Posts about LGBTQ issues, particularly in the Oak Lawn neighborhood of Dallas.
Nellie’s weekend drag brunch was one of my go-to events before everything shut down for quarantine.
There are a lot of drag brunch options in Washington, D.C., but what keeps me coming back to Nellie’s is the consistently strong cast of performers with fresh songs and outfits every week. Out-of-town performers also often supplement the regular cast, giving me the opportunity to see new talent.
The best place for a D.C. drag brunch this summer is Delaware.
Some of the District’s best performers have taken over The Pines Rehoboth Beach for a weekly Sunday drag brunch.
The restaurant is in Rehoboth Beach’s central tourist district and a couple blocks from the boardwalk. There’s also a sister gay bar across the street called Aqua Grill where people grab drinks after the show.
Drag Race has been my favorite TV show for over a decade and marked important parts of my life so far.
The District’s stay-home order has done more than normalize telecommuting and transform buying cleaning supplies into a scavenger hunt. It also creates an incentive for me to frequent different businesses in Northeast D.C. for pickup and delivery.
My new favorite spots are typically within a 45 minute one-way walk from my apartment. This is the ideal distance for weekday dog walks before and after work. (This is also coincidentally the maximum safe distance from apartment toilet since most places are closed).
For the last two years, Nellie’s Sports Bar hosted the most diverse drag show in the D.C.-Baltimore area. “Snatched Wednesdays” celebrated its two year anniversary last week, which was also the last show.
Hosted by Baltimore’s Brooklyn Heights, this show featured a strong core cast that was augmented by talented queens from across the metro. The Snatched Wednesdays audience also reflected the diversity of the performers: you could find all ages, races, genders and orientations.
One of the closest LGBT spaces near my apartment is a gay-owned brewery called Red Bear Brewing Co.
I went to a fabulous drag brunch on Sunday in Baltimore. The brunch was at Points South Latin Kitchen and there were flips, kicks, and a whole lot of food.
The show featured some of the best drag queens that I normally see in Washington DC such as Brooklyn Heights and Iyana Deschanel. There were also a few new faces, including Ariel Von Quinn, who did some crazy backflips in heels.
The event happened to be during the Fell’s Point Festival. This made parking a nightmare, but post-show sightseeing was worth it.
Here are some pictures!
I recently stumbled across this bizarre Barbie installation in Washington D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood.
Instagram informed me that it was the Barbie Pond on Avenue Q, an ever-changing art piece in front of an otherwise nondescript row house near Trade Bar and Number Nine. It was fun, in a Buffalo-Bill-meets-Freddie’s-Beach-Bar kind of a way.
Although it’s not something that I would go out of the way to see, it was a hilarious surprise and a welcome change from the ugly lawn sculptures more common in that part of town. 🗿
I made it to the RuPaul’s Drag Race Hater’s Roast, which was at the Warner Theatre near Chinatown. Although I am used to seeing one-off Drag Race contestants at the bar, this is my first real Drag Race touring event.
The Hater’s Roast was hilarious, although there were an uncomfortable number of HIV and Holocaust jokes, (and at least a few Sahara Davenport digs). I was actually clutching my pearls during Mimi Imfurst’s set. I also was thrilled to see Miz Cracker, who looks as amazing in person as she does on TV.
Manila looked good, and Thorgy had her signature Muppet hair.
My last-minute ticket happened to be in the third row of the theater, so I got to make awkward eye contact with the performers. Maybe procrastination isn’t always such a bad thing…
One of the interesting things about Washington D.C. is that there are dozens of truly mixed-spaces for LGBT and straight people. Unlike straight venues in other cities that throw one-off gay events, there are many places in the District that consistently have mixed crowds. (Basically, the “gay bar that your straight friends don’t know is a gay bar.”)
Shaw’s Tavern is one of these mixed-spaces. One of my favorite events at Shaw’s is the Sunday night drag dinner show — which is early enough to be a responsible ending point for a Sunday Funday.
Halloween may have been a bust this year, but the High Heel Race was as fabulous as ever. I attended a hilarious house party, saw some great costumes, and got to meet some very interesting people.
It was a strange, quiet Halloween this year.Â
Halloween in D.C. is never as exciting as the big gay block party back in Dallas, and this year was particularly muted. I think that I was exhausted from weeks of travel and my work schedule — also Halloween fell on a Wednesday, which made the weekend before feel too early to celebrate.
