For starters, I have a problem with the whole "upscale" look of the place. The venue looks like the lobby of one of those new luxury condos going up all over northwest. Why does everything need to be so fancy all of a sudden?
My first visit to Town was a quick 30-minute tour on their opening night. I won't tell you why I was there, with whom, or why I got in for free. What I will say is that no venue like that should open before the fresh paint smell has faded. I was pretty unimpressed with all aspects of their opening night party. I'll leave it at that.
If you haven't figured this out yet, they have two nights now: Downtown on Fridays, and Uptown on Saturdays. I was never expecting their Saturday night party to be something I'd be very interested in. I never enjoyed Velvet Nation for oh so many reasons, and I figured their Saturday night party would be more of the same. My first quick tour of Town on Saturday night indicated to me that I was probably right.
However, Downtown sounded promising. Let's review the description on the club's website:
Every Friday, Town offers something different for DC...an edgier and more aggressive party serving up electropoprock...
Hey, sounds good. A gay dance night with an edge. I'm not quite sure what they mean by aggressive, though. Perhaps they'll have mud wrestling or a fight club? Hm. And electropoprock? Well, all those syllables sound good but I am not quite sure what they all mean when smushed together. Taken as a whole, electropoprock sounds like a sort of battery-powered candy that fizzes in your mouth. But over all, sounds like it could be fun. Let's read on.
with an emphasis on cutting edge music and avant garde performances for a crowd that wants something new and different...
Cutting edge music, huh? I guess they're referring to that electropoprock again. I'm still not sure what they are referring to musically, but since I'm definitely a crowd-of-one that wants something new and different, maybe it could be something I'm interested in. Oh, wait. Avant garde performances? What could that mean. I'm getting nervous.
The night will feature special performances by our own dance troupe: X-faction, and our undercover frat boy go-go boys from up and down the east coast...
Ut oh. The have a dance troop? What night club has a dance troupe? Where'd they get this idea from, and why did they think that avant garde dance troop performances were the new-and-different I was wanting? Okay, and let's take a deep breath and dissect this next part slowly: Undercover. Frat Boy. Go-Go Boys. From up and down the east coast. What makes them undercover? And what does the east coast have to do with this? Why does that matter? Ooh, this undercover frat boy go-go boy is from Myrtle Beach! Hot!
It goes on about drag performances and such, but I really just need to stop there...
Now for my one-minute review of how well Downtown met my expectations. First, there was nothing edgy about the music. I asked someone who worked there and he told me the downstairs was supposed to be the alterna-dj, but a Whitney Houston remix was playing when I walked in. The upstairs was no better. I think I might have eventually, once over the course of my stay, heard one song that could be found in my music collection.
Secondly, the avant garde performance that I saw was nothing more than a live version of a Britney Spears video or concert, except that there was no fake-tanned chubby blonde addict dancing on stage. (Or was there? I didn't pay enough attention.) Oh, and they were dancing to Britney, too. Yeah, really avant garde, guys.
Finally, the frat boy go-go boys. The only thing fratty about the go-go boys was their age. I doubt any of them were 21 or older (good thing it's an 18+ club night). These boys, honestly boys, had no chest hair and hardly any muscle definition. It was like they belonged in those homoerotic under-aged Calvin Klein photo ads shot in a wood-paneled basement.
So, needless to say, I won't be including regular visits to Town on my calendar. I guess I should have known better to expect something like what Tracks used to be like back in the early 1990s. However, I talked with some friends and acquaintances I saw there, and I was clearly the biggest hater of them all. A few admitted to secretly enjoying trashy dance nights. Others didn't mind the music so much, as I guess they are more open minded than I am.
Town's ability to fill their brand new venue so quickly after opening speaks to an unmet need here in DC. But I have to wonder, are big dance clubs like this really good for our community? Do they provide good spaces for people to mix and mingle, meet and flirt? Or are they venues that
breed self-loathing and prey on the low self confidence that comes from
growing up gay in this crazy world.
What do you think? Do clubs like Town make cities better places to be gay?
As we've discussed before, there's a new club in town: Town. I've heard it described as "Halo with dance floors" which I tend to agree with. I've been twice now, once on a Saturday for Uptown, and once on a Friday for Downtown. Needless to say, I have some thoughts about this. 
24 comments:
Good for the community? Mix & mingle?
