Finally, it has happened to me ...

Well, Kwame has finally made the plea and will resign. I knew if I held out long enough he would capitulate. I guess he did know how to quit us after all.

I will now return from exile in San Francisco and resume my gaily routine.
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This and Thursday Styles and Home & Garden ... does it get any better??

Um, Disney? Part 2

The Little Mermaid Sing-a-Long at the Castro Theater was fun for the whole family! I mean that figuratively and literally. I really wished I had my nieces there with me, they all would have loved it. Instead we got to sit next to some fun gay boys. It's almost the same thing sometimes.

While we were in line to get in a friend texted and said "Make sure you watch Obama!" and I was like, unless he's swimming around underwater singing with a crab I'll be catching him online later.

Lots of straight girls, the kind who dress "cute," which was fine until they invaded the bars later. Entering this bear bar across the street we passed this girl who said with disdain as she walked out, "this is the gayest bar in the Castro." And I was like "thank God."

"Tranny Ariel" won the costume contest, beating out sluttier "Low Self-Esteem Ariel."

'Shack Attack

Getting your full freak on in Detroit is a decidedly underground affair. A perverse curiosity, an adventurous spirit and a tolerance for disappointment can yield tremendous results in a city where legendary scenes come and go in a flash, and by the time you discovered it, it's probably over.

San Francisco, on the other hand, is a magnet school for freaks. The freak flag flies with reassuring consistency here, and there is a critical mass of people who support the outrageous, outlandish or simply outre. And that is why they get to have nice things, like Trannyshack.

Briefly, Trannyshack is a weekly drag event held at a shithole gay bar (the kind I like to bitch about in Detroit) called The Stud located in the South of Market area of SF. Started by Heklina in 1996, the show is known for its cutting-edge performances and departure from regular ball-gown diva lip synch drag. I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia entry here, and watching this YouTube video with clips from an evening at The Stud. After twelve years, Heklina decided to put Trannyshack to rest with a huge Trannyshack Kiss Off party this past Saturday night.

It is a testament to the gay community in San Francisco that what was a popular, but fringe, event managed to pull a crowd of ... 1000? 1500? I mean, when was the last time anyone saw 1000 homos in one place in Detroit? And this was pretty solid gay, not an excessive amount of straight girl filler. And like 10% were in some kind of drag. It was, needless to say, thrilling.

What's your count?

It would be a waste of time for me to try and describe in detail every act in this tremendous evening, so I'll show you what I can. I took some crappy video clips with my cell phone, and since the show was a "best of Trannyshack" there are some original performances you can watch on YouTube.

Hoku Mama Swamp opened with a Queen Elizabeth number about absolute power corrupting absolutely (or whatever) to Abba's "Lay All Your Love on Me," with "Love is a Battlefield" Pat Benetar breakout choreography and a crowd-pleasing Madonna MTV Awards "Vogue" traveling posse of fabulous.



Raya Light provided a dramatic morality tale about the victimation, exploitation and ultimate empowerment of women (well, that's what I got from it) with a reprise of her Miss Trannyshack-winning Kate Bush/Kelly Clarkson number (original here).



Lady Miss Kier from Deee-Lite was there. And oh my. I mean, I'm by no means the inguenue I was in 1992, but then I didn't make my name prancing around in Pucci bodysuits either. Get a new stylist at the very least, Tammy Faye!

Why don't we, why don't we, whyyyy don't we whyyyy don't we ... change our look?

The House of More! (Juanita More! and Glamamore) performed the Flower Duet in dresses made entirely from paper. A flawless number.



Kimo performed "Ten Years of Madonna in Ten Minutes" (original peformance here) which was clever and fun, but the subsequent performance was one of two that really drove home the over-the-top nature of Trannyshack.

Kiddie performed a powerful rendition of Billie Holiday's "Don't Explain" that was pretty straightforward, focused on perfect make-up and lip synch ... until the hooded monk figures appeared to heat up pieces of metal with a blowtorch and BRAND HER BACK WITH THEM! And she didn't flinch! Unbelievable. This branding had the crowd's rapt attention - maybe Detroit Renaissance should consider something like this instead of a new slogan the next time around. (See a clip from Saturday here, and the entire original amazing performance here.)



