DENVER CENTER ATTRACTIONS ANNOUNCES 2012 SUBSCRIPTION SERIES

Denver Center Attractions has announced a high-spirited, award-winning season of Broadway hits headed to Denver. The 2012 season, generously supported by United Airlines and Vectra Bank, features hits straight from Broadway including the return of WICKED, the 2010 Best Musical Tony Award winner, MEMPHIS and the 2010 Best Revival of a Musical Tony Award winner, LA CAGE AUX FOLLES.

Read all about it after the jump. 




Kicking off the season January 10–21 is BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL, the explosive new musical comedy that raises the stakes on over-the-top high school rivalries. Set against the world of competitive cheerleading, this powerhouse new show hilariously proves that winning isn’t everything when it means losing something - or someone - you really care about. This show has brought together some of the freshest and funniest creative minds on Broadway, including Tony Award-winning writer Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q); Tony Award-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (In The Heights); Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning composer Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) and lyricist Amanda Green (High Fidelity); Tony Award-winning orchestrator Alex Lacamoire (Wicked), and Tony Award-winning director/choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler (In The Heights). BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL is an entirely original musical comedy combining an exciting new sound, gravity-defying choreography, and a thrilling story to create a total theatrical event worth cheering for. Game On! www.bringitonmusical.com





I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE, the record-breaking hit, returns to the Garner Galleria Theatre with an all new production February 17-June 24. Everything you’ve secretly wanted to know about dating, mating, and marriage; husbands, wives, kids, and in-laws but were afraid to ask! Parents who talk baby talk, men who talk and women who pretend to listen, infidelity, and the injustice of long lines for the ladies room are just some of the issues that are hilariously skewed in Joe DiPietro’s hugely successful musical revue. Four actors take on the lives of more than 20 characters as they face the trials and tribulations of dealing with the opposite sex. I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE, sponsored by MolsonCoors, is the perfect date-night comedy for adults.



Next up, subscribers will experience the music of the legendary Johnny Cash with RING OF FIRE: THE MUSIC OF JOHNNY CASH, a co-presentation with the Denver Center Theatre Company. This musical revue uses 39 of the singer’s best-known songs to describe the journey of a man in search of his soul. Full of love and emotion, humor and empathy, the show, like all country songs, tells it like it is. RING OF FIRE: THE MUSIC OF JOHNNY CASH plays The Stage Theatre March 23–May 13 and is supported by Producing Partners L. Roger Hutson and Leslie McKay.



WICKED will be back by “Popular” demand April 11–May 20 in The Buell Theatre. Entertainment Weekly calls WICKED “the best musical of the decade.” Winner of 35 major awards, including a Grammy and three Tony Awards, WICKED is Broadway’s biggest blockbuster, a cultural phenomenon and was just named “the defining musical of the decade” by The New York Times. Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz. One - born with emerald green skin - is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good makes for “the most complete and completely satisfying new musical in a long time” (USA Today). www.wickedthemusical.com



THE ADDAMS FAMILY will play The Buell Theatre with two snaps June 19–July 1. Sponsored by U.S. Bank, this smash-hit musical comedy brings the darkly delirious world of Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Grandma, Wednesday, Pugsley and, of course, Lurch to spooky and spectacular life. Based on the family of characters created by legendary cartoonist Charles Addams, this magnificently macabre new musical comedy is created by Jersey Boys authors Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice, Drama Desk-winning composer/lyricist Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party), choreographer Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys) and Olivier Award-winning director/designers Phelim McDermott & Julian Crouch (Shockheaded Peter) with creative consultation by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks. Come meet the family. We’ll leave the lights off for you. www.theaddamsfamilymusical.com


Winner of three Tony Awards including the award for Best Musical Revival, this hilarious new production of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES plays The Buell Theatre September 4­–16. It was the biggest hit of the 2010 Broadway season, leaving audiences in stitches night after night. LA CAGE tells the story of Georges, the owner of a glitzy nightclub in lovely Saint-Tropez, and his partner Albin, who moonlights as the glamorous chanteuse Zaza. When Georges' son brings his fiancée's conservative parents home to meet the flashy pair, the bonds of family are put to the test as the feather boas fly. LA CAGE is a tuneful and touching tale of one family's struggle to stay together... stay fabulous... and above all else, stay true to themselves. With a glorious score of hummable melodies and a dynamite cast featuring the “notorious and dangerous Cagelles,” LA CAGE is an indisputable musical comedy classic... and this extraordinary new version shows you why! www.lacage.com



Turn up that dial because MEMPHIS will rock Denver’s Buell Theatre October 10–21. From the underground dance clubs of 1950s Memphis, Tennessee, comes a hot new Broadway musical that bursts off the stage with explosive dancing, irresistible songs and a thrilling tale of fame and forbidden love. Inspired by actual events, MEMPHIS is about a white radio DJ who wants to change the world and a black club singer who is ready for her big break. Come along on their incredible journey to the ends of the airwaves — filled with laughter, soaring emotion and roof-raising rock 'n' roll. Winner of four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical, MEMPHIS features a Tony-winning book by Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) and original score by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan. Directing is Tony nominee Christopher Ashley (Xanadu) with choreography by Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys). Get ready to experience Broadway’s most exciting new destination... MEMPHIS! www.memphisthemusical.com



2012 season ticket packages start at just $218. To purchase a subscription, please call Denver Center Ticket Services: 303.893.4100 or 800.641.1222, or visit the ticket office located in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex at Speer & Arapahoe. Subscription packages also can be purchased online at www.denvercenter.org/bwaysubs. Single tickets are not available at this time.

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change extended through October 14

Due to popular demand, Denver Center Attractions announces an additional extension of I LOVE YOU, YOU’RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE to feature a new summer schedule and prices. For performances July 3 – September 1 all tickets to the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday matinee performances are $24. The summer performance schedule begins July 17. Tickets are now on sale through October 14 at www.denvercenter.org or by calling 303.893.4100. 

Click here to check out the MileHighGayGuy review of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change by Philip Doyle.

