Clearing the Bar

When Fred lived just outside of Laguna Beach during the very early 1990s it was somewhat of a different city than it is today. For much of its history, it was known as a welcoming destination for serious artists and embodied, as towns with strong ties to the arts do, a reputation for its embrace of the bohemian, which means in part, there were gay people there.

As Southern California ballooned with development throughout the 20th century, and especially during the second half of it, so too grew the rural areas that border Laguna Beach and what was once a somewhat isolated beach town is now surrounded by the Orange County Suburban Sprawl Machine.

Even in its heyday, Laguna Beach, as a gay destination, never really measured up in terms of population density to nearby Palm Springs or Fort Lauderdale and Provincetown on the east coast. This is true in spite of the fact that it’s home to one of California’s most beautiful beaches, primarily gay West St. beach. It doesn’t seem all that long ago when there were a half-dozen or so gay restaurants and bars that dotted the commercial stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in town. Today, only one little pub remains.

A plausible explanation for the mini-exodus of gay people from Laguna is quite possibly the result of a real estate market that skyrocketed beginning in the mid-1990s. Laguna Beach will likely not be immune to the steps backward that have cursed (or blessed, depending on your perspective) home values throughout California and the nation. Simply put, most of the younger gay population couldn’t afford to live in Laguna any longer during the boom.

What’s left in terms of a gay population in Laguna rests primarily with those who came long ago, bought homes, stayed and quadrupled their housing investments and now find themselves sitting on a cushy retirement nest egg. These queer-men’s quagmire is that the only way to tap into that money is to sell (if you can), cash out and then leave.

As well, we’ve found that the proverbial gay radar doesn’t get a lot of work down here since there’s no longer as many of us around. It's not to suggest that there aren't any new arrivals, it's just that many of those moving to the O.C. seem to have the ability to assimilate extremely well as they’re typically a little more conservative in manner and have often and unknowingly succumbed to the Tommy Bahama sense of style that pervades the male half of the landscape here. Nobody’s gay radar is potent enough to penetrate through that.

When the radar does get a little work it springs up like a car’s gas gauge when it’s filled from empty. That little needle darts to the “F” for full in a panic and it’s not unlike my gay radar whenever I encounter one of us in an unexpected place.

For instance, not too long ago, two O.C. blonde boys (and easily discernible former brunettes) were approaching us in our car from the opposite direction in a very swanky Mercedes convertible. We could sense them from several hundred feet away, as they likely could us, and when we passed one another we all couldn’t help but stare. It wasn’t a case of adulation; we were all just so surprised to see our own kind in the neighborhood. It was the equivalent of running into someone from your hometown at the airport in a far-away place, like Paraguay.

There shouldn’t be any doubt that gay radar works best between, well, gay people. Some heterosexuals are fortunate enough to have a milder version, typically acquired through close friendships with gay guys. If you’re around one of us long enough in public, you’ll slowly develop the ability to spot those of us who are adept at blending in. When a straight friend points out that there’s an obviously gay guy checking out fragrances at Saks in patent leather D&G sandals and a lace-patterned, French-cuffed and untucked white dress shirt, their emerging radar actually loses some of its acuity.

Here’s another case in point regarding the lack of gay radar in heterosexuals. Recently, after Fred and I had seen the movie The Dark Knight, we were both in serious need of a recuperative vodka-based beverage. (On a morbid aside, anyone who thinks that Heath Ledger’s sad and untimely death was accidental is naïve as that performance in that role could have sucked the life out of even the most stable and grounded among us.) So, we decided to try and have dinner at a local and upscale popular eatery in an effort to cheer up.

Fred and I walked in to the handsome bar and lounge area and took the last two remaining bar seats as opposed to waiting for a table. We settled in for a cocktail followed by dinner and a glass of wine, which is sort of a dining ritual for us and I was actually quite impressed by the fact that their wines-by-the-glass list contained over thirty selections. Someone is paying attention to the beverage program there. We noticed right away that everyone at the bar was attractive in that Knot's Landing Southern California way and they were a lively bunch, too. The conversations were happening across the different groups seated at the bar and eventually an affluent middle-aged couple and a single, handsome gentleman in his fifties with a Rolex the size of a drink coaster began to broach conversation on my side. The two men were reveling in the apparent college football blowout of Ohio State at the hands of the locally beloved Trojans of USC that was playing on the big flat panel T.V. above us. I chimed in that I thought that the looming lopsided victory was to be somewhat expected considering that the Buckeye’s star running back was out for the season. They agreed and I thought I was surely about to be asked if I golf, so I turned my attention back to my drink.

Seated next to Fred when we arrived was a very attractive young blonde woman, perhaps in her thirties who was naturally in some parts and unnaturally in others, a knock-out.

While she waited for an equally lovely and physically equipped raven-haired lady friend to arrive she initiated a conversation with Fred regarding her red wine which somehow prompted Fred to inquire about the brace that covered her hand and forearm. She explained that she had taken a spill on her motorcycle but that it wasn’t a big deal and they chatted for a few minutes up to the point where single young women at bars work in an investigative glance at the ring fingers of their new acquaintance. Though nothing adorns Fred’s traditional wedding ring finger, his right hand index finger has sported a white-gold and platinum “commitment ring” for almost fifteen years and since my right hand made its way to and from the bar as I ate and drank, my matching ring eliminated any possibility of gold banded ambiguity.

The first clue for the group to my left was my taking Fred’s soup spoon from him and helping myself to a taste of his crab chowder. Rolexman and the couple to his left zeroed in on that. In their defense they didn’t squirm or giggle or raise their eyebrows. They just became really quiet and the next words they each uttered were to the bartender: check please.

As for the young ladies, they made their way into the crowd in search of men with a little more x-chromosome and a little less y.

According to Fred I’m just a wee bit paranoid in situations like that, and he could very well be right, but I still suspect that in the matter of a half hour, we were the reason that the bar on our end had been cleared of all but two customers and, in some ways, it's a great metaphor for what it feels like to live here. We're not exactly welcome, but nor are we unwelcome. It's sort of like limbo, or like the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy except they don't kick you out. They just pay their tab and leave.