After being up until almost 4AM following Bender at The Transfer on Friday Night, and looking forward to a late night at Honey Sound System's Mineshaft party, the boyfriend and I decided we'd have an easy night of bar tours and flyer distribution for Fuck Shit, Let's Dance. Our agenda had been to head to Chrome at the Gangplank and then walk up to Joystick at The Cinch. However, things being what they are, I managed to have a buzz-killing mishap, and instead of hanging out in bars we wound up perusing art and going into the bear cave at Bearracuda.
First, my mishap; we were desperately trying to flag down a cab on Market Street at 9.30 when we thought we spotted one across the street by Cafe Flore - but just because cabs have their lights on doesn't mean they're available, as we found out several times during the evening. We were running across Market to try and flag this cab when I lost my balance and fell full force on my right shoulder in front of the Noe and Market F-car stop. It was so painful that I was unable to move my arm for several minutes, and most of my attention for the rest of the evening was diverted wondering whether I had broken something. At the very least, it had wounded my ego, and I spent a lot of time rubbing the warm knot in my trapezius and feeling like a doofus.
We arrived at The Gangplank around 9.40; a couple older, morose-looking guys were standing around outside smoking cigarettes, and when we peeked through the door there were only a couple local denizens at the bar, so we decided to check out the gallery show next door at The White Walls gallery.
Wow. I have not seen a show of new artists like this in along time, nor have I seen so many things that I would happily hang on my walls that are so reasonably priced (most pieces averaged around $500 - $1000, and the ones that were more were definitely worth it in terms of both materials and artistic vision). Though the show features at least a dozen artists, there was a very interesting cohesion of vision that I would describe as "dream-like" or psychedelic. Since this was the opening I assume that the show will be up on their site in the next few days, so you should hit the link or go by and have a look for yourself.
We looked back into the Gangplank a little after ten; same people. We went to the back and found the DJ set-up, and a B-52s track was spinning on the turntable, so presumably the party had started. However, we didn't feel like hanging out long enough to be sure. I double-checked the flyer just now, and it definitely says that the party starts at 9PM. Maybe that was a misprint, but if I show up at a bar at 9PM, when the flyer says things are supposed to start, and what I wind up hearing is The B-52s rather than the "hard rock" described on the flyer, my tendency is go elsewhere. So, in this case we didn't even stay long enough to have a drink, turned on our heels and headed to Joystick at The Cinch.
Joystick is a cute idea; console video games, anime, and 80s music. It's also a nice bar, and so we were pretty enthusiastic about it. But, after a couple rounds of Soul Caliber II and Pac-Man and two drinks, there didn't really seem to be that much going on to keep us there. I think the problem is that what makes this night distinctive, the video games, are also what suck the energy out of it; though I enjoy watching the boyfriend drive swords through his enemies as much as the next guy, it's not the kind of thing that I could spend a whole night at a bar doing. In fact, I associate video games in bars with being bored and feeling awkward, so it's hard to think about that as the whole focus of my night out.
We left around 11.00 and found ourselves wondering what to do with ourselves; I was in too much pain to contemplate really partying, nor did either of us feel like any major expenditure of energy or cash - for a moment we discussed going to The Show at The EndUp, but the boyfriend felt that it was a bit too "heftig" for his mood. Since we were already walking down Polk we decided to check in and see what was happening at Deco.
We hesitated for a moment when we saw the sign "Bearracuda $5" on the door. I've made fun of this event in the past based almost purely on that groan-inducing pun of a name, and I continue to have issues with the way that gay events segregate their audiences based on body types, as well as the somewhat reactionary nature of "bear culture," but we figured, what the hell, let's check it out.
Bearracuda is currently Deco's most successful night, and when we arrived there was a sizeable crowd in attendance and plenty of eats (pop tarts, jalapeno poppers, cheez doodles, corn dogs, etc.) laid out on the pool table. We immediately ran into our friend Matt and several of his friends, and wound up having a pretty pleasant couple drinks with them. It's funny, being in an environment where I expected absolutely nothing made for a very enjoyable experience. It was "hard rock night," and this time the DJs actually delivered; Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division was on the slate to spin, and had it not been for my increasing need put some ice on my shoulder, I think we would have stayed later just to hear what he played. Bearracuda is obviously much more of a socializing and pick-up scene than it is a dance night, and the crowd was pretty friendly to a couple of distinctive non-bears such as ourselves. It's not an event I would necessarily go out of my way to attend, as it's not really my scene, but if you're a bear, or into bears, this is obviously the place to be, and if your not either of those things, it's a decent place to hang out and have a couple drinks as long as you don't mind paying a $5 cover to do so.
