A Dahl’s House

Getting a chance to catch up with the blog during my flight to Tucson for the IFGE conference….

Had a show last Friday at The Cinch. The night’s theme was “Riot Grrls”—and since it was an unexpected booking, I hadn’t had anything songs lined up. Fortuitously  though, there was a Grace Potter and the Nocturals song, “If I Was From Paris,” that I’d been interested in doing, but felt was a little too hard-edged for my other shows. It’s not actually vintage riot grrl, but it’s definitely got the same ‘tude. (It’s also unlike most of GP&N’s other stuff, which is more along the lines of Janis Joplin-fronting-The Black Crowes-with-Booker T. on the Hammond B3 organ.)

It was also the birthday of another performer “Damn Dyke,” who was celebrating her “seven-year bitch.” So Anna started the show with a cake, which she proceeded to fling into the crowd and onto the stage. The next performer also had cake, which she did a face-plant into, and then shook herself like a dog. So when I took the stage, it was a gooey, lethally slippery mess. Plus I’d found some cool new shoes that look very glam, but with heels that about an inch higher than I’m used to. So it was a very nervous Joie de Vivre who took the stage….

Then Anna made a point of telling the crowd how much she enjoys seeing me bust a move while I’m performing. Thanks, Anna—I’ll get you back, my pretty…. But I managed to make it through without turning an ankle or falling on my ass. It wasn’t my best performance, because I was having to keep one eye on the stage to avoid slipping, but I guess it must have come across alright, since I got a complement from Trauma Flintstone (who was there en drab) after the show.

I’ve got a show at Aunt Charlie’s tomorrow night and I realized it’s been a year since I first took the stage as a dewy-eyed drag-princess-in-training. I’ll have some Deep Thoughts about drag in the near future, but tonight I just wanted to say thanks to all the singers whose songs I perform.

Special thanks to those who make up the core of my set list:

• Candye Kane – “The toughest girl alive” whose voice is as big and beautiful as she is.


• Joan Osborne - Best known as a one-hit wonder, she’s actually full of blues and soul and rock and sheer passion.


• Grace Potter – A singer of near Joplinesque charisma who also plays a mean Hammond B-3 organ.

As well as to:

• Shirley Bassey


• The Be Good Tanyas


• Bonnie Bramlett


• Exene Cervenka


• Wendi Colter


• Martha Davis


• Geri Halliwell


• Chrissie Hynde


• Deborah Iyall


• Angelique Kidjo


• Jill King


• Lisa Koch


• Rickie Lee Jones


• Miranda Lambert


• Annie Lennox


• Courtney Love


• Luscious Jackson


• Allanah Myles


• Bonnie Raitt


• Susheela Raman


• Dusty Springfield


• Margo Timmins


• KT Tunstall


• Gretchen Wilson

I may mouth the words, but you came up with them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Had a great time yesterday going “in costume” to work. You can’t really see it in the picture, but I had a boa, so that with the cigarette holder I was nominally ’40s movie star or something. (BTW, I discovered that boas are hot—I mean temperature-wise. Which makes sense, since it’s not that different than having a down sleeping bag wrapped around your shoulders.)

The year before I went as Little Red Riding Hood and would’ve won the contest if I hadn’t been a consultant at the time—so those folks who’d been around then might’ve of noticed a pattern… But there were a lot of people wanting to see how I’d top last year’s costume.

The best part is the number of people who didn’t even recognize me (both years). For example, our HR director told me that when she first saw me, she wondered why there was a new hire that she didn’t know about.

The interesting thing is that one of the two other co-winners was Felicia, who’s a drag king in her spare time—and who came as a British bobby, complete with handlebar mustache, some very furry forearms and a piece of tissue covering a shaving accident (her trademark). Some there was a bit of high-profile gender-bending. Especially since our CEO made a point of having his picture taken with me. (I also had my picture taken with the HR director and one of C-level executives.)

