Category: After Dark

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve:

  • 1979-1980: I get drunk for the first time. I also get caught by my parents getting drunk for the first time.
  • 1981-1982: Someone hits my car just as I’m getting started on what turns out to be the last heterosexual date I will ever subject myself (or anyone else) to.
  • 1984-1985: I spend the night with a boy I have a major and obsessive crush on. Nothing happens. Sigh.
  • 1994-1995: I’ve just broken up with someone. I go to a quasi-legal party at a warehouse down the street in San Francisco. It gets raided.
  • 1999-2000: Millenium party with accordion accompaniment.
  • 2008-2009: On a very cold night, the ex and I find ourselves on the wrong side of downtown Pittsburgh for the fireworks.
  • 2010-2011: Most depressing New Year’s Eve ever. Enough said.
  • 2012-2023: Done with this shit.

Other than 1974-1975, when I was ten years old and at Disney World, I’m hard pressed to think of a single New Year’s Eve that was memorable for actually being enjoyable. Maybe that’s why I pretty much just say “fuck it” at this point. I never liked New Year’s Eve. It’s nice no longer having to pretend to. I was even sort of faking it in the photo above from 35 years ago…and who the hell are those people?

For the record, this year I invited a Spectrum tech over for an early date at 4PM. His repair didn’t “take” and now I get to see another Spectrum tech at 9AM on New Year’s Day. Good thing I won’t have a hangover.

I do have collards, Hoppin’ John, and pork things for tomorrow. Nothing changes New Year’s Day (to coin a phrase).

I made a sex map

This map displays every spot (or at least every spot I remember) where I’ve had sex. Reds are precise locations while oranges just mark the vicinity. Yes, that means I don’t necessarily remember everyplace I’ve had sex down to the building, address, alley, or bush. The 1990s version of me was a major slut, OK?

Try building your own. It’s fun, if sometimes mildly disturbing…

Sex map

It was thirty years ago today…

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So it was thirty years ago tonight that the legendary Pterodactyl Club in Charlotte opened. Damn.

That was also the night that I felt I really started making friends in Charlotte after a long and lonely first winter there. I ran into an acquaintance I’d known in Myrtle Beach at the opening and she introduced me to a whole new crowd that quickly became my crowd.

I miss that old run-down steakhouse on Freedom Drive. I saw some great bands there (everything from the Flaming Lips to They Might Be Giants to Iggy Pop, among others) plus the DJ nights were a very welcome alternative to the never-ending cycle of annoying disco and drag at the queer bar a few blocks down the street. As someone who even then really didn’t love gay clubs–and especially hated the shitty music one was forced to endure in them–this was a pretty important spot for me. it was also a passably good place to pick up boys of a sort who were also not as annoying as the ones at the queer bar.

Side note: The grand opening flyer I scanned so a friend could put it on his blog a few years ago must be the only remaining copy in the universe, based on how often I’ve seen it floating around the web.

The Pterodactyl is now a grassy field in a rapidly gentrifying area. At least there’s not an artisanal grits and okra bar there yet…

Otherstream at 20: 2014

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Only two more years to cover before Wednesday’s big anniversary.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

 

Otherstream at 20: 2013

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Despite an incredibly depressing start, 2013 turned out to be a really good year for me. I relocated to the house where I grew up, traveled a lot, and started having the slightest hint a social life again (which is about all I’ve ever really been able to stand anyway). And then there were the antidepressants–both the pills (which helped a LOT) and the cat with whom I had a brief relationship (which helped more than I might have thought as well). Music was a big help too.

The web stuff was maybe not some of my best ever, but that’s OK. Feeling like a human being again was nice.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Otherstream at 20: 2000

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Anniversary soon. Today? Y2K, when I apparently hated everything, especially San Francisco. OK, I still don’t care much for san Francisco.

Favorites and milestones from the textual diarrhea that was 2000:

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Whole lotta Canada onstage

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Sloan at Cat’s Cradle Backroom. This makes up for not getting to see them last year in Toronto. This was actually better (and much cheaper) because it was a small club. Great show with many fewer annoying 19-year-olds than at most shows in Chapel Hill. And my minor crush on Chris Murphy continues stronger than ever now that we’ve been just fifteen or twenty feet from each other. Sigh…

Farewell…and good riddance?

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The biggest, oldest queer bar in Greensboro is closing.

Literally. As I type.

It’s been here, under various names and owners, for nearly thirty-five years. I haven’t set foot in the damned place in over twenty. But I’m here tonight for the farewell as a favor to a friend. Hated the place in 1984. Hate it even more now. Enough said. I won’t miss it. Big “one size fits all” queer dance clubs like this are from another time, and I’m really okay with being on the back end of that scene.

Non-surprises:

  • Crappy music.
  • Annoying drag show.
  • The realization that no one I still know (or would ever hope to meet) can be found in a big queer dance club in Greensboro NC.

Worst Saturday night ever. Or at least since 1984 or so…