By time we got home around midnight my shoulder was so messed up that I couldn't get the keys out of my pocket, much less turn them in the lock. It was a pretty abbreviated Saturday night, but even if I hadn't sustained a nearly crippling injury early in the evening I don't know that we would have had much better luck with our bar tour. For reasons I don't quite understand Saturday continues to be the weak night on the calendar for going out unless you're into the big club scene, or perhaps it's just that, after most of my Friday nights, I'm just not feeling it as much on Saturday.
Showing posts with label The Cinch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Cinch. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Event Review: Friday Night on Polkstrasse, Bender at The Transfer
The thing about being a socialite and man-about-town is that it's often an exhausting affair; every Friday and Saturday there is at least one command performance and one optional activity that need or should be taken in, and during this time of year, when I discover that I'm surrounded by Scorpios who all celebrate their birthdays on the same Fridays, the pace is just maddening. A case in point is this past Friday, when the boyfriend and I had to undertake a series of carefully timed surgical strikes at Kimo's, The Cinch, and the Transfer to make sure we fulfilled all our of required social duties.
First there was Kimo's, where an ex-housemate and bandmate of the boyfriend was playing with his band Smile Brigade. I don't think I've been to Kimo's before; I'm sure I would have remembered the smell of the upstairs if I had. We hung out and had a couple drinks while the boyfriend and his buddy, Jeremy, caught up on things like touring, marriages, and tales of other Seattle-ites. We had wanted to catch their set but, this being the world of indie bands, everything was running an hour late, and we still had to see Frieda Laye for her birthday at the Cinch before we could wind up our night at The Transfer. We left there around 10.30 and trooped up the Polkstrasse, only to remember that drag queen time has much in common with indie rock time; we had another drink, then the birthday girl and Juanita Fajita showed up just before we had to head out the door again. This was too bad, as it was shaping up to be yet another fun night of Charlie Horse antics - the boyfriend and I had both already been on the receiving end of some serious flirtation, including a little making out on the back patio, and there were alternaqueers and Burner boys all around.
We arrived at The Transfer around 11.30. Last month's Bender had been quite an affair, and this one was every bit as lively. Kid Hack of Electropolis was on deck spinning electro when we first arrived, there was an underwear-clad go-go boy strutting around on the benches (DJ6 later told me that their regularly scheduled go-gos had failed to show up, but this boy spontaneously volunteered to fill the gap - yep, it's that kind of party), and a very friendly and fun mixed, though predominantly queer, crowd. I think Bender is probably the best no-cover Castro monthly going right now, so you should mark your calendars for the second Friday of the month and come check it out. Lord Kook will be the guest DJ next month, on Friday December 14, bringing in a harder, more electro set than he could get away with during his old residency at Drunk and Horny.
We wound out our night with a lifesaving burger at Sparky's; somewhere between one drink at The Cinch and the two I had at The Transfer I wound up being teeteringly drunk. It was a fun evening, though, one of the few times when I can say that all three of my destinations were places I would have gladly passed the entirety of the evening.
First there was Kimo's, where an ex-housemate and bandmate of the boyfriend was playing with his band Smile Brigade. I don't think I've been to Kimo's before; I'm sure I would have remembered the smell of the upstairs if I had. We hung out and had a couple drinks while the boyfriend and his buddy, Jeremy, caught up on things like touring, marriages, and tales of other Seattle-ites. We had wanted to catch their set but, this being the world of indie bands, everything was running an hour late, and we still had to see Frieda Laye for her birthday at the Cinch before we could wind up our night at The Transfer. We left there around 10.30 and trooped up the Polkstrasse, only to remember that drag queen time has much in common with indie rock time; we had another drink, then the birthday girl and Juanita Fajita showed up just before we had to head out the door again. This was too bad, as it was shaping up to be yet another fun night of Charlie Horse antics - the boyfriend and I had both already been on the receiving end of some serious flirtation, including a little making out on the back patio, and there were alternaqueers and Burner boys all around.
We arrived at The Transfer around 11.30. Last month's Bender had been quite an affair, and this one was every bit as lively. Kid Hack of Electropolis was on deck spinning electro when we first arrived, there was an underwear-clad go-go boy strutting around on the benches (DJ6 later told me that their regularly scheduled go-gos had failed to show up, but this boy spontaneously volunteered to fill the gap - yep, it's that kind of party), and a very friendly and fun mixed, though predominantly queer, crowd. I think Bender is probably the best no-cover Castro monthly going right now, so you should mark your calendars for the second Friday of the month and come check it out. Lord Kook will be the guest DJ next month, on Friday December 14, bringing in a harder, more electro set than he could get away with during his old residency at Drunk and Horny.
