If you're an Erasure fan ...

You may enjoy this. A guy who performs under the name Haberdashery has done an EP of Erasure cover songs and it's really quite good! No radical interpretations, but he's chosen some relatively obscure album cuts from the Erasure oeuvre (that fans will know and love) and it all makes for some nice mellow listening on a cool sunny morning.


I enjoyed that it's called the Erasure EP with four cover tracks because it echoes Erasure's own cover album, the ABBA-esque EP with four tracks. Now THAT was some fun summer listening, back in the pre-Mamma Mia losical days.

Anyway, if you are the mood from some smooth and well-executed synth-pop, check this out. You can listen to all four songs here. And you can buy the whole EP for only $2.99!

If you happen to be road-tripping this beautiful day, I think this is a good addition to your playlist! Have a lovely weekend!
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Lordy Lordy, look who's forty

On Monday the nation took a day to reflect and celebrate the contributions of one man, Supergay Detroit, as he turned 40.

They said it couldn't happen here. But it did! The halcyon days of youth are now behind me (heh) and the full mantle of adulthood must now be assumed. Am I bitter? Sure. I mean you can be a youthful-looking fellow "in your 30s" and people still think you are a youngster, but a young-looking 40 is still 40.

OK actually I'm joking, I don't really have an issue with turning 40. It's weird, for sure. To me 40 is my uncle's bawdy 40th birthday party and the bounty of boob-related gag gifts he received (I vividly remember a pillowcase with a photograph of a woman's breasticles screened on it, very traumatizing for a pre-teen faglet). It's "wow, 40." Not for other people, of course, just me.

I still look pretty good for 40, though.

But it does kind of feel like I have to take a few things more seriously. When I turned 35 I made some decisions - changing up the career, moving from Ann Arbor to Detroit - and I set 40 as the next milestone. And that's actually been part of the reason for my break in writing here, I've been spending some time reviewing the situation. Well, and working like a dawg on my paying gig. 40 may be an arbitrary review date, but you must agree the timing is good.

A group of my wonderful friends surprised me with a trip to NYC for the weekend - those are seriously good friends - and it was just what this haggard soul needed. A chic little hotel, lots of cocktails, restaurant and bar interiors that actually show some thoughtful design, and laughs and laughs and laughs with old friends.

I didn't return with an urge to flee to New York, but I did come back with a resolve to get the fun back into my life. Not just in the free time, but work used to be fun, and blogging used to be such a joy. I honestly have no idea what is involved with that but I am sure there is a solution that will fix absolutely everything. (To pre-empt questions: I have no immediate plans to leave Detroit and I am reasonably sure I will continue to write this blog. For better or for worse.)

OK enough reflection. Let me leave you today with a pearl of wisdom gleaned from my many years of experience on this earth. To thank you for being a Supergay Detroit reader, I won't even charge you for it.

Moisturize. You can't start too early.
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Really super sorry

Hey gang, real quick, I just want to let you know I'm sorry I've completely disappeared. I've been absolutely swamped with work crap and it's giving me gas.

I will be back posting on here as soon as I can, but this overextended faggot needs to catch up a little more first.

Unless you start paying me, in which case you'll move up my priority list.

OK get back to work.

Do it in denim.

Well in keeping with the theme of leather & levis for the weekend, there is one more event I want to give you a heads-up about! It is Design for Life: Denim, a benefit for the Michigan AIDS Coalition Saturday night at MoCAD.

"Design for Life: Denim, what's that about?" I can hear you asking. Well, the Michigan AIDS Coalition has put together an event that is a fashion and art experience. 100 creative individuals (designers, chefs, artists, architects, musicians ... you get the idea) were given Carhartt denim jackets as raw material and instructed to make custom designs with them. It could be fashion. It could be art. It could be fashionable art. It could be artistic fashion.

It might just be easier to post some images that will give you an idea of the evening. It looks actually tremendously fabulous!

Your emcee: Ongina from RuPaul's Drag Race!

Aural ambience provided by DethLab.

Detroit Flyhouse might drop in.

Jacket design by David McNight of Emerald City Designs.

