All GB Goer Wants for Christmas

Dear Santa,

Hi. How are you? It's me, GB Goer. You don't know me? Maybe because I only started writing to you this year. Heck, my persona was only created just a few days before the end of 2010.

But check your lists again. I may be on your "nice" list. I wasn't that naughty the past year. Yes, I may have been going to the gay bars since last year, but both of us know I was well-behaved with the macho dancers. You can even ask the ____ number of men I've met just this year. Yes, ganun karami, and nope, I don't get affected nor offended when you say "Ho, ho, ho." Promise, those men will say something nice about me.

Because I was more good than bad this year, can I still ask for my Christmas wishes? Don't worry, my list is not that long, unlike some of my unedited, drawn-out, explanatory blog posts. Anyway, here goes. 

A Gay Bar Goer's Hiatus

Hiatus [ha-yay-tus]: a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process (New Oxford American Dictionary) 

"Titigil muna ako sa pagpunta sa gay bar (I'll stop going to the gay bar for a while)," I texted my gay bar going friends, Mary and Ringo. 

It was around this time last year, first week of November. It wasn't the first time I told someone that I'd take a break from something I loved doing for the past year. Three months prior, I told my regular macho dancer that I'd stop going to his gay bar. 

"Bakit naman? (Why?)," my partner macho dancer asked me. 

"Paalis-alis ako ng bansa. Mahihirapan akong magpunta nang madalas (I'd be flying in and out of the country. It would be difficult for me to keep going to the bar)" was my alibi. 

"Pero magkikita naman tayo? (But we'll still see each other?)" 

"Oo, pero sa labas lang ng bar. (Yes, but outside)."

I didn't want to tell him that going to the gay bar was draining on my finances. I didn't want to admit that supporting him in his bar was getting more difficult, especially after volunteering to give him a monthly allowance. I was stupidly in-love then, and I thought that the only thing that would make him love me back was that "support."

With him, I was tired financially, and I wanted to stop. As weeks went by, I eventually "broke up" with him, citing difficulties in keeping up with the relationship. It was a good, clean break up from the relationship and the support. What I didn't admit that I was going to another gay bar with my friends, and I wanted to spend more time, and more money, in that bar.

I eventually found a new guy in that new bar. I fell very much in love with the hosto "Air", who  eventually left me for another bar girl (and whom I have written much about in previous posts). Because I was still emotionally involved with him despite not being financially involved, as learning from my previous relationship, we had a very bad break up around end-October. 

That was when I texted my gay bar going friends, Mary and Ringo, that I'd stop going to the gay bars.  Just like my previous MD partner, they also asked why.

Lots of reasons are given by regular gay bar goers why they'd temporarily stop going to the bar. Working abroad is one. Being busy with work is another, more frequent response. Finding another gay bar or another macho dancer is another reason, which these gay bar goers don't usually admit. Or just like my friend Mary nowadays, they enjoyed living the "normal" non-gay bar centered life again. 

But for me, I was just tired. Both financially and emotionally. 

I stopped to focus on my work, which I had neglected a bit, months prior. I stopped because I wanted to re-earn the money that I seemingly lost for months already. I stopped because I wanted to let my heart rest, after the roller coaster of emotions felt for these men. 

And so, for a month, my weekend nights were only spent at home or at other more wholesome gimmicks. I stopped receiving the frequent "good am, pauwi na ako" or "good pm, kakagising ko lang" text messages. I enjoyed shopping for myself, which I haven't done for ages since I started going to the bar. I even texted Mary back then when I was in Singapore that it felt so liberating to go back to Manila without thinking of what pasalubong to bring home to a guy.  

Pero, hindi nagtagal...

Before that month ended, my gay friends, Mary and Ringo wanted to see another gay bar which we haven't visited before. Of course, not having been inside that bar, I was also very much curious. At least it was another new experience for all of us. 

