Drag Queen Collapses at Charlie Horse

SFist reports that drag performer Anna Warhola collapsed on the stage at Charlie Horse this past Friday at the end of the performance, was taken to the hospital, and is now in a coma. Wow. Comments seem to indicate that, at first, no one realized that it wasn't part of the routine, and then the paramedics showed up and did intensive CPR, having to revive her several times. Cause of collapse is unknown, but SFist reports that the diagnosis was "cardiac and respiratory arrest." If anyone knows how to contact Anna/Paul Brinegar's family they should get in touch with Anna Conda (charliehorsecinch[at]yahoo.com) or The Cinch (415-776-4162).

Dueling Drag Diva Divertisements

I was postering through the Castro yesterday evening for Fuck Shit, Let's Dance, and as I was about to tape a poster to a lightpole I noticed something; every other event that had postered that pole featured a drag queen. There was Suppositori Spelling on the Lucky Pierre poster (who, that night, actually played strip poker and we got to see how much of a boy she really is!); Heklina on the Bearracuda poster (which advertised a full-on drag show at midnight); the Monster Show with Cookie Dough at Harvey's; and two Trannyshack events, the Big Sleazy and the Trannyshack Reno show.

Now, granted, I assumed that the forces of Heklina were behind several of these posters, but it did stop and make me think about something I've been pondering for a while, which is the significance of drag to the San Francisco gay nightlife scene. Aside from these events, there's also Charlie Horse at The Cinch and other events at Deco and Aunt Charlie's Lounge, and drag shows have also been big parts of parties from Comfort and Joy and Honey Sound System; in fact, it seems that, if you don't have some kind of drag performer or performance associated with your event, you're missing an important component of what people have come to expect.

Now, I'm not being critical of this - Lord knows, after the dust-up with the furries, the last thing I need is a bunch of pissed-off drag queens on my ass - but I do find it curious, as I don't remember drag being such a big deal when I first moved here in 1999. I was later talking with a friend about this, someone who has lived here a lot longer than I have, and he confirmed that drag queens did seem to be a much bigger deal in the scene now than they were back then.

My theory is that it all has to do with the success of Trannyshack, and the number of Miss Trannyshack winners who have decided to use their title to further themselves in the nightlife scene, which is entirely appropriate. I think Juanita More is the first former Miss Trannyshack I became aware of as an actual promoter, and then there's Midnight Mass from Peaches Christ as well.

So, I'm curious to hear from you all about this; do you think that drag has increased in prominence in the SF scene over the past decade or so, and, if so, why? If it's because of Miss Trannyshack, do you think that, since it's now coming to an end, this will change the complexion (so to speak) of the overall scene? What do you think drag means for the scene in general?

Event Review: Friday Night on Polkstrasse, Bender at The Transfer

The thing about being a socialite and man-about-town is that it's often an exhausting affair; every Friday and Saturday there is at least one command performance and one optional activity that need or should be taken in, and during this time of year, when I discover that I'm surrounded by Scorpios who all celebrate their birthdays on the same Fridays, the pace is just maddening. A case in point is this past Friday, when the boyfriend and I had to undertake a series of carefully timed surgical strikes at Kimo's, The Cinch, and the Transfer to make sure we fulfilled all our of required social duties.

First there was Kimo's, where an ex-housemate and bandmate of the boyfriend was playing with his band Smile Brigade. I don't think I've been to Kimo's before; I'm sure I would have remembered the smell of the upstairs if I had. We hung out and had a couple drinks while the boyfriend and his buddy, Jeremy, caught up on things like touring, marriages, and tales of other Seattle-ites. We had wanted to catch their set but, this being the world of indie bands, everything was running an hour late, and we still had to see Frieda Laye for her birthday at the Cinch before we could wind up our night at The Transfer. We left there around 10.30 and trooped up the Polkstrasse, only to remember that drag queen time has much in common with indie rock time; we had another drink, then the birthday girl and Juanita Fajita showed up just before we had to head out the door again. This was too bad, as it was shaping up to be yet another fun night of Charlie Horse antics - the boyfriend and I had both already been on the receiving end of some serious flirtation, including a little making out on the back patio, and there were alternaqueers and Burner boys all around.

