Earlier today, I wrote about the new paint job over at Club 24, the Northeast nightspot that was ordered closed by the city following a stabbing incident last week, and is using the time-off for a little sprucing.

It's interesting that 24 is being penalized for something that happened after a go-go show, though, because the club has said in the past that it isn't a go-go club and hardly ever holds go-go shows.

Tom Oehser, the Gogobeat.com founder who I profiled earlier this week,   received flak from the club after listing it on his site last year. He shares the strange/funny e-mail exchange between himself and a club employee regarding 24’s relationship with go-go.

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 07:48:27PM -0800,

[REDACTED] wrote:

To whom it may concern:

 My name is [REDACTED] and I represent 24 Nightclub over in
Northeast DC.  One of our marketing team members recently
brought to my attention that you have our venue listed
under the gogo club section on [1]gogobeat.com.  Our venue
is not a gogo club and we rarely will host gogo events.
I would like to request that you remove our club from your
website's gogo listing.

 Thank you very much,

 [REDACTED]

Gogobeat wrote:

I also list the Best Western Hotel, the House of Chang Restaurant,
the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the St. Barnabas Church, the Shady Side
Kiwanis, the Masonic Temple, and the Tucker Road Swimming Pool.

It is not a list of "gogo clubs", it is a resource for finding
information about venues.  It is, by intentional design principal,
inclusive rather than exclusive.  Our site carries no information
about Club 24 which is non-public or derogatory in any way.  You
called it a "gogo club section", but the category on the site is
in fact referred to only as "Clubs", as your name is "Club 24",
you can hardly say that listing you as a "Club" in inappropriate.

Go-Go is an imprecisely defined term for a musical genre derived
among other influences from Funk Rock music.  I'm not implying you
are a "gogo club", or that there is necessarily a precise definition
of such a thing as a "gogo event".

We object STRONGLY to negative stereotyping and characterizations
of the Go-Go musical genre which DC has every right to be PROUD of.

I'm just helping fans of certain bands learn about venues where
those bands perform.  Certainly fans of the good Backyard Band and
the upstanding members of TCB who perform as Polo and the Boyz are
among our the readership our website is designed to serve.

We do thank you for hosting the events on January 18th and 19th,
and hope that you are not wedded to pigeonholing certain venues,
music, or fanbases as "gogo clubs" or "gogo events".

I'm glad to include your sentiments on the page referring to you,
and have added this correspondence to the page.  I'll be glad to
respect your wishes if you would like only your original request, or
neither letter, to be there on the page.  If a period of time passes
where no events are held at Club 24 of interest to the readership
we serve, I'm likely to remove your listing, anyway.  But certainly
it doesn't make sense to remove it when there are two events of
interest to our readership occurring at Club 24 in the next week.

Let me know if you don't want this correspondence on the page,

-Thanks,

[REDACTED] wrote:

   We are in no way characterizing gogo into any negative stereotypes.
   We have our marketing strategy in place, I can't help what you take
   offense to, that's not my job.
   My job is to follow the orders I was given and that is to remove us from
   your club listing.
   Sorry if there were any misunderstandings.
   Anyone is still free to come to the venue on the dates you have posted on
   your reply message.

Gogobeat wrote:

No.

To clarify, your job is to request that I remove you from the listing,
but I'm not going to remove you from the listing, as my choice is to
provide information I deem useful to my readership, not to support your
marketing strategy.