superego@sfbg.com
SUPER EGO Some foaming bloviator recently, misspellingly commented on sfgate.com that the Guardian was about nothing more than “the lasest [sic] freaky sex worker or drag queen DJ.” Which reminded me — it’s been literally and figuratively forever since I featured a drag queen DJ, lasest or no. (I’ll save the freaky sex workers for myself, thank ye.) Trollface, this one’s for you.
Or rather it’s not. This one’s about the new Some Thing party, every Friday at the Stud. (This is not to be confused with the equally wacky and strange Thing Nite, every first and third Tuesdays at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, www.auntcharlieslounge.com. Things are in the air!) It’s true that Some Thing is brought to us by the same gender-transcenders behind the giddy, tinsel-strewn Monday night alternaqueer conflagration Tiara Sensation: Vivvyanne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ down-E. And, yes, it’s true that Some Thing will feature two drag-based shows per night — “A Gem in the Rough” at 11 p.m. and “Some Thing More: The Drool in the Crown” at midnight.
But we’re in a post-drag moment. Classic, glamorous lipsync-to-camp-classics drag (especially as practiced by the amazing Hot Boxx Girls, www.thehotboxxxgirls.com) has seen its dips and resurgences, as has its anarchic, punk-tinged sometime-nemesis, trash drag, like that practiced at the now defunct Trannyshack. But the Some Thing threesome represent a third way, one that uses the familiar concept of drag as a mere portal into all kinds of performance effects.
Post-drag thrills at exposing drag’s ancient commedia dell’arte roots, deconstructing gay history in order to create its own glimmering, sculptural kitsch. A signature piece by Glamamore — the alias of star couturier Mr. David — sees two performers dressed in hilariously intricate yet cumbersome origami outfits, pantomiming the histrionic flower duet from the 1881 opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes. Vivvyanne’s “That’s Not Drag” concept nights for Tiara Sensation hectically stretched the boundaries of the genre to the outside parking lot, while the “Project Runtover” competition series — parodying Project Runway, duh — encouraged the audience itself to rip down the clubs decorations and create their own entries. (This seemed a natural outgrowth of the trio’s ever-present hot-glue-gun-and-glitter craft table, also to be featured at Some Thing.)
And down-E, when he’s not playing vintage dance cuts of deliberately questionable taste, is the closest thing the Bay has to an anti-drag queen. Swathed in asexual free-bin leftovers, sporting a skewed tonsure wig and oversized eyeglasses, and munching a bag of SunChips, he disastrously drones, live, along to peppy hits by the Carpenters and Whitney Houston. The unnerving result is less a send-up of traditional gender roles than the feeling that some misty-eyed alien has infiltrated your Great-Aunt Ruth.
Beyond the theoretical, though, Some Thing should be a good ol’ hoot — and it’s awfully nice for edgy queers to have a regular Friday night destination again. The great trash drag club that previously dominated that spot, Charlie Horse at the Cinch, was shut down due to noise complaints after five years, and its politically-minded hostess, Glendon Anna Conda Hyde, is now running for District 6 supervisor. (There’ll be a daytime charitable-fundraising Charlie Horse drag marathon farewell party Jan. 30, 1 p.m.-7 p.m., at the Cinch, 1723 Polk, SF.) Weekly parties are always tough to pull off — but with hot glue guns, loony tunes, and slippery theatrics at the ready, the Some Thing crew just might make it work.
SOME THING
Fridays, 10 p.m., $5
The Stud
399 Ninth St., SF
www.studsf.com
