Field Notes Set #3 (Mirabar Part II)

Fieldnotes #3

So after getting rejected at the door of the Eagle, my friend and I decided to bro out at Mirabar.  This was my first time going with just another guy--usually I’ve gone in groups, including with some girlfriends of mine.  My friend, like I said in the last post, could be placed in the “twink” box - cute face, toned muscles, but overall a skinny/pretty-boy type.  We came in wearing tight jeans and tight-ish shirts, which are very generic at Mirabar

This trip was REALLY different than the last one in that my intention was more to let loose than it had been when i was with my other friends.  After five minutes and a vodka tonic (yes I paid a 25-ish guy sitting by the bar to give me alcohol, although he didn’t want to dance), I got on the elevated dancefloor-component of the club, which is a see-and-be-seen platform.  Like last time, most of the guys at the club were white but a lot were not...that said, it seemed that the platform was completely dominated by what appeared to be white gay men.  Absolutely no women were up there and neither were the men of color I saw that evening in the club, with maybe a few exceptions.  My friend, who is Asian American, joined me and started dancing with another guy we recognized as a Brown or RISD gay, and I let them do their thing so I started to go aroun the club for more possibilities.

Every corner of Mirabar is like a different pocket of queer identity/experience.  In one were the thicker veteran-Mirabar-goer boys (maybe 40-60 yrs old?) who could probably fit in pretty well at the Eagle.  Lots of these men sit on the balcony overlooking the elevated dancefloor, scanning the crowd for cute guys.  I figured that this is a research project, so I approached one (very nervously...this is crazy and I kinda regret it!) and asked “what exactly are you looking at?”...The guy, probably in his early 50’s? told me : “I’m looking at you now, sugar” and put his hand on my chest.  Okay, so in all due respect I wasn’t into that, so I moved on and tried to identify the Mirabar experience in action without getting groped by men twice my age.

Anoher corner of the club was the gay boys-with-their-(mostly straight)-femalebodied friends.. I found a SUPERRRRRR cute guy in this pocket who was dancing with his friend and he gave me the eye, so I went in and we danced for a minute.  He told me he goes to Mira every Thursday night because there’s karaoke sometimes before the club rolls in at 10.  He was 21 (but looked younger), appeared Latino, came from New Jersey but went to Johnson&Wales... anyway we ended up on the dancefloor but after 20 minutes he ditched me

The black men in the club were clustered in what could more-or-less be called another corner...there were not many there, and like Ash told me in the interview there seemed to bea  a pecking-order in place whereby the twinky white boys did not dance with the black men let alone hang out in the same nook of the club.  Segregation was very evident along racial lines...also there seemed to be a class component as the well-dressed, fancy-looking queers (mostly between 20 and 40) hung out by the bar drinking expensive-ish booze together

A final thing to discuss is the shotboy dynamic.  Mirabar hires 10-20ish shot boys to staff the club every night, and all these guys are lean-muscled, usually short white men.  I think shot boys serve as ambassadors of a certain image or fantasy identity that the club attempts to generate, and it’s interesting to note how the whitewashed dynamic at play among the club’s employee plays into the segregated dynamic of the dancefloor as well as the sense of undesirability that many darker skinned folks, like Ash, have assumed given these facets of the Mirabar experience.

Critical Review Set 2, Post #2 (Duany)

Duany’s article highlights the progression of Puerto Rican musical traditions that culminated in salsa’s rise, tracking the development of a racially complex boricua identity that straddled both the island and mainland USA (particularly New York).  While the island of Puerto Rico was defined by loosely racialized regions and areas (ie. the heavily black sugar-rich flatlands near the southern coast that sustained bomba music, versus the largely white and Spanish mountainous interior that conceived more folksy seis music), New York offered a site of syncretization of the styles that had emerged among racially specific groups on the island, and also borrowed heavily from Afro-Cubano styles that had also migrated to the Big Apple.  The “gritty” and “metallic” nature that, Duany says, makes salsa the “voice of the Puerto Rican ghetto” seems to connote a ghetto sound rooted in both the island and its satellite cultural enclaves on Manhattan and the Bronx.  

