Gay Play

After several more calls to sing, Chris walks up with her guitar. She doesn't chatter a lot on stage, except for the occasional self-deprecating remark ("My bass player tuned my guitar," she says, "so if he's on crack, it's not my fault"). But her big voice speaks for itself. People compare her to Melissa Etheridge and Tracy Chapman. "I write about what I feel," Chris says of her songs, "like love, or the loss of somebody. Many of my songs are about losing someone that you love." That's not surprising, considering Chris was raised mostly by her grandmother and met her biological father only recently.

One of Chris's songs, "Ink and Paper," is about an ex-girlfriend she wronged in some way she doesn't want to talk about. Today she plays it, looking down as she sings, "ink and paper, letters sent, couldn't describe the pain I'm in." The lyrics are simple, but Chris's voice makes them sound profound. There are calls of "You rock, mama!" Chris plays several other songs, and when she steps offstage, several women approach to thank her. "You're making me blush," the freckled redhead tells them. Then she packs up her guitar and her girl and heads out the door.

Charles Soloman

Thursday night at Meteor. Charles Soloman sits by the door, holding court and sipping a melting frozen cosmopolitan. Screens flash images of pop stars at the self-proclaimed "urban video bar," and the music's loud. For a rainy evening, the crowd's not bad; patrons relax on the couches scattered throughout the sleek, airy space. A coed group is dancing in the middle of the room -- like many a gay bar in town, Meteor attracts its share of straight people.

Charles is surrounded by a group of guys. Most of them are his intensely loyal "Spoiled Boyz." They help promote his monthly after-hours parties of the same name, as well as his monthly DJ events. A few years ago, Charles left his finance job at ExxonMobil to start the party vehicle M2M Entertainment. He makes less money now, but he enjoys what he does -- going out at least four nights a week is part of his job.

And he's as likely to be found at the Social, the Belvedere, Boaka Bar or Opus as at Meteor or Rich's. "Charles makes it a point to reach out to straight people," says friend Chris Williamson. "He can walk into straight venues and everybody knows him. And God bless Charles, they know he's a flaming queen."

The Spoiled Boyz soirees are held at different clubs, usually downtown, every month. They start at 3:30 a.m. and last until many a family is driving to church. Hundreds of people from around the city, gay and straight, converge to dance all night long. Charles, who has an MBA from the University of Oklahoma, has honed in on a formula that works: never the same venue, never the same DJ, never the same theme.

One Spoiled Boyz party held at Play (now the Vault) was "all about teenage hang-ups," he says. Its flyer looked like the cover of Seventeen magazine, with Britney Spears in Spoiled Boyz T-shirt. Guests got to play with makeup kits, mirrors, fingernail polish, bubbles. Another, "Back to Spoiled," was held at Europa. There was a principal, a nun, pens and paper. After the party, he found short stories and art he says he "could frame" lying around the club. For the first time, M2M also will be producing and promoting this year's Pride parties.

Charles holds a monthly Spoiled Boyz meeting, where 15 gay and 15 straight volunteers get together and brainstorm. He finds them at the parties themselves. "I always work my own door for the first couple hours of the party," he says. "And at your own party you have to sit with people you don't know…You're able to see who these people are and who wants to be more involved."

Charles is held up as a kind of social expert by his friends. "I remember Charles teaching me how to make an entrance into a room, so that when I walked in people would know I was there," says Chris. It's true that the man is hard to ignore. There's something imposing in his large, muscular frame, tasteful clothes and flashy rings. The main reason he gets attention, though, is because he's extroverted. "When we go out," says old friend Trevan Ross, "I know I'm gonna meet someone. Charles is not afraid to say hello. He tends to pull people towards him."