We arrived at The Transfer around 11.30. Last month's Bender had been quite an affair, and this one was every bit as lively. Kid Hack of Electropolis was on deck spinning electro when we first arrived, there was an underwear-clad go-go boy strutting around on the benches (DJ6 later told me that their regularly scheduled go-gos had failed to show up, but this boy spontaneously volunteered to fill the gap - yep, it's that kind of party), and a very friendly and fun mixed, though predominantly queer, crowd. I think Bender is probably the best no-cover Castro monthly going right now, so you should mark your calendars for the second Friday of the month and come check it out. Lord Kook will be the guest DJ next month, on Friday December 14, bringing in a harder, more electro set than he could get away with during his old residency at Drunk and Horny.

We wound out our night with a lifesaving burger at Sparky's; somewhere between one drink at The Cinch and the two I had at The Transfer I wound up being teeteringly drunk. It was a fun evening, though, one of the few times when I can say that all three of my destinations were places I would have gladly passed the entirety of the evening.

Event Review: Lights Down Low v. Charlie Horse

Sometimes you just can't win - you've hard a hard week and you're ready to go out and lose some of your cares, you pick a night where you've had good times before, but after that the world seems to conspire against you, telling you that, this time, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was the experience the boyfriend and I had this last Friday at Lights Down Low at Club 222.

This past week had seen some significant tremors shaking the foundations of our worlds - for me, it was a big shake-up at work that found me reporting to a new and unknown manager, while the boyfriend found out on Thursday that he had to vacate his apartment that he's been sharing for three years because his deadbeat housemates had been late on the rent one too many times. We scrambled around, took off work Friday morning and started apartment hunting. The whole day Friday we were both a mess of distraction and fretfullness, generally out-of-sorts and feeling thrown to the wolves. We both needed to get out and relax, but then the boyfriend was also anxious about being out late and drinking the night before a training run (he's running in the Seattle half-marathon at Thanksgiving with his step-mother and sister). In hindsight we'd probably have been better off having drinks at the Pilsner and playing XBox, but then we had an actual invitation, and supposed guest-list passes, to Lights Down Low, so we figured we'd play through since we'd had fun there before.

My first instinct for Friday had been to check out Sweet 16 at Mighty with C.L.A.W.S. and the other underground techno kids of that circle, but, in the middle of the week, I got an email from DJ Sleazemore of LDL thanking me for supporting them in my reviews and inviting us to come this Friday, along with a mention of putting me on the guest list. I gave him my real name, but, lo and behold, we show up and there's no one with my particular set of unprounounceable Germanic syllables on the list. Bad Sign Number One. Bad Sign Number Two is that the cover is now $7 - this is a bad pricepoint kids, because no night that is really about a group of people getting together in a small Tenderloin bar and playing music is worth more than $5 - more than that and you're over-reaching. We walked in feeling mildly irritated with the world, and now were feeling positiviely peevish.

We hung out and had a couple drinks, then went outside for a bit while the boyfriend had a smoke, during which time Bad Sign Number Three occurred - someone threw a bottle of Hennesy at us from a window in the building either above or next to the club, missing us by about five feet. Nothing makes you feel welcome like having a bottle of liquor hurled in your general direction.

We went back in and found a seat in the small niche on the back of the dancefloor, and after another drink were starting to relax, though our conversation was focused on whether or not party nights are really all that important to the culture of the world, with the boyfriend being of the now dour opinion that it was all really vapid and stupid. I was trying to argue to the contrary when Bad Sign Number Four occurred (and somewhat undercut my argument).