The biggest challenge is figuring out how to top myself next year. There’s some adorable Marie Antoinette costumes (complete with matching shoes!), but not in plus size.

But everyone seemed to get a kick out of it, and a fair number of people in the company now know that I do drag. (A small number know that my crossdresser isn’t just for the stage.)

Get ready for the TransGender San Francisco fundraiser and Halloween party. Yes it’s at Marlena’s (488 Hayes St., San Francisco) again and Marlena is putting up all her Disney collection. And naturally there will be a prize for the best Disney costume as well as for other wacky categories. If you were lucky enough to catch the show last year, you know there will be talent galore again this year—including little old me. So put it on your calendar and get started on your costume! Sunday October 28th at 4 p.m.!

Another busy weekend… Thursday I attended the premiere of the excellent documentary, “Drag: Not Just Men in Heels” (more about that in an upcoming post).

Then Friday night, I performed at Little Jason’s benefit for a local youth center at Marlena’s. We raised over $1,000 and Jason—who went in drag for the evening—looked quite cute. I was asked to do three songs, but upon seeing house packed with queens I knew that wasn’t to be. But I still got do two songs and tried a new one—“I Need a Man” by the Eurythmics. (I also want try “Missionary Man.)

Sunday was the installation of Mr. and Ms. Cowboy for the Imperial Court. I didn’t really have any cowgirl outfits (nor did any of the other queens as it turned out), so I settled for Texas tacky. And I had just the song to go along it with “Vanity” by Lisa Koch (who does both comedy songs and cabaret jazz—and who’s well worth checking out). It was hit… Sue told me people were singing along by the second chorus, so it’s definitely on my heavy-rotation list. I also had a cry-in-your-drink country ballad by Koch: “Back When We Had Sex.” (As Lisa says: This is an “R” rated song, so for God’s sake… put on the headphones, or shoo Grandma and the kids out of the room.) Sunday’s fundraiser also raised about $1,000 for Court’s charity fund.

I’m one tired queen at the moment after yesterday’s Drag-a-thon at Marlena’s—a 12-hour drag show raising money for the Castro Valley Lions Club.

I’d heard that with that much time to fill, I could probably perform as much
material as I could get ready and I figured it was a great opportunity to try out new stuff in front of live audience and get some practice in. And… OK, I admit it… I’m a stage slut.

Admittedly, I went a bit overboard in getting ready—I put together about two dozen songs in total. But I once fronted a band in the glorious days of a misspent youth, and I’m able to memorize lyrics pretty quickly. Plus I figured it would let me pick and choose depending on the mood I was in and the mood of the crowd. The real effort was in editing the songs—probably two-thirds of them needed to be trimmed down in length, or to take out instrumental breaks (which can seem like a reeeaaallly long time when you’re up there on stage without anything to down but dance around). I’ve also learned that when in doubt, err on the side of faster tempos and shorter songs. Finally, it took bit of experimentation to figure out which songs seemed to fit best with my on-stage persona. So some of the songs may never see the stage lights.

Anyway, after a couple weeks of preparation—and two new dresses—Father’s Day finally arrived. I got up all too early—since it takes two hours from shave to shoes to get ready—and even though I don’t have much an appetite first thing in the morning I tried to force myself eat a big breakfast since I probably wouldn’t get a chance to eat for quite awhile. Despite my best attempts I still ended leaving behind schedule—having to make an emergency run to the drug for some safety pins and stick-on nails didn’t help—and ended up getting up to Marlena’s around 1 p.m. But true to drag shows everywhere, the Drag-a-thon hadn’t started on time anyway, so I only missed about a half-hour of it.

