Chase Them Down Until They Love Me: Glitter, Glitterati!

A fantastical night out bears physical remnants. Sometimes it's a hangover. Today, I awoke to find glitter and confetti all over me. Just as sparkly was Epiphany's smile as she swept into G Lounge for the weekly Küte party. I'd come by to say hi and to accompany Jane Lane, Jonni Rendi, and Yuhua to Barracuda, for my weekly dose of The All-Live Sherry Vine Show. Sherry (pictured above) never disappoints. She gave us all the dirty parodies we needed, including her takes on Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" and "Bad Romance," "Papa, You're a Nazi" and "I Sh!t My Pants." She told us that she's filming a video for the latter poop-fest this Wednesday and that she'll premiere it during her next Barracuda show in two weeks, when she's back from Germany. The crowd cheered--well, everyone except for Cherry Jubilee (pictured below).

Cherry was playfully heckling Sherry, making me laugh as much as Sherry did. "Why must I endure this," Cherry sighed into my ear after Sherry's first couple songs, just before she asked me to pass along postcards for The Glammy Awards Show hosted by Sweetie next Sunday December 6th at Splash. After the show, Jane (pictured below) was texting, calling, and conferencing with Rendi about what to do next: Hiro or Vandam.

I chose Vandam and zipped there in a cab. Upstairs and downstairs were packed, with everyone club dressed to impress, working the floor like a runway. Camera flashes complemented each floor's light show, quickened the pulsing beats.

Upstairs, DJ Johnny Dynell was working everyone into a lather. That's where I found Nancy Nosecandy (pictured below), Kyle, and Demanda Dahling. It's also where I accumulated the glitter and confetti that's now all over my bed.

We roamed and sashayed the floor, said hi to Epiphany, who'd come down once she was done at G Lounge. Nancy and I shaked our groove thangs to the 12" version of Sheila E.'s "The Glamorous Life." Kyle (pictured below) sprayed the crowd with silly string.

We made our way to the room overlooking the DJ booth and the floor. Demanda (pictured below) gave everyone a show.

I was tired since I'd only fully recovered from the night before while on my way to G Lounge. So, after making the rounds up and downstairs, where I finally saw and said hi to Ladyfag by the bar, I decided to head home.

There Was No Guest List Last Night!

It was cold and I was tweeting Logan Hardcore on 57th Street, outside Providence. She Facebooked me to say that she'd put me on her list; but according to Giovanni, the doorman, Logan didn't give him any names. Moreover, he explained to me, she gets one guest when she arrives, and she had one with her when she walked in. Giovanni just should have said, "Miss Thing, there is no guest list tonight!" No worries. I was already less than impressed by the way they only let three people trickle in at a time at 10:20 p.m. because, of course, the place must have been packed. We were lined up that early for the open bar. It was over at 11; and we're on a budget. OK?

I texted my Wonder Twin Brian Mills (pictured below) and suggested that we meet at Therapy instead so we could visit Miss-ter T-Boy, who had us shimmying at our table to Janet Jackson and Kelis--and toasting him when he sent over a bottle of champagne. Brian brought Chris (pictured farther below, with Brian in front of the blue van) along for the fantastical Saturdaying we were about to get into.

Baby Jane (pictured below) was back in town, apparently having survived Thanksgiving with the family, and texted that he was off to Eastern Bloc. We finished our drinks and hopped in a cab. I thought it best not to look as the cabbie weaved through traffic to his own soundtrack. Very loud 2Pac. With some bass that we could feel.

Epiphany (pictured below) was there, too, out of face. She came with her own Gladware® and fork. She needed some Thanksgiving leftovers to nosh on between drinks.

Johnny was a' go-going. We talked about how excited we are about throwing a new party at Uncle Charlie's new Lower East Side location on Thursday December 10th. I even joined him on stage and swung around the pole.

After a few more rounds, we decided to head over to The Cock. And I decided to point and click away along the way.

It was Saturday and after 2:00 a.m. in the East Village. Where else were we going to go? Plus, we wanted to check out Ernie Cote's party in the basement. On our walk over, we came across a blue van.

Perhaps emboldened by surviving the cab ride earlier, Brian decided to run out into traffic on Second Avenue. Or maybe it was that last drink at Eastern Bloc.

The Cock was packed and I was groped on my way to the bathroom. We had a drink downstairs with Ernie and danced in what room we could find on the main floor. I can't tell you what was playing or when Brian left. Or what happened to Chris once we went outside looking for Brian. I found myself in The Urge, closing the night out. On my way home, I stopped by Punjabi to grab my usual bowl of saag and rice. I don't even have to order it anymore.

Apparently, after I was done eating, I took ten self-portraits. I love waking up and going through my camera. I always find surprises.

