Upcoming Event: Disco Happy Hour Fundraiser for Under One Roof, Friday March 7

This just showed up in my inbox, go have a drink, twirl to classic disco sounds, and contribute to a very worthwhile AIDS organization. Here's the deets:

Under One Room Disco Happy Hour Fundraiser
Friday, March 7, 6 - 10pm
518A Castro Street

• Guest DJs Bus Station John and Steve Fabus spinning classic disco to dance to -- of course we have disco balls! DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!!!
  
  
• Cash Bar featuring a menu of Svedka Vodka drinks courtesy of Svedka and the Lookout. Beer, wine and non-alcoholic also available. Alcoholic Beverages are $5, Non-Alcoholic $3 -- there will be some limited munchies.
  
  
• Raffle drawings every 1/2 hour for great prizes including: Frisee Restaurant $100 Gift Certificate, Kubuki Springs & Spa Package and Foreign Cinema $100 Gift Certificate.
  
  
• NO COVER CHARGE! Bring this email and give us your email/address to enter.
  
  
• Bring your friends!
  
  

We're kicking off a month long capital campaign to support the relocation of Under One Roof's store and offices. There will be opportunities to make a donation and have your name and photo (or photo of an honoree) included in a 6'X6' photo mural being placed permanently in the new store location. No donation is required to attend the party! Campaign gifts start at $25 for a name only, $101 for a 4X4 photo, $501 for a 6X6 photo and $1,001 for a 12X12 logo or photo -- space is limited and you will actually be able to pick your photos location on the mural wall at the party this Friday night. All donations are, of course, fully tax deductible. Under One Roof is a registered 501 (c) 3 which has been raising funds for Bay Area AIDS services since 1990.

Event Review: The Rod at Deco

There aren't many parties that lead to the boyfriend and I having a passionate debate about the meaning of parties and the scene, but that's exactly what happened Friday night at The Rod at Deco: while everybody else was in the front room cheering on the wet jockstrap contest, there we were in the back room by the pool table, throwing around words like Gesamtkunstwerk and pondering the necessity of gay men connecting with their own history in a way that, while troublesome in its nostalgic aspects, also gives them a sense of their possibility in the present. On the boyfriend's side he thought I needed to lighten up a bit, since the evidence was all around us that people were there having a good time and connecting with something, and I had to concede that, at times, my contrarian nature, suspicious as it is of all things popular and fun in the tradition of Theodor Adorno, clouds my critical perspective. On the other hand, my position remains that the party scene is about creating culture, and if we are going to take a critical perspective upon it, it can't be from the perspective of whether or not people are simply having a good time - after all, people have great times at circuit parties, which are the target of numerous dismissive comments within the "alternative" gay community - but it must be from the perspective of the kind of culture that is being created and the meaning of that for those participating in it. And from that perspective I continue to have issues with the culture being created by The Rod, because, to me, it feels like a step backwards in the evolution of San Francisco's gay culture.

The Short Version of the Review - Is It Fun?

I am perfectly willing to accept that this point about the place of The Rod in San Francisco's gay culture probably doesn't really matter to anybody else but me, so here I'll give you the the standard nightlife magazine review of The Rod and you can continue on with the rest of your online reading without further ado. The Rod, on the 2nd Friday of the month at Deco Lounge, is among San Francisco's longest-running gay nights, having celebrated its 3rd Anniversary this past Friday. DJ Bus Station John, who has advanced leagues as a DJ since I first heard him spin a couple years ago at Aunt Charlie's place, where he continues with his very popular Tubesteak Connection, has one of the best collections of rare-groove disco, Hi-NRG, and original New York electro ever assembled. If you closed your eyes during one of his sets you could easily imagine yourself back in a San Francisco disco or bathhouse circa 1979, and if you opened your eyes the photocopies and projections of vintage porn, featuring pre-steroid swollen guys with feathered hair (many of whom look exactly like the guys who gave me boners when I was in high school) might convince you that you are really there. The Rod is an almost perfect emulation of a particular moment in gay history, and if the attendees were sporting more polyester and facial hair you might think that the door to Deco was really a time portal.