I was put on stage almost immediately and from there I usually did at least one number for each of the hour-long sets. It was fascinating to see the different styles of drag—the Drag-a-thon draws performers from the half-dozen drag shows around San Francisco, who normally don’t necessarily cross paths with each other. I do an old-school “glamour drag” style—a friend said I look “vampy not campy” which is what I’m after. Then there’s what I’d call “chaos drag” which verges on performance art and often goes in for shock. One performing group, The Bearded Ladies, were exactly what their name implied, guys in full make-up with beards. And then there’s the sort of campy queens that are what most folks think of when you mention drag queens—although some of them were faux queens (drag queens trapped in the body of women). And there was a lone drag king as well, a bit disappointing since I’d hoped to see more of them.

I brought four dresses and ended up wearing three of them including a new black dress with sequins and a gorgeous saphire blue floor-length dress with beading and sequins. It cost more than I care to admit, but Nikki Star was drooling it. Nikki also brought two wigs she thought I’d be interested in. Both are similar in style to one I mostly use, but one was blonder and one was redder—and they were such a good deal I got them both.

The sapphire dress seems more appropriate to more moderately-paced songs, so I did Dusty Springfield’s “Spooky” and The Motels’ “Change My Mind” in the next two sets. “Change My Mind” is a torchy song, probably a bit too slow for a drag show, but it was the song that first came to mind when I thought about doing drag, so dammit I was gonna do it at least once.

My friend Kew drove all the way up from San Jose and got there about 5 p.m. but I wasn’t the best of hosts—I hadn’t eaten all day and was about to topple over. (Thankfully, I’d had to foresight to wear my “sensible shoes” (only 2” heels).) So right after she showed up I headed next door to Flipper’s Gourmet Hamburgers for some food. But what to eat when you’re in full make-up? Thankfully, Flipper’s also served breakfast all day, so I had an omelette and a much-needed cup of coffee. On the way back to Marlena’s, a Japanese tourist asked me and one of the Bearded Ladies to pose for a picture. ‘Cuz after all, it’s not a trip to San Francisco without drag queens.

Six hours to go… and all of sudden the crowd picks up for a couple hours. Since Kew is there, I break out one my signature songs, Geri Halliwell’s (the former Ginger Spice) “Look At Me,” which I’d been saving up. I’d told co-workers that I expected to get bumped as some of the bigger-name drag queens showed up in the evening, but I keep getting put into rotation.

9 p.m. It’s been a looong day. The show’s host Chlamydia Killroy, is doing her best to keep the energy up, but the bar is pretty empty, so it’s a challenge to get the crowd into it. I duck over to Flipper’s for a to-go order of fried mozzarella sticks—so bad, but just what I needed to keep going. (Unfortunately none of those calories ever seem to go to my hips…) The show’s now running about an hour late, so the hourly co-hosts start combining their sets.

11 p.m. The crowd has suddenly filled up again. Don’t these people have jobs to go to in the morning? Not that I’m complaining. I do KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.” Sort of an unexpected as a drag song, but it rocks the house. The show is now more than an hour-and-half behind schedule, and it finally wraps up at about 1 a.m. I’ve done 10 songs in total, my feet are killing me and my face probably has slid half-down my neck. It’s sort of like doing a marathon—I’m glad to say I’ve done the whole 12-plus hours, but once is enough. Next year, I’ll drop in for a couple hours.

The good news is that we raised about $1,300 for the Lions Club, the vast majority of it from the performers’ tips, which were donated. But the best news is that queens from two shows invited me to do guest spots—which is perfect. Doing a show every week is more than I want to do, but performing a couple times a month would be ideal.

Update: Mark those calendars! I’m scheduled to make guest appareance at the Charlie Horse show at The Cinch on July 27th, as well as doing a benefit at Marlena’s on July 13th.

In case you’re interested, here’s samples of the songs I did during the show, as well as the other songs on performance list. I’d love to get feedback on which ones you think work best

Drag-a-thon set list:

• “Adouma” by Angelique Kidjo—Fabu-licious African musician.


• “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall


• “Black Velvet” by Allanah Myles


• “Change My Mind” by The Motels


• “Here” by Luscious Jackson—Never had the success they deserved, but they did some mad boundary-crossing music.


