In my travels across this fine land we call the United States; there have remained a few constants: the road is long and often fraught with uncertainty, the amplitude of fast food chains wavers but never stops, and there are a great many locales to whet your whistle. So when we first pulled into the Los Angeles area, we were very surprised to find the wild and exotic slapped up against the mundane. Moreover, a great many of these exotic places appeared on the exterior to be little more than pedestrian facades. However, the truth is always a little bit deeper and no where is this more the case than when you’re discovering the local gay bar scene.
One of the biggest things which should not have surprised me was the sheer number of gay bars. Coming from back east, it was always a fairy gentrified crowd at many of the popular watering holes. Yes, of course, there were and are gay bars in New York City but the truth is always somewhere below the surface. The crowd at many of these popular establishments is quite mixed, almost to the point of being unidentifiable.
Not so in California as the gay bars here all wave their flag proudly. When my wife and I enter any of these establishments with our gay couple friends, she says to me, “Does this make you uncomfortable?” to which I’d reply the same. It must be the blending which we’ve become accustomed to because the answer to both is a hearty laugh and an “of course not!”
Silver Lake, CA is where some of our friends recently moved and one of the most popular gay bars in town is “MJ’s (2810 Hyperion Ave Silver Lake).” Very much a gay bar in every sense of the word, what had our friends so excited about MJ’s was the Go-Go Boys who started when we’d first visited in October outdoors in little more than their skivvies, their muscular bodies, and the endowment of public broadcasting. They’ve since moved inside with the temperatures dipping down into the 50’s (!) which is not all that cold but far too much for socializing as these Go-Go boys do.
Also of note at MJ’s is the fact that there is, according to their website, a wide variety of attractions to suit any suitor. Many nights there is no cover (although at some times, there are), free pool table, drink specials, and a variety of dance music on different nights to suit any temperament.
Somewhere along the line, someone decided that gay men only liked trance, electronica, and Everything But the Girl remixes. This couldn’t be further from the truth and with a bar like MJ’s there is a full roster of fine music of all types on play. There are also many regular events which make visiting MJ’s any time of day or night a very pleasant experience indeed.
