Well, I have to say that I was overjoyed to read Chi-Chi's post touting the festival as a bit depressing. I enjoyed Wigstock and a few of the other events, but it was sad to see that even members of the original club dynasty of manhattan were milling about quietly, almost smugly. Yes, it has all been done before, it wasn't anything new, it wasn't cutting edge, offensive, or remotely underground. Perhaps the Howl Festival and Wigstock should serve merely as a promotional event for the nightlife underground. Allowing the pleated khaki's and wannabe squares a brief glimpse into the nightlife circus that exists behind the scenes. I would feel inspired to dawn my best rags and even pull that mammoth makeup case from the top of my closet if I knew we were only there (in broad daylight) to humor the khaki-clad squares and show them what is really going on in our community(and take some of their money$$). We really shouldn't try to pretend that it is still cutting edge. That will only slow down the progression of new events.
I hope this isn't offensive to anyone. All I really want is to take the nagging boredom and depression from the scene and squash it into the ground!
I am new, so correct me if I am wrong! It seems as though everything that was once undergrond, taboo, and so devilishly fun has been thrust into the mainstream media so quickly that the nightlife didn't have time to catch up. Everything that was so fun before is just a drag now because it isn't subversive anymore. Its ok to be a drag queen, the whole world has seen the manhattan club kids spattered across the nightly news and geraldo (haha). We have all had a breakdown from our extravagent drug use and the whole scene that was once a secret underground society is common knowledge to those khaki clad blokes who were at Tompkins Square Park for Wigstock.
So what to do now? Hmmmm...I say we stand up throw it back into everyone's face and rise again. If you don't want the khaki blokes in your neighborhood, then go out on the street make some noise and do something offensive. It really isn't right that we should all retreat in the face of normalcy. I was in the Cock on a Friday night (ugh...) and as I watched 50 people smoking and snorting I though "they get away with this because this place is so offensive and gross no one wants to come in here to enforce their sad laws." I certainly don't want to promote that scene, but it doesn't seem fair that all of the true oddities are relegated to law abiding complacency while the true normals get away with extravagence. Oops! I'm ranting! Can someone please explan this?