Big Gay Frat House Blog

Risque charity fundraisers

We at the Big Gay Frat House are huge fans of getting people naked or near-naked for charity. Our very first party (in 2006) was an Epiphany Party for our Mardi Gras krewe, in which we had three bartenders, three floaters, and five go-go dancers who all ranged in varying degrees of nudity ... including completely naked, head to toe.

That set the stage for more hijinks to come.

(Note: the images embedded in this post are linked from Flickr. Most are marked restricted on Flickr to prevent children from seeing them. To see them full-sized, and to see more from the same event, create a free account on Flickr, log into your account settings, click over to the Privacy & Permissions tab, and turn off SafeSearch.)

Our first charitable fundraiser, in April 2006, was for the SF Fog rugby team. The genesis came from a conversation we had with a member of the rugby team in which we suggested that for a fundraiser, they already had a huge natural asset: athletes who already have a tendency to get naked at the drop of a hat. I suggested they use a full monty strip show as a part of the show (which also featured the legendary Varla Jean Merman), and from that a fundraiser was born: the Balls Out Ball. 

The third fundraiser, entitled A Midsummer Night's Dream, included adult porn star Brent Corrigan as our celebrity emcee. That pretty much clinched the formula for our events:

• Open bar (because we couldn't sell drinks)
• Fun performances, including drag performances with both lip-synching and live singing
• Lots of lots of male flesh, near- and completely-naked guys

It was a winning strategy for us, and also a lot of fun. But unfortunately, we haven't been able to host events in our home lately. But in the meantime, we definitely support others creating fun, entertaining events with male nudity as a draw. And we would like to support your endeavors. If you are doing a charity event in the SF Bay Area that you think is a little risque and fun, we can consider promoting it through our blog and through our email list, which currently has over a thousand subscribers.

There are two recent examples of fundraisers like this (neither of which we had anything to do with, but they serve as examples of things we love).

Tsunami Swim Team at the LookOut

Every Sunday after, the LookOut bar has a charity event called Jock Sundays. Each week, different local LGBT athletic teams take turns being the beneficiary, charging a nominal cover charge and also selling Jello shots and raffle tickets to support their team. One recent beneficiary was the Tsunami Swim Team, who wisely had their boys run around in speedos while selling for the cause. They couldn't get completely naked, but they use near-nudity to bring people in:

(More on Flickr)

Tight Whitey Car Wash

Another fun fundraiser was the second annual Tighty Whitey Car Wash, in which hunky guys stripped down to their underwear to hold a car wash in the Castro Walgreens parking lot. 

(More on Flickr)

Got ideas?

If you are holding a fundraiser for an organization in the SF Bay Area that has a risque twist to it, let us know -- we'd love to discuss ways we can support.

Over 40,000 ... and growing

In early 2006, Kevin was looking for a way to share photos taken in January at the Epiphany Party hosted at the Big Gay Frat House. A colleague recommended Flickr and he signed up on February 2, 2006.

The collection began just for photos taken at the BGFH, but it soon exploded into something much bigger. After taking a few snaps at local drag shows and club nights, he suddenly became known as an unofficial documentarian of gay nightlife.

Earlier this month while on vacation in New Orleans, Kevin broke the 40,000th photo mark on Flickr, an impressive feat for photos that are original and not filled with "net finds."

Note: if you simply hop over to Flickr right now to see them, you'll only see a small fraction of those photos. That's because Flickr requires some of the racier ones to be marked "restricted." That prevents them from being accidentally being seen by children (who cannot turn off SafeSearch) and others with more delicate sensibilities who choose not to turn off SafeSearch. To see those ones, you'll need to create a free account on Flickr and then turn off SafeSearch in your account settings.

As of today, Kevin has posted 41,051 items (all photos except for two short videos). All of that over the course of 1,312 days (approximately 3.6 years). That works out to an average of 31 photos per day, or 219 per week, or over 900 a month -- over 11,000 per year.

In that time, his photos and photostream have been viewed over 4 million times. That includes 2.6 million views of individual photos, over 983,000 clicking pages of the photostream with medium-sized images, and nearly 500,000 looking at full sets of thumbnailed images. Over the course of a typical month, his photos will be seen anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 times per day. Here's an overview:

If he were allowed to post ads on these pages (he can't under Flickr's rules) and charge an extremely modest $5 CPM, he would have earned over $20,000 in that time. Alas, he can't.

So what's in this collection anyway? What makes them so popular?

