Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The Seven-Year Love Affair

"Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards... it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel. It let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved."
---Don Draper, "Mad Men"



Once upon a time, there was a magical land called Malate. People from all over would travel to the enchanted kingdom to witness its wonders: stunning beautiful boys, men with rock hard bodies, dancing boys on the ledge.

It was captivating, magical, and ethereal. And lording over it all, standing on top of the mountain was Bed.

Bed celebrated its seventh year last weekend. Seven years… has it been that long?


I spotted FMV at the club.

"Hey FMV, how are you?," I said to him and hugged him. "I can't believe it. It's been seven years. Wait, I met you here seven years ago."

"Yeah. Imagine, I was only 18 then," he said.

"OMG! You were 18? You were just a kid," I replied.

"Well, I'm no longer that kid you used to know," he said, laughing.



I suddenly felt nostalgic. I stood at the dance floor and I remembered my friends; the ones no longer there.

I remembered the men I met at the club through the years, all those boys I kissed, dated, slept with. I thought of old friends and acquaintances who have disappeared and returned.

My friends and I may enjoy going to other clubs every now and then, we may stop going out for months, but I realize this is where we will always come back.

People can be snobbish, the drinks may be expensive, but it is the memories we have made here, the hearts broken, the hopes rekindled that will forever tie us to this place. It is our Studio 54, our CopaCabana.

And though things will never be the same again, it can still be as magical and as amazing as that first night you clicked your shoes three times, and saw fairyland for the very first time.



"We were both young when I first saw you
I close my eyes and the flashback starts
I'm standing there"
---Taylor Swift, "Love Story"

11 comments:

Guyrony said...

Ah, the magical world that is bed.

The ethereal aura once you enter it and the euphoria you experience once you get out of that hulking door.

Happy Seven Years to Bed and all the glorious hook-ups.

Yas Jayson said...

never been in that anywhere you have mentioned. but i know what nostalgia brings.

:)

Anonymous said...

uh-oh... Where have I been all these years?

During my entire life thus far, I had been to Malate only twice (thrice?) -- and only to Basilica with my 2 straight friends!

Does Malate still sizzle?

DJDiaz said...

"You can say what you want
Find the path that you’ve lost somewhere

Be a fly on the wall
Take a dive or a fall in prayer

Everyday there’s a choice
Nothing gained from the path we know

There the ones to be wrong
Hiding all of the stars out there.."

-David :)

Mugen said...

Drugs
Rock 'N Roll
Bad Ass Vegas Whores
Late Night
Booty Calls

Shiny Disco Balls.

♥ N o v a said...

I love nostalgia, bittersweet as it is. It's what drives us to remember and to feel again the magical moments of our past.

Tristan Tan said...

I had fonder memories in Mr. Piggy's and Biology. Bed is just too wholesome for me. Haha.

rudeboy said...

Malate is like a catwalk where generations of gay men strut and pose and preen before they vanish into that good night. Shortly after growing pubes I was fortunate to have been smuggled into Coco Banana - the legendary gay Studio 54 of the times.

Way into legal age I discovered Piggy's. Then I had my very first dance with another man at Subway - the three-storey gay disco with lots of drug use, not the sandwich franchise.

And then came the whole Malate Renaissance and the Velvet Mafia: Blue Cafe, Pepe N'Pilar, Joy. And post-Joy came Mint, and then Bed was born.

And the rest is history.

♥ ruby ♥ said...

I love going to Bed. :D

iurico said...

Ah, I should have celebrated Bed's 7th year too. Although my affinity with Bed didnt start until 2006.

Kiks said...

Kane's tribute to Bed.

ah, gods touch a mundane piece of land and it becomes corporeal, wealthy, rich.