Putting the ME in Menergy

Those of you who are awesome will remember an early Macho City where a certain gay blogger was a guest DJ and introduced the Detroit queer world to the glory of Disco Evita, among other rare disco delights. It was a, if I do say so myself.  Well guess what?  I'm at it again!

This Saturday marks the third run of Mike Trombley's fantastic Menergy party and yours truly is the special guest star!  I will be bringing my minimal beat-matching skillz but, frankly, rather amazing and esoteric musical taste to the Temple Bar for one night only, serving up gay 80s Hi-NRG, Italo Disco and more the way I remember it happening.  Or at least the way I imagine I remember it happening.

Menergy has turned out to be a fantastic new dance party from the Mike Trombley (TM) brand, a very fitting sequel to Macho City and a super fun way to get a cultural history lesson while you gay dance the night away!  Plus the cover is a ridiculously low $1!

[Speaking of, the Macho City, Three-Year Anniversary party is coming up April 28, so mark your calendars!]

Come this Saturday, it all starts about 10pm and goes til 2!  And don't forget your poppers!

Doggy Style Curtain Call!

The last Doggy Style of the season is here!  How did that even happen?  I blame global climate change.

Anyway, tomorrow night, Tuesday April 3, is the last Doggy Style of the season!  Come on out and get one final dose of downtown gay camaraderie, plus drinks and fun videos!  Come and watch the Hotel Charlevoix fall apart into the street!  Park on the street before the city bans it after 10pm!  So many things to enjoy at this special moment in time.

The good times start around 9:30 and continue into the evening.  I've got lots of new videos for you to watch, or you can even talk to friends, old and new.  See you tomorrow!

Lezzie les bons temps roulez!

In the interest of the recap, let me just say that Menergy was the funnest, gayest dance party I've been to in forever.  It was so fun to see so many friends and SO MANY new faces.  It's always nice to get an influx of new gay folks to meet.  And check out.

It was also great because it was really, really a gay night.  I love a gay dance party when it's just the gays and the cool kids because it reminds of what a trip to the gay bar used to be like.  There have always been straight women, and sometimes straight men, but they were always there as part of the party, not to co-opt the party.  One of the trade-offs with gay mainstreaming is now the gay world is more accessible to more straight people, so you sometimes get a phenomenon like Boystown in Chicago, the bachelorette party capital of the Midwest.  Where it isn't about having fun in the context of a gay scene, it's about the novelty of the gay scene.  No, really, I'm not super-fun and I DON'T want to do body shots off the bride-to-be, I just want to check out the gay eye candy. Plus seriously, until gay people can get married don't you find it a little cavalier bringing drunk wedding hijinx into a gay bar?

Or to frame it locally - one of the first times I went to Macho City I heard a couple straight folks talk a bit incredulously that there was a guy giving another guy oral pleasure against the pool table.  It's a gay leather bar, you were expecting hopscotch?  One of the last times I went there were two hipster-glam straight girls making out on that same pool table, which just struck me as a terribly desperate cry for attention. You're at a gay bar, ladies, so for once, it isn't about you.  Hang out, be cool and just have fun, mkay?

Of course Temple Bar isn't technically a gay bar, so I probably feel less defensive about any and all sorts showing up.  As long as Mike Trombley is spinning awesome music and Robert is running around the dancefloor offering poppers to everyone, I'm good.  And I can't wait for next time!

In other news, the Doggy Style countdown has begun!  We're about six weeks out from Opening Day, so crawl out of your hole one of these Tuesdays and enjoy Detroit's best gay-er night before it's gone for the season.  Tonight will be extra fun because a whole slew of unsuspecting Guns 'n' Roses fans will stumble in after the show and enjoy some Abba or Limahl or Angela Lansbury with their nightcap.

So, perhaps we will see you tonight at the Park Bar for some Mardis Gras fun?  And don't worry, we are respectful and all about having fun in the context of the straight scene, because really, what novelty is left?  Kidding!

Menergy

Is it just me or are things kind of blah around here lately?  I know people are saying all kinds of nice things about Detroit and if life were as active as my Facebook feed things would be rockin', but it isn't and they aren't. Maybe it's the winter doldrums but I just haven't been feeling it lately.

Which is why you can imagine my excitement when I was chatting with Mike Trombley a little while ago and he told me that while Macho City is on hiatus, he's come up with a new dance party for homosexuals like (possibly) you and (definitely) me. Moving forward a little bit on the gay dance music timeline, this one focuses on the synth-heavy dance music of the early 80's, and it takes its name from the iconic hi-NRG track by Patrick Cowley: Menergy.

If you're like me and obsessed with gayness before your time, Menergy (menergy) is of course a completely thrilling concept. It's San Francisco, 1981. You dance the night away rocking the clone look and doing poppers on the dancefloor, hooking up with a stranger in the back room and not worrying about AIDS because nobody heard of it yet.  Well, there's no back room and we have heard of AIDS now, but maybe make out with a stranger in the corner and pretend, or get a handy in the bathroom.  And bring your own poppers, they won't be for sale behind the bar like at Macho City.

