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Sunday, 20 November 2005
The Winner Never Wins: Miss Trannyshack Pageant 2005
The following will be printed in this week's edition of the Bay Area Reporter, which hits the streets on Wednesday:
The Miss Trannyshack Pageant has a long and scandalous history of rarely crowning the true winners in this annual contest of “fierceness.” Last year’s pageant was fraught with drama (well-documented in Sasha Aickin’s excellent documentary, Blood, Sweat, & Glitter), as many felt that either Kiddie or Diva Dan should have won, rather than the very sweet Anna Conda. With some notable exceptions (2002’s Suppositori Spelling and 2003’s Fauxnique immediately come to mind), the celebrity judges often seem to make dubious, unpopular decisions, leaving the crowd collectively scratching their heads going, “What the fuck?”
This year’s contest at the Regency Ballroom last Saturday was no exception.
Based on crowd response, over-the-top spectacle, and an enormous “wow” factor that clearly outshined the other contestants, first runner-up Faux Pas seemed like the clear winner. Her performance necessitated a protracted set-up time, but the act was well worth the wait. From start to finish, the number was a fully conceptualized piece of art-theatre, complete with a towering 30-foot-tall sculpture made to look like a metal tree as its set piece. Lip-syncing to Sinead O’Connor’s dramatically epic “Troy,” Faux Pas was suspended from the tree, while stilt-walkers danced around holding fire. As the song crescendoed, the tree was set ablaze, and she was hoisted up into the air, high above the crowd. Eventually, she was swung back and forth, spinning around while dangling from the flaming metal tree – and that’s when the crowd gasped in shock and surprise – for she was not suspended from a harness, but from metal hooks pierced into her back. It truly took the term “fierce” to new levels, and allowed MCs Heklina and Peaches Christ plenty of opportunities to crack puns (“The number had me hanging on the edge!” “It was on fire!” “I was hooked!”)
While plenty of other numbers were good, nothing else even came close to this level of production value. Apparently, Faux Pas had to secure and help pay for a fire permit just to do this performance. Now that’s commitment! Heklina even made references to the fire marshal being just off-stage, ready to shut down her show at a moment’s notice.
Of course, that never happened, and the evening offered up many other surprises of the non-fiery variety. Randy, who was this year’s second runner-up, was the token “gender-fuck” contestant, performing as a faux drag king (a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man — try to wrap your head around that) in an homage to ’70s gay male iconography. Foxy Cotton performed as a remote-controlled toy doll, a Christmas present who, along with other toy dolls, eventually turns on the kid controlling her. Other contestants in the pageant included Poison Ivy, Raya Light, and Calamity.
Although the winning performance by Coco Canal was well-done, it ultimately paled in comparison to Faux Pas’s. Performing to Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty,” it was complete with what have now become Miss Trannyshack Pageant hallmarks: video and choreographed back-up dancers. Ever since Vinsantos won in 2000, partially due to a spectacular short film that complemented his performance, it has become standard practice to perform with an accompanying video. Coco was no exception. However, it brought nothing new to the table, simply being an interpretation of Aguilera’s original music video. It was solid, but hardly groundbreaking.
This year played out much like previous year’s upsets, where popular performers such as Kennedy and Squeaky Blonde were beat out by drag nobodies Kay White and Mangela Lansbury, in ’98 and ’99, respectively. All anyone remembers from ’99’s pageant was Kennedy’s epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” number, dressed as Marie Antoinette in the biggest ball gown and wig you’ve ever seen. One year from now, the only thing anyone will remember about last Saturday’s Pageant will be Faux Pas hanging by hooks from a flaming metal tree. It’s unfortunate that she now joins a long line of deserving drag luminaries mysteriously robbed of the Miss Trannyshack crown.
ADDENDUM
I found out some information after this article had already gone to press. Wish I knew about this beforehand, but it all just adds to the drama. Something definitely smells fishy. Anyway, here's the dirt:
According to the rules of the pageant, no contestant is allowed to use lube of any form in the contest. Lube does not wipe up easily, remaining slippery on stage no matter how much you try to scrub it off. Considering the number of stiletto heels in this show, it's not surprising that it's strictly forbidden.
