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August 2005
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Gay Bloomington

This morning I received a package from the States with mail!

I disposed of the credit card offers right away, which left me with a few pieces of interesting mail, plus my copies of RollingStone and the Advocate. Packaged with one of the Advocates was an issue of the outTraveler, which is a magazine targeted for glbt individuals that like to travel.

In other words, me.

Well, not really me, because these are all buff people who travel to glamorous places like Iceland and can put the words “Romantic” and “Montreal” together and mean it. These are also people who have never heard of RyanAir, or easyJet because they fly first class.

Anyhow while looking at the Table of Contents, I ran down the list and picked upon the bit entitled “A Hoosier returns to his red state,” which reminded me of Mike-the consummate “blue guy in a red state” kind of guy. I immediately turned to the article, which was not written by Mike, but was still interesting.

The author, Bart Everly, was returning to Bloomington after a long absence (at least 20 years) to see if Bloomington is really the Gay Mecca is claims to be. Bloomington, you see, is launching a gay portal: www.visitgaybloomington.com

Everly celebrates preparations for Little 500, the Miss Gay IU pagent, Kinsey’s homoerotic art, and, believe it or not, “the pulsating colored dance floor of Bullwinkle’s (where) straight middle-aged couples dance beside half-naked college students, transsexuals, and local country boys.”

Perhaps I’m too close to the place: Bullwinkle’s is a nasty, out of date, disgusting, filthy (wait until you see the wet floors in the men’s room) bar with one of two or three dance floors in the town. The dance floor is crowded only because the other options have even worse music.

Oh yes, and about that Gay Bloomington web site? It sucks.

Putting one page up with a pull quote from the outTraveler article and links to the other parts of the web site doesn’t cut it. I checked out “going out” and then chose “party central” -not one of the three gay bars were listed. Not even Bullwinkles, which even I have to admit, is a gay bar.

Just not a very good one.

5 comments to Gay Bloomington

  • ChrisC

    I read that article in a copy of the magazine someone gave me. Your response seems spot on. It seems that it would have been as good an idea to write an article about gay life in the Piedmont/Triad of North Carolina. It has about as much going for it.

    I guess it’s a good thing DC and Atlanta are 4 and 5 hours away.

  • IUMike

    I wonder if the Carol of “Carol’s Favorites” is the Carol that came to my mind first…that could influence my judgment about her advice.

    I’m a blue guy in a (barely) blue state now. Actually, its a red state with a big ol’ splotch of blue in the southeast corner next to Canada. Of course, I am in a tiny splotch of blue in the big Red Sea, much like Bloomington.

  • Mike, It’s not Carol F.

  • mateo

    Adam…

    The “visit gay bloomington” site is just one part of the whole “visit bloomington” site. In the “dining and nightlife” section in the gay area it says there are three bars and lists Uncle E’s and Bull’s. It also lists a lot of things which though not specifically gay, would be of interest to gay and lesbian tourists who decided to come here. And perhaps they might come for one of the annual things like Miss Gay IU or the Pride Film Fest, but beyond that they could stay to do many of the other interesting stuff listed. Bullwinkle’s is outdated, and I can’t disagree with your assessment of the bathrooms there, but I think the dance floor is crowded because the people there enjoy the music and are having a good time. The music isn’t always great, but I’ve found that most of the time it’s a lot of fun. That “party central” section is in the non-gay section of visit Bloomington so I guess Bullwinkle’s might not necessarily be listed there, though that surprises me seeing how many straight people always come there to hang out and get crazy. From looking at the list, I think they were listing places to have a few (or a lot of) drinks with friends, since none of those places listed are really “party” places like Bullwinkle’s or Second Story or Axis or Rhino’s or any place like that. Anyway, Adam, I know how you like to go off on stuff, and thought I’d try to slow you down a bit! heheh

  • Mateo, Apparently I overlooked something. The gay information must be well hidden.

    Where is it?