We wound out our night with a lifesaving burger at Sparky's; somewhere between one drink at The Cinch and the two I had at The Transfer I wound up being teeteringly drunk. It was a fun evening, though, one of the few times when I can say that all three of my destinations were places I would have gladly passed the entirety of the evening.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Event Review: Comfort and Joy's "Lucid Dreams" at The Cinch
On Saturday night Comfort and Joy took over the regular Spunk night at The Cinch on Polk Street for their "Lucid Dreams" party, an auction and raffle event to raise money for the queer Burning Man camp. With blacklight art from resident artist Chickpea, Spunk's regular go-go boys (including one very tasty young man with a green mohawk), big white projection screens on the wall, and classic tunes from DJ Mermaid, The Cinch was more festive than I ever thought possible, and I believe this may have been their largest crowd ever on a Saturday night.
For me Lucid Dreams was mostly about an opportunity to socialize with friends. Though they have an okay DJ set up that you think would mean more dance-oriented events at The Cinch, the actual sound system is, in their own words, "kinda janky," and in the back area, where you have the most room for a dancefloor, the sound comes out of what seem to be old car stereo speakers. Given these pretty severe limitations Mermaid was still able to impart a fun, easy-going mood to the party, and when Juanita Fajita and Winona Juggs toppled up onto the stage for the auction portions of the evening, the crowd was loosened up enough to part with a considerable wad of cash for "experiences" like hanging out with Adrien and Mysterious D of Bootie fame, getting a playa make-over from the Metamorphosis Salon, and a nude photo shoot, among others.
The Cinch is really starting to grow on me as a venue - it's very laid back, I like that there's a back patio area, and the drinks are easily the strongest on Polk Street. There's a punk rock vibe to all the events I've attended there, and I saw scads and scads of queer burners, artsy types, and Polk denizens. It would be nice to see them upgrade their soundsystem and get a little more dancing and less pool shooting in the back area, but in the meantime it remains high on my list of great queer hangouts.
Lucid Dreams Photos by The Boyfriend
The unsinkable Miss Juanita Fajita.
Somehow this photos says it all. Fancy footwear by Misses Juanita Fajita and Winona Juggs.
Ummmm, limber go-go boys. Can I be your back door man?
The devilish DJ Mermaid.
For me Lucid Dreams was mostly about an opportunity to socialize with friends. Though they have an okay DJ set up that you think would mean more dance-oriented events at The Cinch, the actual sound system is, in their own words, "kinda janky," and in the back area, where you have the most room for a dancefloor, the sound comes out of what seem to be old car stereo speakers. Given these pretty severe limitations Mermaid was still able to impart a fun, easy-going mood to the party, and when Juanita Fajita and Winona Juggs toppled up onto the stage for the auction portions of the evening, the crowd was loosened up enough to part with a considerable wad of cash for "experiences" like hanging out with Adrien and Mysterious D of Bootie fame, getting a playa make-over from the Metamorphosis Salon, and a nude photo shoot, among others.
The Cinch is really starting to grow on me as a venue - it's very laid back, I like that there's a back patio area, and the drinks are easily the strongest on Polk Street. There's a punk rock vibe to all the events I've attended there, and I saw scads and scads of queer burners, artsy types, and Polk denizens. It would be nice to see them upgrade their soundsystem and get a little more dancing and less pool shooting in the back area, but in the meantime it remains high on my list of great queer hangouts.
Lucid Dreams Photos by The Boyfriend
The unsinkable Miss Juanita Fajita.
Somehow this photos says it all. Fancy footwear by Misses Juanita Fajita and Winona Juggs.
Ummmm, limber go-go boys. Can I be your back door man?
The devilish DJ Mermaid.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Event Review: Lights Down Low v. Charlie Horse
Sometimes you just can't win - you've hard a hard week and you're ready to go out and lose some of your cares, you pick a night where you've had good times before, but after that the world seems to conspire against you, telling you that, this time, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was the experience the boyfriend and I had this last Friday at Lights Down Low at Club 222.
This past week had seen some significant tremors shaking the foundations of our worlds - for me, it was a big shake-up at work that found me reporting to a new and unknown manager, while the boyfriend found out on Thursday that he had to vacate his apartment that he's been sharing for three years because his deadbeat housemates had been late on the rent one too many times. We scrambled around, took off work Friday morning and started apartment hunting. The whole day Friday we were both a mess of distraction and fretfullness, generally out-of-sorts and feeling thrown to the wolves. We both needed to get out and relax, but then the boyfriend was also anxious about being out late and drinking the night before a training run (he's running in the Seattle half-marathon at Thanksgiving with his step-mother and sister). In hindsight we'd probably have been better off having drinks at the Pilsner and playing XBox, but then we had an actual invitation, and supposed guest-list passes, to Lights Down Low, so we figured we'd play through since we'd had fun there before.
