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It's funny how certain conversations come back after years, echoing around in the cortex. Surely there must a reason for the replay. Could it be an emblem for a certain set of events? A conversation I had with some fellow back in the 70s did a redux on me the other day. This fellow was a member of a gay men's social group, I think they called themselves The Pappagallos, and they staged elaborate wing-dings, all-nighters for the boogie boys.

On one occasion, they rented the fabulous Cyclorama in Boston's South End. (Cyclorama makes it sound like some elaborate ride at an amusement park; in fact it is a big open exhibition hall, often used for business shows and the like.) It was 1977 or 1978, and the theme of the bash was The Piers, referencing the ramshackle, rotting piers on the West Side of lower Manhattan, at the time a favorite late-night cruising space for anonymous sex. They rented big trucks, built wooden ramps, had a massive sound system installed and all the accouterment of a big blow-out. I suspect, but I do not know, that recreational drugs, including poppers, were easily available and eagerly consumed.

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I was not invited to this party, nor was I invited to any party this group famously threw. I came out of the political-writing part of the movement, and a type like myself usually doesn't make the cut for all-night dance parties. I went to many meetings and worked for the gay press, which I still do today, the writing part, not the meeting part. A lot of my writing was published in Boston's Gay Community News (GCN), an excellent weekly, which was the training ground for many men and women who developed into activists who­ at least the ones still alive today­ do important work.

GCN struggled to get by financially. Given its slim financial resources, the paper did remarkable work and had an impact. At any rate, I ran into my partying acquaintance a few days after The Piers affair and I asked how it went. He gave me a rapturous account­ the music, the drugs, the sex! I listened sympathetically, glad that I am accustomed to going to bed early, even then­ except, of course, when those meetings I attended went on and on, which they often did. (Mitzel Rule #17 in gaylife: the longer the meeting, the less chance there is that anything productive will be achieved.) After listening to my acquaintance's account of the party, I had to ask: "How much did this party cost?" He didn't miss a beat. "Oh, we went all out. Spent over $10,000!"

He went on his merry way. I was in shock, which is perhaps why the content of this conversation is still reverberating in my head after near a quarter century. Ten thousand dollars in 1977 would be worth at least $30,000 in today's valuation, and am I all by myself in thinking that this is a big chunk of change to spend on an all-night disco fuck-party? (My sister-in-law recently told me that she and my brother had attended a wedding and reception, on which the bride's father had spent $30,000; I certainly hope the marriage works out!)

The $10,000 spent on the party stayed with me. I mulled alternative uses for the scratch. That kind of money would have funded GCN for three or four months. And my ponderings led me to a consideration of values. What do members of our community value? What will we fund? What kind of bang should we expect from a buck? I'm all in favor of folks having a good time, something I myself used to believe in. But I hate wretched excess and the gaudy display of expenditures­ the McMansions which sprout on small residential sites, the disgusting pandering to the rich, the displacement of the ordinary with the fancy; not my cup of tea at all, my dear! But this is a country not only tolerant of wretched excess but positively encouraging of it, and all made much worse since the RayGun regime and the ascendancy of the ethos of entertainment culture.

It would be lovely if our community had the equivalent funding mechanisms as does The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy­ wouldn't it be loverly? But this is not about to come to pass and one can only dream, and, in fact, one can leverage a lot of social change even on a modest budget, as some of our gay and lesbian organizations, particularly the legal groups, have demonstrated. I recall when the gay rights bill was stuck in one of the houses of the Massachusetts Legislature, as it was year after year. It was always three or four votes short of passage. Over dinner one night, my friend Charley Shively and I were discussing this situation, and the constant fund-raising in our community to lobby legislators to pass the bill (and I may have mentioned the $10,000 party). Shively asked: "Why don't they just take some of the money­ couldn't cost more than $1000 each­ and just buy off those four or five legislators? They don't care one way or the other about gay rights; they're holding out for the bribes." This is certainly a down-to-earth theory of governance and perhaps it was finally implemented as the bill did pass and get signed. And an effective way to make an expenditure.

My party days­ or time when I might have been asked to the dance­ are over. So are my meeting days. I have a new party line: "It's a gift to be simple"!

Author Profile:  Mitzel
	Mitzel was a founding member of the Fag Rag collective, and has been a Guide columnist since 1986. He manages Calamus Books near Boston's South Station.
	Email:	mitzel@calamusbooks.com
	Website:	calamusbooks.com