The Glammyrous Life

Next Sunday December 6th at Splash, Cherry Jubilee presents the eleventh annual Glammy Awards. Last year's Awards show had fantastical performances. This year's will, too, with Daisy Spurs, Mimi Imfurst, Narcissister, Peppermint, Dallas DuBois, Skyla Versai, and Sahara Davenport entertaining us. I'll be there sipping and snapping away--and cheering on the nominees, including Dina Delicious (pictured above, from one of her infamous Circus parties last January, from which all the pictures in this post come). Dina's up again for Best Host/Hostess. Everyone in New York nightlife will be there, including Jordan Fox (pictured below, posing with the gorgeous 2009 Glammy Calendar), I'm sure.

As will Epiphany (pictured below), who's up for Entertainer of the Year and Best Vocalist. Of course, there's more to look forward to than watching the performances and seeing everyone in their Sunday best, so to speak.

It's always fun watching people win their awards, too. Hands-down, the best acceptance speech last year was Acid Betty's for Best Alternative Artist. (Check out the video below that I took of Mimi Imfurst giving it to her).

Acid Betty (pictured below) also won Best Dressed last year. She's up for both again this year. Other double nominees include Celso and Bianca del Rio, and Britney Houston. Triple nominees include Mimi Imfurst, Peppermint, and Sherry Vine.

The only quadruple nominee is Logan Hardcore (pictured below), who's up for Entertainer of the Year, Best Dance Performer, Best Lip-Sync Artist, and Best Alternative Artist. We'll see if Logan can become the Glammy Michael Jackson and walk away with all four.

Remix Friday

I'm finally back home, back to my fantastical view of The Empire State Building, which means that next Friday I'll be back to offering new PhDJ remixes and original tracks each Friday. Until then, here's another PhDJ track, an original I did in honor of Heavenly Angel Octavia Saint Laurent Manolo Blahnik, one of the stars of Jennie Livingston's Paris Is Burning, when she passed this May.

Happy Thanksgiving Me Another $1 Cocktail

Craig and I rang out his birthday at Spin. Just for Craig, Spin had $1 cocktails all night. Well, apparently, it happens every Wednesday. Chicago seemed to know: it was so packed, we could barely make our way around, both downstairs and through the upstairs rooms grooving to the videos on display, including performances from Sunday's American Music Awards. It was good to see Janet's medley again. The VJ also played Jennifer Lopez's performance of "Louboutins." At the moment of J. Lo's much-reported fall, the crowd roared "Ohhh!" in unison, as if they'd been doing it for years, not the three days it had been by then.

Craig and I traded rounds and bartenders, moving between the upstairs and downstairs bars, depending upon the lines. We were happy that the downstairs DJ played the Chew Fu mix of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." Craig was less happy that an excited dancer knocked his vodka diet from his hand. In the middle of the next song, the Spinsational DiDa Ritz (pictured above) took the stage and tore through Janet Jackson's "Make Me."

DiDa whipped around so much, I could barely get a shot with my iPhone. She had the choreography down pat. I wasn't surprised. I've seen her serve a mean Beyoncé "Single Ladies," Logan Hardcore.

The crowd loved Dida, too--not just because there were plenty of drinks in hand. Craig and I decided to put some more in ours. After a few more rounds, we decided to head out and walked to Berlin, home of a great Madonnarama party on the first Sunday each month. We waited in line a minute or so; but I was hungry. I wanted another slice from Ian's Pizza. We split a macaroni & cheese slice and a lasagna slice. I fell asleep to something on TV, happy to digest some more of the most fantastical pizza I've ever had.

Cleanliness Is Next to Friendliness

I may be away from my Empire State Building; but that doesn't mean I'm not out, sipping and snapping away. I'm in Chicago to help celebrate my best friend Craig Seymour's birthday. (He's written a great memoir, by the way, called All I Could Bare that I just happen to be in. But that's not why I think it's great. Also check out Craig's fantastical photography, which was featured in OUT magazine).

Last Friday, the first night I was here, Craig took me to Spin, which always reminds me of Tracks, the club I went to in DC almost every week when I was an undergrad at the University of Maryland. The crowd at Spin was huddled in the back room to watch the Bear Shower Contest. Clearly from these pictures, you didn't have to be a bear to compete. But a bear did win the grand prize.

These three enthusiastically acting out Britney's single are Russian, I learned from the evening's host Debbie Fox, who was featuring an Amy Winehouse beehive. Two of the Russians are a couple. One is single. If I hadn't pre-gamed so well and enjoyed Spin's cocktails so much, I might be able to tell you what their names are and which one is the single one. At least I remembered to take pictures.

