The weekly queer-friendly sweat-and-danceathon known as the Rainbow Room has given LGBT and straight booty-shakers alike a reason to get out of bed on Thursday afternoons for a couple of years now. So it was cause for some concern in partyish circles when the Seabright bar the Mad House, scene of all the fun, changed hands. You could almost hear the questions marks over the beats: “Will the Rainbow Room survive?”
The weekly queer-friendly sweat-and-danceathon known as the Rainbow Room has given LGBT and straight booty-shakers alike a reason to get out of bed on Thursday afternoons for a couple of years now. So it was cause for some concern in partyish circles when the Seabright bar the Mad House, scene of all the fun, changed hands. You could almost hear the questions marks over the beats: “Will the Rainbow Room survive?”
The short answer is: yes, although it’s now called the Rainbow Lounge. Furthermore, DJ AD will still mastermind the Thursday evening festivities. The long answer is: yes, because the new owner of what is now called the Blue Lounge is Fred Friedman, owner of the Blue Lagoon in downtown Santa Cruz. And that’s good news for queers and their allies.
Many remember the Blue Lagoon as a popular gay hangout. Jim Brown, executive director for the Diversity Center, says it was the place to go back in the day.
“The Blue Lagoon was for years the gay bar,” Brown says. “It certainly was never exclusively a gay bar. But it has become increasingly less gay over the time I’ve lived here, which has been 20 years.”
Friedman says the Blue Lagoon’s history had nothing to do with him wanting to get involved with the Mad House. He views labels like “gay bar” as not “progressive.” In fact he doesn’t think of either bar as having ever been a gay bar at all.
“I’m not interested in discriminating,” says Friedman, who’s owned the Blue Lagoon for 31 years. “It’s all about freedom. Everyone’s free to go to the Blue Lagoon, no matter what lifestyle they are. And anyone’s free to go to the Blue Lounge, no matter what kind of lifestyle they are. We may attract people who identify with a gay lifestyle.”
The Blue Lagoon’s music manager Yuma Tripp, who is also working at the Lounge, says the refurbished Seabright place will have a higher bar, new paint job and new furniture. Management is also bringing in high-definition big screen televisions and some dartboards. Comedian DNA, who currently hosts Thursday comedy nights at the Blue Lagoon, says he’ll bring comedians to perform 10- to 15-minute sets on Wednesdays starting in the fall.
Tripp says it will be a “nice place to come have a drink and relax. We’re not starting a nightclub or anything. It’s not going to be like the Blue [Lagoon].”
Not that there would be anything wrong with that.
