Back when I was still doing this somewhat regularly, Motor City Pride moved from Ferndale to Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. It was somewhat controversial, as Ferndale has been a hub of gay community in Metro Detroit for a long time. There was resentment. There was discord. There was a hissy-fit.
I spearheaded an initiative among the small businesses of the greater downtown area to show that Detroit was a welcoming community. Honestly, I did it because someone shared with me that the businesses in Ferndale - the ones that had Pride at their doors because it was a street fair - didn't donate to Pride, and I figured Detroit small businesses could at least throw down the welcome mat. We raised like seven grand. Pride that year was the best gay Detroit thing ever.
It was a little rough going at first. I joked that the parade was the Saddest Gay Pride in America, with like fifteen groups marching and four spectators along the way. Don't get me wrong, it was fun. I like it when it is janky - I am a real Detroit 1.0 gal at heart.
In 2013 (year three) there were so few spectators
they were power washing the sidewalks during the parade.
But we made it work anyway.
(Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Cindy Elmwood.)
Fast forward six years. Detroit is now the hottest thing going. I don't know if it's the fact that we have a white mayor or the fact that Shinola has legitimized the city to the Somerset shopper, but the suburbs suddenly cannot get enough Detroit. If you have a problem with that statement all I can say is I talk to suburbanites who haven't come to the city since they finished grad school at Wayne State all week long at work, and I'm just paraphrasing everything they say to me. Whatever it is, the change in the last five years is kind of astounding.
So now the parade is jam-packed full of participants, Griswold Street lined with folks watching the parade. Corporate sponsors up the wazoo (although not a lot of participation from the handful of gay bars remaining in SE MI. Chipotle is in though).
Pre-parade prep. The excitement is palpable.
Lines to get into Pride at Hart Plaza are long on both Saturday and Sunday. It's kind of amazing, the growth.
I have no snark to add, actually. It's great that finally the whole Pride in Hart Plaza thing has hit its stride.
Every year since year one I have marched with the Robert M. Nelson Presents group, and every year it's one of the highlights of summer. Some people ask, "Who is Robert M. Nelson?" and I feel bad for them. Not everything is instantly discoverable with the Internet. But the people who know, know. (I'll explain some other time).
He's only a Craigslist "Missed Connection" away!
See?
My partner and I have been throwing a gay pride Saturday party since the second year, caftans optional. Sunday we march in the parade. In the beginning we did if for our own entertainment, and today, entertaining thousands, it's no less fun. It's kind of crazy that we can still have a spot in the parade just for the sake of having a spot in the parade. And when it's all over we go into Pride and check it all out. (And the last few years, wind down watching the Tony Awards).
Against all odds, Pride weekend has become the best weekend of the summer. Kudos for that, Motor City Pride. And more importantly, kudos queers of Detroit.
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!
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!
For me, one of the most frustrating things to come out of the discussion about Motor City Pride moving to Hart Plaza from Ferndale was this leitmotif that Detroit is not as gay-friendly as Ferndale. It's been mentioned in comments on Facebook (although the Motor City Pride page is pretty aggressive about removing excessively negative comments, a policy I have mixed feelings about) and covered in Between the Lines (be sure to read the comments).
Now I get where this perception comes from. There have been widespread reports of homophobia in the African-American community in the past, and we've had several civic and community leaders make homophobic remarks over the years. But let's compare apples to apples.
Ferndale is a community of 19,000 people covering 3.9 square miles. Detroit is a city of 713,000 people covering 149 square miles. But the greater downtown area, the area including the Central Business District, Corktown, the Midtown neighborhoods, Lafayette Park & adjacent areas, and Eastern Market, is roughly 16 square miles and approximately 40,000 residents. Essentially that's been my world (with the addition of the Villages and SW Detroit) and it's a better comp than the city as a whole. And I've never lived anyplace more gay-friendly.
A little over three weeks ago this was rattling around in my brain, trying to figure out how to send the message that Detroit is actually an AWESOME place to live and be gay. And maybe Motor City Pride moving downtown was an opportunity to show that.
The independent business community downtown is pretty tightly-knit, so I asked a couple friends if they were interested in doing a small sponsorship of Pride that we could bundle together. And if they thought other business owners would be receptive to the idea. It turns out they weren't just receptive, they were enthusiastic.
