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and one gay’s night-on-the-town triumph is another’s tragedy.

It’s all relative, and it’s all a matter of perspective, especially when it comes to parties. It’s a subjective search for the perfect “swirl,” and we never know what’s going to make it just right, or when. But when it’s right, it’s SO right, and that’s what keeps us all returning to the dancefloor.

I’m always amazed by how differently people can perceive the same event. What sounds like pots and pans to me moves other circuit boys into a sweaty cardio craze. And when I feel like I’ve just “gone to church,” other boys are in line at the coat check, unable to escape the screaming divas fast enough.

We’re all hoping that tonight’s gonna be a good good night, but even when it’s off for me, I take comfort in knowing that somebody’s on an epic journey. I’m confident that I’ll get mine soon enough, and we all must be, because we just can’t stay away from the discoball. Like gay moths to the flaming flame.

And while we’ve all become experts at critiquing the music, venue and crowd at the parties on our own personal circuits, the experience isn’t really about any of those things nearly as much as it’s about feeling a sense of community.

The dancefloor is my happy hour, and I live for that thumpa thumpa the way a lot of people salivate before their first sip at cocktail time. A sappy theme song comes to mind, from “Cheers,” a show that begins, lives and ends at “the bar.” That concept is so straight, I could never really relate, but now it all makes perfect sense to me.

“Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name,” (even if we all call each other “sweetie” because we just can’t remember. “And you’re always glad you came.” Damn straight, come to think of it!

My friend Hysterica once told me that alcohol is for straight people. The boy bars of the Castro suggest otherwise, but the spirit of that comment rings true.

There’s a lot to toast in our town, which always offers more options to dance it out than a girls knows what to do with, and which more often than not delivers a sweet swirl. I may have Gatorade in hand when I drink “to life,” but the sublime joy of leaving behind life’s daily grind is just as sincere.

Cheers, Queers!