Category: Blast from the Past

As unlikely as it may seem at this point in my life, not so long ago—okay, it was ancient history—on any given Friday or Saturday night I could be found at any number of different watering holes in the Phoenix metro area. Sadly, none of them still remain except in memory and in scattered (because one did not take cameras into gay bars at the time except under extraordinary circumstances) photographs.

Maggie's/Moon's Truck/His Co. Disco

One of the first clubs I went to in Phoenix (on the occasion of my nineteenth birthday, finally legally able to get in) was a place that went by various names over the years. Located in a non-descript concrete block building on the east side of 16th Street just south of Indian School Road, on that particular night, it was officially going by the newly-rechristened name Moon's Truck. The actual name was unimportant because I soon learned that regardless of what was on the sign over the entrance, everyone simply referred to it as Maggie's. It changed names again about a year later to HisCo Disco before finally being forced to close by the neighbors' continual complaints about noise and other goings-on in the area.

It was a cavernous, magical place, and at the time was known for playing the some of the best music in Phoenix. It had a slightly raised lighted dance floor and a sound system that would leave your ears ringing for hours. I would meet up there with my friend and dance partner Kent and no matter where the evening eventually took us, we always started at Maggie's.

While outwardly an all-inclusive club (gays, straights, men, women, and people of indeterminate gender) were always welcome at Maggie's, the one thing I remember most about Hubert, one of the DJs (who did not want women in the club) was how he'd always yell "Uterus!" when one walked in. I found it amusing at the time, even if it embarrasses me now.

I also managed to repeatedly bed two of the bouncers who worked there: Ken and Paul. They didn't particularly like each other and both were aghast that I would have sex with the other. Awkward!

It was also there that I heard the debut many of disco's greatest hits, including Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time album, Cerrone's Supernature, Alec Costandinos' Romeo and Juliet, and African Queens by The Three Degrees. The arrival of Supernature coincided with the club putting up a huge new mural over the dance floor, and to this day I still don't understand the meaning of it:

Both Kent and I had assumed at the time it had been done by some local artist, but I discovered it in a wallpaper sample book several years later—still with no explanation or even name attached to it.

Kent and I decided it was an underground temple discovered by archaeologists on some far off world, something that would actually figure in my still-to-be-completed novel about someone being reuined with his long-lost love from an extraterrestrial past life—an underlying meaning Kent and I also both quickly assigned to Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time.

But I digress.

A few months later, one night I noticed a new face in the DJ booth. The most overwhelming sense of deja vu came over me, leading me to believe that perhaps this stranger was someone I'd known in a previous life. When I ran into him again working at the local mall, I took this as a sign that I should at least strike up a conversation, which is exactly what I did.

Steve Golden and I became great friends over the following months, with him eventually becoming one of the great unrequited loves of my life. When he lost his day job at the mall, I got him job in the mail room at the homebuilder I was working for, and later we both ended up as legal messengers for a prestigious law firm downtown. Unfortunately, it seemed after the Universe threw us together, time or circumstances were never right for our relationship to develop into anything more than an intense friendship; something I mourned for many years after he suddenly up and left all traces of his life in Phoenix for San Francisco in 1983.

I lost track of Steve after he left, but after I found myself in The City a few years later I secretly hoped our paths would magically cross. They never did. He passed from AIDS in 1991.

The Forum

If Steve wasn't working or the music was off on any given night, we'd often migrate over to The Forum. This little dive with a sunken wooden dance floor was located in the corner of an L-shaped strip mall at the corner of East McDowell Road and North 41st Place. While a much smaller club, The Forum was still a fun place to go and the music was always good, even if the resident DJ—George—could get a bit surly if you asked too often what he was playing. I don't remember it ever being a reliable venue for getting laid, but it was the first place I ever slow-danced with another man and I did form some very deep friendships there, a couple of which survive to this very day. 

Bullwinkle

In the weeks before Maggie's officially closed, a new bar called Bullwinkle opened on the north side of East McDowell Road, just a few blocks east of 16th Street. It was a small club, on the end of a strip mall that had definitely seen better days. It had the distinct advantage of ample parking and no neighbors nearby who would complain about noise. The interior had also been completely remodeled from the ground up, so it hadn't yet developed that stale beer-and-embedded-cigarette-smoke smell, and it was truly a joy to go to. Most of the staff from Maggie's ended up there, including both Steve and Hubert.  I have many memories of the place, including the first time I heard the B52s' Rock Lobster and Planet Claire. It was there that I also—on the eve of celebrating a year of involuntary celibacy—blew it completely by going home with a hunky, muscled psychologist who actually came up and asked me to dance (I was usually the initiator of these things). Mark was twenty years my senior and ended up taking quite a fancy to me.

