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).

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!

Ducal Doin's: The Mr. Bunny Contest Rages On!

The contest for Mr. and Miss Bunny continued on Sunday at the Cinch, where Diamond Disco Duke Brian Busta convened his court once again for an Easter Basket auction to benefit the SPCA’s hearing dogs for the deaf. This time there was extra fun in the form of Gotcha, a shepherd mix dog who demonstrated for the crowd all the neat things she has been trained to do, like picking up keys when they get dropped, or making sure her companion knows that the phone is ringing.

The Cinch up on Polkstrasse was a great venue that brought out such luminaries as Miss Anna Conda and, making command performances, Juanita Fajita and Frieda Laye. In between performances various Easter baskets were auctioned off, and yours truly, feeling inspired by Gotcha and disinhibited by three of the strongest drinks I’ve had at a bar in a long time, walked off with two of them, including one that came with a painting created by the Duke hisself. The Mr. and Miss Bunny contestants, meanwhile, continued to sell raffle tickets in an attempt to boost their standings in said contest. And here’s where I’ve a bone to pick with the workings of the Ducal court.

So here’s the deal: contestants actually pay for the books of raffle tickets they sell, so essentially what happens is that if they have enough money of their own, they can buy the tickets straight out and don’t really need to worry about the re-sale. But my good friend Kitty, who is competing against Mr. SPCA whom I mentioned in the last Ducal post, is an underemployed graphic designer who is doing all he can right now to pay his rent and meet his other financial obligations. He got into the contest because of his personal friendship with the Duke, whom he wanted to help out, and because he wanted to do some community service work. Mr. SPCA, on the other hand, is fully employed and, no doubt, has plenty of friends with money as well. As I pointed out in my last post, there seems to be some conflict of interest with him competing in this contest when it’s being used to raise money for the non-profit that he works for, but I’m more concerned that this whole court business devolves, eventually, into classist system that favors people who have money, and move in moneyed circles, rather than people who are there because they want to do something for their community. I certainly hope that the final decision will be based on something other than just fundraising. I’m sure Mr. SPCA is a nice guy, and I will refrain from catty comments about things like hair coloring and how only Polk Street hustlers walk around with the middle button of their jeans undone, but I think the cards are being stacked in an unfair way against Kitty. The crowning will take place on Easter Sunday at Café Flore, so we’ll see how it all works out by then,

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.