Bear Pride Week
Cologne (Koln)
Germany
November 20-25
In the States the bears have pride fests all over: in Provincetown, in Chicago, in San Francisco with the Hairrison Street Fair and they’ll always have Guerneville…
Sword Says
Will Clark’s Porno Bingo
9th Avenue Bistro
693 9th Ave/48th
New York
Wednesdays 9PM – 11PM
NYC porn stars and others who happen to be passing through town between penetrations…
Buzz
HK Lounge
523 9th Ave @ 39th
New York
Thursdays
HK Lounge is still coming into its own, but Hell’s Kitchen is where it’s at…
Tubesteak Connection
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge
133 Turk Street
Thursdays, 10PM – 2AM
Aunt Charlie’s is one of our favorite bars of all time. The carpet probably hasn’t been replaced since the mid-70s…
San Francisco’s Finest Gay Dives
Aunt Charlie’s Lounge
Tenderloin
The carpet probably hasn’t been replaced since the mid-70s, there’s one of those flammable-stuffed-animal crane games up front, and Anthony the toothless bartender is the sweetest thing to happen to the Tenderloin since the advent of crack. Don’t miss the Hot Boxxx Girls, Fri-Sat 10 PM.
Ginger’s Trois
Downtown
Though Damron Guides cite a “professional crowd” and a recent makeover and change of ownership has brightened up the inside a bit, our experience of Ginger’s leans more toward wheelchairs and Cutty Sark neat on a Tuesday afternoon. Not exactly a late-night destination, but a good bet for a gayische happy hour crowd replete with bobo financiers and retail queens.
Hole in the Wall Saloon
SOMA
Expect a selection of leather daddies and pool-hustling cubs at this Harley-friendly dive recently relocated to Folsom Street. It opens at noon and it’s about bottled beer and hankies around here, so don’t even think about ordering a fucking Cosmo. Also, the occasional patron craps outside the door for our viewing pleasure.
Gangway
Polk Gulch
841 Larkin Street
The bandana’d and rolled-jeans bicycle crew takes the place over twice a month at Chrome and Manquake, but most nights the Gangway is the sort place where old guys have slurred shout-fights about the names of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands and who got more tail during the war.
The Men’s Room
Castro
3988 18th Street
It’s a bit like a ski lodge in this tiny joint on 18th, complete with 60s canister fireplace in the back corner, and it’s perfect for a weeknight birthday because you and your friends can basically take over the place and own the jukebox, which isn’t half bad. Also, a nice escape from the usual shitshow up the street on a Saturday night–the kind of place you can watch a closed-captioned PBS on Broadway special while sipping some Scotch and working through a breakup.
Cool Bars in NYC
Easternbloc
505 E. 6th Street
The music’s good, the boys are hip, the bartenders are cute and it’s the kind of non-BnT, come-as-you-are booze fest Manhattan needs more of. But we admit we also love it partly because of fond memories the old, seedy Wonder Bar at the same address, with the blackout back room and $2 beers and John Waters movies and projected on the back wall. Check out Bloc Party on Fridays.
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The Ritz
369 W. 46th Street
This swank new midtown space with outdoor patios and a nautical theme got voted Best New Venue by HX in 2007, and has enough parties going on that it’ll keep you oscillating between buzzed and hungover through your entire work week.
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HK Lounge
523 9th Avenue
HK Lounge just is still coming into its own, but Hell’s Kitchen is where it’s at and the space is airy and well designed. The boys tend to be cute, the music more hip than not, and the crowd a mix of professionals and performers from the neighborhood. If you’re in the ‘hood on Thursdays and you’re not swilling late-night happy hour drinks at Barrage, check out Buzz.
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The Cock
29 2nd Avenue
The East Village was ahead of the curve in bringing sleaze back to gay life in the late 90s, and the Cock was at the forefront of that movement. Then the place got more popular and moved to the Hole, but it’s still a really easy answer to the question “where can I get drunk and laid with the most efficiency tonight in Manhattan?” Check out Cock Fight on Saturdays.
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Booty Call
The Bar on Castro
456 Castro Street
San Francisco
Every Wednesday, 9PM – 2AM
At a time when gay nightlife in SF has reached a particularly low ebb-tide, Juanita MORE! and the MOREboys can always be counted on to bring out the cuties and cool kids at this mid-week dance party.
