GAYETY!!!!!!

If you're weren't at Gayety you missed...

...awesome queer trivia with some of our best prizes yet (mostly because people kept me away from prize seeking duties)
...a pregnant evangelical playing a small musical instrument that resembles a guitar, but is smaller.
...my story about a night-time adventure on the ptown beaches that would have resulted in arrest, were it not for a quick thinking middle child friend (not to worry, I didn't use any names, although feel free to out yourself here)

The crowd was amazing. The place was packed, standing rooming only, and even though it was ridiculously hot, almost everyone stayed to the end.

Thanks everyone who came out to support us!

Bevin, of course, was the hilarious engaged Glitter Queen at her very best. Bevin should probably emcee every queer thing that happens in the English speaking world (well okay as long as I get to perform at all those events too).  Leigh was his usual fabulous and charismatic self, Betty Pages made at least one person fall off their chair laughing AND got the whole crowd involved in her singalong. And Joel Derfner made all the boys swoon and everyone (boys, girls, other) laugh. It was a lovely night. I performed too, I did some of my older material and some that was brand -just-written on the subway new!

We've gotten nice email about the event including at least person who got a date out of the evening. What was it that Sarah Schulman said? "If you're not finding someone a girlfriend you're not working for the revolution?"*

It makes me SO happy how people react to Gayety, even in New York where there tons and tons and tons of other things to do.

The Center folks taped the whole thing, so there should be video available soon.

*Okay, I am sure she did NOT say it exactly that way, and google shows up nothing. I use that quote all the time, I should check that it's not just a qu-urban legend. Any thoughts?

Next week I'm headed down to Florida for a few a gigs, so I thought I'd dig out something I wrote about my last trip to Florida, a journey where I learned that my mother's hairdresser has pierced nipples AND how to handle an especially unruly crowd.

Mic Me

 At a recent road gig in a certain Florida city, I was booked for a show that was slated to begin at 10:30 PM, but didn’t get started until almost 11:55. Perhaps I should have taken this as omen:  11:55 is waaaaay past my bedtime.

Additionally, the audience members were substantially inebriated, and although each of them had paid a significant cover, ostensibly to see me perform, they were much more interested in playing bar games. You know, the old stand-bys like, “Let’s See Who Can Talk The Loudest” and “Let’s See Who Can Get Intoxicated and Fall Off Their Chair First” and my personal favorite “Let’s See Who Can Spew Drunken Vomit Closest to the Stage.”

 Such a situation is not completely unheard of in the stand-up world, and is often easily overcome with sheer volume because as the performer, you have access to a microphone. This microphone is attached to a sound system which enables you to draw attention to yourself and then use your abundant wit and humor to distract the audience from said games. You can then provide the show you are being paid (either in cash or, as is more common in the dyke comic world, in pussy and lube) to provide.

All this presupposes something very important. That the microphone works.

Alas, despite the fact that having a working microphone is a. written into my contract b. something I specifically mention in preliminary emails with the venue c. the first thing I check out when I arrive in the venue and d. something I will exchange copious sexual favorites in order to secure, the mic that night worked roughly, um, half the time.

I asked the venue to try to fix the system, but they couldn’t and my request for a back-up mic was met with an extremely blank stare. This means I never had control of the audience, no matter what I did.  I went dirty. Then I went filthy. I sat on the stage. I laid down on the stage. I did push-ups on the stage. I walked out into the crowd, sat on a stranger’s laps, and feigned masturbation.  I feigned masturbation on the stage. I considered actually masturbating on the stage, with the hopes of making a very difficult hour pass faster.

At one point during the show, I sat down next to a audience member, asked to borrow her lit cigarette, inhaled and promptly fell into paroxysms of coughing. The audience took this to be a cleverly executed bit of slapstick humor. However, because previous to that moment I had never so much as taken a drag from a cigarette, the coughing fit was actually quite real.

 It got the biggest laugh of the night.

 I was in the dressing room after my 60 minutes of public hell and one of the openers, a local drag performer, popped her head in.

 “That was a rough one,” she said, “You know what you should have done?”

 I waited expectantly. Drag queens perform in bars. A lot. Often under fairly adverse conditions like wearing hot clothes and itchy wigs and dangerously high heels. If anyone knows how to make a gig work in a tough venue, it’s going to be local drag performer.

 “You should have,” she leaned in so close I could see the glitter on her eyelids, and patted me almost maternally on the shoulder, “had a damn mic that worked.”

 And then she kissed my cheek and walked away, laughing heartily at her own joke.

 Now my sister did have a good point, albeit an obvious one. It’s a situation where being a bit more of a diva (“bitch, you better get me a mic that works or I’m not saying another word”) instead of a good natured, slightly codependent dyke comic (“Oh, it’s fine, I’ll just, um…improvise…”) would have definitely come in handy.

Perhaps that could be my new rallying cry.

 I’ll be the Nancy Reagan of the comedy world.

 Instead of “just say no” my slogan will the simple but direct “just get a mic.”

It’s comedy just like your mom used to make. If your mom was really really gay.
!!!Gayety!!!

Saturday September 22nd at 8:30 PM
Only seven bucks admission
At the LGBT Community Center 208 W 13th Street New York NY 10011

With…
Special guests

Betty Pages: Pregnant evangelical with a ukulele. Of course.


Joel Derfner : Gayest Person Ever ™


Leigh Thompson: Heartland escapee/furious trans activist/raging queer



And as always

Your host Glitter Queen Bevin Branlandingham
Kelli Dunham, The Raging Koala Bear Comic

Petunia the Trivia Goddess with fabulous prizes

Stand-up/Spoken Word/Humorous Mayhem!!!

By Bevin Branlandingham

I received the following responses to my correspondence with Craig (you must begin here and then follow up here to understand what is happening).

First, he must have googled me in order to give me this response (then he would know I am an organizer of Jersey City Pride). Unless he assumed "Bevin" is a boy's name and I referred to my "boyfriend".
( he finally sent me pictures of the dog, by the way, click here for more )

Sign in the bathroom of Cotton Cloud Futons, Portland Oregon.



Sign in the bathroom of the Rapture Cafe in New York.

There is really no wonder why I didn't fit in so well in Portland.

From Kelli:

I went back to my super-cheap Chelsea haircutting place, but this time I I was paired with a dude, and we were having a little language problem. As in we didn't seem to share one in common. I felt reluctant to communicate my hair desires with only gestures.

But then I remembered how fellow Gayety organizer, Bevin Brandlingham, observed that my last haircut "looked a lot like fleet week."

So I said "fleet week?"

And the guy buzzed away.

And I looked upon my haircut and I was happy.

And decided that from this day forth I shall call this particular haircut "Fleet Week."

The end.

Look, they sell 'em, at Target!

As much as this makes me seem like I must have been adopted, I don't have much propensity for the kind of substance abuse that causes one to end up naked in gutter in a pile of one's own vomit ( as opposed to waking up naked in someone else's vomit, which would be perhaps even more unpleasant). In fact, I have never been drunk enough to have a hangover, despite the fact that in my family we were given our first drink at age four.  And by drink I don't mean a sip of a beer. I mean an actual drink, with ice and a little bit of water and the liquor of our choice, in my case, lime flavored vodka.

Although most flavored vodkas these days are clear, in  the 1970s colors were important. Which means it is entirely possible that my love of the lime colored Diet Mountain Dew developed from those (fuzzy of course) childhood memories of enjoying a cocktail with my dad after school.

My love of Diet Mountain Dew is somewhat infamous amoungst my friends. For example, out of the blue, the incredible fattest mailed me  a vintage mountain dew tee shirt, which was the inspiration for this week's