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This is our Alegia: a great Saturday night party -- that just
happens to be on the Sunday of a three-day weekend, once a month.
That's how we feel walking into Crobar on Monday morning at three
a.m. Down the flight of stairs, and around through the Reed Room,
and back to coatcheck, and then up to the Prop Room -- and out onto
the landing which overlooks the Big Room -- and there we are in the
middle of our Saturday night living room with all the familiar
characters.
Some people stay home on Sundays to watch Desperate Housewives or
Sex in the City or Six Feet Under -- because there's a joy in the
familiarity of characters you have come to know and love.
Ditto for us at Alegria. And there's Nurse stalking the catwalk in a
black catsuit (with clogs), her fist pumping the air, and Ric doing
double-duty attending to all the details, and Abel standing there
behind Eddie Elias who's on the tables for the first time in the Big
Room -- and he's pumping it out, to a packed house -- and Marco from
Jersey City who's got the energy of a dozen and Joe Caro with his
lightstick, looking wonderfully glazed, blissed out in his familiar
place --
The set for this once-a-month Saturday night looks like Gericault's
Raft of the Medusa -- with a canoe of rowers tipping forward toward
the bar, a huge wave behind them, about to overwhelm -- and smart
light tower totems of googly-eyed circuit boys -- and oys -- and the
barbacks are body painted, wearing grass skirts -- and African masks
and tom-toms and everything tribal--
There are also, for the first time in my memory, printed bulletins
around the club which warn against Tina, and how she destroys the
life and soul of the party -- and, interestingly, it's also an
Alegria where we don't see anyone in trouble. Instead, we're on the
floor getting groped by a frisky Swede and his bf -- and the ticker
tape sign is blaring out DJ EDDIE ELIAS -- and ALEGRIA RESIDENT DJ
ABEL -- and the switchover take place as the tribal gogo boyz hit
their marks.
Abel throws down a set which doesn't seem oppressive in the least
and there are vocals aplenty and the balance seems just right
between the pounding of the bass and the lifting of the voice. And
there's a man in chain mail and a woman in eight-inch wedgies and
Nurse's hair is so soft and Cokina is playing and we're dancing over
the tiled tunnel and dancing in the Skybox and sitting in the Prop
Room and watching that gorgeous brown guy with the long hair and the
littlest man dancer in the world and someone's videocaming Nurse and
Eddie Elias is dancing with Ric and Ric looks happy.
Residencies come and go, and so do clubs, and great parties don't
last forever. Mass in San Francisco just closed (as eulogized by
Luke Gibson's recent review) and there was once a time when Victor
played every Saturday at the Roxy, and now it appears that Peter
Rauhofer's term has ended there as well.
And outside it's snowing -- and we're at Alegria in our Saturday
night once-a-month Sunday morning living room.
Here's to the partymakers and to those who know how to have more
fun.
Best always,
Mark and Robert
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