Posted on 08/20/2002 3:01:35 AM PDT by chance33_98
Where's a girl to go? BY DAVID KIEFER Of The Examiner Staff
Society's take on lesbians is a little like voyeurism.
A peak through a bar window, a glance at a flier posted on a street corner, a guilty read of the Women seeking Women personals.
We know Dykes on Bikes lead the Pride parade. Or maybe even that last month's Ladyfest Bay Area drew lesbians from around the country, or that a woman named Des is remembered on a makeshift memorial on a Dolores Street traffic island.
But scratch the surface of San Francisco's lesbian community and another perspective is revealed -- bars and cafes catering to lesbians are fading in the nation's gayest city. Last month, the Bearded Lady CafÈ closed. Two years ago, it was the CoCo Club. Long before that, Amelia's, Clementina's, Francine's, Sophia's, and the Artemis CafÈ all cashed out.
In The City, lesbian hangouts have struggled to survive. Currently, there are only two strictly lesbian bars, the Lexington Club in the Mission and Wild Side West in Bernal Heights.
Many say it's a financial issue. Most women either don't have disposable income or are not willing to spend it.
"Women have a tendency to be in long-term monogamous relationships, and most likely won't be found in bars and nightclubs," said longtime lesbian nightclub promoter Mariah Hanson. "Then, when they break up, they're back in the bars and nightclubs."
But is it enough to prevent a lesbian hangout from succeeding?
Lila Thirkield can shoot down that theory. Her bar, the Lexington Club, has provided a window for the subculture, to a lifestyle many don't see or are not willing to.
Seeing a need for a full-time lesbian bar in the Valencia Corridor when there was none, Thirkield was scared when she opened the place in 1997. But since then, the Lexington has flourished.
She found a formula that worked: Small place, low prices, no cover charge, and a sense that the place is essential to the community.
"We've totally created this world when there wasn't one," she said. "We've always taken care of our own."
Need an example? Take Christmas Day. The bar was nearly empty, and Thirkield probably spent more money to keep it open then she made all day.
But she didn't think of closing, because, "It's important to have a place to be when there isn't anywhere else to go."
The Lexington Club has taken over where the Bearded Lady left off, as a dynamic place where women were inspired enough by the creativity of the owners to open a window into their own souls--through readings, music, theater, and art.
It's about expression, passion and feelings. A community is marginalized no longer, at least on these nights among friends.
Today, a layer of grime covers old fliers attached to the door of the Bearded Lady's vacant storefront. A "closed" sign is slowly becoming bleached by the sun.
During its heyday, things were different.
"The vibrant art scene that grew up in and around the cafÈ was a real blossoming of confidence and talent for a generation or up and coming artists," said the original Bearded Lady herself, Harriet Dodge. "We became a hub of sorts. Many people found their voices with us."
It didn't hurt to have creative minds such as herself and Silas Flipper Howard, a guitar player for the legendary lesbian punk band Tribe 8.
In addition, the women they met at the cafÈ inspired them in their own projects, such as the film "By Hook or By Crook," co-starring, co-written, and co-directed by Dodge and Howard. The film, funded by the lesbian community, was critically acclaimed at the Sundance Film Festival and will be coming to San Francisco in October.
"We were just so broke when we started the place, we were selling the bakery samples," said Howard, who now runs a hauling business and works as a garbage collector, carpenter and house painter. "But if we needed something, people donated it. People were really ready for something."
Though the cafÈ was sold to allow Dodge and Howard to concentrate on the film, its days seem numbered anyway. The energy to keep it open in the evolving dot.com environment wasn't what it used to be.
Today, much of the lesbian social scene comes from weekly or monthly clubs at various venues. A promoter organizes, a DJ plays, women dance, and the owner makes money -- an owner who is most likely not a lesbian and cares little about anything other than the bottom line.
"We're seeing greed all around us," Hanson said. "There comes a point where enough is enough," which is why Hanson and Thirkield, at least, are doing their part to take back control.
Hanson is planning on opening her own full-time lesbian nightclub, the Cherry Bar and Lounge, in October.
"These clubs have become our meeting places, our places to check in community, a celebratory atmosphere for an oppressed group to meet and feel safe," said Hanson, who also admits to some trepidation.
"Everybody tells me I'm crazy to do this," she said. "I don't believe that."
I couldn't care less about the lesbians qua lesbians, and surely don't expect you to care about them. However, I find the moral obtuseness about blackmail, and interference in the lives of others who have not harmed one to be very troubling from almost any ethical point of view, whether Christian or secular. We all do things which, upon mature reflection, we might not wish we had done, or might not wish to do again. Few of us at 16 think explicity of the "Golden Rule" in our ordinary activities, and fewer still of Kant's Categorical Imperative, a more philosphically sophisticated version of the golden rule. Would you really want those who dislike your behaviours to go sniffing about until they found some aspect that might be embarrassing or illegal, then threaten you with exposure unless you did X, and then expose you? I think not.
Keep in mind, this article is about bars in San Francisco, it's my impression that, there, they wouldn't need to set up a deliberately gay or lesbian bar because just about any bar could be "taken over" - and really, it's the hetero bars that are the curiousities.
The word is *stukach.*
That kid sounds like a real stukach.
-archy-/-
Who needs upper body strength; a loaded Glock is better!
I can't believe someone wrote that about their own town and didn't mean it as an insult.
We look at the same situation somewhat differently it would appear. Viva La Difference!
"If you can't lick em'" join em... so to speak.
I only knew one of them, the daughter of the (then) Town & Country dealer north of town.
At first he was doubtful, but he knew it had to be looked into.
When he verified it he rocked her world. (One of the first things to go was her Chrysler convertible Ouch!)
I'll pass your sentiments on to my old friend. I still see him from time to time. My guess is that he'll probably be so broken up about how you feel that he'll commit suicide on the spot.
Or maybe not.
I agree with you, flyervet. Sounds as if his friend was a considerably bigger pervert, someone I definitely would not admit was my friend.
Unless you're into throwing mountains into
bar windows, the word needed here is 'peek.'
Any 'professional' article starting out with something so
blatantly erroneous is much too crippled to
make it to the finish line. To the circular file.
No Sale.
I have this thing I do when some pompous ass tells me how disappointed he/she/it is in something I said/did.
It's a sight gag, so I'll have to explain it for you.
First, I get this look of really deep concern on my face.
Then I pull out my wallet and heft it as though judging its weight.
Then I get a relieved look on my face. (sometimes I also wipe my brow too)
Then I say, "Whew! Nothing important missing!"
It's my way of showing how much I care what the other monkeys in the tree of life think of me...
...not!
You have yourself a good evening, and a bang-up life flyvet!
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