Thursday, April 19th 2007

It was tax day eve and I was dancing again with Chi Chi spinning at Bolt in Minnesota. It was cute, it was Midwest and it happens to be her hometown. That colorful drag queen was voted #36 in the 50 Most Powerful Gay People in America in the latest issue of Out Magazine. You might not associate a personality such as Chi Chi’s with a place like Minnesota, but you should.

The night we arrived we had dinner with one of her best friends and his boyfriend. I have to say that it was very special and highly entertaining to listen to conversations and hear stories about this diva’s roots. I love hanging out with my dear friends’ friends, the people that have been there so long that their personalities overlap and they echo one another with the same gestures and little quirks. It’s a real honor to be able to see someone you care about in the personal light found in their inner circle.

The dinner was nice. I had walleye. It is a native fish found in the Great Lakes. When I was a kid my parents had a summer place on Catawba Island on Lake Erie. It was a large trailer complete with a kick ass boat that was docked down the dirt road at the end of the marina. We used to take the boat out to fish and sometimes we would spend the night on the water. My father would fish from this boat all day and bring home the catch, clean it and fry it in a matter of thirty minutes. I remember it like it was yesterday: A loaf of fresh Italian bread, some onion, tomato and basil salad dressed in olive oil and balsamic, a dozen ears of corn purchased from the stand down the road. That was dinner on those summer nights of my childhood and well into my early teens before my dad died and the fishing trips sadly come to an end. It’s funny how your opinion of a period of your life changes over time.

Saturday morning we all woke early for breakfast before visiting a clothing shop called Ragstocks in downtown Minneapolis. Chi Chi and her pals were so excited for me to go because “I would just die”. Well, I did not die, but I very nearly had to bust out the Kleenex! Ragstocks is an upscale thrift shop, which is just my thing. And with no sales tax on clothes in MN I went just a little crazy. I found some great scores, but my real finds were the hot, velour pullovers. These were the old school kind. You would see them paired with matching pants creating the leisure suit of the 70’s. This was the uniform of relaxation and card games that I would see my dad wearing along with all of his Italian steel worker paisans growing up. The pullovers reminded me of a special time in my life, not to mention that velour feels really good.

The club was cute, they served Blue Moon and a local brew called Summit that tasted much like a Bass Ale; I was very happy. The only thing that could have been different was the time I had to be there, 8:30; the earliest call time I’ve ever had for a dance gig. It’s kind of embarrassing when the entertainment shows up ahead of most of the patrons, doncha think? So I sat around playing with my camera – for quite a while.

There was a “Health Fair” event at the bar that night. The officials lined the main walkway of the bar with their booths and posters depicting safe sex practices and the consequences one might encounter if those practices are not taken seriously. They also offered HIV testing, on site with results in 10 minutes. The accuracy of this test concerned me. My last test, which was a 20 min swab, was the most accurate on the market as explained to me by the technician at the hospital in West Hollywood. That aside, what a buzz kill! Yeah! Let’s go to get an HIV test, grab a pint of Summit and then head downstairs to get our results. What if somebody turned up positive? I had to wonder if there was a trained professional on hand for counseling in such a case. You go out for a brew and some dancing I think the last thing you expect is life altering news! The health people packed up their portable information city and left at 10:30.

I did my dance, ripped my jeans on a creative, impromptu dip and was off the box by 1 AM craving the chicken fingers that were waiting for me back at the hotel room. As gigs go, this was standard issue, except for the rip. By the way, I’m a light packer – that was my only pair of jeans so luckily I had a pair of cherry print boxers to wear to the airport.

This entry was posted by Johnny on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 3:47 PM and is filed under Ancient History, Friends, It's All Relative, Local Color & Atmosphere, Out & About, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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