The plan, as announced on urbanprankster.com, was simple: Meet up at 2 p.m. Saturday with a few dozen strangers at Dalva in the Mission. Get liquored up. Take pants off and ride public transportation. But it didn't happen quite that way.
Although about 50 people showed at Dalva, the bar happened to be closed. The prepared attendants took swings of pocketed flasks, while others stole furtive glances at each other and waited for a leader to emerge. Finally, one did. He was a shaggy-looking guy in his mid-twenties who was not interested in dallying.
"Alright," he said. "So we're gonna head down to the BART, and we're gonna get prepared." With that, the crowd began undoing belts and buttons to reveal various funky undergarments and brightly-colored socks. After announcing the route -- a BART train to the Embarcadero, then a MUNI train to the Castro, and finally, a descent upon Dolores Park, the leader reassured everyone that this would be a good time. "Be normal," he instructed. "Everything will be fine."
Lawyers and executives this week announced the formation of Here Media, an "LGBT media powerhouse" formed through a merger of several companies catering to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender consumers.
While the resulting entity isn't exactly Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, it does represent an interesting alliance. Combining to form Here Media are purveyor of "Gay Television On Demand" Here Networks, Regent Entertainment Media and PlanetOut. (Give full credit to PlanetOut for staking its claim to recognizable sobriquettes in the realm of commerce. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "LGBT," and owns the Web site gay.com.)
"This business combination will unite a powerful broadband video solution with an iconic brand and a leading URL in the LGBT community," Paul Colichman, CEO of Here Networks, said in a statement. "We are extremely excited about the opportunity to leverage this exceptional collection of assets to expand our audience, grow our revenues, and increase stockholder value."
The deal is still subject to shareholder voting and regulatory approval. Count us among its supporters -- we can't wait to see what this would-be media behemoth's version of Fox News looks like.
