I started out as a pianist and singer in gay and piano bars - they were the only places I could get a job singing show tunes.
The nightlife in Baltimore is very mixed. Any gay people I know go to the hipster bars; they don't go to the gay bars. Start your night at the Club Charles, and then you can meet people to go other places. The Charles has been Baltimore's favourite cool hipster bar forever.
Drag shows are one of my favorite things in the world. As a straight man I love going to gay bars. People at gay bars just love to dance.
As a straight man, I love going to gay bars. People at gay bars just love to dance.
I am invisible in gay bars.
I had about five years as a gay guy in New York after college before the whole Grindr explosion happened, where people were still going out to meet each other.
It is hard to be unhappy in a gay bar where everyone's singing show tunes! In fact, I've spent many a night in those kind of places - in that particular place, actually - Marie's Crisis: it's truly a New York establishment.
I'm sober now, but I was partying a lot. Part of it was because gay bars felt like safe spaces... a place where you feel safe and comfortable in your own skin.
I have a standup I do in gay bars, and it's filthy. I have to assess the crowd. If it's an all-gay crowd, I'll dip into the stories of my sordid past.
The huge difference in my lifetime is that you can just go up to somebody and make a pass. You couldn't do that in the 1950s if you were gay. There were secret handshakes, a secret language. There was nowhere you could go to be romantic outside of people's houses.