For me, it was a perfect time to restart, in a completely new setting, with a completely new set of boys. Malay mo, I was thinking that I would meet that perfect macho dancer this time who would not tire me financially or emotionally. Physically tire me? Pwede!. 

And from then on, my November hiatus ended. I continued going to that bar even further, without thinking much if I'd tire eventually of throwing away money to a guy I fell head over heels for. To keep myself from doing so, however, at the start of my return, I decided not to get too much involved with these guys already. 

Gay bar goers undergo their own hiatus in their lifetime. My friend Ringo is currently on his 3rd or 4th hiatus since he started going to the gay bar last year; his reasons are all shallow (kidding, Ringo). My friend Mary has stopped going to gay bars altogether for six months already, after a hiatus at the middle of this year. For that, congrats to her for graduating.

As for me, I don't know when my next hiatus will be. I keep telling my friends that I'd slow down para magtipid. Still I eventually find myself visiting our favorite gay bar, weekend after weekend, out of habit (Slow down ba talaga yan? asked usually by Mary). But I strongly feel that my next hiatus will arrive soon. Not because I will get tired like the previous one, but perhaps because I am already getting a bit bored. Just slightly.

GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com
twitter: @gbgoer

Blogging About Macho Dancers and Gay Bars

It's been six months since I first started blogging about my learnings about macho dancers and gay bars. Originally, I didn't have anything planned on the structure and content of the blog. All I wanted to do was write about what I knew and what I experienced in the form of "lessons."

Good thing that the blog has somehow evolved from its beginnings. While it still contains information about the men and the industry I wanted to write about, I have expanded to write about the various gay bar customers, some tricks of the trade, some in-depth personal stories, and even those in the gay bar periphery. It seemed to me like I'm writing for a newspaper or magazine, with my own column. If I'd be writing like a weekly column, then I would've written almost two year's worth of material.

What I didn't expect is to be linked with anything associated with the topic I chose to write. I get requests for gay bar recommendations from curious virgin gay bar goers. I get emails from foreigners asking where to go. I get comments to reveal the real names of the gay bars. I get asked for macho dancers for bridal showers. I even get hits for the blog from Google search queries about "conyo shoes", "virgin gay", "gay strippers", and one of the top hits, "libog." 

Hmmm... what does "libog" have to do with my very conservative blog? Ganun na ba ka-libog mga Pinoy? Hehe.

What I also didn't expect in this short a time is to get featured in another mainstream blog. My friend, Rocky, who owns the Geeky Guide, wanted to do a post on my niche blog, and I happily obliged with an email Q&A. 

You'll get to read here what made me start the blog and what makes me continue doing it. So if I write about the ins and outs of the gay bar scene, then you might read here the ins and outs of the gay bar blog and the gay bar goer.

Here are some excerpts:

Q: Who or What made you decide to create your blog?

...In the months hopping from one bar to another, meeting macho dancers week after week, hearing their unique yet similar-in-essence stories, and heck, even falling in love with a few of them, I felt I had enough knowledge and insight about them and the industry to write about. Good thing that it was at the same time that a couple other blogs of similar nature appeared. So it seemed like we were painting a picture of the gay bar scene...

Q: What one celebrity do you wish would notice your blog?

A: Hmmm... the good-looking moreno actor who was rumored to be a former macho dancer. Yuhh-mee! Kidding aside, I guess other gay bloggers whom I can connect to. And why not, even a book publisher...

As part of blogging about gay bars and macho dancers, I also get to see the various types of gay bar blog readers. In my analytical fashion, I've already classified them into different types. I have briefly mentioned them in the feature in Rocky's blog. But I guess it could be more fun writing about them.... ergo, writing about YOU reading my blog now. Which category will you fall under? Hehe.

To read more, visit my blog feature from Rocky's blog: The Geeky Guide to Nearly Everything.