Mona Lott: Drag Empress of Denver Talks Upcoming Projects, RuPaul's Drag Race, and the History of Drag

By Drew Wilson

Westword says she's "less of a Drag Queen than a Drag Empress" and Out Front named her 2014's Outstanding Drag Queen. Now, Mona Lott is gearing up for her biggest year ever as she launches a new show, works on a web series, and revs up her engine for a possible run on RuPaul's Drag Race.

Drew: Mona, you're everywhere. You must be the hardest working drag queen in Denver!
Mona: I love being busy. I always say I’m not happy until I’m so busy I’m miserable. Basically right now I have three shows – bingo, Stripped Down Stand Up, and now the game show. I’m also working on trying to get booked on some cruise ships. Oh, and I just started working on a web series. 

Wow. Tell me about the new show.
Mona Lott's Big Fat Dirty Game Show is gonna be a ton of fun. It's the game show for the socially unacceptable!

With my bingo show we used to play little side games like strip-bingo or swing-that-thing where we tied strap-on dildos to people who would have to use them to knock over bowling pins while blindfolded. It was so much fun I just thought, why not put together a game show without the bingo? 

Have you always been such a go-getter?
I’ve been pursuing acting since I was in junior high school. The best advice I ever got was when I read a book by someone who basically said "don’t wait around for someone to cast you in a show, don’t wait to be discovered by a director, get out there and put on your own showcase'. I realized that for me to sit around and wait for somebody to book me is a waste so I just started putting my own shows together. 

It started in Vegas. I was living in Vegas and working as a singing gondolier at The Venetian. We got laid off for six weeks and I read a book on how to be a stand up comic. Then I saw a casting notice that came out for stand up comics and I thought what the hell I’ve got six weeks to come up with something so wrote a set and put together Mona Lott. I went and auditioned and ended up doing the show for two years.

From there I went into LA and did The Comedy Store and The Improv. I also did The Gong Show on Comedy Central, 1 Versus 100 with Carrie Ann Inaba and some other things. 

You make me want to be a more productive person. So tell me more about Mona Lott.
She’s pretty raunchy but not actually dirty. It’s mostly innuendo and wink-wink. She just says and does anything she wants to do. I had a guy tell me once that he thought a lot of drag queens were scary but there's something about Mona that's charming and not scary. I think that's perfect.

How long have you been in Denver?
I grew up in Denver. It’s my hometown. Then my partner and I lived in Vegas for six years and we’ve been back now for about three years. We had a big debate because I wanted to go to Los Angeles and he wanted to come back to Denver. Of course, in my heart, I wanted to come home to Denver, too. But I wanted to go to LA because everything was popping and my career was taking off. 

I thought if we came to Denver my career would be over. But we came back to Denver and I’ve actually gotten more work and more money than ever before. Denver’s really a hotbed for comedy right now. It’s competitive with New York and LA. So much comedy and so many comedians. There are at least one or two open mic nights every night of the week and different comedy shows every night of the week. It’s really amazing.  

What are your shows like?
I play to a lot of straight audiences, particularly straight women. And I’ve been heckled but you can turn them around if you can make them laugh and show them, like, I’m not a threat to you and you’re not a threat to me. You make them laugh about universal things and the things that make them think they're against you and you can turn it around. I’m a 300-pound man in a dress. Let’s joke about it. We're all people just trying to get along. You can accomplish so much with humor. I got out of so many fights in junior high by being funny.

Casting for season 8 of RuPaul's Drag Race was recently announced. Do you follow the show?
Follow it? I live for it! The first season I actually had a casting agent contact me and ask me to submit. So I submitted a video and didn’t hear anything for like eight months. Then I got an email that they were considering me but they wanted more information. So I answered some questions and sent them back but never heard anything. 

Then the next year they sent me another email and said they wanted me to submit again. Submitted another video. Didn’t hear anything.
When I finally saw some of the submission videos from the queens who were actually on the show I was like 'Oh, that’s why I’m not on the show'. My submission videos sucked. They were so bad. 

So now we’ve really been working toward getting on the show but now the submission and video requirements are just crazy. She wants to see 10 different looks; walk the runway; lip synch to two of her songs; perform another talent; she wants to see your match game celebrity. It’s crazy involved. That’s kind of how my web series came about. I was just looking to do some music videos for my songs and I thought I could use them for my submission tape and put them on YouTube but once I started getting the crew and everything together I thought, why stop with just a music video? Why not do a sketch comedy show with music videos as a segment?
 

Sharon Needles and Jinkx Monsoon

Who are your all time favorite contestants?
I really liked Sharon Needles when she was on the show. Since then I’m not that big of a fan but when she was on the show I really liked what she was doing. The fact that she was showing up the others who were giving her such a hard time ... like that Phi-Phi whatshername. Oh, I hated her. Little miss Phi Phi. 

Phi Phi O'Hara

And I really liked that one that won the next season - Jinkx. I didn’t understand all the girls on her season who got so mad at her. They kept talking about, 'oh, these girls with all these tricks keep winning' and I was like, you mean those tricks like talent? Tricks like singing and acting and comedy? Why are you mad about that? She’s winning because she’s more talented. The ones you should be mad at are yourselves for not being able to sing or act or whatever!

Right? If there’s anything I hate it’s being in a competition with people who are better than I am! 
Jinx showed them what real talent is! Drag isn’t just about putting on a pretty dress and flouncing around. 

What would you say drag is about?
I actually wrote a long letter to Liz Cheney when she made her remarks about drag being offensive. 

The fact of the matter is that drag came about because there was a time in the country when you couldn’t be gay and you couldn’t be out. That’s when we first started talking about each other as 'she' and 'her' and talking about our boyfriend as our girlfriend because we had to hide it from people who weren’t in the know. 

That way you could talk openly by saying 'oh, I’m going with my girlfriend tonight' and your friends knew what you were talking about but the bigot next to you didn’t. And I think that’s where drag kind of came about. And that's how Stonewall came about. You weren’t allowed to have two men dancing so if one of them could do drag and pass as a women you were ok to dance with them. 

