Two gaye customers, explaining to me — although I did not ask — how girls become boys, aka trans*xuals:
GUY 1: Well, Tracey ….. what happens is a woman takes the male hormones and I think, after that, a certain part of the female anatomy grows longer.
TRACEY: Oh. Uh-huh.
GUY 1: (with utter certainty and emphasis) The cl*toris.
TRACEY: Okay. Hm. So it’s suddenly like a balloon animal or something?
GUY 2: Yeah, it’s a balloon animal and then it becomes her pee-pee.
Uhm. I’m just relaying some of the scenes from Gaye Pryde here.
PARENTAL ADVISORY. I’M STILL SERIOUS!!
So I was out front of Boheme at one point during the parade. We were serving street-side iced drinks and hot coffee, blah blah. I was minding my own business, literally. Trying to mostly keep my head down. The crowd just beyond me was thick, so it was actually somewhat hard to see the parade, except for any elevated floats. But I was just standing there — yo dee doh — and these two chicks walked by — more accurately, uh, one chick was dragging the other behind her on a leash. The leashed one had her hands tied behind her back and wore these — I’m not sure exactly — shorts, I guess, red garbage bag looking things. I’m not into BeeDeeSM — (don’t know how to write that to avoid spam) — shocking, I know, but maybe there’s a name for them other than “red garbage bag shorts”? A name I don’t really want to know? Anyway …. it’s kind of shadowy in this photo, but the leashed one there was also topless. Yep. I was pouring coffee when right in front of me — Hulllooo! — there they were, her beleaguered girls, n*pples painted over to look like glitter stars. And leashed girl was very ornery, as part of the whole bit, I imagine. Pulling on her leash, not moving when called, moaning, being a very bad dog! or whatevs. MB had his cell phone and snapped some pictures, more in utter disbelief than anything. I think it was one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen. They did this up and down the sidewalk, their little BeeDeeSM tug of war, being totally into it — unless they saw someone snapping a photo. Then they would stop and pose.
Maybe they’ll get a nice shot for this year’s Christmas card.
“My people are gross.”
~ My virgin — because, well, he’s afraid of gaye sex but now that I think of it, why does everyone tell me everything, anyway? — gaye friend J, muttering under his breath while watching float after float of shiny muscled men gyrating in Speedos.
I was so choked with laughter I nearly fell over.
I was grousing to my gaye friend C about a particularly impossible customer who’d just come through Boheme. He listened sympathetically and then raised his hands to Jesus revival-style, crying, “Oh, LAAAWWD, please DRY this river of retardedness flowing through heeyah right now!!”
All day every day this week, the gaye people came. “Are you ready for pryde? Are you ready? It’s gonna be crazy. Are you ready??” That’s what they’d say. Scaring me like that. I don’t know if I’m ready. Don’t ask. And I hate hate hate crowds. For all I know I could be curled up in a corner at Boheme by 9 a.m. sobbing for my sock monkey Funny Baby.
Hey — that could be a whole parade float by itself. Bereft broken people sobbing for their sock monkeys.
Anyhoo. Stay tuned for a full gaye report.
But I know you’re all reading Harry Potter.
My DAD came by Boheme today.
Oh, Lord. LORDY.
Luckily, he is still so high from the trip to Zion that I don’t think he noticed The Wonderful World of D*sney Gaye Pryde Parade hanging from the doors now.
Hi, Baptist Dad who grew up in Amish country! Hi! Hey! Uhmm …. Hey! You’re kinda funny …. uh, okay, look over heere, Dad! Look at the pretty coffee beans. Thaaat’s right.
(Post contains deliberate misspellings to ward off spam.)
All right. Get ready. Tee Tee is pissed off.
Okay. Lookest, mine peeps, at the images below. Absorb them — forgiving, as I’m sure you do, the horrible quality of the pictures, taken on the sly.
Here’s the first one. A door-sized poster promoting Gaye Pryde — which is next weekend here in SD. Little Boheme, as most of you know, is located in the gay neighborhood of the city. The Gaye Pryde parade will be bearing down on me Saturday morning, bringing with it about 100,00 people. All right. More about that later. Here’s the picture of the poster. It’s cut down a bit, out of necessity. There are more beer logos on the bottom there.