The sex with the shrink was great. In fact, I have to say it was the best I'd had at that point in my life. It turned into an a very enjoyable little fling, but eventually ended after I showed up one evening at his house unannounced. That night I learned two important lessons: (1) always call first and (2) don't date psychologists. They're more messed up than you are.

Bullwinkle was also the place where I finally made the realization that in those settings, everyone was waiting around for the other guy to make the first move. If you were that guy, chances were good that you wouldn't be going home alone. Yeah, I faced my share of rejection, but the more it happened the easier it got, and eventually going up to complete strangers became almost second nature to me. It was never effortless, but it definitely put an end to that almost year-long dry spell.

After Hotbods opened and siphoned off most of Bullwinkle's clientele (not to mention its employees), it turned into Trax, the closest thing Phoenix had at the time to a leather dance bar.

Hotbods

About a couple years after Bullwinkle opened, the owners of the now-defunct Maggie's opened a new club called Hotbods. It was located at 3437 East McDowell road and dwarfed Maggies in size. I remember Steve (who of course had re-secured his employment with his previous employers) showing me the place shortly before it opened and I was duly impressed. The dance floor, mirror balls and neon had all been relocated from Maggie's and had been augmented by a state-of-the-art sound system controlled from the second-floor DJ booth. There was a lounge-type bar closed off from the main disco for those who actually wanted to carry on a conversation without screaming, and the sheer scale of the place was something very new for Phoenix at the time.

Hotbods came into full swing after I'd moved to Tucson, but I made numerous trips back to Phoenix when I was single—and even after Dennis and I had gotten together—just to spend an evening there, and I have several strong memories of the place. One concerns the first time I heard the BAM-BAM-BAM Disconet remix of ABBA's Lay All Your Love on Me, and how after dancing with an adorable little blond cub to the song, returned home with him  (on his birthday, no less) for a night of carnal abandon. The second involves the multiple weekends I came north with camera in hand to take these photos and watched in amazement as at one point the entire dance floor was taken over by leather-clad men dancing to Linda Clifford's Don't Come Cryin To Me. Hotbods was where I first heard Patrick Cowley, and where one night Steve came over the intercom to announce, "Mark, this is for you," right before playing Paradise Express' We are One.

Along with The Connection, Hotbods came to an end after I'd relocated to San Francisco. It will be missed.

The Connection

"Where the men are." Never were more true words spoken. The Connection had been open for many years, but I never ventured there much until after Dennis and I moved back to Phoenix in 1983. Frankly, the place intimidated me. Silly when I think about it now. Funny how I had a preconceived notion of the type of men that went there, only to have those preconceptions totally thrown out the window once I stepped through those doors. Over the next couple years I made some wonderful friends and had lots of hot nasty sex via that place, and it saddened me no end to hear that it was another one of those venues that did not survive the ravages of the epidemic.

As I wrote earlier, sadly none of these places survive. Maggies/Moon's Truck/HisCo. Disco is now a car stereo installer. The Forum changed its name and went straight. The space formerly occupied by Bullwinkle/Trax is now Karumba, described as "a latin dance bar." The Hotbods building is now occupied by a company called Inventory Adjusters, something that appears to be a cross between a pawn shop and a second hand jewelry store.

A Curious Phenomenon

March 2nd, 2007

My bedroom at my parents' house, 1978. Yes, I was a gay geek.

Those espresso walls were an experiment. They lasted about 3 months. My mom used to joke that the only thing holding my room up were layers of paint.

I wish I still had that Donna Summer poster—not to mention that original Hildebrandt Star Wars…

…flying used to be a pleasant experience?

Yes, I'm watching Soul Train.

The future was nothing like this.

The only picture you'll ever see of me on the internet where I am not fully clothed.

Oh wait. There is one other probably still floating around out there that I posted to a BBS back in the early 90s. I'm wearing a leather vest and a cowboy hat.

And a smile.

And no, you can't see it.

Those little blue shorts (that I cut the liner out of) got me into so much trouble at that pool. I remember one time rushing out of this guy's apartment through the back door as his boyfriend was coming in the front. I was lucky he didn't live on the second floor.

And how could I have possibly thought at the time that I was fat? I wish I was so fat now!

Ah, youth. It's wasted on the young, y'know.

Or, as I like to call it, "Tech of Yesteryear: Stuff I've Owned."

My first calculator, a Texas Instruments SR-10. Four functions plus square root, square and inverse!—$89 in 1974. I needed it for Chem/Physics.

My first 10-speed bike, a Schwinn Continental—$105 in 1972

My first (and only) typewriter, an Olympia Report Electric SKE—price and date forgotten (1974?). Sold in a fit of perceived poverty in 1990.

