In January of 1979, I moved into a studio apartment after an ugly break-up with my partner, Geoffrey. The moment I saw the small jewel box of windows perched on top of an old Victorian, it felt like the right place to be.
read moreMy old boss and mentor, Doug Tompkins, passed away last December after a kayaking accident. He was a world-class entrepreneur, devoted outdoor enthusiast and a major conservationist.
read moreWhen I arrived in California in 1973 at the height of the gay liberation movement, many San Franciscans were turning their attention inward as a robust Human Potential Movement became the newest revolution to sweep through the Bay Area.
read moreA red bandana held my long black hair away from my soggy face as I hurried to finish my shift. I couldn’t wait to get to Potpourri, a nearby gay bar, to reunite with Colton.
read moreDad endured a six-hour operation to remove a five-inch tumor attached to his larynx. Since the cancer had metastasized, he also lost one-third of his tongue and most of his teeth.
read more“Dad’s got cancer.” Barbie’s voice quivered between fear and indignation.
read moreWhen the holidays rolled around that year, I was a thirty-year old, sober gay man living alone in a studio apartment perched on top of a Victorian in Presidio Heights. My picture window faced westward and looked onto a teepee of green lights atop the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Building about a half-mile away.
read moreAfter suppressed memories of my father surfaced a few years ago, I began to wonder if PTSD was the only thing that he brought back with him from the war.
read moreThis is the story of my coming out. In telling it, I have tried to recreate the voice of the eighteen-year-old Ralph whose formative years were steeped in an alcoholic home. Although I was insecure and scared, I projected a cocky, superior persona to the world. Before college, I had successfully avoided facing difficult feelings and, despite my cynicism, I was a romantic at heart.
read moreWhenever Easter comes along, my thoughts return to my spiritual upbringing, mainly how lucky I was to be a kid who didn’t have religion rammed down his throat by his family, or by his church.
read moreMany more older gay men crossed my path after I settled in San Francisco. Although they had come of age when homosexuals were considered mentally ill criminals and the word “queer” had not yet lost its sting, most of them had lived more open and happy lives within the gay enclaves that sprung up on the coasts after World War II (more on this later).
read moreUnlike Willy and Sandy, my parents’ friend Brodrick Westcott did not live in the closet because he was yanked out of it. During a routine police raid of the public men’s rooms in a park in St. Louis, he was discovered having man-on-man sex, arrested and thrown in jail under the prevailing sodomy laws. Word of his transgression spread quickly among his peers in the elite West County suburbs and, within a short time, he lost his his marriage, his child, his livelihood, his friends, his reputation and eventually his life.
read moreIn her book, Shameless, A Sexual Reformation, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes that she navigated her sex life “without any wisdom from my elders.” I had the same experience because most of my gay elders were deep in the closet.
read moreMy generation of gay men came grew up in a time devoid of any context for being gay. Long before puberty, I sensed something different inside of me, but I had no visual models to provide a framework or mentors to give me validation for this feeling.
read moreNews Flash: Loneliness is at epidemic levels in the United States. In today’s divided, tribal environment, it is easy to forget that finding and joining one’s tribe has not always been a bad thing. It has been especially important for the gay men and women of my Boomer generation. Real connection with previously invisible LGBTQ people has been a powerful antidote to isolation and loneliness over the decades.
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