I Can’t Get in Nowhere!. . . By The Divine Grace
I Can’t Get in Nowhere!
The Divine Grace sounds off on Nowhere Bar’s recent dragphobic snafu
By The Divine Grace
You generally get about one of these full-fledged homophobic blowouts a year from me (and usually around Gay Pride Weekend). But I came across a posting on Facebook that I feel justifies this column a few months early. It read:
"DJ Collins was denied entry to Nowhere bar because he was in drag. He says, ‘Nowhere bar its a gay bar in the east village and the promoter/manager made it very clear that we were not the clientel [sic] he wanted in his party. We were not asking for anything for free. Just wanted to have a girls night out. It's a sad day when the gay community looks down on drag queens.’”
Let me begin by saying that my personal experience with Nowhere Bar was that the name itself is ill fitting. It should have been named “Where? Bar.” Its bizarre location on 14th Street aside, there was no rhyme or reason to this place. It's like someone took a cramped basement dive bar (that pretends to be a lounge) and asked a frat party to stop by and puke schnapps on the pool table or crap in the corner. The space is dark and decorated like the first basement rec room you ever smoked weed in. The restroom reminded me of an Abu Ghraib rape dungeon, with wet toilet paper on any surface that wasn't already crawling away on its own accord. I would say that it was one of those bathrooms where you aren't surprised to see a two-finger smear of fecal matter across the stall door—except that the stall had no door! The ceiling of the bar was so low that I felt like I had been crammed into one of John Wayne Gacy's crawlspaces with a vodka/soda and a reluctant child of a bartender, who required an abacus to count back change. What stands out in my mind most of all was how many people were complaining about the smell of the establishment.
You wouldn't know it to read my column this far, but I'm not really the type to booger a dive bar. I'm certainly not one of those gays who refuses to step foot into an establishment because they serve from plastic cups. I've been to a couple of dumps where you were lucky to get a cup at all! I'm not opposed to dive bars so long as they recognize that this is precisely what they are: dive bars. The patron exchanges their desire for attractive surroundings and a toilet that isn't a biohazard for cheap booze and a ramshackle crowd. I have hung out in sleazier places than Nowhere Bar. Nevertheless, its characteristic “rough around the edges” feel is still less “diamond in the rough” and more “crack rock in the sink,” but it has its crowd.
It is for at least a few of these reasons that I would question why Nowhere Bar feels that it somehow needs to shield its patrons from a drag queen, especially considering that they bill their Thursday nights as “Transie Thursday.” I'd be curious to know how selective their door is on that night, and if the rest of the community is as easily turned-away as a drag queen was. My guess would be a big fat “no.” Tell any other member of the LGBTQ population that they're not the clientele welcomed to that party and there would be a mess of tattered flannel at the door. If you are going to welcome any specific group of people in to give you their money one night of the week in particular, you'd better be willing to accept their tranny cash any other night of the week as well. Anything else is just bad business and tacky. And I know from tacky, kids. Perhaps this was a fluke at the door, but it still should have never happened in the first place.
It's hard simply getting into some places. But when you manage to get your stilettoed cankle through the door, it's often just as exasperating. I recall an evening a couple years ago in which I had just finished a performance in the Theatre District and headed to a bar in drag with some friends. It was a popular boutique gay bar in Hell's Kitchen that is often patronized by a legion of middle-aged men who all share a Yorkie, a gym membership and a tee-shirt two sizes too small in common. It was a busy Saturday night and packed, so I was required to be greased up and have a donkey kick me into the crowded “room.” (It's a hall; I don't care what anybody says.) I was having a great time—claustrophobia aside—but as I wrangled my ass towards the bar, I noticed that I was getting the stink eye from half-a-dozen Chelsea boys, the most memorable of which was wearing a faux-faded baby tee that read, “ARMY.” He didn't ask, but I told him that he misspelled “MARY” anyways. (It's an oldie, but a goldie.) I then asked Mary if he was on leave or if he was just part of some Village People cover band. His bronzer went ashen, he made a face like a cat's ass and then went back to drinking his butch Cosmopolitan through a stirring straw—you know, like straight-acting guys do.