My first hi-fi turntable, a Philips GA-212—$200 in 1973. I had to have this particular one because it was touch control! Little did I know that when the bulbs under the touch controls burnt out, the controls stopped working altogether, necessitating a costly trip to a repair shop. It wasn't like you could just go online and order replacements.

My first awesome, truly high-tech hi-fi turntable, a Technics SL-1300Mk2—$500 in 1978.  I took out a personal loan for this one. Of course it died within months of being paid for and then sat in a repair facility for months because the particular integrated circuit that had failed was on indefinite backorder. (Such is the life of an early adopter.) I finally retrieved it from the shop and shipped it back to Panasonic for repair. It was returned, and UPS left it with the neighbors' unattended children, where they proceeded to destroy it. UPS and Panasonic wrote it off as "destroyed in shipment" and sent me refurbished unit. But it was never the same, so I sold it in 1980.

I replaced it in 2000 or thereabouts with a near-mint unit that came in the original packaging. The arm lift mechanism on this model was a notoriously bad design that self-destructed after about 5 years of use, so I had it professionally repaired by a friend back east (now, sadly deceased) and it's worked beautifully ever since.

My first digital watch, a Novus—price unknown (but it wasn't cheap) in 1976. It was a high school graduation present from my parents. Like all digital watches of the time, you had to hold down the button to make it illuminate and show you the time. It died sometime in the early 80s.

My first hi-fi amplifier, a Sony TA-5650—$550 in 1976.  I bought it for myself with money I received for my high school graduation.  Another piece of cutting edge tech that wasn't quite ready for prime time, the 5650 had the very annoying habit of self-destructing every six months or so, necessitating a visit to the repair shop to have some diodes replaced  (to the tune of $75 a trip—quite a bit of money for the time). After the second or third time it happened, I decided to replace it, but nothing came close to the sweet, sweet sound the V-FETs produced, so I kept getting it fixed.

The last time it died, sometime in 1986, I replaced it with a rock-solid Yamaha amp and kissed it goodbye, leaving it in the laundry room of the apartment complex I was living in at the time. I did that because I just couldn't bear to toss it in the dumpster.

My first computer, a Commodore VIC-20—$200 in 1981. It hooked up to a television, and since Dennis (my first partner) and I couldn't afford to buy the external cassette drive to save the programs we spent hours meticulously typing in BASIC, it was an ongoing lesson in frustration. But it did light a spark that eventually culminated in my current career.

My first hi-fi cassette deck, a Sony TCK-555—$370 in 1984. I waited a long, long time to finally get a good cassette deck for my system. Little did I know that in only two short years they would start marching toward the graveyard of history.  It was a good—not great—deck, but it served me for several years before being replaced.

My first new car, a 1984 Toyota Corolla SR-5—$11,000 in 1984. Damn, I loved this car. I sold Dorothy in 1989 after deciding that owning a car in San Francisco was more trouble that it was worth. It was also reaching the point that it was needing some expensive repairs and I had no way of paying for them, so I had to say goodbye. It's the one vehicle that still shows up regularly in my dreams, never having been sold, but merely put into storage all these years…

My first CD player, a Yamaha D-400—$360 in 1985. As I recall I blew my whole tax refund on this. I had wanted to get a Technics SL-P2 but it had been discontinued and I didn't like anything in the Technics lineup that replaced it. I should've done more shopping before jumping on this one, however.  It sounded fantastic, but it could only display the track number or the time, but not both. Seriously, Yamaha? I replaced it in 1990.

My first portable CD player, a Sony D100 Discman—$400 in 1987. This was Sony's second-generation portable, and I loved this bit of tech. The only reason I eventually got rid of it was the headphone jack kept coming unsoldered from the main circuit board (one day after the warranty expired, typical of Sony products). It was an easy-enough fix to do myself, but I finally just got tired of dealing with it.

My first 35mm camera, the Pentax ME Super. I got this from my second partner in exchange for some money he owed me. I adored this camera. I won't say my ratio of good photos to bad was excellent, but I remember it being decidedly better than all my subsequent years of digital. In my rush to go digital, I sold it to buy a new camera. WORST. DECISION. EVER.

My first digital camera, the Canon A10—$125 (steeply discounted) in 2003. It ate batteries which severely limited its usefulness, picture quality was so-so, and it was a pain in the ass to actually get the photos off of it. I was so relieved when I finally got the funds together to replace it.

This was the camera I replaced the A10 with, a Panasonic DMC-FZ7. This camera went everywhere with me (including a road trip to Yellowstone), and together we got some stunning shots.  After a couple years, however, I tired of the all purple fringing showing up around bright areas in the photos and after replacing it with a Sony, sold it on eBay.

Hat tip