Vinyasa glow

I just got done with my noon Vinyasa Flow yoga practice in the Castro above the Zapata Taqueria. I wasn’t thinking I would do yoga today but rather would head to one of the Gold’s gyms and do a cardio and abs workout instead. All morning I was too preoccupied and anxious to focus on work, due to the ongoing collapse of my life savings, and the upcoming Great Depression Part Deux.   So midway through the morning I decided to switch gears and do the midday Vinyasa class with yogi Jehfree Spirit.

Today’s practice for me was both invigorating and relaxing.  I was able to focus inward, on my body and breathing.  By the time we hit sivasana at the end I think I could have fallen asleep 1-2-3.  Strangely though it was at this point that although I was very relaxed and de-stressed, my thoughts wandered more than at any point.  Perhaps because sivasana is not demanding on the body the part of my mind that engages outwardly begins to get restless and takes over again.  For obvious reasons thoughts of the presidential election campaign would creep across my consciousness, and instead of trying to force them out I instead looked on it all as if I was in the middle of a thunderstorm back home when I was growing up in Maryland.  When a storm came up (and they were frequent during summers) I enjoyed watching the wind bend trees and blow anything loose across the lawns.  The air would take on a different smell, and you could sense pretty easily when the rainfront would arrive as the clouds would become darker and darker.  And I was fascinated with the lightning, and always counted the seconds until the thunder – which is how you tell how far away the lightning is.  It can be frightening or exhilarating, it’s a fine line when the storm begins to turn ugly.

After sivasana (and with the election campaign put in place) I talked a bit with the yogi.  He used to have pink hair but then let it grow out and it became brown again.  Today he came in with shiny red hair – and more of it than last week.  He told me he used to be a drag queen – had a TV show, did Trannyshack.  He hung up the wigs and high heels long ago though, but was passing a wig shop last week and saw this one and could not resist.  His boyfriend dared him to wear it all this week – thinking no way be could do yoga with it.  I don’t know how Jehfree managed to secure it, but he was even doing headstands with us today.

Maybe this is one of those only in San Francisco backstories.  More to follow I’m sure!

I’m starving now, and am heading off to try the chicken milanesa sandwich at a place I saw recommended in the Mission next to Revolution on 22nd and Bartlett.  I’ll tell all later if it’s as good as promised.

Charlie Horse at Cinch

I had been wanting to get to see Trannyshack at The Stud before it finally “kissed off” into the showbiz sunset that is farewell tours, the inevitable reunion tour, and probably a spin-off TV reality series on VH1. I didn’t – the Tuesday at midnight (that’s drag queen midnight, sugar which is probably like 1am to us) showtime kept me away. I did catch a few of the special performances they did as charity benefits on the occasional weekend – Bagdad By the Bay.

Trannyshack Kiss-off at The Regency

But before the curtain even rose on their Kiss-off party at the Regency this past Saturday, I was standing shoulder to costumed shoulder at Cinch this past Friday, to see Charlie Horse, another long-standing if not illustrious drag review. The theme of the week was the Playboy Mansion, so lots of silk pajamas and smoking jackets, bunny ears and such in the audience as well as on the performers themselves.

Hosted by Ana Conda, a former Trannyshack-er performer of the year, the show also featured Pippi Lovestocking who was a Trannyshack founder. The show included original songs, lip-synching (naturally!) and stand-up comedy and dance. The talent-level ranged from so-so to minimal to great (the singer) to hilarious (Ana Conda and Pippi Lovestocking). The crowd was an enthusiastic mix of men and women. It was fun, and I encourage everyone to give it a try.

The Lusty Lady

We’re tooling up Columbus, in a taxi because, as I keep telling Heklina, there is no fucking way I am parking my new ‘cedes 500 AMG roadster in North Beach, even on a Thursday afternoon, when it should be possible, although still unlikely, to park near our destination – the Lusty Lady strip club.  “No fucking way Heklina – you know I can’t afford insurance for that thing and I’m afraid it could get stolen in this neighborhood.”

“Sweet Pea” she says to me “you park in nasty alleys South of Market why be skittish about North Beach?”

“It’s Broadway, H.  It attracts that post-adolescent pre-adult het male bridge and BART  crowd.  They scare  me!  You’ve got the pepper spray right?”

“She couldn’t make it.  Hair appointment I think.”