Latin Fever
Oscars, Rio Cuale
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
November 21-26
In case you’re closer to Puerto Vallarta than you are to Miami, and if you like your men with a little more Latin in their blood then you may want to opt for this other White Party over the Thanksgiving weekend. Gays don’t have families, right? Who gives a fuck about Thanksgiving? Tis the season for getting freaky with your bois and jumping up and down to some house music, dude. DJs Cary Stringfellow (LA), Oscar Velazquez, and Ramses will be joined by drag diva Lady Bunny and international club diva Sofonda Fox. http://www.willgorges.com/
Bangkok Pride Week
Bangkok, Thailand
November 3-11
Unlike the decadent and enormous fag fests we’re used to in our more cosmopolitan Blue States, places like Bangkok are still ringing in Pride for political reasons. If you’re in the neighborhood, check out how proud the tranny hookers and dykes and ladyboys of Bangkok can be, complete with elaborate gold crowns and reluctant police protection. http://www.pridefestival.org/
Gucci Store Opening
New Delhi, India
TBA
Tom Ford gets around, and so does the label that made him famous. Gucci recently opened their first India boutique in Mumbai, and is slated to open their second in New Delhi by year’s end. Expect the recently wealthy technocrats of New Delhi to embrace the expensive fashions, but we’re not sure how well the leather goods will go over with the Hindus.
Bear Pride Week
Various Venues
Cologne, Germany
November 20-25
In the States the bears have pride fests all over: in Provincetown, in Chicago, in San Francisco with the Hairrison Street Fair, and they’ll always have Guerneville. Each November in Germany, the hairier Deutsches head to Cologne for Bartmanner Koln to revel in each others’ non-conformist, unpretty, oftimes smelly, beer-loving ways. This year’s fest includes a Butch & Bear Disco Night and a poster modeled after Rocky Horror, renamed the Hairy Horror Picture Show. More info at www.bearscologne.de
Paris Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Various Venues
Paris, France
November 13-20
This fest has been around since 1994, showcasing independent films by and for a European lesbigay audience, many of which never find wide distribution. The opening film this year, “XXY” by Lucia Puenzo, was an official selection at Cannes, and the closing film is called “Le Roi et le Clown” which sounds like a real winner in our book.
The White Party at Vizcaya
Villa Vizcaya
Miami, FL
November 21-26
Begun as a fundraiser for an HIV/AIDS service organization in 1985, the White Party has become a ginormous dance party at a huge estate called the Villa Vizcaya in Miami Beach. Expect the usual tweakers and a lot of Eurofags in white jeans, but also expect drag queens on stilts with white wings, faggots in feathers, and lots and lots of opportunities for groping pecs and having unsafe sex. As well as safe sex, of course. http://www.whiteparty.org/
Marcha del Orgullo (Pride Parade)
Plaza de Mayo
Buenos Aires, Argentina
November 17
Don’t cry for her, and don’t keep your distance. The kickoff of gay summer in Argentina is the Pride festival in Buenos Aires, arguably the gay mecca of South America and the spiritual home of all die-hard Patti Lupone fans. This year Buenos Aires got even gayer with the Gay World Cup happening here in September. Check out the parade at 6 p.m. on Saturday November 17th, with MCs Daisy May Queen and Osvaldo Bazan. And don’t forget that with the U.S. dollar in the toilet, Argentina is one of the only places you can still drink cheaply. http://www.marchadelorgullo.org.ar/
Montreal Int’l LGBT Film Festival
Various Venues
Montreal, Canada
November 15-25
It’s cold in Montreal in November, and possibly snowy, but if you’re in that neck of the woods and want a sampling of homo cinema, check out this film fest dubbed “Image + Nation.” The festival is opening this year with a Spanish entry called “Reinas” (“Queens”) by Manuel Gomez Pereira and starring two Almodovar faithfuls, Carmen Maura and Marisa Paredes. Check out the website for more info. www.image-nation.org
Another Reason We’re Glad We’re Not Straight
We realize that MSNBC is desperate for “quirky news” items to break up the monotony of stock market reports and
While We Enjoy a Good Spooning… (Guest of a Guest)
Cuddle My World (MSNBC via Newsweek)
Are Sales That Bad at Tom Ford Menswear?
OUT Magazine may have divorced itself corporately from its not-fit-for-the-gay-coffee-table Liberation Publications siblings (Men, Freshmen, Unzipped), but that doesn’t mean it’s given up the skin-mag ghost. In the November issue, celebrity chest-hair-sporter Tom Ford unbuttoned more than just his shirt, appearing buck naked in a photo shoot with two actual models.
