Bar Wars – Quarter Stories 16
Fourth of July on Bourbon Street, hot muggy and so crowded you couldn’t move on the street or in the bar. I squeezed my way into Lafitte’s past the doorman checking ID’s and stood a minute by Steve Wiley, our manager who was surveying the door and the crowd. “It’s nuts, been like this all day.” I could tell. The floor of the bar was a mess and the music was pumpin’. Steve was a guy who weighed 350 lbs. He was huge and it wasn’t all muscle. He was sitting on a stool sweating. He used to tell me about trying to exercise, he had a pair of gravity boots. He’d hang upside down. I always wanted to take a picture of me next to him holding a fishing pole like I’d caught the big one.
If you or anyone you know will be in Tel Aviv this coming Monday, please come to the “meet-up” BAMMER.co hosted by co-founder Mike Balaban at that city’s only remaining gay bar, Sphagat (it’s such a gay friendly city that LGBTQers now feel welcome in almost every bar).
Istanbul/Berlin, 2008-2019 – I don’t have a fond memory of the first time I had sex with another man. One night in 2008, hornier than ever, I took a chance and propositioned a taxi driver who I regularly called to take me home from work, after I’d noticed him checking out my butt and crotch for the umpteenth time. He was willing, but drove us more than 200 kilometers outside of Istanbul, so that no one either of us knew might witness our liaison. I expected a romantic interlude, but he just wanted to get off. What a letdown
Welcome to my world! I’m Nigerian, 33, Christian born and bred in the city of Lagos, where life is comfortable, at least for the rich or average straight person. My parents were not rich, but we five kids were given the best in life, in terms of education, food, and shelter.I didn’t lack for anything…except LOVE.
Just a week before Mardi Gras, two of New Orleans most popular gays bars are getting harassed. According to 
When I was coming out in the late ‘70s, I was part of a large community that included men of different ages, races, ethnicities and sexual proclivities, along with lesbians and others of varying sexual and gender identities. The unifying force was that we all considered ourselves societal outsiders.
Stories about my adventures bartending in New Orleans in the late ’70s and early ’80s. To read them all, 