The Bear Blog

"What's bear week?" asked a 60 year-old woman dining with her husband in my section last Saturday night.

"Do you know what a bear is," I replied?

"Well I know what a bear is. . ." she answered.

"Do you know what a gay bear is?" I asked.

She looked at me with a blank but curious face. "Bears are large, hairy, bearded guys and this is their week in town. The circuit boys packed up their Louis Vuitton valises and rolled out this morning and the bears took their spot."

"What's a circuit boy?" the two of them asked in unison.

"Oh, well, they're the gays with the perfectly smooth bodies, all sculpted and plucked and tweezed, sporting designer sunglasses and looks of mild disdain."

The both nodded, taking it all in.

I then told them about the Baby Dykes from Memorial weekend, Women of Color week, the leather daddies descending in October, and of course Carnival and (woop woop!) family week.

This week, town is overrun with big, hairy, manly men woofing at each other as they strut down Commercial toward Burger Queen.

Pool filters are working overtime.

A friend witnessed four grapefruit-sized hairballs extracted from the Ptown Inn filters on Monday and Possum snapped this shot earlier today at the Boatslip. We hung on the deck--no way was I getting in that stew.

There's not enough bleach in town to clean that pool. But in a good way.

My friend Addam invited me on the Bear Boat Monday for a sunset dance party. We set off from MacMillan Wharf on the Provincetown II with 900 burly men at 5pm, cruised into the bay then out into open water.

Addam and I are of similar height and build so we had to dance with elbows out, taking up as much space as we could for no other reason but survival. At one point all I saw were the nipples of giant bears towering around me. I could have stared at those for days.

Last night Possum and I turned the tables. He doesn't have any issues in his 6'3" frame but I can easily get lost on the dance floor so we jumped up on go-go boxes at the Paramount and danced the best two hours of our lives. Hundreds of bears thumping in unison to Kelly Rowland's Commander--it was like throwing a teddy bear picnic in a steam room with a massive sound system and $3 Rolling Rocks. You could see the testosterone in the air.

And because we were wearing matching sailor hats from a mariner-themed bear party we attended earlier, some of the revelers assumed we were hired help. Possum left with a sweaty crotch full of cash and I hopped down off that box with a not-so-crisp single.

I don't care if it was a pity dollar, I kept it anyway.

Bears aren't known for their genorous tips so I'll take what I can get.