4 Arrested at Leather Bar

One of Milwaukee's well known Leather Bars was the target of an under-cover sting. In the early morning of February 1st two under cover officers visited the back room of this notorious hangout and arrested four men engaged in lewd acts of misbehavior. The owner, according to the police report "entered the back room area twice, approached the men but did nothing to discourage or stop this activity." the men acknowledged him on both accasions but did not stop theor activity. Needles to say they were taken into custody.
I have vistied the bar in question on many occasions and observed similar activity. Guys if you want to have some place to meet you are going to have to keep your zippers up and take your libedos elsewhere. I understand the excitement and thrill of possibly getting caught, which unfortunately was not the case. Is losing you job and reputation worth it? I don't think so. Not only that, you now have a permanent police record.
The fact is that we are losing bars due to the gentrification of the Third Ward but lets not make it even harder for the owners of these establishments to keep their licenses. So lets behave ourselves and take it to the streets. If you got to do it take him home or whatever.

Here's the Dish on the Predefest Town Hall

Last Thursday February 15^th Pride Fest held their Town Hall Meeting at the LGBT Community Center on Court St at 7 pm. Some found out about the meeting by email and others found out about it through ads in the local gay rags. The headline said “Help build Wisconsin’s largest pride celebration” which turned out to be more of an informational meeting than anything else.

Yours truly was looking for answers to questions as to whether Pride Fest would reinvent the wheel again this year. Apparently so as Scott Gunkel is now the spokesman and a mostly new Board has been formed. They are Paul Masterson of the Gay Arts Center fame and Paul Williams along with Pete Mins as Co-Director replacing the departing Mike Hall who had been recalled to active duty you know where. Sam Christianson (Proud Crowd), Dan, David Boda (Community out reach) and Jef Montoya (religious activities). Still needed is a Female Co-Director. Strange that there isn’t some kick-ass Lesbian who wants to come forward.

Yup its going to be three days, and yeah they are hoping to keep the Ticket price at $12 given that the cost of things like insurance and entertainment doesn’t keep rising. Talking about figures, they claim that we had a record attendance of 23,839 people, they claim to be the largest crowd so far. Neil Albrecht the new treasurer said that they raised $441,207 of which expenses were $439,301 giving a grand total of $1905.99 Whoop te doo.

The final debt reduction payoff of $31,774 along with a total contribution to the community of $10,000 came off the revenue. Don’t ask me how they came up with this figure but they claimed revenue of $85,000. Math is not one of my strong points so don’t ask me what that means. You’ll have top ask them. They said that they now only have to put a $3,000 down payment to reserve the festival grounds and and about $28 to $30 grand just before the festival to get things going. At least that is the way I understand it. They are shooting for 25% profit, whatever that means.

As usual they don’t have a Volunteer Coordinator and they are shooting for March to either get one or get the ball rolling on recruiting volunteers for the various positions needed. Lets hope they can get someone soon as I suspect that it will be business as usual scrambling to get negotiations done on time.

Now for the juicy part. There will no longer be any flags down Wisconsin Avenue. Not just us but every festival too, courtesy of our glorious budget cutting County Executive. Oh and you’ll love this one. No more shuttle service to Pride Fest either, unless someone can schmooze someone in city or county government to provide those nice Trolleys. As we all know parking is atrocious anywhere close to the Summerfest grounds and so is the cost. If you ask me, someone is going to have to come up with a plan soon or there will be Hell to pay especially those who are disabled. Besides who wants to maneuver past those annoying protesters who perennially gather on the corner as you enter the Fest? They didn’t do too well with the Pride Guide and they are thinking about eliminating it or making it much smaller. Personally I think it would be a major marketing blunder if they did away with it. Smaller is ok. We really don’t need something like a magazine, just something like they do at State Fair with the weeks calendar of activities. A three day one should be breeze and can be filled with ads to fluff it out. It also needs to be made to be stuck in the back pocket comfortably, that’s all.

At the end suggestions were made about filling vacant time on the main stage. Cooperating with the Parade and the possibility of moving to a warmer weekend which is not possible for the foreseeable future. It is something nice to look forward to if the opportunity arises. Did I tell you it was in the basement? Not exactly the warmest place in the world.

That’s the Dish for now
TTFN.