I get so mad when I hear people every year during Pride talking about 'why does the media focus on drag queens? That’s not who we are. They don’t represent us'. You girls better get on your frickin’ knees and thank these drag queens for what they’ve done. They do represent our community. You wouldn’t have this parade if not for those drag queens back in 1968!

Amen. 100 percent.
Drag queens are on the front lines of every fight there is - look at the Imperial Court here in Denver. These queens are doing shows all the time to raise money for gay students, AIDS, Project Angel Heart, you name it! And I don’t know how many thousands of dollars I’ve helped raise. Since January I’ve done two charity shows to raise money for MS. I get so mad when I hear people talking down about drag queens. 

Preach, sister. Is there anything else you'd like to say?
Yes, I’m jealous of you and all your twitter followers. You must have a big dick.

Tomfoolery Abounds With the Play Mile High LGBT Skeeball League at Barker Lounge

By Drew Wilson

Great news if your New Year's resolution was to have more fun in 2015; Play Mile High is offering a LGBT Skeeball League in January at Barker Lounge. Yup, skeeball! The silly but addictive carnival game you loved as a kid is back and better than ever thanks to the magic of teams and cocktails! I spoke with Elliot Jeffords, director of Play Mile High, to find out more about the company, the league, and socializing in the Mile High City. 

Elliot Jeffords

Drew: Being director of something called Play Mile High sounds like the worlds funnest job, Elliot. How did you get involved with the company?

Elliot: I went to college in Washington, D.C. and I was doing a summer internship and got connected with Giovanni (Marcantoni, Founder & CEO) who was starting the Baltimore Bocce League. He wanted to expand to D.C. and that grew and we added skeeball in the winter in Baltimore and from there it just took off to different cities and we added more and more sports and activities.

Denver must be an excellent market for you guys. We’re always being voted Most Active City this and Most Social City that.

Yeah, it takes a while to build brand awareness but we had a really big initial boom and now we’re looking to expand on that. We’re not just a sports league. We like to think of ourselves as a lifestyle brand. You may play basketball or volleyball at the beginning of the week and then maybe a silly dodgeball or skeeball type league in the second half of the week and then we have social events a couple of times a month; pub crawls or ski trips or anything like that. We’re working really hard to make 2015 a huge growth year for us.

Who is the Play Mile High demographic? How do I know if it’s right for me?

Our leagues are for everyone, whether you played college sports or never touched a ball in your life. Every market we go into we start with skeeball and bocce, things anybody can do. You just have to be able to move your arms and have fun! Everything we do is built around the social aspect and fun. Like, our kickball leagues are kickball and flip cup. So the teams play kickball and then go back to the bar and play flip cup. Everything we do has a social or bar element. 

Social is good.

That’s the thing, in Denver there’s a lot of  great activities but there’s not necessarily  that super social element, that go-play-something-meet-people-have-a-lot-of-fun-on-a Thursday-night-with-your-friends-or-your-office type of thing. Play Mile High is the full social and active experience. The types of activities we do really help people meet and socialize, it’s a total icebreaker. How are you gonna play skeeball and not talk to the people next to you? 

Skeeball is not something the average person realizes is missing from their lives but everybody I've mentioned it to has a huge response to the idea. So are we talking, like, the kind of skeeball they have at Chuck E. Cheese's or Dave & Buster's?

That's exactly what it is. We’ll have two skeeball machines and we’ve developed all different types of games. Each week you play a different team and it’s fun and social and super fast paced. It's become wildly popular in Baltimore. Last year we had just under 2000 people in Baltimore playing skeeball.

As a matter of fact, our problem is that our vendor in Baltimore ran out of skeeball machines. We have so many bars wanting to do it with us  but we just don’t have the capacity to do any more.

And it's being held at Barker Lounge, a very fun place. How did you get hooked up with them?
I was looking for a bar to partner with for LGBT events and met with them. It was a great fit and I think the space is a good intimate space for a league. Everybody I talk to says it’s a fun place to go and drink and hang out so it should be a great fit. 

So the LGBT skeeball league is obviously gay-friendly, but what about the other leagues?

Oh, absolutely. No matter who you are, you are welcome in any of the leagues. The only reason we designate LGBT leagues is, I went to high school in Boulder and I had a bunch of friends from high school who live in Denver now and they’ve told me that that they love socializing but that there’s nothing like what we’re doing for the LGBT community. The feedback we got was that the community wanted designated leagues and so we are developing that identity for the league. Obviously, they can and do play in other leagues with everybody else but if they want something LGBT specific, we have that too.

Tranifesto: Coming Out – to a Fiancée’s Parents and to a New Date

By Matt Kailey

Here, we have two coming-out posts reflecting very different situations. As always, I encourage readers to chime in. Here goes:

A reader writes: “I identify as a genderfluid/ genderqueer FTM transsexual who presents and lives publicly as male. I’ve been in a relationship with a cissexual, genderqueer person who presents and lives publicly as female for about a year and a half.

“She recently came out to her parents as queer. I’ve been out to my family as queer and trans for years, but I’m not out to her family (and most people in general). It simply doesn’t come up/isn’t any of their business, combined with an intense fear I have of people knowing I’m trans, in part due to an experience of coming out to someone I thought I could trust and his reaction being to rape me to try to prove to me that I’m female. I don’t trust many people with this information.

“My partner and I just got engaged, and everyone is happy for us and all is well and dandy. My concern is that folks in my family (who all know my gender history) will tell other people at the wedding, perhaps even tell everyone at once during a toast. I can’t really imagine a worse way for me to come out to her family.

“The options I see are (1) tell her family ahead of time, (2) keep our families apart/elope, and (3) ask folks in my family not to out me and just hope they are able to do it. Do you see any options I’m missing? I’m just so uncomfortable with all of these options. I imagine this information will eventually make the rounds, but I’d feel much more comfortable if it came up naturally and not as a big announcement.”

That’s a tough one. But there’s one thing missing from all these options, and that is – what does your fiancée think? It’s not her decision when and how you come out, but I think under these circumstances, it’s definitely something that the two of you should discuss together (with you getting the final say if the two of you disagree).