How is diaspora conceived of when we’re talking about a U.S. Territory, and does this influence how we talk about “American” music that stems from “transnational” cultural dialogue?  Is salsa conceived of as a transnational art in this article, despite Duany’s articulation of its special relationship to the U.S?  

Field Notes Set #2 (The Providence Eagle)

FIELD NOTES SET #2 (My attempt at the Providence Eagle)

This set of field notes is going to put together my 4 encounters with queer nightlife that I have had over the last month, which has made me VERY aware of just how fragmented the “queer” label means when it comes to going out in Providence.

I’ll start with the Eagle.  I went there with my friend, a slightly thicker/more-muscular dude who is still a little bit “twinky” in gayboy lexicon (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twink).. The eagle is generally known in Providence as the go-to spot for leather, bare chested, hairy “bear” guys.  But my project is on Providence Queer Nightlife so I gave it a shot.

FAIL.  The bar was pretty packed on a Thursday night, but the bouncer didn’t need us to join the crowd.  He asked my friend for ID and didn’t even bother with me (my friend is 20 as well but more mature-looking I guess)..  I’ll describe the scene outside the Eagle since I couldn’t get in::

#1 ~ LEATHER.  More leather than hair.  If you go to the eagle, you strap on a leather vest, leather pants, boots, etc...it’s a dress code.  

#2 ~ lots of big boys cruising outside.  My friend got hit on by at least 3 of the dudes leaning up against the wall in the alleyway where the eagle is situated.

#3 ~ based on what I heard from the outside, the music in the Eagle is totall different than that of a club like Mirabar (where we’d end up, since it’s just 2 blocks west of the eagle!).  Sounded a lot more country-ish, rock-ish, and less expressly gay.  I associated it with a sports-bar aesthetic.  Guess I’ll never know for sure, but it was definitely not the prototypical “gay club” soundtrack Ash told me about in my interview with him.

I also didn’t see any men of color, but that was based on a very outward-looking-in impression of the Eagle that only encompassed a glimpse of the dudes cruising outside.  MEH so on to Mirabar (see my next post!)

Response to the Jungle documentary ("All Black: Jungle")

One aspect of the video I found fascinating was that new nodes of the “Black Atlantic” not mentioned in the Back article were celebrated by jungle DJ’s.  For example, MC Lenny mixes an Anita Baker soul track, presenting a take on Afro-Diasporic fusion music that is distinct from the reggae and hip hop flair that we have observed thus far.  

Also interesting is the parallel between rap criticism and jungle criticism.  For example, gangsta jungle is perceived as a purely negative influence on British youth in the same way that gangsta rap has been pitted as a negative influence among American youth.  

The film portrayed an almost entirely male cast of singers and rappers associated with jungle.  This matches up with Back’s assertion that “men dominate the sound systems” of dub, reggae, and even bhangra in the sphere of British popular music.  It’s interesting that DJ Rap, the first woman interviewed in the film, is very light-skinned, and harkens back to Maira’s assertion that a caste-system in many Desi communities, among other diasporic communities whose members encompass a wide variety of skin-tones, is an entrenched component of female desirability and the mobility of women within the cultural economy.

I am curious as to how the very heavily multi-diasporic nature of jungle influences the way race and gender is complicated within the genre.  The people portrayed in the film encompass a wide variety of racial backgrounds, corresponding with the high level of transcultural musical production implicit in the genre.  How does this variety influence the way women are inscribed as sexual objects in many jungle tracks, or their lack of participation in the genre’s production? 