A Little Bit of Star Search Helps Thursday Go Down

The gang milled out of Boots and Saddle after Yuhua and Demanda's show last Thursday, said goodbye to some friends out smoking in the drizzle, and made our way toward Eighth Avenue. It took a few minutes to find a cab all of us could crawl into; but once we did, we were off to Barracuda to support Logan Hardcore (pictured above) in the weekly Star Search competition, now hosted by Peppermint (pictured below).

Barracuda was a mob scene. We all made our way toward the stage to watch the competition already in progress. By the time Yuhua, Nicho, and I were able to nab seats near the stage, Pixie was listening to her critique by judges Michael Formika Jones and Miss-ter T-Boy. Up next was Mona Moore (pictured below) who worked Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" spliced with the old Oscar Meyer jingle while she and her assistants ate hot dogs, then threw more out to the crowd. They were chicken dogs, she explained to Formika, because she was worried about everyone's waistline.

Next up was Chantelle Divine Roberts (pictured below), who gave a spirited Tina Turner medley, ending with "Proud Mary." Of course, much like Tina, she started nice and easy, and ended rough, doffing both shoes and wig.

Next up was Logan, who spliced Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" (check out last night's performance on Jay Leno here) with miscellaneous dialogue, as she always does, and ended with Chelley's "Took the Night." Logan didn't disappoint with her athleticism; but this time she threw into the mix a fantastical hand-less headstand.

Last but not least was Sheneeda Drink (pictured below) who served Mary Poppins doing "A Little Bit of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down" to roars from the crowd. From her jacket, she revealed a baggie filled with ... um ... flour, and used a spoon to ... um ... smell it to make sure it was still good. Over the course of the song, one spasm at a time, the flour competed with her make-up and accented her smoking jacket. During judging, T-Boy laughed that he thought he'd seen every coke joke--until she took the stage.

The audience vote was so close between Logan and Sheneeda that Peppermint asked all of their friends to take the stage and keep quiet. The people left cheering were equally divided; so, for the second week in a row, they split the Grand Prize. This Thursday, they'll battle it out again. Once the show was done, the crowd made their way to the bar. I couldn't find anyone but Nicho. We followed.

Puss n Boots

"Are there any tranny chasers in the house," Yuhua Hamasaki (pictured above) asked the crowd during her weekly show at Boots and Saddle last Thursday night, "'cuz I'm kind of tickling." I was chuckling and clapping, both after Yuhua's jumping splits and after Matthew Herra C's (pictured below, with Kyle) playful heckling. Herra traded between "You Suck!" and "Rice!"

I was still recovering from the night before. So I was sipping my 5 or so cocktails slowly. The free shot I won during the Asian trivia section of the night didn't make me enjoy Yuhua's fantastical set any less, particularly the blood-dripping mouth she was giving during her take on Christina Aguilera's "Fighter." Yuhua's show was complemented by her special guest Demanda Dahling (pictured below), who took it show tune old school.

Eric Halliwell and I were snapping away the whole time, and urging Nancy Nosecandy rather unsuccessfully to join the dance off for a free bar tab (of an undisclosed but surely enticing amount). Suddenly, Eric grew restless and wanted to head over to Barracuda for the Star Search competition. After another round, of course, and once Yuhua started counting her tips for the night, we did.

Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah!

We last left our children of the night--and I'm using children here like a member of a house, if you don't know anything about ball culture or haven't seen the fantastical documentary Paris Is Burning--at Vlada early into a Wednesday. Epiphany had just rocked some commando lip-sync. My Wonder Twin Brian Mills, Nancy Nosecandy (pictured below), and I had sopped up more cocktails than we could remember the next day.

Brian and I were trying to decide if we wanted to go celebrate the anniversary of Greenhouse with James Coppola or if we wanted to shake our groove thangs. Our thangs won out. We hopped in a cab to the gorgeous Hudson Hotel for the Happening that Jackie Birdy hosts every Wednesday.

Nancy was already working the floor when we arrived. Brian (pictured below) followed suit. I was feeling the lighted floor and the beats. And, apparently, the cherry infused vodka since, as I discovered when I woke up; I'd taken over 3 times the photos that I ended up keeping.

Also there was Matthew Herra C who had shed his shirt and was dance, dance, dancing his way from Jackie's bottle to Demanda to Nancy to anyone who was left on the floor.

Brian scored us another round of something. Then, I noticed Kyle at Jackie's table. As I roamed the room, snapping the scene, I chatted with the strangers I later found in my camera. I'm sure I had fascinating discussions with them about the need for a public option and Alexander McQueen heels.

I spied Brian and Herra drinking directly from what was left of Jackie's bottle. In our dance floor rush, Brian and I were still considering whether or not we were ending the night at Greenhouse. We were riding the perfect storm of libation and vibration.

On the escalator down and out, though, we decided we should head home before we felt shipwrecked. That should always happen the morning after. And it did.