That The Rod has been going on for three years should be enough testament to its popularity, and on any given Friday night you can rest assured of a sizable crowd of guys and a few girls as well. Since it's a Tenderloin bar the crowd is definitely scruffier and more alternative than you would find at any given Castro bar, and I suspect that many of the guys competing for the $100 prize in the wet jockstrap contest might otherwise be trying to get that sum by walking the beat of Polk Street. To my eye the crowd skews a bit older, since the music attracts many guys who probably heard it when the grooves were fresh off the cutting press, but I also saw a few twenty-somethings of my acquaintance. Though I've usually seen a few guys boogieing in front of the DJ stand, The Rod doesn't really come across as a big dance party, but more of a mingling scene, and the music provides a great background for the naughtiness that people get up to later. We noticed that, after the patio closed and the wet jockstrap contest began the crowd seemed thinner, or perhaps just more concentrated in two rooms, one where they were watching the contest, and another where they were carrying through on the instincts it aroused. All in all, if you are looking for a laid-back, sexy (for a late-70s value of sexy) night out with a crowd that isn't too precious or grotesquely buffed, and your main goal is some sleazy fun, then The Rod is a great choice.

I Come Not to Bury Bus Station John, But to Praise Him

And what, you might ask, is wrong with a party simply being a good time? In the present moment of the event itself, nothing - people come and have a good time, connect with each other, and maybe leave with a feeling of satisfaction in whatever form they were seeking. But the success of The Rod is also, in my mind, what opens it up to a higher level of examination. I admire Bus Station John for having created a total aesthetic, for the way he combines sound and visuals to bring forth a vibe that others connect with. Despite the boyfriend's protestations that this is a pretentious way to put it, I think Bus Station John has created a work of art that is distinctive in the San Francisco gay scene, and that The Rod is an example of someone really creating culture. And this is where I believe that the critical perspective comes into play, where its legitimate to ask, what kind of culture is being created, what ideas are being put forth in this creation? As I pointed out before, many of my friends and acquaintances have no problems with negative criticism of the culture being created by other promoters, such as Gus Presents, when that culture is not part of their own aesthetic, when the ideas they see being put forth are in contrast to their own. Things get trickier when the object of critical perspective is within one's own cultural milieu. I will admit that in my previous review of The Rod, I was bitchier than I needed to be, since I thought that tone was necessary to make my voice be heard. But since then I have softened my stance a little bit - I have heard disco played under circumstances when it felt right and was enjoyable, and I have absolutely nothing against the man himself; though I don't know him personally, many other folks of my acquaintance do, and by all accounts he is a really great guy who's heart in the right place. In fact, I am quite sympathetic to the intention that I think is behind Bus Station John's nights, I just disagree with the way he is materializing that intention. I hope that a greater degree of respect for that intention is evident in this review; if I did not feel some respect for the ideas that someone was putting forth, believe me, I would not be spending my Saturday afternoon in front of this laptop, hoping that my perspective might, in some way, help further those ideas.

Disco of the Past, Disco of the Present

My main issue with The Rod is its nostalgic foundations. In an interview with the Bay Guardian, in which he was asked about his take on the current gay club scene, Bus Station John said " . . . I've retreated to the past, where I dwell happily with my pre-AIDS, pre-crack, pre-MTV, pre-PNP vinyl collection. Greetings from 1981! Visitors are welcome." Given the rather bland state of the gay club scene over the past few years, with its endless rotation of the same DJs playing the same music to the same crowd of guys over and over gain, I can't blame Bus Station John for wanting to recreate the vibe of an earlier time, when the scene was more about joy and sex and fun than meth and money (though it seems contradictory to be anti-PNP and have a giant cut-out of a bottle of poppers in the front window of the club). And I can even understand wanting to return to music that has, at its core, genuine warmth and emotion after listening to the hours of anthem tribal dreck that is spun at most circuit events. But, even with the best of intentions behind it, this approach is essentially reactionary and regressive, and says that the best solution to the "ennervating" (to use Bus Station John's term) state of current gay club culture is to retreat to the past.