My personal opinion is that you should tell her family ahead of time, and here’s why: The two families will probably have many interactions over the years, even if you elope. Expecting every member of your family to honor an agreement not to out you over the next fifty years might be more than you can reasonably count on.

Just expecting no one to slip up at the wedding might be too much. Even with the best of intentions, someone can easily make a mistake, and there could be one family member who thinks this bit of information might be too juicy to withhold – especially after a few champagne toasts.

Should you be able to count on your family to respect your wishes and not out you? Yes. Can you? Probably not, and that doesn’t mean that your family is horrible or doesn’t respect you or anything other negative thing. It just means that people slip up, people make mistakes, people aren’t perfect. And even if every member of your family takes this information to the grave with them, that doesn’t mean that your in-laws will never find out.

There are people who will disagree with me, and I hope that we will hear from them in the Comments section. But I think that just getting it over with and moving on is the best course of action.

You say that you would like it to come up naturally and not as a big announcement, and at this point, you have control over that. Once Uncle Ralph gets drunk and proposes a toast at the wedding, you no longer have control. So use the control that you do have now to let it come up naturally and matter-of-factly, so that by the time the wedding takes place, it will be old news.

Things to do in Denver When You're Gay: Meet Christopher Castellani–Literary Judge, Jury … and EXECUTIONER!

By Drew Wilson

Christopher Castellani is the award-winning author of the Grasso family trilogy (A Kiss from Maddalena, The Saint of Lost Things, and All This Talk of Love) and the Artistic Director of Boston-based non-profit creative writing center Grub Street. Castellani brings his special brand of authorial authority to the wild, writing west this Thursday, March 14 with his Craft Tribunal: Words on Trial workshop at Lighthouse.

We caught up with Castellani recently to ask him a few questions about the workshop, his writing process, and Psychology Today.

The workshop you’re doing for Lighthouse is called Words on Trial. Why is it important to put the words in question on trial? How can we determine the guilt or innocence of these words and what punishment should these words face if/when found guilty?
I took the title from Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer: “As I wrote,” Prose states, “I discovered that writing, like reading, was done one word at a time, one punctuation mark at a time. It required … ‘putting every word on trial for its life:’ changing an adjective, cutting a phrase, removing a comma, and putting the comma back in.” This resonated with me because, as someone who reads everything like a writer (even when I wish I could turn off those sensors (and censors)), I have little patience for fatty sentences. And when I’m writing, I try hard to practice what I preach, to honor readers’ time by not giving them a single syllable that’s not essential. The problem is that the trial process for words is imperfect and messy and long – not to mention subjective – so even after you are confident that every word is essential, you’re never quite sure you won’t look back on a sentence or scene and realize it could have been tighter. What I do in the craft class is close-read a short-short story in which I believe every single word is necessary; we then try to apply what we learn to our own work. I also look at a story that is hyper-conscious of language, but which doesn’t always get it right.
As for how to punish the guilty words, that’s an easy one: Death By Deletion.

Can you name a time in your most recent book All This Talk of Love when you had to put words or ideas or a character on trial? What was the verdict?
Well, every single page, every single sentence, is haunted by the ghosts of words past. But there’s a long chapter in All This Talk of Love where one of the characters is losing her mind over a period of years, and where, to capture that, the prose veers into something close to poetry. That was a particularly challenging section because, even more than in the rest of the book, the pitch had to be perfect, and one false word would cause the entire chapter to crumble. I had to show a gradual degeneration without being too blatant and while maintaining the dramatic irony. For the 10 pages or so that ended up in the novel, I wrote about 25 or 30, and I was pruning and changing the rhythm of the sentences until the 11^th hour.

In a recent interview with Psychology Today you said, “I think the most important thing I learned is that there is no past.” What does that mean to you? How does that knowledge impact you as a person and as a writer?
As I said in the interview, as we get older we accumulate so much memory and so much loss and love. As a person, I find it overwhelming; it makes me more risk-averse, more tired, more anxious. As a writer, I think/hope it makes me more empathetic, better at more fully exploring character. My books have always been character-driven, but I think they’re going to get even moreso as I get older, and as the world of people I know and imagine becomes even more complex and layered.

Words on Trial with Christopher Castellani will take place Thursday, March 14 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Lighthouse Grotto (lower level). Cost is $55.00 for Lighthouse members and $75.00 for non-members. 
After the workshop, at 6:00 PM will be The Pop-Up Reading with Christopher Castellani. Please join us for wine, beer, and light eats as Castellani reads from the book All This Talk of Love.

This post originally appeared on The Lighthouse Writers Top-Seecret Blog. Reprinted with permission.

The Gay Vegans: Comida vegana en Tijuana

By Dan Hanley

Vegan food in Tijuana.

Tijuana (TJ), Mexico is a quick 2 1/2 hour drive from LA. I have come to love Tijuana, for many reasons. I recently spent a couple of days there to drop off donations to some nuns there serving migrant women and children, to speak Spanish and to check out some of the amazing vegan food options there.

A couple of things to know before going from California to Tijuana. First, you need your passport. I also recommend purchasing insurance for the amount of days you’re there, if you’re driving. Bring pesos. Your bank can help or you can get them at the last exit before entering Mexico. Traffic can be crazy, and if it makes you uncomfortable to drive there it’s easy to Uber around or use the local buses. If you want to stay in Tijuana there are a lot of great Airbnb options all over and in the central part of town some nice hotels, like the Lucerna.

Also, activism of all kinds is alive and well in Tijuana. This trip for me was to bring donations to the Centro Madre Assunta, and there are literally dozens of nonprofits doing amazing work for humans, animals and the environment.

Playas de Tijuana is the area of the city along the ocean and the US border. Super relaxed with beaches, a boardwalk and work out spaces along the boardwalk. I love it. While here there are three spots I suggest. Luwak Cafe is on the main boulevard and is a small cafe/coffee shop. And they serve vegan waffles! I love them mainly because of their staff, and vegan waffles help. Head south and you will find The Green House. Mostly sandwiches, tacos and veggie burgers, add smoothies. I tried the tacos and the agua fresca of the day which was lime. Number three is La Veggicheria, right on the boardwalk maybe two blocks south of the border. The view is gorgeous, all ocean. Sitting outside with that view and delish food is pretty perfect. Their burger is pretty popular and I loved their mole.