Menergy (menergy) is also generating enormous excitement Chez Supergay because Mike Trombley is THE KING of finding great music you never knew existed.  To help you visualize the vibe, Mike has provided a list of people, places and things you should contemplate (which, conveniently enough, are also gay blog keyword search gold):

Think Hi-NRG, Patrick Cowley, Oil Can Harry's, The EndUp Club, Bath House Etiquette, Bobby Orlando, Ian Levine, Sequential Circuits, Trocadero Transfer, Todd's, Midnight Funk Association, Man Parrish, Mr. Master, Italo Disco, Disconet mixes, mustaches, Numbers, Club Heaven, Stock Aitken Waterman, Tales of the City, Joe Dallesandro, Cruise or be Cruised, The Hanky Code, Tom of Finland, Fire Island, Urei 1620, Minimal Synth, Megatone, Kenneth Anger, Bruce LaBruce, Peter Berlin, Chad Douglas, Klaus Nomi, Keith Haring, Larry Levan, Den Haan, The Music Box, Continental Baths, poppers, beards, booze and dance moves. 

Menergy (men-er-gy) will be held at the Temple Bar, which is super awesome because it is conveniently located downtown and has a proven track record of hosting awesome dance parties ie: Haute To Death. It debuts this Saturday night, February 11, so prepare to get hot and sweaty on the dancefloor.  I'm off to listen to my Megatone 12-inch compilation to get in the mood - see you there!

M E N E R G Y

Hi-NRG * Italo Disco * Minimal Synth

21+ / $1 Cover

The Temple Bar, 2906 Cass Avenue, Detroit

Centaur Style!

For our first Doggy Style of 2012 we're going on a little road trip!  And by little I mean very little ... Doggy Style is moving up Park Avenue for one extra fancy night at Centaur!  So everyone come out for a whole new audio/visual/homosexual experience tomorrow night!

Why the switch-up?  Well, I have been friends with Centaur owner Sean Harrington for what seems like forever.  It has to be 15 years now.  He is a great guy, and we have worked together on many projects together over the years, most significantly my temporary (and soon to be permanent) store Hugh, where he served as very accommodating landlord.

When I came up with the idea of the Pride Project last year, Sean was one of the first people I called and was the very first one to commit to a sponsorship - for both Centaur and Town Pump - so I guess you could say he is the one who really gave me the assurance I needed that I would be able to pull together a reasonable amount of support.  And obviously, that turned out great.

So as a thank you, I told him we'd do a Doggy Style "uptown" and hopefully spend a little of that alleged gay dollar up his way.

Those of you who have been hanging around the Detroit scene for a while will remember the Guerrilla Queer Bar events that were held at Centaur (there were two), and they were always great fun.  So to kick off 2012 we're going to give a little love back to Sean, since really a big reason anything I've done in the past few years was remotely successful was because of his help.

Centaur is going to hook us up with special prices on drinks for the night!  House pours are usually $7, but they will be $5 for the night (and their house pours are not junk).  And if you've been meaning to check out the new Hot Taco in the old Hugh space, you can do that cuz they're open 'til 2!  So come out to Centaur, the original home of the gay straight guy, and have some fun, Centaur Style!

Sit. Stay. Roll Over.

Hey!  It's a holiday week for Doggy Style, and that always means extra fun.  Especially if you have Wednesday off!

Doggy Style is off to a great start for its fifth season, but maybe you haven't been yet.  "What can I expect?" you may be wondering.  Well here's the deal:  there is an awesome (if I do say so myself) mix of videos from the sixties to now, with a bit of an emphasis on the golden age of music videos, the 80s.  There is gay music and new wave music and electronic music and not an insignificant amount of euro-pop.  There are the occasional clips from musicals, television shows and viral videos.  And sometimes I make my own videos because I still am occasionally inspired and have a little free time.

The crowd is always mixed - straight people like Doggy Style too!  But the vibe is gay and there is generally a good assortment of the city-oriented homosexualists I created Doggy Style to appeal to in the first place.  How many?  A good week might have fifty.  An off-week might have a dozen.  It's really a crapshoot, but everyone is friendly and sometimes there's even a love connection (although honestly, not that often).

Overall, if you are looking to change it up from the usual gay bar thing and meet some clever and inspiring folks while watching clever and inspiring music videos, then Doggy Style is for you.  See you this week, maybe, for the good times of Doggy Style and the great taste of booze at the Park Bar!

No Stars

Man, I love a Doggy Style night, especially when it follows an Open City.  Open City, if you are not familiar, is a kind of grassroots small business incubator/support group/networking opportunity that's been going on for several years.  It's a good resource if you are thinking about embarking on your own independent retail adventure in Detroit.  Tonight's topic was "Localism" - ways to support and cultivate local business.

Of course I didn't make it despite my best efforts.  I was delayed by an extended meetup with some writing co-horts elsewhere, but I got to talk to a lot of the Open City folks at the Park Bar before Doggy Style.  So I had "Localism" on my mind all night.