I can't deny that there is a legitimate place for disco in current gay club culture, and I've found myself increasingly drawn to music from contemporary producers like Justus Koehnecke, Prinz Thomas, and Lindstrom that updates the disco sound with modern production. There is a looseness in its composition and upbeat hipness in its sonic palette that can't help but bring a twitch to my hips and a smile to my face. And, thanks to the recent Mineshaft party from Honey Sound System, as well as Bus Station John's set at the recent Paradise All-Night Disco Extravaganza, I've found a way to connect with it in the club experience. I think that, periodically, the gay club scene needs to re-connect with its roots as a means of rediscovering its values, and in this regard I have no problem with the occasional disco party (as long as nobody plays Donna Summer or Gloria Gaynor, that is). My problem is when the disco party is seen as the height of gay club culture, carrying with it the statement that there is nothing of value at all to be found in contemporary culture, when this plainly isn't so. I also worry that, in the context of creating culture, disco nostalgia keeps us from participating in the creation of a new cultural identity for ourselves. This is what I like most about parties like Lucky Pierre and those coming from the Honey Sound System; they are in touch with the past and recognize its importance, but are also actively engaged in using contemporary msuic and culture to create a new sense of gay identity. In fact, from things I see going on right now, I think 2008 might very well be a banner year for the San Francisco gay scene, one in which many groups come together to once again create a sense of excitment and joy about being a San Francisco queer. Looking back to the past will never really get us to that point, because once you step beyond the door of the time portal, your're right back where you started from.

Say No to Nostalgia, Say Yes Creating the New World

Nostalgia is a powerful impulse, and after the eight years of shit we've all lived through, it's no wonder that so many people, gay and straight, are looking back to the past, when things seemed easier, more fun, and certainly less dire (just think about all the 80s, disco, and "return to . . ." parties that have gone down over the past year). But, ultimately, what we have to deal with is the here and now, and nothing from the past will really solve our present problems. Looking back to the past may give us ideas about how to deal with the present, but it's up to us to put those ideas in a contemporary context. 1970s era disco might help us connect with a set of values, but that doesn't mean we need to precisely emulate that era, it means we need to create the disco of the 2000s. The Rod is a great place to go on every second Friday to have fun and reflect on the original disco era, but the moment you start thinking "yeah, it was all so really great back then, I wish we could go back" is the moment that you enter into bad faith with the present. Rather, you should be thinking "yeah, how do we bring this into the now, how do we create this feeling with contemporary music, images, fashion, and people?" Formulating the answers to that question should be the main task of the San Francisco gay scene over the next year, because when the elections happen in November, we need to be ready to make our contribution to the change that will ensue.

Upcoming Event: Tribute to The Godfather of Disco, Wednesday December 12

Yes, that's tonight kids. Mel Cheren, known as The Godfather of Disco and founder of West End Records, as well as one of the men who brought the Paradise Garage into being, died this past week, and tonight Bus Station John will be holding a musical tribute to him during Tubesteak Connection at Aunt Charlie's Place, starting at 10PM.

Event Review: Paradise All-Night Disco Party at Mezzanine

After a quick couple drinks at The Cinch to celebrate Juanita Fajita's birthday, the boyfriend and I headed out to the Paradise All-Night Disco Party at Mezzanine to meet up with our friends Jovino and Mermaid, two dedicated disco junkie DJs. The party didn't convert me to actually liking disco, which I still consider to be, at best, nostalgia music, but it was a fun, light-hearted time that did showcase some of our local DJs like Robot Hustle and Bus Station John in their element and putting some forth of their best efforts that I have heard so far.

Judging from the line when we arrived, and the fact that the coat check "sold out," Paradise was obviously the party of choice for most of San Francisco's clubbers. It was definitely crowded at 12.30 when Escort came on to perform, but there was still plenty of room to dance, and the crowd was among the most easy-going I've run into in a while. They were also among the best-dressed; though there were some interpretations of classic disco with fros, shades, and leisure jackets that bordered on the tragic, there were plenty of other party-goers who decided that disco fashion could have its own contemporary interpretation, as long as it was bright and sparkely. I saw and talked to a fair number of gay scenesters, including Leo Herrera, Dee Jay Pee Play (who told me he had just been reading about the original New York disco scene that morning and was feeling completely high from this re-creation of it), and Marke B. of the Bay Guardian, but overall the crowd was pretty mixed; I would have liked to have seen a few more gay boys, but I enjoyed the diversity of the scene, consisting as it did of people who seemed much more focused on having a good time than about how they were going to pick up.

