It’s tempting to think New York City’s immune to the haterific behavior seen in rural America. But, like so many things in this city, that’s simply a fantasy.
To the right you see a picture of a man named Charlie. You may recognize that picture – we posted it in conjunction with our Mike Gravel party coverage.
Well, it seems Charlie got into the party spirit last Saturday at Williamsburg’s Union Pool for their Milksopp Gay Pride. For those of you who don’t know, Williamsburg’s the “hipster” epicenter of New York. We’re talking skinny jeans, hungry tummies, coquettish, yet totally rocking boys – the works.
Union Pool’s one of the more popular bars in the area. Though not anti-gay, it’s certainly not a “gay” bar. Saturday night, however, the gays invaded for the aforementioned party. While the gays were happy to be there, we hear Union Pool wasn’t so pleased to see them.
Our friend Michael passed on this note from his friend Jake, whom we’ve never met, but seems like a swell guy:
How about we take this to the next level?
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We were at the Milksopp Gay Pride dance party which is thrown by some of our very close friends in the back room at Union Pool. They closed the back room at about 3:15, which is pretty early to end a gay dance party in a straight bar.
We started hemming and hawing and exiting the back room along with everyone else who was leaving the bar. Charlie was perhaps complaining a bit louder than everyone else so the big fat bad-ass bouncer put him in a headlock and started accompanying him out the door. I started yelling at the bouncer as Charlie struggled when the second bouncer grabbed me around the neck and started pushing me to the door. Charlie’s bouncer pushed Charlie to the floor and my bouncer realized that the situation was completely out of control and let me go. The big fat bouncer started punching Charlie while we were all yelling at him to let him go, which he did after beating Charlie bloody.
In any case, Charlie is okay. He’s got big bruises around his eyes, marks on his neck like he’s been strangled, and popped blood vessels in one of his eyes.
Charlie may be okay, but that bouncer’s seemingly anti-gay actions don’t sound so “okay” to us, nor to Charlie’s friends.
Now, Charlie, Michael, Jake and the rest of the Williamsburg crew are asking you guys – yes, you – to take some action by calling up Union Pool (718 609 0484) and giving them a piece of your pretty mind. Or, you can send the bar an email at [email protected]. Michael even suggested this letter:
I’m writing in regards to the incident that occurred Saturday, June 23rd after the Milksopp dance party. One of the Union Pool bouncers used completely unfounded and unnecessary force on a patron, which may or may not have been motivated by homophobia. Union Pool is a longstanding institution in Williamsburg and I believe that you will agree that having a portion of your patrons feel unsafe because of your security is bad for business. The obvious solution to this is to terminate the employment of the bouncer in business. Until this bouncer has been terminated, I will not be attending Union Pool and will be encouraging my friends to do the same.
The funny thing about this is that we were meant to go to Union Pool that night, but didn’t. Guess we won’t be going anytime soon, huh? Oh well, we can always swing by Lotus (409 West 14th Street) on Tuesdays (Tonight!) to see them. Or we can go back to huffing paint behind our office.
Decisions, decisions…
rock
Time to contact Lambda and Empire Pride….and get them involved…does the bouncer pulverize every loud patron? If he did, the bar would be closed forever with no patrons and tons of lawsuits for the injuries the bouncer causes….that is soo not cool..I hope Charlie takes action….
logan767
I dont see how this is related to homophobia? Was there any indication that the bouncer was motivated by anti-gay sentiment – or is he just a general meathead?
In either case, action should be taken… could the editors get some clarification from Union Pool? I’ve never experienced that bar as anti-gay or unfriendly.
yipee
i didn’t see how this ended, but i did see how it began.
this is not gay bashing at all. we were all drunk and some inappropriate comments were yelled at the bouncer. the bouncer reacted and then both people involved quickly took it to the next level. the bouncer should’ve been more professional and not followed the action and allow it to escalate to actual punches. that being said, the bouncer did not start it and (until the bouncer dragged Charlie outside and I could no longer hear) did not say anything anti-gay.
it’s sad that qeerty would publish such an unbiased view. queer bashing is pretty serious and flinging the charge around does shit. jake’s email was longer than what was quoted. even he expressed doubts that the incident was not so easy to classify.
Hoodie
I DJed that night, and saw most of what happened. After talking to several people(including the bouncer) and reading Jake’s e-mail, I’m not convinced that this incident was motivated by homophobia. It’s awful that Charlie (a friend of mine) was hurt, no doubt, and I’m not trying to excuse the bouncer’s actions, but to say that he was motivated by homophobia is a stretch. Even the author of the original tip, who is a friend of mine, acknowledged this (as noted by the above commenter). It’s good that people are so vigilant about identifying homophobia, but we should also be careful not to cry “wolf.”
Also, I don’t know what’s happening at Lotus tonight, but it is not a Milksop party.
qquest
What Homophobia???? I was there all night and there was never any homophobic attitude. If anything this shit was caused by a lot of macho frat boy behavior. If you act like a dick to a bouncer anywhere you are asking for trouble. Can anybody say “hot mess”?
ng1260
No offense to Charlie who I think is mad hawt, I think what should happen instead is Charlie apologize for letting the liquor do the talking and the bouncer apologize for being carried away with himself.
Paul Raposo
First off, this is why you should never hang around straight bars, no matter how gay friendly they purport to be. Someone is always going to get bashed by some het.
Secondly, I find it nauseating that supposedly gay men–friends of the man beaten up–would justify the actions of the bouncer and put the blame on the victim. Judging from that pic, I seriously doubt that man could have done much harm to anyone, least of all a pro a person who gets paid to throw people around.
Why didn’t you pussies jump in and help your friend? He’s getting pounded and you sit and watch? Punks.
LadyMoshe
Whether Charlie, aka, HotMess acted like a dick or not is not the issue. A bouncer is meant to enforce peace and order within a bar when drunken buffoons get out of hand. The bouncer did not do that. He created more chaos and seriously cause far too much harm to the victim. Excessive behavior needs to be stop which is why many of charlie’s friends have stepped up their game through the internet. they didnt want to see this brushed aside as just another drunken night. action needed to be taken.
allstarecho
I’d like to do a lil rasslin’ with Charlie. Yum yum!
Hoodie
You misunderstand. None of our friends have attempted to justify the actions of the bouncer, and we are dealing with the bar to get things straightened (ahem) out. But believe it or not, having this spun all over the blogosphere as a gay-bashing incident (which Charlie himself says it was not) is not helping. Nor would it have helped for all of us to have tried to “jump” the bouncer. I don’t know how you think you can tell from the picture, but Charlie’s definitely capable of defending himself, which he did. He is not badly hurt and he literally walked away from the incident. We’re not talking Kevin Aviance here. I’m certainly no apologist for gay-bashers; when it ACTUALLY HAPPENS, it turns my stomach. It’s just that this has been blown way out of proportion.
Perhaps it will lift your spirits to know that the DJ pay for that night was donated to a gay youth shelter.