I thought of the feature as a great way to cap off the midyear, exactly 6 months in existence. But there are more to come. I've just added Twitter; I've yet to add a Facebook account which some readers are asking for. I've only ticked off about less than half of a list I created of possible gay bar topics. I haven't even written about a topic I've been longing to feature... maybe, on post #100 (this article is post #90). There's a lot more to this industry, just as there's a lot more to the macho dancers. So perhaps, this post can be just a sem break, or refresher, in the on-going lesson plan about macho dancers and gay bars in Manila.

Keep on reading and learning with me! :D

GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com
twitter: @gbgoer

Stabbed At The Back

"Actor-turned-director Ricardo 'Ricky' Rivero was stabbed 17 times in his Quezon City apartment yesterday morning, June 13, reports ABS-CBN News. The 39-year-old director survived the incident and confirmed that Hans Ivan Ruiz, 22, attacked him after he refused to give Ruiz money. 

According to the report, Ruiz has known Rivero for five months after meeting him through Facebook. Last Sunday, June 12, Rivero brought the suspect home after meeting him at around 11 p.m. along Timog Avenue, Quezon City. A fight between the two started after Ruiz claimed that his father was sick and asked the director for money..." 

"...'From the circumstances, the stabbing came first at the back. 'Yung taking could have come before or after, when there was no violence or intimidation on the person,' Mingao said in the report. Police also suspect that robbery was a primary motive." (Taken from spot.ph dated 2011-06-14 and 06-15, as reported by Dharel Placido and Gus Abelgas from abscbn-news.com)

I first got to know "Air"* last September 2010. He was a hosto model working in the then-hosto bar in the Malate, "Neighborhood." He was 21, about my height of 5'9, mestizo, and most of all, chinito. He was the shy-type, not too brash, introverted, and not the loud, out-spoken kanto boys that are typical of hostos or macho dancers his age. But he reminded me of a little boy who had child-like innocence - a true boy-next-door. Among all the guys I've met in these bars, "Air" was the most ideal. "Champion 'to, Slam dunk!" kumbaga.

The first time I tabled him couldn't have been more memorable. It was on the bar's big night, and because the guy I used to table was busy (remember "Ruiz" alyas Boy Torrid?), I had the opportunity to request for Air. When he sat with me, he told me he was surprised that I got him. He added that he'd been noticing me from afar for some time now, and he was just too glad to finally get to know me. Of course, kinilig yung bakla, as I too had my eyes on him for weeks already but never got the opportunity to talk to him.

At the end of that night's event, as we were leaving the bar around 530 AM, a rambol / fight ensued among the drunken hostos and the MD companions of my friend Ringo. After all the punches and broken bottles thrown, and my pang-awat in the middle of Manila's streets, what left an impression on me was not the memory of the crazy street-rumble itself, but the little phone call afterwards. Among the guys there, it was only Air who called to ask me how I was. He was obviously worried about me.

That sealed it for me.

More on my personal story:

The Anniversary: One Year Later

(a personal reflection)

This time last year, one of the largest macho dancing gay bars in Metro Manila, "Home Base"*, had their biggest event of the year. They celebrated their 10th year anniversary, to commemorate a decade's existence from being just-another girlie bar along Roxas Blvd. to being the premier (and most expensive) gay bars in that area.

At that time, my friends and I were only neophyte regulars -- we just started going to that bar two months prior. But with each of us meeting and developing relationships with our own partners from that bar, we became frequent regulars, as often as going twice on weekends. 

Thus, taking part of a historic moment for the bar was exciting for us. We were looking forward to the "big night", or what bars call their special events, for weeks. 

Talk about "big night" -- that night turned out to be one of our biggest nights for the year.

Our Double Lives: Part 2

(continued from Part 1)

It is the same world that allows a macho dancer to be known only for his face, his body, his skill, and not the details of his true identity -- the hometown where he grew up in, the graduation of his younger sister, the place where his estranged father lives, the birth date of his kids. It is the only world that deejays, managers and customers call for his alias or stage name, while his real name is reserved at home for his nanay or ka-tropa who can merely turn their blind eye. It is a world that introduces him as single and un-attached, even if the mother of his one or two kids is waiting for him to arrive at 6AM everyday. It is this second world that forces them to shift their personalities from charming to seductive, from obliging to playful, at the customer's demands. It is the world where everyone in his private life knows he is working only as a waiter or bartender or deejay, but never as someone who markets his face and uncovered body to sex-deprived gays and matrons.

