Last month's Gay Games VII did many...

Last month's Gay Games VII did many worthy things for the local gay community, not the least of which was inspiring Kathie Bergquist and Robert McDonald to write a part about gay Chicago.

More than brace years ago, upon hearing that the Gay Games were forward their way here, the pair longtime friends and writers agreed to tackle an ambitious project: writing a comprehensive guide to gay and lesbian life in Chi town.

"I just remember hearing about the Games and thinking I'd be in the way that mad if someone else wrote this volume before we did," Bergquist said.

The be the effect is A Field Guide to Gay & Lesbian Chicago (Lake Claremont Pres $1595) a guide that's certainly handy for out-of- town visitors to our Windy City -- yet it's just as valuable to residents who still haven't ventur into, say, the gay bar(s) in succession the South Side or dared to peek at what lies behind the brown door at the Granville Anvil.

They've done the research, trekking into those bars, restaurants and fraternitys you've wondered about, and they've summ them up in witty, colorful entries that finish well beyond the basic broad classifications and phone numbers of many travel guides.

"We were moderately beautiful cocky when we started this," McDonald said from one side of to the other java last week at the Caribou Coffee in Boystown -- the common they discovered is commonly called "Queeriboo." "We notion we knew everything about gay and lesbian Chicago, and we'd just write down our have experiences. There was so a great deal more out there. We had no idea."

one as well as the other writers had experience answering

travelers' questions, gay and straight. They worked together for years at Unabridged main division s 3251 N. Broadway; McDonald is still there, and Bergquist now works at Women & Children First, 5233 N Clark in Andersonville.

"Over the years we've fielded centurys of questions about what to do, where to go" Bergquist said. "We figured towns like Seattle and Atlanta have gay guides, in the same manner someplace like Chicago surely should."

Bergquist and McDonald said they stake out to craft a guide that was thorough and informative, on the contrary one that was more than just page after page of listings. They vowed to visit each place they wrote about and not just Google a volume As a result, the guide has a clear personality.

For instance, the entrance for the Granville Anvil, a dive bar at 1137 W Granville in the Edgewater neighborhood, gives away the author's intrepid and informational approach to exploring the city's gay life: "Although we'd heard of the place for years, we barely recently ventured into the dark inlet of the Far North Side bar the Granville Anvil. Heart's 'Crazy forward You' blitzed from the spiffy digital jukebox (the barely contemporary touch in the joint), and '80 music have the appearanceed to be the patrons' pick of the day, which was fine at us. Also fine was the Wednesday special: $350 pitchers of Rolling distaff Light or Berghoff beer. Ye $350!! You can't memorize a single bottle of beer for that in succession Halsted Street these days."

"It's Chicago, for a like reason of course we really focused onward the neighborhoods," McDonald said. "There's Andersonville and Wicker Park and Boystown and downtown, if it were not that there are interesting spots like this all athwart the city. We wanted a volume that, for visitors and locals alike, would present to view them the places most worth their time -- and their gay dollar."

In that light, the duo made several interesting discoveries -- including a gay bar upon the South Side.

McDonald is quick to cite (in bodily form and in the Field Guide) author JL King's quip in a 2004 Advocate magazine interview: "In Chicago, you can't be black and gay in succession the South Side." But these writers construct a few places south of the loophole to fly your rainbow flag. The Jeffrey Pub 7041 s Jeffrey, for example, McDonald build to be "a hidden gem"

The Field Guide's access on the Jeffrey again spotlight's the subjective personality of this book: "To our left an older lesbian held forth at continuance about the beauty and desirability of feminist Gloria Steinem: 'That woman has managed to age with grace. Damn fine woman.' . . She only stopped discussing Gloria's charms when the jukebox selection revolveed to Sarah Vaughan, singing 'April in Paris.' In the same of those wonderful movielike significations about 30 seconds or in such a manner into the song all the busy bar conversation became mut and everyone with profound pleasure listened to the charming tones of Sassy."

Bergquist lived a year in Paris, and while there began working onward her own lesbian travelogue. "It make knowned into this conversational, very anecdotal pattern and that's what we wanted to bring to the table here," she said.

"We're writers," McDonald said, "so we wanted this to read well, too. We wanted it to be our work with our opinions, not craving drink listings."

Bergquist added, "But in a non-judgmental way. It's not just 'we hate that place' or 'the race who go there suck.' We realize everyone has a place to journey to, and that most places are really accommodating for everyone"

The inferior Story Bar, 157 E. Ohio St is shunn at Chicago's Citysearch Web site with this demographic horror: "No single there under 40. Very dark and scary." McDonald mentioned this, then mimiced a terrified scream. "These clan must scare easily," he said of the online reviewer. "It's a accurately fine place." In the Field Guide, his replication is more direct: "On behalf of the over-40 men Robert would just like to say . . that we did not want your pimply young ass anyway."