The music was better than I expected, but there were also moments when the campy kitsch aspect of tracks like "Funkytown" (as the boyfriend said later, "there's no excuse for Funkytown") had the effect of bringing me out of whatever un-selfconscious enjoyment I was having and making me think that I had wandered into Polly Esther's Culture Club. The DJs in the main room did a technically OK job of mixing it together; there were some glitches, but some consideration also needs to be made for the fact that these tracks weren't constructed for mixing, and there's often so much treble and just plain noise in their mastering that you practically need an audio engineering degree to figure out how to put them together. I realized that this is one of the things about classic disco that bothers me, and why I sometimes rather like the newer interpretations of it from artists like Lindstrom or Prinz Thomas - the old stuff just sounds sonically bad. I think this is also why I don't really like dancing to it; though you could argue that its "the original dance music," I have a lot harder time finding the beat that I like, since the bass component is often muddied up and buried under the high-end of horns and strings.

Escort, the 18-piece disco orchestra from Brooklyn, put on a great but seemingly short show - they started a half hour late, and I don't think they were on the stage for more than half an hour. All I can say is, any band that has both a string and horn section is worth checking out to see how they bring it all together, and Escort was super tight.

My big surprise for the evening was Bus Station John's set in the upper room. First, BSJ has really tightened up on his mixing since I heard him last; this time he was even wearing headphones. Rather than trying to deal with the multitude of issues around mixing disco, he took the simple approach of just making sure everything started and stopped on a beat at the beginning and end of it a measure, and it all went together very well with a sustained energy. His programming was also much better than in the main room; there's no question that the man really knows his stuff when it comes to the rare groove disco, and his selections on this night, in that space with that crowd, made it all sound very fresh. I realized that, taken out of the context of a gay club, where disco feels like regressive nostalgia for the pre-AIDS era, it was much easier for me to get into it, tired though I was, because I could just take it as fun dance music, rather than being thrown into critical reflections on what it means for that music to be played in that kind of scene. It's still not my first choice for dance music, and it will always rile up the punk in me, and the contarian Futurist who believes that the present should be about the future, not the past (wow, that's deep), but BSJ's set made me realize that there are ways in which I can enjoy this music as long as it's not coming with too much baggage or reactionary statements about contemporary dance culture attached to it. So, good job Bus Station John, you got this cranky critic to change his mind just a little bit on something.

We left around 2.30, having stayed rather longer than I thought we would. Though there were moments in which Paradise felt just a bit too campy for me to take it as anything more than a rather safe excuse for otherwise conservative San Franciscans to dress up and "party," there were also moments where I wished that the vibe engendered over the course of the night, one that was sexy, fun, and smiling, could be brought as easily to other parties that feature contemporary dance music.

Another One Bites the Dust: No More Starfucker at Deco

I received an email this afternoon informing me of the end of Starfucker at Deco. This is kinda odd, as I wasn't aware that I was on an email list for them, and I thought this night had died weeks ago anyway. Deco is a great club, one of my favorite places in the Tenderloin, but I'm not really surprised that this party has come to an end, since there's not that much to distinguish it from anything else happening on a Friday night. The email itself is kinda telling:

One of the things that killed this party is it's Friday night spot. Between Manhunt, Craigslist and the other Friday parties going on, people have many sinful choices in SF.

So the things that Starfucker compares itself to are hook-up sites; the message then goes on to tout the "shameless cruising in our basement" as a main feature of the last party. I would suggest that this is the reason that the party died; if all you've got to really offer is a hook-up scene, there's lots of other ways to do that, and I don't think that this is what people are looking for right now. From my conversations with people, they want fun, a sense of excitement, good music, and a place to dance. The 1970s model of the gay club as a sex scene seems to be losing some of its luster now (when was the last time you heard anything about a Bus Station John event), while the events that are picking up are those with more emphasis on style, music, and a "scene." I hope that whoever takes up the new Friday night slot at Deco realizes this and plans accordingly.

