ABSTRACT
The Lone Star Saloon in San Francisco is one of those places whose reputation precedes it, whose myth carries various images of being the birthplace of Beardom, a wild and freewheeling cruise joint, an accepting and nurturing environment, a place to score drugs, an intellectual salon, a biker/leather/Levi’s bar, and many other things to different kinds of people. This is evidenced by the slogans and nicknames it has accumulated over the years: “Bears, Bikers, and Mayhem,” “Bear Mecca,” “Cow Palace,” and “Heifer Hideaway,” to name a few. It’s also apparent in the way that Bears around the world speak of this place with such reverence and awe as if to denote a holy site. Indeed, for Bears everywhere, especially those who are connected somehow to the urban Bear scene, the Lone Star Saloon seems as sacred ground.
