The Get OUT Awards at XL NIghtclub NYC

In a sense, the Get OUT! Awards was the longest-running show in the 42nd Street Off-Broadway theater district, full of drag queens, bar and club awards and live performances that ran on and on and on. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. And bitches! It was not only Night of 100,000 Drunk Santas Pub Crawl but a holiday season marathon of entertainment at Manhattan's snazziest gay venue on 42nd Street, XL, just west of 10th Avenue.

You have to enter the club through a hotel and then walk through labyrinthian corridors and detours that are, in themselves, an adventure in nightlife. I was impressed with the pop art adorning the walls:

It was indeed, an Alice in Wonderland experience getting to the club

By the end of the event, however, I got to shoot a bazooka full of confetti at the evening's ultimate performer, Eric Alan. How Freudian is that?! So it was a kind of  a trippy, Wonderland type of a night. You can call me Alice. And I don't live here anymore.

For the first time ever, Queens Our City Radio station manager Barbara Sobel and I met in person! We hugged and got cozy together in a plush booth on the second tier. I savored Barbara's running commentary on the talent at hand. Founder of Sobel Records/Sobel Promotions, this lady has a fine-tuned radar for vocal artistry, and I loved her critical asides, sweet and sour, on the roster of performers.

Eric Alan & his cousin, Sandy @ XL. Black is back!

We were the club's guests and Queens Our City Radio was exclusively the only press allowed at sound check. We watched Eric Allen's rehearsal for his big number that closed the show, "L.O.V. & E." It was a masterpiece of precision choreography and vocal pyrotechnics. Eric and I shook hands, chatted and he basically charmed me into firing the confetti cannon later in the night, which was great fun.

Check out the official video of his new song that he performed live at the awards:



There was a live, three-piece band onstage and, although it was a snowy night, the club ultimately filled  up with glitterati. However, over the course of the three-hour extravaganza, people began to file out into the slushy, sleety New York night.

Highlights of the evening included Michael Musto ~ in a gorgeous, sparkling jacket ~ accepting the Best Blogger/Writer of the Year Award (two reasons I felt envious) plus an astounding performance by Miss Victoria Chase, a vocal powerhouse, who blew Barbara and I away. Ari Gold also appeared, performing a lively extended rendition of "Wave of U."

Even the toilet is swank @ XL

The divine Australian comedian Pam Ann was Skyped in, her audio to the audience so distorted, she was sadly unintelligible. I'm certain she was saying something hilarious. Too bad we couldn't hear what that was.

Tan Mom showed up in an unadvertised cameo (typically messy and still tanning, obviously) in a mess of a production number that defines "klutzy," with a lanky, unchoreographed dancer and Adam Barta as vocalist. Without a semblance of stage direction, this was distinctly the disaster of the evening; a Titanmom catastrophe.

The night largely included a myriad of awards to bars, clubs and lounges throughout the boroughs and in Long Island and New Jersey. Major winners included Boots & Saddle, The Duplex, Uncle Charlie's, XS, Therapy, Barrage, The Monster and Candle Bar.

There were many no-show recipients and, when Go Go Boy of the Year failed to pick up his award, someone in the crowd shouted, "He's escorting tonight!"

Barbara Sobel lays lucky hands on Eric Alan before his act

All in all, less would be more; the show should be tightened up; the band should be allowed to cut off long-winded speeches like they do at the Oscars; Barbara Sobel should stage manage, and working the confetti gun should be my annual moment of grandeur, kind of like dropping the ball at Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Congratulations to the winners and I am thankful for the Get OUT! Awards and Get OUT!'s push to get people back to the clubs and bars. So, New Year resolution: get out there more and shake it on the dancefloor.