Jacket design by graffiti artiste Tony "Shades" Agee.

Weathered red denim bag by Barrett Streu.

Popart Monkey Pillow by Megan Oxley.

FIERCE ART #1: Rusty Bird Cage with Wings, by Bill Bowen of Octane Design.

FIERCE ART #2: Reliquary of C. Hartt. It contains the ashes of the jacket. Awesome.

The event will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 25, 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MoCAD). Hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar are involved. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased by contacting Robert Thomas, 248-545-1435, ext. 105 or rthomas@aidsprevention.org. Still waiting to hear if they can be purchased at the door, although I can't imagine you'd be turned away!

When the party's over ...

This hectic week almost made me forget something vitally important! After the Modernism Preview Party don't forget to head out to the R&R Saloon for Macho City!


Let me put on some music to get me in the mood for this post, I need to go back in time - to four weeks ago.

I was keenly excited about the premier of Macho City last month, and I am happy to report it did not disappoint. It was the perfect old gay meets new gay (and I don't mean age-wise). The R&R is a real leather bar, like with people in it and everything. There were regulars there (and I daresay a nice offering of good-looking guys over 30) plus an onslaught of obvious first-timers. The ages ranged from 21 to who knows. The music was GREAT and not just for dancing - hanging out by the pool table was possibly the best spot in the bar for much of the night due to the constant flow of people and the really good sound system there.

Without going into further excrutiating detail, the dancefloor was almost always packed, the bar was full and fun, the crazy owner kept yelling drink specials randomly over the music, there was possibly some depravity downstairs ... it all came off like a really great regular night at the leather bar (when you imagine how you wish regular nights would always be). I didn't even care that I left the bar reeking of smoke - and that's really saying something.

So don't forget - go to Macho City tonight! It's the right combination of everything wrong. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Macho City, a monthly disco party
It's on a Friday this month! Friday, April 24
R & R Saloon, 7330 Michigan Avenue, Detroit (bet Livernois & Wyoming
$2 cover, includes one drink!

Celebrate Modernity

Regular readers know I am a fan of modern design - I live in Lafayette Park, I stalked Hawkins Ferry in death, I love Detroit's modern shops. And I regularly attend the Preview Party for the Michigan Modernism Show! Which is tonight!



The Preview Party is a benefit for the Detroit Area Art Deco Society. It is held every year the Friday night before the opening of Michigan Modernism and is - basically - a private shopping event for people who love vintage modern design. In an atmosphere unsullied by the teeming masses you get first dibs at some of the most fantastic vintage modern items (while enjoying a glass of wine! I mean, if you get into stuff like that).

This year there is an added attraction - DAADS partnered with the Oakland Community College photography department and captured some great Deco structures in the city for display - and silent auction - at the event. Additionally awesome photographer (and super cool chick) Cybelle Codish has donated three photographs to the auction.

Cybelle Codish is an awesome photographer.

I always love the Preview Party because - first of all - I'm a giver. And I'm a seeker - I love to find cool stuff I've never seen before. And sometimes, I'm a shopper.

One thing I really enjoy about being a homosexual raised in the latter days of the 20th century is that an appreciation for good design is basically my birthright. A gay man not taking the time to become an aesthete is like Prince Charles not taking the time to knock off Queen Elizabeth and ascend to the throne. A squandered opportunity.

I'm a shopper. Sometimes.

I know for the young ones these days it's all about sports and picket fences and suburbia and blending in, but I prefer a more genteel and rarefied gay sensibility. You know, the one that got you beat up on the playground as a kid. It sucked then, but it made you a REALLY cool adult.

So be a good gay and celebrate your birthright at the Michigan Modernism Preview tonight! Trust me, you won't be the only one.

[The Preview Party is from 7 to 10pm tonight, April 24, at the Southfield Civic Center. Tickets are $50 in advance and $65 at the door. More details here. Go!]

Get Patti LuPWNed

Did you have any idea that Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin are in town puttin' on a show? Neither did I! But when I found out on Wednesday evening (at a particularly zesty "Latitude," the gay night at Atlas Global Bistro) I made damn sure I was going to get to that show!