And we don’t want the l*esbians feeling left out, so here’s the next one:
Both posters say the same thing at the top, are the same size and both have 2 rows of beer logos on the bottom. Just the images are different. Uhm, none of what I just said is important. Oh, well. I ramble.
Okay. One more picture. A picture of a customer coming through the front doors of Boheme. The doors. The doors are very important in this story. (Oh, but over her shoulder, you can see the notary’s office across the street. Yeah. That thing with the eagle’s nest lookout? That’s the notary. Why a notary needs an eagle’s nest lookout is beyond me. “Yarrr! I spie me a landlubber needin’ me autograff! Yarr!” I don’t know. Don’t ask me to explain this neighborhood to you.)
Okay.
So we have: The door-sized posters of various gaye people in menage a trois-es.
And: The front doors of Boheme.
Boheme is basically — not counting the bamboo patio out back and the front sidewalk patio — a FOYER, an entryway almost, to the huge wine lounge that is open when we are closed. We close at 3 pm. Little Boheme is very little. That space is about 300 square feet, but I pay a pretty penny in rent to have it be MY space during my business hours.
Does this make sense so far?
Raise your hand if you know where this is going. Did you all raise your hands? You should have.
Still … please pretend to be surprised at what comes next.
So.
Imagine our surprise!! Saturday morning — if you can — when we pulled up to Boheme bright and early and saw these huge white things hanging on the inside of the glass doors. We got out of the car — MB still crawling over the seat with dignity, ahem — unlocked the doors and rushed in. What the heck were these things?
And there — now, wait for it — were the posters.
Hanging in all their gaye glory.
It’s important to note here that most days, when the weather is warm — and this is SD, so the weather’s always warm, ho hum — we keep both front doors open. The wine lounge does this, too. The doors open OUT and are held in place by large planters. This means that when our doors are open like that, these giant gaye posters are visible — TAA DAA!
This did not go over well with us — for several reasons.
First, we had NO idea that posters were going to be hung there. Nobody told us, much less asked us if they could be hung. So we took them down, carefully — they were attached with some kind of stickum tabs — and hung them up in the bar, just intending to keep them there during our business hours. When The Overlord and partner arrived later that day, they were upset. Much like the episode with the p*orn in the Mystery Room (and I still need to write THAT epilogue, ack!), we were accused of being “discourteous.”
I’m always surprised at how courtesy only runs one way at this place.
I guess it boils down to this: Am I allowed, given how much rent I pay — actually, the amount doesn’t really matter, I PAY RENT! — to choose what goes in the space during my hours of operation? Or may I at least have a say in it? I mean, if I rented a house or apartment and the landlord came along and hung posters on my door without my knowledge or consent, I think I’d be rather annoyed. Kinda like now.
Second, customers have complained about the posters. GAYE customers. They don’t like the image the posters project. “I’m not a cartoon,” one said. “That’s not what being gaye is,” said another. Really? It’s not? You mean, all gaye men are not freakishly happy, like they’re in some super-gaye Disney movie? And all l*esbians are not stacked like that, with their lips Jolied and their thongs sticking out? Wow. I have been radically misinformed about the gaye lifestyle.
Now this morning when we arrived to open, the posters were there again, we took them down again, intending to put them back up — AGAIN — when we left. Let them hang their things during their time. This seems reasonable and fair to me.
Howevahhh …
A few hours later, The Overlord’s partner came up and we had a li’l discussion about it. He asked us to leave them up for the week. I gave my objections as nicely as possible. “You took them down without asking,” he said, “that’s what bugged me.” (Uhm, no one is there when we get there.) “Well, actually, we didn’t even know these were going up, blah blah … I rent the space … blah blah … can I choose what goes up when I’m open, blah … people have complained about the images ….. yaddadee.”
I asked if he’d hang the posters from the upstairs windows — one of the guys who works in the lounge lives up there — and let them hang down the front of the building. He said he’d “look into it.” “But if that doesn’t work out, can you just leave them up for the week?”