Upcoming Event: Queer Hellraiser Happy Hour at The Pilsner

The San Francisco Bay Guardian is having their 3rd Annual Queer Hellraiser Happy Hour, hosted by Marke B., at The Pilsner Inn (Church and Market), this Wednesday the 20th, from 5.30 - 8.00. Tunes by Bus Station John, drink specials, and Niman Ranch pulled pork sandwiches. Plus, spin the Well-Lubricated Wheel of Mystery, Mischief and Mayhem to win awesome prizes, including tickets to the 10th Annual National Queer Arts Festival, Frameline 31 LGBT Film Festival, Branchar & Lewis Day Spa for Men & Women ... and much more!

Upcoming Event: Last Double Dutch Disco at The Transfer, Sunday May 27

You may remember that waaaaay back in February I reported on the sale of The Transfer and speculated about what would happen with some of the more established nights, like Double Dutch Disco, with the change in management. Well, last night I was talking with a friend of Bus Station John (and, for once, managed to keep my yap shut and not get into an argument about the meaning of disco in the gay scene) and found out that this Sunday, May 27, will be the last Double Dutch Disco at The Transfer (and even the Transfer's myspace page is gone - most mysterious). I never went to this party (if I didn't like The Rod I really doubted I would like DDD) but it has generally been well received by everybody else and I know of several people who say that it's their favorite night out in the city. So, if you've been interested but putting it off, now is the time, and with a holiday on Monday I'm sure this party will be cranked up to 11.

In other, better news, Bus Station John, who was burned out of his apartment by someone flipped out on shrooms, has enjoyed the benefits of two fundraising events and seems to have himself situated for the summer. I don't know of any fund currently being collected for him, but if anyone else does please let me know and I will be happy to both publicize it and contribute.

Upcoming Event: Benefit for Bus Station John at The Transfer, Saturday May 5

I caught a small item in Larry-Bob's Queer Things to do in San Francisco that said Bus Station John had recently been burned out of his apartment. And so this Saturday there is a benefit for BSJ at The Transfer, starting at 9PM, with the DJs from Starbooty. It's $5. BSJ's parties aren't my cup of tea, but he has done his part for San Francisco gay club culture, and, from all reports, is a very nice guy, so if you're in the Castro Saturday night, stop by the Transfer, have a drink, and help a guy out.

Bar Review: The Transfer

The Transfer, as befits a bar at the crossroads of a MUNI bus and underground line, suffers from something of an identity crisis. Originally the last stop for the hungry ghosts that prowled the Castro at all hours of the day and night, a place so dismal that the one time I entered to use the ATM I felt like I had been sucked down into a Virgilian Hades, the bar was bought about two and a half years ago by Castro entertainment and hospitality mogul Greg Bronstein. He spruced it up, cleaned out the cobwebs, put a cheeky graffiti mural on the back wall, and installed real windows that let in the sunshine and chased the vampires away. The manager at the time, Shawn, had a great relationship with a number of local promoters, and thus Bus Station John established a base in the Castro with his Double Dutch Disco parties, Cock Block appeared for the girls, and there was a steady stream of party nights that transformed The Transfer into a new bar full of hip young things. Then, several months ago, Bronstein sold the bar, fired Shawn, and the whole identity of the bar was brought into question. Ask a gay guy about it and he might say “Oh, isn’t that a straight bar now,” while a straight guy would probably say “Oh, isn’t that a gay bar?” Bus Station John still does Double Dutch Disco parties there every first Sunday, but the bar also hosts bar nights for Mission hipsters riding fixies, and it looks like Cock Block is moving on to Fat City. As for the other parties, they’ve come and gone so quickly that they never had a chance establish themselves or even pull up the bar’s reputation with their own. So what kind of bar is it? Depends on the day of the week and month, it seems.

The bar itself rally has little to distinguish it – there’s a bar, and a pool table, some bench seating built around the pool table like you’d find in any gay bar, some tables and tall chairs for perching, and filthy, filthy bathrooms. A lot of money and effort has gone into the DJ setup and on my last visit, during Refuge by the Staple crew (which is also moving on to other venues), there was a nice set of Mackie speakers for sound. But I don’t understand how this bar turns into a dance space, or if it really even does. Without moving the pool table the dance space is smaller than UndergroundSF, and there’s not much in the way of seating beyond the bar itself on the other side of the room. Move the pool table and the space opens up, but all the real action here seems to be at the bar. So, is it a bar or a dance club? It’s definitely the former, and wants to be the latter, but I haven’t seen it take off yet.