I think not. These "venues" are good for one thing only: perpetuating behaviors which reinforce social and intellectual isolation, sexual irresponsibility and trivialization, and dangerous (not to mention expensive from a public health perspective) drug use.
Not to mention the PR issues associated with these behaviors: if we expect to be taken seriously in a national context in matters of civil equivalence, adoption rights, and other matters, the prominence of these activities and their perceived importance to the community at large only serve to stop the advance of said progress.
Until this subset believes that they are more individually than the sum of their childish behaviors, and those that will not are effectively marginalized from the community at large, we will all continue to be punished for the ignorance and desperation of what I believe are more and more becoming a relative few.
i haven't been yet, i'm going this friday to check it out. i'm not expecting any great surprise; i've only been to a small handful of gay bars anywhere in the world that pleasantly defied my expectations(and most of those were in berlin). i understand the frustration, but it seems to me that you guys could be a little more productive about it than smarmy reviews in little read blogs. someone at the new gay must know/be a dj. clearly you have organization skills enough to mount some sort of project. why don't you throw your own party? i don't know how the ins and outs of the club world, and i haven't lived in dc long, but back when i lived in toronto, and vancouver before that, it seemed like every month some new band of hipster malcontents had plugged in their ipod to some hole in the wall and started jumping outta their chuck taylors to french hip-hop or italian house or whatever it was they were onto that month. i'm not volunteering or anything, but it seemed to me like they were trying a lot harder with their outfits than their dance parties. just a thought.
Two things:
Sam, I agree with you that large-scale gay dance clubs present a bit of PR nightmare for us. However, I believe that gays are a minority that is consistently punished in both gay and straight media for having fun. I don't go to clubs like town, nor do I use any serious drugs. I generally have a pretty dim opinion of places like that and the people that go there. However, it is fully their prerogative to do so if they choose. Many, many straight people got bad clubs, dance to shitty music,do gross drugs and fuck each other without condoms. However, enough other straight people do things like go to museums, read books, attend low-key bars and display wide ranges of interest that such behavior is not known as a "Straight thing." Our problem is lack of choices. The more atypical gay social outlets (i.e. good music, interesting atmosphere, not exploiting perceived gay stereotypes) we are given, the more we'll be seen as a diverse population and not a never-ending chain of queer spawn. Even Nellie's is a step in the right direction, as it gives D.C. gays somewhere else to go.
And Adam, we're working on it. You might have noticed (or are we that little read?) that Michael was DJing Taint last thursday, which is a step in the right direction.
Zach,
On the topic of "prerogative":
It is an individual's right to the extent that it does not adversely effect others. The continued hedonistic and irresponsible indulgence by this subset adversely effects the community as a whole, and there I do not believe there is any "right" to continue to do so.
This is not to say that I am averse to having a good time. Party all you want, but when your behavior infringes on the rights and abilities of others to progress in society, there should be a reprimand by the group at large. The idea that "people can do what they want as long as they're only hurting themselves" simply does not hold water in most circumstances, given our interconnectivity and interdependence, welcomed or not. I could go on a further public health spiel to bolster this, but it would probably just bore the hell out of anyone who continued to read.
I've always liked the phrase "do what thou wilst, and ye harm none." If we are the victim of selfish living by others, there should be a very loud, very unified, very focused backlash, to prove that we are not as a whole the same, and to communicate to the minority that their behavior will not be tolerated if it compromises the community's shared goals and direction.
Not that I have strong opinions about such matters.
i, too, thought town was unfortunate. the space itself (especially that quiet room where you can ignore the horrific music and actually talk) is better than the nonsense at nation and other similar hell holes i've been too. and i don't mind shirtless "frat boys." the worst thing for me was the music . . . just awful awful awful. it wasn't even ironic awful. i think they actually tried to play hot tracks and wound up with whitney and britney.
speaking of hell holes, i don't mind people going to places like town to get laid. i'm also not someone who judges others for their drug use (just keep it away from me). it's just disappointing that people would want to do these things at the same old place.
how long until you think we see a town foam party?
Sam, I think I agree with you more than Zack on this.
I think these types of places actually are bad for our culture and our lives. (I didn't want to say it in the main post, but I'm fine leaving it as a comment.) Your crystal use, barebacking and subsequent HIV infection are going to raise my health care premiums. There is no such thing as causing harm to yourself without harming others in our quasi-socialist society. We have, as a society, decided that we will try to help people up when they fall, be it falling down on the street or falling ill with a preventable disease.
