There are few things more valuable than ideas in an information economy. Fame and fortune — or at least a decent living — can all be had with just one strong concept in a world obsessed with the next big thing. And when glory or money is involved, relying on people's inherent goodwill is a dicey proposition. Local culture maker and shaker Brian McConnell was reminded of this the hard way.
In an epic rant on Medium last week, McConnell recalled how he started a party called Guerrilla Queer Bar with some friends in 2000. The idea was to load up as many fantastically-radical queers as possible, and drive them en masse to bars or other locales typically considered straight. It was perfect for the quirky mixture of activism and partying the city loved in those days.
“Our idea with GQB was to define queer space that was not pre-programmed as such,” McConnell writes. “We rarely planned events in advance… and we never told venues we were coming.”
So imagine McConnell’s surprise when he discovered that a Boston company is using, and profiting from, the name Guerrilla Queer Bar. The Welcoming Committee, per their website, “is a movement of LGBTQ folks that takes over typically straight bars, sports games, special events, and major travel destinations for one-time-only experiences.” The company essentially acts a travel broker by facilitating ticket sales and organizing outings (some of which are free) for their largely LGBTQ members. Guerrilla Queer Bar is one of their signature events.
McConnell spends the rest of his piece bashing the rather un-guerrilla nature of a pre-planned gay takeover by a for profit company, and calling out the sharing economy. But the story he tells me is even harsher.
“We actually met with them,” he told me, when The Welcoming Committee's founder Daniel Heller came to town for market research. McConnell said that him and Sister Selma Soul of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, also an early organizer of GQB, sat down with Heller at Lucky 13.
“He wanted to meet with us to discuss The Welcoming Committee, and was interested in what we were doing with Pop Up Gay Bar as well as the history of GQB,” McConnell explained. “He was fully aware that we were creators of GQB... Yet he failed to disclose that they planned to promote an event under the name here.”
Heller confirmed the meeting took place, but denied keeping the company’s use of the name Guerrilla Queer Bar or their expansion to San Francisco a secret. He said it was in his first email to McConnell, although he declined to forward it to me (“absolutely not”). Heller also confirmed that Guerrilla Queer Bar predated The Welcoming Committee, but stopped short of endorsing it as a San Francisco thing.
“I got it from where everyone else got it from,” he told me. “The way we see it, it’s a concept.”
Heller wouldn't speculate on the origins of the concept, but he did seem genuinely surprised about all the fuss. As he tells it, McConnell was friendly at the meeting, and then the Medium piece came out of nowhere.
“He specifically offered to help in any way that he could,” Heller said. “I’m willing to talk to Brian about anything he wants to talk about. My door’s always open to him.”
We’re not the final arbiters of where Guerrilla Queer Bar was born, but this much is clear: it has a verifiable history in San Francisco tracing back to 2000. The internet archive site Wayback Machine shows press coverage in The Advocate, SF Weekly, and SF Gate from back then, and San Francisco Bay Guardian editor Marke B. recalls invading the Marina in 2000 in a recent interview with McConnell. The Welcoming Committee is celebrating 7 years of Guerrilla Queer Bar in Boston Friday. Which is the same day they host their first one in San Francisco.
For McConnell, speaking out about his history with Guerrilla Queer Bar isn’t just about protecting the name. He said he didn’t even know if that’s possible, and that the various founders don’t mind it being used in other cities, as long as it’s a community thing. What bothers him is seeing an underground idea turned into a clever marketing point, and a lack of respect for the term’s roots.
“More than anything, we just wanted to set things straight,” he told me. “They’re using our name as a hook. But organizing a pre-planned event? There’s nothing guerrilla about that.”
Maybe not. But underground ideas have a long history of being usurped. McConnell lists the Cacophony Society as an inspiration for Guerilla Queer Bar in his Medium piece. That’s the group that brought SantaCon and Burning Man to San Francisco. One of them went from being a statement about consumerism to an evening of drunken marauders in costume, and the other from a strange beach party to rich drunken marauders who build things in the desert. Advertising agencies sometimes hire graffiti artists or stage fake protests to market their products. It's known in the industry as “guerrilla marketing.”
If there’s a lesson here for the writers, exciters, gender-benders, radical fairies, and other assorted misfits who keep the city exciting, it’s probably this: Don’t leave your ideas unattended in an information economy. They might not be there when you get back.
Photo from Thinkstock
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