Well, fortunately Lady Bunny was in town to lighten things up after that, and she did some of her patented routine (an example from Trannyshack earlier this year here). She is one fucked up bitch.

And then Fauxnique, a biological woman who is also a drag performer and Miss Trannyshack title winner (I told you Trannyshack was progressive) peformed a really beautiful number en pointe to Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life." I don't have my video editing software here on vacation but I put my clips together in a playlist, because I thought for those of you who like this stuff it was really worth getting a taste. Just really really great!

Justin Bond, famous as Kiki from Kiki & Herb in NYC, was on hand also, although sadly his brand of torch/vamp/camp singing didn't really translate well to the venue. I guess you have to be in row seven with him screaming at you to really fully enjoy it. But what came next definitely qualified as the most fucked up drag anything I've ever seen in my entire drag-loving life.

A queen named Precious Moments was up next and peformed "Gloria" by Patti Smith. Spinning on a communion rail with her dress hiked up (and showing the goods - click on the picture below for the very NSFW view of that) she was eventually banged by altar boys, priests, the pope, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ on the cross. And then the number ended with her flouncing across the stage and someone coming over and shoving a buttplug up her butt. For real.

Precious Moments indeed.

Click picture for the other view. You won't be sorry.
Or actually, maybe you will.

Did you know that Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters got her start in the SF Trannyshack scene? Me neither, but it's true. She was another celeb on hand to bid farewell, and she had lots of cute boys in her number too. Bravo.

Can someone get me the boy with the glasses?

The final performer of the night was Putanesca, who did a very dramatic performance to a Siouxsie Sioux number in the greatest drag gown since the last time I claimed something was the greatest drag gown. Really gorgeous, "gothic beauty of the highest order." Watch the original fabulous performance here.



And then ... and then that was it. Heklina came out to bid farewell ... not forever, but for now. And after proclaiming she didn't want to end Trannyshack in a predictable way, she burst into a performance of "I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" by Jennifer Holiday. And through the course of the song she was joined by throngs of drag queens on stage. You really don't need to see more than these 15 seconds to know how overwrought that was.

"Well, I guess we could do something predictable after all."

I loves me some good drag, and this was just the thing to get me back on the gay track. An inspiring evening and undoubtedly one of the high points of this summer!
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Job Opening?

"Hello, Fecal Face Dot Gallery, please hold. Hello, Fecal Face Dot Gallery, please hold."

Getting it out of my system

Day 1 went well, I thought.

Valley of the Dolls on the big screen is like seeing it for the first time.




Walking around town you pass so many beautiful homes. And some other ones too.



The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence work hard for the money.

Bonus: here's a video of the opening of tonight's Disco Bingo. It was held at the Veteran's Memorial Building. Note the American Legion banner in the background. Sorry that guy next to me wouldn't stop clapping, I don't think he gets out much.

Sisters' Bingo is one hell of a good time. I didn't walk away with any money, but I felt like I won just by being there.

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Ode to the Smith Terminal

Walking through the Smith Terminal at Detroit Metro Airport (lots of pics at link), it feels like a bit of a shame that it’s become such the neglected stepchild mess of all airline terminals. It wasn’t always this way. When I was growing up it was sharper, more open, so modern and nicely scaled for the needs of the day. If you look closely you can still see vestiges of when the terminal was a sophisticated gateway to the glamorous world of air travel.

As it did when the terminal opened in 1957, the ceiling still soars overhead and check-in counters for the smaller airlines still ring the main entry area. Modern glassed-in airline offices, reminiscent of management overlooking the factory floor, still sit on the mezzanine level

Terrazzo floors and travertine marble details exist throughout most of the circulation space, but they are about the only high-end design elements that remain. Signs in great cream/white on brown/black (colors acquired as the patina of age) with that slightly funky san serif font are a little beat up but absolutely scream 1970. The glass block walls down the corridor seem surprisingly contemporary. The square analog clocks that dot the ceiling along the corridor have that dated-but-kind-of-now feeling too.

There are only scars remaining from many of the amenities that once seemed like necessities. The post office is permanently gated with only the glue from the signage letters indicating what it once was. Phone booths with their little stainless steel mushroom stools are all capped over (with a few exceptions) or converted to internet terminals. The courtesy phone station is now a laptop recharging station.


