I used to have what I can only describe as a very enthusiastic relationship with alcohol in the 90s. I’ll stop short of describing myself as an alcoholic because I was not and am not one. But because the only truly safe place to be totally open and relaxed about being a homosexual was in a gay bar, and because the primary activity that goes on in a bar is the consumption of alcohol, I used to drink. A lot.
The irony in that is I really didn’t care for alcohol or getting drunk. But I loved men, and being around them, staring seductively at one (or two or three) over the rim of my G&T with my “come hither” look or flashing my bedroom eyes. If there are seven nights in a week, I went out on six of them. LA’s gay bar scene was like a smorgasbord; you could find a bar that catered to your precise taste(s), no matter how niche.
So it might be The Buddha Lounge for Asian men on Tuesdays, The Gauntlet for a bit of leather on Thursdays, Arena for Latinos on Saturday, and Rage with its buffet and go-go boys dancing on raised boxes while we nibbled seductively on very phallic looking asparagus spears wrapped in prosciutto on Sunday.
It always seemed a bit louche to me. I loved it. I agree with the French historian of philosophy, Michel Foucault, who said, “I actually liked the scene before gay liberation, when everything was more covert. It was like an underground fraternity, exciting and a bit dangerous.”
Just call me “Danger Poodle.”
I escaped accountability for my reckless behavior for most of the 90s because my wingman (or was I his?) was an FBI agent. Anytime I got pulled over for driving erratically, he’d flash his badge and the cops would extend us a professional courtesy, put us in a taxi, and give us a stern warning about the dangers of driving under the influence. But my lucky streak ran out when he was transferred to another field office out of state.
When I got my first DUI, I called him and asked if there was anything he could do to get me out of it. He said, “Matt, those cops putting us in cabs weren’t letting you go, they were letting me go, you just happened to be with me. I’m afraid you’re on your own now.” By the time I got my second DUI, the judge was concerned I might not be taking the danger of drunk driving seriously, so he sentenced me to four days in jail.
The LA County jail, known as the Twin Towers, is a notoriously violent and horrible place infested with gangs and drugs. When he pronounced his sentence, I thought “well Poodle, you’ve had a good run, but now you’re going to die.”
However, my drunk driving convictions were misdemeanors, I had never been in trouble with the law before, there was no weapon involved (although you could argue a 3000 pound car driven by someone inebriated is a de facto weapon), and no property was damaged or persons hurt, so the judge had mercy on me – not enough to dismiss the case, but mercy nonetheless. Rather than being remanded into custody on the spot, he said I could self-surrender within 90 days at a jail of my choosing, and a court clerk handed me a packet with the title “Pay to Stay” written across the top of it.
I hadn’t even left the courtroom when I found a seat, ripped the packet open, and started reading its contents. Pay to Stay programs in Los Angeles County allow people to serve jail time (for a fee) in a city jail instead of the Twin Towers at the discretion of a sentencing judge, thus avoiding the inherent dangers of the notorious county lock up. There was a list of participating cities, so that afternoon, I drove all over LA and looked at each city’s jail building, paying particular attention to the architecture, the landscaping, and the color palette. Now before you say anything, I am not crazy! I figured a newer, nicely landscaped exterior with a pleasant color scheme would have nicer accommodations inside.
I narrowed my choices down to Pasadena’s jail, a city in the news right now for all the wrong reasons – the LA fires – and gave them a call. Honestly, it was like booking a hotel.
ME: Hi, I’d like to book a stay in your jail.
OFFICER: Okay, how long were you sentenced for?
ME: Four days.
OFFICER: Do you want to do them consecutively or split them up over two weekends?
ME: Oh, didn’t know I could do that. Two weekends please.
OFFICER: When do you want to start serving your sentence?
ME: I guess next Friday.
OFFICER: Okay, give me your case number, sentencing court, and be here no later than 6pm. You will be released at 6pm on the following Sunday. Bring no personal items with you; toiletries will be provided and you can bring a total of $20 for the vending machines.[click]
My friend Dan dropped me off the following Friday. I was immediately ushered in to a windowless room the size of a large, walk-in closet with two painted shoe prints in the middle of the floor. A very butch lesbian in a uniform accompanied me into the room and said, “stand on the shoe prints and strip down to your undies.” As I disrobed, I noticed some shelving lining one wall of the room.
There were four shelves, each marked with a large capital letter on the wall: S M L XL. Being rather clever, I thought those must be sizes. For each size, there were three bunches of jumpsuits, blue, green, and orange. The uniformed lesbian, who by now I had figured out was one of the guards, said to me, “you look like a medium,” and grabbed an orange jumpsuit off the M shelf and handed it to me.
I said, “I’d prefer blue.”
