A-LISTS not halfway doneby walter meyer
THE GAYBORHOOD We all enjoy living in our particular neighborhoods and I truly enjoy living in San
Diego’s gayborhood, Hillcrest. I don’t know about you, but I’ve often thought that most of our “gayborhoods” end up a lot like living in TV ‘s Mayberry. If you recall, Mayberry was the idyllic small town that Sheriff Andy Taylor and his young son Opie inhabited onThe Andy Griffith Showthat ran from 1960 to 1968. I know that I’m totally dating myself with this reference, but then hey, if I don’t, no one else will. <Insert rim shot> It’s easy to forget we reside in some of America’s largest cities, especially when you
consider how small and insular life in them can be. The inhabitants of Mayberry, like us in our neighborhoods, have relationships and a common past that unite them: Deputy Barney was Sheriff Andy’s cousin, both were long-time residents and had gone to high school with many of their friends and neighbors. In our very own Gayberry, we like them, share our common histories and experiences (united at the very least in our gay friendliness). I like the sense of belonging and togetherness that comes with that familiarity. I see the same people at the post office, the bank, walking down the street or at the
gym and even if I don’t know their names, I have, because of that familiarity, started saying hello. The Mayberry-ness of my neighborhood really hit home the other day as I went to get my haircut. By coincidence, my friend Brandon happened to be there at the same time and like a scene from Floyd’s barbershop in the TV show, Brandon and I chatted chair-to-chair as we got our trims. I doubt very much however, that Andy discussed Howard’s (Mayberry’s town clerk) impending marriage to another guy, nor do I recall him or Barney weighing in on go-go boys from New York, which were some of the subjects Brandon and I covered. I like that I can’t walk down main street in my hood, without being stopped by several
people wanting to saying hello and to give me a hug. I have experienced the same walk- ing down Santa Monica Boulevard in WeHo with friends who live there—four-block walks can take 40 minutes, as we stop to chat with half the people who pass by. As a person of German extraction who didn’t speak German, a Catholic who didn’t want to be Catholic, a fourth-generation Pittsburgher who never felt like he’d ever fit in to what was then a gay-unfriendly city (although thankfully, that has changed a lot in recent years), in my little corner of the world Hillcrest, I had a real sense of finally being a part of something larger, that not only wanted me to belong—but unlike Groucho Marx—of which I wanted to be a member. Our gay neighborhoods began because, like many immigrants, we needed our own
safe enclave filled with people with a common tie. Fresh off the boat and in unfamiliar surroundings, they banded together for protection and support. My forebears, for instance, lived in neighborhoods, shopped in stores and went to churches in which
“It’s like living in Mayberry... only in our community Aunt Bea is a drag queen.”
German was spoken. But as they or the Italians, the Irish, the Slovaks or (fill in the blank) assimilated, the need for neighborhoods based on ethnicity or religion became less and less necessary, making areas of northeastern cities with sobriquets like “Polish Hill” no more than quaint anachronisms. I read a recent online headline claiming that gay bars were in decline, and when I returned to Austin after an absence of a few years, most of the bars I knew there were gone. I asked my friend what had happened to them and he said, that Austin was “post-gay.” Meaning that all of their bars are accepting of gay people, so only a few were still exclusively gay. For those of us with lousy gaydar (who want to be sure that the cute guy across the bar smiling back is actually gay and not just friendly), it’s difficult in a mixed bar to know who is fair game. I do understand that in a larger, societal sense, this evolution is probably a good thing. My Irish grandmother would have pitched a fit, that one of her grandchildren mar-
ried an Italian and I remember people in high school splitting hairs between Czechs and Slovaks. Today someone from one of the countries in the world’s seventh (and second smallest) continent is generalized as a European—and what difference does it make anyway? To support this, an acquaintance of mine who works for a charity said the response she most often sees under “race” on their forms is now “mixed. “ In a few more generations the question will likely be eliminated as those distinctions fade into obscurity. If gay couples are welcome in any district and not just the “gayborhood” and
Metropolitan Community Church is open to those who simply want to worship, will gayborhoods, gay churches and the community they represent become as obsolete as Polish Hill? As we are absorbed and accepted into the larger mesh, I hope we never lose our
sense of community. The outpouring of support for victims of a recent fire in Hillcrest demonstrated just how important it is to have neighbors rush to help. I happily felt like I was back in Mayberry, with our beloved Big Mike playing the role of Andy Taylor— friend to all.
Walter G. Meyer is the author of the gay novel,Rounding Third.
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RAGE monthly | SEPTEMBER 2011
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