Sunday, July 23, 2006
The Allegedly Big Gay Resort
Back in South Haven after my trip to Covert, I pick up the car and head twenty or so miles up the road to the twin towns of Saugatuck and Douglas, on opposite sides of the Kalamazoo River. I'm stopping here because Saugatuck and Douglas have developed a reputation as the midwest's big gay resort. It was in the New York Times the day before I arrived, so it must be true. But on one or two previous occasions when I've passed through, I've noticed very little overt gay-ness. So I'm giving it an overnight exploration this time.Like South Haven, Saugatuck and Douglas developed as both resort towns and lumber suppliers to Chicago. There was at one time a third town called Singapore which was at the mouth of the Kalamazoo River; after the Chicago fire, however, they cut down every tree in sight, and within four years the town was buried under the suddenly shifting sand dunes. Today, the dunes are again covered in trees and stabilized, and you can climb 282 steps to the top for a view of the towns on one side and the lake on the other.
That's Saugatuck in the photograph above. Across the lake, the big ship is the steamer Keewatin, which used to travel the Great Lakes. Here's a close-up of it:
Apparently, when it was first built, they cut the ship in half to get it through the Welland Canal. Lengthwise or crosswise, I don't know. Probably if I'd visited the museum I'd have found out. I'm a little gun-shy on museums at the moment, though.
Saugatuck-Douglas is also home to an artists' colony, Ox-Bow (and, well, "artists' colony" has been a notorious euphemism for "gay" since the beginning of time, hasn't it?), and a famous, allegedly gay, beach called Oval Beach. The tourist office will tell you it was named one of the five best beaches in the United States by MTV and one of the 25 best in the world by Conde Nast. I find this a little hard to swallow, since I don't even think it's the best beach in the county - more about that later. But I visit it, purely out of anthropological interest, to find out whether there is any truth to the allegations of this being a big gay resort. Also the sun was shining brightly. And cute boys. But mostly anthropology.
Anyway, it takes me a while to find the gay people on the beach. This is partly because the hot seller in the beach shops this year seems to be rainbow-colored umbrellas and chairs, and so you walk toward a cluster of them thinking you will be among your people, only to find a bunch of happy nuclear families eating Cheetos and playing that beach ping-pong game. Eventually, way at one end, I find a little gay ghetto where the boom boxes are playing all your dance favorites.Your humble correspondent says that if your beach needs a ghetto, you might be a semi-gay resort, but you're not a Big Gay Resort. And it's hot. And the boys aren't that cute. So I don't stick around very long.
Back on the other side of the dunes, I ride the Saugatuck Chain Ferry across the river. It's a human-powered boat in which the driver turns a crank, pulling the ferry along a chain stretched from one side of the river to another. It's worth doing once (although, having done so, one is rather obligated to ride it a second time). It's apparently the last chain ferry on the Great Lakes.There is, in town, a diner called Monroe's in homage to Marilyn, with a side order of James Dean, and it doesn't get much gayer than that. And there's a cute little coffeehouse that stocks the Windy City Times. There are at least a few places in Saugatuck and Douglas where a guy could go and not feel hated. But hand-holding or any other sort of PDA seem like they'd be pretty out of the question.
Then there's The Dunes. The Dunes bills itself as the Midwest's Largest Gay & Lesbian Resort. It's out of town, on the Blue Star Highway, and projects an image of semi-respectability (the mirror ball and the advertisement for karaoke on Tuesdays being the obvious blemishes).I'm told as I check in that it's one of the most fun weekends of the year - the annual Christmas in July celebration. So I eagerly look forward to a night of sheer fun and debauchery. Again, for anthropological reasons only, of course.
Whether I get it depends on your definitions of "fun" and 'debauchery," I suppose. There are a couple of go-go boys (and one go-go girl; the Dunes is nominally "and lesbian" as well as being gay) scantily clad in Santa suits. Or Santa underwear and boots, anyway. A bunch of men, upper-middle-class-looking and of an age range to be so classifiable, mostly in couples, are slugging back cocktails. A couple of Christmas balls and an embarrassed-looking tree are most of the holiday decorations. (Where are the flashing lights? Where's the dance remix of "Santa Baby"? How much could it have cost them to borrow a snow-making machine in July?)
Enough. I retire to my room, which is one of the "Dunes Rooms" in the dorm-style section of the hotel (where "debauchery" may be somewhat higher but "fun," from all outward appearances, rates a zero). I wake up absurdly early in the morning, feeling like I've showered in bad karma. In the parking lot I encounter a Latin kid, apparently having spent the night in the cab of his Ford Ranger, who strikes up a conversation. He's from Muskegon; asks me where I'm from. The answer's not what he was hoping for. I go back to my room for one last check. Muskegon follows me and is disappointed when, instead of letting him in, I lock the keys inside the way the sign instructs. I head to my car in order to search for coffee and leave him lying on a bench in the TV room, looking like it's the day after Christmas and none of the toys were what he was hoping for.
