Jim Farber is a critic friend that I first met at the Ninth Circle. in the Village in the '70's. The bar on Waverly Place on the same street as my apartment started off as a late beatnick bar by Mickey Ruskin and Bobby Crevitt. It was originally called Le Du Margos (oh how ever the French spell it correction please?) it was like an outsider bar with aritist and poets and bikers and rock'n'rollers hanging out inside and in the backyard garden. Black and white, gay and straight. When Mickey left to open Max's Kansas City the name changed to the Ninth Circle (A Dante reference) it became essentially a gay men's bar. WhileI know Jim tries to one block make it a harbor of non-political gay men more interested in black leather jackets , boys who were sometimes hustlers (aka sex workers ) but would give it away to someone they liked and the distinction of who hung out upstairs or downstairs where the pool table was,It was a gay creative culture hang .. and Jim in this article names just a few of who were regulars . The afternoon writers salon like the one that had been started at Julius one block down by Sandra Scoppettone was re-invent at the Ninth Circle by people like Frank O;Hara . While Jim was not attractied to the emerging politics of single issue groups like the Gay Activist Allliance or the multi-issue Gay Libertion Front , I wil tell you as someone who was an artist and political we did hang out there.. When hetrosexual David Bowie put on a dress and some eye make up helped by his wife Angie the nules changed with the invasion of straight boys in androgynous drag, Some actually were closeted gays but not to the pubic, Some after a couple of drinks and weed fell in bed without sexual orientation barriers imposed. (TBC) Glam with Bowie in Londond and here in NY with the Dolls and people like Steven Tyler blurred or should I say bridged the gender expression rules .. and it was clear that not only girls love these gender bending rock'n'rollers sexually birthed in the hippie movement with its allowance of men to be beautiful without a sexual orientation genuflection, but also gay boys did too . Jim Farber has been the Daily News music critic for years coming from Rolling Stone,  Recently his byline disappeared from the paper. Good news for those of us who know Jim Farber as one of the best rock critic to emerge in the golden days of rock journalisn under the role modeling of the Dean of rock critics Bob Christgua based at the Village Voice, and the masthead list of contributors of the original Rolling Stone, Jim never apologized for liking both metal AND glam bands, 

jim farber gay/glam NYT

I am seeing his byline popping up today free of the boudries imposed by the News. I am excted to read and agree or disagree with him ,,, that is what a good critic does. ( you should have neen a bird on the wall when Jim and David Fricke and I stood in the lobby of the IFC after the screening of the Bert Bearns documentary and talked about everyting possible under the sun) Obviously this essay  obviously is very special to me .. I should also remind people that when you became too "gay " in public , most critics and gay taste makers left the room and went downtstairs at the Ninth Circle to distance themselves from someone like Jobriath. But not me. I can hardly wait for the debate that should take place when Martin Ashton's just published in the London to rave reviews BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS OF HEARTACHE how music CAME OUT 

is published here in the new year.. can;t wait to belly up to the bar and be a part of the critics like Jim Farber, Vince Aletti, Vickie Starr, Danny Fields , Howie Klein etc to vetted it. Thank you Jim Farber for letting your gay spirit out of the box and writing so brilliantly today