Fortunately, I had a little local in the video mix for the evening.  It probably depends a lot on your age, whether or not you remember these guys, but Figures on a Beach were kind of a big deal in the 80s in Detroit.  They were signed to Sire records (in the Depeche Mode heydey) and were included on the first Sire compilation CD "Just Say Yes" with their song "No Stars."

Naturally they faded away, a bit of a one-hit wonder, although I still have their EP "Swimming" which is pretty great.  And man, did I have a new wave crush on the lead singer.

Anyway, "No Stars" made an appearance at Doggy Style tonight and in the spirit of "Localism," let's celebrate one of Detroit's few New Wave breakout bands, Figures on a Beach.

Strap On Your Girdle ...

It's back!  Starting tomorrow night.  See you there!

Downtown Roundup for Pride

Motor City Pride weekend is here!  I was talking to a bunch of friends last night and everyone is so excited - it's like we live in a different city.  Last year I was in San Francisco for their Pride, and while I readily admit the level of planning and number of festivities was much greater there, the anticipation for the event in Detroit this year seems about on par with that.  And if that's not progress I don't know what is.

The Pride Project was an overwhelming success.  Forty-five independent businesses from Corktown, Midtown, Woodbridge, Eastern Market, New Center and the Central Business District participated, and together as the Greater Downtown Independent Merchants we raised over $7000 for Motor City Pride. The group is a sponsor at the Gold Level, the highest sponsorship level this year!

Please visit our extra special website to see all the great downtown businesses that chipped in.  Visit them this weekend while you are out and about, and throughout the year!  They are our friends and a fantastically supportive community, and I can't send them enough love.

OK, so onto the festivities!  There is a lot going on at Hart Plaza, most notably a bunch of us city-dwellers will be hanging out at our booth in Sponsor's Row, just as you enter the festival.  Stop by and say hello!

But there's also a lot going around downtown of special interest for Pride attendees as well. Here is a rundown of things you'll want to take advantage of this weekend.

FRIDAY
Visit my little contribution to downtown's alternative gay scene tonight!  The very special Motor City Pride edition of Doggy Style takes place at the Park Bar from 9-2, with a painstakingly curated mix of highly entertaining music videos.  All the cool kids will be there!

SATURDAY
If you head downtown for the Saturday component of Pride, it's a quick two blocks to the Grand Trunk Pub.  They are always a good spot to visit and as a special extra for Pride, DJ GM (or as you may know him better, Greg Mudge, proprietor of Mudgie's Deli in Corktown) will be spinning all afternoon and evening.  They have a great patio, great eats and if you are a beer lover, they have fifteen craft beers on tap.  Which are also great!

Of special interest, Saturday is the date for the annual Historic Indian Village Home and Garden Tour, which is always lovely and you can hit before Pride starts Saturday afternoon.  Tickets are $20 there is more info at their website.  See Sunday's activities for more info on tours of the Villages!

Saturday night, another mainstay on the downtown scene, Fierce Hot Mess, is having its third anniversary party AND Official Pride Afterparty at Oslo!  "Messy dance floor decadence, fierce music and hot people, converging in one place to create a distinct Detroit experience that is sure to be remembered."   Our favorite dj's, Mike Trombley and Chuck Hampton (aka Gay Marvine) always play the most amazing music!

If you are looking to mix things up on Saturday night, you can also check out the Cupcake Collective at the Old Miami, where they present All OUT Detroit: A Very Special Cruise.  They will be playing electro, disco, house, hip-hop and soul all night, and part of the proceeds go to benefit the Ruth Ellis Center.

SUNDAY
Sunday morning is the all-new Pride parade!  It starts at Griswold north of Lafayette (think Lafayette Coney Island area) and goes down to Hart Plaza.  Who knows what it will be like?  Probably awesomely home-grown.  I'll be walking with the "Robert M. Nelson presents a Salute to Robert M. Nelson, with Robert M. Nelson and the Detroit friends of Robert M. Nelson" float.  Who is Robert M. Nelson?  Find out at 11am on Sunday!

When you are at the Pride festival, make sure you check out the DJ set by Macho City's Mike Trombley at 5 on Sunday!

Wind down after Pride at Cafe D'Mongo's!  Larry is opening especially for us "in honor of your parade" and I expect a lively afterparty at everyone's fave watering hole will be the perfect way to end a fun weekend.  Come by for drinks and Robert M. Nelson will show you how he puts the "easy" in "speakeasy."

SPECIALS
Some of the sponsors in the Pride Program are making special offers just for Motor City Pride attendees.

Wheelhouse Detroit is located right on the riverfront, and you can rent a bike and do a little exploring.  It's so fun to bike around downtown and Sunday in particular is supposed to be GORGEOUS.  If you show your Pride sticker (you know, the one they give you when you enter Motor City Pride) you can get 20% off rentals, so two hours is only $10 and a full day is only $25!  Those Wheelhouse girls are the best.

Avalon is giving a 10% discount off your purchase for the weekend if you tell the retail staff a piece of local or national GLBT trivia.  Which will be really easy to do if you read Tim Retzloff's great op-ed in this week's excellent issue of Between the Lines.  Buy cookies and bring them to us at Hart Plaza!