My first instinct for Friday had been to check out Sweet 16 at Mighty with C.L.A.W.S. and the other underground techno kids of that circle, but, in the middle of the week, I got an email from DJ Sleazemore of LDL thanking me for supporting them in my reviews and inviting us to come this Friday, along with a mention of putting me on the guest list. I gave him my real name, but, lo and behold, we show up and there's no one with my particular set of unprounounceable Germanic syllables on the list. Bad Sign Number One. Bad Sign Number Two is that the cover is now $7 - this is a bad pricepoint kids, because no night that is really about a group of people getting together in a small Tenderloin bar and playing music is worth more than $5 - more than that and you're over-reaching. We walked in feeling mildly irritated with the world, and now were feeling positiviely peevish.
We hung out and had a couple drinks, then went outside for a bit while the boyfriend had a smoke, during which time Bad Sign Number Three occurred - someone threw a bottle of Hennesy at us from a window in the building either above or next to the club, missing us by about five feet. Nothing makes you feel welcome like having a bottle of liquor hurled in your general direction.
We went back in and found a seat in the small niche on the back of the dancefloor, and after another drink were starting to relax, though our conversation was focused on whether or not party nights are really all that important to the culture of the world, with the boyfriend being of the now dour opinion that it was all really vapid and stupid. I was trying to argue to the contrary when Bad Sign Number Four occurred (and somewhat undercut my argument).
Four kids, two boys and two girls (and I believe one of the boys may have been part of the LDL crew), came back and formed a kind of screen at the opening of our little seating enclosure, with their backs to the outside crowd. I watched as the girl began trying to "nonchalantly" fish something out of her bag. Instantly the boyfriend I both figured out what was up, and were pretty amused. Then the girl came and sat beside me - though it was barely enough room for her to plant her butt, there was no "hi," "excuse me," or anything else, even when I smiled and said "hi" to her. She continued to dig in her bag, and then one of the boys undid the lightbulb that lit our area, so we were sitting in the dark as the girl once again stood with the boys. And then we saw what she had taken from her bag, and it made the rounds of all four people while they were facing directly at us. Now kids, if you are going to do bumps in front of other people and not offer them any, that's just rude - remember back in grade school when you were told not to pull out your chewing gum unless you had enough to offer everyone a piece? Same principle applies here. Neither of us would have done any (well, I might have), but there's nothing to make you feel quite so small as to have people blantently doing drugs right in front of you, as though you are way too insignificant to be of any threat, or even interest, to them, especially when one of them is probably associated with the event itself. As soon as they left (without even bothering to screw the lightbulb back in, mind you - sorry we took up the "reserved area," next time we'll sit with the rest of hoi polloi), we decided that it was time to make our exit as well - we had already heard Sleazemore's set, which hadn't appealed to either of us, and while the boyfriend recognized several tracks that he liked in Rchrd OH!'s set, we decided to cut our losses and head up to Charlie Horse at The Cinch.
When we left the club we were almost trampled by six Latino guys running down the street in pursuit of someone, and then a moment later another bottle was thrown down onto the street. Okay, okay, we get the message already, I thought. We wandered up through the 'Loin to Polk and Washington, stopping for pizza along the way, and in the vicinity of The Hemlock Tavern overheard a Marina chick in heels say "I'm so glad they're starting to clean this area up." Us too, honey. We got to The Cinch just in time to catch the show, get ass-grabbed by Juanita Fajita, and have a couple laughs that lightened our mood.
So there you have it, a tale of how you can start out with the best of intentions and have everything wind up kind of shitty, so that, in the end, you're better off going with the easy and predictable. I still like Lights Down Low and think it has great fun potential - there were loads of kids having a good time on the dancefloor when we left, though I felt like it was more a party of people who knew each other already rather than a danceclub that was for everyone; there are more cute boys of the complicated haircut and black eyeliner sort than you can shake a stick at; it's getting gayer and gayer all the time; and though the music on this outing put me more in mind of The Cafe than the edgy electro I've heard there before, I still think it's a good place to go and get in touch with a different aesthetic - but on this particular occasion it was a strike-out. If it hadn't been for Juanita getting all flirty with me at The Cinch, I might have ended this Friday feeling pretty non-existant, and that sure isn't the reason I, or anyone else, likes to go out. And kids, if you're going to do drugs in clubs, do them in the bathroom, okay? That's what they're there for.
This past week had seen some significant tremors shaking the foundations of our worlds - for me, it was a big shake-up at work that found me reporting to a new and unknown manager, while the boyfriend found out on Thursday that he had to vacate his apartment that he's been sharing for three years because his deadbeat housemates had been late on the rent one too many times. We scrambled around, took off work Friday morning and started apartment hunting. The whole day Friday we were both a mess of distraction and fretfullness, generally out-of-sorts and feeling thrown to the wolves. We both needed to get out and relax, but then the boyfriend was also anxious about being out late and drinking the night before a training run (he's running in the Seattle half-marathon at Thanksgiving with his step-mother and sister). In hindsight we'd probably have been better off having drinks at the Pilsner and playing XBox, but then we had an actual invitation, and supposed guest-list passes, to Lights Down Low, so we figured we'd play through since we'd had fun there before.
