At the Gay Bar....

Went to a gay bar last night....

At this point (ahem), as an Australian male from country New South Wales, I must strongly reaffirm to you all my staunch heterosexuality....okay, now that's done....

Whenever your correspondent feels a little despondent, he usually ends up stumbling into some drunken adventure which can take him further into despondency or perhaps out of it. New housemate Luka really wanted me to come out with her workmates to see some guy sing at Heaven....haven't been out much lately so I thought I'd give it a go. The club thing isn't my scene really, but it's good every once in a while to stick your head out of the usual runaround.....

Felt a little out of place with all these rowdy waiters and waitresses as we walked down from TGI Fridays to Traf Square. Shyed away from the bouncer vibe...bully human dogs in black. I guess a gay bar would need them....

Weaving between tall black drag queens and pretty boy couples, we found the VIP room easy enough and watched Luka's workmate strut his stuff....yeah, whatever.....I wasn't there for the music, I guess I was there for a bit of a different vibe. Restaurant gigs to City Boys and their trophy wives is one of the workplaces which for the moment I'll be happy to do for the rest of my days, but as a crowd they're dead boring and pretty arrogant. Here at least was a different crowd, different scene....

Made me think of all the classic old hangs that we hear about through Jazz history....Congo Square, Storyville, the solo piano cutting contests in New York of the 20s, the bebop scene of the late 40s, Cuba in the 50s (that must have been something else!), the hippie thing of the 60s, even disco in the 70s. With the exception of the last one, all those places were amazing moments in world musical history, but they would also have been incredible places to meet amazing characters and get into adventures of the night. What made me think of it was that all this that I was seeing openly displayed before me, in London's biggest gay club, would all have been there in those places too, as it always has throughout human history, but it all would have been hidden, suggested....

It was a Wednesday night and the place was pumping. Asking directions from a shirtless waiter, on the way to the toilets I realised that I wouldn't have to make the distinction between male and female, as round here there didn't seem to be one!...

Surveyed the scene a little....Luka and other housemate X who I was there with said that talking to girls would be all right in a gay bar because they're a lot less defensive, but then on looking around and seeing all the ladies with other ladies, I was still a little reluctant....

Throughout the labyrinth of it all, I eventually ran into Luka again, and as we propped up the aluminium bar and paid over three quid for pints of Carlsburg in plastic cups, she got all heavy on me again about finding love. Ah, the intrigue of the strangers you live with....a fellow cruise-ship dweller for a time, on the last day of her contract she came across in the crew library a book in Hungarian (her native language) about ancient Greek mythology. The crew libraries on board are places where the ever-transient crew leave books behind for others to enjoy, perhaps the only real traces of a communal vibe among all that corporateness.

She opened it to a random page and found a picture of Eros, the love god, and so she has kind of adopted this identity...there was a section about how Eros is always finding love for others but never for herself. She's gone in to this rave a few times now - quite remarkable really, just opening up to me like that and we've only known each other a couple of weeks. At the end of the day I guess we're all looking for somebody, battling against the loneliness....I knew I wasn't going to find anyone in that place, so I did what I do....I got my big grey coat from the cloakroom, wrapped myself up in it, and charged off to the night buses.

And sure enough, woke up this morning and felt strangely happy with everything. Maybe it was the mention of the Caribbean...everyone I've ever met from there has been so amazing with the charisma and charm and people skills...the kind of people that make you feel good about yourself. Gotta get back there one day...

And of course, any troubles that I may have are always framed within the plight of four billion of my fellow inhabitants of this tiny crystal ball who are living in poverty, living in far worse conditions than my own charmed little muso life. But then here in the Western world, with all our weapons of mass distraction, with the media continually telling us how privileged we are among the citizens of the world, it can still be so difficult to pull one's head out of it all and marvel at how good we really have it. I've always found that a bit strange....