Its a Drag

Heklina

Me and Pollo Del Mar

The weekend was full one and Orlando came down from the Desert/Forest of Anderson for a second week in a row because of a commitment I made to Pollo Del Mar to be a judge for the Miss San Francisco Gold Rush Contest held at The Triple Crown this past Saturday. Pollo and I met last year through mutual friends after her performance as Rose in The Golden Girls at Lazy Bear last year. We have been chatting briefly on Facebook nearly every week since then. If you have never met Pollo- you should. As some of you know, I only like nice Drag Queens. Pollo definitely qualifies as a nice lady. She is a Grande Duchess on the of the Grand Ducal Council of San Francisco and along with another Grand Duchess, Landa Lakes, they produced/hosted the contest. Pollo also writes a column for the Bay Times. Maybe if I work real hard on this blog I can grow up into a columnist someday. She quipped about me being the only guy at the Judges table but rethought that and correctly lumped me in with the assortment of queens there. I wholeheartedly agreed.

Me and the Ladies Judges table

Roma waves to her fans

I was in very good company with the judges. A little weary from the night before but none-the-less larger-than-life Heklina is local Drag Queen Legend who put Trannyshack on the National Map-as one of THE SF nightclubs to be at. She’s been doing it for years and still works just as hard out there promoting the bejesus out of Trannyshack as well as her own constantly growing celebrity. ( Thanks for the slice of Pizza Heckles) Sister Roma from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence arrived in her impeccable brightly colored garb. Roma has also made a name for herself as a columnist and writes for Gloss Magazine. She is Art Director for Hot House entertainment. Another interesting fact is that Roma’s involvement with The Sisters goes as far back as 1987. She is an aficionado of all things in porn circles….or so I am told. There was some banter about Heklina giving her head but I had too many Skyys at the time to recall what was said. Also serving as judge was the Bodacious Bay Area Court Lady Cranberry (a faux Drag queen btw) who has hosted many East Bay events. Lady Cranberry and I know each other from our quiet respectful day jobs, but it had been a while and I had fun with asking her if she remembered me. She eventually remembered much to my relief because honey…P.A.does NOT want to be forgettable. I have a co-worker who was insane about a show Lady C hosted in the East Bay, so I have an idea she is pretty darned good at what she does. I also made a new friend at the judges table, Miss GAPA Feroshe Beyonsoy. I guess she is Blasian but I couldn’t tell. Make up ya know. Good company all and funny ladies. I expected funny commentary but who the hell had time to comment with all the scoring we had to do! We were handed an intimidating packet to rate the contestants. The TEN contestants were just introducing themselves but Ms Beyonsoy and I figured we were supposed to be scoring right away, so we began jotting down numbers on The Creative Dress segment. We were wrong. I kept glancing over and Roma and Heklina wondering why they weren’t writing anything down. I felt like a kid cheating on a test! In the end Ms Beyonsoy and I ended up scribbling out some of our numbers and putting in the new ones related to the Creative Dress Segment. In my case –I didn’t change them too much. Last January and November ,when I held my little contest for Bearlesque – I didn’t create a score card and basically asked the judges to confer and pick a winner. It was obvious from the get go that the MISS SFGR contest would require such elaborate scoring cuz these girls were all very good. I wondered if someone would go back there and grab a calculator and sum them up. It seemed like quite a bunch of numbers to tally and compare. I was very interested in the process in the event that I wanted to run a pageant someday.

The WINNER Rotissary

Miss P

Creative Dress involved just that. Sure there was the occasional evening gown but the ladies picked outfits directly related to their personas. Memorable ones were LayBelline in her pregnancy, and Rotissary Ethnicity Jackson Houston Ross’ gown of KFC buckets with a big greasy belly that she casually swiped a drumstick across from time to time as she chatted with the audience. An extremely large round drag queen named Miss P wore a horrifying but memorable nighty where the tampon neglected to work. I was at once fascinated and disgusted…. She made everyone wail in horror when she yanked a reddened tampon out and licked it sensuously. I laughed very hard. If it’s inappropriate I will love it. There were some contestants who had quite the vociferous fan base there. I was deafened by Anyanka Emerson’s group stationed directly behind me. Anyanka was interesting and pretty in a sort of chaotic way but she wasn’t as tightly focused as most of the other girls. I thought that Anyanka was the Ar-teeste of the group. Her name wasn’t funny and she didn’t necessarily go for the jokes. Still she had something that compelled you to watch her. She was the only drag artist who sang with her own voice. I figured –give her time-if she can whip a group like that up into a frenzy then I imagine the drag scene will be seeing more of her. I was developing a little crush on LayBelline and I spent a lot of time wondering what she looked like out of face…I raced home to confirm on facebook that there was indeed a cute boy under all that drag.

Mahlae

I should mention that there was a mind blowing performance at the beginning by guest artist Mahlae. I felt like I had finally got to see that Janet Jackson Concert I always missed. As Pollo said, that girl set the bar for the evening. Roma leaned over and confirmed that all the contestants should aspire to be that good. Her energy and look were fiercely hypnotizing. Did you ever notice that boys in high heels move more deftly than (bio) girls in high heels? That thought struck me as I saw her whip her long legs about at light speed. I was absolutely entertained by every contestant. The choice for winner was NOT going to be easy. It’s been a while since I went to a drag show and I think Drag shows must’ve improved because all of these girls had amazing numbers with back up dancers and really awe inspiring moves. Rotissary E. J H R was our Queen for the night. She sobbed appropriately as her big pink eyelashes fluttered about. They had a little trouble getting that crown on there but she held on to it.
Pollo and Landa made a good team and I was so impressed as Pollo handled everything with so much ease and wit. If you don’t know about the Castro Country Club –you should. This is a place where the gals and guys with substance abuse issues of any sort can go get help and make new friends and form a healthier support systems. I raise my glass to them..oops. I was impressed with how easily Pollo handled one little question answer session with a contestant. It was a multiple choice question. If you had a choice between a romantic evening date on the beach, or an exciting cruise on the Italian Riviera, or a night with a rock star –which would you choose? Of course I wrote the verbose question and Pollo teased me for it. “Hey I’m a writer now!”, I yelled . She nodded at me and turned to the contestant who answered that she would choose the Rock Star because she could party with the rest of them and stay out all night long and dance and sing and she did Tina and..-wait!? What was that? Heklina and Roma and I glanced at each other in surprise. Pollo let the contestant calmly finish the question and gently asked, “ Could you elaborate on what you meant by doing Tina? “ The contestant looked at Pollo in surprise and said, “Well Turner of course” Big sighs and laughs from the crowd. I wondered how Pollo knew that and wondered if that was somehow rehearsed? How could it be since the question was randomly drawn from a basket? When I was making Lunch for Orlando the next day he told me that he knew that the contestant meant Tina Turner and not the drug. I turned away from him so he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. Right! This from the guy who watched Basket ball all the time. How the hell could he know that when he barely knew who Julie Newmar was?
So Rotissary Ethnicity Jackson Houston-Ross took the title that night, proving that above all, people like to laugh. You go Girl!