It’s a quiet friday nightat Foy’s on East Juneau Avenue. But that’s about to change.
By 9:30 p.m., a crowd of recent arrivals starts handing out and wearing round stickers with a bold logo reading “MGGB.” Within a half-hour, some 200 sticker-clad men and women pack this small Downtown bar. For the next few hours, Foy’s has become a Milwaukee Guerrilla Gay Bar.
On the first Friday of each month, MGGB, a group of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Milwaukeeans, overruns a “straight” bar. It’s not a hostile takeover, but a subtle infiltration.
Similar groups in San Francisco and Los Angeles served as a model for MGGB. Just 40 people attended the first Milwaukee outing at the Hi Hat Lounge on Brady Street in August 2007. Now, some 300 could show up, according to Citizen X, the group’s 35-year-old “minister of propaganda.”
“[MGGB] perceived a need to shake up Milwaukee nightlife,” he says. They didn’t want to just frequent gay bars and the like. “It wasn’t until we ransacked the more nontraditional venues that people saw the power of the movement and realized this wasn’t a one-shot, flash-mob fad.”
The whole process is highly organized. “We meet as a group twice a month to review the takeover options, conduct an undercover infiltration during prime business hours, and report back,” says Citizen X. “While we aim for venues that provide the best opportunity for visible impact, we also aim for places where we’ll have fun.”
After a bar is selected, the more than 2,000 registered MGGB comrades get specifics at midnight the night before through mkeggb.com,MySpaceand Facebookpages, and text messages. The bars, which have included Milwaukee Ale House, Caffrey’s Pub, and Steny’s, aren’t warned.
Says Steven, a 27-year-old MGGB regular, “It gives members a chance, for one night at least, to be around people they feel comfortable with, and check out a venue they’ve probably never been to.”
Citizen X says the group has never encountered hostility. And bars certainly don’t gripe about the surprise business.
“We’re thrilled they came,” says Kevin, a Foy’s bartender scrambling to pour drinks. “But as you can see, I’m sweating like crazy.”