She scowled. “Listen honey, blue you’ll be with us for awhile while you’re awaiting trial, green the feds are taking you tomorrow morning, and orange you can go home on Sunday.”
“Orange please,” I said.
Wearing my orange jumpsuit, I was handcuffed and led to my “pod” where everyone else, about 7 other guys, was wearing orange jumpsuits. The pod was bright white and lit by harsh fluorescent lighting. Two stainless steel tables were bolted down to the cement floor, surrounded by four stainless steel stools each, also bolted down to the floor. Along one wall were four cells, each with a heavy solid door with a little window in it, and along the opposing wall was a very flimsy looking shelf with what looked to be a 13” tv from the 70s on it, complete with rabbit ears.
One of the other inmates came up to me and said, “how much money did you bring with you?” I thought – great! I haven’t been here five minutes and I’m already getting mugged. I must have looked frightened, because the guy said, “don’t worry, I’m not shaking you down, the guards will let us order delivery if we buy them dinner since we’re only weekend prisoners.” So I gave him the twenty bucks I brought, and we ordered Italian from Louise’s Trattoria. I had the Spaghetti Bolognese. And a salad with balsamic vinaigrette. And garlic bread sticks.
About an hour later, a guard came in our pod with a clipboard. We were each given a task or “job,” like sweeping or emptying trashcans. My task was to take dinner trays to the “real” prisoners, the ones in the blue jumpsuits. I was shown to the kitchen where staff had prepared baloney sandwiches on wheat bread with no cheese or condiments on it. The guard said to me, “One sandwich per tray, with an orange. Ask them if they want apple juice or milk – either/or, one carton each.” So I rolled my cart full of baloney sandwiches and oranges on trays and little mini cartons of juice and milk like we used to get in the elementary school cafeteria into the blue jumpsuit pod.
As I was handing out trays, one of the inmates said, “is that garlic I smell?” What could I do? I certainly couldn’t answer him truthfully. You try telling a pod full of blue-jumpsuited men awaiting trial having a dry baloney sandwich on stale wheat bread that you just polished off a Spag Bol with fresh-baked bread sticks and see if you make it out alive!
I told him, “nah, I didn’t shower before I came here tonight, sorry.” And I would have gotten away with it too if one of my fellow orange jumpsuit podmates hadn’t walked by at that exact moment carrying the trash left over from our festa Italiana, including bags that were clearly marked Louise’s Trattoria.
There was yelling that included some rather unpleasant references to my sexuality which I thought I had kept well-hidden, and a tray was thrown, narrowly missing me. A guard pulled me out and slammed the door to their pod shut. For the rest of the weekend my “job” was to wash the cop cars in a little enclosed parking area surrounded by a locked chainlink fence. I thought, “well if you have to be in jail Poodle, better to be outside in the sunshine.”
In the afternoon we had a “recreation” period. Our tv only got broadcast stations. That’s right – no cable. I am definitely only giving them 1 star on Yelp (you think I jest, click here for the Pasadena City Jail on Yelp).
Dan picked me up on Sunday night, and I did the whole thing all over again the following weekend. But we ordered Chinese and I got Kung Pao chicken for dinner the second weekend. I “served” my time, and I can laugh about the experience now, but it was still jail, and you felt incarcerated while there. Well fed, but incarcerated. Jail may have discouraged me from driving after a trip to the bar, but I had to go to the bar, because that’s where the gays were, that was where you could smile at a guy who’d caught your eye and not get clobbered over the head because your gaydar had misfired.
I have, in the years since, spoken to many gay men who have told me variations on the theme – “I don’t drink and I never liked the bar scene, but where else could I go?” And friends today using apps like Grindr or Adam4Adam pretty consistently share the same complaint: the gay men they find there are shady, unreliable, not what they advertise themselves to be, and overwhelmingly into PnP (Party and Play) which means illegal drugs will be involved.
And that is why I believe strongly in gayborhoods, places where gay people can be gay and just get on with living their lives, whatever that means. Whether it’s a restaurant where two gay men on a date can hold hands across a romantic, candlelit table, a supermarket where a trans woman can shop without having abuse shouted at her as she buys Triscuits, or a place like the assisted living facility where I live, celebrating ten years this month of providing a safe place for elderly, infirm, or disabled LGBTQ+ people (and anyone else for that matter, we don’t discriminate) to live, free of the shame of the closet.
It is not about segregation. It is about sensitivity. In a perfect world, two men walking hand-in-hand down the street or a woman giving her wife a peck on the cheek while greeting her in the park would not cause a stir. But we don’t live in anything approaching a perfect world. We’re working toward it; I think the next four years are going to be a setback, and we’re going to have to remain vigilant and engaged to keep the rights we’ve won for the LGBTQ+ community and press on for full equality. In the meantime, we have to carve out safe spaces.
Preferably ones that don’t involve getting drunk then driving.