However, during the swimsuit portion of the contest, immediately after Coco Canal's appearance (which featured her "fellating" a hunky boy and "cum" dripping out of her mouth) it was discovered that there was lube on the stage. Heklina and Juanita More proceded to make a big stink about it while on stage, with Juanita storming off, claiming that she was going to "rip Coco a new asshole."
Shouldn't Coco have been disqualified from the competition because of this? I'm not saying that she shouldn't have performed – she just should not have been allowed to win. Instead, she breaks the rules (with what appears to be an underhanded move straight out of Showgirls or All About Eve) and ends up with the crown? WHAT THE FUCK?
Seriously... WTF? Does Heklina meticulously plan scandal and drama every year, just to stir up controversy (and keep people talking)? Probably not, but it sure seems like it, given the past two years of the Miss Trannyshack Pageant.
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Wednesday, 16 November 2005
I love out-of-town guest DJs!
It was a busy week leading up to Bootie this month. We had five, count 'em, FIVE guest DJs coming into town to spin – four from the U.K. (Phil n' Dog, Lumpy, Supercollider) along with Strangely Familiar (Quita) from Nashville. Plus, I'd had my brand-new shiny silver PowerBook for almost a week, and I still hadn't really played with it, or set up the wireless network in my apartment. I want to check email from bed, damn it!
Anyway, on Wednesday, we took Quita and his boyfriend Doug out to dinner at the Supperclub. The last time we DJed there, during opening week, we didn't get paid with money, but with meal vouchers. So it gave us an opportunity to take some out-of-town guests out to dinner (and to scope out the venue a bit more in anticipation for this Friday's gig there with DJ Keoki.)
On Thursday, D and I frantically cleaned our house, in anticipation of Dog crashing on our sofa. We didn't mind though ... we needed an excuse to finally clean our apartment! Dog and Lumpy got in late, and we hung out and drank beers and ate pizza. Charming chaps, both of them.
We must say, Dog was the easiest house guest we've ever had! We'd wake up in the morning, and he'd already be off, exploring the city on his own, or meeting up with the other U.K. bootleggers. We caught up with most of them on Friday afternoon, meeting up at an Irish pub for beers, before heading to Quita and Doug's hotel room to listen to Party Ben's Sixx Mixx, which featured a pair of Phil n' Dog tracks! That night, our friend Halcyon was visiting from New York City, and he was having his homecoming party at The Cinch. So we met a bunch of people there, got schnockered on cheap drinks, and I nervously drank lots of water before going to bed, hoping to stave off a hangover.
Fortunately, there was no hangover on Saturday, which was good ... Bootie day! I spent most of it attempting to slam together a mash-up of the new Madonna song, "Hung Up," over Blondie's "Call Me," a drunken idea I had the previous night. It was my experiment to see if I could throw something together real fast, and then play it that night at Bootie. And I did! (Not the greatest mashup in the world, but good enough for a drunken dance floor)
It was a bit of a slow start, but Dada and Supercollider got the night rolling with a nice hour of rock boots, while everyone started to get their drink on. Lumpy held it down in the back room, looking like he was having a ball.
Around 10 PM, things started to pick up, and Strangely Familiar started to kick it into gear, spinning Totom's "Madonna & the News." (The previous night, we all had talked about WHICH new Madonna bootleg we were all going to spin ... I think some variation of "Hung Up" got played three or four times at Bootie!)
Party Ben spun a short set at 10:30, and then at 11 PM, it was Act of Dog in the main room ... which was going GREAT until the laptop started doing weird things. Apparently, Supercollider came up to the booth, and then the whole thing went out. DOH! There's nothing a packed dance floor loves more than dead silence as a track is building up to its big peak (I'm being snarky of course ... but it was right after TBC's new "Radio Ga-Ga" boot, which I must say is awesome).
Anyway, I bolted up to the DJ booth. "Don't you have an "Oh Shit" CD?" I asked. Nooooo! I quickly grab Phil n' Dog's "Comfortable Tiger" and slam it into the CD player. Things eased back in, but then, a few songs later, the laptop crapped out again. I was in the back room at the time, helping Steven Satyricon prepare for his midnight mash-up show, when I heard a Party Ben track. And then an A plus D track. "That's odd," I thought. "Dog is playing our boots." Then I realized that something BAD must have happened, because all of this was after the second uncomfortable silence. Mysterious D had come to the rescue.