Plus, just think of all the amazing things these people could be doing with their lives if they weren't wasting so much time and energy on getting fucked up and fucking.
And Parker, I don't think we'll see a foam party at Town. The foam will harm the dance floor and all the new upholstery and stuff. You only get foam parties at clubs who don't care what their interiors look like.
Michael,
I too had high hopes for Town. I blogged about it way back when, but my hopes weren't soo high that I expected trashy music to not be played, but was in somewhat hopes for at least a good mixture of sounds from fat britney to name your favorite indie band. At 3am, being picky isn't my thing and I will gladly dance to most music, but my first experience at Town was quite disappointing and was unable to gain the energy to dance to the shitty music. Perhaps you and I should buy up the old Wonderbread Hostess Bakery factory up in that neighborhood and start an appropriate club for the "new gei". :-)
Petrov, I just checked out your blog (found it on your profile-http://petrovadventures.blogspot.com/), and found it really, really amusing. Maybe it's just me, but I can almost hear your accent.
About this thread: I'm torn between the two points being made. I don't want to carry a torch or be a scold, and I believe that people should be allowed to live their lives as they see fit (and also accept the consequences), because that's freedom, even if it's the freedom to fuck up your life and annoy me at bars. However, other people's bad behavior does affect me, particularly if that bad behavior creates a culture that is not only bad for people, but creates "bad" people. I define bad loosely, for example, if you strip your identity bare so you can fit in to a gay mainstream that is lame, I have to deal with more of your kind when I go out. Instead of dealing with interesting, intelligent, involved, engaging people that I may want to date/develop any kind of mutually sustaining relationship with/rely on for social pleasure and the alleviation of boredom, I have to deal with the male equivalent of Britney Spears, who desperately seems to want to be our Queen.
For me, I think the way is to support those behaviors I find worthy by being proactive (thenewgay, promoting and creating alt-queer activities, thinking, etc.) and leading by example. I'll just steer clear of those behaviors I don't care for and stop short of screaming and starting a committee or a picket line (I don't have an issue with stating my strong opposition, however, as seen on this site).
Sam- the unfortunate truth is that many people are dumb, many are selfish and few stop to think about the effect their example has on the perceptions of their community. I fully agree that the perception of mass gay culture (vapid boys dancing the night away while being sexually and narcotially irresponsible) has had a negative effect on me and most gay guys that I know. But as ben said, the best way to counteract that is just to go out in larger society and be a good example of a gay man. Places like town, and "hedonistic and irresponsible" subset that go there, will never go away. You could bulldoze the place tomorrow and something else will pop up in its place. that is literally what happened in DC. I am all for a backlash, but what kind? Picketing the bath house? Suing Manhunt? The best way is to be the expansion of gay culture that you want to see. The more you refuse to patronize these establishment, the more that you convince your friends and their friends that there are other ways to be gay, the less we'll have to rely places like town to go out and have fun and the fewer venues we will have for the kind of behavior you are (rightfully) decrying.
And Michael- you were willing enough to give Town a chance when you thought the music might be good. If you are so against places like this (and keep in mind I am not defending them) why would you actually give them your money in the form of a cover and any drinks you consumed? Did you leave immediateley after you got an impression of the place or did you stay and hang out? I guess I'm confused about how the place went from a potentially interesting nightclub to the scourge of gay life. gay men can still get AIDS to indie music. Do you think that improving the music and importing more interesting men will grant any of the attendees immunity from bad decisions?
all-
i bet every one of us has hooked up with someone we met at a club, so let's not try to insinuate that people who go to taint go to mass in the morning and people who go to the towns of the world wake up in bondage gear.
i can't speak for michael, but i tried out town because it was new and i had hope that the friday night would be decent. i will try out the next town too because, while i love going to some "straight" bars in dc, it is still much more likely that we will get beat up, harassed, or find some sort of trouble in a place that is not exclusivelt gay. so, gay bars will always be something i go to from time to time as long as i'm going out.
Perhaps "backlash" was a loaded term: I prefer to allow "market forces" to enact change.
Example: insurance price penalties for drug use, controllable overweight, smoking, chronic treatment of STDs, etc.