Full ass shot after the jump…
The Sword Guide to Gay Party Drugs: Installment 1, Poppers
The mustachioed granddaddy of back-alley fag enhancers, “poppers” is the name given to any number of alkyl or amyl nitrates found these days in little bottles labeled as “room odorisor” or “VCR head cleaner” with brand names like “Rush” and “BANG!!” and “Jungle Juice.” The drug was originally a treatment for angina, and got its street name from being sold in small glass ampules that made a popping sound when they were crushed to release their vapors. Once blamed for the ‘gay virus’ that appeared in 1981 (they now think that was something else), poppers are still said to cause temporary weakening of the immune system. After the jump, our complete field guide.
Chillidog
The Transfer
198 Church Street
San Francisco
Tuesdays 9PM to 2AM
Though we do love Trannyshack, the place has its off-weeks. Try the Transfer as an alternative…
Bareback Porn Star Hustles Republican Cheapskate
Why do closeted homo Republicans always look like unhappy rabbits? Probably because they are closeted and Republican.
Homosexual blogger Andy Towle has revealed that the Cody Castagna, the 26-year-old hustler that Spokane-based Congressman Rep. Richard Curtis may or may not have slept with, starred in at least one bareback porno for Treasure Island, and can also be found on a certain members-only gay pic-post site.
Manic Mondays
Bar on Castro
456 Castro Street
San Francisco
Mondays, 8PM – 2AM
When you offer 80-cent well drinks, expect the kids to show up in droves, even if it is a Monday night.
Cuckoo Club
Hiro Ballroom
363 W 16th Street
New York
Sundays 9PM – 4AM
It’s getting a little bit mobbed after midnight at this weekly fete, but given that Sundays are for drinking …
Cock Fight
The Cock
29 2nd Ave
New York
Every Saturday
The East Village was ahead of the curve in bringing the dirtiness back to gay life in the late 90s
Adonis
Saturday, November 10
DJ Manny Lehman spins at this big old homo ho-down
Trans Am
San Francisco
1st Saturdays 10PM – 2AM
When you’re as tired of hearing Janet remixes as we are, you might
want to head to this monthly party at Club 8, where the music tends
more to the punk and rock end of the spectrum.
The Rod
Deco Lounge
510 Larkin Street
San Francisco
2nd Fridays 10PM – 2AM
Once a month, the more dingily denimed and Converse shoe’d
Bloc Party
Easternbloc
505 E 6th Street
New York
Every Friday
This is one of our favorite gay bars in New York: the music’s good, the boys are hip, the bartenders are cute and it’s the kind of come-as-you-are, non-BnT booze fest Manhattan needs more of.
Boy Bar
The Café
2367 Market Street
San Francisco
Every Friday 9PM – 2AM
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to feel old before your time, washed up by age 28…
Feel White
Bordeaux-Begles
November 3, 2007
A Frenchier sort of White Party which bills itself as defined by deux mots (actually trois) “SMILE and HAPPY HOUSE.” The more southern Gallic gays, in response to the lack of big parties in their neck of the woods, flock to this party in the Bordeaux suburb of Begles to whip off their shirts and–excuse our lackluster translation skills–“to feel, at the same time, the feet in Paris and the head in Barcelona.” We’re sure it’s just like a night in Miami except way fewer Cubans and presided over by “la belle, la fabuleuse, la merveilleuse, l’incomparable… Mademoiselle Lucy,” who’s apparently a wicked big DJ over there. The action starts at 11 p.m. http://www.feel-detergent.com/
Latin Fever Puerto Vallarta
Oscars, Rio Cuale
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
November 21-26
In case you’re closer to Puerto Vallarta than you are to Miami, and if you like your men with a little more Latin in their blood then you may want to opt for this other White Party over the Thanksgiving weekend. Gays don’t have families, right? Who gives a fuck about Thanksgiving? Tis the season for getting freaky with your bois and jumping up and down to some house music, dude. DJs Cary Stringfellow (LA), Oscar Velazquez, and Ramses will be joined by drag diva Lady Bunny and international club diva Sofonda Fox. http://www.willgorges.com/
Greater Palm Springs Pride
Downtown Palm Springs
November 3, 2007
You know the drill: parties, nods to culture like films and exhibits, fags mumbling “happy pride” while sipping mojitos, and a parade on Sunday featuring some dykes on bikes and uncomfortable tourists and trannies in shiny outfits. It’s the closing event of California’s half-year-long pride festivities, and this time it’s in the desert people, with performances from Ari Gold, Brian Kent, and meteorologically inclined diva Martha Wash. Bring your sunscreen, and your sense of entitlement, and wander the streets among the well-heeled gays of Southern California, i.e. the ones who choose what you watch on television and take percentages off the top from the Shakiras and Anistons of the world so they can keep themselves in fresh BMWs and Prada sandals. http://www.pspride.org/
Larry Craig’s Feces Phobia Gives Twink Trauma, Chest Hair
Wonkette made our Thursday not just for referring to Congressman Larry Craig as “gay restroom goblin Larry Craig,” but for posting this exclusive interview with former geek twink turned “bear-about-town” David Phillips. The take-aways from this piece: there apparently used to be a go-go-boy bar for rich, closeted right-wingers called La Cage Aux Follies on Capitol Hill and we wish we’d been there; Larry Craig is a feces-averse top; and Phillips, besides having apparently bent over for Craig in the Spring of ’87, was allegedly the trick of choice for a host of married Houston oil execs back in the day.
