You'd never believe it, but Portland, Oregon (supposedly) had one of the largest number of gay bars "per capita" in any city in the country according to some study done in the late 70s. It did seem like we had a great selection to choose from back then. Still do for that matter. Portland's always been known for its hospigaiety and even today, when traveling when I tell people I'm from Portland, everyone seems to know about Portland and opinions generally are favorable.
As I and my friends were starting to live the lifestyle that our genes had basically committed us to, whether we knew it or not, we had a hell of a lot of fun. Sure, we made some mistakes. You should see some of the snapshots from then. Some of us should never have worn our hair long, no matter how "in" it was. I've got a picture of me in a lime green leisure suit that my mother picked out for me that still makes me blush with shame to this day!
Mistakes were made even with our drugs of choice. No matter what anyone tells you, Artane is not our friend! Used to control certain side effects induced by antipsychotic drugs such as Thorazine and Haldol, Artane was easily procured by a friend who was an orderly at the State Hospital. Taken in small doses the drug induced a wonderfully relaxed state of mind and a great "body" high. You just wanted everyone to touch you all over your body. But. . . where was I? Oh yeah. . . you'd end up. . . wait. . . it's coming to me. . . oh yeah, you'd forget what you were talking about in the middle of a sentence. I don't know how many conversations were suddenly cut short by an Artane hit. Of course, no one noticed since we were all too stoned anyway. Well, one evening of Artane induced euphoria and a completely lost evening was rapidly followed by a small gathering in a bathroom with the entire bottle of Artanes being unceremoniously dumped into the toilet.
The Night of Forgotten Conversations took place in one of Portland's early gay "discos". Up the Down Staircase was a pit. With a bar/restaurant on the ground floor and the dance floor with a small bar on the second floor, Up the DS was one of Portland's first efforts at bringing gay disco to the community. The fact that the music came from a juke box was of no consequence. We had our first gay dance club and we loved it! Disco was Queen and we had a place to strut and dance and show off our best disco clothes.
Now livin' the life style included wearing only the newest and hippest clothes: platform shoes, disco wear, bell bottoms, flaired trousers and cuffed pants were all in. Talk about fashion mistakes! I don't know how many gay men sprained their ankles wearing those ridiculously high soled shoes while wildly gyrating to the latest disco queen's music. Even cuffed pants, a seemingly innocuous fashion statement could be dangerous.
One night as friends and I were going up the stairs to the dance floor in Up the DS, another friend, Jack was being carried down the same stairs. It seems he had gotten just a little too high and was being taken out of the bar for some fresh air. What he and his friends had not noticed, however, was that at some point he had dropped his cigarette and it had landed inside of one of his pant's cuffs and it was smoldering. Thank God corduroy doesn't burn quickly!
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