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The October issue of Out was their "After Dark Issue." It was strange then that the release party took place this Sunday at Lotus around 6 p.m., as the sun set over New Jersey. Though the issue is an argument for the continued vitality of nightlife, anchored by a piece by the Village Voice's Michael Musto and our own photographer Nikola Tamindzic, the party itself was basically flatlining. Michael Musto had "been here but had to go somewhere else but he'll be back" some Out staffer told us. Out editor Aaron Hicklin was nowhere to be found for most, and perhaps all, of the evening. There was nothing to do but pick up the issue, talk to some fag hags and a lesbian or two and then try to taxonomically categorize the gays. Danielle Ezzo was there for anthropometrical and photographical reasons.

As I walked into Lotus I surveyed the crowd and came up with this rhyme: why are homos so homogenous? Why am me so so misogynist? Both the answers to those questions and the questions themselves are vexed but there was no denying that I had walked into a room full of people that looked and dressed just like each other.

The ones in shape (and most were) wore deep v-necks. Their hair was cropped closely on the sides and a little longer on top. There was gel used to create a messy ridge like a mane of a horse. I saw no zits and only well-moisturized skin. I saw hardly any tapered or skinny jeans. I saw mostly flared ones. Some had reconstructed patches on them. Madonna played!

In the back corner we did run into JD Samson, the kind of wonderful dyke member of the band Le Tigre, She has a faint mustache and was lamenting the sad senescence of New York City gay nightlife. "I came to NYC in 1996," she said. "Lesbian life has changed a lot since then. You used to have Meow Mix, the Hole, the Mad Clam, Club Casanova. But now a lot of those places have closed." Like a captain she surveyed the room sadly, a sea of gay men blithely dancing to Madonna. "I appreciate what Out magazine is trying to do: to bring a new readership of artists and lesbians." Of course, lesbians and artists have better things to do on a Sunday evening.