I'm not exactly a theater maven but I do enjoy the theatahhhhh, and I REALLY enjoy showtune queens and their esoteric knowledge of variations in productions of The Music Man and bootleg soundtracks to Carrie: The Musical. I also like to be present for important pop culture moments, especially if they are the slightest bit highbrow. So An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin was right up my alley.


La LuPone and Mr. Patinkin are in town as recipients of the Seventh Annual Apple Award, an award presented by the Wayne State University College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts and the Nederlander Company. They had a public Q&A and taught a master class at WSU campus this week, and then apparently decided to bring their self-produced show along with them. I'm pretty sure the big incentive to come to Detroit involves cash as well as the prestige of winning an Apple Award, but I say who cares what got them here?

[Oh, as a great aside, apparently the posters for the Q&A at Wayne State spelled Patti LuPone's name wrong, and she went around all afternoon correcting the spelling with a Sharpie she had in her purse. Awesome.]

The show was fabulous, of course, and the more you know about showtunes the more you're going to love it. In particular Sondheim and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Which, maybe, I wasn't as up-to-speed on as I could have been. But you didn't have to know the context for every song to appreciate the way everything is woven together - in particular a powerful sequence of numbers in the second act from Carousel.

There are the showstoppers you want too, of course, and I think at this point you would weep if you didn't get some Evita or Mama Rose from LuPone (although here's a theater-going tip: if you want to avoid withering glares from a group of queens, don't be morbidly obese and open cellophane candy wrappers during a Patti LuPone performance of "Everything's Coming Up Roses." I hate to be a total dick but SERIOUSLY, there is a time and a place, and that ain't it.)


All in all a wonderful evening, seeing two theater legends at the over-the-top fabulously Valley-of-the-Dolls Fisher Theater (it's a Lincoln Center-esque 1960's glamorous time warp, if you haven't been.) Upgrade your gay credentials and go!

Of course, if you go please remember the debacle from Gypsy earlier this year and do NOT take any photographs! They did announce this about five times during the performance, and watch the video below to see why!

She kept her promise, but I still kept my distance.

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See?

I'm not the only one trying to carve out an oasis in the gay desert. Doggy Styler Ed emailed to show that there are Supergays everywhere!

Carroll Gardens - A Gay Bar Scene Is Born.

We don't have go-go dancers at Doggy Style, but who really wants that anyway? OK shut up.

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Play Time

It may seem that I'm the kind of guy who goes out all the time, hob-nobbing with the hardly-rich and barely-famous, but I am actually kind of a family man at heart.

OK, not exactly, but any well-rounded homosexual in his late 30s is going to have friends or siblings with kids, and I am no exception. And while I was originally put off by this next generation cutting into my friends' social availability, I have come to really enjoy "family time" with my friends.

I am also a doting uncle, in the sense that I love my nieces and nephews but don't get around to seeing them as much as I should. So when my brother called to invite me to my niece's school play - he said she was participating in a Eurythmics number (awesome!) - I knew attending would be quality time well-spent with the family.

It was also super convenient because my brother's kids go to the Detroit Waldorf School, so I didn't have to drive far. I'm practical that way.

Pics by "mehughes" on Flickr - thanks in advance!

Detroit Waldorf School is in a gorgeous building designed by Albert Kahn and is located in Historic Indian Village. If you aren't familiar with the Waldorf educational philosophy you can read about it here. It's kind of arty hippy dippy but in an intellectual way - basically stepping into the school is like going back to my Ann Arbor days, so of course I love it. Even with all the women wearing jumpers. The student body is culturally diverse, and the parents tend to be socially progressive, involved in their communities and members of their local NPR station.

And while it is total parody, I always think of this scene when discussing Waldorf:

Grades 2-8 were in the show. One of the teachers came on stage to make the introduction and talk a bit about some of the cool recent accomplishments of Waldorf students (they were myriad: winning against high school challengers at a UM competition, winning the regional spelling bee) and to describe the plot of the show. Which was so perfectly Waldorf it was almost cliche.