This bar is three blocks from my apartment and yet I’ve rarely set foot inside because I have no idea what’s going on with it. If I want an easy drink there’s the Pilser at equal distance, with a back patio that’s much nicer than sitting inside when the weather’s good. If I want to go dancing there are plenty of other options, though they might be further away. So what does The Transfer have to offer that other bars don’t? I dunno, if you all have an answer, let me know.

Event Review: The Rod at Deco

There aren't many times when I dread writing a review, but this is certainly one of them, because I'm about to say bad things about what has become an institution among San Francisco alternaqueers, or at least those who like to imagine themselves as such. There is no doubt that The Rod is one of the single most popular nights for gay men in San Francisco, and DJ Bus Station John has achieved underground celebrity status for his attempt to provide some tonic to the world of circuit parties and gym clones. I certainly applaud him for making this attempt, I only wish that he had found some other solution than situating us once again in the ghetto of 70s gay disco.

Loyal readers should have some sense of my priorities when going out and looking for a good night; comfortable space, fun crowd, danceable music, clean sound, skilled DJs. What I don't look for is that an event is necessarily gay; honestly, that's one of the least important things to me, because when I go out, I go out to dance and be with my boyfriend, rather than to hook up. Hooking up, however, is what gay nights generally tend to be about, so when I got an event like the Rod, I'm already way out of synch with the night's intentions. It's difficult, then, for me feel what my relationship to the night should be, and to what standard I should adhere when writing a review.

Deco is absolutely one of my favorite club spaces in San Francisco; with three levels, an outdoor patio, super-friendly bartenders, and an all-around great vibe, it feels to me more like a clubhouse than an actual club. The decor is very retro, with curvy disco moldings, mirrors, and neon. When you step through the door for The Rod, the combination of this decor, the retro 70s and 80s rare disco B-sides, and the vintage 70s porn that serves as The Rod's calling card makes it feel like you have stepped back into pre-AIDS San Francisco. And this is precisely why I hate it, despite the fun everyone I know has there, despite Bus Station John's good intentions, and despite my own desire to be stop being such a critic and just enjoy it.

For me, The Rod represents Bus Stations John's fetishization of pre-AIDS gay life, and, to me, makes the statement that there is nothing that follows after it that can have any meaning for gay men. It says to me that the best time to have been a gay man was in the past, and that the best thing we can create for ourselves now is a simulacrum of the past. Having come from Lights Down Low a block away, where I saw young queer guys involved with straight kids and others in making new culture for everyone, The Rod seemed like stepping into the living room of an old gay auntie who hadn't gone out in thirty years and wanted to show me pictures of "the good times."

As loyal readers know, I really don't like disco. It's thus hard for me to objective about the music that Bus Station John plays, or even the way he plays it. I wouldn't really call him a DJ, and, to his credit, he has said as much in interviews. More accurately, he is a guy with a really amazing record collection, and a couple times a month he plays it for people. I watched him play records for a while on Friday night, and he does clearly know his music and enjoy it, but don't expect anything beyond moving the fader from one channel to another; he doesn't even use headphones to listen to the track he's about to cue up. This is fine if all you are about is playing records, but I like a little more excitement and performance from a DJ.

I can't say that there was really much of a dancefloor - the lounge room where BSJ was spinning was packed, but it was more of a mingling floor; here and there you could find pockets of people getting down, and some general head-bobbing, but nobody seemed to really be there to dance. This is somewhat consistent for what is essentially a pick-up scene; as long as the music isn't too obnoxious, as long as it doesn't break the mood, it doesn't really matter what you play. In this case retro disco is just enough stimulus to raise the energy of the room, but not enough to distract from flirting and conversation. It's also quite comfortable and unchallenging, not unlike the shawl you might put on to keep yourself warm while looking at those old photos.

