What's Funny About Kissing a Cute Boy?

Racine, Wisconsin, Spring 1967

When I was little, I was always being forced to hug and kiss ladies against my will, just because my parents knew them.  For an adult, that would be sexual harassment, but for a kid, it was "cute."

"Come kiss your Auntie June!  Come on, don't be shy -- give her a kiss!"

Ok, I've never seen her before in my life, she stinks of perfume and powder, she's wearing gross lipstick, and she's a girl!  Disgusting!

At least it was only on the cheek.  In the Midwest, we reserve kissing on the mouth for romantic partners.

But still, "Come kiss your Auntie Sadie!"  "Come kiss your Auntie Opal!"  "Come kiss your Grandma Davis!"  "Come kiss your Cousin Beth!"

It was like a kissing booth at a carnival.

I quickly noticed that they demanded that I kiss only women.  Men only got a handshake.

Why didn't I ever get to kiss my parents' male friends?

In Racine, Wisconsin, where I spent kindergarten, first, and second grade, we lived only a block from Lake Michigan, so Mom took me and my baby brother to the beach nearly every day (even though Nazarenes weren't allowed).

One day she started talking to a boy-girl couple, In my memory they're very young, but they were probably in their late 20s, the same age as Mom and Dad at the time.

Rory had shoulder-length curly hair, rather pale skin, and a firm, compact physique with prominent abs.  He was wearing sunglasses, which I thought were the coolest thing ever.

Ruth was wearing a bikini.

While Mom and Ruth chatted, Rory took me by the hand and led me into the surf.  We went so far in that water was lapping against the bottom of my swimsuit.

He let me put on his sunglasses.  The world turned a pale green.

I felt proud to be walking along the beach with a cute boy, like a grownup on a date.

When we returned, Ruth said "Look at the two big, strong men!"

Yeah!  Two big strong men on the beach together!


A few days later, just at dinnertime, there was a knock on the door.  It was Rory and Ruth!

Rory wasn't wearing sunglasses or a swimsuit anymore.  He was wearing a tan short-sleeved shirt with a picture of a man playing golf on it.  His biceps swelled nicely.

Ruth was wearing a tan dress, and had on red lipstick and nail polish.  She was carrying a pie.

Mom took the pie from her, and Dad ushered them into the living room.  They sat on the couch.

I stared.  Rory had his arm around the back of Ruth's shoulders!  They never touched each other at the beach.

Were they like boyfriend and girlfriend?

"Boomer, where's your manners?" Dad said.  "Say hi to your Uncle Rory and Aunt Ruth."

"Hi," I said politely.

"Hi, Squirt!" Rory said, holding out his hand to be shaken.

"Now you know what to do," Dad continued.  "Shake hands with Uncle Rory, and give your Aunt Ruth a kiss."

Ruth pressed a finger to her cheek to point out the spot where the kiss should be deposited.

Suddenly I had an idea.  I climbed onto Rory's lap, grabbed Ruth's small, many-ringed hand, and kissed Rory on the cheek!

Their eyes bulged in surprise.  Rory laughed.

"Boomer!"  Dad exclaimed, angry.  "Do it right!"

Mom had returned from the kitchen with some glasses of soda on a tray.  "Sorry about Boomer.  He likes to be funny."

"Kid's going to be a regular Jerry Lewis when he grows up," Dad told them.

I refused to budge from Rory's lap. He took his arm from Ruth and wrapped it around me.  "Looks like somebody needs a hug."

"You'll be a great father someday," Ruth said softly.

Yeah, right, father.  or boyfriend.

I remember Rory and Ruth coming to the house a few times after that, to watch tv or play Yahtzee with my parents.  I always shook hands with Ruth and kissed Rory.  They always laughed.

What was so funny about kissing a cute boy?

David Pulls It Out

San Francisco, March 1997

When I was living in San Francisco, my friend David and I walked down Castro Street every day on the way to and from work, even though it was strictly not necessary, to immerse ourselves in the heart of the heart of the gay world.

The Castro Theater -- Orphan Andy's -- Almost Home -- All American Boy -- Twin Peaks -- even the Walgreen's on the corner of 18th and Castro were icons of home.

I liked the morning best, when the street was quiet and calm, empty except for an occasional gym hunk on the way to his workout.

And the barfly.

Every morning, we passed a little bar -- now it's the QBar -- with big French doors open to the street, and in the darkness inside, a single guy, alone on a barstool, gazing out into the world.

He was older, white haired, rather well dressed for the denim-and-leather crowd, wearing a white shirt and a tie.  I couldn't tell what he was drinking, but it wasn't beer.

