Big Gay Frat House Blog

What becomes a legend most? KATYA!

Longtime followers of the Big Gay Frat House's antics will know that we have long been fans of Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, the Russian opera diva gracing cabaret and theater stages throughout San Francisco. We first saw her perform at Trauma Flinstone's monthly show Bijou, held on the second Sunday of every month at Martuni's, and then at her own Martuni's show on the third Sunday. Kevin interviewed her for gay.com right before her own Martuni's show debuted.

For those who haven't experienced her, Katya is a drag queen who sings live. A trained opera singer who sings pop songs. As operas. With a Russian accent.

Since then we've seen her at countless shows throughout town and numerous charity fundraisers. She co-starred as Sylvia Fowler in the revival of "Jungle Red" that we helped produce. And she has performed at five charity fundraisers that the BGFH produced. We also saw her first productions at the New Conservatory Theatre.

But her current show at NewCon, Katya: What Becomes a Legend Most, is truly her best to date. There's a scripted continuity that keeps the show on a logical, even flow, but her inate sense of timing and humor allows her to ad lib without distrupting the show. Brilliant! Longtime fans will be delighted to hear that this show has many, many new songs. For those of you not on the wagon, there's a vodka cran shot at the end ... and for those of you who fall off the wagon, welcome back.

You can buy tickets through the New Conservatory Theatre box office, or check Goldstar for the potential availability of discounted tickets.

The show runs Thursdays through Saturdays through June 27th.

The Cafe is back ... temporarily

We mentioned last week that there were signs that our old nightlife haunt, The Cafe, would be re-opening soon, as Gus Presents started running ads announcing that his Friday night club Boy Bar would soon be returning at an unspecified future date.

It's official! Sort of.

The Cafe has announced that they will temporarily re-open for Pride weekend:

• Thursday, June 25:  Pan Dulce!, their Latin night
• Friday, June 26:  Boy Bar, Gus Presents' weekly club for young guys and their admirers
• Saturday, June 27th: Pride Saturday
• Sunday, June 28th: Pride Sunday

This re-opening is only temporary, and potentially only partial. They'll be closed again during the next week but will re-open for the 4th of July weekend. Then rumor has it that the will close again for 12 days to complete the final bits of remodeling before re-opening again for good in mid-July.

 

That's the rumor, at least. As with all rumors, subject to change. But you can keep up with them on Facebook, Twitter, and their own website.

Boy Bar is coming back!

Faithful readers will recall that it was Gus Presents' Friday night club, Boy Bar, that brought Kevin back to The Cafe after years of absence. The club became Kevin's regular Friday night hangout and eventually helped make The Cafe his "Cheers" bar.

Boy Bar also triggered Kevin's notoriety as a photographer of San Francisco's gay nightlife. All told, he has taken 4,981 photos at Boy Bar - which is 88% of the 5,528 photos he's taken at The Cafe and 74% of the 6,620 photos he's taken at all Gus Presents events. And they no doubt represent a substantial percentage of the 4,805 photos of go-go boys he's taken.

So of course he was sad when The Cafe closed in February for a three month remodel that everyone knew would take longer. Their website said it would be closed until May 2009. That was recently updated to say June. But though much progress is being made, it's already mid-June and it seems unlikely that it will reopen within the next few weeks.

But now we have real, tangible evidence that it will happen soon: Gus Presents is starting to run "Re-opening Soon!" ads for Boy Bar in Gloss Magazine and elsewhere. True fans will recall that the model used in the ad (courtesy of Falcon Studios) is the same one that was used for Boy Bar's very first ads. Although no date is announced, the very presence of these ads suggests that Gus knows it will be very soon.

We can't wait!

 

Summer Splash 2009

We're delighted to be able to help pass along the word about Summer Splash 09, a pool party fundraiser benefiting the Richmond Ermet AIDS Foundation taking place on Saturday, June 27, 2009.

 

Please mark your calendars for Summer Splash 09, a pool party produced by Image Three Inc. and the W San Francisco, benefiting the Richmond Ermet AIDS Foundation taking place on Saturday, June 27, 2009.

The event celebrates REAF’s long-standing commitment to raise funds for AIDS service provider agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The event coincides with San Francisco Gay Pride week.

This year’s event is already making a Splash. When the W San Francisco teamed up with veteran event producers, Image Three Inc, Pride revelers and San Francisco Bay Area locals alike, knew they were in for a sensorial experience like no other. One excited attendee commented, "A posh pool party sounds like the perfect Summertime activity. Finally there is an event in San Francisco similar to the pool parties found in Los Angeles and Miami."