My first instinct for Friday had been to check out Sweet 16 at Mighty with C.L.A.W.S. and the other underground techno kids of that circle, but, in the middle of the week, I got an email from DJ Sleazemore of LDL thanking me for supporting them in my reviews and inviting us to come this Friday, along with a mention of putting me on the guest list. I gave him my real name, but, lo and behold, we show up and there's no one with my particular set of unprounounceable Germanic syllables on the list. Bad Sign Number One. Bad Sign Number Two is that the cover is now $7 - this is a bad pricepoint kids, because no night that is really about a group of people getting together in a small Tenderloin bar and playing music is worth more than $5 - more than that and you're over-reaching. We walked in feeling mildly irritated with the world, and now were feeling positiviely peevish.
We hung out and had a couple drinks, then went outside for a bit while the boyfriend had a smoke, during which time Bad Sign Number Three occurred - someone threw a bottle of Hennesy at us from a window in the building either above or next to the club, missing us by about five feet. Nothing makes you feel welcome like having a bottle of liquor hurled in your general direction.
We went back in and found a seat in the small niche on the back of the dancefloor, and after another drink were starting to relax, though our conversation was focused on whether or not party nights are really all that important to the culture of the world, with the boyfriend being of the now dour opinion that it was all really vapid and stupid. I was trying to argue to the contrary when Bad Sign Number Four occurred (and somewhat undercut my argument).
Four kids, two boys and two girls (and I believe one of the boys may have been part of the LDL crew), came back and formed a kind of screen at the opening of our little seating enclosure, with their backs to the outside crowd. I watched as the girl began trying to "nonchalantly" fish something out of her bag. Instantly the boyfriend I both figured out what was up, and were pretty amused. Then the girl came and sat beside me - though it was barely enough room for her to plant her butt, there was no "hi," "excuse me," or anything else, even when I smiled and said "hi" to her. She continued to dig in her bag, and then one of the boys undid the lightbulb that lit our area, so we were sitting in the dark as the girl once again stood with the boys. And then we saw what she had taken from her bag, and it made the rounds of all four people while they were facing directly at us. Now kids, if you are going to do bumps in front of other people and not offer them any, that's just rude - remember back in grade school when you were told not to pull out your chewing gum unless you had enough to offer everyone a piece? Same principle applies here. Neither of us would have done any (well, I might have), but there's nothing to make you feel quite so small as to have people blantently doing drugs right in front of you, as though you are way too insignificant to be of any threat, or even interest, to them, especially when one of them is probably associated with the event itself. As soon as they left (without even bothering to screw the lightbulb back in, mind you - sorry we took up the "reserved area," next time we'll sit with the rest of hoi polloi), we decided that it was time to make our exit as well - we had already heard Sleazemore's set, which hadn't appealed to either of us, and while the boyfriend recognized several tracks that he liked in Rchrd OH!'s set, we decided to cut our losses and head up to Charlie Horse at The Cinch.
When we left the club we were almost trampled by six Latino guys running down the street in pursuit of someone, and then a moment later another bottle was thrown down onto the street. Okay, okay, we get the message already, I thought. We wandered up through the 'Loin to Polk and Washington, stopping for pizza along the way, and in the vicinity of The Hemlock Tavern overheard a Marina chick in heels say "I'm so glad they're starting to clean this area up." Us too, honey. We got to The Cinch just in time to catch the show, get ass-grabbed by Juanita Fajita, and have a couple laughs that lightened our mood.
So there you have it, a tale of how you can start out with the best of intentions and have everything wind up kind of shitty, so that, in the end, you're better off going with the easy and predictable. I still like Lights Down Low and think it has great fun potential - there were loads of kids having a good time on the dancefloor when we left, though I felt like it was more a party of people who knew each other already rather than a danceclub that was for everyone; there are more cute boys of the complicated haircut and black eyeliner sort than you can shake a stick at; it's getting gayer and gayer all the time; and though the music on this outing put me more in mind of The Cafe than the edgy electro I've heard there before, I still think it's a good place to go and get in touch with a different aesthetic - but on this particular occasion it was a strike-out. If it hadn't been for Juanita getting all flirty with me at The Cinch, I might have ended this Friday feeling pretty non-existant, and that sure isn't the reason I, or anyone else, likes to go out. And kids, if you're going to do drugs in clubs, do them in the bathroom, okay? That's what they're there for.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Event Review: Charlie Horse "Carnival of Freaks" at The Cinch
In my experience of drag shows, you generally get one of two things: the hardcore "illusion" drag where the girls really, really pass as women, and usually reference classic female vocalists in their performances; or "chaos" drag, where the girls and their peformances have more in common with the Grand Guignol tradition. In San Francisco you have Marlena's as the epitome of the first sort, with Charlie Horse at The Cinch on Friday nights delivering horror, chaos, blood, indeterminate gender assignment, jokes about drug abuse, and performances that would be way too weird, gross, or just plain out bizarre for Trannyshack. Overall, I much prefer Charlie Horse to just about any other drag show I have ever seen.
