The Park

We live in a tastefully appointed condo overlooking the gay park in Denver. Well, it was gay. 

In the sixties the counter-culture hippies gathered in the park to smoke weed and worship the moon. In the seventies the homos came to this park to smoke weed and worship dick. In actuality gays and lesbians came to the park, named Cheesman due to repressive zoning laws meant to keep Denver white, conservative, a safe place for their idea of a nuclear family to not feel oppressed. In most parts of the city, unmarried individuals could not cohabitant. If you weren’t married you just could live under the same roof. The area around this park was a tiny area not restricted to this zoning ordinance. The gays gravitated to this green open space to find any resemblance of freedom. 

I literally stepped off the number 10 bus in the summer of 1989. I too was seeking freedom, and I unknowingly found it. An oasis of grass, grass, and ass. The time spent in the park made me who I am, the friends and culture gave me my foundation in life. My entire adulthood has had this foundation that draws me back. So, when we discovered that a condo overlooking the park came to the market, I think it took three seconds for us to contact and set a viewing. After moving in and settling into our new house, I had floods of memories of our new building. I walked by and gazed at our future home ever since that summer of ’89. A unattainable pipe dream to live life on a balcony opening up to a sea of green trees and lawn. Now I sip coffee at 3am on that balcony, casting a gaze onto my home. 

 I soon realized that the park was very different. This center of gay culture, with it lurid cruising and circling cars blaring Madonna, was missing one thing. The gays. Everyone has many opinions  as to why the gay neighborhoods across the US have be come….less concentrated… The best being we don’t need to live in fear in a gay sanctuary part of town.  The  worst opinions being “online apps” No matter the reason the park seems, to me anyway a very different atmosphere and experience. As we walk around the park now-a-days, I will casually say, “I used to get plowed on that tree” to hear, “the tree with the family picnicking?” “yeah” I will sigh.  

The passing of time changes everything. 

So, Hello.

Ever wonder where old media goes to die? No. no-one wonders that. You're watching a Vine video on your humongous desktop, thenYoutube blows up, then dies, then blows up. The winds of self-indulgent communication blow gently, and yet consistently. The written word morphed into live streaming, the journal turned into  live streaming shorts.  

There's an ancient art that happened just after cave scribble, it was called "Blogging"and yes, this is where I say "back in my day" as I rattle my cain in your direction. I am big! it's the screens and attention spans that got small!

Let's skip the junk about kids these days and how everyone once blogged and now walks around with live uploads to their platforms. I was a blogger in the past. A popular one. But, then life moved on. I live by the mantra which states, a sign of a healthy life means there is no sign of it on line. I am having a healthy life. I am with the MOST amazing partner. I thank my lucky stars every day that we are together. Now, why am I typing these words. I miss writing, I miss telling my stories. Sometimes the same stories I've told a dozen time to this amazing partner. His name is Brian. Brain the amazing. 

My Dad was a story teller. Not all stories were true, but the truth can be a killer in a good story. But I learned story telling from him. Which may be the only thing I learned from him. Which brings me back to my writing tool, my Macbook. My companion through my college years and stage era of Japanese suit porn. Term papers and blurred business men in the past just as Nice to See StevieB blog posts.  Blowing the dust off the keyboard and seeing if the Blogger platform still exists. I does. Oddly enough to find out. 

So, hello. Hi. Let's see what happens.