When I was a Boy

My first car was a 1968 Ford Mustang. No. It was not brand new. I found this car in a ditch around 1991, and towed it home with the help of my brother-in-law. I spent every meager dime I had working to get that Mustang up and running.  When it did run, I was always out and about in this car, with its mis-matched fenders and wonky exhaust. Around this time I also seemed attracted too, and dated older guys. I bring up this point because, now that I'm over forty I am now returning the favor and started to embrace my inner-daddy. Yet, it seems times have changed in the Daddy/boy dating world.  Yes, this blog post is going to be themed "When I was a boy!"

As a gay waiter at the age of twenty-four, I met and dated guys in their late thirties. I had an apartment on my own,  generally paid my own way, and had a blast in the dating world. Now, the caveat emptor of this situation may be type of guy I'm finding, meeting them mostly on Grindr. But, it seems that all the guys I have chatted with, don't own cars and still live with their parents because they just can't afford a place of their own. So, the economic atmosphere in the US is severely cramping my sex life.

Student loans, high rental rates of apartments, and the lack of jobs for new college graduates,  is impeding my ability to find a nice twenty-six year old to tie up and do things. I blame the Republicans.  This entered my mind as I picked up a nice guy for a date, at his parents house, the sideways glances I received were epic when his mom deducted that her and I were the same age. In an attempt to avert the awkwardness I offered that I too had a mid-term to study for, as I'm in college as well. It didn't help.

When I was a boy, I guess life was easier. I pretty much built my own car, and lived on Capital Hill in a series of run-down skeezy apartments. Now that I've found myself  in the Daddy role,  it appears that guys are living at home for much longer. That, or I need to change my Grindr profile to read that I'm looking for guys that have their own car. That's right, StevieB, keep those standards high. Or..... I could keep my nose out of Grindr and in my history book.

STEVIEB'S GHOST STORY

One of my first jobs during college was as a manager of a funky coffee house in an old Victorian on Colfax Avenue. The house was built on Denver’s grand boulevard in the late 1880s but, with the city changing and after the patriarch of the family shot the driver for knocking-up his daughter, the family soon moved out of the grand manor house. It changed hands only a couple of times, most of its life was a Denver’s premier Furrier at the corner of Colfax and Franklin Street.

That was a long time ago and by the time I was a manager of the gay coffee house the mansion had seen much better days. It took me around a month to understand that the huge fur storage vault door was swinging open not due to normal reasons. Or when I would turn off every light in the entire building, seeing the second floor bedrooms illuminated. Even after I removed the light bulbs. At two am I had friends join me one night to watch the windows flash on and off. Oooing and Awwwing like they were fireworks.

My last night closing I had my boyfriend at the time stay with me so I wouldn’t be alone. But soon I forgot about the “owner” of the house as my thoughts turned to my boyfriend’s carnal desires. This did not last long before I flew across the dining room.

I found a new job the next day.

After you get physically assaulted by someone you can’t see I could understand why you would get into the paranormal. I didn’t, just something to talk about. I saw it that I had it coming for being a bad guest.

On my birthday in 1998 I sat in my living room struggling to write. I was trying to get down into words that just six days earlier I had lost my best-friend, Randy Jorgensen. Taken away because of losing his hard fought battle with AIDS. How do you deliver a eulogy to a room full on his family, his relatives that don’t want to hear how he died? They didn’t want to hear how he loved men. They didn’t care about the love that we shared and definitely didn’t want anything to do with how and what took him from them.

I was writing for a hostile audience to say the least.

As I crumbled up draft after draft I kept getting annoyed at my dog because he wouldn’t stop whining. That’s when I finally looked up and realized that my house lights were going berserk. Blinking wildly, on and off blink, blink, blink. That’s when I got hit with the phrase, “Fuck them! Write about us!”

So I did.

I'm Still Here

Last Friday I met the boys out at a British pub and finally found a great Shepard’s pie since the vegetarian restaurant where I was a gay waiter back in college. After watching some rugby and cleaning our plates at the British Bulldog, we walked next door to a bar that I had never been in and yet knew every inch of its dark layout.I turned twenty-one on January 28^th, 1993. On the day of this major event through the birthday breakfasts, the beers bought by family and friends there was only one thing on my mind. The Denver Triangle.

The Denver Triangle was Denver’s the tri-state region’s premiere... and well only men’s leather bar.  I had snuck into a lot of bars before turning twenty-one, knowing a whole routine to get into The Ripcord in Houston, Texas. But, this night I was going to walk in as a man. Not a boy having to promise sexual favors to anyone letting me step foot on its hollow ground.