Inside Detroit, the downtown's unofficial chamber of commerce and home of the Detroit Segway tour, has a great retail shop inside the Welcome Center in Merchant's Row.  They sell tons of unique Detroit apparel and locally-made items, and they are offering 15% off in honor of Pride weekend!

ALSO
While you are at Pride, be sure to stop by the booth for The Villages of Detroit because they are offering three FREE one-hour bus tours that leave from Hart Plaza.  It won't be as in-depth as the Indian Village Home & Garden Tour on Saturday, but it will give you a great overview of all the Villages, and there will be one stop to visit a gay-owned home on the tour!

Also in the home tour category (but separate from Pride), Corktown is presenting their Historical Home & Garden Tour on Sunday from 12-5. It's not specifically for Pride but who doesn't love a home tour?

Finally, when you are at Pride, stop by the booth for the Spirit of Hope Church, where our friend Pastor Matt is running a GLBT trivia contest.  Answer questions on gay politics, music, society and religion and get a chance to win a gift card from a Detroit Pride Project business!

That's all I've got for now.  See you at Motor City Pride!

Doggy Style Pride

Motor City Pride is right around the corner! It's hard to believe it's almost here - almost as hard to believe as the fact I'm actually excited about it.  Of course it is kind of a big deal: Pride moving downtown, expanding to two days, and upgrading in just about every way.  It's like the most idealistic dreams of a very annoyed me four years ago come true.

Being as excited as I have been, I've naturally overextended myself on a bunch of planning and coordinating my various gay spring projects, but I wanted take the time to make sure everyone knows we are having a very special Doggy Style at the Park Bar, just to kick off Motor City Pride!

This Friday night stop by the Park Bar anytime from 9pm to 2am and get Doggy Stylin'!  It'll be an extra special night of old favorites and new surprises and the perfect way to get into a gay downtown mood.  And remember, Doggy Style is Detroit's best "gay-er" night so your straight friends can come too!  As long as they can handle a little Xanadu.

See you Friday!  And spread the word on Facebook!

[OH! I almost forgot, if you are interested in volunteering at Pride, they could still use some help!  It's an awesome way to pitch in, meet some new people and get some good karma.  You can squeeze in a couple hours of helping and still have lots of Pride fun.  I recommend you sign up to be a check-in person, so you can check out everyone as they come through the gates!]

Change of Season

As winter's last gasp keeps us bundled up for a just a few days more, it's reassuring to know that soon spring will be firmly rooted and we can finally ditch our Season Affective Disorder for another year.  With this great news comes some bad though.  The home baseball season starts this Friday, and that means we've come to the end of another season of Tuesday Nights Doggy Style at the Park Bar!

Join us tonight for some gay camaraderie, the beverage or beverages of your choice and not one but TWO new video compilations, plus Doggy Style's greatest hits!  It's a night to remember, at least until you forget!

Thanks to all the folks who came out for good times and this (compared to last year) surprisingly robust season of Doggy Style!  And thanks to our good friends at the Park Bar who let us gay it up every week!  See you in the fall, probably!

Fierce Is as Fierce Does

There are few things less inspiring than Michigan in February.  The holidays are over, the charm of a winter wonderland has worn off, and we're still two months away from any real signs of spring no matter what the groundhog says.  When the world gets like this, what's a guy gotta do to keep things exciting and fun? Get out of the house, that's what.  Fortunately I've got just the pill to break that cabin fever.

It's been a while since we chatted about Fierce Hot Mess, the monthly gay dance party at Oslo, and partially that's because FHM took a tiny break and partially because I took a tiny break.  But - FINALLY - things are back on track in all quarters and this Saturday is your chance to have a little underground winter fun!

FHM was a real breath of fresh air when it started up and one of the strangest coincidences of my life happened the morning after a FHM a few years ago.  It has been a fixture on the downtown gay scene for a while now and it has matured into what host Adriel Fantastique! describes as "a monthly celebration of Detroit underground culture."

click for larger image!

The addition of DJs Gay Marvine (Secret Mixes/Fixes) and Mike Trombley (Macho City) brings a crazy depth of cross-genre musical knowledge and you are guaranteed an amazing mix of House, Disco, New Wave and underground classics.

So if you want a little action in the bleak mid-winter then I suggest you throw some glitter on that hump, call it fabulous and hit the dancefloor - this Saturday and every first Saturday - at Fierce Hot Mess!

Fierce Hot Mess
Saturday, February 5
Oslo, 1456 Woodward, downtown Detroit
10pm to 2am, $5 cover

The Fall Forecast

The return of Doggy Style brings up an excellent opportunity to take a look at what's going on with the alternative gay scene downtown, because there have been some changes.  I'll start with the bad news.

First off, Detroit's Guerrilla Queer Bar, the long-running traveling gay bar that roamed Detroit for seven years, finally bit the dust this summer when the organizer, "Eddie Edwards," up and moved to Chicago.  Guerrilla Queer Bar ran hot and cold, but when it was hot it was very very hot, and it was kind of the original alternative to the old gay bar scene in the city.  "Eddie" was all of what, 22?, when he started this, and hats off to him for creating something so enjoyable and enduring in a city where the gay community just seems to become more and more disconnected all the time. 

