Not Dead Yet

A reader writes:

With all due respect to the author whose work you quoted on the "Studying Bears" piece, Professor Kaye is incorrect in stating that the Los Angeles Satyr's "gay organization" is defunct. It isn't. It's a gay motorcycle club, the oldest of its genre still in existence. They have a full calendar of events scheduled for 2007. They are far from defunct, though the average age of the members is, pardon me, Mame, somewhere between forty and death. I'm in that same age range, so no offense to my good friends in the Satyr's MC.

I met my partner of 16 years at a Satyr's event in 1990. The event, called the Badger Flat Run, is the longest running and largest gay biker camping-in-the-woods event in the world. Imagine 300-500 burly bikers, leather muscle men and various other rugged types standing around two high altitude, deep woods campfire pits at midnight. Each firepit is 30-40 feet in diameter. Whole burning logs send flames 15 feet into the cold night sky. Sparks mix with the stars as they rise on the river of heat within the circles of men around the fire. Magic happens and, men being men....well, Andrew, you can do the math on that one.

Sounds like an Ang Lee movie to me. The LA Times piece also referred to me as a "social conservative." If that means a general respect for tradition, fine. But I'm much more likely to be deemed a libertarian on social matters.