Tuesday, February 15, 2005 A Very Tranny Valentine's Day So after work, and after I'd acquired a pair of gold lame shoes, I went home to find Das Roomie there, a fairly rare occurance these days. Even more rare, Das Roomie asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her, as she'd been loaned a screener of Bad Education and needed to return it soon. "I'm going out at 9:30, but I can do it if it's less than two hours." "Well, how long is the movie?" "Let me ask the Internet." The Internet said it was 109 minutes. I had time for a quick run. Bad Education was totally great -- film noir soaked in technicolor, visually stunning, incredibly well-acted. I'm always kinda wary about Almodovar, as I found All About My Mother (I'm not pretentious enough to go look up the Spanish-language title) a bit plodding, but this was tight and coherent and yeah, Gael Garcia Bernal is just eight kinds of hot. Fele Martinez was interesting, too. I didn't love him in Abre los ojos (hey, that one I don't need to look up) but here he did a great job of carrying the movie forward. When the movie was over and I scrambled to get ready, Das Roomie asked what I was doing. "A friend's birthday party." "Where at?" "Jumbo's Clown Room." "And that would be..." "A tranny strip club and dive bar. You wanna come?" Das Roomie chose wisely. The stage of Jumbo's Clown Room has apparently been host to any number of notorious characters, up to and including Courtney Love. Sad clown paintings and statues decorate the walls and bar, and thick plastic doilies cover the tabletops -- the stage takes up nearly a third of the room, one panel of the mirrored ceiling dangling precariously by the sturdy brass pole. There were candy conversation hearts on the table, and press clippings framed by the entrance. We sat at the back, taking it all in, playing "Who's not a tranny?" and bopping along with the music. By far the strangest moment of the night came when we were mouthing along with Lo Fidelity Allstars' "Battleflag" and it turned out to be the radio edit. "Motherfucking knees" became "kkkkkkknees" as the Betty Page wannabe removed her bikini top. And we laughed. The dancers, a mix of "real" and "fake," were pretty good, most of them seeming to really have fun up on stage, in that strange Suicide Girls sorta fashion. At least two of them were tattooed enough for Suicide Girls, in fact, and in Googling Jumbo's I found more than a few links between the two. Which just lead me to ponder what a great racket Suicide Girls is. "We'll totally post naked pictures of you on the internet! For free! It won't cost you a red cent! Won't that be fun?" $60 at Jumbo's buys you a "Special Birthday Show," and we all chipped in so that the birthday girl, sitting in a chair on stage, could be surrounded by six girls, all shaking "like a Polaroid picture." It was possibly the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen. And afterwards the dancers bought the birthday girl a drink! Which was totally nice. So as the evening wore down, we started playing "Who's not a tranny?" with a great deal more enthusiasm. All of the dancers looked real, looked great, at least to my untrained eyes. But we had our suspicions about one or two, debating whether the breasts were real, whether the hips were wide enough. The last dancer of the night strutted on stage, working the pole, gyrating against the wall, butterflied by her reflection. "What about her?" "She could be-" "I don't know-" "Hey, was she always wearing that choker?" "Yeah-" "I think-" "OHHHH." We tripped lightly home, happy to have once again witnessed the ways in which gender can be overcome. It was a most excellent Valentine's Day, indeed. | permalink blog • archives • photos • about • contact This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All content © 2004.