We signed a lease for an apartment in downtown Dallas last week. After a year of being back in Texas, it is already time for a change.
Oak Lawn is special as one of the biggest gayborhoods in the country. However, proximity to gay bars and friends is not enough anymore. Living in Oak Lawn and working from home was great when I was 25, living a resort-style building, with a job that was good but not too demanding. But lawyering from a gloomy bedroom office is not the tea.
We had a bit of a storm here in Dallas back in February. First it snowed, and then we got near-zero temperatures that overwhelmed the state’s power system.
Half of our apartment building lost power for 3 or 4 days. Our unit had a couple hours of power each day before plunging back into darkness for 12+ hours. Several of our neighbors were sleeping in their cars to stay warm. We also had a moment where a fire alarm forced everyone into the pitch-black hallways and outside into the cold.
It’s usually a good idea to look up when walking on Cedar Springs Road — there’s often a crew hanging out on the powerlines and I’ve seen unwary bargoers torpedoed.
I love that the new buildings in the gayborhood come standard with dog spas and dog parks. However, getting people to pick-up after their pets seems to be a problem everywhere.
Our building’s dog park is filthy enough that we don’t play fetch with Ingrid for fear of her plowing into the poop piles. The fencing is also spotty enough that it is far too easy to lose a ball, which I learned the hard way.
Havana Bar & Grill is one of my favorite spots in the neighborhood. They’ve made a nightclub atmosphere work during the pandemic with table service, food that you can actually order, and amazing drag.
We checked out Liyah Alize’s drag show at Liquid Zoo last week. It was exciting to see Liyah and Iroc Goodness again (who I first saw at Mr. Misster’s brunch) along with some performers that were new to me.
The show was technically billed as a “drag brunch” but with a 3pm showtime, it was really more of a tea dance show.
Brunch or not, this cast was excellent and the bar staff was very gracious when a performer got onto a table and sent several glasses flying (a true sign of a good show!)
One amusing thing about my dog walks in Oak Lawn is that there always seems to be a pair of brooding eyes following me — the neighborhood is crawling with black cats.
I am not sure whether these cats are feral or actually belong to my neighbors. However, someone is definitely maintaining food and watering bowls for them, which sometimes cause massive swirls of birds to pop-out suddenly from fields along the sidewalks.
We made it back to another drag brunch show at Mr. Misster in Oak Lawn. This time we were with our new Atlanta friends who definitely felt their oats at their first Cedar Springs drag show.
This week’s cast was:
The drag brunch show was fabulous (as always) and it was great to see Serene Storm and Kenya Blue return along with some new faces.
Kelexis Davenport hosting drag brunch at Mr. Misster drag brunch.
This brunch was catered from a new restaurant (which was a boot) but the mimosa towers made up for it and we were there for the show anyway. Still recommend.
You can catch Mr. Misster drag brunch every Saturday at 2pm. Reservations are available in-person at the bar and online.
Here are some photos from brunch!
Dallas’ gayborhood is buzzing about two new residential towers planned along Cedar Springs Road.
The high-rises would be built in the surface parking lots behind the gay bars on that side of Cedar Springs — JRs, TMC, Sue Ellen’s, S4, and Woody’s. The developer said that it would replace the surface lot parking and provide the bars with a medium-term lease.
Proposed new highrises in Dallas’s gayborhood. (GDA Architects )
Of course many people are exercised about change – the two primary complaints being increased prices and parking.
Both concerns seem misplaced.
Some of my neighbors in Oak Lawn went all out for Halloween — this house is covered in massive webs and spiders.
These decorations remind me of The Mist, a Stephen King book (and movie) that features giant killer spiders. However this house is a little less terrifying and definitely not the craziest thing in town — Apparently one house in East Dallas has Halloween decorations so gory and realistic that the police were called.
I think I’ll stick with the oversized spiders. 🕷
So after I restarted my workout kick, I quickly realized that my apartment building gym would not cut it. The gym is pretty small and my neighbors have no problem packing in the room.
After some hemming and hawing, I decided to join the Equinox gym in the neighborhood. The gym is large and the distancing is pretty decent for Texas. I also like that the membership comes with unlimited classes.
It has been about a week and everything hurts — I forgot that working out means constant soreness. Hopefully, this is just a learning curve and I’ll be less miserable in a week or two. But for now, it’s constant whining and griping.
The good news is that I haven’t quit halfway through a class or puked yet, so that’s a minor victory. And, several of my neighbors are considering joining the gym, so maybe soon my workout misery will have some company. 🏋️
We’ve had unseasonably cold weather in Dallas recently — days in the low 40s and evenings in the 30s. Everyone’s pressed, especially Gunter, the Chiweenie.
Gunter hasn’t gone on strike yet and refused to do his business outside (like he did in Minnesota), but after a few minutes outside he’s standing by the edge of the dog park, glaring and shivering.
