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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Three Important Events

Thre are three important events in Detroit this week I need to tell you about, and there are two alternates for you Washtenaw County-based folks.  Sorry for the double-posting today, I don't want to confuse all of you, but really, who doesn't enjoy a little DP every now and again?

Tuesday
Tuesday Nights Doggy Style at the Park Bar continue unabated, although I know you know I know you forgot.  It's been a mixed bag this season, some nights are me and Jack (Daniels) and some nights, like last week, are cram-packed with life-affirming Detroity-crowd goodness.

I should probably tell you that when this season ends the first week in April, Doggy Style is being taken out back and shot. It takes a lot of time to do these video compilations, and while I do enjoy hanging out and watching them with my friends and the intermittent crowd (the straight guys at the Park Bar seem to particularly enjoy them, oddly enough), I don't see a regular season down the road.

One friend suggested just playing re-runs to take the pressure off, and I tried, but it went against everything I set out to do here.  This is supposed to be the anti-Pronto - new videos all the time, more informed, broader in appeal, more fucked up.  Even though there is now a library of 30 compilation DVDs, it just felt wrong.

So come and enjoy the tail end of Doggy Style on Tuesdays this month.  It actually is fun, even if you just sit and watch tv and get a buzz.

Alternate:  If you can't or won't make it to Doggy Style, maybe you should check out Elbow Deep at the Elbow Room in Ypsi this Tuesday!  It's Ypsilanti's own indy gay night, put on by DJ Humanfly and Push/Pull productions the third Tuesday of the month.  They really go all-out and have fabulous production values and great music and drag queens and kings. I will write more about them in the future, because I went in December and it was a great time, but put it on your list of Ypsi things to do this week!

Thursday
I have been involved with the Detroit Institute of Arts through the Founders Junior Council - the young professionals auxiliary - since long before I moved from Ann Arbor to Detroit.  It's a wonderful group of people whose goal is to engage the under-40 (and sometimes over-40) set at the DIA, as well as to raise some cash for the museum.

Attending their events regularly was a fantastic way for me to extend my network of friends outside of downtown, since it's a mix of city and suburb, east west and northside.  It has also been an opportunity to dress up a bit for events, which every once in a while is a refreshing change for a downtowner.  I have met some of my best friends in the area through the FJC.

Membership in the FJC is an auxiliary membership that you purchase in addition to your DIA membership, and it provides member-only events and an additional level of support for the museum.  This Thursday at 6:30 the FJC is hosting the first-ever (in my long history) promotional membership event in conjunction with the Detroit Film Theater.  For $57.50 you can get your DIA membership AND your FJC membership, as well as attend a members-only screening of this year's Oscar-nominated film shorts.

 

If this is remotely your bag, I really cannot recommend taking advantage of this strongly enough!  It's basically a free FJC membership!

Alternate:  The Last Bookstore Standing is an event to help increase awareness (and cash flow) for the Common Language bookstore in Ann Arbor.  With the internets and the rise of the big booksellers and increased acceptance of gays et al, the GLBT bookstore is becoming an increasingly rare asset to the community.  (This really deserves its own post as well, all in due time.) We are fortunate to have a full-on literary-focused bookstore in our area, but the times are tough. 

For the price of just a few pounds of coffee you can help invigorate Common Language and enrich your own GLBT life, and this special event is a really good opportunity to do that. Won't you please show your support (in person or online?)  If Common Language goes, it's gone for good.

Friday
Hey remember Mercury Coffee Bar?  There were a lot of awesome things about it, but the best thing was the coffee.  It was amazing.  AMAZING.  Well the good news is the coffee guru from MCB is working on opening a new coffee outpost across the street on the Slows block, called Astro Coffee (read his blog here), and there is a fundraising event 9pm this Friday at the Polish Village Veterans Hall to speed things along.

Admission is $20, $10 for performers.  Motor City Beer will be provided, and there are prizes!  Naturally I am thinking of performing because I can save $10 and, well, there is a stage.  You should think of performing too, or at least attending, because I predict this will be some homegrown good times.  And I suspect it might have a bit of a Gong Show vibe, which is always good!

Well that's it for recommendations this week.  Quite a variety I'd say, and you can't go wrong with any of them.  Make the most of your February, and see you out and about!
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And the hits just keep on coming

Hey, just to kick you when you're down, I wanted to let you know that we here in SE Michigan fared no better than California (again). Voters in the multi-culti funkytown of Hamtramck also voted to hate gays a little more, defeating the Hamtramck Human Rights Ordinance. 55.4% of Hamtramck voters cast ballots against it.

Those Hamtramck United folks worked their butts off though, and according to council member Scott Klein in this article in Between the Lines, they will keep pushing the issue. So we all need to thank them a lot, and maybe offer them a non-sexual massage the next time we see one of them.

Jay McNeeley. Jay McNeeley. Jay McNeeley.
(thrice for Google Image searches)

And if you see Jay McNeeley a.k.a. Gladys Kravitz - the guy from Ypsilanti who nosed in and decided Hamtramck needed to make this a ballot issue in the first place - or any member of the American Family Association, feel free to kick them in the balls. If it's a chick kick her in the cooter, I don't care. I'm tired of this bullshit.
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My current obsession ...

I'm obsessed with Severed Unicorn Heads. I don't know why or, really, what they mean, but they have resonated somewhere deep inside me. So much so, tonight I even drove out to the opening of the Severed Unicorn Head Painfully Beautiful Art Show in Ypsi (another current obsession).

Severed Unicorn Heads are for lovers. Check out more at the Severed Unicorn Head Superstore.

(And for a really great blog that, in part, covers goings on with the cooler aspects of Ypsi, check out Mark Maynard's blog www.markmaynard.com.)