I could never in a million years have anticipated the positive response I received from every friend I approached. And they approached friends too. And in the three weeks since we started spreading the word, we've raised over $6500 from a whole slew of downtown independent merchants who are proud to be sponsors of Pride.
See the fact of the matter is, Detroit is the most welcoming city I've ever lived in - and I've been around. Jim Geary, owner of the Woodbridge Pub, said it even better:
I think this is great for the city and a good public example of the diversity and tolerance that Detroit should be famous for. It is my experience, in the ten years I have lived here, that Detroiters are more tolerant in general, whether it be religion, race, sexual orientation or financial status, than anywhere else I have lived.
So anytime you hear someone say Detroit isn't welcoming to gays, why don't you straighten them out and mention the following list of businesses - the bars, restaurants and retailers who make Detroit as cool as it is - who put their money where their mouth is and jumped at the chance to welcome the regional gay community to Detroit.
I'll share more info about this when this little Downtown Pride Project is done. I'm still approaching folks - these are just the people my friends and I knew personally who'd committed by last night. If you don't see your favorite downtown spot on here, why not ask them about it? Hit me up at the email to the left, I'd love them to help roll out the gay welcome mat!
You may have heard: Motor City Pride is moving this year, from its long-time location in downtown Ferndale to Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit. It’s a huge upgrade and it means a big increase in visibility for the GLBT community, room for significant growth of the festival and a fantastic venue for the variety of events and activities Pride entails.
Naturally, people are worked up.
Many in the Ferndale-centered gay community have expressed emotions ranging from disappointment to anger over the move. Reasons cited as to why the move is a bad idea include the fact that Ferndale is very gay-friendly, the event is a tradition there, and the businesses in Ferndale will lose money. Overheard cocktail party chatter reveals more: that Detroit is not welcoming to the gay community, and that parking, or crime worries, or inconvenience are reasons why they won’t attend. There is even a separate Ferndale Pride planned.
From all the bellyaching, you’d think these people actually spent time at Motor City Pride!
Anyone who’s been to Pride knows that it is a big street fair, with a crowd that is diverse no matter how you slice it: all races, genders, ages, and economic dispositions are represented. It does have a smalltown feel, and it doesn’t compare to Pride in other major cities. And if you look for the Woodward-corridor gay contingent they are either not there, or they are holed up inside Q (or Zoo Bar or whatever it’s called now) or Soho. I wrote about this after attending Pride two years ago, and I’d argue that commentary is worth a read again today.
So it is really kind of surprising to me that the people with the most gripes about the scale of Pride in the past – the people who routinely head to Chicago or Toronto for bigger Pride celebrations – are the same people who are complaining that Motor City Pride is moving into a bigger, more visible and (frankly) better-suited venue.
Look, I get the disappointment when a big event moves. But the lack of vision from the community in this regard is really kind of unbelievable, particularly when it comes to the formation of Ferndale Pride, a series of events designed to “complement” the events downtown. Craig Covey, the openly-gay Oakland County Commissioner, former Ferndale Mayor and a perfectly nice fellow is the co-chair of this event, is doing a great job of sticking to the script that everyone should support Motor City Pride downtown too, but the Ferndale thing has kind of turned into a rallying point for folks who resent the move.
It’s hard to be critical of Covey, who has done more for the benefit of the SE Michigan gay community than most of you combined, but all I can say is if I wanted to be super passive-aggressive I would plan a bunch of events the same weekend as Pride but make a point of not technically overlapping any of Pride’s official hours. It’s really suggesting a classic Oakland County approach … venture into big bad Detroit for the event only, and then scurry back to the safety and security of the OC!
Covey has said in various outlets that lots of other cities have multiple Pride celebrations, and that’s true. But I can’t help but think how fun it would have been if we had a Motor City Pride with the support and attention of the whole community, and then later in the summer there was Ferndale Pride in the spirit of Market Days in Chicago, the country’s largest gay street fair. Instead we now have White Pride as an alternative to regular Pride. I say that in jest! Kinda.