Alma Verde is a spot I didn’t get a chance to go to but heard good things about. Two locations in Tijuana. I will report back once I go here next trip.

My favorite spot in Tijuana to eat is Mazon Vegano. It’s near the southern part of the Avenue of the Insurgents (Avenida de los Insurgentes) in an inside area of placed food trucks. Their quesadillas were so good! I started with two and had to try a third. Fresh and flavorful, with a great salsa to go along with them. The mind-blowing part of the meal was the blueberry cheesecake, the best cheesecake I have ever had!

You’re probably hungry now. And if you are like many people I tell that I love Tijuana, you might be thinking about safety. I have never felt unsafe in Tijuana. I have heard the stories, and like any city with crowds you want to be careful, and use common sense. Tijuana is a wonderful place, and add in all of the delish food options and you’ll have a great time.

Gavin Castleton: Love, Loss and Zombies

Gavin Castleton is set to release the digital version of his epic production, HOME on Friday the 13th of February on Five One Records.

HOME carries you on a focused journey of love (and the footprint it leaves when it steps on your face) through the eyes of a man, a woman, two ladybugs, and an army of corpses. Not only is the concept left-of-center, the album itself is unique in its function. Freshly arisen from the devastation of a six-year relationship, Castleton set out to design an album that would both document his healing process and deliver comfort to listeners to the heartbroken. In what close friends described as "a monumental error in judgment,"Castleton enlisted the help of his departing lover to help write the story. The process became so heart-wrenching that Castleton abandoned the house they had shared, and for five months (until his final mastering date), he and his faithful dog slept on couches, floors, and car seats, recording musicians all over New England. The result is HOME, a 14-song narrative that follows his relationship from the coffee-shop flirtation beginning to the mauled-by-zombies-while-his-girlfriend-leaves-in-a-helicopter-with-some-army-dude end.

Here, Castleton talks about the agonizing but rewarding process of creating HOME, his Mormon upbringing, and his (and his family’s) thoughts on Proposition 8. Read all about it after the jump.


Q: This album is a song cycle about your last romantic relationship. There is some joy on here, but many of the songs contain images of despair, bitterness and horror. How true-to-life are the emotions that you’re conveying?
Gavin Castleton: The emotions conveyed on the record are only a small fraction of the colors one experiences in a serious breakup. I did my best to make it concise. Home is inspired by a very real relationship, one that lasted six years. I began writing Home when we broke up, and both processes took two years to complete.

Q: What caused the relationship to end?
GC: We weren’t growing within the relationship, so we made a mature decision to grow outside of it. Unfortunately, our execution of said breakup was not so mature. We wanted to do it lovingly, but this resulted in a very trite two-year emotional limbo that only prolonged the misery. I asked her to write the lyrics for her protagonist in order to document the process fairly and in hopes that creative collaboration would keep us close. Despite the pleasing results, it was a foolish exploit.

Q: She was writing lyrics that expressed how she felt about the relationship?
GC: Ideally. We ended up collaborating on three of the earlier songs on the record, and half a song from the second half. When it was no longer emotionally feasible, I finished the remaining duets alone, which was painfully educational, given that I was writing from her perspective with a critical eye towards my behavior in our relationship.

Q: I get the sense, though, from the songs, that you feel as if you were the one that was left.
GC: My role in the breakup shifted almost hourly for a long time. Ultimately, who did what to whom is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not I emerged from it a better person. And I did.

Q: On the record, when the relationship turns bad, zombies appear. Can you tell me what you’re trying to convey with that metaphor?
GC: I feel that when a relationship is love-thick and long-lasting, it’s less likely to be killed by something sudden or obvious – such as infidelity or violence or geographical distance. More often, it’ll fall victim to the cancerous deterioration of untreated, deep-seated issues (oftentimes dating back to the beginning of the relationship). George Romero billed the slow zombie motif as a sociological horror. Unlike other horror movies in the late 60’s and early 70’s, his films were about the slow, impending doom of these compounding threats, and their effects on the survivors’ interactions. For this reason, zombies were the perfect metaphor for what happened to us.
Plus, I just really like zombies.

Q: Has she heard the record?
GC: Doesn’t matter. It’s not for her.

Q: How are you doing now?
GC: I’m doing very well. I recently moved from Rhode Island to Portland, Oregon, and I know it was the right thing to do. This town is very open-minded and welcoming. Emotionally, I feel healed and equipped to be a better partner for someone. My heart is wide awake and chattering loudly. I’m writing a lot of bite-size pieces--nothing wildly ambitious right now--and enjoying new collaborations.

Q: Let’s talk about your career. You’ve released a lot of music so far.
GC: I’ve released seven solo records (independently) since 2004. Aside from those, I released seven records with my band Gruvis Malt, two with my band Ebu Gogo, and a handful of other collaborations since 1996.

Q: You’re very prolific. Is making music what you always wanted to do?
GC: Well, I had several other ambitions. At one point in my single digit years, I was sure I wanted to go into a fictional field I’d dubbed “animal communication specialist.” But music was always in there somewhere. When we were young, we didn’t have a choice—mom insisted that we learn the piano as a potential source of income. I’ve always had an affinity for melody—I began writing at five years old and never really stopped. Until I was 25, music was a monologue for me, a way to export emotions that I wasn’t comfortable expressing verbally. But since the age of 25, it’s become more of a dialogue with the listener… I’m more interested in communicating effectively, rather than just emoting.

