Taste of the Town
I met my friend Patrick for lunch today. He's in town visiting from Florida. So I decided we should head over to one of the leading gay neighborhoods for lunch and guy watching. I'm never quite sure why I subject myself to that since I have committed the three biggest cardinal sins of the gay world: I passed 29; I weigh more than an underwear model; and I don't wear designer clothes. Therefore, I have little reason to live and certainly don't warrant a second look.
However, Patrick is cute, even if he is also over 29, and I thought he'd enjoy a look at some of the local scenery.
The restaurant was busy, but amazingly, not mobbed, even though it was 1:00, and certainly the prime brunch period. We were surrounded by an assortment of downtown actors, out-of-work actors, former actors and actor wanna-bes. Throw in some part-time actor waiters and you've got a menu of lunchtime men who can deliver a line on stage and in the bedroom, and not make it the least bit believable in either place.
Perhaps I'm being a bit too cynical. These are, after all, my people, although I have trouble understanding how and why we tend to be such a dangerous group.
Scanning the restaurant and then walking back uptown, I couldn't quite see how this neighborhood, and others like it around the nation, posed the risk to the American way of life that the American conservative movement and the Wal-Mart Corporation seem to suggest. These are men, and a few women, eating egg white omelets and salads, shopping for birthday cards and skim milk and paying far too much in local, state and federal income taxes to be treated the way we are treated.
Every now and then I get loud and obnoxious about the fact that Washington keeps wanting to cut my rights but doesn't seem interested in cutting my taxes to the same degree. That might not have much to do with going to lunch with Patrick, but I am somehow reminded that we are expected to pick up our portion of the check, even when people want to deny us a place at the table.
I'm going to start tipping Republicans a lot less.
However, Patrick is cute, even if he is also over 29, and I thought he'd enjoy a look at some of the local scenery.
The restaurant was busy, but amazingly, not mobbed, even though it was 1:00, and certainly the prime brunch period. We were surrounded by an assortment of downtown actors, out-of-work actors, former actors and actor wanna-bes. Throw in some part-time actor waiters and you've got a menu of lunchtime men who can deliver a line on stage and in the bedroom, and not make it the least bit believable in either place.
Perhaps I'm being a bit too cynical. These are, after all, my people, although I have trouble understanding how and why we tend to be such a dangerous group.
Scanning the restaurant and then walking back uptown, I couldn't quite see how this neighborhood, and others like it around the nation, posed the risk to the American way of life that the American conservative movement and the Wal-Mart Corporation seem to suggest. These are men, and a few women, eating egg white omelets and salads, shopping for birthday cards and skim milk and paying far too much in local, state and federal income taxes to be treated the way we are treated.
Every now and then I get loud and obnoxious about the fact that Washington keeps wanting to cut my rights but doesn't seem interested in cutting my taxes to the same degree. That might not have much to do with going to lunch with Patrick, but I am somehow reminded that we are expected to pick up our portion of the check, even when people want to deny us a place at the table.
I'm going to start tipping Republicans a lot less.
posted by Bill at
7:57 PM
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