“H, I said bring pepper spray not Peppa Spray.”  These drag queens.  Has someone done a drag baby-names book yet?  I’m interrupted by the taxi driver slamming on the brakes outside a building with a Las Vegas style marquee touting “Live Nude Grrrrlz.”  H leaps out as if I hit the ejection button.   She’s always singing me the got-no-money blues, as if Trannyshack wasn’t already big business.  I pay the driver.

H waits under an awning, avoiding the sun to avoid melting her makeup.   She is all tranny fierceness today but the Spring weather threatens to turn her into a hot mess instead.  (Note to self – I am watching way to much BravoTV.

So I am about to start dialing and up pulls a cute white Prius with my pal Gavin riding shotgun.  Gavin pops out, then turns and helps two staffers climb out of the back.  “What, no limo today?” I ask.  Gavin replies “Oh Aaron started to rag on me the other day about the limo.  It’s bio-diesel but he just doesn’t like me I think.”  He sips from a frosty can of Rockstar.

“Why not take Muni” I said and Gavin spews soda on me.  “You goofball” he chuckles.  I root around for a handkerchief to daub soda from my Modern Amusement and H, Gavin and the staffers pile through the double doors into the red-lit darkness that is the only employee-owned strip club in the country.

Gavin’s here to award the club with a “Green Citizen” certificate.  He’s told me what it’s for – something to do with new strip poles of sustainably harvested timber bamboo rather than bad-for-the-environment brass.  Anyway I know it’s more to needle Aaron because we are met by exactly two members of the press.  SF Weekly is here, and that Glossip columnist again.   Zero nada no TV crews.   I know Gavin wants to trumpet his legacy in Aaron’s backyard but I’m wondering if Aaron isn’t having the last laugh.

We all want to leave a legacy as a reminder to everyone else of what a great job we did.  Gavin’s still working on his.   Used to be gay marriage, but that’s sadly turned into the career equivalent of nuclear waste – nobody wants to get too close.  Then it was the Homeless.  That’s not worked out so well.  Then it was reducing the crime rate.  Not so much, either.

So Gavin finally listened to moi and has glommed onto the environment.  Not  our environment mind you – I mean the City is as filthy as ever, right?  Tomorrow’s environment – as in sustainability, anti-global warming, and $200 an hour consultants.  I.e. Green.  I told him he needed to get on board pronto because the Guvernator not to mention Bloomberg and Daley are grabbing for the same brass ring.  “Green – its the new black” I told him.

Heklina by now is talking bust to bust with a stripper called Cinnamon Bunn.  They’d be closer standing side by side.  They’re working out H’s brainstorm idea of a Trannyshack – Lusty Lady cross promotion event benefitting sex workers.  H is nothing if not ambitious – and a work-a-holic.  Cinnamon takes H by a man-hand and ushers her to an office in back.

Gavin’s people are working the two journos who are scribbling as well as can be expected in the dim light while watching a g-string clad woman wrap her thighs around an exquisitely crafted wooden pole.    I turn back to Gavin to ask who gets the certificate, but he is gone.  Fuck!  Last thing I need is him on the loose in a strip club.  It was a close enough call at the Zeitgeist.

I can see he’s not in the crowd of doughy-looking khaki-clad businessmen watching the show.  “Where can I get a lap dance” I shout over the thumpa-thumpa.    A green-haired girl taller even than Heklina wearing a nurse’s cap, orthopedic shoes, and a white g-string with barely enough real-estate for the red cross, walks out, touches my arm, then takes me by the hand and leads me to a row of curtained booths.

I start shoving aside all the curtains, one by one.  One, two flustered conventioneers then bingo – third time’s the charm.  I open the curtain and its Gavin and, no really, Eliot Spitzer! “Christ on a cross” I gasp and duck inside and close the curtain behind me.  Gavin burbles  “Eliot’s going to hook me up with a worker-owned escort service being formed here” and then burps Champagne fumes at me.

“So that’s why we’re here, with no decent press, so you can meet under cover with freaking Client 9?  Dude, he’s got to be wired.”  I grab the bottle of champagne from the table and douse Spitzer, trying to short circuit him, and run out pulling Gavin behind me.   “H – we’re going now Hon.  Good luck with the show.”  And I maneuver Gavin through the back of the club, leaving his assistants with the journos.  And to top the afternoon off, three packed Muni buses go by before we can hail a cab.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::