The OC crowd wasn’t the only one upset about Motor City Pride on the move. The Black Pride Society, the group that throws the annual Hotter Than July festival, is also displeased. Their stated concerns are that the Pride planning committee didn’t build a community consensus for the move (and while MCP organizers have been exploring a move to Hart Plaza for years, this is technically true). OK, valid point, but the word on the street is that it has more to do with MCP’s stated objective of creating a more inclusive event and the concern that it could potentially eclipse HTJ. And the fact that MCP is now actually in Detroit, which I suppose you can’t blame the Black Pride Society for feeling a little ownership over.
Now honestly, if I were them I’d feel kind of good. Motor City Pride is now twice as far away as it used to be from Palmer Park, where Hotter Than July is held! And while Pride may now be in a more appealing location to the black gay community, it’s not like Pride in Ferndale was anything close to a white-only event. Hotter Than July serves a different need than Motor City Pride, and I think the City of Detroit just lucked out because now it gets to host two GLBT Pride events.
Imagine when the dancefloor isn't squished to one side of the street!
Well, we clearly have a lot of Pride in the Detroit area!
Obviously I’m thrilled about the move. I’m not the only one who has commented over the years that it seems, well, odd that Detroit's Pride takes place in a suburb. Without dismissing the significance of Ferndale as a community that has been embraced by gays who have likewise been embraced in return, I think it has been one of those things that perpetuates the notion that Detroit as a whole does not have a "real” gay community.
The move also reinforces - for me, anyway - the fact that the Detroit area GLBT community still occasionally takes its role as community developers seriously. Ferndale was a pretty bleak place before the gays and the cool kids moved in, and now it's quite a nicely-actualized community. Really a beacon of forward-thinking in Oakland County. Pride moving downtown kind of shows that the general gay community views Detroit as a place with promise too. And a successful Pride could go a long way toward changing perceptions of the city for the gays and lesbians who spend most of their lives outside of it.
I think this Pride will really blow everyone away, and given the fact we live in a state where rights for the GLBT community have actually REGRESSED over the past ten years, increased visibility and a successful Pride are more important than ever. So go and have fun. And you know what? Check out Ferndale Pride too. I might view their handling of things as a mis-step, but everyone wins when everyone wins.
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!
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
I only dabble in organized religion, and even then really only with officiants, but I have come to truly enjoy downtown Detroit's Central United Methodist church. That's the historic church right on the corner of Adams and Woodward with the saucy initials.
I have a couple friends very actively involved in the congregation, and their enthusiasm for the church's mission of social justice and community has even enticed me into visiting the church a couple times. The first was for the wonderful Catie Curtis show two years ago, and the second was for Palm Sunday services this year. And once I got over the extreme non-Roman Catholicness of it all it was a fantastic experience. As was post-service brunch, natch.
One cool thing about the church is their music programming. They often host concerts, and they are often quite renowned musicians. World-renowned is the case this coming Saturday evening, when jazz pianist Fred Hersh will be performing.
Fred Hersh is a new name to me, but not a new name in the world of jazz. I discovered this when I started researching him and found a huge piece in the New York Times Magazine from earlier this year. If I wasn't sure of his prominence as an artist before, I sure was after reading, "And singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz — a jazz for the 21st century — is the pianist and composer Fred Hersch."
The Times piece is a highly recommended read, and I think once you are through with it you will agree this is a can't-miss performance!
Hersch, by the way, is also highly relevant for readers of this blog because he is one of the few openly-gay and openly-HIV positive artists in the jazz world. His story of coming back from the edge of death is as inspiring as the story of his jazz legacy.
Now in the interest of full disclosure, part of my affection for CUM stems from the fact that my dear friend Ed Maki-Schramm is the musical director there. And being so, well, dear, he has arranged for me to have a ticket giveaway for the Fred Hersch show this Saturday!
If you would like to win a pair of tickets to the show, all you have to do is email me at supergaydetroit (at) gmail (dot) com before Friday morning, say 8am. At that time I will randomly draw two names and will promptly inform you of your win. Or loss.
If you don't win, or want to secure your tickets earlier, here's the information you need. Hope to see you Saturday evening!
Up early this morning and these April showers are kind of fantastic. Lafayette Park is finally full-on green, the trees are almost filled in, the City has even already been out to cut the grass. Remarkably even before the management at Lafayette Towers managed to cut their lawn, but that's a different blog post.