A “funeral” was held for Redfield’s Tavern over the weekend to commemorate the end of the restaurant (for the gay community at least).
The Dallas Morning News published a story yesterday confirming the owners’ homophobic remarks that were secretly recorded by a former employee. The backlash to the recording was swift — the gays boycotted, the staff quit en masse, and the business collapsed.
Drag brunch has officially returned to the Strip on Cedar Springs – we went to the Mr. Misster drag brunch show on Saturday and had a blast!
Hosted by Jenni P, Saturday’s brunch featured Kenya Blue, Liyah Alize, Onyx Andersen, and Serene Storm.
Kenya Blue performing at brunch in Oak Lawn.
The brunch food spread was catered by Orno.
Overall, this brunch is a toot — It was one of the most relaxed brunches that we’ve been to in Dallas. The host seemed to be in her element and spent a lot of time on audience interaction. There was also a dance contest and a hilarious runway segment.
There’s a shit-storm brewing in the gayborhood.
I recently heard a recording that is allegedly of two of the Redfield’s Tavern owners discussing how they really feel about their gay clientele and staff. The tape confirms rumors that have already been swirling about the owners being anti-LGBT — which I refused to believe since this place is basically the neighborhood’s busiest gay bar of the moment.
Why this matters: With most of the largest gay bars still closed, Redfield’s has become the center of many people’s social lives — like Cheers or the coffeeshop on Friends. It’s not uncommon to see some regulars there 3 to 4 times a week with the same groups of close friends. If you’re spending a significant amount of your free time and disposable income at an establishment, it’s devastating to hear that the owners don’t value your business or respect you as a person. (And also offensive, because you’re keeping their lights on).
The tape is worse than I thought. The alleged owners describe the large gay clientele as a “problem” and say several times that they are alarmed that the venue is becoming a gay bar. They also complain about the newly hired gay men, and suggest replacing them with women.
This bigoted behavior won’t be tolerated — this venue is in a predominately LGBT neighborhood and after 9pm (and weekends) Redfield’s was almost entirely gay. We are not a problem, but rather the people keeping the place afloat.
I am disgusted because just last night we were having a conversation with friends, and we went on at length about how much we love Redfield’s. But no longer –:I’m not giving another pink dollar to owners who casually discuss firing their staff just because of who they choose to love.
Good luck to them. But I am going to spend my money at places that support our community and don’t view us as a problem. 💅
Like many things, Halloween in the gayborhood is decidedly different this year. Normally, there is a sprawling block party, but this year it is all about small gatherings at restaurants and neighbors’ homes.
Some of my younger neighbors have rowdy packed parties (that we do not attend), but the events with the 30-somethings tend to be smaller and easier to keep one’s distance at. I think the lack of FOMO after a certain age definitely helps.
Plus, the food is better when the host has a World Market membership.
We are on the Redfield’s Tavern patio when lights go out. After standing around for a couple of minutes, a waiter comes and tells us that a balloon got stuck in the powerlines outside, caught fire, and ended up blowing up the transformer in front of the restaurant.
“It’s on fire,” she says. “Hopefully it doesn’t mess up anyone’s car…”
I parked in front of the restaurant!
So, I run outside just in time to see flaming pieces of balloon on top of the car next to mine.
A burning item on a car outside of Redfield’s Tavern in Dallas.
I move my car as the bouncer extinguishes the flames with water from the bar.
Next time, I’ll just park on the side of the street like I normally do. 🏎️
A dog spa is not something I think about when apartment hunting, but it always turns out to be one of the amenities that I use the most. I love being able to wash and dry the dogs without completely destroying my own bath or clogging the drain for weeks on end.
Ingrid the labradoodle got a bath this past weekend — there’s something strange about Dallas that causes her to smell way worse than when we lived in Washington DC, so I wash her almost on a weekly basis now. (I am not sure if that’s a lot or not).
Ingrid the Labradoodle getting a shower in our Dallas apartment building.
Ingrid the Labradoodle getting a shower in our Dallas apartment building.
Ingrid the Labradoodle getting a shower in our Dallas apartment building.
Ingrid doesn’t mind the water at all, particularly because she always get treats as part of the process. However, drying is another matter — she’s terrified of the dryer and prefers to air dry on a walk. This usually works out until we run across mud patches. Then there’s a risk that the bath process starts over again. 🏃
Havana Lounge recently reopened on Cedar Springs Road with weekend drag shows. The lines for the bar have been insane, so Sunday’s afternoon drag show was our first time back.
Additional bars are reopening in the gayborhood, which means that the evening dog walks are very interesting.
There were several wrecked cars in the area this weekend — one was even left turned on. The strangest thing about these crashes is not that people abandon their vehicles, but that it takes so long for the crashes to be cleared. Each crash took almost a full 24 hours to be removed.