Who would be in a bar at 9:00 am?

"Drunks," David said with a disapproving scowl.  A former Baptist minister, he was vehemently opposed to alcohol.  "Has to get his fix."

Every morning, day after day, the barfly sat at the bar, looking out at the world.  Sometimes he nodded or waved at us as we passed.

I got so used to seeing him that when he wasn't there, I waited for a few minutes to see if he'd show up.

In the evening, when we passed again after work, the bar was usually packed with the Happy Hour crowd, but the barfly was still there.

In the same spot, as if he hadn't moved.

Who would stay all day and all night in a bar?  Didn't he have other things to do?

Gay people are very territorial.  They've been battered around the straight world so much that when they find a home, they stay.  Maybe this guy couldn't bear to leave the heart of the heart of the gay world, that one block of Castro Street between 17th and 18th.

But no one could spend their life on that block.  There were restaurants, bars, clothing stores, a drug store, a theater, and a hair stylist, but no gyms, bookstores, post offices, grocery stores, or banks. Or jobs.

For weeks David and I passed, morning and evening, and the barfly was there.

One evening, without warning, I headed into the bar.

David grabbed my arm.  "Wait -- don't tell me you're hot for that barfly?  He's cute and all, but he's a drunk!"

"I just want to hear his story.  Maybe he's lonely.  I could take him to a meeting of SAGE, the gay seniors group."

"He knows how to use the phone book!"

"Hey, I went with you to cruise in the men's room at Macy's.  The least you can do is help me cruise the old guy."

Grumbling, David followed me into the bar.  We sat on barstools on either side of the barfly and ordered cokes.

The barfly turned to David, grinning.  "What took you so long?"

"What?  Er..."

He held out his hand.  "I'm Karol.  Not a drag name -- it's Polish for 'Charles.'"

"David...and this is Boomer."

"Hiya," he said over his shoulder.  "I've been coming to this bar morning and night for weeks, .  I was about ready to give up."

"So...you don't spend all day here?" I asked.

Karol laughed.  "I don't think my clients would like that!"

It turns out that Karol was a graphic designer.  One day he stopped in at the QBar for a Bloody Mary on the way to work, and he saw us pass by.  He was so entranced that he made a point of coming to the bar at the same time every morning and evening, in the hope that David would stop and say hello.

"I should have chased after you, but I didn't want to be that Creepy Old Guy, you know."

"Come on, you're not that much older than us," I said.

"I'm over 40, by a few years.  I remember Poland before the War -- World War II, not Vietnam.  And I remember the Summer of Love -- I bet you were still in diapers."

"So you don't drink?"  David asked.

"A Bloody Mary now and then, and maybe a vodka and tonic.  But I don't drink a lot, no."

Then Karol turned to me, his back to David -- the guy he had a crush on.  What was his game?

He told me about growing up during the War, coming to America to find work as an artist, marrying, having kids, and then coming out and finding his way to San Francisco.

"I was here before AIDS, before Gay Liberation, back when Jose Serria was doing drag shows at the Black Cat Cafe."

Suddenly I glanced down -- while he was talking, Karol had been groping David, unzipping his pants, and now he had pulled it out!

You heard me.

Right out in the open.

This was my cue to leave!  "Have fun, guys," I said.

Later that night, David called me.

"So, how was the date with your secret admirer?"

"Well, that's just it.  You know how, when you finally get a guy you've been fantasizing about for a long time, the reality is always disappointing? Plus when you get older, things get more difficult.  And Karol had been drinking...."

"His mission was a failure, huh?"

"And that embarrassed me so much that my mission was a failure, too.  Big bust all around.  So...you want to go to the Bear Party?"

The next morning Karol was not on his usual bar stool on Castro Street.

Lane and I Go Cruising in Lithuania

West Hollywood, June 1997

Lane and I haven't lived together for a year, and I've been sort of dating Kevin the Vampire, so we're not sure if we are a couple or not.  But we don't want to break our tradition of a trip every summer, either Europe or a road trip across the U.S.

"Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam?" I suggest.  "We haven't been there in a while.  Or maybe Germany?"

"No Germany!"  he exclaims.  "I want to go somewhere off the beaten path.  Lithuania.  In search of my Jewish ancestors."

"Your mother was Polish -- we've already been to Poland to check out her heritage -- and your father was from California."

"But Dad's parents were Litvak -- Lithuanian Jews.  Bubbe -- Grandma -- immigrated with her parents in 1915.  She used to tell stories of the shtetl of Kvedarna, where her father was a rabbi."

The more I research Lithuania, the less I want to visit.  Granted, the Lithuanian language is the closest we have to the original Indo-European.