I had to clean off the old photos from my phone on this rainy Monday morning in anticipation of a replacement, and I came a cross a couple of unused photos I took for the blog. So I'm catching up.
Cat mugs at the Indian Village Yard Sale. I guess it was time to move on.
A late summer night on Park Avenue, heading to Cliff Bell's.
This poor unfortunate soul didn't even get the courtesy of four blocks for his wheelless chariot.
This happened in early evening in a surprisingly busy area, which will remain unnamed.
Smoke break outside the State of Michigan offices in New Center.
A picture says a thousand words.
A joyful moment at the new dance monthly Private Joy, where Macho City meets
Fierce Hot Mess at Menjo's. Wrap your brain around that!
While we are on the topic of art and derelict properties, I thought I'd post something purely for fun.
If you get out and about in downtown Detroit you've probably seen the handiwork of the Hygienic Dress League. We look out the windows of the Park Bar every Doggy Style Tuesday at their mural on the Hotel Charlevoix, which I enjoy mucho.
They also have improved the Grand Army of the Republic Building over at Cass & Grand River.
I came across this video a couple weeks ago, I showed it at Doggy Style last week, and I thought I'd share it with you. (And to defuse concerns like those in the comments of my last post - that I am a PR shill for my friends or something - yes I do know them, but I am posting this because I think their work is cool and the video is fab. Although I will say Dorota is also pretty fab. And Steve's mustache is, like, wow.)
It may provide fodder to my detractors to confess that I am a secret eater, but it's true. Any objective observer will have to admit, however, that in the true Supergay spirit, I do it with panache.
My dual occupation of man-about-town/man-of-leisure opens the door to many interesting opportunities, and one such opportunity arose recently when the following message arrived in my inbox:
This message is to inform you that you have been chosen to join a select group of aesthetes in an uncommon event - an undergound dining experience in an extraordinary locale. Join us for an experimental feast.
Fancy! Exclusive! I'm in.
So earlier this week we headed to the secret meeting point, got directions to the locale and zipped over to the empty Detroit landmark building that was home of "ClandesDine."
Setting the scene.
It was a secret dinner that was, frankly, brilliant. The guests filed into a space that was neither quite fully abandoned nor close to finished, but had that great Detroit "in between" feel. The fare for the evening was an elegant six-course meal with wine pairings presented by Chef Marc Djozlija of the Wolfgang Puck Grill at the MGM.
And whom did I not know at this dinner? Well, some people, but it was a real collection of Detroit movers and everyone was quite excited to partake in this foodie experiment. From where I was seated all I could see were people cooler than I am, and I had to wonder how I was going to have time to kiss up to all of them in a single dinner! Thank God people were amenable to switching spots.
Not to be purposefully vague, but I'm not sure how much I am supposed to talk about the details of the evening. So instead of a detailed play-by-play of amazing food and wine, presented by some of the most notorious foodies in our community, it might be easier to say that par for Detroit, it was borne of a desire to create something fantastic and altruistic, not something overtly commercial. The creative energy and room for experimentation in Detroit that people love to talk about was on full display, both in the presenters and the attendees. Too bad TIME magazine couldn't be around to witness this Detroit..
Here's your detailed play-by-play.
Our Chef, and our New York Times spokesmodel.
I don't always have the time or the drive to blog on here about how Detroit still revs my motor, but rest assured it does. And I'm not the only one. One dear Detroit friend who can be as critical as I am about the city's shortcomings was celebrating her birthday this night, and days later was still saying, "It's like the birthday party I've always wanted."
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!] .
Well it's been over two months of work interfering with blogging. That is a leading economic indicator and it means the economy here in Detroit is still in the crapper.
I figure I can't be the only one forced by circumstance into a life less lavish than the one enjoyed same time last year, so I thought I would share some of my tips for keeping your leisure time standards high and your cash expenditures low.
Let me begin by saying Detroit is a great place to be broke. We have a strong and proud tradition of avoiding those distracting boom times that blow up real estate prices and deposit overpriced restaurants and bars on every corner. Detroit's ample inventory of cheap bars and Coney Islands is well documented. What requires a little digging is taking your dollar-store budget and living well, eating well and - most importantly - drinking well in Detroit.