Critical Review Set 2, Post #2 (Back)

Back’s article asserts that the diffusion of music across and within cultural diasporas occurs horizontally, along the geometry of a rhizome through which “connections can be developed between thins that have no necessary relation with each other” (185).  Examples highlighted in this article include the ways in which features of reggae sound system technology (the use of mixer boards, operators/selectors, turntables) have permeated other forms of diasporic popular music (soul, funk, hip hop).  The axes of diffusion and connectivity between musical cultures are manyfold: diffusion of musical ideas can be conceived of as between national scenes that are both part of a broader diaspora (American hip hop <--> British hip hop), or between scenes within a nation (London reggae technology <--> punk and hip hop scenes in smaller British cities), etc.  The “rhizome” model works in these cases because while many aspects of these musical traditions fall under the broad umbrella of the African diaspora, they have emerged and developed under disparate geographical, cultural, and local conditions and therefore the spread of these ideas is complicated by their greater containment within the “same” diaspora. 

Back describes soul, R&B, hip hop and reggae as “parallel” scenes throughout the article, and emphasizes the distinctions between how and why technology was implicated in the creation of these ‘distinct’ genres.  Given that Back also discusses the level of “horizontal” transmission of sonic ideas and their ideological underpinnings across cultural boundaries within the black diaspora, when do musical elements become shared or common enough to qualify as intersecting...when does the parallel nature of musical ideas become parallel no more?  When does the diffusion and extension of musical concepts beyond their derivative ‘communities’ create musical landscapes that are too integrated to contain parallel movements and trends?  

Interview with Ash (Transcript)

Ben: What makes queer nightlife?  Obviously music is important to any nightlife scene…is there a such thing as queer music?

Ash: I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily queer music.  I think there is music that appeals to many queer people.  Certain artists like Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Beyonce…these are figures many queer males can relate to in terms of the messages in their music and things like that.

Ben: Tellme about how these clubs seem racialized to you?  Are there dynamics of race that play out?  How do those issues intersect with issues at large

Ash: These clubs are definitely racialized.  People – even though they may be uninhibited, never leave their preferences at home.  If somebody is generally attracted to twink – a definitition of a twink would be a skinny white male, as opposed to an average black male or something like that.  I think those thoughts are never absent from the club…in general, the clubs are mostly white male dominated. 

Ben: How have you felt affected by those conditions?

Ash: Occasionally, it’s sort of annoying.  Especially when I go with friends, and people hit on them, it can get sort of annoying.  For a while, I stopped going to those sorts of clubs, but after a while…I realized I was only there to dance, so it stopped affecting me.

Ben: You mentioned a pecking order based on body type.  Could you expand on that theme?

Ash: I would say there’s a general atteraction to certain men, like twinks, as opposed to … the term “chubbychasers,” which means someone looking for a larger person.  In general, people have ideals of what the perfect guy looks like, and he’s generally not overweight, just because of certain standards in the gay community and in the media…favor males that are sort of the epitome of masculinity, are cut in terms of their muscles, have lots of abs, are kind of tal.  I would say that the people that flock to these events are looking for “that guy”

Ben: You’re from NYC.  Have you experience queer nightlife in the city?  How would you describe the scene there?

Ash: It’s much more diverse in New York.  Obviously NYC is WAY larger than Providence will ever be, so in terms of ethnicity and race it’s a much more mixed crowd, and because of that there’s a more diverse pool of attraction to people in those sorts of clubs.  Here in Providence, since the clubs are mostly white males, I feel like in seeing somebody that doesn’t fit that model, …people won’t be attracted to them here, but in NYC people are more conscious of race and diversity and more open to being attracted to minority people.

Ben: How are clubs distinguished in NYC?  Are they appealing to as broad a demographic as Mirabar, for example? 

Ash: Although NYC has a large queer scene, it’s a little different.  There aren’t many gay clubs in NYC, as in dance clubs.  There are lots of gay bars in NYC.  There’s a bit of a difference…one’s more catered to dancing and music, but one’s a place to drink an meet people.  Because of the limited number of places to go [here], I think it’s not too different.