Festivities will kick-off at 1:00pm at the W San Francisco's 4th floor Pool Pavilion and Terrace. Partygoers are encouraged to wear chic pool wear, highlighting their sizzling, summer bodies and will enjoy sips, savories, sights and sounds.

For more information and to purchase tickets visit www.richmondermet.org.

The gayest man on Earth would find this over the top!

The best (in my opinion) of the Literal Video parodies on Youtube: Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

The Big Gay ... Musical?

Coming to film festivals this summer and selected theaters this fall, it's The Big Gay Musical!

Alas, it's not ours. It has nothing to do with the Big Gay Frat House (though if we had the means of copyrighting "Big Gay ___ ___," we could have made a mint!). Except ... there is one tiny connection: adult star Brent Corrigan, who worked with us for our Midsummer Night's Dream fundraiser in August 2006 and Another Gay Fundraiser in June 2008, appears in the film.

Though best known for his porn career, including starting two porn studios by the age of 22, Brent is one of the rare adult stars to be able to break into mainstream acting roles as well. He's starred in two short films for writer/director Jody Wheeler, including In the Closet, played Stan the Merman in Todd Stephens' Another Gay Sequel, had a credited cameo in Milk, will star in the upcoming film Judas Kiss, and is rehearsing for the lead in The Masseur (a two-man play about the art of seduction).

But Brent isn't the only reason we're excited about The Big Gay Musical. I mean, hello! It's gay. And it's a musical!

The Big Gay Musical is the story of two actors, Paul and Eddie, whose lives begin to mirror the characters they play in an off-Broadway musical. It's written and produced by Fred Caruso, directed by Casper Andreas, and stars a cast generally best known for their work on Broadway, including Liz McCartney (Taboo, South Pacific), Jim Newman (Curtains, Minnelli on Minnelli), Joey Dudding (A Chorus Line, La Cage), Marty Thomas (Xanadu, Wicked, The Secret Garden), Andre Ward (Xanadu, Saturday Night Fever), Daniel Robinson (Hairspray), Jeff Metzler (Mary Poppins), Brian Spitulnik (Chicago), Josh Cruz (Wig Out), Celina Carvajal (Tarzan and the TV show The Search of Elle Woods) and Steve Hayes, one of the stars of the film Trick.

Embrem Entertainment recently acquired distribution rights and announced that the soundtrack will be released on July 14. The film hits film festivals this summer (we'll know in 10 days if it made it into Frameline) and will have a theatrical release this fall. We can't wait!

More changes to SF's gay nightlife

We few months ago, we reported on some pending changes to San Francisco's gay nightlife scene. We now have some updates.

Trigger

As we reported a few weeks ago, Trigger has finally opened and is now the newest gay bar in the Castro. Already we've been to several events there, including one of the Desperate Divas drag competitions. It's truly the most swankiest gay bar in the city, with touches of an LA vibe (but fortunately without the LA drink prices!). And with a capacity of 270, it's currently also the largest gay bar in the Castro pending The Cafe's remodel.

The Cafe

Speaking of The Cafe ... regretably, there's not much to update. Renovations continue, but there appears to be so much left to do and the promised May 23rd deadline seems impossible at this point. Maybe ... July?

Frathouse, Palace, and Epic

Gus Presents has now closed two of their weekly events. Frathouse helped bring younger guys to 440 Castro, formerly the near-exclusive domain of leather, denim, and daddies before Culture Whores started holding Faggot there once a month. Faggot closed several years ago, and several months later Gus started Frathouse. It had a great run for a few years, but was abruptly cancelled without notice a few weeks ago. Even more surprisingly was the sudden cancellation of Palace, Gus' temporary Friday night club at Mist. Palace was expected to continue to run until Boy Bar could return when The Cafe reopens.

In their places, Gus is starting a new once a month club at 1015 Folsom called Epic, which will be held on the second Saturday of every month. This leaves Gus Presents with only two weekly clubs: Social Club at the LookOut on Saturdays, and the 18+ club The Crib at 715 Harrison.

Alas, Epic also conflicts with the another second-Saturday club, Cock Fight at Underground SF. Cab drivers are gonna love me (at least they will once a month).

2124 Market Street

We mentioned before that when The Metro left the space that is now the LookOut, they took over The Expansion before giving up their lease after only a year. For a brief time after The Metro moved out, it reverted back to being a straight bar called 2124 Market (easy to find at lease).

