THE ULTIMATE GAYCATION

Tonight I am in the Third Gayest City in the United States!

And I am definitely alone.

I spent the afternoon driving around and then walking in the downtown core. Not a rainbow flag to be found. Not a club. Not even a little multi-colored sticker on a shop window.

Third. Gayest. City.

Yeah, forget San Francisco, New York, Miami, L.A. and Chicago. This place outranked dem wannabes. Only Tacoma (#1—natch!) and Springfield, Massachusetts (#2—duh!) are gayer.

There really shouldn’t be any suspense. I’m in Spokane, of course.

I’ll repeat:

Third. Gayest. City.

Spokane!

No doubt, The Advocate got an awful lot of publicity when it published its list. It also lost a chunk of its credibility as a magazine with its pulse on the gay community.

If that community exists in Spokane, its pulse just stopped. I’ll take the blame. I killed it. As soon as a hit city limits—POOF!—the gay factor cleared out.

I did not spot a single gay man. Or a married one. I am used to them passing me with that West Hollywood walk of indifference or crossing to the other side of the street when they see me coming, but there wasn’t even any of that. Just nothing.

The free weekly news rag contained nothing gay. Not in the articles, not in the ads, not in the events listings. But it did have a story on the “dead” art of taxidermy.

The local grocery had no gay magazines. Heck, it didn’t even carry GQ. Instead, it had a large collection of gun rags—Shotgun News, Handguns, Shooting Times & Country. Maybe I didn’t run the gays out of town after all.

This gaycation is a bust.

Shoulda hit Tacoma.