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Some months later I stumbled across Gay Community News (GCN), for only fifty cents, which for a seventeen-year-old making due on scooping ice cream for money, was a killing of a savings. Devouring all I could, before returning to my parents’ home, I’d bury my back issues in a box in the back of the closet (how appropriate, eh?) that I’d asked my mother to dispose of before I left for college (but that’s another installment)
GCN was published out of Boston, and I’d even gone to their offices and the gay bookstore next door. In the classifieds section of GCN was a tiny print ad for a “Gay Youth Group” which, as you might try to imagine for 1979, was something akin to Tom Cruise standing on the top of the coffee table on The View and screaming, “Yes, I really am a homosexual!” (Of course I hope he never does ‘cause who wants the little narcissistic whack-job in our camp?)
Then there was my national judo champion neighbor Keith, who’d also get stoned with me, strip off his shirt, and have me “spot him” (assist in his weight lifting safety) while he did bench presses.
On that fateful fall afternoon, my soon to be best friend (purported to be from the town’s second toughest family) was Ricky, a bruiser of a working class boy who’d I’d met by accident at the back of the bus. Having just moved from a town where I’d walked to school my entire life, the construct of a “school bus” and the social stratifications that came with it were completely foreign to me.
In the early summer of 1980, Massachusetts was starting to slowly become the steam bath that is called “summer.” Living in the city was like being in a giant cement crock pot slow cooker: one day it was a semi-warm spring day, and you were thrilled winter was over, and the next it was 80 degrees and you’re in search of a movie theater or sometimes even a supermarket to stave off the hot exhaust that passes as air.
I go to church on Sundays, and Wednesdays too, which wouldn't seem strange unless you knew me, ‘cause I'm not exactly the church-going type. It’s that gay church in the Castro, the little purple building on Eureka Street that’s held a million 12-step meetings and God knows how many community gatherings, but it's still a church. 
My Japanese Dad Knows I'm Gay..jpg)
I’ve said this before on this very blog, but it bears repeating. I think movie reviewers who tell you anything beyond a very loose overview of the plot should be forced to read their reviews in the balcony of hell – for eternity. This reviewer takes on, mostly mindless fun, so he'll not do that and hopefully, wet your appetite.
Lest you think this reviewer is “easy,” let me quote a friend of mine who happens to be an accomplished artist and instructor. He said that I was studying graphic design because I am "really picky" and always "wanted to fix everything." That's the G-rated version. You can only guess what else he called me.