Now it's closed, gutted, and appears to be undergoing massive renovations. Rumor on the street is that they gay owenrs intend to keep it as a straight bar when it reopens. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- lord knows we have enough boozy options in the 'hood, and of course we'll pop in anyway from time to time if the place is cool. We're just curious to get the details. Anyone know?

RuPaul's Drag Race - Season 2!

Earlier this year, the most famous drag queen in the world, RuPaul, hosted RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo. About 10 queens competed through a variety of competitions to ultimately be crowned as an heir to RuPaul's success.

There were some issues to the structure to the show mainly due, no doubt, to budget limitations. A true competition testing a drag's talent would be to throw the girls a theme and a budget and then let them pull together an outfit and a performance. They'd have to either make or purchase an outfit (some queens can sew, others can't, but that's not necessarily relevant to what makes a good drag superstar). They'd have to choose a song that matches the theme and then pull together a routine, either lipsynching or singing live. But the problem is that Logo, unlike American Idol, doesn't have the budget to pay song royalties, so the only actual lipsynching was at the end when the two queens facing elimination would simultaneously lipsynch to the same song chosen by the producers.

Which didn't stop me from watching, but a bigger budget could really make this a truly awesome show.

The winner of season 1 was Bebe Zahara Benet, a New York drag queen originally born and raised in Camaroon, Africa. Kevin had the chance to see Bebe and fellow competitor Tammie Brown perform at Toad Hall a few weeks ago. You can check out more pics from that night on Flickr.

Sadly, no San Francisco queens made it onto the show. San Francisco, home to the original Imperial Court and the very different Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Where a drag queen (Jose Sarria, aka the Widow Norton and founder of the Imperial Court) ran for the SF Board of Supervisors in 1961 when it was still illegal for two men to dance together. Where we have caberet singers who sing live and Trannyshack pushing the boundaries of taste and sensibility. But alas, no SF queens made the cut.

Now we have a chance to remedy that. It's time for the casting of Season 2 of RuPaul's Drag Race!

Artemis Chase

Artemis is our girl. Originally from Oregon, she honed her talent in New York City before moving cross country to San Francisco, where she quickly started getting booked at places like Trannyshack and the Monster Show before starting some of her own gigs and being involved in others. (One of my favorites of those was being the strip poker dealer at the sadly defunct Lucky Pierre.) And she performed twice at the Big Gay Frat House, first at the Midsummer Night's Dream fundraiser for Community United Against Violence, hosted by adult star Brent Corrigan, and then at the third Girl Drink Drunk where she was crowned Miss Desperate Diva for August 2007 -- our very first Miss Big Gay Frat House, as it were. And though she now has moved to Portland, San Francisco still can claim her as a daughter. So we really, really hope you'll vote for Artemis once a day, each and every day, for the remaining 52 days of online voting. Of all of the SF girls vying for a spot in Season 2, she's currently the frontrunner.

Landa Lakes

Artemis isn't the only SF girl competing who also performed at the BGFH. Our dear friend Landa Lakes performed at the very first Girl Drink Drunk and was the special guest emcee at the sixth one. She's also vying for a spot (and has the honor of being featured heavily last season in the recap episode when they showed clips from queens who didn't make it). Landa can use your votes too (and you can vote for more than one girl per day!).

Mercedez Munro

Finally, there's our beloved Mercedez Munro, who also performed at our sixth Girl Drink Drunk. Mercedez served as Miss Gay San Francisco a few years back and has the distinction of being the only person the BGFH has endorsed for office (when she ran for Empress a few years ago). Vote for Mercedez, too!

Pollo Del Mar

Pollo, the reigning Miss Trannyshack (for perpetuity, apparently, unless Heklina decides to have another pageant), performed at our third Girl Drink Drunk, a benefit for the AIDS Housing Alliance. She has recently taken the lead of all of our SF girls. She needs more votes to break into the top 5.

Raya Light

A former Miss Trannyshack, Raya has a shocking form of drag unlike anything that has ever graced RuPaul's catwalk. What a change of pace she'd bring! Raya performed at our second Girl Drink Drunk, benefitting Project Open Hand, and can also use your votes.

Cookie Dough

Cookie, a Trannyshack regular who brought drag back to the Castro with Cookie After Dark at Martuni's and the Monster Show at Harvey's (and now drag is everywhere here), performed at our fifth Girl Drink Drunk benefitting the Stop AIDS Project. Vote for her, too.

Holy McGrail

As a faux queen (a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman, a la Victor/Victoria), Holy is one of the most unconventional choices here and is therefore someone that will shock Logo's audience. Tee hee! Holy performed at our second Girl Drink Drunk. Vote for her, too!