Another example: know a friend who is an unrepentent barebacker/meth user/etc.? Cut 'em off. Would you associate with a white supremacist because "they should be able to believe what they want?", assuming he/she doesn't advertise these views to others? I doubt it.
It might seem harsh, but until behavior that negatively impacts us as a whole is tied to definitive consequences, there will be slow change.
Oh, and "Adam isn't here": "got the clap in a dark room as a teenager" -- hardly. I'm a fairly happy and healthy 29-year old queer who sees much, much potential that is very little realized in exchange for transient and emotionally unfulfilling pursuits. I think we can do better, but only if we take responsibility to push those around us to do the same.
And yes, this applies to everyone, not just your homo comrades: so step up, quit copping out with this "free to do anything you want" bullshit, and take a part in shaping your shared destiny.
Or rot. I can always pick up the slack.
fair enough, but i do feel the need to point out that it isn't specifically gay culture that's so tired and shallow. the average straight bar has been playing sublime on a loop for the last 15 years in much the same way that i could be sure to hear "u and ur hand" if i went to jr's tonight. the straights have it only very marginally better and they have exponentially more options. oh man i have more than i'd care to say about this...
Indeed, our straight brethren have many of the same problems.
However, we have been known as trendsetters in so many ways: art, music, fashion, design, etc.
Why not be trendsetters for progressive, socially-conscious existence in the new millenium as well?
Surely we are capable.
Why is everyone up in arms about this new venue! sometimes people want a fun place to let their hair down - let it be! if it ain't for you, don't go! no offense.. this is sounding like a bunch of gossipy high-school girls! luvs :D
The straights have lots of options. There's an established straight counterculture or alternative culture or whatever. The same does not exist for the gays. That's why we care, why we started this site, why we're promoting alternative events, thoughts and perspectives. Why we're having this conversation.
And it sounds like, at the end of the day, we might just all be on the same page on this. Whew!
Umm..some of my best life experiences have been while "irresponsible and hedonistic" and "fucked up or fucking". I'm not saying that dionysius is the only god I worship, but he's definitely my homeboy.
don't get me wrong, I don't care for the vapid queers any more than you guys, but aren't you guys being just a bit harsh? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding where you draw the line.
Did anyone here actually say that everyone who goes there is a meth head go-go boy? I think there are a lot of generalizations being discussed, so people get confused about what is really being said. I think that some of the issues that are involved in this thread go way beyond town. I think a lot of what is being discussed here is the state of gay culture and how it reveals itself and is nurtured in a place like town. I'm sure you can go there and have a great time with your friends. Maybe even get laid. This doesn't change the fact that the people who went there found that the music was shit, no one could really relate to anyone else due to the size and ambiance of the place, and the entertainment was annoying to a lot of people who want more from their club experience. I think that's fair game to talk about, and I've found this thread a very interesting one for that. The problem that people here seem to be most passionate about is culture. Perhaps more discussion on that topic specifically would be fruitful.
Everyone who goes to town is a methhead go-go boy.
Flame on.
(I love it when the steel hits the marrow)
Mr. Sam (and Michael and Ben):
I must also cast my ballot in your box, with some qualification.
While I agree with your general (moral) premise that it's a myth that my actions can be fully self-contained (the reality is that we live in a radically inter-dependent kind of world, whether we want to accept that or not), I must disagree with your suggested corrective: that there should be certain consequences for certain behaviors (bad sexual practices) or characteristics (being controllably overweight) that are explicitly mandated as Law. For what applies to our actions (that they have irrevocable and predictable consequences, however self-contained those acts seem to be) will also apply to the laws we formulate and institute in our Land, and the society that might arise *as a consequence* of those laws. Plato, for example, wanted to outlaw things like music and certain forms of poetry because he thought that they distracted people from the Truth about reality, and only the truth should be contemplated; but Plato's society in the *Republic*, however "moral" or well-meaning it might have been, was a Totalitarian one, with not much room for deep moral and personal freedom. The problem with your consequentialist logic is, as many moral philosophers have pointed out, that it is really hard to predict (a) whether or not some act actually will lead to a larger ill (a social malady) and (b) whether in so outlawing or restricting that potential social ill there wouldn't be a *greater* social ill generated *because* of that law (for it is a certitude that there will always be borderline cases that inevitably will *have* to be ruled on *arbitrarily* and that an air of suspicion will surround the society, making it, most likely, a rather unpleasant and suffocating kind of place).