And, peeps … I guess I kinda caved. I’m so tired of the constant strife with these guys. And I feel like I can’t say no — and explain that, hey, I don’t want images like that hanging in my business. Images that a kid couldn’t see. I guess they’re not blatant images, but a little kid might ask questions, you know? And I feel I can’t say no without sounding anti-gay, homophobic, something. But I don’t want Boheme to be pushing the gay agenda. I’m not gaye. I’m fine with being a place where gaye people come. I like a lot of gaye people, call them my friends. I think Christians and gayes need to spend more time together, get to know each other, for both groups’ sakes. But … the agenda-pushing and the bitter activist gay people bug me, frankly. And they bother lots of other gaye people. I’ve had so many customers tell me in the last few weeks that they’re actually dreading Gaye Pryde week. Some gaye people actually live quiet lives. With dignity. They’re not cartoons. They’re not dancing on floats, wearing Speedoes and body glitter, simulating sex with p*enis-shaped balloons. They’re just people who want to live their lives and the kind of ridiculous images in these posters simple pigeonhole them as being people they’re not. You know what? I actually think my stance on these posters, in some ways, is pro-gaye. Sheesh. Don’t oppress your own people. Don’t reduce them to comic book characters. Don’t stereotype them. They’re more than that. They’re flesh and blood. Real people. But you guys should know that: YOU’RE GAYE!!
I don’t know. I’m so tired. Peeps, there have been so many incidents with these people in the last few weeks, I can’t even keep up with writing about them.
I caved. I hate myself about it. Well …. maybe when we get there tomorrow morning, the posters will be hanging from the windows.
Oh, Tracey, you little idiot. Did you even read what you just wrote?
“Hello. Welcome to Boheme, gaye people, where we overly sexualize and marginalize you! How ’bout a soy latte?”
“Hello, kids. Welcome to Boheme! Oh, yeah. Those people in the posters? Uhm, well, they’re just really good friends. Drink your hot cocoa, ‘kay?”
“Hello, Dad. Welcome to Boheme …. hey, come back, Dad …”
I don’t know, peeps. Worldviews are colliding over here all the time. Maybe I’m just not strong enough.
There’s more to this … but I just can’t articulate it now. I barely got this out.
It’s off to bed for me.
(Isn’t one of those gaye guys in “Beauty and the Beast”: “I use antlers in all of my DEH-ccor-AAA-ting!!”)
Sorry. I’ve been a lazy blogger lately. Lots going on. Lots to report from Boheme.
Also — I’m working on a sure-to-create-a-gathering-tizzy BLOG GAME!!
But today …. TODAY, MB and I are both playing hookie (hooky? how do you spell that, anyway?) and going to the movies!!
So …. cell phones OFF. Do not call us. Do not need anything. We can handle no more NEEDS.
Do NOT bug us.
We do not exist today. Go away.
(Not YOU, of course, peeps, just The Universal You. The infernal you-ness of eachandeverybody.)
So an oily fellow with a pencil-thin mustache came into Boheme the other day.
Remember the scene in “Singin’ in the Rain” where they demonstrate a “talking picture” to all the partygoers at R.F.’s house and the man on the screen looks into the camera rather haplessly and drones, “This is a picture and I am talking to yooou,” or something like that? Remember that guy? Well, so, this guy at Boheme looked exactly like him. I thought it was him. All raised from the dead and such, I guess.
Anyhoo.
He sidles on up to the counter and sort of croons at me, “So …. what do you have in a dark roast today?”
“Well, I have an Italian Roast.”
“Ohhhhh,” he murmurs, “is that where a bunch of people get together and make fun of Italians?”
He chuckles smugly at himself. Mutters a few words of it again. Seems to be filing it all away for later when he can regale his friends with his “bon mot at the coffeehouse today, hahahahaha!”
And I just stand there and stare at him. At the countertop. I literally do not move a muscle on my face. Because, really, there’s no helping him out of this — this moment he’s created, so I just let it lie … and lie … and lie. I am basically frozen in the face of this rogue wave of self-satisfaction, just waiting for it to pass — as it should. And quickly, too, one hopes.
But he has to fill the space, so he announces — actually ANNOUNCES — after my moment of sensible silence: “I’m a member of Who’s Who in International Poetry.”
Oh.
Okaaay.
Wow.
Uhm.
So.
Where is Carla the Intuitive Clairvoyant when I need her to tell me things??
