A short tally of what we accomplished so far this summer on the Who Needs Gay Bars Summer Tour:
- 5500 miles driven
- 53 gay bars visited, including:
- 31 formal interviews with bar owners or managers, 21 of whom ran outpost bars more than an hour from the next gay bar
- 17 ethnographic visits without formal interviews to bars listed in Damron
- 5 closed bars visited anyways
- 25 pounds of dog food accidentally left behind
- 20 states visited, including the District of Columbia
- 7 drag shows seen
- 6 bars that never responded
- 5 distinct kinds of barbecue eaten
- 4 friends visited on the road
- 3 strings of Mardi Gras beads worn by Blanche
- 2 pieces of durable swag received (an Absolut vodka hat, a red-white-blue lei)
- 1 bar that stood me up, but 1 fantastic research assistant, equaling
- 0 major problems
The tour resumes in the Pacific Northwest at the end of July.
Sam Walton’s first store is now a museum to his entrepreneurial genius in a small town that is cuter than any of the ones destroyed by big-box stores.
Greggor Mattson 