At The Gay Oasis
It’s 8:30 a.m., and I am silently sitting in Akbar, the bar I co-own—a small gay oasis in Los Angeles where Sunset meets Fountain meets Hoover. I play a favorite track on the jukebox and this sometimes crazy public space where community is daily forged starts to come to life. I can almost hear last night’s laughter lingering. A mirage of some young fabulously fashioned would-be diva ghosts by. I sense a pair of for-the-night lovers were just here kissing awkwardly, desperately. Wafts of spilled martinis and well-deserved sweat make me smile wider. In this stillness of way-too-early, I feel all the connections that spark when there’s a place to play—freely.
There’s something many queer people have in common: We can all tell you about our first gay bar. The first time we left the exhausting and often hateful world behind and felt safe, possibly for the first time ever in our lives. By owning that we are “queer” or “not typical” we become united. Bound in connections spoken and silent we are better and safer together. And the gay bar creates a space informed by that bond, that honors it like a banner of pride.
Loneliness can be a predator, too, especially in the queer community. The journalist Michael Hobbes, in an article that was getting passed around a few years back, called it the “epidemic of gay loneliness.” The gay bar makes sure there is somewhere we can go; somewhere we can be ourselves, relax and breathe easier in this space that is here for us. Especially during the sometimes difficult holidays, when everyone’s asking why you don’t do this or that?
Connection is an antidote then. At the queer bar, middle-aged old-timers gather for happy hour and chat idly. A bit later, post-work and pre-evening-plans patrons conspire and laugh in ways they do not and cannot at work. Friendships are reforged, alliances acquired as the volume rises with the moon. Soon, heads are bumping and toes are tapping as winks get shared to the beat. On the dance floor, everyone is finally free. They dance like everyone is watching.
It’s almost 9 a.m. now, and someone has to put this place back together so we can do it again.
