HillBuzz

A few weeks ago, we told you about the plot orchestrated by club promoter A&C Productions, nightclub Circuit, and several disgruntled former employees of the bar Spin here in Boystown to launch a boycott of Spin and hurt its business.  A&C Productions is partially owned by a former Spin bartender, who now wants to promote shows at rival club Circuit.  Circuit puts on circuit parties and musical events that wants to draw the exact same clientele as Spin.  The former employees, from what we understand, all lost their jobs due to performance issues.  In Boystown at a bar like Spin, it’s pretty hard to lose a job stacking boxes, washing glasses, and taking out the garbage — so in all the cases we know of where people were fired from a Boystown bar, it’s because the employee has “problems”, of a nature relating to working in a place where that much alcohol is always around (it’s a different situation at places like MiniBar or Cocktail, that only hire “hot” guys, and instantly fire said guys if they put on a few pounds and stop working out like fiends).

Our friend Panda (speaking of not working out) was curious about what’s really up with this attack against Spin, which stems from an event A&C Productions put on at Spin called ‘The Kid Sister Show”, which was a performance geared toward black lesbians on February 20th.  When we first heard about Circuit and A&C Productions trying to goad lesbians into boycotting Spin, and trying to rev the black community up against Spin by shouting RAAACISM! at Spin owner David Gassman, we speculated this was an instance of A&C Productions not making enough money off “The Kid Sister Show” and believing shouting RAAACISM! and organizing some kind of boycott was an effective tool to financially hurt Spin, if not pressure Gassman into caving and giving A&C more money.  We also thought, instantly, that Circuit’s involvement was like The Misfits in the old Jem & the Holograms cartoons, just trying to start trouble and ruin events at another club, because that’s apparently what Circuit does…engages in Misfit mischief.

We were right on all counts.

Panda found out what’s going on here, and it’s related to two things:

(1) The Kid Sister Show did not take in as much money at the door as A&C Productions claimed it would.  It seems very few people wanted to see whatever the heck a “Kid Sister” show is.  Who knows, like Wyld Stallions, perhaps this music is someday destined to change the world and the ghost of George Carlin will appear in a time-traveling phone booth at some point in the future and scold us for doubting the ethereal power of “Kid Sister”, but from what Panda has heard, “Kid Sister sucked eggs big time and no one wanted to hear that crap”. There was also, it seems, some confusion because many people thought “The Kid Sister Show” was a stage play featuring puppets made from these creepy early 80s children’s toys, which looked like a female version of Chucky.  Since it’s not Halloween, according to Panda, “Ain’t nobody wanted to see no creepy doll-puppets singing and dancing and trying to kill anyone”. The dispute between A&C Productions and Spin 100% involves ticket sales at the door:  not as many people came to the show as A&C promised Spin, but A&C wanted to be paid a large sum of money, as if the show was a big success anyway.  Business owner Gassman balked at that, so A&C resorted to this extortion attempt.

(2) The whole RAAACISM! charge stems from an email between Spin and A&C Productions involving the sort of music played at “The Kid Sister Show”.  By now, if you’ve been reading us with any regularity, you should have a feel for Boystown and the sort of music played here.  This is a world where people cry when Lady Gaga comes on the screens singing Bad Romance for the twelfth time that night.  They love Gaga with all their hearts, and will love her until someone knew comes along which point it will be “Gaga who?”.  The music pumping out of Spin every night is techno, electric, get up and dance club music.  That’s why young guys go to Spin to get up to their various shenanigans there.  If they were older and wanted to sing a long to showtunes, they’d go to Sidetrack.  If they wanted a little more mainstream dance music, they’d go to Roscoes. Since Hydrate doesn’t really get pumping until 2am (it’s an after hours dance bar), guys who want to hear the kind of music Spin plays have only one option on a Saturday night:  to go to Spin and dance there.  Apparently, whatever “The Kid Sister” show is, it’s not club music.  So, it looks like Spin knew their business was going to hurt because the regular clients who come to “Boystown bars” to listen to “Boystown music” didn’t want to hear “The Kid Sister Show”.

THAT’S what A&C Productions, Circuit, and those disgruntled employees are using to cry RAAACISM! at Spin and Gassman.

Because in an email someone referred to the kind of music Spin plays as “Boystown music”, and A&C saw that as an opportunity not only to paint Spin as being non-inclusive of lesbians, but also RAAAACIST! too.

This is all absurd on so many levels, and we broke this down for you in our last post on this, but just to recap:

(1) Lesbians are not loyal to bars.  Bars that cater to lesbians close.  Boystown is Boystown because guys are loyal to bars, keep coming back, and only break their spending and bar-going habits when bars suddenly start playing crappy music and make them feel unwelcome.  So, bar owners need to walk a really fine line between attracting the approximately 12 lesbians who will be going to bars any particular night, versus alienating the 5,000 gay men who will be out and about, with a half dozen clubs in which to spend their money.  Spin was put in the position where it agreed to do this show that caters to a very small niche, was not given the attendance for the show it was promised, and had to accept that fact that on a Saturday night when guys would be coming to Spin to hear “Boystown music” as always, Spin was instead playing whatever ‘The Kid Sister Show” is.  It looks like a lot of guys decided against a night at Spin because they didn’t want to listen to music that was aimed at black lesbians.  It sure looks like a case where A&C Productions probably pre-blackailed Spin to begin with, telling Gassman that if he DIDN’T allow this show to go on, he was RAAACIST! and anti-lesbian.  So, Gassman agrees to the show, but makes A&C promise to guarantee a certain door take to make up for his lost business.  A&C doesn’t deliver on its promises, the show is a failure, and then A&C decides to extort more money from Spin by inventing all these RAAACIST charges.

(2) It is the very first weapon of Leftists to scream RAAACISM! and DISCRIMINATION! when they are in the wrong.  This was a business arrangement, and one party did not like the business outcome. Instead of disputing this as professionals, that party decided to try to rev up the community with false accusations and raw emotion.

Funny thing is:  it didn’t work.

Spin was as busy this weekend as usual.

When Panda went out into the community, ace detective he is, to get to the root of this, everyone he talked to was on the side of Spin.  All the local businesses know what A&C Productions and Circuit colluded to do.  There’s actually the beginnings of a backlash against them for doing this.  As it is, people only go to Circuit when they absolutely HAVE TO, because there’s an event for charity there they want to support.  Now, we’ve heard talk of people looking for other venues to do events in because they do not want to send business to Circuit.  A&C Productions didn’t have a very good name in the community to begin with, and there are PLENTY of party promoters in Boystown.  So, no one will suffer from taking their business to another promoter either.

The lesbian community is not up in arms over this “Kid Sister Show”.  The black community hasn’t mobilized against Spin because the black community at large wants nothing to do with Boystown to begin with.  The rest of Boystown sees all this as what it is:  crying RAAACISM against a business because these people wanted to hurt Spin financially, and intended to benefit Circuit.

While all of this has been going on, business has continued as usual for Spin.  Young guys still go there to get stupid and have a blast.  The rest of us just keep walking by, remembering what it was like to be 22 and going to bars for the first time.  Spin’s where you get your training wheels as a gay man, and that’s not going to change.  Lesbians are still not going to bars and are doing whatever it is they do while guys hit Halsted every night.  ”Kid Sister” is making music somewhere, or possibly putting on puppet shows, and Boystown at large could not possibly care less.

We just find it so fascinating how shameless A&C Productions and Circuit behaved in this…and how pathetic their use of RAAACISM! was in trying to nuke a business rival.  It’s encouraging this attack failed on Spin, and hope across America this sort of behavior from Leftists and opportunists fails just as often going forward.