The big front-page story in the Boston Phoenix's Pride insert (in true Phoenix fashion all gay coverage is penned more or less solely by Phoenix Senior Gay Correspondent David Brodeur), is all about its author discovering Grindr. Last year.  In PTown.  Which says a lot about Boston's vibrant gay scene, I guess. 

Though Brodeur clearly appreciates the absurdity of sitting in a gay bar completely packed with horny, half-naked gay men who are all on Grindr, he plugs the service anyway.  "[N]ot only could you find out who around you was gay," he writes. "You could learn what exactly they were into, see what they (or important parts of them) looked like, and detect precisely how far away from you they were." Presumably so that you would not have to stumble more than a few feet after your fifth Velvet Hammer for that blowjob.  If you're lucky, they're right next to you and you can just pass out right then and there in their lap.  Talk about convenient!

I don't own an iphone, so this will all sound like sour grapes, but I have yet to hear even anecdotal evidence that Grindr is getting anyone — at least anyone my age — laid.  A friend of mine — a good-looking guy in his late forties — who does have an iphone lamented: "the only advantage is that you can see exactly how close you are to the guy who's never going to hook up with you."

But while Brodeur never quite connects the dots Grindr is the perfect metaphor for the ever-elusive "Gay Community" we're always touting at Pride, which is more a shared sensibility than a shared space anyway. 

Which is not to say it never coalesces into an actual community.  That's what gay ghettos are for. 

The South End for example.  A couple weeks ago I went to a dinner party in the almost completely de-gayed Union Park section of the neighborhood. 

The host was a hairdresser in his late 40s, I'd say, who'd been in the South End since the First Wave.  As the wine flowed it turned into a night of reminiscing, like some gathering of old war buddies retelling their bittersweet memories of battle, complete with tales of those who didn't make it out alive.

"We used to just make the rounds of the neighborhood," one said. "having dinner at each other's houses, hanging out."

"Everybody was doing something," said another with a far-off smile.  "And someone.  Sometimes it got a little 90210, but there was always something going on."

"You knew your neighbors," a third recalled.  "It was a time when you could open a little business and count on the community supporting it."

There followed a detailed discussion of all of the clubs, cafes and restaurants that had come and gone over the past twenty years. I have been in and out of Boston for nearly that long, but have only been here full-time for five.  I was shocked at how much of their South End had disappeared without a trace in so short a span of time. 

There was talk (as there always is these days whenever the degaying of the South End comes up) of Dorchester as the new up and coming gayborhood, but Dorchester suffers from its size, and lack of center. 

The South End in its day, by contrast, could not have been more perfect.  Housing was affordable for first-time buyers.  The neighborhood was compact (bound by Mass Ave. to the West and Berkeley to the East; Columbus to the North and Harrison to the South), it had the perfect mix of commercial and residential spaces, and was close to the heart of the city.

Dorchester is downright suburban by comparison. 

In some respects the South End, like the Gay Movement itself, is a victim of its own success.  As we achieve a measure of equality, we're free to leave our splendid ghetto.

But never fear.  Even if we lose our ghettos, we'll always have Grindr and Guerrilla Queer Bar.

And we'll always have Pride.