• “I Know What Boys Like” by The Waitresses—Holy New Wave flashback, Batman!


• “Look At Me” by Geri Halliwell (yes, the former Ginger Spice)—Unfortunately the actual recording has a bridge that makes you just go WTF, but a little editing got rid of it. Definitely one of my faves and suuuch a drag queen anthem.


• “Peephole Queen” by Wendie Colter—One of those great musicians who got rave reviews but who never managed to hit the big-time. Her album, “Payday” can still be found on Amazon, although sadly it replaced two what I thought where her best songs that were on an earlier version of the CD that I bought from her after a concert.


• “Right Hand Man” by Joan Osbourne—Best known as a one-hit wonder for “What if God was) One of Us,” Osbourne had some great other tunes.


• “Spooky” by Dusty Springfield – Oh yeah, we’re getting Old School.

Other songs in my set list:

• “#1 Crush” by Garbage —Not quite sure about this one. I did speed up the tempo slightly.


• “A Common Disaster” by the Cowboy Junkies. I love Margo Timmon’s sleepy seductive vocals.


• “Celebrity Skin” by Hole —Another bit of a stretch, but a chance to embrace my inner dysfunctional, drug-addled rocker chick.


• “Citysong” by Luscious Jackson


• “Danny’s All-Star Joint” by Rickie Lee Jones—One of my faves, which I’ve performed a few times.


• “El Album” by Los Aterciopelados—A Chilean rock band whose name means “The Velvety Ones”—how ab-fab is that!—they’ve got some really groovoi stuff melding various musical styles.


• “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man” by Concrete Blonde—Great band and Johnette Napolitano voice rivals that of Chrissie Hynde’s. Much as I wanted to do more of their songs, they just were just a little too hard-edged.


• “I Need a Man” by the Eurythmics—Anne Lennox is fierce.


• “Jealous Dogs” by The Pretenders—Chrissie Hynde is a such a damn good songwriter that there’s lot of little-known gems like this one.


• “Louie Louie” by The Pretenders—No, not that “Louie Louie.”


• “Love Trap” by Susheela Raman—Thanks LinkTV’s world music program for turning me on to a variety of excellent music.


• “Luz Azul” by Los Aterciopelados


• “Message of Love” by The Pretenders—Sensing a pattern yet?


• “Misson of Mercy” by The Motels—Another underrated band.


• “Missionary Man” by the Eurythmics


• “My Boyfriend” by The Cucumbers—Yes, they’re obscure. Very obscure. Not quite sure it’s right for me, but it’s a fun tune.


• “Private Life” by The Pretender—Probably too slow, but it’s Chrissie at her “don’t fuck with me fellas” best.


• “Sympathique” by Pink Martini—Probably a bit of a stretch but fun.


• “Tak Boom” by Yulduz Usmanova—I need a partner to do this as a duet, but how many queens have pop songs from Uzbekistan in their repetoire? It is goofily fun, with a surprisingly complicated beat to it.


• “The Adultress”—The Pretenders


• “Time the Avenger” by The Pretenders


• “Wrap It Up” by Romeo Void—Another great New Wave band with a powerful female vocalist who oozed “DQ ‘tude.” (Still have to figure out a way to do “Never Say Never”...)

Lemme know what you think…

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.

Yes, nothing quite says Father’s Day (June 17th) like drag queens. The 4th Annual Drag-a-Thon at Marlena’s, benefitting the Lions Club, starts at noon and runs until midnight. That’s 12 hours of non-stop drag, folks, and means I can probably perform as many numbers as I can prepare. So I’ve got a lot of rehearsing to do during the next few weeks.

I’m not sure exactly how early I’ll show up and when I’ll be on stage, but if you’re in town, please do drop by.

Had a fun afternoon at Marlena’s, performing in their Mommy Dearest fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund. Needless to wire coat hangers were in abundance. I also had the pleasure of meeting Ally and her partner, Traci, who dropped by to see me perform.