After a year of no pride parades, we decided that enjoying Washington D.C. pride wasn’t enough. One week after Capital Pride, we made the trek to Maryland for Baltimore Gay Pride.
This time there were no 100-year storms, just heat. It was a fun parade and a very different experience than D.C. pride.
Washington D.C. / Capital Gay Pride was last week. It was our first gay pride in over a year because we moved to D.C. last August, which is after Capitol Pride but before Dallas Pride.
D.C. Pride was alright — the parade seemed to go on for hours and the bars weren’t that much busier than a typical weekend.
We didn’t have the energy for the special parties, so we stuck to the parade and a few of the usual bars (which isn’t the worst way to do pride.)
A float at the DC Pride Parade.
One of our favorite gay bars in D.C. recently created a bizarre public relations nightmare for itself. Here’s some backstory and a rundown of what happened.
Backstory: Uproar Lounge & Restaurant is a gay bar in D.C.’s U-Street neighborhood. Uproar has a large rooftop and hosts a weekly all-you-can-drink beer bust on Sundays. There’s typically free food and a live DJ at the event. It can get pretty rowdy, but it’s a fun time.
This weekend, Uproar announced a new “dress code” via Facebook. The bar’s post was poorly-written, but seemed to ban flag football t-shirts during the Sunday beer bust. It also failed to give a clear reason for the rule, which left everyone to speculate in the comments.
After six months in Washington D.C., I’ve made it to most of the gay bars in town. One of my favorite spots so far is TRADE bar in the Logan Circle neighborhood.
TRADE is a gay hipster bar that has a daily happy hour (until 10 p.m.) and plenty of drag events. The decorations are also insane and change fairly often. TRADE is usually cover-free, even when there’s an event going on — which means that it can get insanely packed.
As an aside — one of my problems with many straight D.C. bars is that they tend to be in narrow former-rowhouses and most places don’t enforce fire code capacity limits. The moshpit bar experience isn’t for me. TRADE is one of those rare places that will actually start a line when it gets too busy, so it feels less hazardous than your typical D.C. bar.
A drag performance at TRADE bar in Washington D.C.’s Logan neighborhood.
A drag queen bartender at TRADE bar in Washington D.C.
A RuPaul’s Drag Race-inspired sign at TRADE bar in Washington D.C.
In addition to brunch, we explored some of the neighborhoods and made it to the Baltimore Eagle.
Brunch was at a place called Little Havana, which is right on the harbor. They had a bottomless mimosa special and even brought the mimosas out with ice (which is amazing.)
The food was good, although the amount of dogs on the patio was a little distracting. In particular, there was this dog that completely flipped out anytime it would see another animal. I’m surprised that its owner wasn’t kicked out.
The Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs recently came out with a new pride flag that adds black and brown stripes.
I am not sure whether the “More Color More Pride” is a cynical publicity stunt or a genuine attempt at inclusion.
The colors on the original pride flag designed by Gilbert Baker represented the themes of “sexuality, life, healing, sun, nature, art, harmony, and spirit.”
Creating yet another iteration of the flag doesn’t change or threaten these values, but runs the risk of making it easier for people and institutions to virtue signal a message of racial inclusiveness without doing the necessary work to make that happen. 🌈
We made the trek to Fort Worth this weekend for drag brunch at Urban Cowboy Saloon.
Overall, it was a fun experience and a great show.
Rocky Horror Picture Show-themed drag brunch at Urban Cowboy Saloon, Fort Worth, TX.
The drag brunch cast at Urban Cowboy Saloon, Fort Worth, TX.
The theme was purportedly “Rocky Horror Picture Show” but the drag queens performed at many non-Rocky Horror songs. This probably kept the show more interesting for people unfamiliar with the movie.
It’s Sunday evening. My neighbors and I are on the patio of Havana’s nightclub when a fight breaks out on the sidewalk in front of us.
The chaos starts when several guys stumble out of Italia Express (a pizza place next to the bar). A heavyset guy in a purple shirt is screaming at a thinner man. Their friends are trying to hold the purple-shirted-man back when he shoves the skinny guy.
The skinny guy whacks his head on the pavement and then passes out with his hand hanging in the flooded street gutter.
Half the people on the Havana’s patio whip out their cellphones to call 911. Everyone gets a busy signal.
I run inside and ask the bar staff to call the police.