The most glaring indication of what an anachronism the Smith Terminal has become is the way that the security checkpoint is still just plunked down in what was once a high-traffic corridor. A Jack Daniels (sorry, Jose Cuervo) Tequilaria and airport newstand have been crammed in right there as well.The original design for the flow of passengers and guests was hijacked on 9/11, and that is what really pushes Smith into obsolescence. Well, that and the abysmal baggage claim situation.

Unlike the TWA terminal at JFK Airport, Smith was once nice but has no compelling architectural merit. It’s just a dated relic of a different time in air travel. But I have lots of fond childhood memories of being hustled through there by my parents, and I’m glad I got to travel through it one last time before it is closed for good next month.

Time to go.
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I'm goin' to Zion

I've gotta recharge. All the crap has been getting the best of me, so I'm taking a break to go back into the San Fran gay immersion program.

While there I will be visiting with all my friends who have made their way west over the years. I will enjoy seeing gays walking down the street and I hope to eventually get over the shock and excitement of seeing more than one gay person on the street a day.

What else will I do? Well, hit a few movies at the Castro Theatre, starting with Valley of the Dolls on Wednesday and The Little Mermaid sing-a-long this weekend. I'm going to the Trannyshack Kiss-Off grand finale. I might go to Sisters Bingo put on by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. And for sure I'll scrounge for good new music and video stuff for Doggy Style.

Yes, for two weeks I am going to act like the country cousin that I am and get my gay groove back in San Francisco. I'll let you know how it goes.

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Simply Sandra

The centerpiece of the Supergay Holiday Getaway was New Year’s Eve … Sandra Bernhard at the historic Castro Theater. Goin' gay all the way into 2008!

Sandy has been near and dear to my heart since the summer of ’89, when I somehow picked up the cassette of her one-woman show “Without You I’m Nothing” at Tower Records while on a summer internship in Washington, DC (unfortunately that was the extent of my picking up that summer). It was a new kind of comedy, unlike anything else I’d encountered before – that emotive, evocative, intellectual storytelling where the point was to engage as well as entertain. It changed my life! And it changed the life of my friends at college the following year as we made it the soundtrack of our late-night drives to Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, Mass.

A scene from "Without You I'm Nothing," the movie.

Over the years Sandra wore many faces …

Madonna’s BFF, Madonna’s ex-BFF, angry ambiguous lesbian, angry affirmed lesbian ... she carved out her own niche in the world of comedy cabaret and she owned it. At a show during the Ann Arbor Summer Festival back in ’05 (never underestimate the power of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival), where she was fine-tuning her upcoming show and return to excellence “Everything Bad & Beautiful,” she had transformed into a mature woman open about her sexuality, speaking about her girlfriend and daughter, proclaiming her opinions about the world in which we live, and still being outrageous and touching and sexy. Has a woman with less to offer aesthetically ever been so confident in her sexual appeal? Other than your whorey mom, I say no.

Sandra live is not quite the same as Sandra on tape. She gets angry. She tells screaming fans in the audience to shut up ...

“Sandra!!!!” they screamed.

“That isn’t pretty” she replied.

She occasionally lets her rants get the best of her, but always in that jaded, put-out kind of way that makes it seem like your sister bitching. Seeing her be annoyed is half the fun.

Naturally, Sandra had something to say about the gays … “You used to be out partying all night, and now you’re moving to the suburbs” she said with a sneer to the crowd of gays in their 40’s and 50’s . She talked about the drift toward conformity, here in the gay ghetto that once represented the exact opposite. And where was the spirit of Sylvester in the gay world today? (As if to confirm that absence, after the show one of the guys I was there with asked who Sylvester was. Seriously!) The crowd chuckled, of course, but the truth of that did hit a little close to home, as evidenced by conversations overheard after the show.

It wasn’t all politics and annoyance, though. Sandy entertained and interpreted songs her way, starting with “U and UR Hand” by Pink, singing an homage to the San Francisco of old, and ending the night with her now-classic interpretation of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette.”

