After dinner I'm sitting in my easy chair. I'm hoping dinner'll go down without too much of a fight, but considering we had tofu, quinoa and brussel sprouts I'm thinking the odds aren't good. My grandson is playing with his LeapPad in front of the plasma TV.

He's the spitting image of Rooster, my ex. It's like one day they're wearing OshKosh onesies and crying all night, and the next they're in a commune in Palo Alto, sharing a bisexual biker with a chick named Rainbow. "C'mere, Keanu," I say, "and sit on your granddad's knee. Did I ever tell you about what gay bars were like when I was a kid?"

"Only about a thousand times, Grandpa," he says, rolling his eyes.

"They weren't like bars today," I say, ignoring his indifference, "with ferns and brass and Madonna on the stereo. Guys didn't have fauxhawks, or Abercrombie & Fitch. We didn't type each other's names into our BlackBerries, then later check to see what Google said. Nope -- back when I was a kid, the bars were so scary, you'd have to polish off a quart of Jack Daniels just to screw up the courage to go in. You never knew who the hell you were gonna run into: amputee fetishists, body-mod dungeonmasters, or your high school gym teacher, hopped up on speed, with a hard-on longer than your arm."

My son Rooster Jr. glances in from the kitchen, apron tied around his waist. I smile reassuringly so his worried look disappears and he goes back to the dishes. "Man, I used to love the One Way," I continue. "Five hundred sweaty, shirtless men, with one little red lightbulb. Every wall was painted black, with cyclone fencing dividing the space into rooms so you'd feel just like a caged animal. You'd shake so much you could hardly hold a beer, not knowing if some butch leather daddy was going to drag you home and chain you to his radiator, or if they were just going to tie you to the pool table and let everybody take turns. Nope, it was dark and dank and totally out of control, and gosh darn it, I loved it."

Rooster Jr. returns, looking all concerned. "What's brought all this on, dad?" he says. "You find another Quaalude under the fridge?"

I sigh. "It's this new Richard Morel two-CD set, Death of the Paperboy. The first CD's got some nice tunes, but on the second he remixes the hell out of that shit. It's hot and dark and amyl-nitrate sexy, swirling purple sound that makes you want to grab another dude and suck his face so hard light can't escape. 'Shoegazer disco,' Morel calls it, but all I know is, you crank this shit up and you're gonna get flashbacks of leather chaps and blacklights and a dude named b-boy cleaning your boots with his tongue. The perfect soundtrack whether you're speeding down the highway in the middle of the night or stopped at a red light, cruising some pierce-nosed cub. I was listening to it in the park this morning: I swear, one minute I'm tapping my foot and humming along, and the next thing you know my shirt is tucked into my back pocket and I'm dry-humping somebody's dog."

"Can I listen to it, dad?" Keanu asks.

"Absolutely not," Rooster Jr. declares. "You're not nearly old enough."

"Goddammit," I say. "Don't coddle the boy! When I was his age, I had my photo on a Led Zeppelin album and genital warts."

"Exactly," Rooster Jr. says, heading back to the kitchen.

"Fine!" I shout after him. "Let's all listen to the Indigo Girls!" When he's out of earshot I grunt in disgust. "Hey, did I ever tell you about how I met Rooster?" I ask the kid.

"Only about a million times, Grandpa," Keanu says with a bored sigh. "He wore leather chaps, and had five o'clock shadow that could scrub lasagna pans clean. You left to have a quickie with him in the alley, and three days later you got woken up by Jane Fonda underneath a philodendron in Golden Gate Park."

"Okay, okay," I tell him. "Pardon a cranky old man for reminiscing. For thinking back to when guys didn't take other guys to Jamba Juice for a date, or start screaming when they found out you had pubic hair. No, everything's fine today! Let's all go have Pinkberry and talk about Lindsay Lohan's career!"

Keanu starts to look alarmed, and I realize maybe I've gone too far. "Oh, fuck it. Everything's great. Really. This generation is just fabulous. Out of the closets and into the streets! Now, five bucks to the first kid who finds me something white and round underneath the fridge."