I believe like a Bat Mitzvah or leaving for your first mission gay men have their own rights of passage. There’s realizing that they don’t have to be effeminate to be gay, learning how to give an amazing blow job and walking into their first gay bar with their head held high, proud of who and what they are.

My twenty-first birthday was that night.

To tell you the truth I was scared shitless, I don’t know why but I was. My friends quickly spread to the bar that I was fresh meat.  This actually helped me meet a lot of great guys that I remained friends with for years.  This also helped me not forget the passage into manhood by not being able to sit down for a week. [insert giggle here] 

The Denver Triangle is long gone.

Last Friday after dinner we walked next door to a bar that I’ve never been to and yet knew every inch of its dark layout.  I knew every inch of this hipster beat-box bar, I giggled to myself as I showed my ID to a twenty-five year old hip-cat door man.

As I walked to the back of the bar it was if I was  desending the staircase of the Titanic. the atmosphere was thick with rust. It was lost forever but I’m still here. 

HE'S A RIGHTEOUS DUDE

I’ve recently received a review of my blog, well part review and part reminder of why I flunked out of VCR repair trade school.

"When in the hell did you become so... literate? I have gone to the blog now, like, twice and cannot believe I am friends with you in your newfound state of celebrity. I remember the days when you only grunted and gripped a pencil between your toes, couldn’t remember the correct spelling of your own name, and would wake up in stranger's homes without memory of exactly how you got there. Well, perhaps I can explain those things. But the blog? I love it!"

This comes from Nick via my Facebook page. Nick and I were gay waiters together at a health food restaurant back in ’93. Nothing like your friends to remind you of what a complete slut you were.

If you want to review my blog, or just call me a slut please do so by leaving a comment or shoot me an E-mail here.

FACEBOOK

Okay so, way to go Facebook. I know right, Facebook. Go figure. In the last week I’ve reconnected with my super-hunky friend Nick, which then got me reconnected to super cute friend Susie.

I always thought the only good use for the site was when you’re feeling down; the best way pick yourself up is to find the Facebook group for your high school. Then go down the list of all the people you graduated with. You soon realize that they’ve ballooned up and each has four kids. And there you sit, with the same high school waist size and all that disposable income.

Gets me cheered up every time.

But wait; now there seems to be a better use then giggling at the guys that once laughed at your flock of seagulls hair cut. Reconnecting with hot guys and ex-coworkers who thought you were dead.

During the “college days” I worked as a waiter at a vegetarian restaurant. I was a really bad waiter. To this day I have a recurring dream that I’ve forgotten a table in station six. I wake up with shivers. Then I start to think what happen to the only people who could feel this pain. Kind of like A Deer Hunter, but without jungle rot. Now I know, and next time at three in the morning when I wake up screaming “Spice tea!” I can put an update status on Facebook and somewhere, someone will get me.

Marcos' Italian Restaurant

At dinner Saturday night a couple of us were discussing how bad our waiter was ignoring us. This, of course led to the “when I was a waiter” conversation. It seems funny how many gay men were waiters while in college or just starting out.

This drew me back to my last stint as a gay waiter. Back to Dallas. Back to Marcos Italian, off Cedar Springs Road. It was a part time job to pay for a lift kit on my jeep.* It was mostly pretty fun. Right in the center of the gay ghetto, I met some really cool people by slopping bad Italian food in front of them. A fellow floor whore was Dave, he was your waiter for dinner and your “anything else” if the price was right. One night Davie and I were making Marco’s signature Bellini. In a five gallon bucket and a stick we found in the alley. As I was jabbing at it with our “sterrin stick” Davie complained that his washboard abs itched. Lifting his shirt he rubbed the dried cum off his muscular belly. My head cocked at an angle to watch the dried man snow drift into the bucket.
“Huh. I have no idea whose that is?” Dave wondered out loud.

My last week at Marcos was pretty bad. I had decided that I really didn’t need a lift kit. That’s when Cher walked in. Not the Cher, but a Cher. Damn good one too. She was scheduled to perform at the Village Station later that night, but was hunn-gree. There was the typical drag queen flack. But soon enough I got a plate of lasagna in front of her so she’d stop saying “Ooooh.. Can I swing on your arms?”

Half way through her meal I decided to go smoke. But as I turned to leave I heard a scream. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEECK! Owie, Owie!” Let’s just say that Cher lost some cheap dental work. If you’ve ever been fingered as the cause of a drag queen losing a paying gig. You know, it’s not pretty.

I quit the next day.


*Wow, that sounded butch.