Crews/Tango closure & Wednesday hotspots

Clubs, clubs, clubs, clubs. Another night, another party, another drink, another hangover.

Another weird wall post the next morning. “Hey, I don’t remember playing Russian roulette with tranny midgets in Star Wars costumes.”

This is why we move to Toronto from small towns. The fun.

The Crews and Tango (508 Church St) closure has left hundreds upon thousands of top 40-twinks, internet stalkers, tranny chasers and fag hags homeless. Where are they going to watch amateur drag queens lip-synch “Since You’ve Been Gone” on a Sunday night now? Where are they going to line up like cattle for hours along Church St only to find out at 2am they can’t get in?

And what about the drunk friends and fag hags who just broke up with their exes? Whose side steps will they drunk dial on, mouths full of pizza and big wet tears falling off their face?

Where are all these people going to go?

It’s actually kind of funny how I found out about Crews’ recent shutdown. It’s living proof of the butterfly effect. Facebook suddenly started working a lot faster for me. I found out why: Anna Silverstova had stopped jamming their servers with her Jack-Nicholson-from-The-Shiningesque photo uploading habits. If you don’t know Silverstova, she has done for Facebook photos what Courtney Love has done for Twittering (Twitter.com/courtneylover79). You can’t log on Facebook without seeing paparazzi shots replicated from every single possible angle a million times.

So when Anna stopped blogging, I knew something was up. Then I remember where she lived, Crews and Tango!

Apparently Crews is undergoing renovations after a new owner took over. They probably have a lot of weave to scrape off those walls from all of the bad hair pieces fallin’ apart and flailin’ about, sticking to the walls and falling in people’s beer. And they may have to rebuild the whole front area to get out that preteen beauty pageant smell from all the Britney Spears Perfume which has saturated the wood.

Oh, who am I kidding? They can’t rebuild on that land for 50 years.

I wonder if the new owners are going to keep the lesbian Gestapo officers from gay hell to man the doors. Their job: To make sure nobody over 40 (in club years of course) gets in without a driver’s licence or passport.

Now I’m not naming names here, but me, Enza Supermodel, Maha, Gia, Wingo Du, Anna Pournikova and I swear to God even Gairy Brown and Nina Arsenault have all gotten turned away (or maybe that was one of my cheeseburger induced nightmares).

I once heard a rumour that during Pride two or three years ago actress Jennifer Garner was shooting a movie down the street and got turned away because they thought her ID was made on Yonge St and they didnt recognize her.

 

Further down the street, I am starting a new weekly Saturday party at The Barn (418 Church St) called There Goes the Neighbourhood.

Basically it’s going to take what’s already in the village and mix it up a bit with some fresh blood and fresh music, more cute boys and girls — something in the west they have been calling electro since 2001. But it will also be a little bit of everything. There’s no cover (I learned my lesson) and it starts May 16. Check my Facebook for more details. I wouldn’t lie to you on this one. Church St will never be the same.

The Barn also has the infamous College Night on Wednesdays. You’d be surprised, but two of the biggest and best gay nights are every Wednesday on different ends of the city: College Night at the Barn (weekly with no cover) and Hump Day Bump at Wrongbar (1279 Queen St W; no cover). If you’re looking for the Church St vibe, the last couple times I’ve been to College Night at the Barn, I was quite impressed. Like Marc Smith’s ego, it seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

I recently went with my assistant Matt (who I like to think of as just a glorified baby sitter) and the place was packed to the brim. I was even more surprised when we all found someone who we could crush on. Which to me means there were people I didn’t recognize, which means the night is getting better. It really was a lot of fun.

On the other end of town is Hump Day Bump. Gone from its rather claustrophobic home at the Gladstone, Hump Day is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. And I miss Wrongbar more than I miss my dignity. Wrongbar is one of the best places in the city to throw a party, and even

better to go to one. Hump Day Bump is, I think to this day, the only place you can mix electro, hip hop, hipster gays, lesbians and artsy crazies in one room. And don’t forget the drinks! These bitches make drinks better than any club in the city. Leave it to Nav to put together one hell of a bar and Sandy to put together one hell of a night.

Well, I think that’s a wrap my friends. You have learned the deep, dark gossip of Church St’s most beloved bars. You have Toronto’s abbreviated guide to great gay Wednesday parties. And you know where to find me on May 16 in case you need to serve me with legal papers. I think in law practice we call that a “smoking gun.” Thank you and goodnight everybody.

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