It is this second life of theirs that allows them to earn and support their first lives.

And this is shared also by the bar owner who had a taste of steady income back in the day, but whose expenses for salaries, rent, electricity, and payola to the government or police are now greater than the combined revenues from his bar's once-a-week regular clients. It is shared by the gay floor manager who seems to extort cash from their customers, but also acts as an adoptive parent to their sister's third kid. This is the same for the transvestite impersonator who was not accepted by his father as a kid, but is now dressed up in false eyelashes and fake boa feathers to buy the medicine for his ailing mother in his first life.  

But, with the exception of a few, no one in a macho dancer's, a gay manager's, or a transvestite impersonator's first life knows of what exactly happens in their second lives. Especially so for the customer, whose first life friends and family are not aware of their whereabouts on those nights spent in the second life.

The second life is a secret that can not be revealed to the first life. It is a secret that the first life can not understand, and would refuse to comprehend and accept, especially with its preconceived notions of dark, seedy macho-dancing gay bar. It is a secret that can't be merged with the first life -- like inviting your boyfriend macho dancer to your cousin's wedding, or introducing your matrona lover to your childhood sweetheart, the mother of your kids.

The first with the second can never work. Thus, the second is always kept hidden, in the darkness of the midnight, inside the gay bar.  

And even this second life of mine is only a secret, which I keep in this blog. A blog which writes about our secret lives -- 

A mother in her 50s by day who becomes a matrona who feels 30 by night.

A manly serious desk manager by day, lusty screaming fag by night.

A doting over-protective uncle by day, a so-called pimp mamasan by night.

A husband by day, a macho dancer by night.

We, in the gay bars, all live double lives.

GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com

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Photocredit: http://www.123rf.com/photo_8655635_closeup-portrait-of-a-handsome-young-man-looking-himself-in-the-mirror.html

Our Double Lives: Part 1

(a personal, reflective post)

I live a double life.

The first is filled with eighty emails a day, cellphone calls from colleagues, powerpoint presentations, sales figures, and the daydream of a future promotion. It is a life where the oblivious aunt asks during another Easter holiday reunion of your conservative family who your girlfriend is and when you plan to get married, despite the fact that you have been gay and in the closet since you were born. It is a life that gets bored by the routine stories of college friends about who transferred to which company or who got happily engaged to her boyfriend of 6 years or who has the update on the latest episode of some juvenile TV show from the US. It is a life which eagerly awaits for the Zara sale, even if you've allocated your salary for the latest Apple gadget or the next condo payment. 

It is a life that funds and pays for the other life.

The other one is filled with text messages of "muzta" or "miz na u", sometimes ending with "jejeje," which you don't get in your first life. It is a life that starts around midnight, with a call from your gal or gay pals, that sort of casts a spell, and transforms your group into mad creatures of the night. It is a life that usually wonders if the bar has newbie talents since you last came, or if the dimpled shy-type guy you've tabled previously is still available that night, or if the hunky half-nude guy you've been eyeing for two weeks is worthy of being "tabled." It is a life that makes you empathic about reaching the sales quota of MD drinks despite a slow week, buying a new attire for the big night event that coming weekend, and calculating if the past week's P500 tip can pay off one's rent or electricity bills. 

It is a life that comes alive at night when the other retires for the day.

And this second life is in a world that's also shared by similar second lives of the others in it.

This world permits gay office workers or businessmen to live out a fantasy of seeing some live nude men dancing in front of him. This world can make a reserved mother live out her queenly gay side amidst boys and other queens. It allows a Koreana matrona to spend time with her boytoy without her husband in her home country knowing. It can even give a bride-to-be her so-called last taste of freedom with other hunky men before being tied down to the man of her dreams.