So, my ultimate point is that, to be consistent with this consequentialist logic, you'd have to be damn well certain that in formulating corrective laws or social policies (mandatory, and not merely suggested), we don't therefore create a worse society. As for this, I don't see any resolution: we are all human, and human beings are inevitably called to evaluate and pass judgment on their fellow human beings -- error and poor judgment, though, are the sine qua non of the human condition.
Be this as it may, it *is* true that these places are mostly a bad thing for society; it *is* true that, as a matter of course, they are "breeding grounds" for all sorts of personal and social ills (pardon the few puns packed in to that ...). But, the disease is with the individual, not the place or the idea of such a place. If anything, the problem here, if we must state it, is rather a problem we *all* face to various degrees: of addiction, depression, anomie, and those afflictions of the human spirit that have dogged mankind for centuries (anomie perhaps being merely an intensification of a condition present before the Industrial Revolution ushered in a new level of chronic anxiety and depression -- what we can call "dysthemia"). Look around and find us all addicted to music, net surfing, "the-next-new-thing", the next new: party, dance remix, club, bad ... searching, searching. But clamping down on those things, the devices that allow our addictions and depressions to flare up, does nothing to treat the underlying cause: an unhealthy and undisciplined mind.
I put forward the following moral hypothesis: a disciplined mind can dance, listen, fuck, eat, and so on, *well* and without becoming afflicted with the addictions of contemporary humanity. But this is a hypothesis whose conditions of confirmation are much training and a refined moral sense to make the discrimination between the liberating and the enslaving (for we are suffering when we are slaves to the world, and not masters of it).
MCC
Mike,
I couldn't agree with you more. I don't like the tone that you refer to as a "consequentialist mindset". I'm very much concerned about the psyche of gay men and the culture we have created for ourselves, but the authoritarian pose that some of us believe to be the answer, in my opinion, doesn't feel right as a solution. My thoughts are still evolving on how to relate to my culture. It is difficult to strike the balance between being understanding and critical. I'm amused that this thread, with this discussion, has been inspired by a post about a dance club, LOL. We should talk more about these kinds of issues.
I subscribe to the theory that Mike C needs to go to the Learning Annex to learn how to write an intelligible sentence.
Just a thought.
As for Town... ew. It never ceases to amaze me how banal the taste of my "brethren" is. I mean seriously... aren't we supposed to be the innovators of society? What have we "given back"? An assload of STDs, Kojo and Miss Jay? Shameful.
How about we find one of those privileged twatwaffles so excited to give buckets of cash to Hilldawg, and actually get him to invest in something that would HELP the gay community, and not further strip them of rights? AKA: Phoenix Bar (in DC).
Once again... just a thought.
y'all are right. screw this entreprenuel dick and his vision to open a club. ie. destroy civilization as we know it. This place is a breeding ground for beggers, call-boys, 'meth heads',.. probably high-stake gambling in the backroom!
Grab your pitch forks, gas cans, and lighters! Who’s with me!?
Mr "Cuffshark": I would appreciate it if you stick to the content instead of issuing a general pronouncement about style. It might be a struggle to get through some people's writing (esp. when editing really doesn't jibe well with the idea of a blog: immediate web-writing), but it's usually a good idea to try to extract some content out of someone's thoughts (however ill-formulated), and reply to that, leaving aside the "writing" matter. Maybe this could be helpful to the person you want to take issue with? That's my "thought".
And I'm sorry about the tortured prose; haste does make waste sometimes. I trust that you can find something "intelligible" there. Maybe you can help me say it better? Or, maybe you can give me some pointers on blog-style -- perhaps in an email (truly!)?
MCC
I LOVE the goldfish on the LED screens downstairs. For the rest of the place, it could f*$# off for all I care! I used to get a kick out of Nation cause I'd go there for Alchemy on Thurs, then Sat night it was all tweaked-out gay boys.
But honestly, whats with all the moralising? Thinking people don't expect us to police or represent the behavior of all the emotionally under-developed in our community, and the others are just twats who can never be satisfied and have their own issues to work through. As a matter of fact, by accepting responsibility for these much-maligned 'Town regulars', one seems to also accept the paradigm that we are more defined by our group identity (i.e. gay) than by our own individual identities (whatever they may be). That seems to me to be very un-post-new-gay.
That being said, keep up the good work. Groovin' on the site very much-so!
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