Fortunately for us, the Cocktail Hour has exploded around town. There are a ton of fantastic deals to be had, if you are willing to shift your social time a little earlier in the evening. Since I am now a Gay Elder, I have had no problem doing this. It's pretty great - you get your drink on and you're in bed by 10 watching a streaming episode of 30 Rock on your laptop.
Roast, Michael Symon's new restaurant in the Book-Cadillac, has the king of the Cocktail Hours in town. For starters, it is the only one that takes place every weekday, from 4:30 to 6:30 at the bar. They have a fantastic bar menu derived from their regular menu, and each item is only $3.00, including a 5 oz version of their burger (topped with bacon, cheddar and and egg!), a roast beast taco and a tremendous sausage-of-the-day stuffed pepper dish. Six bucks gets you a great dinner.
OH - there are drink specials too! Three drafts and two wines are $4 a glass, and well drinks "with a wash" (it means one mixer, I've learned) are $5 each. Seriously $15 and you are well-fed, feeling fine and on your way. Roast has a lovely interior too, and if you don't mind the fact that most of the women who work there seem angry (seriously, hostesses who don't even look at you) you will have a wonderfully budget-conscious time. Angelina Italian Bistro has turned out to be a pleasant surpise, especially for someone like me who always expects the worst. The decor is not 100% there (although pretty good by Detroit standards), but the food is really fantastic. I recommend the Pappardelle Bolognese in particular, but everything I've tried is great. For their Happy Hour they are offering everything in the "Tasting Plates" section of the menu at half-price (the pizzas are a whole meal) plus drink specials! It lasts until 7pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On a nice day the windows are all open and it's practically dining al fresco.
Cliff Bell's has introduced their dinner menu, which is a good deal even at regular prices. On Tuesdays from 5-8 is Happy Hour, and not only is all the food half-price, but all bottles of wine or champagne are half-price too. There is no live music at that time, so it's a low-key jazzy supper club vibe, which always suits me just fine because you can easily converse with your companion.
Atlas Global Bistro, a perennial favorite of mine, lets you expand your social time past the dinner hour. On Martini Mondays they offer half-price martinis all day long, so you are quite likely to find a saucy bar crowd trying to live within their means. A few newer bar menu introductions at nice prices also keep your food expenditures low.
"Latitude Wednesdays" at Atlas is the gay night, and it has taken off like CRAZY lately. It is, frankly, as well-attended by gays as our Doggy Style nights are (at least!), and it's a fun crowd that's a super mix of city and suburb. The new introduction of a special Queer-as-a-$3 bill drink specials (that are $3, obviously) may have helped. A good time, and it gets buzzing around 9pm.
And there's another way to save at Atlas GB - there is a promo through Channel 7, "Ultimate Dining Deals," where you can buy a $50 Atlas gift certificate for $25! You can get up to two, so buy them up and you can not only get half-price food, but you can go on Monday and get quarter-price martinis like I did the other week!
I am sure there are other deals out that that I don't know about - if you have any tips, post them in the comments, ok? I know there are more deals out there! .
Wow, who knew the anger (well, irritation) that bubbled beneath the surface in Detroit's little indie gay scene? My off-hand quip about Fierce Hot Mess in my last post upset a lot of people! Check out the comments section if you don't believe me.
I would like to clarify a bit - that comment was intended as a joke about how old I am, not about how fun Fierce Hot Mess is not. That sentence was painting a picture of a very specific situation - me, hearing a song I've already lived through and whose charm is now lost on me, watching a bunch of kids half my age dance around to what is for them a golden oldie. As I've expressed to Adriel, the FHM organizer, a number of times, sometimes I just feel kind of old when I'm there. I do not feel that way at Macho City. That was my point.
What more ringing endorsement could a club night have than some 40-year old guy feels old when he's there? That should get the kids lined up 'round the block!
Man, nobody objected to me calling myself old and creepy, but God forbid I question a musical choice at Fierce Hot Mess. I'm tearing down Detroit's whole cool gay scene!
Lest anyone forget the love I have lavished on Fierce Hot Mess, let me remind you:
This year they've pared down the categories considerably, and a lot of our friends from last year aren't really eligible for any categories this time around. So I've decided to take a different approach to picks for the Supergay Slate. In accordance with my stated objective for this year, I've made choices that I think help raise standards here, and selected places that make Detroit a better place to live for me.
