2.5 Hours @ MaleBox
By John Russell
So you show up at The Ritz on a Tuesday night, and let’s be honest, you don’t really expect much. Yeah, it’s one of the most popular gay bars in Hell’s Kitchen—hell, it’s one of the most popular gay bars in the city—but it’s Tuesday night! People have, like, jobs, right? The best you can hope for is some date-night fags and the after work drunks who should have gone home when happy hour ended. Right?
Wrong. Guess you didn’t get the memo, cause Ernie Cote, the guy who brought you all the filthy fun of Frisky Fridays at The Hose, has taken over The Ritz on Tuesdays for Malebox. (Full disclosure: Ernie runs this site. Go ahead, cry nepotism.)
At 11:30pm the place is already packed. Hostess Peppermint is running around, kiki-ing and kiss-kissing all the HK boys. DJ Corey TuT is on the decks, pumping out more Lady Gaga than the surgeon general probably recommends—seriously, the entire Fame Monster; no one’s complaining. Barely clothed shot boys are making the rounds, a couple $20s already tucked into their jockstraps. And the crowd? They’re not exactly sitting around sipping sedate mid-week cocktails. They’re, like, actually dancing. On the dance floor. Like it’s Saturday night.
The shot boy comes up to you and slaps a little nametag with a number on it on your shirt and every now and then Peppermint gets on the mic to say that number whatever has a message. It’s one of those secret message things where if you see a cute guy you can leave him a note if you’re too shy to actually talk to him. Malebox, get it?
Around midnight, Pep does her show—a little fierce drag queen lip-sync action—and then it’s time for the boylesque number. This cute ginger boy in Tom of Finland biker boots and cut-offs struts onstage and strips, guzzling a bottle of Jack Daniels which, once he’s down to boots and jock, he shoves up his ass. And then he knocks back another swig of Jack.
Later, there’s a strip-off—kind of a cross between Peppermint’s infamous hot body contest at Rated X and Dancing with the Stars—where four randomly paired couples have to strip and grind all up on each other while the audience hoots and hollers and judges them. Everyone seems to be really into this one straight girl who says she works at Henri Bendel. Of course, while all this is going on you spot these two super cute boys making out in the crowd and you kinda wish they were getting naked on stage right now.
The late-night queens show up around 1:30am—Bianca, Logan, a couple queens you don’t recognize—and they’ve probably just started making the rounds. Werk, ladies.
Another drink, another cigarette, a minor disagreement about the merits of Leighton Meester’s single verses “Tardy for the Party,” and you’re ready to pack up your own male box and head home. Male box, get it?
