MC Sister Roma, winner Pollo del Mar, and hostess Heklina at the Trannyshack Pageant; above right: Jim Strano, Anna Conda and Juanita Fajita staged a Drag Riot outside the Gift Center. Fajita’s altercation with security officers was the o

Trannyshack, now in its 12th award-winning year, is San Francisco’s longest-running weekly drag and performance hotspot. Held on Nov. 17 at The Gift Center, the annual Miss Trannyshack Pageant drew hundreds of tranny-loving fans to see who would take the coveted crown. Heklina, draped in gold and in a platinum wig higher and wider than ever before, reminded everyone of “the bad old days of Trannyshack,” and joined Faux Queen Trixie Carr in an original song about Trannyshack, sung live to the music of “Love Shack” by the B-52’s: “Paint your face like a slut, and stick your dick up your butt,” said the lyrics, and concluded: “Bang bang bang on the men’s room door – blow … job … busted!” Following that, Assemblyman Mark Leno presented a certificate of recognition to the stepping down Miss T-shack, Raya Light. A very blonde Juanita More and her chorus boys and girls did a fabulous tribute to Aretha with “Respect.”

Raya gave her final performance as reigning Miss ‘shack, with a video above showing her as the perfect housewife, dusting furniture and snorting coke. She came out in person as the Vita-meata-vega-men girl from I Love Lucy, spooning the liquor-infused potion down her gullet. Suddenly there was a militaristic theme as Queen’s “We Will Rock You” played while warriors, Vikings, terrorists, and Nazis tried to attack her; but she beat them off (no, not THAT beating off) with a giant lollipop. They tore her clothes off and made her stand naked as the day she was born.

The Pageant featured a celebrity performance by superstar comic, actress & singer Miss Sandra Bernhard, who also judged the contestants along with James St. James, klub kid legend and author of Party Monster; Energy 92FM gay deejays Fernando & Greg; Midnight Mass’ Peaches Christ; and Miss Trannyshack 2004 Anna Conda. Brent Smith and the hot, hot, Hot House porn studs entertained, enlivened, and engorged the festivities. The judges were announced and escorted to their seats by Miss Precious Moments playing a dyke security guard. Bernhard tore up the house in her sexy black lingerie doing a whole standup routine about the difference between drag queens and bio girls – mainly in the arms and legs. “How fabulous to be a drag queen,” she said, “with no yeast infections and never getting menopause.” She snapped, “I love the acoustics in here; it’s like speaking through an empty paper towel tube.” She was dead-on right about that. It was extremely hard to hear in that giant echo chamber. Bernhard spoke about her “mother titties,” and how she did everything she could to push them up and out. “Now that I have a child, I expect everyone to nurture me, coddle me, and kiss my ass. I’m a mother, dammit!” She concluded, lauding “the faggots, dykes, and gays: “Thank God for all of you. Gay rights are human rights. You gotta turn this world around and tear this shit up!” She praised San Francisco as the City of love, and broke into the “If You’re Going to San Francisco, Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair” song. The house roared.

In the swimsuit portion of the show, Pollo DelMar was a sexy mermaid in a pool; Holy McGrail wore two cupcakes with frosting and cherries as a bra top, with an ice cream cone for the bottom; Ambrosia Salad’s swimsuit was a huge salad bowl out of which half-naked studly men fed; Hoku Mama Swamp was dressed in an uber-patriotic red, white, and blue bikini with fringe around her nether parts, showing butt crack, waving two big red, blue, and silver pompoms; Kim Burly was the only hirsute contestant - sporting a big, bold, brown beard and a yellow chiffon bathing suit with matching yellow wig; U-Phoria was a heavy duty dominatrix in full leather/latex gear, whipping into ecstasy her handsome submissive guy in leather harness; LeMay was right out of My Fair Lady with an oversize picture perfect chapeau on her head, wearing a red, white, and blue flounce on the bottom of her tasteful swimsuit, carrying a picnic basket and vigorously snapping photos of the audience and judges with her touristy Polaroid; Veronica Lewinsky, in red Lycra bathing suit, carried her rubber swim ring and cocktail glass to a kiddy pool, where she found a little tot in her way, necessitating her grinding her high heel stiletto into the little girl’s face. There was lots of blood, but thank heaven the Hot House men rescued Veronica from this unsightly scene.

I wish I could thoroughly describe the entire talent portion of the Pageant, but there are just not enough column inches to do so. So I will specially highlight the three winning entrants’ talent, and gloss over the others. Pollo DelMar screened a professional black and white video as we might see on TV’s Animal Channel of Sasquatch foraging in the wilderness. Pollo Bigfoot then appeared live on stage, raging at the restraints that jungle hunters had placed her in, so as to display this wild specimen to fellow anthropologists. Think of King Kong, and you’ll get the picture. But this was the mighty Glamazon, who lip-synched “She’s a Man Eater” as she disemboweled and devoured her captors. Holy McGrail stood in front of a marquee that advertised: “Opening tonight – Watermelon and Fried Chicken – a Dark Musical Comedy. She asked us, “Why the hell do they call it ‘The Great White Way’ when it’s the Great Black Ladies who steal those Broadway shows?!” Wrapped in yards and yards of black tulle, topped by a huge headdress, she took us all to church with her Holy roller gospel singing and raising of the dead (just one of her many Holy miracles) at her magic touch on one of her band members who had overdosed and died. Hoku Mama’s video stated, “I will be as good unto you as ever a queen was to her people. I will not spare, if need be, to spend my blood.” She strutted the stage looking like a proper Elizabethan queen, attended by her ladies in waiting. While lip-synching Abba’s “Spend All Your Love on Me,” her royal executioner hacked off a few heads. Above on the screen we saw horrendous carnage, all ordered by the evil queen.

Kim Burly emerged from a giant vagina – a bloody mess, escaping from her placenta, to lip “Born to be Alive,” while Siamese twins and a woman with freakishly stubby arms and legs were displayed as part of a circus freak show. The infant’s first act was to mature and then sit on a swing that was lowered from above and swung high over the audience. U-Phoria was surrounded by courtiers who wound her up with a key to activate her as a human music box. The stage got covered in black light, and everyone was illuminated in day-glo fluorescence. Ambrosia Salad executed a bizarre magic trick in cutting a woman in half and restoring rain to a parched land, being the resident rainmaker, as her studs raised their umbrellas during the ensuing storm. LeMay’s video showed her being interviewed in a red lounge chair, but the bad acoustics blurred the words. She leaped onto the stage in a pink running suit and began doing a rigorous exercise routine – jumping jacks, handstands, cartwheels, and lifting dumbbells. Veronica Lewinsky lipped Dolly Parton singing “Nine to Five” as she left her comfy home to confront her awful boss at the “Shittybank” office, and then the scene changed into a moonlit night, where she worked as a hooker, and finally returned to her cozy home. Her act ended with a shower of colorful balloons released from above.

The judges deliberated and decided who were the winners. Hoku Mama Swamp got Judge’s Award. Holy McGrail took First Runner-up Award. Both are faux queens, by the way. Pollo DelMar became Miss Trannyshack 2007. “It feels just like a dream,” she told Bay Times. “I thank everyone for making this dream come true!”