I feel bad for Dog, who wasn't able to play his complete set due to his laptop going all wonky. But this has now prompted a new club Bootie rule. No laptop DJing unless you have the "Oh Shit" CD!
But Dog was planning on dropping "Doctor Pressure" as the last song of his set, so D spun that right before midnight. Afterwards, I MCed the midnight mash-up show, and was able to tell people that if they wanted the 12-inch vinyl of Mylo vs. Miami Sound Machine, that they had to go back to the DJ booth and bug Phil n' Dog for it, which they apparently did.
The crowd was RAVENOUS for all the giveaways we had. Thanks to Supercollider for bringing some much sought-after mash-up video DVDs, and to Phil n' Dog for offering up some vinyl. There were quite a few Morcheeba fans in the house, as many specifically asked for their exclusive mash-up CD. And of course, there were all the Bootie compilation CDs we burn every month too.
We announced a bunch of birthdays (Ginny had hers in the back room, John's girl Libby was having hers, and was quite helpful in tossing CDs out to the crowd.) Then we brought Steven Satyricon out for his performance. Gayest Midnight Mash-up Show ... Ever. He performed to DJ Tripp's "Maniacs Emerge," and came out dressed as Casey Spooner from the Fischerspooner "Emerge" video. Then, halfway through, all his clothes got torn off, and he did the entire Flashdance dance number to "Maniac." SUPER GAY! But the crowd was into it, and Tripp finally got to see his mash-up come to life on the Bootie stage.
Party Ben closed out the night, ending with his Coldplay vs. Kraftwerk "Computer Talk," and then the lights came up at 2. Most of us went to Ben's for a lovely little after-party (after Frienemy drove us to our house to drop off our gear and grab some much-needed vodka and mixer ... thanks Donald!)
We missed Steve Supercollider and Jeff Quita at the after-party. But the rest of us had a lovely time chilling after a crazy night. Even Jordan Earworm showed up! (He couldn't make it to Bootie, as he had another gig that night). As I've mentioned before, I really look forward to the Bootie after-parties, because it's the only time I actually get to REALLY hang out and talk with people. I'm always running around doing club stuff, and I need to stay sober enough to count money at the end of the night! But once I've got everyone paid, I can then kick back and have a few cocktails like rest of them!
Most of the U.K. DJs made it to Marcy's party late, missing all the spray cheese and whipped cream fun, licking various foodstuffs off of Marcy's nipples, etc. – but oh well. Ted somehow convinced us all to go to the Mint for karaoke, and I had big plans of wowing everyone with my live mash-up karaoke rendition of "Billie Jean" over "Smells Like Teen Spirit." But alas, there were 19 songs ahead of me (many performed by the same singers, again and again, hogging the stage ... that's why I HATE karaoke at The Mint ... if you show up late, you can pretty much forget about ever getting a chance to sing, at least not without a 2-hour wait). So we said our goodbyes out on the sidewalk and all went home.
Anyway, it was a fantastic time – thanks to Dog, Phil, Jeff Quita, Lumpy, Steve Supercollider, Jof, Ben, Dada, Mysterious D, Jay-R, DJ John, Tripp, Matt Hite, Steven Satyricon, Frienemy, Tristan, Patty O, Earworm – for making it a weekend to remember!
I can't believe we're going to be in Paris in less than a week! DJ gigs in Paris and Amsterdam! Aaaaiiigh!
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Monday, 07 November 2005
Staying busy keeps me out of trouble
The past two weeks have been pretty busy, but nothing too stressful. Just the usual stuff that goes into my ever-glamorous "life of a rock star/club promoter/DJ." (Ha! I'm kinda being sarcastic, just in case you can't tell.)
New A+D mash-up: Real Big Time
I finished up a new mash-up, one that I've been conceptualizing for a long time. D introduced me to the song "Real Big," a hip-hop single from this past summer by Mannie Fresh. It wasn't a huge hit or anything, but we both fell in love with it. When she tracked down the acapella, I knew I had to do something ... BIG! So I mashed it up with Peter Gabriel's "Big Time," along with some other "big" songs. I had lots of "BIG" ideas for this mash-up, but it ultimately got distilled into an A+B+C ... along with a little AC/DC thrown in at the end for good measure.
