Back in the day, a coworker, Gian East, told me that I was the rare white guy who looked at people when walking down the street. Apparently white people don’t do that. This was in the 1990s so there are even less white people looking at people walking down the street. I still do, but millions more do not, they stare at the devices in their hands.

The truth is, I’m an old school Gay. When one cruised back in the day you had to look at people (men) and size them up and you could not do that if you stared at the ground.

Gian East was a good guy. I’m sure he still is. He was very handsome and very humble and a very good audio engineer. An unfortunate aspect though was he was gay friendly up to a point. The concept of me being gay was OK, the fact that I had a partner, Bill, was hard to swallow. That was too bad. We still remained friends via social media, until Meta killed off two of my accounts.

I believe Gian married, and his wife had twins then Gian and his wife separated. I posted a really good photo of Gian from a Summerstage afternoon and he insisted I take it down so I did. Perhaps his humility was in play. He was also a Christian and that could have been a factor in the removal request. I met Gian’s family once, his parents worked for the Bahamian consulate I believe and Gian had a brother.

Gian was uptight about my being in a relationship with Bill. It was awkward. Then there was Kevin McBean. That’s not his real name and I did find that out sometime later, I forgot it and really haven’t gone back to find it. He was likable and handsome as well. I first met him when I was at Right Track Recording.

Somehow he got in and had a resume since he was looking for work. The resume was written on tissue paper and I took pity on him and rewrote it on proper 8 ½ x 11 paper. He was grateful and we hung out a few times. There was always a pretty girls willing to put up with his Kevin McBean personality. And like Gian East, though seemingly worse than Gian East, he could deal with his gay friend having a partner.

One night, soon after Bill gave me a ring, I was on cloud nine. Kevin wanted to know why I was floating around the room. I explained and apparently Kevin might not have known that I was gay. It never came up and yet it was never denied. The look on Kevin McBean’s mug said it all.

I think straight men can be fine with friends being gay, and I’m talking about men, not women, and when they find out about men in relationships with me, all they could think of is sex and they find that disgusting and the thought of their friends doing something like sex freaks them out and displeases them. I’m sure it happened to some family members as well as friends. I just keep on keeping on. It more than likely explains a lot. I don’t stick around, I move on.

It was a day like any other, following a not so easy night of sleep. Sleep was elusive and hard to grasp. I woke up 20 minutes before the alarm and then spent those 20 minutes trying to sleep some more. The alarm went off and the clock said 7:20 which was an hour later than expected though in the real world it was 6:20. I have no idea how the time jumped forward digitally and then back to where it was supposed to be in my analog life.

I don’t know if I prefer the sun being out when I go home or it being dark out. I know I prefer the sun being up when I wake up in the morning. Getting up when it is dark out is not inspiring at all. It’s up to me to adapt to the time, time is not going to change for me.

It is Tuesday. Bill is in the Smoky Mountains. Mike is in Chilltown and I am at my desk at the fruit stand. Some higher ups are floating around like vitreous floaters. Sometimes you see them and then you blink and they are gone. They don’t disappear in the blink of an eye though. They stick around making most everyone nervous and uptight.

I went to Wendy’s for lunch, actually to pick up my lunch. There is sometimes a very handsome sexy man holding the door. He does it for change. And he has quite a sexy voice oh Lord. I’ve told Mike about him and it is a running joke now between the two of us

Usually I give a dollar so who’s ever doing something like that and this guy is so sexy I give him two. Last time he called me family. That was nice to hear especially in that voice of his. Today he was not there and I had $2 in my pocket all set to give, so I gave the guy that was there today $1. He simply was not as sexy as the other guy.

I just had a fun chat with Jordan and Yasmin, two nice audio engineers that work nearby. I skirted the issue of things being so much better when I was their age but they basically said that it was better in my day. We talked about bands we loved but didn’t love the first time we saw them, for me it was REM. Bands we wished would get back together, like XTC.

The three of us had DJ’d at some points in our lives, theirs was recent, mine was ancient history from the 20th century. $30 and a hamburger was what I was paid when I was spinning at Maxwell’s, not counting the holiday party or New Year’s Eve. Those were the days and that was a simpler time. It was enjoyable enough, perhaps it would make for a podcast somewhere down the line. I wouldn’t mind.

I’m the grand old man, the dinosaur, the relic from a time they only heard about.

I just had a realization. There’s a young woman whom I worked alongside and we seemed to get along fine. She cried on my shoulder when she was having boyfriend problems. Lately she’s been distant, not interacting like before. She works with the pretzel woman, and I think pretzel woman poisoned the well. Which is expected of her, I suppose. They are both closer to high school than I am, after all.

I will just keep working my side of the street, and Pretzel Woman and my former friend can work theirs.