Quite a lot are of go-go boys dancing in their underwear or jockstraps in gay bars. Many are of drag shows, street fairs, fundraisers, and specific club nights. Thanks to Flickr's ability to allow tagging photos with meta-data, we can actually provide a quick overview. Note, however, that the tags have to be added either collectively at the time a bunch are uploaded, or individually thereafter. Most of the time, Kevin uploads the next day in one or more sets covering the events of the day. That makes it easier to tag things that cover the entire set, such as the name of the venue or bar, the name of the club night, and the city. For that cover a bunch of photos within a set, but which don't include the entire set (like go-go boys or strip poker), they can still be done in slightly more cumbersome bulk operations. But for tags that only occur a few times within a set, such as names of specific individuals, they're a lot more challenging to add and quite frankly are often omitted.

So while tags don't provide a 100% accurate reflection of Kevin's photos, they do provide a pretty good general overview. Here's a peek at the top 50, normalized to remove duplicates (for example, BGFH wasn't needed because we already had Big Gay Frat House):

Rank	Tag	# of times
1	San Francisco	32,521
2	gay	24,988
3	gay bar	20,369
4	bar	20,302
5	Castro	16,139
6	Gus Presents	7,162
7	The Cafe	6,296
8	go-go boys (also: go-go, go-go dancers)	5,523
9	Boy Bar	5,506
10	SOMA	4,839
11	drag queens	4,563
12	drag show	3,667
13	The Stud	3,244
14	Big Gay Frat House (also: BGFH)	3,180
15	fundraiser	2,981
16	Harvey's, Harveys	2,437
17	Monster Show	2,290
18	New Orleans	1,989
19	Trannyshack	1,748
20	gay cruise (tied with RSVP Vacations)	1,603
21	strip	1,515
22	Lucky Pierre	1,443
23	charity	1,386
24	LookOut	1,286
25	Hawaii	1,252
26	naked	1,240
27	Martuni's	1,164
28	Mardi Gras	1,158
29	stripping games	1,059
30	Girl Drink Drunk (also: GDD)	1,056
31	strip poker	956
32	Golden Gate Park	895
33	party	870
34	Caribbean cruise	855
35	Folsom Street Fair	851
36	Up Your Alley Fair (also: Dore Alley Fair)	838
37	440 Castro	824
38	Gay Pride	795
39	Epiphany	780
40	SF Boylesque	777
41	naked games	776
42	Mexican Riviera cruise	747
43	Frathouse	740
44	Oahu	736
45	CUAV (also: Community United Against Violence)	735
46	Civic Center	734
47	Folsom	729
48	leather	724
49	gay travel (also, gay vacations)	698
50	Honolulu	684

So ... which ones are the best? Well, that depends on how you want to define it, of course. Kevin has his own incomplete set of a few of his personal favorites. But Flickr also provides posters with a way to see their most popular photos, ranked through a variety of criteria:

• Views: the ones that have been individually seen the most
• Favorites: the ones that most other Flickr members have marked as their own "favorites"
• Comments: the ones that the have received the most comments from Flickr members
• Interesting: Flickr's own secret, proprietary algorithm for rating how interesting a photo is based on criteria involving weighting the number of comments, favoriting, and views, among potential other criteria.

Here's a fun chart showing the top 20 for all of these criteria. Many are restricted, so to the the full images when you click through to Flickr, you must first create a free account and then turn off SafeSearch in your Flickr account settings.

Rank	Views	Favorites	Comments	Interesting
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

So there you have it, the best of the best, however you want to define it. 

Rather than making money off of promoting SF nightlife, Kevin currently pays a modest $25 a year to have a pro account that allows him unlimited posting, and displays as many as he loads (free accounts are limited to displaying the most recent 200 photos). It doesn't cost that much ... but given that he's been unemployed since January, he certainly wouldn't object if someone used Flickr's "gift membership" functionality to extend his pro account, which will expire in February 2010.

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.

All Fired Up!

Our dear friend Charisma Glitterati, the reigning Miss Gay SF, just lost her home in a terrible fire. She's fine, fortunately, but the wigs, heels, and H&M jewels were scorched. The American Red Cross stepped in to help with basic necessities but apparently they don't have a drag couture budget.

 

So now it's our turn to help! Please just us at LookOut with former Mr. and Miss Gay SF, Johnathan and BeBe Sweetbriar, as we present All Fired Up, a sizzling fundraiser for both Charisma and the American Red Cross.

 

What:  All Fired Up

For Whom:  Charisma Glitterati and the American Red Cross

Where:  LookOut, 16th & Market, San Francisco

When:  Monday, February 9th from 4pm til 8pm

 

 

The event features:

• DJ Stef spinning hits of fire
• giftbags for the first 50 guests
• four upscale raffle items
• red hot drink special
• go-go "fire fighter" boyz

If you can, bring old gowns and other drag items to help replenish Charisma's closet. Raffle proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross. At the LookOut,16th & Market, on Monday, February 9th during happy hour, 4pm to 8pm.

