Gay Bar

Six days into the trial of three Dundalk men for their roles in what has been described as a "gay-bashing" incident, a fourth suspect was arrested yesterday as he stood outside a Baltimore courtroom.Jeffrey Bouchard, 23, was apprehended in the hallway of the Courthouse East building of Baltimore Circuit Court.After appearing in court for the start of the defense phase of the trial, Mr. Bouchard was promptly identified by witnesses as the fourth man said to have instigated a March 27, 1992, melee outside of Numbers, a Canton bar that served a predominantly gay clientele, police said.

Charm City isn't known for fashion-magazine looks. The mix of grit and hipster style has never fostered snooty dress codes. But if you want to see and be seen, we've scouted out Baltimore neighborhoods -- bars, restaurants, gyms, the farmers market and more -- to provide a guide to turning heads when you're out and about. Mosaic 4 Market Place, Downtown. mosaic-baltimore.com Lindsay Lohan, Samantha Ronson, Ray Lewis, Michael Phelps and Pauly D from "The Jersey Shore" have all partied at this club.

On a recent Sunday night, a downtown Baltimore watering hole called Leon's was crammed with patrons around the oval-shaped bar, drinking and chatting animatedly. Several of them smoked. A baseball game played silently on a TV hanging from the low ceiling along a back wall of the small, dingy, darkly lit room. An eclectic mix of songs blared overhead - "The Girl from Ipanema," "Barbara Ann," heavily thumping contemporary rock. A scene more or less like this one has played out in Leon's for decades, ever since the establishment, on a corner of Park Ave. a few blocks from Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, became known as a gay bar. This month, Leon's marks its 50th anniversary, making it, by all accounts, the oldest gay bar in continual operation in the city.

March 23, 2011 It was after 1 a.m. on June 5, 2010. Tyrone Brown had already had plenty to drink. But he wasn't ready to go home. The 32-year-old Baltimore native tried to drag his sister and a friend into Club Hippo, but they didn't want to go into a gay bar , according to a police account. He got touchy with some women standing outside, moving to hug one, and grabbing the butt of another. When she smacked him, he shoved her back. The woman's companion stepped in. As the confrontation escalated, the companion - off-duty Baltimore Police Officer Gahiji Tshamba - pulled his service weapon and unloaded it into Brown.

It takes, oh, 30 seconds to figure out that despite the generous sprinkling of white-haired ladies, this isn't exactly nursing-home bingo. Here, women with eyebrow piercings sit next to bespectacled seniors and skinny men with spiky coiffures. The regulars have nicknames such as "Nursie-Nurse-Nurse" and "Mary-Kate and Ashley," and they all - octogenarians included - happily endure relentless mocking at the hands of the caller. Newcomers can't possibly follow all the inside jokes, which are frequently off-color and involve such matters as the bartender's legs and the theme song from Hawaii 5-0 - preferably bleated in a beer-enhanced wail.

Madonna will be the subject of a day of adulation on her 34th birthday Sunday.The Madonnathon, as it is being billed, will be in and around Southfield, Mich., where she grew up. It will include a visit to the open field where she received her first kiss and a Madonna look-alike contest staged at Menjo's, the gay bar in Detroit she used to frequent.The front-runner in the contest is supposed to be a 300-pound female impersonator named Queerdonna.

Last night's "Roseanne" should have been titled "Lucy Goes to a Gay Bar" not "The Kiss."Oh sure, the much publicized lesbian kiss was there between Roseanne and a character played by Mariel Hemingway. And it was at least 3 1/2 seconds, just like ABC wouldn't confirm it would be.But there was nothing very sensual or explicit about it.The context was that Roseanne goes to a gay bar mainly to prove she's "cool" to co-worker Nancy (Sandra Bernhard). At the bar, she dances with Nancy's girlfriend, Sharon (Hemingway)

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's top lawyer denied yesterday that the Clinton administration was creating a "zone of privacy" for gay soldiers and told Congress that homosexuals still ran the risk of being kicked out of the military if they went to a gay bar, read gay magazines or marched in a gay rights parade.Pentagon General Counsel Jamie Gorelick, whom the administration sent to Capitol Hill to explain President Clinton's policy on gays in the military, told the House Armed Services Committee that a soldier who visited a gay bar more than once or also read gay magazines created a "pattern of activity" that military commanders could construe as a "nonverbal statement" that he or she was homosexual.

Three Dundalk men are behind bars after being sentenced yesterday for their roles in a street brawl that has been described as a "gay-bashing" incident.The three men, who received prison time ranging from 60 days to two years. They continued to deny that they had gone to a gay bar in Southeast Baltimore intending to assault homosexuals.Their denials did not persuade Baltimore Circuit Judge Kenneth Lavon Johnson. Before sentencing defendant Anthony M. Ambrosino Jr., the judge said: "There's no question in my mind that this is, for lack of a better word, a hate crime."