Q: Well, the music on Home is very emotive. It’s as if each song is produced and arranged to convey a different feeling.
GC: Love and loss are quite possibly the most dynamic things we humans can experience. I did my best to convey that on the record. In all my solo work, I strive to make each element of the composition support the song’s “thesis” (which should, in turn, support the album’s theme). So, for example, the first song, “Bugguts,” is about the frequent panic attacks I experienced throughout the breakup. We wanted to connote the concept of breathing throughout the song. We used breathing loops as percussive elements. Wind-driven instruments like flute and French horn are featured prominently. And atmospheric elements like strings and organ were mixed with exaggerated volume swells. I even did the vocals while jogging in place. You get the point.

Q: The song “Oregon” touches upon suicide. Did you get to the point where that was on your mind?
GC: Of course... I went to the bottom and back. Daily. And eventually, monthly. I don’t think suicidal ideation is necessarily an unhealthy thing, as some would suggest. When I felt entirely powerless, taking control of my own mortality was an empowering conceit. Brave? Not really. Wise? Definitely not. But empowering.

Q: “The Human Torch,” the song after “Oregon,” seems to imply that the girl comes back.
GC: Well, “Oregon” is the dark ending, and “Human Torch” is the ridiculously happy ending--a total Disney CGI finale about the reuniting of her and me. It was the hardest song to record, because it was so blatantly delusional. Those were just two scenarios out of hundreds that someone dealing with heartbreak might fantasize about, and the final song, “Credits,” discusses the futility of doing so.

Q: I saw the video online of you singing Prince’s “Nothing Compares to U.” How did that come about?
GC: In December of 2007, a friend sent me a video of the Sinead O’Connor version, which I hadn’t seen since the mid 90’s. I was struck by the bravery and rawness of the piece, as well as its simple and effective composition. So, I knew at some point I wanted to try my hand at it. The video is my interpretation of it, using my looping approach and a guest cellist, Erin Hunt.

Q: Would you like to be a big pop star someday?
GC: [Laughs] No, not particularly. I’m happy to have people buy my records, but if I have to become the very definition of narcissism, contributing to our youth’s obsession with aesthetics and materialism in the process, then I’d prefer to remain obscure. I don’t have to be a star to do what I do. I’m successfully communicating with thoughtful people, and that’s where my interest lies.

Q: On a more superficial note, I know some gay guys who really think you’re hot. It’s not just about the looks—it’s the emotional sensitivity that they find attractive. Have you built up any kind of gay fan base over the years?
GC: This question makes me very sad. Being objectified undermines the countless years (well, no --- fifteen years) I’ve dedicated to making thoughtful music. Any attention given to me as a person, especially something so irrelevant as my appearance, is shifting the focus from my work, which can impact people deeper and longer than any physical attribute. In regards to building a gay fan base, I find that people respond positively to honesty and introspection, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Q: I know that you were raised a Mormon. Do you have any thoughts about what’s happened recently with the Mormon campaign and their support of Proposition 8 in California?
GC: Yeah, I did post something on my blog [gavincastleton.blogspot.com] about it. Both sides of my family have a large Mormon contingent, and we all felt strongly about our various perspectives. The heated discussions (via email) blew our family communication wide open, which was a beautiful thing. I can’t really claim that I have mass groups of friends in California that will be largely affected by Prop 8, but I feel very strongly that this exclusionary legislation is an embarrassment to our country and our prospective faiths.. The church’s propaganda regarding Prop 8 is too Un-Christian for me to discuss calmly.

Q: Do you still consider yourself a Mormon?
GC: No. There are several elements of the Mormon church that I hold in high regard: love of family, strong community, and humanitarian aid, to name a few. But in my opinion, there is no way to subscribe to a monotheistic religion without inferring something negative about other religions. I can’t condone that. I am not a religious person, and I find no solace from group worship. I would define spirituality as the communication of one’s most inner voice with our universe’s most outer voice. And by that definition, I explore my spirituality best through music. Ultimately, I hope to make music that is universally applicable, even if not always understood. This album is meant as comfort for the heartsick, no matter what gender or orientation made you sick.






Sleeping Together: Fantasy Versus Reality

By Todd Craig

When I was single, I had these Cinderella dreams of life as a couple.  I romanticized growing old together.  I imagined snuggling up and drifting to sleep in the arms of my man on cold winter nights as if life outside were a Thomas Kincade painting.

The reality is that Thomas Kincade is dead, and his paintings, like those dreams of snuggly sleep, weren’t real either.

The ninth anniversary of the first date with my husband will be here in a few days.  Nine years, man.  That’s a pretty good start on something special, and it’s definitely enough time to have learned a few things along the way.

The biggest myth these past nine years exposed is this: We don’t snuggle up together and fall asleep in each others' arms.  We’re a couple.  We love each other deeply.  We’re deeply devoted to one another, too.  But for us, sleeping together has nothing to do with those single-person idyllic dreams of drifting off to slumber amidst nightly cuddles.  Instead, the reality has been a bit of a rude awakening, pun intended, for us both in that regard.

Sleeping Together Reality #1 –The first sign reality differed from fantasy was when I learned that my man has cold feet.  They’re colder than the damned sidewalk, and they’re unnaturally cold twelve months out of the year.  In the depths of winter, those footsicles are the first things that greet me upon getting into bed. 

You know those idiots who do the polar bear plunge of jumping into an icy lake on New Year’s?  They have nothing on me.  They do their little jump once a year.  Me?  I do it nightly.  Honestly, the temperature of his feet hovers somewhere between Canadian cold front and Absolute Zero.  Probably closer to the latter.  It’s gotten so bad that I flinch when I pull back the sheets.   My testicles have withdrawn so many times that they’re on a first name basis with my kidneys.

My spirit has been so broken that I recently bought a heated mattress pad for us.  It has twenty different settings of heat with Level One being a gentle radiating warmth and Level 20 being enough to take a frozen pot roast to medium rare perfection in less than three minutes.  Even at that setting and after a few minutes of thawing time, there is still a nightly negotiation between his feet and my body that I always lose. 

Sleeping Together Reality #2 – I’ll be the first to admit, I love snuggling.  I love to pull my husband close to me, drape my right arm across his bare torso, and hold him close to me.  Sounds good, right?  Not to him.