Featured International Events
1. Icelandic Phallological Museum HUSAVIK, ICELAND Through Sept 10 It’s your last chance to visit the world’s only penis museum. Over 200 preserved phalluses represent every mammal that can be found in Iceland. (Yes, that means whales, polar bears and humans, among others.) 2. Run For More Time
FRANKFURT September 14 This popular charity event is the German counterpart to America’s Walk for Life. Not into exercise? Don’t care about AIDS? Skip the race and go straight to the beer-soaked after-party. 3. Janet Jackson Rock Witchu Tour
VANCOUVER September 10 After spending seven years away from the road, the mistress of thump kicks off her highly anticipated North American tour in Vancouver. Eh? Eh! 4. Folsom Street Fair
SAN FRANCISCO September 28 Are you ready, Daddy? This annual leatherfest is celebrating its 25th year of bald heads and hairy bodies. Time to polish those leashes and memorize those safe words! 5. Atlantic Stampede Gay Rodeo
GAITHERSBURG, MD September 5 – 7 Watch as that cowboy riles up a steer, mounts him and holds on tight. After the show, buy him a drink and show him what you learned. | 6. Gay Sunday at the London Zoo
LONDON September 14 Hang out with the bears. Stave off the apes. Smile at the peacocks. And if you have time, go take a look at the animals too. 7. Get Wet Weekend
CURACAO September 25-28 Star DJs, boat parties and art shows await. How nice: a Caribbean island that throws the gay boys a party instead of stoning them outside a pharmacy in a mass mob. (Holla, Jamaica!) 8. Rainbow March
SAPORRO September 14 Saporro is not just a premium Japanese beer. It’s also the host of Japan’s longest-running gay pride parade. Don’t miss the dance party the night before the march. 9. South African Gay Film Fest
JOHANNESBURG September 4-14 Take in the best of gay and lesbian cinema with this diverse offering of screenings, workshops and city-wide events. 10. Gay Ski Week
QUEENSLAND, NZ Aug 29 – Sept 7 With powdery slopes, apres-ski socials, retro bowling, wine-country hiking and closing night dancing, this annual event attracts skiiers from across the gay globe. |
Zac Efron Not Gay Yet, But Close
Oh, Zac. Don’t be coy. We know there’s something you’re dying to come out and say – at least as soon as the current hype dies down and you’ve already done the rehab thing and maybe packed on a couple pounds and your agent’s desperate for a new angle. Is it such a stretch to suggest that someone starring in a High School Musical (or 2) could be a little, uh, bohemian?
After the jump, we molest a red carpet photo in search of evidence.
The Worst in Gay Marketing: Bud Light
Over the years, the Anheuser-Busch Companies and their advertising agency, DDB Needham Worldwide, have made some truly valiant efforts to court the gays into drinking more Bud Light (fags love diets!). Among these inspired campaigns, found in back issues of Out and HX, we chose a few to remind us that Heidi Fleiss and David Forest aren’t the ones who should be charged with pandering.
After the jump, we take a look at the last decade of Bud Light print ads geared toward gays.
Marc Jacobs Way Too Proud of Skinniness, Tattoos
Marc Jacobs is showing a lot of skin these days, and not just on his runway models. Jezebel notes that in this month’s issue of Arena Homme Plus, the it-man designer traipses about his Paris flat without a shirt on discussing the fact that he is having a mid-life crisis, buying a lot of jewelry, and getting some asinine tattoos (“I had thought, what a dumb thing to have your own name put on your body. But I really wanted to have my initial, so it had to be in the context of something really stupid: the M&M.”). Of course, now we want more than a walk-on in the next Lucas feature…
More embarassment (and skin) after the jump.
Nude Becks: Probably Photoshopped, Definitely Hot
Photoshopped? Probably. Actually David Beckham? Probably not (from the waist down anyway). Shower nozzle masturbation material? Um, yeah.
See full-size photo after the jump.
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