Four kids, two boys and two girls (and I believe one of the boys may have been part of the LDL crew), came back and formed a kind of screen at the opening of our little seating enclosure, with their backs to the outside crowd. I watched as the girl began trying to "nonchalantly" fish something out of her bag. Instantly the boyfriend I both figured out what was up, and were pretty amused. Then the girl came and sat beside me - though it was barely enough room for her to plant her butt, there was no "hi," "excuse me," or anything else, even when I smiled and said "hi" to her. She continued to dig in her bag, and then one of the boys undid the lightbulb that lit our area, so we were sitting in the dark as the girl once again stood with the boys. And then we saw what she had taken from her bag, and it made the rounds of all four people while they were facing directly at us. Now kids, if you are going to do bumps in front of other people and not offer them any, that's just rude - remember back in grade school when you were told not to pull out your chewing gum unless you had enough to offer everyone a piece? Same principle applies here. Neither of us would have done any (well, I might have), but there's nothing to make you feel quite so small as to have people blantently doing drugs right in front of you, as though you are way too insignificant to be of any threat, or even interest, to them, especially when one of them is probably associated with the event itself. As soon as they left (without even bothering to screw the lightbulb back in, mind you - sorry we took up the "reserved area," next time we'll sit with the rest of hoi polloi), we decided that it was time to make our exit as well - we had already heard Sleazemore's set, which hadn't appealed to either of us, and while the boyfriend recognized several tracks that he liked in Rchrd OH!'s set, we decided to cut our losses and head up to Charlie Horse at The Cinch.

When we left the club we were almost trampled by six Latino guys running down the street in pursuit of someone, and then a moment later another bottle was thrown down onto the street. Okay, okay, we get the message already, I thought. We wandered up through the 'Loin to Polk and Washington, stopping for pizza along the way, and in the vicinity of The Hemlock Tavern overheard a Marina chick in heels say "I'm so glad they're starting to clean this area up." Us too, honey. We got to The Cinch just in time to catch the show, get ass-grabbed by Juanita Fajita, and have a couple laughs that lightened our mood.

So there you have it, a tale of how you can start out with the best of intentions and have everything wind up kind of shitty, so that, in the end, you're better off going with the easy and predictable. I still like Lights Down Low and think it has great fun potential - there were loads of kids having a good time on the dancefloor when we left, though I felt like it was more a party of people who knew each other already rather than a danceclub that was for everyone; there are more cute boys of the complicated haircut and black eyeliner sort than you can shake a stick at; it's getting gayer and gayer all the time; and though the music on this outing put me more in mind of The Cafe than the edgy electro I've heard there before, I still think it's a good place to go and get in touch with a different aesthetic - but on this particular occasion it was a strike-out. If it hadn't been for Juanita getting all flirty with me at The Cinch, I might have ended this Friday feeling pretty non-existant, and that sure isn't the reason I, or anyone else, likes to go out. And kids, if you're going to do drugs in clubs, do them in the bathroom, okay? That's what they're there for.

Event Review: Charlie Horse "Carnival of Freaks" at The Cinch

In my experience of drag shows, you generally get one of two things: the hardcore "illusion" drag where the girls really, really pass as women, and usually reference classic female vocalists in their performances; or "chaos" drag, where the girls and their peformances have more in common with the Grand Guignol tradition. In San Francisco you have Marlena's as the epitome of the first sort, with Charlie Horse at The Cinch on Friday nights delivering horror, chaos, blood, indeterminate gender assignment, jokes about drug abuse, and performances that would be way too weird, gross, or just plain out bizarre for Trannyshack. Overall, I much prefer Charlie Horse to just about any other drag show I have ever seen.

The "Carnival of Freaks" show this past Friday was typical Charlie Horse: Anna Conda as a Marlene Dietriech-eque ring master, Frieda Laye and Juanita Fajita as conjoined twins singing a duet, a boy who really wanted to be Bjork performing a track from her new album, and another performer who wound up covered in (hopefully fake) blood that s/he continued to wear for the rest of the night. Tod Browning's Freaks was playing on the bar TVs, and the relation between those sexual outsiders and the ones in the bar was obvious; everyone performing and watching, was, in relation to the world outside that bar, a freak, so why not have some fun with it?

The performances and costumes at Charlie Horse are not as polished as what you'll find at Tranny Shack, which has become a veritable institution on the level of Beach Blanket Babylon, but there is a punk rock aesthetic (underscored by the indie rock spins of DJ Dirty Knees) that makes the Charlie Horse shows more immediate and thought-provoking. The girls at Trannyshack are certainly Queens, having risen up through the ranks of drag society and now reached the highest possible levels of hairstyle engineering, but the performers at Charlie Horse seem much more willing to take risks in their performance of drag, and the personas that they create are not as much about a representation of the feminine, or even the creation of a definitive personality, as they are vehicles around which they can build a performance. In this way (and I mean this in the best possible way, lest I get a stiletto heel through the eye) they are more like clowns than queens; not the watered-down children's TV version of clowns, but more like the jesters who can amuse and disquiet us at the same time.