See, the Super Ninjas lose their ninja powers because they make poor lifestyle choices - watching tv and playing video games all the time - and have poor dietary habits. They have to travel through the Enchanted Forest to get to the Institute of Becoming a Human Being (or something like that) so they can re-learn good lifestyle habits and get their powers back. Awesome!

It started with some of the older girls climbing up into the large swags of fabric hanging from the stage rafters and spinning around on them - Detroit Waldorf has the only Aerial program in the state of Michigan (it wasn't quite this, but you get the idea). Then all the students filed in down the aisles along with some kids riding unicycles! And it only got better from there.

I don't need to go into a narrative of the production, but even though it was definitely a grade school show the amount and variety of talent on display was astounding. Oh sure, aerialists, and unicyclists. And fight choreography with tumbling. And eurhythmics (oh yeah, it wasn't a Eurythmics number, it was the music/movement philosophy they named themselves after). And a rendition of "Send in the Clowns" (!). And students playing along on violins in every song. And juggling, double-dutch jump roping, dancing, yoga, a remarkable hula hoop performance ("we have to do it all day long," my niece reported). And a German skit performed in perfect German.


As the play neared the end I was just sitting there, blown away by these kids. And then they started singing that Coldplay song "Viva La Vida," - one of the dads played the guitar and students played the violin, all accompanied by a single drumbeat. Kids from all grades lined the auditorium walls, surrounding the audience with their voices. And on stage so many of the talents demonstrated that evening were on display again - the aerialists, the juggling, the dancing. It was, honestly, a bit overwhelming, in that way where you can be someplace and everything is so right for a moment. When I stop to run through it again in my mind I actually tear up a bit, it was all so perfect. It was like a scene from a Wes Anderson film.

What does this all have to do with anything? Well, with so much bad news about Detroit everywhere, it felt really great to be a witness to something so wonderful happening right here, in Detroit, close to home. I saw a diverse crowd (racially of course, but Waldorf is no stranger to kids with two mommies or daddies) coming together for something other than the political.

It reminded me that some of that great vibe I loved in Ann Arbor does exist where I live now, in its own Detroit way. It gave me hope that an excellent, if alternate-track, education happens in the city and that these kids (if the other people I know who've been through a Waldorf education are any indication) are going to be well-rounded, intellectually-curious, talented adults.

And it reminded me once again how unique Detroit-based (whether they live in the city proper or not) families are. It's a special, and kind of unheralded, population.

If you are feeling a little blue about the way the adults in the city are acting lately, I highly recommend a look at what the children are up to. May it lift your heart like it lifted mine.
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Two Years

Hey here's something remarkable: this past week marks the two-year anniversary of Supergay Detroit. Two years, how about that? In the immortal words of Melissa Sue Anderson, Happy Birthday to Me.

If there is one thing I love it's a milestone. It gives you an excuse to stop to reflect and, essentially, think about yourself. And since I quit going to therapy I'm always looking for an excuse.

As a result of this reflecting I recently realized that I've become one of those gay people in Detroit I couldn't find when I moved here. I mean aside from having a gay blog and throwing a gay weekly thing, I'm no longer actively seeking a gay community in Detroit proper. I guess I just ran out of steam on that.

I am now one of those gay people in the city who goes out to all the regular places and meets up with gay friends as occasionally as he meets up with straight friends. I am now one of those gay people I used to see out at Union Street and wonder, "how can I connect with these people?"

The original goal of this blog was to find the gay community in Detroit, and provide a resource for other people out there who were having a hard time finding it too. Now I just don't think about it that much anymore. Apparently, I've been assimilated.

My problem is that I don't know if that's something to be happy about or not.
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So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

Well here we are, in the last baseball-free week for seven months. And that means it is time to bid Tuesday Nights Doggy Style a fond farewell for the season.

To close things out this time around, we are having a musical extravaganza! All musicals, all night long. I just really wanted to go out with a super gay bang.

Please join us for the downtown gay fun times that can only be Doggy Style!
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Supergay Slate '09!

Well it snuck up on us, 2009's Metro Times Best of Detroit voting, but it didn't completely slip by! The deadline for voting is this Tuesday, the 31st (2 days!), so please take the time to vote for Supergay Detroit as Best Local Pop Culture Blog!