So, let's talk again about all of this “straight-acting” bullshit, shall we? I understand that there is a self-loathing contingency of the gay population that looks upon drag queens and trannies as subcultural pariahs. I suppose that my showing up in lipstick to what basically amounts to a drunken post-workout circle jerk somehow sullies the ambiance of masculinity in a bar with a name like The Hole, or Urge. (My personal favorite is X.E.S. Everyone seems to want to call it “Excess” even though “sex” backwards is still EX-EEE-ESS. I guess that “straight-acting” doesn't usually mean “very intelligent,” but who's contemplating T.S. Eliot when there's a copy of Twilight gathering dust with the poppers on the nightstand, right boys?)
My question is this: How does one become a straight-acting gay man? I mean, I could try lowering my voice and dropping words such as “fierce” and “sassy” from my vocabulary, but that would mean that I would also have to give up ever talking about Kathy Griffin. I could join a gym and add 50 pounds of arm and chest muscle that will become bingo wings and man-tit the day my middle-aged ass misses a workout. I could trade my thigh-high boots and bolero jacket in for an oxford shirt and a tie. Hell, I could even vote Republican! What I couldn't do is call myself “straight-acting” while having a guy cram his junk up my pooper. Because how straight-acting are you really when you are being voluntarily sodomized? Even at a gym in a tie! Please explain!
“Straight-acting” indeed.
Most gay men went to school with a closeted gay student who would be the first to call somebody a “faggot” so he could fit in with everybody else. Then that closeted bigot grew up to be as openly gay as a sequin on Richard Simmons' butt—but is still dreaming of fitting in. Ten bucks says that guy works the door at Nowhere Bar.
Gay Pride marches piss me off too. Every year, like clockwork, the editorials start rolling in with complaints that drag queens (who always attract the media's lens) prevent the rest of the gay population from being taken seriously. Well, you know what? I'm tired of drag queens not being taken seriously because so-called “straight-acting” gay men can't seem to wear anything more to a parade than a banana hammock and body glitter! I'm tired of not being taken seriously because I am a member of a gay population that is as full of shit as a Christmas goose! I'm told by the gay population that I am supposed to live my life unashamed and openly gay, as long as it's not too gay. If these men aren't being taken seriously, it's because they're out marching for the same respect and acceptance that they refuse to show their own peers. I am openly gay because I refuse to hide what I am. I am a drag queen because “straight-acting” gay men need something to make them look more masculine after they've had their eyebrows waxed and their sphincters bleached. I do the impossible. I make these hypocrites look less gay.
I grew up in the Smokey Mountains! I lived in New Jersey for several years! LOOK AT ME! I have obviously met my share of people who were hatefully vocal about what they thought of who I am. However, I have never experienced the disrespect from hillbillies and crackheads that I have from metropolitan gay men. Ever.
I am not surprised that a gay bar told a patron in drag that she was not welcome. If I had a dime! I am not surprised that the clientele already inside would have just made the whole situation more uncomfortable. What I am surprised to hear is that all of this should be acceptable because queens and trannies are welcome other times during the week. The bottom line is that it is never okay to turn a queen away because she is in drag. Period. You can rest assured that I wouldn't quietly allow any reputable establishment to turn me away, so why ever would I allow that with a broke down gay bar?
There has been talk from a resident D.J. that this was all the result of a Monday Night party “that has already caused problems with the bar” and an unruly promoter, and that the owner should be contacted before anybody gets their knickers in a twist. I say that's probably too late. See, the owner should not only be aware of the people that he is putting in charge of his door, but he should probably pay attention to them every now and then as well. If this is somebody's first time to this bar (and I can't imagine why there would be a second time) their experience has been shot all to Hell before they've even crossed the threshold. And believe me, no matter how awesome his place is, nobody is going to talk about his bar to more people than someone the establishment has pissed off.
Now hear this: Drag Queens and transgender individuals have put up with enough crap from all things straight and “straight-acting” in our time, so someone as frightened as the gay “straight-acting” subculture is child's play at this point. Who, in all of the LGBTQ community, knows more about busting balls than those of us who sit on our own with regularity?
And if you are “straight-acting” and have a big issue with something as trivial to your world as how I dress, then you probably shouldn't even be in an NYC bar at all. Stay home with your homogenized dreams of Anderson Cooper and designer baby buggies, and stay away from gay dive bars! You are also not allowed on Christopher Street, Fire Island or in Chelsea, because there is officially nothing left in these places that would constitute as “straight-acting.” Even Home Depot on 23rd looks like Martha Stewart's gay garage. Please do not frequent these areas as you are not the clientele we want at our party.
In return, I won't be back to “Foe-Where.” There isn't enough Chlorox in the Western Hemisphere.
Amen.
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