I think somewhere Dorothy Hamill is skating topless.

Ok kids,

not going to be a long blog this time, because there is a video that goes along with it, but I did want to get you up to speed on things.

FIrst off, I had a stellar weekend. I was able to hang out on Friday with Bill Gray and ‘the gang for a significant part of the night. This is really important to me, because I feel like the only time I see Bill is when we are at the bar, and on any given Saturday, I could be in varied states of intoxication. Friday was different though, because I actually got to meet up with him at Warehouse, then Fluid, then LaCage. Why is this so different? Well, we actually were able to chit chat about things, which is something you really can’t do at ‘da club’, ya know?

Saturday was Blades Against AIDS fundraiser. For this, I drove out to Madison, WI and had a blast. I give extra special kudos to my good friend Dale, who sponsored my trip there and back (Thanks soooo much!). Since most of you know that I don’t really have a full time job right now, it was really nice of him to be able to do this for me. I have some really great friends. I only hope that I will one day be in a position to help them out the way they have helped me.

So, for details on the Blades for AIDS, you can check this out:

http://www.madisongayhockey.org/bladesagainstaids

After the fundraiser, we obviously had to make a night of it; this meant Club 5. Now, for those of you who have been to LaCage, you would think that a gay dance club is a gay dance club is a gay dance club. Not so. The dynamic in Madison is so condensed (they only have like 4 gay bars) that everyone kind of ends up at the Club there. For the first hour we were there, the whole dance floor was almost completely lesbians – something you would NEVER see at LaCage. After that, the mixture of people ranged into all ethnicity and ages.. There were just as many 40+ year olds there as there were college kids. This has always impressed me. Now, as I was trying to stay just shy of tipsy, I was able to see some of the interactions. What I noticed, really, was there was no real ‘cliques’. I mean sure, you had your little groups of people; but there were an equal number of people that you would never think would be socializing. 45 year old men hanging out with 22 year old lesbians, twinks hanging out with butch dykes… it was just really interesting to see how the *lack* of physical gay bars has potentially created the social diversity seen there. I rather enjoyed it. On that same note, I got hit in by an equally diverse set of guys. I am fairly certain this was because I was ‘new meat’ in town, but still – it felt really nice to feel attractive.  A lot of times, in Milwaukee, I really just feel like ‘Billie’. You know, the guy that everyone knows, who works at the bar, lives at the bar, has that website with all the pics.. blah blah.. I enjoyed the change.

Hope you enjoy!

~ by Billie Hawkins on November 9, 2008.