Where the Boys Are

Guava Lamp (570 Waugh) is indeed a gay bar.

Most of the time, informing someone the place they’ve just wandered
into is a gay bar is about as necessary as letting them know their
facial hair is on fire. For example, at Montrose’s Ripcord (715
Fairview), there’s a giant outline of some guy squatting on his hands
and knees, balls dangling gloriously, painted on the wall.

But over at Guava Lamp, it’s not quite that obvious.

“We’re really a place that welcomes everybody,” said manager James
Cook. “We’re about 80 percent [gay], 20 percent [not]. It’s a little
more even on our karaoke nights — Wednesdays and Sundays —
but we want to be a place where everyone can feel comfortable any
night.”

Seeing Milk does not make one automatically familiar with the
gay lifestyle, and not every gay bar is as “flamboyant” as Ripcord.
Truthfully, even wondering whether a place does or doesn’t look like a
“gay bar” feels a little ignorant. But the polished, moderately upscale
Guava Lamp, which opened in Shepherd Plaza in 1998 but relocated about
four years ago due to landlord difficulties, will make you wonder.

Shoot, the Saturday evening we were there, about the “gayest” thing
that happened was when the music — which generally follows a
“current” to “somewhat current with a hint of dance” curve —
cycled from Black Eyed Peas’ “Pump It,” to LL Cool J and Jennifer
Lopez’s “Control Myself,” to that Ciara video from a few years ago in
which Petey Pablo mistakenly thought he had enough clout to make
wearing overalls cool again.

Claudia, a regular who asked that her last name not be used,
confirmed manager Cook’s description of the clientele, and she was
hardly the only one. “Whether you’re gay or straight,” she said
succinctly, “this is a great place to go.”

Aesthetically, Guava Lamp is classier than its bland business-park
surroundings — although its approximate 2,000 square feet do
include the requisite concrete floors and a tall, black ceiling tiled
as part of an apparent strip-center mandate. But there are large
windows with smart curtains, and a back wall painted a bronze-ish
color, matching the mosaic top of the large, semi-oval bar that
dominates the warmly lit room.

The typical weekend turnout is mostly guys — also, water is
wet; the sun, hot — usually late twenties to early thirties and
neatly presented. Outliers in the crowd when we visited included a
couple of hetero couples, a few black guys and the occasional hefty
fellow. Sexual preferences aside, customers generally mirrored the same
good-natured vibe as the venue itself.

Guava is much more a pleasant place that happens to be a gay bar
than a gay bar that happens to be a pleasant place. Of all the
favorable opinions we heard — from gay or straight, male or
female — 57-year-old Eric Slough’s seemed to fit the best.

“Where would someone my age go that isn’t into leather and isn’t a
cowboy?” said Slough. “I love [Guava Lamp]. I can sit down, watch TV
and it’s safe. That’s very important to me.”

LAST CALL

Tax the Wolf

Houston’s spacey rock experimentalists Tax the Wolf inscrutably, but wholeheartedly, rock tits. Describing exactly how they
sound would almost certainly involve referencing some obscure band from
Portland no one’s ever heard of, and then making some goofy analogy
about a soundtrack to a dream we once had. Instead, we’ll just direct
you to www.taxthewolf.com, where you can
download their music for free. Check ’em out live June 6 at Super
Happy Fun Land (3801 Polk) with Jane Frequency and AnotherRun.