I've selected 19 categories, and you only need to vote in 15. You can use this slate or make up your own - just be sure to vote for me!
Metro Times Best of Detroit 2009: The Supergay Slate
Best Restaurant to Impress Out-of-Towners:Slows BarBQ never fails
Best Italian Restaurant:Angelina Italian Bistro is not only delicious, it is deliciously non-smoking. Even the bar. While I can't endorse their blown-glass art installation/light fixture, the rest of the place is perf. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it.
Best Neighborhood Pizza: Does Supino’s fit here ...
Best Gourmet Pizza: ... or does Supino’s fit here? I'm not sure, but they are fantastic and deserve a vote in both categories!
Best Deli:Mudgie’s in Corktown, for a lovely modern decor AND amazing eats.
Best Beer Selection in a Bar: not too many categories to pick to reward the Park Bar for being the gracious and loving host of Doggy Style, but this one fits!
Best Jazz Club:Cliff Bells, now with a delicious dinner menu! .
The Ilitch family ramped up their Detroit demolition spree this past week, taking down a couple more viable but not "contributing" historic structures in the area behind the Fox Theater. For a group of gajillionaires who love to squawk about "saving" the historic Fox they sure do love to tear down old buildings (with city/state money) and pave them over for surface parking. Or to build the ugliest new buildings in the world (do a google image search for Motor City Casino, I dare you).
One we lost this time around was the Chin Tiki, the old Polynesian restaurant on Cass Avenue. I knew it was coming - once the Ilitches buy a building you can pretty much guarantee it's coming down at some point, but also I saw workers emptying out the building about two weeks ago. Instead of just shaking my head at the waste of it all, this one hit a little closer to home.
Photo the unwitting compliments of Andy over at HotFudgeDetroit.
See, back in the day, when hipster meant swing dancing and Combustible Edison instead of skinny jeans and Franz Ferdinand, I was a full retro tiki nut. I was super into collecting tiki mugs, as well as researching the history of American tiki culture. I would do the pilgrimage to extant tiki bars whenever I traveled, including a fantastic birthday at Chicago Trader Vic's. This is ... almost 15 years ago now? Wow. When I moved back to Detroit I used to enjoy driving by the Chin Tiki and imagining how amazing it would be to open a tiki bar (or a gay tiki bar!) in there.
This was also the advent of the internet age, and on one of my first personal websites (nerd alert) I transcribed a piece that originally ran in Left Bank, the awesome Detroit-centric magazine that Pure Detroit's Shawn Santo published in the 90s (an all-too-rare resource back in the days before you could just google any Detroit history you wanted). After I saw it the building coming down this week I went onto an old backup and pulled it up, so we can all remember the glory days of the Chin Tiki.
[In 1996 The Left Bank Publication published an interview with Dee Dee, one of the female impersonators who used to perform at the old Gold Dollar on Cass Ave. back in the '60's and '70's. In this excerpt, Dee Dee reminisces about the Chin Tiki, right down the street...]
Can I ask you about Chin Tiki? Do you remember anything about Chin Tiki?
Ummm. I was there quite a few times... it was a beauuutiful bar. They used to have a river coming right through the table...it was just beautiful ... and the Polynesian dancers ... none of them were Polynesian - they were all neighborhood girls - but it was a good show. AND THE DRINKS...they used to have this one drink - I can't remember what it was called - but it was served in a conch shell ... with 7 straws and an orchid floating in it. And it cost like, seven bucks ... and honey, four people could suck on this drink all night and get GOONED. I have no idea what was in it but you had to order NO MORE ... it was wonderful and very relaxing, and the food was EXCELLENT ... that was a real bad thing when that place closed down. It's a shame ... I would love to see the inside now, it's been closed for years...
And they had a stage show?