The "Carnival of Freaks" show this past Friday was typical Charlie Horse: Anna Conda as a Marlene Dietriech-eque ring master, Frieda Laye and Juanita Fajita as conjoined twins singing a duet, a boy who really wanted to be Bjork performing a track from her new album, and another performer who wound up covered in (hopefully fake) blood that s/he continued to wear for the rest of the night. Tod Browning's Freaks was playing on the bar TVs, and the relation between those sexual outsiders and the ones in the bar was obvious; everyone performing and watching, was, in relation to the world outside that bar, a freak, so why not have some fun with it?
The performances and costumes at Charlie Horse are not as polished as what you'll find at Tranny Shack, which has become a veritable institution on the level of Beach Blanket Babylon, but there is a punk rock aesthetic (underscored by the indie rock spins of DJ Dirty Knees) that makes the Charlie Horse shows more immediate and thought-provoking. The girls at Trannyshack are certainly Queens, having risen up through the ranks of drag society and now reached the highest possible levels of hairstyle engineering, but the performers at Charlie Horse seem much more willing to take risks in their performance of drag, and the personas that they create are not as much about a representation of the feminine, or even the creation of a definitive personality, as they are vehicles around which they can build a performance. In this way (and I mean this in the best possible way, lest I get a stiletto heel through the eye) they are more like clowns than queens; not the watered-down children's TV version of clowns, but more like the jesters who can amuse and disquiet us at the same time.
Charlie Horse is a fun time; I enjoy going there on a Friday night when I want to have an easygoing drink, sit on the back deck and smoke, see a few friends or maybe chat up somebody new. But Charlie Horse is also where I can go to see peformances that make me laugh, and sometimes even make me think.
The "Carnival of Freaks" show this past Friday was typical Charlie Horse: Anna Conda as a Marlene Dietriech-eque ring master, Frieda Laye and Juanita Fajita as conjoined twins singing a duet, a boy who really wanted to be Bjork performing a track from her new album, and another performer who wound up covered in (hopefully fake) blood that s/he continued to wear for the rest of the night. Tod Browning's Freaks was playing on the bar TVs, and the relation between those sexual outsiders and the ones in the bar was obvious; everyone performing and watching, was, in relation to the world outside that bar, a freak, so why not have some fun with it?
The performances and costumes at Charlie Horse are not as polished as what you'll find at Tranny Shack, which has become a veritable institution on the level of Beach Blanket Babylon, but there is a punk rock aesthetic (underscored by the indie rock spins of DJ Dirty Knees) that makes the Charlie Horse shows more immediate and thought-provoking. The girls at Trannyshack are certainly Queens, having risen up through the ranks of drag society and now reached the highest possible levels of hairstyle engineering, but the performers at Charlie Horse seem much more willing to take risks in their performance of drag, and the personas that they create are not as much about a representation of the feminine, or even the creation of a definitive personality, as they are vehicles around which they can build a performance. In this way (and I mean this in the best possible way, lest I get a stiletto heel through the eye) they are more like clowns than queens; not the watered-down children's TV version of clowns, but more like the jesters who can amuse and disquiet us at the same time.
Charlie Horse is a fun time; I enjoy going there on a Friday night when I want to have an easygoing drink, sit on the back deck and smoke, see a few friends or maybe chat up somebody new. But Charlie Horse is also where I can go to see peformances that make me laugh, and sometimes even make me think.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Jaded Gay DJ on the Road!
Hey kids, the jaded gay dj is on the road this week, working on the skills that pay the bills (really, I don't make a living at this, ya know?) So while I'm in the midwest capital of fun (until Wednesday), Minneapolis, expect the updates to be a little less frequent. But here's a sneak preview of what I'll be putting up for you in the next few days:
Charlie Horse's "Carnival Freaks" at The Cinch: Anna Conda as Marlene Dietrich, Frieda Laye and Juanitia Fajita as conjoined twins - think about that for a while!
Techno Parties in the Park: to paraphrase an associate, I love it when the biggest problem of my day is figuring out which techno party in the park is the one I meant to attend!
Minneapolis Scene Report: hey, gay bars here are just as boring as they are in San Francisco!
Watch this space for more soon!
Charlie Horse's "Carnival Freaks" at The Cinch: Anna Conda as Marlene Dietrich, Frieda Laye and Juanitia Fajita as conjoined twins - think about that for a while!
