Let me take you to a gay bar, gay bar. or not. it's fine. we can just go to hesburger. no problem (part 4 of 4)

Halloween is a very uneventful date here in Penafiel.
My only fear is that kids this days are more americanized and if they come to our door trick or treating I have no candy in the house except for a half-eaten jar of nutella.
But I doubt that will happen. There aren't any children living in my neighbourhood (how creepy is that, huh?).

Anyway, the only possible scenario for celebrating Halloween, this year, is to watch Dracula and maybe dress up my cat. (I just googled pet costumes and entered a whole new world of possibilities. look at this! )
I decided that, to be in a more festive spirit, I'll comemorate the day by releasing some pages from my comics project, the-thing-that's-taking-all-my-time-and-keeping-me-stuck-here-in-this-childless-land, more precisely, the pages from 31/10/2012.
Go check it!

Apart from that, here's the last review of gay bars in Vilnius, concluding the series.

SOHO

I think this is considered the best and most popular club.
InYourPocket travel guide describes its decoration as "the style of a vampire’s Council house." and I think it's spot on.
It's not as fun as Men's Factory because, in Soho, it looks like they are actually taking themselves seriously and trying to be elegant and refined. And failing. There's a lot of corners divided by red curtains, a very polished and classy bar, fancy seats and a fake fireplace. But a TV screen with phone numbers and videos of naked men clashes with the atmosphere they might be trying to achieve.

Most of the times I've been there, I felt like I was crashing a party full of gay guys accompained by their straight girl friends, who wanted to get very drunk and rowdy and dance flirtly but in a totally platonic way.
One of those nights, I was in the bathroom calmly washing my hands, minding my own business and the girl next to me felt the need to tell me, a perfect stranger that didn't even look at her twice, that "she's sorry to disappoint me, but she's not a lesbian"
I'm rarely perceived as gay so my brain went from being slightly surprised "she thinks I'm a lesbian?" to "SHE THINKS I'M HITTING ON HER JUST BECAUSE WE'RE WASHING HANDS NEXT TO EACH OTHER???!"
I wish I could tell you I had an awesome answer to that and the girl felt really stupid afterwards, but I was really embarrassed and furious and stormed out of the bathroom mumbling "dont worry, i'm not interested!"

I found it odd and a bit insulting that this girl would go so much out of her way to inform the world (in this case, me) she's not gay even though she is in a gay bar. This is not like I offered her a drink or asked her to dance. I was just standing there washing my hands!
I want to believe this was a very specific thing and not make any bigger conclusion about the club based on it, but, let's be honest, I'm not trying to make a scientific research here, the point of this review is to give my opinion of the places based on the one or 2 nights I've been there. And, based on that, plus the accounts of some of my friends, Soho didn't seem to be a very welcoming place for gay women. Not only from the attitude of the people there, but also because the club is completly oriented to men.

To which you're going to say: "Well Joana, what were you expecting? All the events in Soho are marketed for men. The entrance as semi-nude dudes in the walls and one of their logos is a penis!  Besides, you've been to Men's factory and loved it, what's the difference now?"
So, here's the difference:
Mybar had nights for women, Men's factory has another branch, Girl's Factory (I didn't visit it, but if the decoration follows the Men's Factory taste I imagine boob-shaped bean bags and a clitoris-rodeo like the one Sophia Wallace did.), but Soho, in spite of being the most popular bar, the one that appeared on the march and has good connections with the Gay League, is the only one not having an alternative night or events directed to women.
And that's sad. Specially because girls go there all the time, and if theres gay women wanting to go to Soho, they should welcome diversity.


Rating: ***
I'm giving it 3 starts. Because they seriously need to get something going on for the ladies. And because I the mirroed walls in the dance floor are kind of strange.

 

 

Let me take you to a gay bar, gay bar. or not. it's fine. we can just go to hesburger. no problem (part 3 of 4)

hi readers!

How are you all?

Since my last post, Summer as pretty much ended. Or at least, I started wearing socks to bed, which, in my book, is the definition of Winter.

I'm in Penafiel full time, and very short on interaction with other human beings. I even started refering to other people as human beings, that's how creepy and asocial I'm becoming.

My comic project is building up in the living room wall and my cat will ocasionally roll around the sheets of paper in a desperate call for attention. 
 

I know, it's adorable.

 Apart from that, I started driving again!

After a initial "which one is the break?" moment I'm actually doing well and have droven around town, wearing sweatpants and a pyjama sweater, at the extreme velocity of 30km/h. I'm officially an old lady, now.

One of this days I'll let you in on my the whole trauma with cars and screaming driving instructors, but right now we'll go back to wilder times in Vilnius and I'll write you my review of the third gay bar:

MEN'S FACTORY

Me and Ceren went to Men's Factory for a Drag Queens Night. 

First, we got lost. 

We were in the right street but couldn't find it! After walking back and forth like crazy, we finally tried entering in an area that looked like it was only for industrial warehouses and had a "you're-gonna-get-raped-here" vibe to it.

Turns out it was there.

Men's Factory is one of the oldest gay clubs in the city and it had recently reopened. Someone told me it was built in a soviet bomb shelter, and that's why it's so underground and has tiny claustrophobic stairs. The entrance was an antique looking door protected by a hiron cage and muscly guards.

Past the guards, you come into a little hall where a entrance control system contrasted with vintage mirrors, red curtains and walls, and a big and phallic copper statue. This was a good preview of what you would find inside. Men's factory did feel like a theme park atraction with a pornographic twist. Pirates of Caribean Sex Dungeon or something of that sort. The bartenders dressed as sexy sailors and there were penises everywhere, the lamps, the statues, the coat hangers, the chair feet. Everywhere. It was so odd, so over the top, I loved it.

Even though the place was obviously for men (just in case you didn't notice it in the name..) and even had areas restricted for me, I didn't feel completly unwelcomed, or like I was crashing some gay men's party. The bartenders, the men drinking at the bar and even the guards outside were nice to us (They called us a taxi. With their own phone.)

The Drag show was awfull, but entertaining. I don't think it was supposed to be funny, but I laughed, a lot. One of the drag queens  was too tall for the stage and tried lip-synching while clumpsily dancing and avoiding hitting her head in the stage illumination. It was terrible. 

But that sort of terrible that goes around and gets to be good again.

There were very few people there, but the tiny crowd was in a very drunk and sexy-party-hard mode. As we left, a lady licked salt out of a bartender's belly for a shot of tequila. This is the kind of thing that looks sort of cool if you're surrounded by party people, in a festive setting, and looks super strange if you're the only person in an almost empty bar. Which was the case.

rating ****

It's hard to find, but totally worth seeing. The only drawback for me was that the music was terrible.

Also, as reference, there's a pizza place right in front of it that happens to be the best place to eat pizza in town. I would highly recommend it, too.