OH YEAH. Oh yeah, they had Polynesian dancers every 1/2 hour - I mean it was just HULA girls and none of them really knew ... I guess if you were really Hawaiian or if you'd ever been to Hawaii, you'd probably laugh ... but when you're sitting there and you're half in the bag ... if was fun ... it was entertaining. You know - it was something to do and most people went there for the food anyways, not for the dancers ... but it was like Greektown and the belly dancers, it was on the same order as that. It was not some elaborate show - I guess the 'Dollar show was a whole lot better than that - but it was a lot of fun ... I really miss it ... I knew everyone who worked there, I guess that's what I miss ... all the girls from the 'Dollar would go down there in between shows ... Back then too -- half the buildings are gone now -- there used to be a great big Chinatown ... GREAT BIG CHINATOWN .. and there were like, five Chinese restaurants, and the Chinese restaurant that was right next to the 'Dollar - the building's still there, but it's all gutted and everything ... Oh it was wonderful! They had all individual party-like booths, and they were open until ... whenever the people left. The Gold Dollar would close at 2:30, and everyone would go from the Gold Dollar right next door. It would be one great big party booth and everyone would sit in there and order food and just have a great time ... The ladies were all real friendly and they knew us ... it was nice. Mmmm, excellent. And then Chinese New Year - they'd block off the whole street and the dragon would run through and everything...
They did that in Detroit? Oh yeah, for YEARS! Five or six years, before it started fading out, but oh yeah ... Chinese New Year is a big thing - they'd block off the whole street and bring in a big bandshell down there...
It was wonderful ...
You can see some more pictures and read about the history of the Chin Tiki in this Metro Times article from 2003 (only seven years after the peak of the trend, way to be ahead of the curve MT). And Dee Dee is still a denizen of the Cass Corridor - if you go to Canine to Five you can get your dog groomed by her!
As an aside, the Ilitch demolition of the Chin Tiki as well as this building a block away on Grand River is a perfect example of why there has been no progress in reviving a street level experience in Detroit. How in the world is a small business owner or developer going to open a business if viable spaces don't exist? Chin Tiki may not have been a whiteboxed space, but it was intact and could have been dusted off and reopened, a la D'Mongo's.
Instead all we are left with are spaces that are so blown out that nothing can be done short of a total rehab, or parking lots. That, ultimately, is what discourages me about the possibilities of an organic Detroit revival. If everything has to be built from scratch, it's going to look like the suburbs and cost as much (or more). And then all the interesting businesses that grow out of risk and inexpensive space can never happen. And then I have to move to another city because the douchebaggery makes me nauseous. And then nobody wins. .
I just want to know where the normal people downtown have gone tonight. It's like douchebag central down here.
Left work late and headed to the bar at Atlas Global Bistro for eats where I witnessed a drunk woman wearing an unfortunately sleeveless top talk at the top of her lungs about all the racial and economic injustice in America.
To make matters worse she irritated the older guy next to her who was a bona fide asshole (apparently he owns the shop in Eastern Market that sells all the giant ceramic pots) and he kept antagonizing her. "Let's settle this by who spends more here." Seriously?
Not to be outdone, he exited by making this parting comment, "She just wants some black dick" (because she was a white woman and was with a black man). The most annoying woman in the world had my sympathy by the time he left. At least until she spent the next fifteen minutes bitching about him and crying. She was overserved.
Fortunately that all distracted me from the first part of the evening and the dude who lived at 32 Mile Road and friends next to me clamoring to get the Wings game on television. Their big nights out usually include Fishbones in St. Claire Shores but they'd ventured downtown for the Wings. Their conversations were beyond boring and their clothes even worse. Mock turtlenecks, anyone?
Fortunately some friends came to meet me for a while so I was able to pass the time reasonably well, but when they were ready to leave I had to move on.
Went to the Park Bar as a reflexive action. Loved that the super cute guy from the band Shoe was bartending, but could not deal with the total douchebaggery that surrounded half the bar. I'm talking fake-n-bake girls with dark eyeliner and chunky hightlights, and guys with gold chains smoking cigars. WTF?
Obviously that wasn't going to work. So I paid the cover to head into Cliff Bell's next door, because that is always such a good scene. Surprise? More douchebags and only a handful of the good folks. I plugged in to blog this and some dude with a backward baseball cap actually tried to surreptitiously take my picture! I think it was the 'stache.
Turnabout is fair play.
I don't know where everyone cool is tonight, it's kind of a disaster. Maybe I will head to D'Mongo's for last-ditch coolness. At least tomorrow night at Cirque there will be fun. I hope.
The FJC always does a good job of being cool. And classy. Ish.