Techno Parties in the Park: to paraphrase an associate, I love it when the biggest problem of my day is figuring out which techno party in the park is the one I meant to attend!
Minneapolis Scene Report: hey, gay bars here are just as boring as they are in San Francisco!
Watch this space for more soon!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Your Friday Guide
For some reason, Fridays have become my favorite night to go out. I'm not sure why this is, but it seems that most of the events of interest to me happen on Fridays. Well, that's just fine, more time to recover. So, for this Friday the jaded gay DJ recommends:
FUK werk Fridays Happy Hour at 111 Minna
A new minimal techno happy hour in downtown, yee-haa!
Fag Fridays at The EndUp
Reliable, if not all that exciting, but it goes all night, expect to pay around $20 to get in and to dance to pretty typical San Francisco deep house (the DJs should update their bios, since they refer to clubs that don't exist any more)
The Rod at Deco
FREE before 10, $5 after, where the guys tend to be a bit frisky, though the music is all disco-retro
Charlie Horse at The Cinch
Free entry, easy-going, cheap strong drinks, crazy drag escapades, a good place to put down a couple on a Friday night when you're looking for a low-key but entertaining evening
Lights Down Low at 222 Club
I've not had a chance to check out this night yet but it seems interesting (despite the cliche "sexy girls" video they have on their myspace page), with good reviews for the bar itself on Yelp. If anybody goes and can give a report, please do so for the benefit of myself and everyone else looking for a good time. This Friday is DJ Sleazemore's birthday, so expect some celebrating.
Not sure where I'll end up at this point; I've heard that there's a tattoo studio in Oakland that will do a "13" for you on Friday the 13th for 13 dollars, so the boyfriend and I may be getting inked with a friend of his, and lord knows what we'll get up to after that. I'll be sure to let you know, though.
FUK werk Fridays Happy Hour at 111 Minna
A new minimal techno happy hour in downtown, yee-haa!
Fag Fridays at The EndUp
Reliable, if not all that exciting, but it goes all night, expect to pay around $20 to get in and to dance to pretty typical San Francisco deep house (the DJs should update their bios, since they refer to clubs that don't exist any more)
The Rod at Deco
FREE before 10, $5 after, where the guys tend to be a bit frisky, though the music is all disco-retro
Charlie Horse at The Cinch
Free entry, easy-going, cheap strong drinks, crazy drag escapades, a good place to put down a couple on a Friday night when you're looking for a low-key but entertaining evening
Lights Down Low at 222 Club
I've not had a chance to check out this night yet but it seems interesting (despite the cliche "sexy girls" video they have on their myspace page), with good reviews for the bar itself on Yelp. If anybody goes and can give a report, please do so for the benefit of myself and everyone else looking for a good time. This Friday is DJ Sleazemore's birthday, so expect some celebrating.
Not sure where I'll end up at this point; I've heard that there's a tattoo studio in Oakland that will do a "13" for you on Friday the 13th for 13 dollars, so the boyfriend and I may be getting inked with a friend of his, and lord knows what we'll get up to after that. I'll be sure to let you know, though.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Ducal Doin's: The Mr. Bunny Contest Rages On!
The contest for Mr. and Miss Bunny continued on Sunday at the Cinch, where Diamond Disco Duke Brian Busta convened his court once again for an Easter Basket auction to benefit the SPCA’s hearing dogs for the deaf. This time there was extra fun in the form of Gotcha, a shepherd mix dog who demonstrated for the crowd all the neat things she has been trained to do, like picking up keys when they get dropped, or making sure her companion knows that the phone is ringing.
The Cinch up on Polkstrasse was a great venue that brought out such luminaries as Miss Anna Conda and, making command performances, Juanita Fajita and Frieda Laye. In between performances various Easter baskets were auctioned off, and yours truly, feeling inspired by Gotcha and disinhibited by three of the strongest drinks I’ve had at a bar in a long time, walked off with two of them, including one that came with a painting created by the Duke hisself. The Mr. and Miss Bunny contestants, meanwhile, continued to sell raffle tickets in an attempt to boost their standings in said contest. And here’s where I’ve a bone to pick with the workings of the Ducal court.