But, it is not just us, the customers, with seemingly second lives.

(to be continued...)

GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com

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Photocredit: http://www.123rf.com/photo_8655635_closeup-portrait-of-a-handsome-young-man-looking-himself-in-the-mirror.html

Tabling the Top

First it was Beatty. Then, Phoenix. Derek was supposed to be in the same list, but left the bar. I then found out Russell was the same, a long time ago. Last week it was Japoy. This particular list of men surprised me.

I used to shy away from the top macho dancers of a gay bar.

When I was new in the gay bar scene of Manila, as I would choose which among the available macho dancers I'd request to sit with me that night, I'd select from only the bar's new models. Not the popular ones. Not with regular guests. Not one in the top 10 of monthly drink sales. Not the Mr. Gay Bar competition reigning title holder.

So my usual lines to the gay floor managers who would push me to "table" a guy were "Wait, which are the new ones?" or "I like that guy. Is he new?" or "I'll just wait for the modeling (or 'all-cast') when all of them are on-stage and get from the fresh-looking boys." If I find out if the guy I fancy is one of the bar's star macho dancers, I'd just scan the bar for someone else to sit with me.

So among the guys in the macho bar, how would I identify these top dancers? Continue after the jump:

How It All Started: Part 2

I was still a gay bar virgin in the afternoon of March 6, 2010.

And as with any first time experience, all I could feel was a mix of fear, excitement, nervousness, and anticipation. Layer upon layer of emotion kept building up, as time progressed from the afternoon until the evening.

The drive to the bar was somewhat nerve-wracking – I didn’t know what I’d see (or if someone I knew might see me there), if I’d get a boy and how he might look, and what could be done inside.

But Mary assured me: “Kahit walang pansinan o paki-alamanan. Wala ring lalabas kung ano mangyayari sa loob. (We won’t mind what each of us would do. Whatever would happen inside the bar would stay there).”

Arriving at “Home Base” around 10PM, we parked right in front of the bar, and it took some time before we left our cars. Checking out the mirror if the hair was all neat. Fixing up the creases on the clothes. Last minute spray of perfume. We all had superficial reasons not to leave our cars yet, but I guess all of us just didn’t want to enter the gay bar’s doors alone.

Then, someone said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

What happened next, after the jump:

How It All Started: Part 1

It was a few days before March 6, 2010.

My friend, "Mary", a single mother in her late 30s who was my officemate, called me up in the morning of March 1 on our way to work. We had our regular morning chats -- work-related quick discussions and office gossip. In the middle of our talk, she had a pause.

"May gusto akong itanong, pero atin-atin lang (I want to ask something, but it's between us two)," she said.

"Sure," I replied, curious as to what it was.

Squimishly, she asked, "Gusto mo magpuntang gay bar? (Do you want to go to a gay bar?)"

"Huh? Bakit? (Why?)" I gasped.

"Wala lang. Nagpunta kasi ako, kasama yung friend ko, last weekend. (Oh nothing. I went to one with my friend last weekend)."

"Ha?" was my only reply. I was still quite speechless, but a laughter mixed with fear, excitement, and curiosity went through.

Mary then proceeded to share how she and her high school friend, "Ringo", a 40 year old never-been-touched, never-been-kissed gay guy, were roaming the streets of Malate, Manila the previous Friday night to look for that area's infamous gay scene. Since they weren't familiar with that intersection of Nakpil St. and Maria Orosa St,  having driven almost an hour looking for any signs of gayness, they both thought of going to a macho dancing gay bar instead, their first time if ever. So Mary called up her sister and asked for a recommendation. Her sister, who had been to one gay bar with her friends a few years back, suggested "Home Base." And off Mary and Ringo went to that gay bar at 11 in the evening.

"Pero pwedeng magpunta lang tayo, at hindi mo naman kailangan mag-table. (We can just go there, and you're not required to get a guy)," she told me.

