The Land Of Queens

One of the many E-mails I sent to my friend Jo during my first Round The World In Drag Tour in 2001,- Hi Jo, Remember me? Your old friend Mandy? The one whose place you’re looking after? I’m so so sorry I’ve not been in touch for a long while. We’ve been up and down the place for weeks and I haven’t had a chance to get to one of these Internet places (well, that’s my excuse anyway). No, really, the last time I was in touch I think I was still smarting from my double setback, with the Melbourne date and my debut at the Albury. Well, soon after we got back from Melbourne it started to get a bit cool in Sydney so Roger had the bright idea of heading North to keep up with the last of the summer. And I can tell you summer goes North a long way, but you do end up with palm-trees, hot weather and beaches, - yes, the Tropics! The first place we got to – by train again, but not quite so tedious, - was Byron Bay where even Roger decided it was holiday time so we lay down with all the hippies and sunned ourselves rotten and swam and ate in chic cafes in town and I didn’t see a spider or a snake once! It’s supposed to be where all the soap stars go for their partying but I never saw one – some very cute surfers though. And then we hit Brisbane. Which is in Queensland. And it feels like quite a happening place. The hills are a bit steep, rather not stiletto-friendly, but it’s very buzzy. You know I’m a city girl at heart, Jo, so it was nice to be where there was a bit of the action. I should say at this point that we, ie, mainly Roger, have decided that it’s time to go easier on the old spending front, and he’s probably right. I certainly don’t want to get to the U.S. with nothing to spend. Anyway that means not quite so much of the ensuite and fancy breakfasts. So we’re staying at the Sportsman, us and a few nice gay-boys and their girl-friends and others from all over. It’s a bit basic, but there’s a lounge with big old squishy couches and an old TV which is always on, morning to night, and you have a do-it-yourself breakfast which is whatever you can find to put on your toast, usually peanut butter and Vegemite (I’ll explain Vegemite another day, - it’s an Australian thing), and as much tea as you can drink. Trash TV and toasties and a roof patio to eat out on – what more could a travelling queen want for herself? Well, a bit of drag action, you’ll say and you’ll be right. And the good thing about the Sportsman is that it’s a club and pub with its own stage where they have shows at the weekend, and round the corner and across the road – one minute away - is Options, a smart club which also does drag revues at weekends. I knew the Sportsman was alright, by the way, when I found the local ‘resident’ tranny playing pool in the bar with the boys wearing an evening dress! Of course, just like Adelaide, if you’ve got two places doing their shows on the same night then it’s pitty-pat across the road all the time to catch them. I don’t think I’ve given you a blow-by-blow on one of these nights for a while, have I? So here goes. It’s Saturday night. You start in the Sportsman about 10.30. The bar’s packed for “No More FXXXing Abba! Part One” (I hope Terence Stamp gets royalties on all these spin-offs). You’ll have guessed that the numbers are split up by clips from “Priscilla”. I also need to remind you in case you’d forgotten (wake up there, Jo, you need to know these things) that drag show-girls usually come in threes, the tall, leggy one, the round one and the sexy, sultry, exotic one. In “No More FXXXing Abba!” the leggy one is Gloria Estapol, the round one is Florence Fettucini and the exotic one is Lisa Marie. (If you sense some mis-fitting here you would be on the right lines), - and of course there’s lots of, duck-duvets full of, Abba in the show. “Chiquititta” to start off with, done by Gloria and Florence, nearly straight. There’s lots of frocks to change and it’s all very retro, with hippy gear for something I’ve never seen before, “Lola” synched to a woman’s voice. It works. They all get their solos, like “ I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine” and “The Three Of Us”, and it all climaxes with “Voulez Vous” in trouser suits. The red curtain rings down on the end of Part One, and no-one in the crowd has spoken a word while it’s been on – clapped and laughed, yes, but not chatted or ignored it. Amazing! Or maybe not. Now it’s time to nip over to Options, and what a contrast! Big wide bar, open dance-stage, people dancing, a cute, young crowd with a few showy queens and clumps of gays and their friends, and everybody pulls their bar-stools round into a semi-circle for the show. At Options the leggy one is Synthetique, with big hair and a