Some photos of the Fetish Ball are up now. I didn't take any pictures that night, and this is the only set I could find; I saw a lot of cameras, however, so if you have any, please send them to me! This goes for all of our events, actually.

And now, the news.

A few months ago, we got a letter telling us that our insurance company was no longer going to be selling insurance in California, and we'd need to find a new provider when our current term was up. We called our agent, who said he'd get right on that. Well, he dragged his feet. Months went by.

And then those Great White pigfuckers went and blew themselves up.

That left us two weeks from our insurance expiring, and almost nobody willing to insure us at all. The first company we found who was even willing to give us a quote wanted 5x as much as we were paying, and something like a 30% downpayment.

So now nobody wants to insure nightclubs any more. Barry, Casey, and Caroline spent many hours on the phone in the last couple weeks just trying to get quotes (sometimes calling back on the hour, like clockwork, just to make sure.) Each person they talk to took days, because that person kept calling back and saying, "oh, now we just need this one other piece of info..." They sell insurance, do they not? You'd think they'd know up front what info they need, but apparently it's always a learning process for whoever's on the other end of the phone, too.

One of the companies had agreed to insure us, and then they had a look at our web site and stumbled across a picture of some bait-and-tackle performance at one of our events where some guy hung from the ceiling by meathooks in his back, and apparently that freaked them out enough that they said "no thanks..." Whee! Oh, but here's the best part: it wasn't the fact that he was hanging from meathooks that bothered them: it was the fact that the picture made it look like the guy was dangling over the audience without a net, and they were afraid he might fall on someone! (I'm not sure which picture they saw, but if it's the one I linked to, he's actually on the stage, not above people, but whatever.)

So anyway, we did manage to get insurance again mere days before our last policy expired, and it's like 150% what it used to be. Dammit.

The insurance companies weren't even interested in the fact that we have an extensive sprinkler system. Apparently all they cared about was our annual income: not "how safe are you", but "how much can we take you for?"

To make matters worse (for anyone trying to get insurance) the families of the victims of the Great White fire are filing suit against everyone in sight: that's the American Way, after all. So not only are they sueing the band, whose show started the fire, and the club, who used flammable materials on their stage, but also the company who made the soundproofing foam that caught on fire (which, I gather, wasn't billed as being fireproof!) and also the Fire Department and the State of Rhode Island.

That latter one hurts, because there's a chance that it'll put the nation's fire departments into ass-covering mode, and make them hassle nightclubs even more...