"Oh my gosh, nag-table kayo? Pero Sige. (OMG, you got a guy? But sure)," I answered with some hesitation, though my voice couldn't conceal my excitement.

Before this, I've only seen a "macho dancer" on TV during my adolescence, when teenage curiosity made me rent an R-rated macho dancing movie of the 90s. In college, my gay high school friends and I have been endlessly daring each other and joking about entering a gay bar in the Quezon City area. That happened for many years, when we used to frequent the Timog-Morato areas, and drive by one gay bar after another in that stretch. Some of them already closed down, while a few opened over the years, but never did we attempt to go inside one.

Behind those half-hearted invitations, underneath those nervous jokes, I know all of us, deep inside, really wanted to experience the gay bar and discover the mystery surrounding naked macho dancers. But no one was brave enough to push through.

"So when?" I asked with a fearful but naughty smile.

"This Saturday... evening. If you're free."

"May bridal shower si (name of officemate) diba? Paano yan? (But there's the bridal shower of our officemate. So how?)"

"Madali lang yan. Pwede natin pag-usapan paano magkikita. (That's easy. We can discuss how to meet)."

"Hahaha! Sige! Sige! (Sure! Sure!)" 

"Pero quiet lang, atin-atin lang ito. (It's just a secret between us)," she assured me, while asking for my assurance as well.

We met up in the office less than an hour after. We had knowing smiles, but proceeded without any indication that a mischievous plan was brewing between us.

I flew to Thailand the following day. That week passed, with a few text messages of "Saturday ha!" exchanged between us. The thought of finally going inside Manila's gay bars never left my mind that week. Even on one night when a colleague of mine and I went to Patpong for the first time, and as we were being lured by its shows and seedy bars, I still had my mind set for Manila. I flew back home on Friday night, March 5.

Then in the afternoon of March 6, 2010, Mary and I called each other again.

(To be continued... Part 2)

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GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com

...Where The Boys Are!

(a personal Valentine's Day post)

"Saan ka pupunta? (Where are you going?)" asked by one beautician to his bride-to-be client in a scene in one of the gayest local films in 2010, Here Comes the Bride.

"Eh di sa beach (To the beach)... Where the boys are!" exclaimed by his gay co-beautician, who was magically trapped inside the body of the bride-to-be, played by Angelica Panganiban.

In the last 7 days, I've been hopping around the gay bars AND gay clubs of Metro Manila. Kingdom Come and Bed Club Malate in one night. Returned to Kingdom Come on another night. Home Base and O Bar Ortigas two nights after. Then returned to O Bar Ortigas last night.

These places were packed on those nights. Lonely gays, both old and young, in either the gay bar or the gay club. Some mature women in the macho bars. They may be looking for their last minute Valentine's date. Just how malls are packed a few days before Christmas.

As for me, my real reason to spend four nights inside gay-oriented bars: all in the search of boys.

My realization from all these. After the jump:

On Why I Prefer Going to a Gay Bar than a Gay Club

This post perhaps is an extension of what my gay high school friends and I discussed during dinner last night. I haven’t seen them for almost the entire year, as I was going to gay bars more, which I have kept secret to them since March. So earlier over dinner, I outed my new past time to them.

For the purpose of this post, I’d like to differentiate the “gay bar” as the bars with macho dancers or male strip clubs – like the ones in Pasay/Manila and Timog QC – and the “gay club” as the night club or disco (does anyone still use this term?) catered to gays – the ones in Nakpil-Orosa, Malate.



[Images from http://www.blingcheese.com/videos/3/marcellas.htm and http://www.myspace.com/hapenismusic]

The gay guys in my generation have been “getting it on” in gay clubs, where hooking up is way cheaper. I am the only one in my peer group going to gay bars – there’s no other gay guy in their 20s in these bars. I am as old as, or albeit slightly older than, the boys working in macho dancer bars.

So what enchants me in a gay bar that makes go there week after week, spending my time and moolah with straight boys?

The reasons, after the jump. Feel free and liberated to comment.