FundamentallySound Blog

Last night I got to catch up with my old friend Shannon, who just got a job bartending at a new spot. He's gay and so are the owners, and it seemed most of the clientele were too. How typically southern, even in the 21st century, all the cute gay boys hanging out in a place that looks to be just a typical restaurant.

That being said, I had more fun there than I've had in a San Francisco bar in a long time. The crowd was wittier, the banter funnier, and the men just sweeter, and southern boys do have a kind of faux-innocence you don't see anywhere else. The owner's boyfriend, born and bred in Mississippi, kept pouring me Scarlett O'Hara's in celebration of my return to the south. Now who would do that in San Francisco? The owner himself was born near Heidelberg, moved to America, spent thirty years working for movie studios in LA and then "retired" with his partner to Mississippi. I was asking what the move was like, and he said, "Well, the way I see it is I've lived all over the world and I'm not about to hide who I am if a few people in this little town don't like it." He had a refreshing air of militancy that you don't see in many gay men from the south, obviously he's not from here. This place just needs more like him.

I don't know if I can explain what the deep south is like for those who aren't from here. I should say that I don't think people are more homophobic here than they are other places, I've had more anti-gay slurs shouted at me on the street in San Francisco than I have in Mississippi (I'm not kidding). I just think the south has such a rigid culture that doesn't take well to anything that upsets its balance. It's a place where people will like you just fine, gay or straight, as long as you keep your lifestyle in your bedroom and your attitude under the surface. I absolutely hate that about this place, life is too short to and those requirements make things far too boring for me. But at the same time, there are just as many gay people here as there anywhere else, and they all fuck, talk, work, breathe, dream like everybody else, they just don't tell anyone. Don't Ask Don't Tell is alive and well in Mississippi.

I started thinking about Malcolm Ingram's little documentary Small Town Gay Bar. And also about my friend Mason who does some of the best drag New York City has seen (I'm not kidding about that either). He is from Mississippi, and he loves to come back and visit. This picture is him doing a show in New York.

In the past I would have thought anyone who enjoyed visiting Mississippi was a little crazy, but it's starting to make sense to me. I'm rediscovering its charm and its eccentricity. It's a place where people still talk, where sex requires at least a drink and a conversation beforehand, where the rest of the world still looks a little strange and interesting, and people have something to fight for.
And for the first time ever, I started thinking not why would anybody stay here, but rather, why leave? The answer for me is a long list of reasons. But I'm starting to figure out why a few stay.