a legend to forget

its tempting to say sorry
sorry for not being here, but i'm not, so i won't

i've had a few experiences since i last posted, but above all the one i will relate now, stands out.

i could feel bile slowly leave my stomach and work its way up my throat as i stared at this man. his tall muscular body barely covered by an ugly dress. his dilated pupils and tar stained teeth, attesting of a fear of himself and the world that shuns him. fake hair on his head falls in all the wrong places and the smudge of lipstick at the corner of his mouth is distracting to say the least. his voice once more starts to sing a song of decay and in that instant as i swallow hard not to puke, i know i will never be the same person.

backtrack - its a saturday evening and all the peeps are out on the town in pretoria. the gallery of distorted art had produced a surprising show, from which i left feeling a little queasy (a compliment, by the way)

on our way to the after party, planned at "aandklas" in hatfield, i look at my evil twin geritu, smiling at his painted fingernails. it is a universal truth that going to any theater is the perfect excuse (if one is really needed) to dress up, and neither gert or i had disappointed that evening. put it this way, we were hotter than pofadder in december and on our way to the straightest place in gauteng. luckily our mommas didn't raise no fearful children, so we walk into jockville hatfield with only a little trepidation in our hearts.

as we enter "aandklas" a large rugby screen knocks us off our feet and into the realisation that we are probably the only two gay guys in the whole of this establishment, if not the whole of hatfield, yet we walk in, buy a drink and find a spot to wait for the others. a few meaningful glances are shot our way and as we walk out to summon our friends for rescue i feel a bit relieved for not having to stay, yet not one person had made any derogatory comments and when our friends finally pitch i'm prepared to walk back in, which we do. luckily the girls we are with are clued up on what is "hip and cool" and obviously "aandklas" is not it, so we giggle all the way to tings and times around the corner.

ok, so i don't live in the city. in reality the place where i live is very far from being a city. as such, the only "club" where dancing is a remote possibility in secunda, is one of those dodge open plan bars where the floors are naturally sticky. this in turn makes it hard for patrons to leave and seeing as very cheap tequila is served at the bar, the floors have a tendency to become even more so what with all the blood and vomiting. (exaggeration) but face it, you know what i mean - you've all been to one of those.

given the above and the fact that i really love dancing, i came up with the "wonderful" idea of treating my straight girlfriends to a gay night out, which in pretoria would mean legends (apparently the hottest place to be), seeing as they have good enough music and there are usually no vibes, so the girls enjoy themselves. shame on me for being the naive gay boy...

piling into a few cars, we make the treck to inner city pretoria. always pleasurable at night, cause almost nobody is around. we pile out of our cars and are greeted at the door by the lovely bouncer, whom me and daniela have been terrorising since just after i unceremoniously fell out of the walk in closet that was my life before the city. i'm going to miss her.

we are ushered in and start queuing to pay the R30 entrance and me being the shy show off, writes my name and telephone number on their contact sheet (regret, regret)

fast forward: "what are you on about, man?" i'm gay, so is gert and these are our girlfriends. why aren't they allowed in, if their boyfriends are?
his reply punches me in my already unstable stomach. "the patrons of the club, find that there are too many straight people i.e. girls i.e morality who frequent it, so we've instituted a policy that limits the amount of straight people who can go inside" ok - he didn't say it in those exact words, but that was his point.

i should have said - "so let me get this straight" - no pun intended.

• you as a gay person who is part of a community that has fought for over 30 years to be included in the country that we live in, decides to exclude yourself by choice from that society and the freedom you've got in it.
• by not allowing straight girls into this club, you are advocating promiscuity and as such advocating HIV/Aids, Hepatitis, Herpes, Syphilis, Chlamydia, Gonorrhoea and a whole host of other sexually transmitted diseases, because lets face it, the absence of "the straight girlfriend i.e. moral fibre " in any gay man's life, makes him a whore. a man with a brain and a dick and not enough blood to work both at the same time. is that your target market? a fucking orgy?
• you inadvertently and in many cases actively advocate sexism, hetero phobia and in return homophobia simply because you are afraid, which will only lead to anger, hate and suffering.
• you take away my right of freedom of expression. i want to be able to dance without feeling like a cheap piece of meat and the only way i can do that in your club is if i have a straight girl who has my back.
• you wouldn't dare walk around looking like you do outside, because deep down in your heart you know that you are not truly free. true freedom would be living as a lady each and every second of your existence if you were so inclined, regardless of what might happen to you because of it.
• in a strange way i've lost something tonight. something that has never been good for me and i thank you for that.

instead i told everybody i saw, to please not go to legends, and yet despite all my efforts, they still went.

this is a model that does not work. nowhere on earth is there proof such as here. if you exclude yourself from the majority, the majority will rise and squash you, because we live in a society that is intolerant of everything that is different to itself. there's no getting around the fact though, that everything is different on some level and i truly believe that the only way to overcome the perception that different things are to be feared, is to break down the barriers between them. to let them mingle and as such phase each other out.

this happened three weeks ago, and i'm still feeling crap about it. on the one side there is a genuine freedom to being gay on the other a looming darkness that whispers on the wind. glimmers of infidelity, pomp, vanity, gluttony, lust, anger and hate are all over, hidden under a blond wig and bad make up.

"do unto others as you want them to do unto you" - Jesus