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 Place to See An Indie Film: Detroit Film Theater at the DIA

Best Local Film Fest: Reel Pride Michigan, our GLBT Film Festival

Best Local Website: Well MT always wins, but you should cast a vote for our friends at Model D!

Best Local Pop Culture Blog: Supergay Detroit!

Best Abandoned Building: Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Obviously.

Best Bicycle Shop: Wheelhouse, because I love them.

Best Florist: the guys at Blumz continue to make great flowers accessible to Detroiters with their shop downtown

Best Restaurant Under $15 per diner: Bucharest Grill inside the Park Bar is my default spot for cheap and good eats

Best Restaurant under $50 per diner: Atlas Global Bistro, my perennial fave

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 Indie Coffee Shop: With Mercury Coffee Bar out of the picture, Café 1923 in Hamtramck takes this one hands-down

Best Club Night: Fierce Hot Mess has been entertaining us at Oslo all year!

Best Gay Bar: Detroit Guerrilla Queer Bar - because it really is!

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!
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Smoke Break

This one was a hit last night at Doggy Style. Pretty much not safe for most work, but it's the most effed up Doggy Style moment we've had in a while. I'll be really impressed if anyone can name the movie this is from.

An Advanced Placement Gay Video

OK, this video is for those of you (straight or gay) with a really advanced gay sense of humor. It's Jane Horrocks (best known in the US as Bubble on Absolutely Fabulous) doing a parody of Shirley Bassey.

If you find this funny without explanation, we need to hang out more.

Five Questions for Macho City

I am very excited for the new gay disco dance party Macho City this Saturday! So excited that I emailed Mike Trombley, Macho City founder & DJ, and asked him everything I could just have waited until tomorrow to find out. Here are my five questions for Macho City.

1. When and where did you start Macho City?
I am originally from Detroit and started the Disco/Secret Sunday party at the Eagle back in 2004. I had returned to Detroit after living in California for 5 years with the idea to throw a slightly sleazy, anything goes, dance party similar to nights that I frequented in LA & SF - Hot Dog, Black Arts, Trannyshack, etc. An alternative gay party for those like-minded boys and girls in the Detroit area.

Disco/Secret was successful but drew a primarily straight audience. I found this odd considering the gay iconography used in our promotion but the disco beardos caught wind of the night and started coming out. I'm really grateful they did but I was also a little disappointed that the party did not attract a larger gay contingent.

About a year later, my boyfriend got a job offer in Philadelphia and we moved. I began spinning in Philly and started a night called Paradise at a club called Key West. This party was named after the legendary Paradise Garage in NYC.


Macho City started last September at the only leather bar in Philadelphia, the Bike Stop. It was the most successful party I've ever thrown. I promoted like crazy and it just all seem to come together. The crowd was an ideal mix - gay, straight, male, female, and the response was amazing. I was only able to throw two Macho City events before we moved but I knew I had to transfer that momentum to Detroit once I arrived here.

2. How did you end up picking the R&R Saloon, and does it still smell like a dirty dick?
I chose the R&R for a few reasons. I actually find it to be one of the friendliest gay bars in Detroit. That being said, it's also one of the most surreal and at times, the sleaziest. It has a great sound system, large dance floor and cheap drinks. It also draws the most diverse gay crowd in the city, hands down. They recently made some structural improvements/updates and it's definitely lost some of it's dirty luster, although fortunately the pit still smells like a pit.

3. Will all the music be so obscure that it all sounds the same, or will there be recognizable artists or songs?
The music will not be too obscure. I've learned the hard way that as much as I love to nerd out on the turntables, it can be extremely alienating to those on the dance floor. You have to throw 'em a bone once in a while. Plan on hearing underground Disco and Italo next to certified dance classics.

4. What will the emotional highlight of the evening be?
The emotional highlight of the night for me usually happens around 1:20am or so. People are inebriated enough that they don't care how they look, just that they want to DANCE! The floor is packed and sweaty and I can't stop grinning.