Secondly, Scott and Darren from Atlas Global Bistro have moved on to greener, western pastures as well, and with the primary proponents gone the Wednesday gay night scene there has undergone an expected shift.  The later evening now involves a kind of electro-goth-dance music scene that is, while certainly not free of the gays, not the martini/wine bar scene you might be expecting.  The music is actually quite good, although in my visits there a bit too loud, and most of the time you may find yourself alone at the bar since all the young'uns are outside smoking.  If you are going to Atlas on a Wednesday to enjoy sophisticated libations with a mellow, conversational vibe, this is about the complete opposite of that.  And I'll be honest, I have no idea what they are thinking - great concept, weird venue - but if this is your thing you will like it.  Go early and you will get the Atlas bar you have come to know and love, with the caveat that gay levels there are about the same as any other night (come to think of it, not bad).

And thirdly, not that I've been a big fan, but the Detroit Eagle has closed. (EDIT: the following is hearsay, and I've heard conflicting stories) One story I've heard is that it has possibly been sold to Henry Ford Health Systems, who have some kind of master plan for the area south of the main hospital campus.  It primarily seems to involve demolishing the old buildings and clearing the entire area for development yet to be revealed, Ilitch-style.  The other story I've heard is that the bar is still for sale, but that one denies me the corporate overlord narrative and is less exciting.  Anyway, if you want to get a last look at a bar that may or may not have delivered you some good times, now would be the time.

Until we meet again ... Adios, Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen.

And let me be clear - there is no schadenfreude here.  I had some great times there over the years, and I went with friends more often than I have let on.  Even though each time in recent years brought new disappointments, the potential for something good remained and this fate is a crime. The last remaining full-time gay bar in the downtown area is The Woodward, which frankly isn't quite my scene, but I feel like I need to go just to make sure it doesn't become a total wasteland down here.

On to the good news.  First of all, have I mentioned Doggy Style is back?  OK, yes I did. Go to that on Tuesdays!

Secondly, my friend Todd has taken up the mantle of the Detroit Guerrilla Queer Bar with the new Metro Detroit Guerrilla Queer Bar.  As he puts it, "Same idea, just expanded!"  So I suppose that means more forays into Oakland County, and you know I'm never excited to drive in that county.  But the first meet-up went well at Centaur last month so check out their page on Facebook and let's see how it goes!

Next, word has it that Fierce Hot Mess has been off the hook lately.  I haven't been since I got back into town, but the buzz is things start late and burn brightly.  It is now on Saturdays, and the next one is this weekend!  I would probably describe the scene there in a few words: young, queer, hipster and rambunctious, but honestly I wouldn't be doing it justice.  There are all types there, including middle-aged award-winning bloggers wearing Polo shirts, and if you like a dance party you will have a great time.  Go and be pleasantly surprised. Get there after 11!  Maybe even after 12!

Macho City had a busy summer running semi-monthly and has taken a month off, but it's back at the end of November at the R&R Saloon.  Get back to where you once belonged. After a couple Macho City deejay appearances outside of their regular venue in the past month or so, I have to say I'm pretty excited to get down with them for an extended evening of sweaty fun.

And finally, I suppose I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Friday nights at D'Mongo's are getting a pretty nice mix including plenty of the downtown gays most weeks.  I am a little reluctant to even bring it up, because in general it seems that the more people who know about that place the more annoying it gets (case in point: the disastrous level of suburban hipsters who showed up for a couple weeks after Larry's appearance in the Palladium boots documentary). But you guys are ok, right?  God, I hope so.

Well that's it!  If anything else comes up, you can count on me to let you know!

The Return of an Elusive Favorite!

No, I am not talking about the McRib sandwich!  I'm talking about Tuesday Nights Doggy Style at the Park Bar!

The bitch is back.

If there's one thing I never get tired of hearing it's the gentle whining of people asking me to do Doggy Style again this year. I mean, where were all of you last year, fo' real?  I suppose the one sure-fire way to generate interest in something is to take it away - it works for the misshapen lump of pork that is McRib and it looks like it's working for Doggy Style too.

Which is, of course, great news.  Because Doggy Style is super fun.  If you are unfamiliar, Doggy Style was 21st century downtown's first weekly gathering of local homosexualists and their friends in a 21st century setting.  Credit where credit is due, it was the brainchild of the wonderful Liz Blondy of Canine to Five, who got tired of my gentle whining that there was no gay scene downtown and that the scene in the suburbs was not for me.  She coordinated it, I created the content and voila, an ersatz phenomenon was born.

I like to think of Doggy Style as "Detroit's Best Gay-er Night," because attendees are gay and straight and anything in-between (including a few outliers to keep things spicy). It is a night of music and videos, and I work hard to make sure the sensibility is a lot more lavender than the usual Park Bar fare.  But straight or gay, there aren't a lot of people who visit and who don't dig it. It's fun, it's educational (in a gay cultural way), it's occasionally a little outré, and it's constantly changing.

