The final drink is being poured for Nightspots—the glitzy, full-color, biweekly, picture-heavy nightlife guide, produced by Windy City Media Group, starring Chicago's LGBT community, and doing so with sass, swagger and a stiff shot.
After 1,147 issues over 25 years—including the first 11 years as Nightlines, the printing press is shutting down. Nightspots will be merged into the weekly Windy City Times starting in mid-July. Now it's weekly color photos of late-night antics and more—in Windy City Times—rather than just twice a month in Nightspots.
Nightspots managing editor and art director Kirk Williamson will continue as the leader of the new-look Nightspots, which will offer the same breadth of coverage while adding new features, new splashes—especially on the social media front. Nightspots will be expanding its presence on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
"It's a complex ball of emotions," Williamson said. "We are continuing to be a force in nightlife coverage in Windy City Times and online, but I'm going to miss the hell out of the magazine itself. I'll miss the relative autonomy. I'll miss the gut-wrenching thrill of meeting a late night Sunday deadline against all odds. Well, maybe I won't miss that so much."
But now Nightspots will carry "the same breadth of coverage, but presented differently," he said.
That certainly means social media will be a focus. And, "fuck, yes," Williamson said, it will be a slightly toned-down Nightspots, language-wise. "It'll be a delicate balance between assimilating to the standards of Windy City Times, while maintaining the edge and punk-rock nature of the magazine. I'm sure I'll have to polish up a sentence or two, but I refuse to lose the underlying snark," he said.
Williamson, 40, who lives in Rogers Park—which doubles as his office, too—was born in Gary, Indiana; grew up in West Chicago and Wheaton; went to college in southern Wisconsin; and has lived in the city for 16 years. He has worked for Windy City Media Group for 14 years, although admittedly first looked at the job as a resume-builder for a year or so.
He has been the managing editor of Nightspots for the past 11-and-a-half years.
Williamson had been assistant editor for two years when St. Sukie de la Croix, the former editor, left the company—"and I had greatness thrust upon me," he said.
"Anything worth doing is a challenge, and Nightspots has been incredibly worth it, in that sense," Williamson said. "I'm the type of person who works best on a deadline, so that's kept me going. The biggest challenges for me have been personal ones, dealing with social anxiety and having to force myself to go out and take photos and be 'on.' It can be excruciating at times. A big part of my job as editor is just being there and the older I get, the more I just want to be on my couch with the cats. But you do what you gotta do. And the end result always makes it worth it in retrospect."
Yes, it's been a job, a struggle, a fight and certainly frustrating at times. But always fun.
"Publisher Tracy Baim, in her infinite wisdom, has always been very hands-off in how I ran [Nightspots]," Williamson said. "Occasionally, a gut feeling will tell me I'm crossing a line and I'll clear something with her, but other than that I've been able to do what I want."
Maybe that's what led to "aborted covers," which were cover he would have liked to run, "but there was no way it would be appropriate," he admitted.
Still, those photos often landed on, say, page 30. "You'd be surprised what you can get away with back on page 30," he said.
The cover of Nightspots has always been about Chicago, starring Chicagoans. Williamson has been very firm that the magazine is a local, by-us-for-us venture. "I can't tell you how many pleas I have gotten from national PR folks, [asking] to put stars on the cover; I have turned them all down. Nightspots has always been about featuring local talents and faces. I'm very proud that that vision was never compromised, in light of all the exterior efforts to the contrary."
Williamson said he had been flooded with memories, knowing it's almost last-call for Nightspots, and it's fitting that the Pride issue will be the last—they are always the best ones, he said.
In 2006, for instance, Williamson inserted into one photo from each bar one cast member from The Facts of Life. "Mrs. Garrett's shocked expression at a half-naked dancer from Madrigal's was inspired," he said. "People still talk about that issue."
This year's Pride issue, which is the final standalone issue of Nightspots, is yearbook-themed. "It gives me the opportunity to focus on all the great memories, as well as the concept of graduation or transition," he said.
Nightspots has always been about photos of folks out and about, about listings of upcoming events, about the bar listings—but also about reviews of the latest and greatest porn DVD, or a former wacky feature known as Nightspots MAFIA, where the main cast of characters, the moniker for the regular contributing staff, would just answer silly questions each week.
And, of course, Nightspots offers The Devil in the Details, revealing, well, who knows what might linger in a seemingly innocent photo. There recently was one 'Devil' that featured labels on multi-colored hankies at Leather 64TEN. It was wildly inappropriate, Williamson admitted.
"Once, I took a photo of a small doll or something protruding from someone's zipper and I tried to think of a way that I could present it," Williamson said. "So I set it next to a photo of Bea Arthur, with the caption, 'Alright, everybody. It's time to play everybody's favorite guessing game, Crotch or Bea Arthur!' The idea was that you were supposed to guess which one was which. Well, that took off and it soon became a regular feature. People wanted me to photograph their junk just so they could be a part of it. All the lesbians in the office tried to convince that it was not a good idea, but I persisted and I don't regret that one bit."
Then there was the published photo of Frida Lay, with high heel in hand about to stab a bitch, with the caption, "What do you mean, you've never heard of Nightspots?!"
"I can see somebody out at a bar and they'll tell me about a photo I took of them in 2008 and I can pull it up and email it to them the second I get home," said Williamson, who also serves as the art director for the company, which encompasses layout, graphic design and more. Plus, he is a senior account manager, so ad sales are the base of what he does.
In addition, Williamson is a part-time trivia host ( as KWizmaster Kirk Williamson ) every Thursday night at The Glenwood. He also is an avid amateur genealogist and admittedly trying to break into the vintage resale business.
"One of my favorite stories of all time was the time that Sukie and I judged a contest at a Latino gay bar, which was held entirely in Spanish, which neither of us speak," Williamson said. "[There are] so many other little stories; it's hard to pull out any that are my favorites, but in a general sense, I've had a lifetime's worth of wacky adventures."
And he's never failed to produce the publication, no matter how much interference Mother Nature caused. The magazine was once delivered just before a massive blizzard and some copies got thrown away with snow removal, "prompting a certain cokehead former manager of a certain former bar to go on a week-long tirade, making my life hell and spoiling what was otherwise a very nice vacation in Austin, Texas," Williamson said. "We never didn't print, [and] in this business, you miss one deadline and it's over."
Williamson's column has changed slightly over the years, mainly in title—and even led to an interesting Scruff hook up.
"The name of my column was initially, 'What Have I Done?!', which was a double entendre illustrating mock regret along with an accurate retelling of my exploits in putting together each particular issue," Williamson said. "As time went on, everywhere I went—from the grocery store to walking down the street to airports in other cities—people would always shout out, 'Hey, you're that guy from the magazine!' That became the title of my column, which was eventually shortened to 'That Guy.'
"Recently, I hooked up with a guy from Scruff who was nervous to have me over, because I was 'that guy from the magazine.' I was flattered that he thought I was that important."
