Boulevard Dreams

Later in my extended stay in Los Angeles on my Round The World In Drag 2001 trip I sent this update to the ever-enthusiastic Jo back home,- Good News, Jo, I’m going to be in the Parade! So much going on. You’ll be tired of these E-Mails before long. This is a shopping story that turns into a night-out. I told you we were getting low on money. Bit of a issue here because America is the place to shop till you drop, especially for a fashion-conscious girl like me, but I’m biting the bullet and sometimes, my dear, there’s so much you want even I don’t know where to start. And you shop, tourist-style and just visit the places. So we took the car out in the heat and looked in at Pleasure Chest where Madonna gets her sex-toys – what can I say? – and then on to Hollywood to Frederick’s where the star get their undies. They have a museum there where you can see what Mae West, and Greta Garbo , and the Melrose Avenue lot have worn under their clothes, and it’s all very classy – the shoes are great too. Hollywood is lots of shops, the studios are somewhere else (but we did see the HOLLYWOOD sign on the hill yesterday), and it’s a bit touristy, more like Oxford Street, (London not Sydney) than Regent Street (actually not like either really). All a lot of fun. But my spending fingers were twitching. Anyway, across the road from our motel I spied a shop that was mentioned in my guide as the place for us glam-girls to shop, “Dream-Dresser”, and I knew I had to pay a visit. So, while Roger took the car to look at some buildings (!) I got ready for a bit of retail therapy. I actually borrowed a pair of his jeans for the occasion, I wanted to look like the Girl About Town, and hopped across the Boulevard mid-morning. In I went, armed with my card, and presented myself to the first assistant I met with all the “Draggin’ Round The World” talk. The place is full of the most fabulous stuff, and this assistant, who was called Anthony, a really sexy black boy with nice muscles, showed me round and told me to pick things I wanted to try on. So I did, - see-through cape-dresses, little black clingy numbers, pink feathery night-gowns, - until I had something I could afford, and I’d played the starlet to the limit. The dress I got is a wonderful little red flamey number and Anthony said I looked “really hot” in it. I did. It turned out that Anthony was also a dancer, and taught classes, and he said he wanted to introduce me to some-one who would be at the Ramada Hotel (the place just down the way where people like us but without a cash crisis stay on the Boulevard) that night. There was a thing called Celebrity Bingo on, a charity event which is on every Thursday, and his boyfriend, Scott, who was also a drag-queen called Miss Belair, would be hosting it at 8 o’clock, as Miss Belair. Well, I loved Anthony, so I thought I might go and I left Dream-Dressers saying I would. I’d been in there two hours! It was sweltering so I wandered up a way to get some lunch in my favourite lunch-bar and have a cool-down. On the way I got propositioned by a guy who looked a bit shady, and on the way back – just my luck! – the strap on my trusty Round-The-World stillies gave up the ghost, and I had to hobble back to the Motel. Evening came, and I thought, Should I go? I mean, Bingo – not really my thing, what your Aunt Betty does on a Monday isn’t it? And I should have been going to a night called “Dragapalooza” at the 7702 Club. But that was late and I thought I could put in an appearance at the Ramada before I went on to that. So I went for my trailer-trash denim look (Now That’s What I Call Trailer Trash – you remember that picture from the roof of the Sydney Hotel) and had to wear the dreaded silver boots because my stillies needed mending. And I arrived on time, eight o’clock, and paid $15 for an evening’s Bingo tickets. There was Anthony, and there was Miss Bel-Air, looking very girl, very Hollywood, in a school-girl’s outfit, a good bit of drag, I thought, and Miss Bel-Air was definitely out to host in style. The celebrity co-host was a guy called Paul Logan who’s in a regular soap called something like the “The Wild and the Beautiful” or “The Fancy and the Free”, which I haven’t seen, though I’ve heard it’s on Channel 5 back at home. Do you know it? He was a looker, a bit shy but with abs and pecs you’d want to roll your pastry on, and Miss Bel-Air got him to take his shirt off a few times. He was a good sport anyway, and I got my photo taken with him at the end so when you see it you tell me if I should have known him. For the Bingo I was sat with Michelle, a radio journalist, and it was a bit like I remember in the UK but with different cards. Not much chance of winning, - so what’s new? And Miss BA made it entertaining enough, out there on the verandah of the Ramada. Now the charity which was going to get the money was the Little Angels Pug Rescue and they save and look after pug-ugly dogs which people have abandoned and abused. So they had all these pugs around, selling pug-kisses to people (ugh!) and the dogs kept getting mixed up with the passers-by. I suppose I forgot to say that the SM Boulevard folks are mad on dogs. As well as walking them, there are lots of pet-parlours and pet-care centres all along the strip, and they seem to be everywhere, the dogs. So you can imagine the fuss while we were trying to play Bingo - pugs and passing dogs all tangled up. A big fuss! I got distracted and missed a line which could have won me a pair of classy sunglasses and lots of health products. The other prizes are good, too, - DVD’s, a limited Edition James Dean doll, - things a girl could want. But I got distracted. Huh! And I stay to get my money’s worth out of the tickets so it ends up too late for Dragapalooza. I hang on after my picture with Paul Logan to talk to Anthony and Miss BA. I haven’t explained about this parade thing. I called the L.A. Pride office and they said it was too late to enter but they would put me onto a person who had a drag entry in the Parade and I should call them and see if they could help. And that person was Corinne who turned out, when I called her, to be Corinne the star Diva from Monday night at 7969! Alas, wonderful, kind person though she was, she couldn’t help me because her Parade entry was the Grand Chapter of the High Order of the Imperial Court of Los Angeles (maybe I’ve added a bit there but it’s very special, and very limited and may be a bit like the masons for gays without the trouser-legs and with lots of gorgeous queens who have to be members) so I couldn’t join them. But Corinne said she’d see if she could contact another group who would take me on. Bless her majesty. And that’s how it’s rested until last night, when I piped up to Anthony and Miss BA that I couldn’t get into the Parade. And then this woman, Sherrie, from the Little Angels who was standing nearby said – “You can be on our float”. “Float”! Get that. Jo! No need to wear my feet out walking a million miles in the hot sun, ride in style. Double deal! I said yes on the spot, and A, and Miss BA invited me along to the Normandie bar for a drink. And that was really nice – worth missing another drag-show for. I got the story of their romance, the 12 hours of sex, the clothes , the monogamy (I’m not much in favour but BA persuaded me). And Miss BA was a real L.A. drag-queen – doing it on her terms, for the money, otherwise an actor, with a “character” she adopts, she’s after a – how did she put it? – “white-picket fence” life-style. She complimented me a lot on “my spirit”, my clothes, and told me to be careful going with men around here. The stories she told me about odd-balls, and crystal meth, and phone-dates, she could be right. We also met lots of their friends, a girl bass-player, and Zack, a student on his way to University in Paris. They played pool while I watched and went for a smoke outside and I thought, I’m one of the Queens of Hollywood! They’re getting married on October 14th, Anthony and Scott, and they have a poodle called Noel Maxine Le Cadeau . Oh, the life we lead!. When I left they said they’d be watching the Parade from by the bar and to watch out for them. Walking up the Boulevard in my Trailer Trash denim I got wolf-whistles and shouts from the cars and I knew I was Top Girl On The Block. Done the day, and I’m in the Parade. Wow! Breathlessly yours (as ever) Mandy