GoGo dancers Ben Randle with MC Trauma Flinstone and dancer Alesandre - lots got stuffed into those pants for TARC Photo by Rink.

It was mere days after the Fourth of July, so Trauma Flintstone put on her “Red, White, and Blew” fundraiser for TARC (the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center) at Café Flore on July 7. “Join me for a night of raising the roof (and raising some money) for TARC,” said the fabulous femcee in her invitations to “Red, White, and Blew.” She urged, “We want you to get as raunchy and lewd as you dare. Wear your leftover Americana in ways you never imagined possible.” So naturally Sister Dana kept in theme—wearing his red, white, and blue stars-and-stripes boxers on his head. Hopefully Congress will allow me to burn them when they get too worn out. Summer was here and it was a wonderfully warm evening to dance, to carry on, and to have fun. Trauma provided a talented line-up featuring Kielbasia, Ethel Merman, Katya Ludmilla Smirnoff-Skyy, Monistat, and more. Not to mention the hot, half naked go-go dancers, Alesandre and Ben, who definitely made us sweat.

Trauma opened the show with “Tap Your Troubles Away” from the musical Mac and Mable, and truly tap danced in her tap heels. Awesome Americana!

Kielbasia the Polish lunch lady sang live and played her accordion on “The Boogie Woogie Sausage Lady,” with the double entendre lyric of “If you want some fun, why don’t you grab a bun, and let the boogie woogie sausage lady stuff it for you.” Later the cafeteria lady returned to sing “Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch” and “Kids Got to Eat” to the tune of the Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat.” One of the lines proclaimed, “I’ve got the meat.”

Ethel Merman boomed out a series of rock songs sung live Merman-style, including “Cat Scratch Fever,” “Born to be Wild,” “Highway to Hell,” “Helter Skelter,” and “Whole Lotta Love.” Monistat lip-synched “Danke Schene” [not spelled correctly, I am sure] and then “Quisas, Quisas, Quisas,” which I think I spelled right and I think translated to “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.” The whole thing was sung in Spanish, which Monistat managed to mouth marvelously. Jimmy Strano shaved his beard to become a crazed Joan Crawford lipping “I Love My Gun” while brandishing a pistol and threatening to shoot everyone but only licking it passionately. Mommie Dearest said she was constantly looking for Tina and trying to beat the little bitch, as she has done at many an anti-meth awareness fundraiser in the past. “Crystal meth is destroying our community,” she said in all earnestness. 

Dr. Paul Quick from the onsite medical staff at TARC spoke a bit about the agency where he serves clients. “Where we work in the Tenderloin, people get very sick and need to be taken care of,” he said. “And at TARC we have created a space where people can come—no matter how sick they are or what drugs they may be using or how much theyy’re down and out—and receive the care they need.” He added, “Sometimes it’s just as simple as giving people a place where they don’t have to die in the street.” Alex, a test counselor at TARC, talked about the drop-in HIV testing that is offered to people in the Tenderloin at 183 Golden Gate @ Leavenworth. The hours for rapid testing are Mon.-Fri., 9-11:30am; 1-4pm; 5-7pm; Sat. and Sun. 9-11:30am and 1-4pm. The standard tests, which take longer to get immediate results, are given Mon., 5-7pm, Th. 5-7pm; and Sat. 5-7pm.

Varian with a “V” did his now famous (infamous??) song about being all that you can be (which incidentally rhymes with “pee,” which is also what the song is about—really going for the gold). Through various double entendres, V with a V sang live such urinary lyrics as “I’m gonna stand on my two feet and go number one,” and “I’ve been number two so many times before—I took it sitting down, but now II’m opening the door,” at which point he opened his pants to pull out a phony penis and pee off the stage (at least I thought it was a phony). How to top that? Why, of course, by singing “Somewhere Up in My Asshole” to the tune of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while pulling a dildo from his Tinky Winky stuffed toy, lubing up the rubber husband, and actually stuffing the thing up his bum. Such a class act!
Katya the Russian drag queen wore a different makeup that night and slung a bunch of dead foxes over her shoulder to sing live “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” in her spectacular, operatically trained high soprano, which occasionally dipped down to low baritone. Later she returned to do a high opera version of the Christina Aguilera number, “You’re Beautiful,” as she looked into a mirror and tried to convince herself so.

By the way, I want to put in a plug for Katya’s latest show on July 16 at Martuni’s, where she will duplicate the old kinescope TV series, The Judy Garland Show with Judy played by Matthew Martin, Katya as Barbra Streisand, and Mark Sargent being Ethel Merman. Katya told Sister Dana she spent a fortune getting a sailor suit to resemble the one that young Babs wore on the show. How can we possibly resist Katya doing La Streisand?! She gave me a sample of Barbra saying with a broken Russian accent, “Your legs are like butter!” Mark your calendars for this one, daaahlinks!