And so the official long weekend of Halloween Gay Christmas began Friday night. Having been out late the night before, the first three hours of the dress up party happening in our apartment were missed by a napping Offender, but upon waking, Tammy Faye Baker, the Devil and 'Sarah' greeted me. With the only sure deadline being the Aviance show at Motherf*cker at 2 a.m., drag detritus of year's past were hastily configured with a newly-purchased wig and face paints. The resulting look was untitled but seemed apt for the evening. The from-a-distance vision would be of an androgynous Barbie corpse, with long blonde hair and dark gray face-paint (with a deep red lip) covered by gold sunglasses and a hooded black dress, safety-pinned tight, and supported by black half-calf boots with three-inch heels. But the hooded dress was really just protection for the cold; underneath was a long-sleeve black fishnet body-top and a pair of go-go boy shorts. The look was calculated to work at Motherf*cker.
Car service arrives and to the Roxy we go. Just steps outside of the car, at the corner of Tenth and Eighteenth we were greeted by a club promoter wrapped in yellow caution tape telling us, "Roxy got shut down". The parked police cars in front of the club seemed to confirm this fact, but when pressed for information, the promoter knew no more, but recommended Don Hill. Dejected and without a "Plan B" it was obvious that we were dressed and prepped, but now needed a venue (as we weren't really feeling Don Hill). Gay literature was needed for research, so to XL we headed.
During the walk it appeared that we had entered a parallel universe where it was not Gay Christmas. Everyone we passed wore street-gear. Entering XL our hopes soared, hoping to find others like us, seeking venues. Not only was not one person in costume (unless guy cruising at a urinal is a costume), but the standards of gay communication in New York City (HX and Next) were not to be seen. Onward we trekked, considering Rawhide briefly, but landing at Barracuda, finding our research materials and quickly making a decision: Onward to Tribeca!
Arriving at Bombay Carnavale, we were at last back in the universe of costumed revelry. The Bollywood Halloween party was packed to the rafters dancing to Bollywood, Bhangra, Chutney, Soca, 80s, and House music. Closing the place down, we stood on Leonard Street chatting up a variety of Southeast Asian men. Deciding to pace ourselves for the holiday weekend, an after-hours option wasn't pursued, good nights were hugged out, cabs found.
Having removed all of the face paint and costumery, the question still nagged: What happened at the Roxy? Six-thirty a.m. searches of Technorati, Google, and all the local papers produced no information. Emails at 11 a.m. were sent to 'people in the know' were unreturned as of 5 p.m. Photos from Motherf*cker surfaced, but there is no accompanying text and, unless the Roxy has had some sort of downscale makeover, the pictures were taken at some other venue. So the spooky mystery remains for now.
UPDATE/MYSTERY SOLVED: Aagh!! We missed Kevin Aviance interpreting Thriller? Turns out MF was all the way across town at Delancey Lounge.