Got a chance to debut a new song—“Look at Me” by Gerri Halliwell, formerly Ginger Spice. Take a listen. I had to do some editing to take out the “WTF were they thinking” bridge. I’ve also learned to err on the side of faster-paced and shorter, so I’m discovering many songs can use a little nipping and tucking.

It was also the debut of performing under my stage name: Joy de Vie. Originally it was going to be Joie de Vivre—unfortunately no one seems to be able to pronounce it. It’s maybe not the fiercest name around, but I like the allusion. The interesting thing is that now that I’ve got drag to satisfy my inner diva, Marlena as a name seems a little too flambouyant for “everyday life.” So I’ll probably be shortening it to Lena.

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.

I finally made my first semi-official appearances as a drag queen the past two Sundays. For me, drag has a different appeal than crossdressing. This column summed it up well:

the drag queen’s message is this: Yes, I’m a gay man, and if you’re going to think I’m a girl, I’ll show you the fiercest, strongest, most beautiful girl you can imagine

OK, so the gay man part doesn’t fit, but being a glamazon does, as does embracing my inner performer. Admittedly, some drag queens can be quite misogynistic, but I haven’t seen that with the queens I hang out with. (Maybe it’s because they’re “glamour queens” rather than “camp queens” for the most part.)

The 15th was a fundraiser for Sister Uma Gawd, of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who’s doing the AIDS/Life Cycle ride in June. So there were a lot of queens there to help put the penguin on her bike and Marlena’s was packed.

I lucked out the day before and found a brown satin dress with beading at Ross, and I’d hit the MAC Pro store for a new drag look. Unfortunately, even with the write-up from the artist and some photos, I couldn’t quite replicate the eye shadow. Sigh. Rushed to get out of the house and up to San Francisco, only to discover that things were running on drag time— we didn’t actually get started until an hour after the official start time. My first number was Rickie Lee Jones’ “Danny’s All Star Joint,” a wonderful jazzy piece. For my second number, I supposed to do “The Adultress” by The Pretenders, but the DJ cued up the wrong track. Thankfully, it was “Message of Love,” which I knew equally well so the show was able to go on. All-in-all I had a blast, and even had some adoring fans who wanted their pictures taken with me afterwards.

This past Sunday was the birthday for someone who’s active in the Imperial Court, a local charitable group. The crowd was pretty light compared to the previous Sunday, mostly a lot of the Marlena’s regulars. I was wearing the dress in the photo and was hoping to have the actual drag hair as well. (My friend Patsy was going to style one of my wigs—hairspraying it within an inch of life—but unfortunately she wasn’t able to finish it in time.) I even had a new drag name: “Joy de Vivre.” There was only one problem: Miss Galilea (last year’s Empress of San Francisco), who was MCing the entertainment, couldn’t pronounce the last name. Not sure if I’ll need to go back the drawing board.

I finally got to do “The Adultress” and had a good reception from the crowd. I even picked up $14 in tips. But by the time it was time do my second number, things had thinned out and it was real challenge to try to play to a distracted room. In part, I realized that the song—Joan Osborne’s “Right Hand Man”—wasn’t quite right. On paper it seemed good: a rollicking number about just having had some really good sex. But the lyrics get bit repetitive toward the end and I was starting to feel like I was on stage for a loooong time. Not sure whether it would’ve work better had there been a full house, or whether I’ll need to edit it down a bit. (There’s a real challenge in finding good songs—the tempo has to be right, the vocals need to start fairly quickly, the instrumental breaks can’t be too long. Fortunately, I’ve got the software to edit tracks as needed.)

But with every performance I get a bit more experience. So now I’m keeping an eye out for more benefits—which often will take whoever wants to take the stage. And I’m hopeful that I may occasionally get to do an unpaid number for the Hayes Valley Follies (Saturday nights at Marlena’s). While I wouldn’t want to perform every weekend, I’ve definitely gotten addicted to the stage lights.

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.