nyc

I met Joe in New York City just five days after September 11, 2001. The city was surreal and oddly quiet with a definite stench hanging in the air, and an overall depressed feeling as shuttered businesses and deserted streets were reeling from the 9/11 attack.

I lived alone in the East Village and took a walk down Avenue A to the Starlight Lounge where I met up with my sister and some friends. Little did I know she was setting me up to meet Joe.

We started talking, and hit it off right away. We dated briefly, and although it didn’t last long, I knew he was someone I wanted to remain friends with. Joe was a kind, gentle person – I never saw him get angry or vindictive, petty or selfish, just an all-around nice guy – which was a rare find in NYC.

Even though Joe lived in a Williamsburg flat with several roommates, he would often walk over the Brooklyn Bridge to come hang out with me for days on end. We would watch movies (of which he was a huge fan), and TV shows, and make mix tapes. I was thankful for the company and because Joe and I were about the same age and from the Midwest, we had a lot in common and became fast friends.

Joe had a great collection of books even before he started working the info desk at The Strand bookstore in lower Manhattan. Joe was an avid reader and a talented writer. He would recall excitedly the celebrities that dropped by his desk, and how he would always be ready with a recommendation or two. One Saturday, the store was closed for a filming of an Absolutely Fabulous Special titled ‘Gay’. Joe happened to show up unannounced on the set and managed to land an on-the-spot, one-line role that continues to air to this day.

Joe worked at other places too…he was a barista at the Porto Rico Coffee Company, the deli guy at the Associated Supermarket, and as DJ ‘Satisfaction Pony’ at the legendary Meow Mix on the lower East side. He started the parties Honky-Tonk Happy Hour, Sluggo, Runt, The Profoundly Incredible Tentacle (the latter two with Stephin Merritt) at various venues across the city.

It was at one of our favorite East Village haunts, The Phoenix on 13th Street, that we came up with the concept for Big Lug – a new kind of bar night for gay men who identified as ‘bears’ – hairy, stocky guys that were the opposite of slender, hot-waxed Chelsea boys. We opened in the middle of winter at a new venue called Nowhere Bar on 14th Street. Unlike the techno music that plagued most gay bars in the city, Big Lug played a dizzying array of rock, soul, funk, and offered peanuts in the shell, a pool table, and a discreet back room. Big Lug was an immediate hit, and continued for three years as the place to go on Tuesday nights. Big Lug was even parlayed into its own (albeit short-lived) full-time bar on Avenue A in late 2006.

On weekends, we would hawk old books and CDs on Bedford Ave in Brooklyn just to make some extra cash, then we’d hoof it down to Planet Thailand and blow it all on a fantastic lunch. Joe eventually moved in with me into my studio apartment when his roommates in Brooklyn disbanded and left what he referred to as the ‘Carrie White House’ a dilapidated old place that looked like it was sinking and being swallowed up by the soft Williamsburg clay.

Things were tight and we knew we had to look for something bigger. I reluctantly gave up my Manhattan studio for a three-bedroom flat in Crown Heights, Brooklyn – a move I would grow to regret. Not only was Crown Heights a dangerous, rough neighborhood at the time, it was also an excruciating daily 4am subway commute from Manhattan where Big Lug was located.

In August of 2007, Big Lug the bar closed after just nine months in operation. I was bankrupt, and Joe and I hadn’t paid rent in months. Luckily, my freelance graphic design gigs got us through and we were able to make a move to Chicago later that year. New York had been a wonderful fifteen year ride for me, and while I was saddened to leave, we had no choice. I left NYC with a newly-gained best friend, and we were just starting our adventures together.