Event promoter Aaron Riggins (organizer of Homo Hotel Happy Hour and Saturgays in the Park) has really blossomed into his own creativity with his oddly-scheduled WTF?! parties in Washington. Usually held sometime during a holiday weekend at the nightclub Town, Riggins provides his mostly-gay patrons with surreal experiences and great music during each of his WTF?! events.
His latest incarnation – WTF?! Bad Thursday – was held last week on the eve of Good Friday, where great music, but not good taste, could be found. Riggins brought in DJ Bil Todd (RAW) and BYGays‘ own Bradley to DJ for the crowd which packed the dancefloor. Yet, as interesting as the music coming out of the speakers was, it had to struggle to keep up with the debauchery that Riggins had flailing on top of them.
As patrons danced below, just about every sacreligious symbol one could imagine appeared at moments throughout the night on top of the nightclub’s speakers. The night started off with go-go dancers in cotton briefs gyrating with cotton bunny tails applied to their rear-ends…and that was about as tame a take that the night would take. Soon, the bunnies were replaced with twinks in alterboy outfits stripping down to almost nothing as the crowd cheered.
Several performances kept the night moving, including Jason Barnes twirling under a portrait of Jesus as an incarnation of the Virgin Mary until he ripped off his outer garmets to reveal a rhinestone studded cross applied to his bare chest. At other times, drag queens performed “Like A Prayer” in choir robes, and a dancer shaved the head of Riggins on stage. However, the highlight of the night was when Riggins (dressed as the Pope) appeared with an alterboy and a priest on stage to serve the crowd a communion of wine and Cheez-Wiz topped crackers on the dance floor.
The pieces are largely the point of WTF?! – a gogo dancer with a bunny head, a drag queen pretending to masturbate, headshaving on stage – the point being to get Riggins audiences to try something new and with each performance ask themselves “What the Fuck?”