English:  My sausage is very big.
Hindi: Mera sosej bahut bada hai
Lithuanian: Mano dešra yra labai didelė

But it is an extremely homophobic country, like Mississippi squared.  No gay bars, no bathhouses, no nothing.  Plus 95% of the Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust.

95%!  Why would you want to go there?

But Lane is adamant about investigating his Bubbe's Rabbi father, and he is paying for the plane tickets, so....Paris, Amsterdam, and Lithuania.

Day 1:

There are no nonstop flights from Amsterdam to Vilnius, so we hav to go through Frankfurt, arriving at 1:30 pm.

Six years after independence, Soviet influence is everywhere: most signs are in Russian, not Lithuanian; there are long blocks of Brutopian apartment complexes, and statues of liberated workers gazing defiantly at the future; there are police officers and soldiers everywhere, who keep asking for our papers.

But our hotel is in the Old Quarter, on a winding Baroque street near the University and the Signatory House (where independence was declared).

We tour the rather austere Palace of the Grand Dukes  (above) and the Vilnius Cathedral, and have dinner in a French restaurant.

Then back to the hotel and to bed, having not met any actual Lithuanians, gay or straight, Jewish or Gentile.

Day 2:

After breakfast, we rent a car (quite a feat in a country not set up for tourism) and drive to Kaunas, about an hour east, which once had a Jewish population of 40,000.  Today it's about 500.   

We arrive in time for Shabbat services at the Ohel Jahov Synagogue, where the congregation consists entirely of elderly men.  We don't talk to anyone.

In the afternoon, we visit the Museum of the Devil (the Žmuidzinavičius Museum), with over 3,000 statues and images of devils from around the world. Yes, many of them are naked.

Kaunas Castle.

The depressing memorial to the Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Then pizza.

"This is all very interesting," I tell Lane, "But I need some masculine companionship.  What's the point of traveling, if you don't meet locals?  Preferably hot ones."

Our Spartacus guide doesn't list any gay bars in Kaunas, but it lists a "mixed bar," Baras, which caters to "students, bohemians, transvestites, fairies, and misfits."

Although we roil at being labeled "misfits," we check it out.

Mostly students and bohemians, not a lot of cruising going on.  I try to strike up a conversation with a twink reading a paperback book and drinking beer: in his 20s, slim, pale, weird half-mohawk hair style, horn-rimmed glasses:

"Mano vardas Boomer.  Aš esu iš Toronto." (I always claim to be Canadian while traveling in Europe, to avoid the extreme anti-American prejudice.)

He responds briefly and coolly, in English.  Soon I back off.

Well, at least I talked to a local.

Day 3

Our hotel has a gym, so we can work out before heading out to Kvedarna, population 1,500, where Lane's great-grandfather was a rabbi.  It's about two hours west over flat, green countryside.

The only trace of a Jewish presence is a small, overgrown Jewish cemetery, with fifty or so markers in Hebrew.  We can't find one for Lane's great-grandfather, the rabbi, although there are a few with his Bubbe's name that could be relatives.

The trip has been a bust: some interesting sights, but mostly sadness, loss, and loneliness.  It's an odd feeling being in a country of 3.6 million people, and not knowing anyone.

Since there's no restaurant in town, we stop at Kvedarna's small grocery store for some meat, cheese, and bread to make sandwiches.

There's a twink boy outside, eating a popsicle, shirtless even though it's a cool, rainy day: slim, pale body, pinprick nipples, tight abs.  He has the same weird hair and eyeglasses as the guy from last night.

For a moment I think it's the same person, so I say "Sveiki!  Small world, isn't it?"

He smiles.  "Americans?"

I realize my mistake.  "Taip.  I'm Boomer, and this is Lane.  We're from Hollywood, California."

"Joku."  He switches the popsicle to his left hand so he can shake our hands.  "You are from Hollywood!  You are movie stars?"

"We've been in some tv shows," I lie.

"Palike!  You will give me your...your..."  He made a writing sign.  "Why you come to Kvedarna?"

"My grandmother was born here,"  Lane said.

"Tikras!  My grandmother, too.  Maybe we are...um...cousin.  Come, cousins hug."  He wrapped us both in a bear hug.  "You come home, meet my mother and brothers?"

So we spend an hour having tea and very sweet pastries with Joku and his mother, two brothers, and two very hot friends, discussing Hollywood celebrities, Lane's Jewish heritage ("lots of Jews in Hollywood, no?"), and, obliquely, being gay:

Brother: "Do you have wives in California?"
Joku:  "Lane and Boomer don't want wives.  They are free."

