"It's like liquefied Christmas Ham!," one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence exclaimed to Sister Selma Soul as they sat at a large table with a small group for cocktails. Both were sipping from a scorpion bowl and one of them was appropriately decked out in bondage gear, since it was the kickoff of Folsom Street Fair weekend. She posed for a few photos. My favorite was the absurdity of a tiny straw plunging through her gaping open-mouth ringlet. Everyone laughed.
The gaudily-garnished drink was described as being too sweet, but matched our tiki-themed surroundings. We were inside the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill for the September installment of Pop-Up Gay Bar.
If you were around San Francisco during its original dot-com boom, the Guerrilla Queer Bar (GQB) pop-up events that ran from 2000 to 2003 were legendary in their own right. Simply put, they were artful, DIY-staged events where groups of gays would infiltrate straight bars and random locations, unannounced and en masse as a way of community building.
Predating the flash mob and lasting much longer, it was considered to be activist nightlife and took its cue from Popcorn Anti Theater (a travelling theater troupe) and had other prank-based influences. Original organizers Brian McConnell, along with Sister Selma and some others, decided now would be a good time to reprise their concept. Little did they know, another unrelated group had a strikingly similar plan.
"People have a tendency to stick to their comfort zone and neighborhood. This was to encourage people to explore the city, like a field trip," said McConnell. He talked about today's overcomplicated apps, which had nothing to do with the original incarnation since smart phones weren't a thing yet.
However, in a short amount of time, technological advances have allowed for the type of community building he envisioned to grow around the country.
There is a tech aspect to Pop-Up Gay Bar, but it's a basic email list in order for the group to announce a change of location in case there's trouble with a particular bar or venue. McConnell said rarely does something like that happen, but ironically, the old SoMa leather bar, The Loading Dock, had kicked them out years ago due to an "uptight" owner.
"It freaks them out a bit when they see 100 people at once." McConnell said. "But if the bar staff is serving drinks efficiently, then they'll be making money." The economics behind it all seemed simple enough. But while the lines at the Tonga Room were long (too long), things didn't seem particularly queer.
photo: Dallis Willard
I signed up for the email list after being tipped off to the story about the group's tourist-trap, indoor-tropical getaway. For the sake of spontaneity, the full itinerary usually isn't revealed until the week of. This particular outing planned on hitting up Chinatown's Li Po Lounge before taking the cable car to the Hyatt Embarcadero. The cable car never happened, but we did make it as far as the Li Po and then back to the Tonga to see if the line died down, which it did.
Friday's happy-hour crowd was densely populated with so many tourists and normals that even the Sisters, along with very few leather daddies, were outnumbered or barely noticeable. This event needed something to boost attendance and to get numbers to reflect its more prominent origins. In fairness, this was only their second outing after August's ferry ride from San Francisco to Oakland. But by the end of September, McConnell and his compatriots would find their much-needed rallying cry.
"It sucks watching a for-profit startup steal something you and your friends created as an ad-hoc community event." McConnell was referring to a Boston-based group called The Welcoming Committee (TWC), which launched their own Guerilla Queer Bar pop up series in San Francisco earlier this month. They've been doing it on the East Coast for seven years, and while they may share the same name as the old event, they do things slightly different than their predecessors. McConnell wrote about the history to the rebel event for Medium.com.
"Besides the issue of commercializing it, we felt like it was a truth in advertising issue," McConnell said. Aside from taking the name, he alleged that TWC didn't really have a grasp on the concept of what 'guerrilla' means since it had been said the bars and venues they infiltrate are now getting a heads-up before they arrive.
TWC's founder Daniel Heller and McConnell both admit to having met in September. McConnell said Heller wanted to meet under the "pretense of learning more about GQB and [Pop-Up Gay Bar]". Meanwhile, Heller called his organization an LGBTQ activist movement that also happens to be part of a growing cohort of "mission-driven, for-profit social enterprises." Heller added that TWC is also in the process of ramping up their partnerships with non-profits.
As for cluing the bars that they'll be popping-up ahead of time, Heller justified it by explaining that his version of GQB had grown so much in other cities that when you shift from 30 to nearly 1,000 people showing up at events, tipping venues off helps accommodate the needs of the customers. In one instance, he said that a nightclub's staff even received diversity training in advance of the group's arrival.
"We were actually pretty amazed they had the audacity to do that in San Francisco, like nobody would notice," McConnell said, still referring to the name. "He did not tell us that he was just going to steal the name and trick people into thinking it was us."
According to Heller, McConnell seemed excited during their meeting about TWC's plans and even offered to help. McConnell did say that more options were a good thing for the community.
"The term GQB is used by dozens of people across the country in lots of different ways," said Heller. "We don't claim to have created it, nor do we claim to own it." He never uses names, but Heller wrote in an email that the criticism against him and TWC by one of the "old organizers" was "bizarre."
The two organizations went head to head with events held on the same night, October 3. While we didn't get an account of the TWC version of GQB's event at Public Works; the original group had 70-degree nighttime temperatures atop Twin Peaks during a heat wave to celebrate (thanks to the cooperation of police who allowed an initial estimated 100 people, which would grow to about 300) have a party with music until BAAAHS (Big Ass Amazingly Awesome Homosexual Sheep) or a mobile disco-art-Burning Man-type vehicle would take party goers to Land's End and then moonlit views of Sutro Baths.
As of now, both organizations plan on continuing outings and events with a stated focus on LGBTQ community-building and/or building equality. But it's clear they have opposing ideals on how these goals should be achieved.
Pop Up Gay Bar: www.popupgaybar.com
The Welcoming Committee: www.thewelcomingcommittee.com