Pride veterans and newbies mix in the Castro

by Seth Hemmelgarn

With some bars in the Castro are known for older or younger clientele, do people of different generations get an opportunity – or make the opportunity – to get to know each other?

Not too late on a recent Thursday night, Xye Dagun and Nikki Wong were among the patrons seated around the still-empty dance floor at QBar. The 1981 video for Blondie’s “The Tide is High” – likely older than most of the Castro bar’s customers – played on the monitors.

Discussing how well people of different generations in neighborhood mix, one of the two noted they have a “wide variety of” of friends. But there’s at least one place Wong hasn’t mixed yet: Twin Peaks Tavern. Thanks to the bar’s plate glass windows and reputation for drawing an older crowd, it’s often referred to as “The Glass Coffin.”

“I actually always want to go in there and talk to them and strike up a conversation, said Wong, who added, “That generation’s been through so much.”

But she hasn’t. Her time’s limited and, she said, there’s “maybe a little bit of a reservation, because we’d stick out like a sore thumb. … I don’t know if they’d be open to us.”

A couple nights later, told about Wong’s feelings, Larry Golosinski, 75, a Twin Peaks patron, seemed pleasantly surprised.

“I had no idea they have that attitude toward this place,” he said. Traditionally, he said, the sentiment’s been “you come here to die, you go there [QBar] to have fun.”

Golosinski said he’s always hung out with people of all ages.

“That’s a requirement of this neighborhood,” he said.

“The whole idea is sociability. We’re people. We have to help each other,” said Golosinski, who’s lived in San Francisco for 33 years.

Some bars – such as QBar and Twin Peaks – have been known to crowds on opposite ends of the neighborhood’s age range.  But Golosinski and Wong seemed to share ideas expressed by many people who socialize in the Castro. Patrons at some of the area’s best-known bars seemed to pride themselves on not discriminating when it comes to age, saying they feel it’s important to learn from people older, and younger, than themselves.

Even at Twin Peaks, many of the customers sitting under the Tiffany-style light fixtures actually seemed to be in their mid-thirties, at most.

Mixing with people of different generations seems to be something many in the neighborhood do.

One night in mid-May, Robert Drake, 46, was one of the people at the Midnight Sun on 18th Street watching the TV show True Blood. His friend, who appeared to be in his 20s, hung out for a bit but apparently grew bored with watching Drake be interviewed and wandered to another part of the bar.

Drake, who referred to himself as the man’s “big gay brother,” said he has friends who are in their late teens to 50. He said older men mentored him when he was in his 20s and 30s. Now, he continues to learn from men older than him, but he also feels he’s a mentor to younger men.

He said San Francisco’s friendlier than other cities like New York and Los Angeles. It’s “a big city with a small town attitude … We all live within square blocks of each other,” said Drake.“How can we not talk to each other?” he asked.

There have been changes, though. For example, there’s Halloween. When Drake moved to the city in 1995, “Halloween was an amazing time, an amazing experience” when people in costumes crowded the streets, he said. Drake expressed sympathy for younger people who missed out on those times, but he said they still get to have fun in the neighborhood.

Of course, Halloween isn’t the only thing that’s different in the Castro. Many bars have changes names, and looks, over the years, raising the question whether there’s a “new” Castro and an “old Castro.” John Fowler, 25, who was recently at QBar with Ninad Ghody, 34,  agreed with the idea that there’s an old and new Castro. He said Jet, on Market Street, is “very new Castro.”

Referring to that bar’s previous name, Ghody said, “I’m very old school Castro, so it’s Detour to me.” Actually, that club is neither Jet nor Detour now. It’s Trigger.

Both Ghody and Fowler see that relatively upscale nightspot as a Los Angeles-style bar, but Ghody said there’s a lot more generational diversity in Los Angeles. In San Francisco, he said, those kinds of bars draw a “very young” crowd.

One neighbor of QBar – formerly known as The Bar on Castro – is 440 Castro, where a fairly mixed crowd goes for a good time. Inside the bar recently, a gyrating dancer in a wrestling singlet entertained a handful of customers, who appeared to range in age from their 20s to their late 40s.

Terje Arnesen, 49, said he does see a lot of mixing among people of different ages, and he’s “still amazed” at the attention he gets from people half his age, who want him to share his knowledge and experience in the community.

Among the Castro community’s more familiar names recently has been Toad Hall – a bar name featured in the neighborhood decades ago that’s made a comeback.

Gary Haddock, 21, was helping his friend James Baguth celebrate his 26^th birthday at the popular 18^th Street nightspot on a Wednesday night last month.

Neither of them was aware that this wasn’t the Castro’s first Toad Hall, but they didn’t seem to have any bias against things that are older.

Like men for so many years before them, their heads were momentarily glued to the overhead monitor as the video for Madonna’s “Vogue” played – a song that came out when both were small children.

“I think there’s a lot to be learned from people who are older,” he said, as he sat close to other patrons who didn’t look much older than him. “I have friends all the way up to 50 and anywhere in between,” said Haddock.

Baguth said he thought it was “foolish” for people of different ages not to associate with each other “because age ain’t nothin’ but a number.”

Related posts:

1. Twin Peaks
2. Fridays
3. Cafe Flore
4. Saturdays
5. Truck: a new treat