But most importantly, it's a great way for downtown gays - and that's a state of mind as much as it is a state of being - to meet up with a different crowd, and to do a bit of community-building.  Lord knows we need a little of that!

So bring your friends and let me entertain you, starting next Tuesday evening and continuing until Tiger's Opening Day next April!

We all feel better in the dark.

It's only the second week without making a compilation for Doggy Style and I kind of miss it already.  I find myself digging around for new videos despite myself.

Some Communards shuffled up on my iPod tonight so I did some YouTube-ing and came across this great live version of "Disenchanted," possibly one of my favorites from the 80s.  If you ever love laying around in the dark listening to music, this is a good one.

And if you love dancing around in the dark then you will be thrilled to know about the one-year anniversary of Macho City this Saturday!

There have been many wonderful things to come out of the alternative gay scene downtown, and I can trace some of my best times in Detroit to evenings at Sass, Atlas Wednesdays, Fierce Hot Mess and recently (dare I ruin the mojo?) Cabaret Night at Cafe D'Mongo's.  But Macho City has been especially especial for me. 

It really hit the mark for this forty-nothing homo, and I could list the things I love about it (and I have) but mostly I just love how informed it is. If you came of age in the 70s, 80s, 90s or the Aughts, there is something for you at Macho City. 

It is important to be respectful of the fact that we are guests in a gay leather bar, because part of the Macho City charm is an accepting and joyful crowd, but I cannot urge you strongly enough to check it out. It is one of the things I am most thankful for here in Detroit!  Thank you Mike and Scott for making gay life in Detroit unique and awesome!

.

Westward Ho

There is an extra fun gay event this weekend and it's not Macho City!  Macho City has been scuffling with the R&R over sound system details, so they have canceled this month's event and will be celebrating their big One Year Anniversary in April with something undoubtedly amazing. 

Your Saturday night has another great option though, the One Year Anniversary extravaganza of Elbow Deep in Ypsi, which has the Macho City endorsement as the place to be this Saturday!  Read on for details...

Every once in a while I like to get out of Detroit and head west to Washtenaw County for a break from the routine.  Having lived in Ann Arbor for so many years, it sometimes feels like being home even more than Detroit does, although with the changes downtown has seen since I left (those awful LED street lamps!) and the fact that most of my friends have moved away too, it's really more a case of going to back to visit some of my favorite haunts.

This past December I was flying solo one Saturday evening, so I zipped out to Ann Arbor for a brilliant dinner at Eve.  Eve is, hands-down, my favorite restaurant in the world (which is not to slight some of my other favorite places including Atlas in Detroit or Cafe Zola in A2), and when I am feeling like I deserve a break today, Eve is where I go.

This particular visit was notable in part because Ari, the bartender who bought the greatest thing I ever sold at a yard sale back in the day (a large crushed red velvet bordello-chic hanging light fixture), was so attentive with the wine tastings, and also because I saw another celebrity there. 

This guy was walking toward the door as I was getting situated and he was literally so good-looking I was craning my neck to get a better look at him, and Ari goes, "Stare much?"  And I was like, "Who is that guy?" And he said "Clive Owen."  And suffice to say he is even better-looking in person.  Possibly because he was smiling and laughing instead of brooding, and is pretty tall.  Holy crap.

Anyway, following that brilliant portion of the evening I headed over to Ypsilanti's Elbow Room for a special Saturday night edition of Elbow Deep! 

I am kind of obsessed with Ypsilanti, and Elbow Deep is an Ypsi queer monthly put on by my pals Dave & Kurt, or as they are professionally known Push/Pull Productions and DJ Humanfly.  Elbow Deep is usually a Tuesday night affair, and my Doggy Style obligations had prevented me from attending before this.

Elbow Deep (or in this holiday instance, Noel-bow Deep) is a super fun dance party, but it's also got fantastic visual displays created for each event and drag performances by the House of Chanel!  It makes for a full-featured gay night out on the town with the kind of eclectic crowd you'd expect:  some college kids, some Ypsters, some older guys, some straight folks, some grrrrrls, some twinks.  But you know Ypsi has its own brand of cool, so maybe a few style touchstones will help define it for you:  think sideburns and coonskin caps and leopard print and pink hair and flannel.  All on the same person.  OK not really.  But super cool, and boy I love a gay crowd switch-up!

Anyway, I had a great time AND I got turned onto a great fun song that I subsequently played at Doggy Style:

This month Elbow Deep is once again on a Saturday night, and they are getting a little Detroit Love in the form of Special Guest DJ Super G (that's me) and the comedy stylings of Robert M. Nelson!  Robert and I are taking our show on the road to Ypsi!

Robert, you may recall, had the crowd in stitches at the Astro Coffee Talent Show (another recap is up here), and I did what was hailed as a "passable" and "innocuous" DJ set at Macho City last fall!  The Elbow Room is a great bar (Concentrate media gave it some love here).  And there seems to be a growing contingent of Detroit gays set to descend on the Elbow Room (map) this Saturday for a groovy time.