In his world, my arm weighs about thirty pounds.  The weight of my arm is uncomfortable and confining to him, so there’s no possible way he can get to sleep like that.  Every time I reach across with my arm, in his mind I might as well be laying a sandbag across his chest.

Turnabout is fair play, for as much as I like to snuggle with my arms, my husband likes to get a leg up on the competition, pun intended again, by snuggling with his legs.  He has this weird thing about not wanting his knees to touch, and his solution to this problem is to throw one or both of his legs over me once I’m asleep.  I don’t know if anyone else in the world has ever had this done to him, but let me inform you, having half of a person draped over you twists your spine in some rather unnatural positions that even the Karma Sutra would take a pass on. 

Sleeping Together Reality #3 – Never in all my years of dating did any boy ever tell me that I snored.  There are probably a number of reasons that I never heard this, including the fact that many times we didn’t actually get to the whole sleeping part of the night, but regardless, I’ve always believed that I was a silent sleeper.

To hear my husband tell it, however, my breathing is the perfect combination of the whistling winds in a canyon, the roaring engine of a 747 taking off, and a truck downshifting on the interstate.  A couple of weeks ago I was in a deep, dark sleep when all of a sudden, WHAM! I got an elbow in the ribs.

“What was that for?” I mumbled.

“You were breathing out of your mouth funny.  You were making this weird clicking noise!  Shhhhhh-pop! Shhhhh-pop!  Shhhhh-pop!  Over and over and over again.”

I began to comment that I was probably laboring to breathe due to the fact that I had his legs draped over me when I was elbowed in the chest a second time.  He suggested that I should keep my mouth shut while I was both asleep and awake if I didn’t want any more pointed elbows heading my direction.  That harsh reality was colder than my husband’s feet, and it was enough to convince me to roll over and keep my smart ass comments to myself.

All in all, there’s nothing quite like falling in love with the man of your dreams.  The Cinderella story is well known to us all, and when you’re single you cling to those relationship dreams and all of the idyllic images that go along with them to get you through the challenges of dating and the single life.

Reality isn’t always perfect, however.   Sometimes Prince Charming has cold feet.  Sometimes Prince Charming snores.

And the reality of sleeping with someone, like those elbows to the ribs, can be a bit of a rude awakening from what you hoped it would be.

I love my husband with all of my heart, and marrying him is the best thing that I’ve ever done.  Would knowing that we wouldn’t be snuggling blissfully to sleep every night for the rest of our lives change my single mind about marrying him?

Would his cold feet have given me cold feet?

Nah.

The Black Eye Ball - DJ Jens Irish interviews DJ Brent

Resident DJ Jens Irish brings Black Eye Ball - The Naughty List to The Compound for the first time this Saturday, December 17. It's got everything you want. Spankings from Santa. Free shots (if you have a black eye), sexy go-go dancers (with black eyes), and $4 Svedka Vodka drink specials. And joining the fun will be special guest, DJ Brent. 

DJ Jens Irish - looks lost but isn't

DJ Jens Irish: You've been DJing for a few years now, at least, and have been making some pretty top-notch podcasts for a while. What prompted your decision to start DJing live?

DJ Brent: There was a part of me that was completely happy with continuing spinning, on the dl, in my basement and just putting out podcasts. There was another part of me that wanted to get out there and spin live ...  get the instant feedback from the crowd ... to be able to dance with the crowd to the music I was enjoying. Craig C gave me the shove I needed to get out there. I'm thankful that he did.

You played at the Wrangler's Sweet party a few weeks back - your first official live show, I believe. What are your impressions from the experience? Did it measure up to any pre-expectations you might have had? Any surprises?

The night could not have gone better. It far surpassed any expectation that I had.  The crowd was extremely welcoming and supportive and it was a blast! Any surprises? I was kind of surprised by how exhausted I was afterward!

DJ Brent - Santa's naughtiest reindeer

From a DJs perspective, what would your ideal show be (crowd, music, venue, etc.)?

Great question! From a crowd perspective, a crowd that is there to have fun and that will allow me to lead them through different types or styles of music. To be accepting of something new. As for venue? Hmm, I think it would cool to spin at a huge club, but to be honest I think I enjoy smaller venues where you are close and connected to the crowd. I'm looking forward to Compound. The space allows for a great crowd and you can watch the night happen from the DJ booth.

What kind of musical styles/genres get you the most excited to play, and why?

I'm a House boy at heart. House, Progressive House and Tech House is where I like to be. For me, it's all about the groove and the energy. 

You're originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, which rolls off the tongue like butter, and is so far North that most of the roads start curving south again pretty shortly thereafter (I might be exaggerating a bit). How's the clubbing scene/nightlife for the gays up there? Any chance of you DJing there in the future?

Surprisingly, the scene in Saskatoon is pretty good. There's a big alternative crowd there and people LOVE to dance. There may be an opportunity or two for me up there. Now that I've come out of the DJjing closet my friends back home are excited to get me a gig up there.

Everywhere I go,  I see the same ho

You've recently started to play rugby, what motivated you to get involved in the sport? Is it as hot as everyone fantasizes it to be? 

I've always loved the sport - and the men - so when the Colorado Rush formed, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to jump in and play. And yes, it is damn hot!

If you had to pick a character from 'Modern Family' that's most like you, who would it be?

I would love to say that I am Gloria, the sexy bombshell from a strange foreign land. But, to be honest I'm probably a good mix of Mitchell and Claire.

Where do you see yourself as a DJ - or as being involved with music in general - in five years?

Music has always been a huge part of my life. It has always been a creative outlet for me. I see that continuing. I would love to be part of a regular party. I would also like to get into the production side fo things too. I have already tried my hand at a few re-edits and have liked how they've turned out. So, I guess I'll just continue doing what I'm doing and enjoy the ride.
 

Homo for the Holidays: The Gift of the Diva Gay

By Todd Craig

My husband likes to believe that he’s easy to shop for. After all, there is nothing he doesn’t want. After this Christmas, I beg to differ.

