separation of the sexes that the older gay bars used to have, such as The Riptide. All male—you’d never see a woman in there, just as in the lesbian bars you’d seldom see a man. Even a gay man. Disco—even if the noisy beat can grow tiresome—has brought gays, blacks, whites, men and women together on the same dance floor. Saturday Night Live I walk in about midnight, pay the four-dollar cover, and get my hand stamped. (On week nights, the cover is a dollar.) Sit like a bump on a log, for the next hour or so. Watching young people, mainly gay, milling around. At first, I thought, My God, it’s beautiful! It’s a paradise for young people. The new smooth haircuts. It’s “romantic.” That’s what I like about it. I’m talking to this straight kid, about 18. “ It’s totally gay. That’s what I don’t like about it,” he says. He’s a high school kid who’s a hod carrier. He used to go to Mildred’s. I point out to him that there are about ten young ladies sprinkled through the crowd. Some talk to him. There seems to be about a hundred people in the place, very few adults. The- dance floor is packed. “Who do you think comes here?” I ask. He says kids from Southwest Portland or Downtown. He doesn’t think as many older people come here as went to Mildred’s. I feel conspicuous, a “graybeard.” Purple glo-lights, mirrors. Flowers on the counter, the kid is drinking a milkshake. I prefer Budweiser! Sea- green searchlights ply my eyes, sweep. There are mainly stripes in the dance floor. Sometimes it turns dark, and titanium metallic strobes flash and freeze the dancers, in surgical stopframe poses. Turning to ruby color. Hedonistic. The light show alternates with cubistic designs, optic swirls, once tulips! Laurel and Hardy silent flicks, out of sequence. I see the credits, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Bacon Grabbers. “This must be driving you crazy?” The kid next to me says. Two youngsters are holding hands, seated at a table. Others are preening like parakeets. “No, I'm already crazy,” I reply. I'm wistfully eyeing the red neon BUD ON TAP sign, over the door leading to the tavern. I mention how crowded it is. He and I ask. Is it just a moneymaking scheme? The dancers are really getting off! The deejay plays the heavy disco numbers. A Rocky Horror Picture Show song like “Monster Mash”—no, that’s not the title! —is greeted with delight, arms raised in supplication. Was that the whip scene in Rocky Horror? Dancers are sashaying back and forth, ignoring me, miming the words to: “ I’ve got the music in me. Let’s dance!” I notice Jim the bartender, in a HOT FLASH T-shirt. The young guy I’m talking to knows everybody in here. He points out a pale boy who was busted for prostitution. The poor little wimp! I feel sorry for him, looking at his baby face. “Do you like punk rockers?” “No, 1 hate them. Hitler should have taken care of those people.” Does he know what he’s saying? Aren’t disco and punk rock just similar musical extremes? Gays and blacks seem to love disco, electronic computerized dancing music. (Is it because both groups have suffered such social oppression?) Socially alienated white kids from suburbia become punk screamers. Hitler would have wiped out all of us. I feel like I'm back in high school, despite the gay bar ambience. It’s real ordinary in here, small peanuts. But the dancers like it. I’m told The Metropolis stays open till 5 a.m. What endears me to the place is how hard, zealously, the employees work serving milkshakes, cokes, taking care of the door. Making their scene happen. It’s theirs, they want it. They deserve it. It belongs to them. Lanny Swerdlow also deserves a lot of credit for putting The Metropolis together. It’s a love letter. From one concerned gay to an entire community. “There goes a chicken haws!” The 18-year-old next to me says. How does he know? Is this kid a troublemaker? If the wan, thirtyish guy with goatee is, he’s the only one in here on Saturday night. He heads for the cherry-red BUD ON TAP sign, where I’ll be sneaking out in five minutes. My ears are ringing with the boom boom sounds of “Boogie woogie dancing shoes leave me dancing all night long.” What Lanny Had to Say: Some Clarifications On Tuesday, I went to talk with Lanny Swerdlow, one of the four owners of The Metropolis. He is a bright, energetic, concerned spokesman for the gay community. We had a hurried conversation, which quickly corrected some of my impressions and misconceptions about The Metropolis, disco “camp." the hustler scene. The scene Downtown has changed so much in the last several years! It’s amazing. As