PIECES OF FLARE: GQB's Che Guevara-style Cher pins. |
Boston’s gay nightlife is usually balkanized into segregated enclaves for twinks, bears, lesbians, and drag queens. Sunday nights at the now-dismantled Avalon on Lansdowne Street were one such (twink) outpost. Which made it fitting that neighboring Tequila Rain was this month’s target for Guerrilla Queer Bar, a flash mob that gay-bombs unsuspecting straight bars every first Friday.
In line, I alert the bouncer: “The gays are just going to keep coming!” He appears unfazed. Inside, I see why: walls of yellow bubbles, Top 40 diva jams — and scads of assorted gays. Everywhere. Overlooking a dance floor already stuffed with klatches of queers, we are awed. “This is like that scene in Alien where they find all the eggs!” my friend murmurs over the opening peals of “Baby One More Time.”
A drag queen with a high bouffant flirts as she orders a drink. A smoker on the patio waggles his ass at Fenway yelling, “Hit me, baby, from behind!” Two nattily suited brothers, gay Chris and straight Dan, are celebrating Dan’s birthday. “Birthday suit!” their female friend squeals.
Chatting turns to grinding as Mary J. Blige pleads for no more hateration. A trio of older men leer at my notebook. “I thought you were some whore getting everybody’s number,” giggles one. “This is the first time in seven years of living in Boston I’ve experienced a gay night with everybody together,” he adds.
During “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” organizer Gemma Firmo tells me, “It seems like just yesterday that I was begging people to come.” Tonight, though, the vortex of Boston gayonia has overwhelmed bewildered straights, such as the two skinny blonde girls near the bar. “We did notice that there were a lot of guys, and that we didn’t feel judged,” says Kat. “Was that refreshing?” I ask. “Yes!”
Of course, no magical gay bacchanalia can last forever, so at midnight we repair to the T. Word is we won’t have to wait a whole month for another installment, because GQB is planning a new night, “Bringing It Home” at an undisclosed gay bar soon. Gays at a gay bar? Now I’ve seen everything.