 

Of course, there are so many of other talented friends competing. But we really wanted to highlight the ones who have performed at the BGFH and thus have a very special place in our hearts. Some friends are entering the race a little later than others. If you're competing and you have performed at a BGFH fundraiser, let us know and we'll include you.

Good luck, girls. We'll be voting for you every day!

Trigger!

San Francisco's newest gay bar, which officially opens on Friday, is Trigger -- Greg Bronstein's double-sized make-over of Jet (which was The Detour when owned by Les Natali).

After an extensive permitting process, Bronstein finally received approval to expand to an adjacent storefront that he also owned (then used as an art gallery), which allowed him to more than double in size. The new place features a 360-degree square central bar (with places for go-go dancers on each corner and a stripper pole in the center behind the bartenders), DJ booth and dance floor, a mezzanine lounge, and a glassed-enclosed smoking lounge.

The official opening is May 1, but eight pre-parties during the previous week allowed a sneak peek at the yet-unfinished bar. (When we went on Friday, April 24, the place was not yet painted and there was no flooring, nor had the fabulous chandelier from Under One Roof been installed, but the unfinished look gave it an industrial chic vibe that was rather cool.)

Trigger is attempting a new concept for San Francisco gay bars: a "Black Card" VIP membership for $500 (of which, $200 is given back in a bar tab and $100 is donated to charity). Some of the amenities for Black Card members include a private thumbprint activated entrance (through which you can bring up to three additional guests), private coat check and bathroom, valet parking, VIP services, a concierge service, and first access to the penthouse suite that sits above the bar for private events or overnight stays.

But one of our favorite features of Trigger is the way they have adopted six local nonprofit charities, including (among others) Under One Roof, New Leaf Services, and Community United Against Violence. These agencies will be allowed to throw periodic fundraisers at the bar (at least two per year) where the door cover charge will go to the charity. In addition, the charities will be allowed to use the bar and it's private screening room for meetings at times when the bar is closed.

It's the most ambitious undertaking the Castro has seen in a long, long time. With a capacity of 270, it will briefly be the largest bar in the Castro. (The Cafe, currently closed for its own renovations and expansion, already had a capacity of 350 which will be even greater when it re-opens.) And it will unquestionably be the swankiest bar in the neighborhood and most elegant gay bar in the entire city.

Check out more photos from the first pre-party on April 24:

BGFH can help your AIDS/LifeCycle fundraising

Sadly, it's been awhile since we've been able to host an event at the Big Gay Frat House. Lots of reasons, many of which can be tied to the economy. But in the meantime, we still want to help out the agencies that support our community.

So many people we know are riding their bikes from San Francisco to Los Angeles from May 31 through June 6th as part of the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride to End AIDS. Riders will bike 545 miles to help raise awareness that AIDS remains a serious problem, and also raise money for the programs of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the LA Gay & Lesbian Center.

But it's a huge commitment. Not only are the riders taking a week off work to trek over 500 miles (not to mention spending months training and conditioning to prepare for the ride), but they also have to commit to raising a minimum of $3,000 each. That's a lot of dough. Most riders start by asking their friends and family, but that's often not enough (especially since so many of us have many friends who are participating). Many riders have resorted to doing some really creative mini-fundraisers to help them reach their goal.

And we can help.

Are you doing something really creative to help you reach your goal? Lots of bars have hosted special events for riders in the past. And many have been able to raise a lot of money through raffles, selling Jell-O shots, and similar ways.

Here are a few of the clever things we've heard about...

• A few years ago, a pair of friends did a BikeR Fundraiser event at the Powerhouse that included the typical raffles and such. But in addition, they got on stage and each agreed to remove an article of clothing for every $20 thrown into a bucket. This allowed people to contribute whatever they could (some threw in a few bucks, some threw in several $20s). And yeah, one got totally naked.
• Two riders are hosting an upcoming event at Truck. They've gotten 14 of their friends to be put up for a Bachelor Date Auction (complete with dinner).
• One person we heard of, years ago, did his fundraising entirely online on his blog. He posted pictures of himself that were increasingly more and more revealing the more he raised.

There are so many creative ideas. Drag shows and other performances. Auctions for bachelor dates or other services (yard work, housecleaning, professional photography services, and the like). Raffles. If you don't have donated items to raffle off, consider the strip-for-donations idea above. Or something like the Manwash raffles at the Powerhouse in June and July 2006, where a lucky raffle winner got to get a porn star dirty with body paint and then another lucky winner got to clean them up. (Nothing needed to be donated except for the porn star's time.) Or the Looking Good, Feeling Fab fundraisers that Sister Roma has done (including this one in September 2005 and this one in September 2006) where cute guys literally sold all the clothes they were wearing for charity (presumably they brought extra clothing and didn't walk home naked).