Me, Robert, Mike from Macho City, Dave and Kurt all hope you can make it out for the big celebration!  That's like 90% of the people defining the alternative gay scene in SE Michigan currently save Adriel and Darren at Atlas, and they're talking about coming too, I just didn't ask if I could have an endorsement!  See you Saturday!

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The Scariest Day in Detroit

It's not Devil's Night, and Halloween is NOT what I am talking about - Tuesday is Election Day in Detroit, and this election is a doozy!

To mark the occasion Doggy Style is ON for the night! It seemed too momentous an occasion to let pass, and also there was a technical problem last week so the Halloween videos didn't work out. So it's now or wait until next year.

Join us Tuesday night at the Park Bar to (hopefully) celebrate good election news, and get one last fix of Halloween until 2010!


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Supergay Week Continues ...

Thanks so much to all you swell guys and gals who were able to make it to Macho City on Saturday night! I had so much fun being the special guest DJ, I actually lost my bad attitude for a while! Thank you thank you Mike Trombley and Scott Zacharias for inviting me to play my shiny gay disco!

There were a few requests that I post the playlist from Saturday, so for the curious or stalkerly, here it is:

Set 1
I Was Born This Way - Carl Bean
No One Gets the Prize - Diana Ross
Lucky - Donna Summer
Take Me Home - Cher
(thus ends the gay diva sequence)
Fly Me on the Wings of Love - Celi Bee
Shangri-La - La Pregunta
Don't Cry for Me Argentina - Festival
(believe it or not, the producers of Evita commissioned an entire Disco Evita album when the musical debuted, which often was played in its entirety at discos! This track is so much better than the Madonna dance version)
I'm a Cruiser - Village People
(another Village People song about cruising for sex, slapped on the album that also featured YMCA. Hello Middle America!)
So Many Men So Little Time - Miquel Brown
(from 1983, is there a more historically unfortunate lyric than "So many men, so little time ... how can I lose?")
My Knight in Black Leather -Bette Midler
(camp and pathos like only Bette Midler could do it. Until she jumped the shark with "From a Distance")


Set 2
This Is My Life - Shirley Bassey
(an over-the-top disco version of an already over-the-top song)
That's the Meaning - Beautiful Bend
Forbidden Love - Madleen Kane
I Need a Man - Amanda Lear
(no she was not really a transsexual, it was just a rumor)
Stars - Sylvester
(the best of the many wonderful songs in the Sylvester oeuvre.)
Come On and Do It - Poussez
(the only song I've ever seen with a "moaning" credit)
Tahiti, Tahiti - Voyage
Don't Leave Me This Way - Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes
(the original version, and the best by far, with a young Teddy Pendergrass on vocals!)

OK so now you can recreate your own Supergay Macho City right there at home! Good luck tracking some of those down though.

I've zipped away to Saugatuck for a night to regroup and will be back for tomorrow night when a new season of Doggy Style starts at the Park Bar! It's the special Halloween edition, to celebrate the biggest gay holiday of the year!

The Scene

In my time in Detroit I have gone down many interesting paths, but I think the most unexpected has been my role in what I like to call the alternative downtown gay scene.

It's not really a new phenomenon, the way that dance parties and "gay nights" pop up outside the standard gay bar scene, but what is a little different here is that it's actually become a series of recurring events and a scene completely detatched from the regular gay bars. With downtown rather underserved in the gay bar department, it's turned out to be a terrific way for locals to get together and socialize, in a geographically-specific kind of way.

To put it a different way: it's really nice to not have to explain what Lafayette Park is to a homo who just told you all about the Barcelona chairs in his living room.

On a monthly basis you can experience the hipster joys of Fierce Hot Mess, which is held the first Friday of each month at Oslo (except in November when it is Saturday the 7th!). You can read how I have enjoyed FHM here, and while I sometimes feel a little old when I go, I do get over it pretty quickly. And the youngsters love it.

The underground disco celebration Macho City, held on the fourth Saturday of every month at the R&R Saloon, is a bit more my speed - partly because I am squarely in the middle on the age scale, and partly because the "old songs" being played weren't popular when I was in high school. I recently wrote about my love for Macho City here, and I am pretty sure that (and a few carefully chosen disco titles dropped casually into conversation with organizer Mike Trombley) landed me a spot as the guest DJ this month!

That's me!

I honestly have to say this is one of the most exciting things to happen to me in my adult life. If you are not a control freak like me then you can't imagine how many times I've fantasized about being the DJ. Well this Saturday night, you (and I) can find out how that goes! I will be playing two sets, and let's just say I am probably gonna pull the "macho" right out of Macho City. I love a big gay disco song.

Dreams can come true, I'm living proof!

On a weekly basis Latitude, the Wednesday night at Atlas Global Bistro, has been pretty bustling this summer! It's a sophisticated setting that usually keeps things classy, and you can have your lovely pinot noir or top-shelf martini, or you can have the weekly "$3 Bill" gay drink special!

My own little contribution to this, Tuesday Nights Doggy Style at the Park Bar, has been a much bigger hit than I ever expected. I hesitate to use the word "sensation" but you know, only slightly. Doggy Style enters its third season this coming Tuesday with a special Halloween Edition!