Then it is time to drive back to Vilnius to catch our plane in the morning.

No sex, no gay people, that I know of.  But sometimes, meeting a local is enough.

 Especially a hot one.

Pushing a Shopping Cart Up Castro Street

San Francisco, May 1996

Castro Street, the heart of the gay universe, is actually quite compact.  It begins at Duboce Triangle and extends six blocks south to the corner of Market, where you can see the Muni Station and the iconic Castro Theater.

Then there are two blocks of bars, restaurants, and boutiques:  Twin Peaks, Orphan Andy's, Almost Home, Thai Thai, the Q Bar.  A Walgreen's Drug Store.  A barber shop.  Two banks.

At 19th Street it becomes residential.  Bright, ornate Victorians with covered dormer windows, crammed together, covering every inch of space for the next five blocks.  The hill becomes very steep.

By 24th you are technically still on Castro Street, but you're not in The Castro anymore.  You're in Noe Valley.





Who actually lived in those Victorians on Castro Street?

They never came up for sale or rent.  No one we met ever gave them as an address.

Maybe they were the original residents of the street, not even gay, who moved in when the neighborhood was called Little Scandinavia and inspired the play I Remember Mama, who didn't budge during the 1970s and 1980s as Gay Liberation happened all around them.

There was no particular reason to go past 19th, so I never did, until the day I saw the homeless guy pushing a shopping cart up the hill.

Around 7:00 pm on a Wednesday in May 1996,  I was walking down Castro at 19th after the gym, when I saw him rumbling toward me.  It was too late to cross the street.

In San Francisco the homeless were everywhere, sitting on the sidewalk, sleeping in doorways, waving their cups and chanting "any change -- any change -- any change."  You ignored them.  If you wanted to help, you donated to a food bank or homeless shelter.  If you gave them money, spoke to them, or interacted in any way, they would follow you and ask for more.  And as word got around that you were a soft touch, you would be mobbed everywhere you went.  I often saw hapless tourists being followed around like the Pied Piper.

But I couldn't help wondering what the homeless guy was doing.  It would take effort to push that shopping cart up the steep incline, and what for?  There were few people in that direction to panhandle, no parks to camp out in.

And, except for the shopping cart, he didn't look like a homeless person.  He was in his 30s, with a round face and a well-trimmed beard.  A red polo shirt and white pants.  A typical Castro Street buffed physique.

 Before I knew it, we made eye contact. Then he stopped his cart and said "hello" before I could pretend that I didn't see him.

I had no choice but to say "hello" back and wait for the "any change?" barrage.

Instead he said "Hot day, isn't it?"

"Better hot than cold," I said noncommittally.

"My name's Jake."  He extended his hand.  I had no choice but to shake.

 Great, now this guy and his shopping cart will be following me around all night!  

"Boomer.  Where you from?" I asked, stupidly.  That was the standard first question in San Francisco cruising.  Everyone was eager to tell horror stories about homophobic small towns.  But you didn't interact with the homeless!

"Berkeley.  My dad is a professor at UC.  Strictly old school conservative -- you should have seen him raise the roof, when I told him I was gay!"

So that's why you're homeless -- your parents kicked you out.  "I don't 'come out' to anyone.  They can figure it out for themselves."

"Have you eaten?" Jake asked next.  "I was thinking of going to Thai Thai."

Great, now I have to feed him!

"Thai Thai is pretty good," I said noncommittally.

He reached out and squeezed my arm and smiled.  "Nice biceps!  Tell you what.  I'll just drop this stuff off at home, and meet you there in fifteen minutes."

"Where's home?  There aren't any..."  I was going to say "there aren't any homeless shelters up there."  But the cart didn't contain a ragtag assortment of belongings and mementos.  It contained two baskets full of neatly folded laundry.

WTF?  This guy wasn't homeless at all!

"Just up the hill.  See you soon."

After dinner Jake took me up to the Victorian just past 22nd Street, where he and three roommates paid an exorbitant rent.  It had stained glass windows, parquet ceilings, and hardwood floors, but no washer and drier. So they took turns carting all their stuff to the laundromat.

 He got a kick out of people thinking he was homeless, getting all flustered, giving him Attitude.

"You're the first guy who actually said 'hello' to me while I was pushing the cart,"  he said, leading me into his bedroom, which had a beautiful view of Castro Street all the way down to Market.  "That's got to get you some Karma points."  He began unbuttoning my shirt.

I didn't want to tell him that I only said "hello" by accident.

In case you were wondering: hairy chest, nice pecs, very thick Bratwurst, into interfemoral and kissing.