5. Where did you get that incredible flyer image?
The flyer image is actually the gatefold artwork from a Disco record written by Rod McKuen, of all people. The album is horrible but the image is incredible. Plus that arm belongs to 70's gay porn star, Bruno (link nsfw (duh), but only mildly). The album is called "Slide... Easy In."


There you go, everything you wanted to know about Macho City but were too fey to ask! The party should be a good sweaty dancing time and the crowd, judging from the PR and the buzz, should be a great mix of younger and older, maler and femaler, gayer and straighter.

I really want to encourage everyone to come, especially some of you fellas who maybe feel like your dance club days are behind you. This event is tailor-made for those of us who were born before the original disco era ended!

Macho City, a new monthly disco party
Saturday, March 21
R & R Saloon, 7330 Michigan Ave (bet Livernois & Wyoming)
$2 cover, includes one drink!

Super Cooper

OK so as you may have heard, Anderson Cooper was in town yesterday doing his show AC 360 live from the vortex of the American employment crisis, Detroit. A friend called up just as I was leaving work and asked if I wanted to go to a thing with Anderson Cooper where people ask questions to a panel of experts, or something like that. It was all a little vague.

To back up a little bit, it was my friend Keira Alexandra who called me - you may recall she was on the cover of Dwell magazine for her Mies townhouse a few months ago - because our friend Mitch Cope called her and said the producers told him to invite people. Mitch is one of the guys behind the $100 dollar house thing that Toby Barlow, Keira's boyfriend, wrote about in the Sunday New York Times. And AC 360 was running a piece on him during the show. So without knowing exactly what it was about we drove out to Warren to represent.

Oh yeah, Warren! The filming was at a place called J.B. Bamboozle's on 12 Mile Road across from the GM Tech Center. It was a cinderblock pub with an awning, kind of standard issue for the non-chain establishments in that area.

So Keira and I arrived and it turned out the only two seats remaining were at a table right in front. Like seriously front row. Let me be explicitly clear right here: I sat for three hours with an unobstructed view of Anderson Cooper's backside. It did not suck.

J.B. Bamboozle's was kind of a trip. First off they only had one waitress on duty for a packed restaurant, and I will tell you she was awesome. She handled everything, was speedy and kept a great sense of humor about the whole thing. We passed on the shot special, the Super Cooper ("It's Anderson Cooper's favorite shot." I'm sure.) Keira ordered wine (what kind, red or white?) in a tumbler instead of a wine glass, and they brought her a water glass full of of wine. Insane. My beer was in a gigantic mug - seriously twelve inches tall. They really don't mess around at J.B. Bamboozle's.

It was a little slow but we spent time talking with the other folks at our table (and a lot of time drinking giant drinks), one of whom turned out to be a real-life acquaintance and Facebook friend. AC was around a lot, filming little bits leading up to the show. He is a little tiny but not markedly so. And had some very nice jeans on. And his hair is fully white. I wish mine would do that, all I get is this smattering of grey.

This was our tablemate who got to ask a question. Hey Andy, sit with us!

My Facebook buddy and I agreed his grey cashmere sweater was really nice. At one point AC grabbed a mike to say hi to the crowd and ask them not to act like complete boobs on television (because America already thinks you are waste of carbon). He then took questions so I got the important one in right away: where is that sweater from? He said he didn't know, but his mother had called to say it looked green on tv. Gloria!

Oh no you didn't.

Oh yes I did.

The show then started and it was pretty relaxed. They do a lot of cutaway bits so there isn't this intense focus on AC live all the time. They informed us that they would not be focusing the entire hour on the unemployment crisis in Detroit because of the death of Natasha Richardson. Because obviously the death of a C-List actress pre-empts coverage of the economic demise of an entire region. Yes, this is CNN.

It's the mullet of outfits. Business up top, party down below.

They let the first guy ask his question, which I pretty much missed because I was staring at the most incredible mameltoe I have ever seen! It was insane. Right in front of our faces. I did catch the follow-up question that AC asked him, "How does that make you feel" or something like that, and the guy was like, "uhhhhhh" and I think some drool escaped his mouth.

"Please try to behave like normal humans."

Now you know why he had to say that.

Mameltoe.

