Big Gay Frat House Blog

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