So if you have a creative idea to help raise money for the AIDS/LifeCycle ride, we wanna help. It can either be a physical event at a bar or other venue, or even something done online. But it's got to be creative, something more than "I'm riding, please give me money." Which of course is fine, but we want to promote ones that are a little bit more participatory.

If you have an idea, email us a pitch about what you're planning. We in turn can help publicize it in several ways:

1. We will blog about it on the BGFH Blog

2. We will create a page on the BGFH site for all of the different ones we're promoting

3. We will collect all of the ones we're promoting and send an email to our email list (which currently has 1,118 people on it)

So ... send us a pitch and we'll see if we can help.

Cosmique Movie Awards

For many years, Kevin conducted an annual movie awards with his friends called the Cosmique Movie Awards. The awards honored the very best (and worst) of cinematic achievement from the previous calendar year but also inducted new films and actors into a Lifetime Achievement Hall of Fame.

Voting was conducted by an invited group of friends in two rounds. The first round was open-ended, with voters able to nominate whichever films or performances from the previous year that they wanted. They could choose up to five nominees per category and also had the option to designate one of them as a "power vote," giving it extra weight (passion counts). The top five nominees in each category were then presented back to the same pool of voters to determine the ultimate winner.

The awards were a blend of the gravitas of the Oscars (with categories like Best Film and Best Actor) and the irreverence of the MTV Movie Awards (with categories like Worst Performance and Actor's Character You Would Most Like to be Intimate With).

Recently a few friends have suggested that the Cosmo Awards be revived. But if so, how? Should it remain limited to invited friends, or be opened up to anyone reached through the BGFH? Would you vote if allowed? Please share your thoughts both in the poll below as well as in the comments section.

Survey Results - GlowDay.com

SF Boylesque boys are back

Last April we hosted a charity fundraiser called Flop House for SF Boylesque, San Francisco's only mostly-male burlesque troupe. It was an extraordinary event, one of our favorites. You can check out photos on the BGFH website and Kevin's Flickr gallery.

SF Boylesque had a somewhat nomadic first fews years, but we're delighted to report that they now have a monthly show called Das Kabarett at Mama Calizo's (1519 Mission Street, site of the former Jon Simms Centre). Kevin went to the first one in Jannuary and it was absolutely delightful.

The next show, entitled Das Kabarett: Wicked - 7 Deadly Sins Unveiled, will be held tomorrow night at 8:00 pm. Check out the description from their ticketing site:

"Something's a bit off over at the local Catholic school. The headmaster's monitoring the post-PE showers. Nuns are chain-smoking inside the confessional. Strip poker's being played in the detention hall, and Satan himself is wondering the hallways. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when things started to stray, though by now, the problems are obviously endemic.

Strict disciplinarian Father Barnaby and the delightfully deluded, Sister Scrumptious educate six uniformed schoolboys on the most heinous elements of the human condition: PRIDE, ENVY, GLUTTONY, SLOTH, ANGER, GREED and LUST. [sic]

An odyssey of song and dance, this irreverent, fast-paced comedy, weaves circus and variety acts into their 80-minute long, stripped-down, neo-burlesque spectacular.

Featuring 14 of your favorite performers answering your most burning questions:

-Which of the six naughty school boys will receive a bare bottom spanking?

-Who's the new guy, no not that one, the nearly naked, sinewy deity slinking across the stage?

-What indulgences does it take to seduce Truly Scrumptious from her habit?

-Will an audience member really crack a child's head open onstage?

This show is so jazz-hot, Satan himself couldn't stay away.

ENORMVS sizzles in our sexiest strip routine yet!

JASPER will melt your heart with his accordion ways!

SVEN's comedic strip will literally take your breathe away!

CHEEKMASTERS circus skills dazzle in the penultimate act!

TRULY SCRUMPTIOUS crosses over to the darkside!

The BOHEMIAN BRETHREN take a gamble and lose their clothes!

Yes. "Strip poker's being played in the detention hall" and "The BOHEMIAN BRETHREN take a gamble and lose their clothes!" You know that if there's a strip poker reference, Kevin just has to be there. I mean, he has taken 945 pictures of guys playing strip poker over the last few years. (Note: Flickr requires that they be restricted, so be sure to create a few Flickr account and turn off SafeSearch in your account settings.)

So check out some photos from January's event and then buy a ticket while they still last!

More on Flickr...