My worst experience of the evening was getting into an argument with a friend of ine who is also a friend of BSJ, about my opinion of the night. He is a genuine alternaqueer sort who is looking for something other than the standard run of Gus Presents and Castro bars, and I am totally in agreement with him on that. For him Deco represents a space that is welcoming to other sensibilities, and where you don't have to be an overbuffed steroid queen to get attention. And in those respects, he's completely right. My argument was that, if we want to create alternatives to mainstream gay club culture, why do we have to look back to the past rather than creating something for ourselves out of our present situation? It was at this point I realized how much the likes of Gus Presents and similar events have poisoned young gay guys against what they think of as "techno," which, generally, means terrible tribal house. For them "techno" music is synonomous with all that they find oppressive about mainstream gay culture, though I also think there is an element of willful ignorance at work here, since most of them couldn't tell you the difference between techno, trance, and house even while listening to it. I also think the return to classic disco demonstrates that, to be a successful gay club night, it's much easier to go with the comfortable and familiar than to take a chance with the unknown and potentially challenging. This is what I think ultimately accounts for the wild popularity of The Rod; you are guaranteed that it will be the least challenging thing you, as a gay man, can do on a Friday evening. If you are looking for a night of the comfortable and familiar, and maybe a desperate hook-up at 3AM, then by all means, go for it. As for me, I'll be looking for party destinations that aren't focused on locking us all up in the closet of the past.

Upcoming: The Rod at Deco, Friday, April 13

From Larry Bob's Queer Things to Do in San Francisco. Unfortunately, being a notorious Luddite, Bus Station John doesn't believe in things like email and websites, so if you wanna find out about his parties it's up to me, Larry Bob, picking up the right flyer, or putting THE ROD in big letters on your calendar every second Friday of the month. Deco is a swell club that's worth checking out regardless of how you (or I) might feel about the retro-vibeness of BSJ's various musical selections.

FRIDAY April 13, 10pm-3am
The ROD @ DECO Lounge
DJ Bus Station John (Tubesteak Connection / Double Dutch Disco) slips you "The ROD" every second Friday @ DECO Lounge, the Tenderloin's newest old-school gay watering hole. Get liquored-up cheap ($3 drink specials all nite) then hosed down in the always-saucy Wet Jockstrap Contest! $100 CASH for the winner, bar tabs for the runners-up. Jox available, or wear your sleeziest/cheeziest fave. Enjoy 3 floors of heavy cruising & hard cocktails, dancing to late 70's/early 80's retro-homo rareities, and after-hours action!

$5
10pm-3am.

DECO Lounge, 510 Larkin @ Turk.

The Transfer Sold Again?

Walking past The Transfer bar on Church Street this weekend I noticed a transfer of ownership sign in the window, and all the full-window event posters were gone. It seems that just about a year and a half after purchasing the bar where dreams went to die and turning it into a small sensation, Greg Bronstein has decided to shuck it off on someone else. According to this somewhat dated article in the Bay Area Reporter Bronstein has been steadily divesting himself of his restaurants with an eye toward developing his bar properties, but it's unclear how getting rid of The Transfer, which has been doing booming business with the likes of Bus Station John's Double Dutch Disco, fits in with the grand scheme. Though mere blocks from my pad, I never got into The Transfer, having only been there once for a friend's birthday party. The DJ that night was playing uninspired selections from the feel-good funk catalog, and using the "Jet" setting (known to the rest of us as a flanger)on her CDJ-100s as a kind of substitute cross-fader. The other nights advertised there never managed to capture my attention, and I'm not into BSJs retro vibe, so when I wanted a beer I would just go to the Pilsner. I'll be curious to see what comes back into that space. Perhaps the ghosts of tweakers past continue to haunt that space to such a degree that nothing can grow there ever again.

Update: Getting off the J after work I saw that the Transfer is still serving them up, and a new Double Dutch Disco poster is in the window. I'll be keeping an eye open to see what I can find out about the ownership change.

Further Update: a good source tells me that Bronstein sold the bar behind the back of manager Shawn, then fired him. This has left many of the promoters in a moral quandry as they feel that they should pull out from the night, but still want to support the rest of the staff. Further drama unfolding in the gay bar scene . . . .