Ah, Boystown

I'm fingering a half-empty longneck and looking out over the masses at Sidetrack, a hundred conversations competing with the music tumbling from unseen speakers accompanied by videos on dozens of monitors scattered throughout the bar. There are tight clutches of men, groups of four or five, and several couples-but-not-couples scattered below, debriefing each other either verbally or mentally.

A vintage Beatles video begins and I idly wonder if the VJ has selected "Eleanor Rigby" unironically or if, in fact, he is smirking at the lyrical commentary on the crowd: "All the lonely people..."

When Anthony, a charming North Shore Realtor I've just met, returns from the restroom, I solicit his opinion.

"Boystown is held up by the sheer force of irony," he says, "always has been, at least as long as I've been here." He allows that's been at least a decade. "This place thrives on flipping the occasional figurative fuck-you to convention."

When my friends and I step outside later to make our way to another watering hole, the rainbow-colored bands encircling what can only be described as brassy, metal, towering phallic objects — pylons which line North Halsted Street and delineate Chicago's nominal gay/play neighborhood nexus — serve only to punctuate his point.

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