Living in a small town has certain advantages, and disadvantages. The disadvantages are obvious. No where to go. Nothing to do. No one to do it with. Basically, the disadvantages are numerous. Enough that it becomes easy to let them outweigh the few advantages and blind you to fun that can, or could, be had in your little backwater nesting place. This sort of blindness can lead a man to lose touch with some of his passions, and fall victim to complacency.

Now, as if small town living weren’t mundane enough, throw in the troubles of living in a rural community in the south. Now combine that with being gay. A homosexual man has very few options to turn to when he finds himself in this particular situation.

I, unfortunately, am one of these gay men. I’ve been living in St. Tammany, a grungy little sweathole in the far eastern corner of the toe of Louisiana’s boot for about three years now. For the first year, I fought hard to create for myself some semblance of social life. I threw parties to which no one came. I frequented every skuzzy dive of bar within a thirty mile radius, to no avail. And I even resorted to trying to meet people on the internet. Again, without any luck.

During the second year, I had pretty much given up on trying to expand my social circle. Well, ‘circle’ is a bit of a synergized term, really. My outlets for fun and socialization could pretty much be defined by a single dot on the page. Me. So, rather than continue to force myself to face disappointment, I decided to just throw myself into my work. My work being that of the head of a downtown development association. So, pretty much I had chosen the one career path that guaranteed I would be spending the rest of my life in tiny little towns just like St. Tammany. Nevertheless, I found some comfort in the success my team had been having in growing the nightlife in this little pueblo. Hell, we were already up to three bars and one club that were actually turning enough profit to stay up with their rent!

Now in my third year in this town, I have to admit that I’ve grown a little bit comfortable with the banality of it all. I no longer really feel the pangs of longing for a life less ordinary, or for more excitement in my very predictable routine. Hell, most days it doesn’t even cross my mind that up until a couple weeks ago, I hadn’t been in a ‘relationship’ since I’d left grad school. Well, unless of course you count the unreciprocated flirtation I have going on with J.T., my steady bag-boy at the local Winn Dixie. And relationships aside, I could hardly even remember the last time I had a good fuck…

But all that changed two weeks ago when we put on downtown St. Tammany’s second annual ‘Jive Alive’ jazz and bluegrass festival.

Last year, in its inception, the festival was a mild success. At least a few people got drunk in the street and made asses out of themselves. We considered that an accomplishment considering that St. Tammany has a population of fewer than 40,000 and the entire downtown area consists of five intersecting streets that create one single block, at the center of which is ‘The Square’. The Square is actually built on top of what was an old train station. The tracks, though unused, still