"Gradually, however, I came to think of Chicago as a man-city, healthy, sweaty, and sensual. It was Gargantua of the lakefront—his head in Evanston, his feet in Gary; and he lay relaxed and smoldering along the water. The trees of Lincoln Park were the curling man-hair of his chest, the trees of Jackson Park the foliage on his legs, the tall buildings of the Loop his sturdy upstanding phallus—the whole anatomy of the city his outstretched body."—Samuel Steward
I arrived in Chicago in February 1991 to find a city curled up indoors warming its ass by the hearth. Hunkered down in an apartment on West Elmdale Avenue, I only ventured outside to the supermarket 50 yards away, and to the His'n'Hers bar around the corner on Broadway. That's where I met Marge Summit, the first lesbian to welcome me into this city; more lesbians were to come.
At some point—and I don't remember when or how—I started working for Outlines, later Windy City Times, covering everything and everyone, bank managers to gender non-specific tattoo artists, actors to 80-year-old drag queens. My premise was, is, and always will be, "Every LGBT is a star" and everyone's story needs to be told. Somewhere along the way I started interviewing LGBTs about their personal history and, after a few false starts, I ended up writing the book Chicago Whispers: A History of LGBT Chicago Before Stonewall and was inducted into the Chicago Lesbian and Gay Hall of Fame for my efforts.
I have so many fond memories. I was very proud to speak at a VA hospital in Danville, Illinois, to corporate businesses like Boeing and Chubb Insurance, to students at Truman and Columbia colleges and numerous other venues around the city. I read my wild stories and succeeded in offending everyone with my poetry at open mics. I wrote two plays for a dance company, short stories for anthologies, wrote a 10-week series on gay history for the Chicago Tribune, scripted and hosted Chicago Neighborhood tours' Gay History Bus Tour.
I also still laugh at some of my antics in the bars and clubs; the tequila shots with whores, junkies, dealers and strippers; and the guys and dolls at Alcoholics Anonymous who guided me to sobriety a decade ago. If I could go back and change anything I wouldn't—I'd still be shit-faced in Berlin taking photographs of freaks for Nightspots.
That's been my Chicago life in a nutshell.
However, now it's time for me to leave this city where I've lived one-third of my life, and move to Cathedral City/Palm Springs, California. My health and the bitter cold winters are at odds with each other, and I've fallen in love with the desert and the clear skies at night and the hummingbirds.
It hurts to go and leave behind what I consider to be the most vibrant and beautiful city in the world. I'll miss the "El" with its dribbling lunatics, the endless art show openings, the idiot Bible-basher on State Street, summer festivals, music venues and small theaters on every corner. I'll miss living in Lincoln Square with the Davis flea-pit movie theater, Gene's deli, Cafe Selmarie, Laurie's Planet of Sound and Garcia's restaurant. I'll miss the Turkish Moslem gentleman who cuts my hair; Donna, the African-American woman at the local library who likes the TV show Vikings because of the muscular white men; my Streetwise guy who confided in me, "I'm not gay, I just like sucking on big cocks;" and my Polish, Bulgarian and Russian friends at the Copernicus Center with whom I spent many happy hours.
Of course, I won't be leaving Chicago completely because my heart and thoughts will still be here with my friends. I will still be writing my column Gay Chicago Rewind for chicagopride.com and contributing articles to Windy City Times, and then there's always FaceTime, Skype and Facebook. If you're ever in Cathedral City/Palm Springs, let's do coffee.