Sponsored by: Johnathan, The Big Gay Frat House, Redbull, Gay.com, Lookout, and Thick n Thin Pizza.

 

 

Thank you for a great 2008!

As the year comes to a close and we look to new adventures in 2009, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the fun we had in 2008 and thank everyone who made it possible.

It was a bit of a different year for us, with fewer parties in our own home, a few fundraisers hosted externally, sponsoring more community events, and the first for us: producing the revival of a favorite drag musical. But though the house itself was a bit quieter, we have still raised a net total of $30,000 for charity in just two years.

We including links to some of Kevin's Flickr photos so you can see more. To see the best ones, be sure to create a free Flickr account and then turn off SafeSearch in your account settings. Some of them are a bit racy and needed to be marked "restricted."

Flop House

Our first event in 2008 -- and the last large fundraiser in our home -- was Flop House, a charity fundraiser in April for SF Boylesque, San Francisco's only male burlesque troupe. The event featured raffles, bachelor date auctions, face painting, our usual open bar, stilts-walkers, and some of the most innovative performances ever at the BGFH: male burlesque choreographed strip teases, jugglers, contortionists, and the strongest man in the world (we had to veto the fire breathing). A videographer was also on hand taking footage for a documentary about the BGFH (more about that later). Check out more photos from the event here, here, and here.

Balls Out Ball 2008

The very first fundraiser in our home was the Balls Out Ball, a 2006 fundraiser for the SF Fog rugby team headlined by Varla Jean Merman. One special highlight that helped set expectations for future BGFH events: we enticed a number of boys from the team to perform a choreographed stripping routine in which they did the full monty and got totally buck naked. It's a rugby tradition. In 2007, the Balls Out Ball 2007 was moved to another venue but the BGFH was a major sponsor. In 2008, we stepped back and watched them produce the best Balls Out Ball ever -- and yes, they got hot guys to once again get totally naked! We have more pictures here, and the Lavender Lounge even got video footage of their full monty strip routine.

Big Gay Garage Sale

Not every fundraiser needs to be big and splashy. In May, we turned over the use of our garage to the SF Fog for ... a garage sale! Over a thousand dollars was raised for the team from the sale of items donated by team members, and the remaining unsold items were donated to charity. It was a surprisingly low-effort way of helping out.

Another Gay Fundraiser

In June, right before Pride, we hosted our first event outside of the BGFH. Brent Corrigan (who emceed our Midsummer Night's Dream fundraiser in 2006) approached us about hosting a fundraiser at the LookOut. The event tied in with the film festival screening of Another Gay Sequel in which Brent plays Stan the Merman. It raised $2,500 for Community United Against Violence. More photos are available here and here.

Trannyshack Kiss-Off

In 2007, we sponsored the Miss Trannyshack Pageant by purchasing the winner's crown. In 2008, Heklina decided to bring the weekly club to a close (but there will eventually be special monthly events). The finale was an all-star Kiss-Off Party at the Regency Center, and we sponsored the Jungle Red Lounge, the dance club in the basement with eight go-go boys and music by DJ Earworm. More photos of the event can be found here.

Jungle Red

In September, we undertook our most ambitious project ever: producing the revival of Artfull Circle Theatre's Jungle Red, a musical drag parody of Claire Booth Luce's classic play The Women. The production, held at the Victoria Theatre, was directed by Donna Drake and starred Varla Jean Merman. Other cast members included Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Birdie-Bob Watt, Trauma Flintstone, Henna Rintz, Marqi de Sade, CoCo Royale, and Ethel Merman. Some cast photos are available here, here, here, here and here.

Desperate Divas 2009 Calendar

Last year (April 2007) we held a competition to see who would be crowned our Miss August 2008, the page we were sponsoring for the AIDS Housing Alliance's Desperate Divas calendar, and Artemis Chase won. For the 2009 calendar, we appointed the writer of Jungle Red and one of its stars, someone who has performed at more BGFH events than anyone else: Ethel Merman! You can get your copy here.

Gloss Sundays @ LookOut

Our very last public event of 2008 was our sponsorship of Lord Martine's Gloss Sundays on December 21st. The event is Lord Martine's weekly Sunday afternoon/evening party at the LookOut with resident DJs Joseph Lee and Pornstar, along with other special guest deejays every week. It was our second event at the LookOut, which is rapidly becoming one of our favorite places. This time the event was a simple canned food and toy drive to help the less fortunate during the holidays. One of our friends brought a Wonder Woman statue that was coveted by the deejays and bar staff alike! A small handful of photos are available here.