Charlie Horse is a fun time; I enjoy going there on a Friday night when I want to have an easygoing drink, sit on the back deck and smoke, see a few friends or maybe chat up somebody new. But Charlie Horse is also where I can go to see peformances that make me laugh, and sometimes even make me think.

The Jaded Gay DJ on the Road!

Hey kids, the jaded gay dj is on the road this week, working on the skills that pay the bills (really, I don't make a living at this, ya know?) So while I'm in the midwest capital of fun (until Wednesday), Minneapolis, expect the updates to be a little less frequent. But here's a sneak preview of what I'll be putting up for you in the next few days:

Charlie Horse's "Carnival Freaks" at The Cinch: Anna Conda as Marlene Dietrich, Frieda Laye and Juanitia Fajita as conjoined twins - think about that for a while!

Techno Parties in the Park: to paraphrase an associate, I love it when the biggest problem of my day is figuring out which techno party in the park is the one I meant to attend!

Minneapolis Scene Report: hey, gay bars here are just as boring as they are in San Francisco!

Watch this space for more soon!

Your Friday Guide

For some reason, Fridays have become my favorite night to go out. I'm not sure why this is, but it seems that most of the events of interest to me happen on Fridays. Well, that's just fine, more time to recover. So, for this Friday the jaded gay DJ recommends:

FUK werk Fridays Happy Hour at 111 Minna
A new minimal techno happy hour in downtown, yee-haa!

Fag Fridays at The EndUp
Reliable, if not all that exciting, but it goes all night, expect to pay around $20 to get in and to dance to pretty typical San Francisco deep house (the DJs should update their bios, since they refer to clubs that don't exist any more)

The Rod at Deco
FREE before 10, $5 after, where the guys tend to be a bit frisky, though the music is all disco-retro

Charlie Horse at The Cinch
Free entry, easy-going, cheap strong drinks, crazy drag escapades, a good place to put down a couple on a Friday night when you're looking for a low-key but entertaining evening

Lights Down Low at 222 Club
I've not had a chance to check out this night yet but it seems interesting (despite the cliche "sexy girls" video they have on their myspace page), with good reviews for the bar itself on Yelp. If anybody goes and can give a report, please do so for the benefit of myself and everyone else looking for a good time. This Friday is DJ Sleazemore's birthday, so expect some celebrating.

Not sure where I'll end up at this point; I've heard that there's a tattoo studio in Oakland that will do a "13" for you on Friday the 13th for 13 dollars, so the boyfriend and I may be getting inked with a friend of his, and lord knows what we'll get up to after that. I'll be sure to let you know, though.

Charlie Horse at The Cinch, "PJ Harvey Night"

This past Friday I made it up to The Cinch on Polk Street for another installment of Charlie Horse, this time with the theme of PJ Harvey - yes, drag queens and PJ Harvey are two things that go great together. DJ Dirty Knees once again played a set of generally inoffensive "rock" that made for tolerable background as I hung out with several members of Comfort and Joy who were finally recovered from last week's Afterglow escapades.

Anna Conda was just back from a European tour, including a chance to see The Decemberists in Amsterdam. Her take on Euro club music was that it was "awful," being all "canned house" that reminded her of "mecha-Cher." I was very curious about what she was talking about exactly, and where she had gone to hear this awful music - while it's true that Euro prole-techno is among the most horrible atrocities ever committed upon the ears of humans, my impression is that you would only hear this stuff in the most prole clubs, since the cool kids are all spinning minimal these days. Anna went on to say how lucky we were to have two "gay rock" nights in San Francisco, Charlie Horse being one, the other being Trans Am, also DJed by Dirty Knees. I suppose it makes sense for drag queens to be into rock, since long, abstract tracks with no lyrics don't really present performance opportunities, and for a drag queen, anything that distracts an audience's attention from her has got to go. Personally, I prefer clubs where people dance rather than stand around with their arms folded over their chests, but that's just me.