Download it here: A plus D – Real Big Time (Mannie Fresh vs. Peter Gabriel vs. Jean Knight)
Blah-haus
D dragged me to the Bauhaus concert at the Warfield. Yawn. I saw them during the 1999 "Resurrection" tour, and I really didn't want anything to sully the memory of that experience. Well ... this show did. The band played okay and all, but ... something was just lacking. I don't know. Maybe angular, dark, moody, pretentious, post-punk, goth rock with no hooks just doesn't really do it for me anymore. Besides, Peter Murphy – the "Neil Diamond of goth rock" – had a bald spot and a cheesy moustache. And it says something that the two best (and last) songs of the night – "Telegram Sam" and "Ziggy Stardust" – are both covers.
Horsepower
I suppose I should say something about a new musical project I'm working on. It's definitely still in the gestation stage, but it's nice to be working on original music again. We're tentatively called Horsepower, and right now, it's just me and Dave Dasher (ex-Diamond Galaxy, former touring guitarist for My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult). Just the two of us sitting in his studio apartment hashing out ideas and listening to tracks. He plays and programs, I sing and write lyrics. We'll see where this ends up ... exciting!
I'm so sick of Halloween
I spent Friday night in a pirate costume for 11 hours straight, DJing a corporate party at Fluid, then racing over to DJ the Bootie mash-up lounge at Pop Roxx at the DNA Lounge. Then Sunday night, there I was, dressed as a pirate yet again, bar-hopping with friends. By the time it was actually Halloween, on Monday, I was so sick of pirate drag. So I dressed up like a red-sequined devil, which was such a half-assed costume – it was basically just an old Blue Period stage outfit with devil horns on my head. Big whoop!
But at least I matched Trixxie, my co-singer in Smash-Up Derby. We played a show at Halloween in the Castro, debuting a couple of new mash-up creations – I get to sing Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" while the band plays The Cars' "Just What I Needed"! Yay! I love singing that song! We also did "Jerks On Film" – The Caesars vs. Duran Duran. And of course, we did "Smells Like Monster Mash" as our set closer. It all went over really well. Definitely better than last year. We went on at 9:30 PM, which was great for us. No "hurry up and wait."
I actually got to walk throught the throngs of people this year ... something I hadn't done in years. Only about half the crowd was dressed up, and of that half, only half of them had decent costumes. The rest of them were like, "If I wear this funny hat or these horns, then I'm in costume!" Lame. But I walked over to Marcy Meow's, who was hosting a little refuge from the Halloween madness. Hung out with Princess Kennedy and Jordan L'Moore of our sister band, Pepperspray, who played right before us. Fun!
Good times! The doors opened at 10 pm, and there was a dance floor going by 10:20! What made 'em dance? How Obie Trice vs. The Faint? It shouldn't work, but it totally did. I followed that up with our new one, "Real Big Time" (see above) and it went off!
DJ Axel then took over, and he played a rock-solid set of crowd-pleasing hip-hop mashes, riling everybody up. Then DJ Paul V. took it into an indie direction, firing up the crowd before the midnight mash-up show, starring ... ME!
Princess Kennedy had flaked on us that evening, informing us that she had spent her plane ticket money on Botox, and was still in San Francisco. (I'm not making this up!) So I filled in, pulling a number out of my ass by singing live to an instrumental Smash-Up Derby track (Franz Ferdinand vs. Talking Heads), which went over quite well. Then Mysterious D slammed down a great set, finally spinning solo, since Party Ben had to sit this Bootie out.
Paul and I finished off the night, much booty was shaken, many CDs were given away, and ... someone even stole our Bootie pirate flag! Aaaargh! Those things cost money, dammit! Now we've gotta get a new one made. Grrrr ... as our friend Buck from The Mutaytor said that night: "The rock star in you loves it. The Jew in you hates it." Next time, we're wiring that thing with an alarm!
We've got four DJs from the UK coming this week for Bootie here in San Francisco ... plus Strangely Familiar from Nashville! It's going to an insane weekend. And then in two weeks we leave for Paris! Aaaaigh!
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