If he was always billed as "James" Stewart, why did movie lovers know him as Jimmy? James jibed better with his ethical authority and physical height (6 feet, 31/2 inches), but Jimmy suited the actor's down-home casualness and emotional transparency, his soft-shoe timing and his uncanny knack for spontaneous comedy- drama. He let audiences see right through him. Stewart could be a master of ingratiating wool-gathering. But he could also cut and sting. Few have approached the rage and anguish Stewart fearlessly plumbed in films such as "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946)

If he was always billed as "James" Stewart, why did movie lovers know him as Jimmy? James jibed better with his ethical authority and physical height (6 feet, 31/2 inches), but Jimmy suited the actor's down-home casualness and emotional transparency, his soft-shoe timing and his uncanny knack for spontaneous comedy- drama. He let audiences see right through him. Stewart could be a master of ingratiating wool-gathering. But he could also cut and sting. Few have approached the rage and anguish Stewart fearlessly plumbed in films such as "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946)

Mount Vernon has highest concentration of gay bars of any neighborhood in Baltimore, but it's not the end-all, be-all. There are several off-the-beaten-path gay bars scattered around the city. Typically, they're tucked into quiet neighborhoods because they're neighborhood bars themselves — spots where gay folks can relax. Here are three out-of-the-way gay bars, from Pigtown to Highlandtown. The Downtown Lockerroom With black wood covering all the windows, The Downtown Lockerroom looks like another nondescript Pigtown corner bar from the outside.

Forty years ago this weekend, New York City police carried out another routine raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village, even though the Mafia owners had dutifully paid the customary $2,000-a-week bribe to the local precinct. But something went wrong that night at the Stonewall Inn. Around 1 a.m. June 28, as some patrons were ushered out to the paddy wagon, others who had been inside, or just passing by, began to taunt the police. Coins were flung at the cops, a rude reference to the payoffs everyone knew about.

Mark Yost was sick and tired of going to the same old gay bars. Grand Central and the Hippo were old hat. Yost wanted to try out some new places he'd never been before, but worried that as a gay man, he and his friends might not feel comfortable in some neighborhood pubs. So Yost and his friend Byron Macfarlane decided to start the Baltimore branch of Guerrilla Gay Bar, a monthly happy hour designed to bring together gay people in bars they normally don't frequent. The first Baltimore Guerrilla Gay Bar was last month at Claddagh Irish Pub in Canton, and the next one is tomorrow.

On a recent Sunday night, a downtown Baltimore watering hole called Leon's was crammed with patrons around the oval-shaped bar, drinking and chatting animatedly. Several of them smoked. A baseball game played silently on a TV hanging from the low ceiling along a back wall of the small, dingy, darkly lit room. An eclectic mix of songs blared overhead - "The Girl from Ipanema," "Barbara Ann," heavily thumping contemporary rock. A scene more or less like this one has played out in Leon's for decades, ever since the establishment, on a corner of Park Ave. a few blocks from Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, became known as a gay bar. This month, Leon's marks its 50th anniversary, making it, by all accounts, the oldest gay bar in continual operation in the city.

It takes, oh, 30 seconds to figure out that despite the generous sprinkling of white-haired ladies, this isn't exactly nursing-home bingo. Here, women with eyebrow piercings sit next to bespectacled seniors and skinny men with spiky coiffures. The regulars have nicknames such as "Nursie-Nurse-Nurse" and "Mary-Kate and Ashley," and they all - octogenarians included - happily endure relentless mocking at the hands of the caller. Newcomers can't possibly follow all the inside jokes, which are frequently off-color and involve such matters as the bartender's legs and the theme song from Hawaii 5-0 - preferably bleated in a beer-enhanced wail.

Charm City isn't known for fashion-magazine looks. The mix of grit and hipster style has never fostered snooty dress codes. But if you want to see and be seen, we've scouted out Baltimore neighborhoods -- bars, restaurants, gyms, the farmers market and more -- to provide a guide to turning heads when you're out and about. Mosaic 4 Market Place, Downtown. mosaic-baltimore.com Lindsay Lohan, Samantha Ronson, Ray Lewis, Michael Phelps and Pauly D from "The Jersey Shore" have all partied at this club.

Forty years ago this weekend, New York City police carried out another routine raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village, even though the Mafia owners had dutifully paid the customary $2,000-a-week bribe to the local precinct. But something went wrong that night at the Stonewall Inn. Around 1 a.m. June 28, as some patrons were ushered out to the paddy wagon, others who had been inside, or just passing by, began to taunt the police. Coins were flung at the cops, a rude reference to the payoffs everyone knew about.

From Will & Grace and Queer as Folk to characters on Dawson's Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and ER, gay images on recent network TV series have kept culture experts busy examining their impact. Few have looked back to long-ago shows for historical forerunners, but the Museum of Television and Radio is doing just that in its current screening series, Not That There's Anything Wrong With That. It's named after the running Seinfeld joke when Jerry and George are overheard in a coffee-shop conversation by a reporter who mistakenly assumes they're gay, which they endeavor to disprove.