She doesn’t always win fans with her shows, but if you don’t mind a little confrontation, then there is no better entertainment than Sandra Bernhard. She will confront you and comfort you at the same time, and for the gay community, there is no one better at truly reflecting the cultural zeitgeist than our own Sandy.

San Fran Epiphany

I’m quite happy in Detroit, but sometimes I just want to be around some gays. OK not some gays, a lot of gays. I want to see them in restaurants, I want to see them shopping, I want to see them meandering from bar to bar. I want to see them walking dogs and hosting dinner parties and working out and grocery shopping. Not one or two gays, but gangles of them. I want to hear Bronski Beat while shopping at Bloomingdale's and discussions of Broadway musicals while reading the paper at a coffeeshop. I want the full immersion program. So I went to San Francisco for New Year’s. And of course SF did not disappoint.

I stayed with two great friends in their tony digs near the Castro. Unlike other visits, this trip was very much about entertaining at home, which was appropriate for the holidays (as well as for the really crappy weather we had), so the visit wasn’t a booze-fueled bar crawl like a holiday at home would have been. Instead, it was a bit like living everyday life in the city, if you lived there and didn’t need to have a job (which is my dream).

I don’t need to recount the obvious joys of San Francisco, mosey out there and check it out yourself. While certainly gentrified to the gills in its post-dot-com way, it still maintains vestiges of it’s boho charm. Reports of an invasion by the stroller set notwithstanding, the Castro remains a thriving and vibrant gayborhood (if quite a bit more upwardly-mobile than my first visit fifteen years ago). It’s literally gay people everywhere you go, an experience I always find a little jarring at first.

It was great to be around so many gays near my age. In Detroit there is a real tendency for guys in their 30’s and 40’s to stay firmly rooted in the OC, or to leave. There is a bit of a lost generation of gays in the Detroit area, where a large portion of the gays born from, say, 1960 to 1975 have moved on to the gay centers of the country. SF, being one of those centers, has every color of the gay rainbow represented: twinks, hipsters, circuit boys, porn stars, bears, guppies, silver foxes, drag queens, leather queens … you get the idea. Oddly, lesbians aren’t that visible here, just like almost everyplace else I’ve ever lived (except Ann Arbor). I swear, they have a secret network of burrows so they can move around unseen.

Near the end of my stay I heard a few stories from long-time residents about how the city was ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The large beautiful park in the fancy neighborhood my friends live in used to be a haven for drug users and gay cruising.

Buena Vista Park is now for doggies, not druggies or daddies.

In the same area very nice homes used to be quite rundown. One guy related a story about passing on buying a building that now houses three expensive condos because he thought it was far too expensive at $300k ten years ago. And of course there are the stories like the NY Times article linked above that depict with a rosy hindsight the glory days of neighborhoods like the Castro or Haight-Ashbury and lament the romance and excitement of those places that is lost now that they've been Starbucked.

Detroit could be said to be in that place right now, and I think people need to start thinking about that. There will be a time when there will be a Starbucks on every corner and we’ll talk with a dreamy look in our eyes about the great community that thrived at Café de Troit, where it seemed like everyone you met was making something happen in town. Lower Cass will get the Ilitch touch and we’ll laugh about the days of dodging crack whores and roosters on our way to Honest John’s. Corktown will turn into Birmingham and we’ll actually miss all those hipsters and Terry-oke at LJ’s.

Let’s keep pushing for progress in town, but don’t forget to appreciate what we’ve got. Detroit is in a really unique place in time right now. Have fun and take advantage of it, because someday we’ll be talking about it like people talk about the Castro or New York City in the ‘70’s. And won’t it be nice to say you actually were a part of it, instead of just a bystander?

Broke, Ugly, Dumb

I'm in San Francisco for Christmas and the New Year. It's a real Supergay Road Trip!

Walking down from my friends' house to the Castro this morning I passed a guy huddled up in a doorwell (it's cold and rainy) with a hand-made cardboard sign that said "Broke, Ugly, Dumb - every little bit helps" It was the first thing I've seen that reminded me of Detroit, because God knows you get enough stupid begging lines downtown (and enough stupid people giving people money because "that line is great!").

