Where the Boys Aren't

(Please note that the following essay contains language that may not be suitable for all members of our family. Proceed at your own discretion.)

Like the rest of you, I was shocked and appalled upon hearing the news a couple of weeks ago that several Chelsea bars (all but two of them gay) had been forcibly closed. Even though the claim was that illegal drugs were being sold on the premises, a deeper, darker fear lurked inside of me, one that has haunted me ever since. I am sure this same terror has crossed the minds of many a reader as well.

What on earth are two straight bars doing in Chelsea?

The "Straightrification" of Boys Town can no longer be tolerated. It's come to the point where a decent, law-abiding, mindless Chelsea clone can no longer feel comfortable in his own steroid-inflated skin. In the old days, if Danny or Billy or Robby saw a hot young man pass by on the sidewalk, he'd simply turn around, adjust his baseball cap and himself, and give the guy the traditional Eighth Avenue mating call, "Hey." Before you knew it, they'd be sharing both a condom and Fire Island real estate. Now, in these goddess-forsaken times, if that same Chelsea clone tries this action, the true love of his life for the next 20 minutes is more than likely to have a girlfriend by his side. And I'm not using slang here. I mean an actual "female lover who possesses a vagina*."

Even more terrifying, it's beginning to look like Chelsea Boys themselves are on the way out. The other night I was at XL Lounge with a close friend/fuck buddy of mine. We were waiting for hours for the attitude-ridden bartender with his muscle shirt worn inside-of-his-skin-out to finally acknowledge us. (XL, I am proud to say, has an exceptionally high standard of service.) I took a glance around the room, and what did I see? Hordes of young, smiling, healthy, UN-MUSCULAR men. Not only that, they were flaunting their sad sacks, showing off arms that had clearly never seen the light of a good bicep curl, and stomachs that had only consumed six-packs, not carved one out.

Excuse me, but middle-aged 20-somethings without unreasonable body expectations, who probably don't starve themselves or turn bulimic, who don't indulge in protein supplements or caffeine-rich sports drinks, and who probably have other interests outside of the gym, the bars, or the man-for-man chat-rooms?

Color me controversial, but that can't be healthy!

In addition, I noticed that one of the young "men" (rumor has it they think it's demeaning to be called "boys" nowadays - um, duh, that's the whole point) had a novel in his back pocket. Not, as you'd expect, HX or Next, but an actual book of fiction, with chapters and plots and no Tom of Finland narrations. I'm sorry, but leave that filth for Starbucks where it belongs.

Remember Big Cup? It's gone. How I loved that retro-inspired coffee house - so retro, in fact, I think they deliberately never cleaned the place so it would seem like it was left over from the '60s. For the price of a day's pay you could buy one cup of coffee and waste your afternoon there. But what really impressed me about Big Cup was that the patrons knew a thing or two about the illusion of alcohol. They knew you didn't need liquor to enjoy yourself. They knew you didn't need liquor to get up the nerve to ask guys out. And most important, they knew you COULND'T drink liquor if you were going to leave at midnight and spend the rest of the night on ecstasy.

Down the street on Eighth Avenue is Food/Bar (where did our Founding Faggots come up with these ingenious names?). Luckily, it's still open. But just last Friday night I took my new Manhunt steady there at prime pre-disco-nap time. What happened? We got a table! Immediately! Could someone please explain to me the point of going to a restaurant like Food/Bar, home of the bad service and the bad food and the owner Joe who's somehow able to admire his beauty without an actual mirror to look into, if you DON'T have to wait for a table? Not only that, I'm pretty sure the gorgeous girl sipping a dry martini next to us was not a drag queen.

On my way home, after I'd ditched my loser date (he looked nothing like his photograph, although his face was a pleasant surprise), I passed by the outdoor area of the new bar Gym. For a moment, I felt a sigh of relief. A bar named after our very own Church? Now that is the rock that Chelsea was built on. I look around and what do I see but gorgeous, hunky, vapid boys clinging together in the heat of the moment, their butts sticking out in hopeful abandonment of the dates they'd left at the bar inside. I look down on the floor and - gasp! - now I see cigarette butts lined up like sawdust at an Irish pub.

Excuse me, but have these boys learned nothing from gay gym class? Rule number 10011: You can drink, do drugs, take steroids, cheat, max-out your credit cards on Pines shares or Prada shoes, even like Britney AND Christina. But you cannot smoke in public. That type of bohemian behavior might go over in the tourist-and-straight world of Greenwich Village, but leave it behind when you come to Eighth Avenue.

The only true Chelsea Boy hangout left seems to be the Spiritual Toolbox AA Center on 14th Street. Minus the planter's punch cups, the crowd of beautiful boys who hang out in front every Saturday night look exactly like the same group of younger beautiful boys waiting online to get into Twilo ten years ago. Passing by the other night on my way to the Meatpacking District - which is now so straight that Woody Allen shoots his films here - I distinctly heard one of them say, "Big crowd tonight; I'm not sure we'll get in." My only hope is that, once inside, they reminisce about those good old days.

Why, just the other afternoon, my very distinguished older date and I were discussing the fall of Chelsea. We remembered fondly the piers that are now paved over, the Chelsea Gym's fabulous sundeck, and the theaters that showed classic gay flicks like Querelle, not mainstream patriotic road movies with names like Transamerica. When we left the steam room, we also tried to remember each other's names. Nowadays, if it's good, casual sex you're after, you have to go somewhere off the beaten track and slimy, like New York Sports or the Upper East Side.

Has all of our supposed pride come to this? Every summer, thousands of gay men march in the June parade - along with a few lesbians who we of course ignore - all with the same outfits, the same hair, the same muscles, the same drugs, the same VIP club memberships, the same tattoos, and the same collective thought. And why do they do this? To express their individuality! I fear the time will come when gay men forget their heritage of exclusion and go out into the world with a mind, and body, of their own.

That time may be closer than we think. At a piano bar the other night I heard some gay men listening to a singer named Judy Garland and rambling on about how wonderful she was. I don't know anything about the woman, but judging from the fact that her songs had no mindless disco beat, no unintelligible words, and not one single Pet Shop Boys remix, I'm sure of one thing: She is no Friend of Dorothy's.

*This is the questionable language my note at the top referred to. As upsetting as it may be, I felt that in an essay of this sort, it's essential to use raw, disturbing dialogue to get the point across. My apologies to anyone I may have offended.