You see, I’m from the school of thought that believes that a present is a gesture that represents how you feel towards someone while at the same time giving them something to remember you, the giver, as well. I listen intently as the months approach for clues as to wants and desires of friends and family. I labor at nights thinking of ways to personalize gifts and give them in a heartfelt way. The challenge of Christmas to me is finding each and every person on my list something that they’ll treasure and love for years.
 
My husband, on the other hand, is a Diva Gay. What is a Diva Gay, you ask? Diva Gays are known for their love of fashion and style. They worship their goddess, Mariah Carey. They love labels. They sing bling. There’s no such thing as too flashy or too gaudy when a diva is involved. When it comes to buying a diva gay a present, you merely go to any designer store - whether it be fashion, jewelry, or whatnot - and purchase something outrageously expensive. Never mind the fact that the said item that you’re purchasing has little or no perceived value to the other 99.9% of the humanity. Never mind that the Visa bank who backs your card is burning up your cell phone with disapproving voice messages that say, “Are you REALLY sure you want to do that?”  

True Story #1: After dating and talking about marriage, the future, and the possibility of having kids, my husband once proclaimed that he’d be more OK with having kids if he didn’t have to put any macaroni and glitter homemade crap on his refrigerator door. For our first Valentine’s Day, I made him a four-foot heart out of red construction paper trimmed in – you guessed it – macaroni and glitter. Of course, I was no fool. I coupled that shit with some 1000 thread count sheets, too. (Heh, heh… see what I did there? Pitched to the diva’s expectations and worked in a little heartfelt, cornball romance. Smooth, huh?) The sheets are long gone now, but that first Valentine remains. Even a Diva Gay’s heart can be touched, as it turns out.

True Story #2: For Christmas this year, our kindergarten son made us at school a hand-painted snowman magnet out of popsicle sticks, cut-out pieces of felt, and googly eyes. It hangs proudly on our fridge. Even a Diva’s Gay heart is vulnerable, it turns out, to the handiwork constructions of a six year old boy.

Anyway, getting back to my Christmas shopping woes, back in October we were walking through the mall, running a few errands, when what should catch my husband’s eye? A shiny new red Coach bag complete with yellow metal hardware and a heart-attack inducing price tag. His gasp was audible from its beauty as was mine upon seeing the cost of that thing. You see, I’ve been to this rodeo before. Those f**kers at Coach don’t play around. So you get your man the purse of his dreams, right? But you’re not done there. Then you have to get the coordinating wallet, the mini-skinny, the key-chain, the scarf, the LoJack security system, and the rustproofing before realizing that you just spent enough money to purchase a small island or a year’s tuition at DU.

So, yeah … a new purse again, huh? I winced in pain as the thought took hold of me. But as Christmas grew closer, well, we had some fortune come our way. My husband started a new full-time job after Thanksgiving as the lead administrator for a high-end jewelry store. Then my teaching job unexpectedly gave me a December bonus. Those two facts, when mixed with a moment of holiday weakness, convinced me that maybe my diva did indeed deserve some indulgence this year. I figured that I’d wait until the weekend before Christmas, make my mall journey, and buy the perfect gift for the holiday.

But divas are nothing if not a bit demanding when it comes to their presents. And indeed my husband’s idea of gift giving and receiving goes a bit like this: I’ll give you a list, and you go buy it for me. 

To that end, a few weeks before Christmas I received a list of add-ons for his china pattern. Yes, the boy loves him some fancy dishes, and to that end, when we married, he of course picked out a wildly popular and expensive pattern that has roughly 5,000 different overpriced pieces that you only get to use on Christmas and Easter. Over the years, I have bought him enough gravy boats here and soup tureens there to the point where we really need a second china hutch to display it all.

And that’s what he wanted now? More dishes? Obviously the whole purse idea had been forgotten as the weeks had passed. As I perused his list, it did occur to me that the overall cost for his dishes was well under the cost of the purse, its accessories, and the obligatory Coach undercoating and extended warranty plan.

Yet the temptation to go big for my diva was too much. I ignored the list, despite my Mariah’s expressed interest in the china and its lower price tag, and stuck with my original plan, the purse.
Lying in bed two nights before I planned on purchasing the purse, my husband began his annual game of Twenty Questions with me about my Christmas plans for his present. This is an annual event which means two things: 1. He knows I hate shopping off of gift lists and was nervous that I was getting him something not-listed, and 2. The whole house had been turned upside-down in a quest to find his Christmas present only to find nothing.

True Story #3: For his birthday one year, I put notes throughout the house in all of the various and assorted possible present hiding places. He wasn’t nearly as amused as I thought he would be when he opened up our cooler on a present quest and found a note informing him of my superior present-hiding skills. (His present was in my closet at work that year. Divas are thorough, after all…)
Anyway, my husband and I were in bed when the questions started. "What are you getting me? What kind of store are you buying it at? How much are you planning on spending?"

I artfully dodged question after question, only giving him enough information to conclude that I was going to buy him a vacuum cleaner – because, well, you do have to tease a diva a little bit.

“Don’t you dare!” he exclaimed.

“But a Dyson is like the designer label of vacuums,” I argued in return, giggling to myself.

“Do NOT get me a f**king vacuum! That’s NOT funny! I don’t want anything practical! Don’t get me a vacuum. Don’t get me new pots and pans. Don’t get me a new purse either.”

No purse? Did I hear that correctly? Oh, shit! There went Plan A.

The next day, two days before Christmas, I pulled up his list on my computer. There was no way any of the china would ship on time and arrive before Christmas now. Two of the items on the list had even been sold out.

I felt defeated.

I went ahead and ordered what I could. I purchased a couple of movies so that he’d have something to unwrap. During Christmas I told him of the china, and he seemed very excited for what was on its way.

Lying in bed that night, I told him the whole story of my trials with his present this year. I told him that I was sorry that he didn’t have his present here to open on Christmas.

“You always take good care of me,” he told me before rolling over and kissing me. “I totally forgot about that purse until now, and it would have been a good gift. But I’ll like my china when it gets here, and it was a very good Christmas either way.

“Besides,” he added with a grin, “the purse will still be there for Valentine’s Day, right?”