The second question was from a woman at our table. She asked how she, with an MBA and law degree and recently laid off, can find work in a shrinking economy like this. So CNN's "expert" came up with the genius answer that she should look to her outside interests, and then told a story about a guy who became an event planner after he lost his banking job. OH BRILLIANT. Become an event planner. In the Great Recession. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Where do they get these people? Man, give me one shot at that gig, I swear I will do 100% better, and be interesting to boot.

When the camera wasn't on she was using that Blackberry!

Keira, please demonstrate our proximity to Anderson Cooper's butt.

Then it all wrapped up. AC said he would pose for some photos so once again front row paid dividends. Keira gave AC a copy of her Dwell magazine with a note that "This is in Detroit," so maybe he would know that not everything is as bleak and depressing as that part of Warren.

AC regards the Lafayette Park issue of Dwell.

So I got to be on CNN! It was awesome to get messages from my friends that they saw me on tv. I think I will explore a career as professional local color in news broadcasts. And I got my photo op with AC. That was also fun. But it was the first time I thought to myself that someday I will look back with regret on growing this moostache. Live and learn.
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Didn't we just do this?

Well it seems that the Metro Times has bumped up their "best of" timetable, because instead of a fall election it's now a spring election! I guess ad revenues are down and they need to ingratiate themselves to a few more businesses.

That means I am going to hit you up again to vote for me again as "Best Pop Culture Blog" - even though I should still be the titleholder for another six months!

As with last fall, I will create the Supergay Slate of candidates so we can spread the love around to our friends and supporters! And to make it easier for you to pick 14 other categories when you vote for me. But I just wanted to get my entreaty out there first: vote for Supergay Detroit as the Best Pop Culture Blog in the Metro Times Best of Detroit 2009!

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Drag Queen Workshop

Advert

Madonna in a more brilliant moment.

Macho City

There is a gay dance party coming up that, at least in theory, excites me like no other gay dance party has ever excited me before. Well, no local dance party, there are a few I've seen in SF or NYC that have revved my motor too, but they get all kinds and we get few.

If Detroit's hedonistic young gods could pose any real questions about the state of their beloved underground, what would they be? Does dance music keep any dignity when it's been built-to-order, spit-shined and pumped to within an inch of its life, only to be thrown away? Can it flex some real musical muscle? Such concerns loom large for local DJ's Mike Trombleyand Scott Zacharias with their new disco monthly MACHO CITY at Detroit's leather haven, the R&R Saloon.

As party throwers and vinyl purveyors living in a jaded hypermedia age, Mike and Scott have long built an arsenal of (un)classics gleaned from dusty bins and dingy basements, creating sets that move asses, loins and ears in true rearguard anti-fashion. Strengthening their city's own underground legacy against its current nu-rave/blog-house blandishments, the two have built a cadre of support for overlooked and forgotten dance music, fusing Detroit's own well-hung disco endowment with arpeggiated Italo odysseys and Cosmic slow-burners, minted in supple steel colors.

Make your way to the R&R Saloon on March 21st where you can tap the aural traditions and tough love of Detroit's own seedy back alleys.

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The R&R Saloon is kind of nasty, but what a brilliant way to use its nastiness to a good effect. Al Pacino's late 70's gay leather murder flick Cruising seems to be a point of inspiration for the evening, and what a perfect setting to meet someone who will take you home and kill you.

[Ed note: Not to be flip, but 30 years later and it's the same psycho shit. Don't go home with strangers.]

Regular readers will already know that I love my Fierce Hot Mess and my Sass and my Guerrilla Gay Bar and Latitude Wednesdays at Atlas and Tuesday Night Doggy Style and all nature of grassroots gay barring. These nights tend to work harder to get you in, get a more diverse crowd and, although when bad they can be very bad, when they are good they are GREAT.

And by now you also know about my love of obscure disco, old school gay culture, and hipsters. I am hoping that the content and context of this event brings out a slightly, shall we say, more seasoned crowd to complement the hipster element.

All the pieces are there, let's see if it all comes together!

Macho City is every 3rd Saturday from 10PM-2AM
The R&R Saloon, 7730 Michigan Ave., Detroit
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