I love SF and frankly, I can't believe I don't live here. As much as I like Detroit, SF is pretty much everything I want in a city, at least on paper. Every time I visit I've pretty much chained myself to a lamp post by the second or third day, just so I won't have to leave. Surprising even me, however, was my reaction to being here this time around. This time, it's still really great, but it's really easy to talk to people who say "you need to move here!" and tell them I genuinely enjoy living in Detroit.

While San Fran has more stuff going on, has more gay people than is almost conceivable, has better shopping, has a ton of natural beauty, is navigable without a car, has amazing restaurants, is deliciously liberal and is the soul of the gay community in this country ... I still am digging the people, places and possibilities in Detroit, now matter how broke, ugly or dumb it may be.

The view's pretty good though.

International Miss Leather Pageant

For the Memorial Day Weekend I made a quick jaunt to Chicago, and wouldn't you know, it also happened to be the weekend of the 2007 International Mister Leather competition!

This is an annual event held at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago. It celebrates the leather community, provides a reason for gays to travel someplace fun and act all hedonistic 'n' shit, and gives a bunch of queens something to aspire to. Naturally I had to stop in to check it out.

Now the scope of this event is huge. First of all, it takes over the ENTIRE hotel. There are signs at each entrance saying the hotel is booked for a private event, and security guards posted there to prevent the unsuspecting families from wandering into something less than child-friendly. Men and (some) women travel from all over the continent to come to this event, now in its 29th year. It involves an entire weekend of activities, culminating with the crowning of the new International Mister Leather at the Chicago Theater on Sunday night.

In the interest of full disclosure (prior to judging), I should say I don't really get the whole leather thing. I mean, I know there are camaradarie and community-building aspects to it and I am always in favor of those. And I glad that there is a gay niche that isn't all about being pretty and having fabulous clothes. But all the outfits and rules just seem like an awful lot of fuss. Plus I think cockrings are really gross.

My friends and I stopped in on Saturday afternoon, and the place was jumping. The entire lobby is turned into a bar, and people just hang out and people watch. And trust me, that is some gooooooood people watching! Guys were there from all over, and there were a lot of familiar faces from the Detroit area. The standard uniform seemed to be jeans and a t-shirt with some kind of leather accoutrements, but there were also people in the full leather getup. And trust me, you haven't seen anything until you've seen tuxedoed hotel employees serving pizza to a line of leather queens!

The lobby was twice as full by the time we left (around 4pm)

Hemlines are up this season!

Upstairs from the lobby they have an area is called the Leather Mart. It is dirty there, so dirty that they check your ID four times and make you sign a release. It's essentially a gay leather version of the porn conventions they have in Las Vegas. It's booth after booth of sex toys, leather apparel, porn stars, demonstrations, and pretty much anything you can think of.

I found this portion emotionally damaging. I guess it's one thing to read about fisting and really quite another to be wandering through a dark room showing videos and that appeared to be set up for demonstrations later that night (the carpet was covered with a saran wrap-type protective covering. Seriously). And I did not need to know that something called a rosebud pump existed (don't ask).

By the time we had pushed about half-way through the very dense crowd I was like "get me the fuck out of here!" I thought I was brave but I am not, I am a huge vanilla gay coward. I think it was the pissing videos that threw me over the edge.

Of course my friends are a stalwart bunch and got a bigger kick out of it all than I did, my friend Laurita Guarita Los Angeles Jara Perez in particular. She had a run-in with a guy in a bondage bunny suit that was pretty great.

Do not take a Cadbury Cream Egg from this man!

[Bunny makes a beeline for the chick with lip-gloss and feathered hair]

Bunny: So what do you think?

LGLAJP: (looking at her nails) About what?

Bunny: (looks down at outfit) This.

LGLAJP: You're a plushy.

Bunny: Yeah. So what do you think?

LGLAJP: I'd fuck you.

And then she spun him around and pretended to fuck him. It was awesome.

We finished the day grabbing a meal at a pub next door, which was full of its own highlights. The walls were covered in framed headshots of celebrities who have dined there over the years (the goofy guy from F-Troop and Seka were my personal favorites). And even better, we sat next to a table of leather lesbians and one of them had a cane!

All in all, the IML thing was an experience I'm eager to never re-live, but it certainly was worthwhile viewing. I am probably a better person for it. Or at least wiser.