Robert StGenis Voice empowered

The Gold Coast, which some referred to as "God's waiting room", opened in 1981 at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and La Jolla, across from the infamous Circus of Books Store which has been there since 1960 and created the home of the Vaseline Alley behind the store. It was a classic "dive" bar and attracted a wide-net audience. It was the home of the Red dress party which started as a vow between 2 bartenders, Mark Ferguson and Yves-Claude, with proceeds going to Life Group LA. I've spent time at the Gold Coast at 2 PM and left at 2 AM. While not a regular hangout of mine, it certainly was always a safety net, a piece of West Hollywood that was comfortable to go to when I just wanted to pop in for a drink or even sometimes just use the bathroom. It wasn't pretentious, the drinks were less expensive than most everywhere else in WeHo. there was something comforting that it was just off the path of the epicenter of Boystown, yet only blocks away from...

This is Part Three in a mini-series: Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. A Tale of Two Cities in my series Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship . If you haven't already, be sure to read:  Tale of Two Cities. Part One and Part Two . When you have a chance, the entire series starts at:  Los Angeles. Love/Hate Relationship. Part One.   It is almost incomprehensible to believe that when I decided to make a stop on December 6, 2020 and grab a drink it would be the 1st time I had enter the indoors of a gay bar in at least 9 months. I am not exactly sure when it was earlier but it would have to had been while we were in Great Britain in late February and early March before California began to lockdown for what is becoming eternity. We are not big bar goers, in fact my husband doesn't drink. But, he is usually up for a bar with an "event" like a drag show or bingo and we usually make an "appearance" at a bar if visiting somewhere. We "live" to travel an...

Bruce Springsteen became a huge iconic figure during the 1980s. He was already a successful musician but his  Born in The USA Tour  really made him a household name everywhere. In New Jersey, he is patron Saint to this day. I remember people for years raving about the fact that if you went to The Stone Pony, a bar in what was largely desolate and deteriorating Asbury Park at the time, Springsteen might stop in for a jam session. I never went to The Stone Pony , however. I seem to recall trying to go once but it had a huge line. That and I think I was a little leery of using my fake ID there. I had no concerns using it in New York City just about anywhere, but a bar down the shore, especially "the bar" in many ways at that time, I thought was taking too much of a risk.  I do also vaguely recall that some friend or perhaps Laura and I went and sought out his once former home in Long Branch at some point while I was attending Morristown High School. Although Spri...

Most recently, I've been writing almost exclusively on my junior and senior years of high school. While laws and in turn, parents, were more permissive, my experiences were not the ordinary; good, bad and otherwise up for discussion. The 80s were all about excess and our generation probably screwed it up for future ones, or saved you, depending on how you look at it. There were a great deal of questions about testimony given and statements during the hearings... I thought it was highly questionable then, all the more now, that most people remember without a doubt who attended a high school party 30 years ago, let alone what might have gone on in a bedroom they were not in at the time. I do believe and have had experiences where certain things stand clearly in my mind. If you read Being a Junior , I remember that the guy that entered my bathroom stall had a classic London Fog or similar rain coat and black or dark brown curly hair. I remember I had a patchwork patterned sweater w...

I don't even recall exactly how Laura and I rented a cabin in the Poconos, though I had a failsafe fake ID and a credit card. My parents seemed to most of the time allow me to do most things without much concern, even at 17 years old and still in high school. Laura came up from Toms River and we traveled some 75 miles or more into the Poconos in Pennsylvania. My close friend Steve in Baltimore whom I knew from the beach (in DelMarVa they refer to "the beach" while "down the shore" is purely a "Jersey thing") at the Sea Colony and his Catholic School buds were coming to the Poconos on a school trip and I was determined we would all be there. We met on February 1, 1986 or perhaps it was the Friday evening prior, January 31 which would be logical. (I only know this because I wrote it on the back of photos. I hardly have that good of memory!) Laura & Steve We all had a great time, to my best recollection, but I had to get them back to...

This will not mean much unless you first read: Summer 1986. Part Two. In Liberty & Reality The lower right photo shows 2 bad decisions on my part. A horrible perm and smoking. I first started smoking as a freshman in Cross Country when my friend and I would sneak into the woods and smoke during a run. A few of us also tried chewing tobacco while cycling in the same period. Difference then, at my private school, they simply had designated smoking areas for students. We were told it was bad, not that we couldn't under any circumstance. Meanwhile, the video below was being shown during the school year in NYC public schools. It most definitely was not in the Morris School District.

The Hudson River waterfront in the 80's was nothing like it is today. There were piers that were collapsing into the river, others in varying states of decay. The Intrepid was a new attraction and I believe became part of the Smithsonian while I was in high school. I recall a handful of years later attending a huge Gay Pride event that included I believe my first foam party. This doesn't sound like a big deal now but it was hugely symbolic at the time we were fighting for the right to serve in the US military. Hell's Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan was mostly still hellish with gentrification in its early stages. I lived there for a brief period in 1990 and will write about it in a future entry. Crime in New York City was also on another planet. There were 1,907 murders in New York City in 1986 vs. 562 murders in 2018. The homeless population was out of control and the smell of defecation and urine in subway stations sometimes made it nearly impossible to not vomit before...

Please be sure to read  AIDS 1. Junior year  and  AIDS 1-Senior Year. Part One  prior to this entry. It brings my story all together. You may also want to watch my short  It Gets better  video which is also a blog post on here as well. Then, you will have my years as a teenager, the fun, the sad, the good and bad. The collection of these posts bring together a formative part of who I am, as it is an important period of growth for all of us. You will likely find some of my story shocking, some entertaining, interesting, doubtfully boring. I didn't overall spend time writing about time on swim or soccer teams, or even much about going to school except a bit more in this last one. I wrote mostly about what you aren't expecting to hear from a teenager. My girlfriend Laura and I will also spend a great deal of time in New York City. Because Laura lived down the shore in Toms River, she was about 90 miles away. Getting together was never running up or down t...

If you have not yet read, please go back to  AIDS 1-Being a Junior  and read prior to this entry. Since I had moved to Morristown, New Jersey I was living two lives, in two ways. There was Robert the suburban high school student with a girlfriend down the shore and simultaneously Robert the closeted gay man and in many ways a recent arrival to New York City. Most people around my neighborhood at that time lived and worked in New Jersey and went into the city at best a few times a year for a play, for a concert or game. They might once or twice go in the course of a decade to a museum. I was there almost every weekend and any other time I could find a chance. My Father was initially commuting into the city everyday. I had to use bridges and tunnels, I was a not a bridge and tunnel boy. I was sneaking off into Manhattan on a fairly frequent basis and going to happy hours at Uncle Charlie's and popping into Julius in Greenwich Village; sometimes, well, often, that leading t...

There were no rainbow flags when I attended.  I attended Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont my first year of college. I recently learned the school is ceasing to operate as a college after a 185-year history. I will share my time in Vermont, not so much to "memorialize" my year of education there; in fact some of my experience is part of my permanent scarring which I will reveal, but that year was formidable in positive, negative and just realistic ways. I did a lot of growing at GMC and not really because of the school at all. My Mother and I did a tour of New England colleges in the fall of my junior year of high school. This was a rite of passage, certainly a tradition in our family and as important, if not more, to my Mom as to me. I still remember leaving Morristown, New Jersey on I-287 North, connecting to the New York State Thruway and working our way into New England. I remember the Trip-Tik that I had gotten from AAA and all the maps, which wer...