January 09, 2015
Darien Sutton/for PhillyVoice
Butch Cordora hosts a poker game on Tuesdays and Saturdays at Boxers Philadelphia, and may soon host a new SugarHouse Caisno LGBT tournament.
After a brief hiatus, following the disappearance of his 2013-launched G-town Radio show, Butch Cordora, Philly's longtime LGBT talk show host and visual artist, is back on the scene.
... With a poker game.
"I got this email about two months ago from [manager] Kip Phelps, from Boxers, and he's like, 'Butch, my boyfriend said you used to run poker all the time in the Gayborhood -- would you entertain the thought of running a poker game here?'" Cordora told PhillyVoice.com "I told him I didn't think it would work because of the casinos -- it's not like it was years ago. Now there's Sugarhouse, Parx and Harrah's, and they're the real deal -- no one needs the bull**** poker where you win the free drink."
To be clear, when Cordora says "years ago," he's referring to when he launched his Bluffin' with Butch poker company, which ran a string of poker matches in the Gayborhood at bars like Tavern on Camac, Woody's and, by 2008, in Irish pubs up and down South Street. That, of course, was before the phenomenon of Pennsylvania casino licenses.
Still, Cordora couldn't help but give Phelps a "Yes": He's been running Texas Hold 'Em-style poker matches on the second floor of Boxer's Philadelphia since December.
"We started on a Tuesday in December, and low and behold, it was packed. No one was more surprised than me!" he said. "There were 12 people, which doesn't sound like a lot, but 12 more were crowding around to watch us. And then 16 came the next week, and then 23 and now we're at 30."
At which point, he realized a lot of gay men were approaching him, asking to be taught how to play poker. The new idea: Do lessons and a game on Saturdays, in addition to the Tuesday night games he's been hosting since December. His first poker lesson will happen this Saturday, Jan. 10 at 1 p.m. (lessons are free, and the 2 p.m. game's winner gets a $30 Boxers gift card).
But the bigger news here is that his revived interest in hosting poker games has, he said, attracted the interest of SugarHouse Casino, which is in the planning stages of hosting what will likely be a quarterly LGBT poker tournament.
"I don't think any casino has had an LGBT poker tournament. Casinos, they have gay nights, and they do drag shows and dance parties, but I don't think anyone's ever had a gay night -- like, actually had the gambling tables out. And I think that's a big deal," Cordora said. "I"ve been to SugarHouse, and it's the South Philly, rough-'n'-tumble guys -- I'm kind of 'in the closet' when I'm at a casino, because you have to be. It's really rough -- it's like the NFL."
He added: "It'll be great to have a poker night where the guys can hug and kiss and not be apprehensive about it."
SugarHouse has yet to disclose official details of the event to PhillyVoice.com.
For context, if ever this was going to happen, it was going to be courtesy of Cordora: He's been a chameleon in Philly's arts and entertainment scene for a long time, taking risks and starting new ventures on a whim. He trotted the Philly theater circuit for most of the '90s trying to make it as an actor ("I don't know why I came to Philly and not New York or L.A.," he muses to himself), served as an extra in films like "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" and eventually made it kinda-sorta big with the 10-year run of his LGBT-topics talk show, "In Bed With Butch," which aired on DUTV between 1999 and 2009, and WYBE from 2002-09. After the recession hit and his show's sponsors bailed, Cordora went out on a limb and made his film "Straight and Butch," an, uh, "risque" docu-film about Cordora shooting a calendar with naked straight men. The film, which he said he still gets royalties for, got picked up by HereTV in February 2014 after previously being distributed by the 133 N. Fourth St.-located Breaking Glass Pictures and being screened at local film festivals.
Now, he said, he's in the process of pitching a docu-series to networks like LOGO. (And if not LOGO, then HereTV.)
So, yeah -- there you have it, folks. Butch Cordora's back, and with a pretty ace and ultra-gay-friendly poker face.
