the 'tross

i was reunited last night with my friend michael, whom i got to hang out with like four times before he up and left for summer stock. now, of course, he's leaving for another gig in florida in two weeks. i will never understand these traveling musicians, these troubadours who actually get paid to sing or play. members of equity. suddenly i'm the constant, the one who doesn't move. they all know where to find me: at my desk at the hospital, or at a project in the bronx, vaccuuming on my hands and knees.

michael and i met through cory, my first camp boyfriend ever. i've been a bad friend, nauseous because of my medication and tired from staying up too late and watching too much tv, so cory and i haven't hung out in a month and a half. but he paid me back last night by not coming to the albatross, or the 'tross, as i've lovingly started calling it, for its next-to-last open mic night. the open mic night at the 'tross, dear readers, is called "loose lips." this should tell you something.

loose lips is hosted by two local drag queens. what do drag queens look like when you get out of manhattan? well, they look pretty much the same as they do in the city, but their wigs are cheaper and they're a lot nicer. they're nicer to each other; they say hi to you when you come into the bar. they'll listen to a lesbian named liz who just finished crying her way through a 4-page poem about the "razor blades in her insides" and give her their phone numbers. hell, i think we all wanted to give her our phone numbers or maybe even put her on some kind of night-watch.

so it was a sadly short loose lips last night. only three acts signed up, including the drag queens. these were:

1. the two aforementioned drag queens, roommates, one of whom is a cute latino(a) from texas, performing a rap song they made up. it was a lil' kim-ish ditty about how the boys want to see their candy. the backing track they used was a karaoke recording of "99 luftballons." rapping drag queens in a nearly-empty dive gay bar in queens.
   
2. a man who's "performance" was--i think, though i never really got it--reading emails he received from a company with whom he was seeking employment. only he didn't read them, his aging blonde lawyer friend with a baseball hat did. he just stood on the sidelines, sipping his vodka tonic, twirling his thumb ring and grabbing at pages that were too private for even the 'tross. then the same lawyer friend read a bunch of quotable quotes from 'tross regulars, none of which i got.
3. liz, the teary lesbian, read her epic poem. it was a tale of "not wanting to be like those other girls, in their silky shoddy shirts/twisting twisted twister tales of razor blades/that cut cut cut me from the inside." some of the 10-person audience was uncomfortable when she started falling apart. i was kind of amazed.

a week from wednesday is the last 'tross "loose lips." and i plan on going. hell, i might even read an old column, since apparently you don't have to have any kind of "talent" or "gimmick" or "shame" to get up on stage. we'll see.