a reporter, if I hadn’t talked with him. this article wouldn’t be worth a pile of beans! Misconception One: Lanny told me, “The Metropolis is not a kids’ place! It's for all ages. About half the clientele is over 21. Most of the crowd is in their twenties.” Misconception Two: “Of the 1,000 or so people who come here each week, only about 10 percent are street people. This is not a place set up for street gays. They are welcome. But our patrons are college students, business people, and gays from all over.” From the very beginning, Lanny informed me. The Metropolis was designed to be a gay disco establishment. In fact, it sells memberships which significantly reduces the price of admission. I asked him, “Why membership?" He replied, “Young gay people needed a place to go. Here's a place to go where alcohol isn’t shoved down their throats. Also, here young gays can meet positive role, models—older gays who are businessmen, who lead stable lives. Not the negative ones of the past, pimps, drug pushers, married men who pay to suck their cocks and then dump them back in the streets.” He went on to describe how the scene at “camp," the area around SW Third and Yamhill, had changed, and the hustler scene itself. A few years back, there used to be lots of young gays at camp. Many of them went to Mildred's. Until Mildred’s, they had no place to go. Even then, pimps and drug pushers would try to come into Mildred’s. Also, there were problems from people in the Park Blocks. Since moving to The Metropolis. not very many young gays frequent camp. It’s mainly an area for hustlers, prostitutes. Lanny continued: “Very few hustlers come here. Besides, most of them are straight. The “johns” won’t come to The Metropolis, because it’s too openly gay.” We continued talking about disco and other matters. I asked him about the women who came to dance. He said, “We have a lot of straight women who come here. They like it because they’re not being sexually propositioned. In fact, they are the ones who complain the most when there are too many straight males on the premises!” He believes disco music is being discriminated against because its beginnings are gay. It was gay music first. Slogans like “Disco Sucks” are really covert discrimination against gays themselves, because that's supposed gay sexual behavior. Recently. The Metropolis hosted Debbie Jacobs, a big-name disco music star. Four Portland radio stations refused advertisement of the event because Lanny wanted it stated that it was gay! Rather shocking bigotry in 1979! We still have a long way to go. baby! I asked him about future plans. Would he consider having live music at The Metropolis? He said he would, if the finances could be worked out. Also, he hadn't been able to find a Portland band which played disco music. During the day. The Metropolis will have a lunch trade, standard fare for business people in the area. He finished. “As the disco scene changes. Metropolis will change.” Conclusion I was going to end this article with an elaborate false comparison, from nty geriatric past: The Metropolis is a lot like a fifties sock-hop, twenty years after, allowing for the increase in technology. minus the gymnasium and smell of old tennis shoes and Mrs. Grundy, with blue-tinted hair, hawk- eyedly watching the girls to see if they're padding their bras with tissue paper. Well, it’s simply not true! Neither do gay boys dress up in drag much anymore. Those days are in mothballs. A place like The Metropolis is what makes Portland a nifty place in which to live. A cosmopolitan, tolerant community which addresses the needs of all of its citizens, in their unique manifestations. My dictionary says the word metropolis comes from the Greek, meaning mother \mater\ plus city (polis). Roughly speaking, it could mean mother city or mother place. I swear there is a kind of maternal sweetness in the air. When we went to take pictures, I realized I hadn’t emphasized the good vibes and the congeniality enough. If you are young and gay, and don't know where to go to be with others and feel comfortable, go there. Walt Curtis is a Portland writer whose Mala Hoche is an underground classic. Steak Cellar Sun-Thur 5:30-10 Fri-Sat 5:30-10:30 ♦ Steaks, Roasts & Salads in a Quaint Subterranean Atmosphere 211 SW Ankeny 222-5753 Chocolate Moose Mon-Sat 11:30am-1am Sun 4 pm-midnight Sandwiches Soups Desserts Fine Cheeses Imported Beer &Wine FtiWhj KeigkUtkwul State Fieokproduce at (out pniceA KatuJiat hudt OmpoMbeen Rodd 9d£WFuu£Co. S.W. Conbott &IVIdtoU 37
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