My Big Gay Frat House

One final exciting thing that happened in 2008: our friend Sean Chapin directed and produced a 30-minute documentary about us called My Big Gay Frat House. It is currently being shopped around to various LGBT film festivals for 2009, but in the meantime you can watch the teaser trailer here:

As 2008 comes to a close, we want to thank everyone who has performed in our home, worked with us on events, and above all, came out to support the charitable causes and community events we've participated in. It's been another amazing year!

We don't know what 2009 will bring, but no doubt there will be something different and new to surprise you. In the meantime, from all of us fratbois, have a fun and safe New Year's, and bring blessings for a wonderful 2009.

~ David, Jon, Kevin, Tim

Gloss Sundays @ LookOut

We're delighted to be partnering with Lord Martine to sponsor this week's GLOSS SUNDAYS at the LookOut (corner of 16th & Market in SF).

• Bring non-perishable food or unwrapped gifts to receive Red Bull & 42 Below vodka drink tickets.
• DJ Joseph Lee, DJ Pornstar, and special guest DJ DR PROCTOR
• Hosted by Santa Baby Gus Bean (Gus Presents)

Jungle Red is open

"Jungle Red" opened last week, and it's a terrific production!

The BGFH is so proud to be producing Artfull Circle Theatre's hit play. The show is a musical parody of the 1939 classic film (and stage play) "The Women." Our cast stars Varla Jean Merman ("Girls Will Be Girls," "Project Runway") as Crystal Allen (the Joan Crawford role) with Katya Smirnoff-Skyy as Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell), Trauma Flintstone as Edith Potter and others, Birdie Bob Watt as Mary Haines (Norma Shearer), Henna Rintz in numerous character roles, Marqi de Sade as Miriam Ahrens and others (Paulette Goddard), CoCo Royale as Peggy Day (Joan Fontaine), and Ethel Merman as the Countess du Lage and others. The production is directed by Donna Drake.

It's playing at the Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th Street in San Francisco, on Wednedays through Saturdays until October 4th when it absolutely must close, no extensions. Tickets are available online now!

Check out some of the opening night photos:

Auditions for "Jungle Red"

The Big Gay Frat House is excited to announce a new venture for us: we are producing the revival of "JUNGLE RED," a musical parody that will be at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco this September. It stars Varla Jean Merman, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Trauma Flintstone, and Mark Sargent (Ethel Merman Experience).

The play will be performed primarily by men in drag who will be singing live. There are four roles yet to be cast, and we are excited to announce open auditions to fill those roles. Auditions will be held on JULY 20th starting at 6:00pm. To sign up for an audition slot, please email us at fratboys @ biggayfrathouse.com and include:

• Your full name
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Photo(s), ideally including at least one photo in drag

Please note that an appointment slot is required. Drop-in auditions will not be permitted without an appointment. Be sure to bring sheet music or CD to accompany you to the audition.

Brent Corrigan returns tomorrow!

Come to the LookOut in San Francisco tomorrow night for Another Gay Fundraiser with our friend, porn star Brent Corrigan.

Another Gay Fundraiser
A benefit for Community United Against Violence

Thursday, June 26, 2008
9:00 p.m. until....?

LookOut
3600 16th Street @ Market
San Francisco, California

Hosted by Brent Corrigan, sponsored by Dirty Bird Pictures and BrentCorriganInc.com, and produced by the Big Gay Frat House. Come down and enjoy...

 

• FREE ADMISSION - NO COVER CHARGE
• Jell-O shots administered by porn stars
• Porn raffles
• Auctions of limited edition art by Ismael Alvarez for "Another Gay Sequel"
• Tickets to the world premiere of "Another Gay Sequel" at the Castro Theatre on June 28
• Performances by Katya Smirnoff-Skyy
• Performances by Brent Corrigan and his boys

Hope to see you there!

Another Gay Fundraiser ... with Brent Corrigan!

We're so excited to announce that we are partnering with our friend Brent Corrigan to produce Another Gay Fundraiser.

Thursday, June 26th
9pm until ....?

LookOut Bar
3600 Market Street @ 16th

The event is a benefit for Community United Against Violence, who was the beneficiary of our Midsummer Night's Dream fundraiser that Brent hosted at our house two years ago.

The event will feature:

• Porn raffles
• Jello shots sold by porn stars
• Limited edition auction of art prints by Ismael Alvaraz for "Another Gay Sequel"
• Tickets to the world premiere of "Another Gay Sequel" at the Castro Theatre on June 28th
• Performances by Katya Smirnoff-Skyy
• Live performances by Brent Corrigan and his boys

No cover charge! But bring your cash for the Jello shots, auctions, and raffles. All money raised goes directly to CUAV.