Doggy Style is really more of a "gay-er" night by design - we didn't want to take over the Park Bar, just switch the perspective. Every week there is a fun video compilation and lots of great downtown residents (gay and straight) come and hang out.

I do have to tip my hat to the Guerrilla Queer Bar, which (along with the now-defunct Sass dance party) was my first exposure to an alternative gay scene with a downtown sensibility. GQB still happens from time to time, like this Friday at the Midnight MASSacre party! Sign up to be on their e-mail list!

So that's what we've got going on, for everyone who doesn't already know, for people desperately looking for someplace suitable to send out-of-town guests, and for new residents still searching for signs of intelligent gay life. Come and hang out sometime.

[And for you Washtenaw County-based folks, be sure to check out Elbow Deep in Ypsi! It's the fourth Tuesday of the month (or is it the last Tuesday? Sometimes it's not the same) at the Elbow Room. The guys in charge are some pop-culturally-enhanced faggots so you know it'll be a fucked up good time!]
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Favorite Macho City Moments

There certainly were a lot of colorful Macho City moments in our ticket giveaway contest! Thank you to everyone who entered for sharing their real or imagined experiences.

My favorite Macho City moment (of many highlights) is probably the Nancy Fortune night. Mike and Scott had been playing an unusually amazing selection of underground disco that I had not heard before, but that was so immediately likeable that it felt like a series of forgotten favorites. It had such a consistent good disco vibe you could not help but feel elevated.

The crowd was eclectic that night, including a good number of leathermen, some super cool straight folks, and a broad range of ages of us regular gay folks. The visuals were ultra-cool. As an added bonus there were no serious smokers on the dancefloor. It was all just so ... happy.

[As an aside: Not to pick on one group in particular, but there has been a serious rash of girls smoking on the dancefloor at Macho City that is giving me a serious rash. Ladies please, look around. Do you see the gay boys smoking on the dancefloor? No, they do it in the bar area like God intended. Even my friend Chris who can only breathe through a cigarette when he is at the bar abstains. Take note.]

So all is well at Macho City that night, and about 1am Nancy Fortune comes on. The transition to her music was, frankly, jarring, and I was like, "oh well, it was fun while it lasted." But then she got things really rolling (or more likely, my brain adjusted) and suddently there was this fantastic electro/dance/house mix of music - one that rivaled the mastery of the earlier disco mix - that took me back to my after-hours clubbing heyday. You know that feeling you get when you are standing there and the whole world around you is so perfect and you are brimming with joy? Yeah, that. That night wasn't just a Macho City highlight, it was a highlight of my summer.

Now back to the contest. Before I announce the winners I want to address some of the comments.

First of all, to the comments saying people posting about lurid activity at the R&R are missing the point of Macho City (some were deleted by their author), I feel compelled to say ... do we need to be this way in 2009? First off, Macho City can be about so many things. Maybe it is about the music, maybe it is about the people, and maybe it's about the setting. In my opinion having Macho City at the R&R - a place that is a safe space for a niche in the gay community (I sound like a lesbian feminist with that language) - sets a tone that you are free to enjoy the night however you want. Maybe Macho City provides a more comfortable way for attendees to get a little dirty in their lives, I see nothing wrong with that.

It's important to remember that we are guests there, and Macho City is supposed to be enhanced by its setting, and in turn enhance the R&R for one night a month. It's the combination that really makes Macho City so special. Arriving at the R&R and then judging the activity (or people's appreciation of activity) is perhaps an unfair approach. I hope that the regulars at the R&R like having the Macho City crowd once a month and continue to show up, and I hope MC attendees can be chill about anything besides dancing and drinking that may or may not go on.

Taking that one step further, as a community we make no progress if we cannot embrace all colors of the gay rainbow. We don't need to be mainstream to deserve marriage equality or protection from discrimination. It's the non-mainstream parts of the gay world that have been on the front lines, and who make being gay so very interesting! You don't need to partake, just accept.

Secondly, there was a comment about Buju Banton being booked at the Majestic and how we should boycott anything there. I am not a huge fan of boycotting locally-owned businesses or gay-led cultural phenomena, particularly in a recession, because often people just need to be educated about their offenses. But in this instance I think the Majestic has paid attention to concerns. Another comment addresses those:

For the record, the Majestic cancelled the Buju Banto show more than a week ago. They will have to eat the $8,500 guarantee. They are the only independent booker in the country that has flat out refused his performance. The Majestic had no clue about Buju's homophobic song (that he wrote 20 years ago at the age of 16 which he has since apologized for) and once they were aware of said song they immediately cancelled the show. The Majestic are very much accepting of all lifestyles. I am gay and have worked for the Majestic many times over the years. They currently have at least 5 gay employees that I personally know of.

I hope this news assuages any concerns people have about going tonight, because Black Devil Disco Club Macho City will be epic! And congratulations to randomly-selected winners Sparky, Darren, b, Phil, Thomas and Joseph, y'all are getting in free tonight! Your names will be at the door!

Have a great Macho City!

[Hey Sparky, email me at supergaydetroit@gmail.com to confirm your ticket!]
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