So here’s the deal: contestants actually pay for the books of raffle tickets they sell, so essentially what happens is that if they have enough money of their own, they can buy the tickets straight out and don’t really need to worry about the re-sale. But my good friend Kitty, who is competing against Mr. SPCA whom I mentioned in the last Ducal post, is an underemployed graphic designer who is doing all he can right now to pay his rent and meet his other financial obligations. He got into the contest because of his personal friendship with the Duke, whom he wanted to help out, and because he wanted to do some community service work. Mr. SPCA, on the other hand, is fully employed and, no doubt, has plenty of friends with money as well. As I pointed out in my last post, there seems to be some conflict of interest with him competing in this contest when it’s being used to raise money for the non-profit that he works for, but I’m more concerned that this whole court business devolves, eventually, into classist system that favors people who have money, and move in moneyed circles, rather than people who are there because they want to do something for their community. I certainly hope that the final decision will be based on something other than just fundraising. I’m sure Mr. SPCA is a nice guy, and I will refrain from catty comments about things like hair coloring and how only Polk Street hustlers walk around with the middle button of their jeans undone, but I think the cards are being stacked in an unfair way against Kitty. The crowning will take place on Easter Sunday at Café Flore, so we’ll see how it all works out by then,
The Cinch up on Polkstrasse was a great venue that brought out such luminaries as Miss Anna Conda and, making command performances, Juanita Fajita and Frieda Laye. In between performances various Easter baskets were auctioned off, and yours truly, feeling inspired by Gotcha and disinhibited by three of the strongest drinks I’ve had at a bar in a long time, walked off with two of them, including one that came with a painting created by the Duke hisself. The Mr. and Miss Bunny contestants, meanwhile, continued to sell raffle tickets in an attempt to boost their standings in said contest. And here’s where I’ve a bone to pick with the workings of the Ducal court.
So here’s the deal: contestants actually pay for the books of raffle tickets they sell, so essentially what happens is that if they have enough money of their own, they can buy the tickets straight out and don’t really need to worry about the re-sale. But my good friend Kitty, who is competing against Mr. SPCA whom I mentioned in the last Ducal post, is an underemployed graphic designer who is doing all he can right now to pay his rent and meet his other financial obligations. He got into the contest because of his personal friendship with the Duke, whom he wanted to help out, and because he wanted to do some community service work. Mr. SPCA, on the other hand, is fully employed and, no doubt, has plenty of friends with money as well. As I pointed out in my last post, there seems to be some conflict of interest with him competing in this contest when it’s being used to raise money for the non-profit that he works for, but I’m more concerned that this whole court business devolves, eventually, into classist system that favors people who have money, and move in moneyed circles, rather than people who are there because they want to do something for their community. I certainly hope that the final decision will be based on something other than just fundraising. I’m sure Mr. SPCA is a nice guy, and I will refrain from catty comments about things like hair coloring and how only Polk Street hustlers walk around with the middle button of their jeans undone, but I think the cards are being stacked in an unfair way against Kitty. The crowning will take place on Easter Sunday at Café Flore, so we’ll see how it all works out by then,
Monday, February 26, 2007
Charlie Horse at The Cinch, "PJ Harvey Night"
This past Friday I made it up to The Cinch on Polk Street for another installment of Charlie Horse, this time with the theme of PJ Harvey - yes, drag queens and PJ Harvey are two things that go great together. DJ Dirty Knees once again played a set of generally inoffensive "rock" that made for tolerable background as I hung out with several members of Comfort and Joy who were finally recovered from last week's Afterglow escapades.
Anna Conda was just back from a European tour, including a chance to see The Decemberists in Amsterdam. Her take on Euro club music was that it was "awful," being all "canned house" that reminded her of "mecha-Cher." I was very curious about what she was talking about exactly, and where she had gone to hear this awful music - while it's true that Euro prole-techno is among the most horrible atrocities ever committed upon the ears of humans, my impression is that you would only hear this stuff in the most prole clubs, since the cool kids are all spinning minimal these days. Anna went on to say how lucky we were to have two "gay rock" nights in San Francisco, Charlie Horse being one, the other being Trans Am, also DJed by Dirty Knees. I suppose it makes sense for drag queens to be into rock, since long, abstract tracks with no lyrics don't really present performance opportunities, and for a drag queen, anything that distracts an audience's attention from her has got to go. Personally, I prefer clubs where people dance rather than stand around with their arms folded over their chests, but that's just me.
Anna Conda was just back from a European tour, including a chance to see The Decemberists in Amsterdam. Her take on Euro club music was that it was "awful," being all "canned house" that reminded her of "mecha-Cher." I was very curious about what she was talking about exactly, and where she had gone to hear this awful music - while it's true that Euro prole-techno is among the most horrible atrocities ever committed upon the ears of humans, my impression is that you would only hear this stuff in the most prole clubs, since the cool kids are all spinning minimal these days. Anna went on to say how lucky we were to have two "gay rock" nights in San Francisco, Charlie Horse being one, the other being Trans Am, also DJed by Dirty Knees. I suppose it makes sense for drag queens to be into rock, since long, abstract tracks with no lyrics don't really present performance opportunities, and for a drag queen, anything that distracts an audience's attention from her has got to go. Personally, I prefer clubs where people dance rather than stand around with their arms folded over their chests, but that's just me.
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