drag-wave, the round one is CCKY (and if she isn’t Florence Fettucini’s “sister” then God pressed the wrong button at the Xerox machine), and the sultry one is Miss Venus, who sits at the bar, very into herself, smoking – we’ve all been like that and it’s sort of loveable but doesn’t exactly say “come and say Hello to me”. Whereas Synthetique has been jollying at the bar for ages, gets me a free drink when I introduce myself, bless her, and she’s the one who opens the show. She got a lip-trembler of a synching style, which is a bit odd, but she knows how to get an audience on board. A few free drinks helps of course, but she credits everybody, sells the club and the night, gets the pissed gay-boys and girls up for a chat and takes the piss out of herself with a lovely drawl. CCKY does the big funny numbers, usually wreathed in smoke and shadows, and Miss Venus comes out all legs, boots and eye-liner and synchs to “I Am I Feel”. She’s very together and, you know, Jo, I might steal that one off her. It’s a good drag-tune. At the break (Options has two shows too) who should turn up in the bar but Florence to join CCKY, but I’m off back to the Sportsman for “NMFA Part 2”. The bouncer has a lovely deep Queensland voice when he says “Goodnight Lady” to me. That’s what the world needs more of – real respect. Florence is back ahead of me and the show is a bit straighter. But Gloria synchs a rock-tune to a man’s voice at one point and it all end happily with a bit more Abba. I hadn’t actually got the will-power to go back to Options for the second show and the fun was continuing at the Sportsman with the cheesiest of disco sound so I stayed on. I’m in my denim-slut look tonight so I fit the small-town late-night last-resort feel of it all. The boys come down from the lounge and join in, Florence and CCKY arrive and I get my picture taken with them so that I can prove (to myself at least) that they are sisters, and the whole thing drifts merrily along in the Queensland heat and airconditioning night until some late hour when I retire to the upstairs lounge where – do you believe in co-incidence, Jo? - “M. Butterfly” is on the TV. Mind you, that’s a twee film if there ever was one. So there you are, a hot drag-night in Brisbane. Now that was a while ago still, because we went further North after that. Roger wanted to go sailing and I fancied seeing the coral reefs but not staggering about tripping over ropes on a deck. And when I saw a plan of the cabins and how it was four bunks to one room I just knew there wasn’t enough room for me and my wardrobe, so I passed on the boat and stayed ashore, sunning myself tropically and hanging round with back-packers. It was like a proper holiday in a proper Paradise. And the beaches were almost empty. God, I don’t want to go home. Actually somewhere up there, near Cairns, Kitty had told me that there was a Drag-Recovery Guest House but we never found it. Another day, - and you know Jo this is such a nice place that there’s got to be another day. This must be the most Mandy-friendly country on earth. How to afford it, of course…… Anyway eventually we got back to Brisbane, and I bought some CD’s for routines I can work on. I’m gonna show that Doreen…… We went to the Museum to see “Body Art” which was an exhibition of all the things you can do to your body, like tattoos, mutilation, piercings, make-up, henna, scars, dressing-up, mainly pictures, I should say, but they did show a film of a fitting a Prince Albert. Mmmn, mmmn. And lots of the people in the pictures were from places we’ve been to or are going to – Polynesians, Maoris, and Mardi Gras queens. I’m a bit shy of all that body-alteration stuff, but I don’t want to be. How far would I go? How far would you go, Jo? Made me think, I’ll tell you. Back at the Sportsman it was Ron’s birthday (Ron was probably German but actually an honorary Oz queen) and Joy and the girls got him a pavlova with candles on it (Remember that Rolf Harris song?) and we all sat round to watch the Eurovision Song Contest on SBS, which is Australia’s Channel 4 only good. No TS to fly the flag this year but Ron turned out to be an expert on the ESC and the Oz broadcast was presented by Effie who’s got this mad Australian-cockney accent but should be an honorary drag-queen and she had Clair de Lune along pretending to support France. The Slovenian girl wore the bad-taste costume badly, yellow leather, but I think I could have done it justice, and the Estonians beat the Danish, and most people were happy. God, the land of queens is a lovely place – one big happy family. Jo, send me a fortune – I want to stay forever. Write a blockbuster quick! Well, write anyway. I could do with some ordinary gossip. It’s your girl, Mandy