Denver Drag Queens!!!

Wow, I love Drag Queens!

Although I didn't realize it when I signed the lease, I am currently living in Denver's gay neighborhood. And this is awesome. I love where I live. Its a relatively quiet block and its walking distance to basically all of down town.

It is also only a couple of blocks away from Denver's Hamburger Mary's. Hamburger Mary's is an "open-air bar and grille for open-minded people." It is also, according to their corporate website, "the ONLY national franchise actively marketing to the gay community," which I think is awesome.

Anyway, Hamburger Mary's has franchises all over the country and the first drag show I ever went to was at a Hamburger Mary's in California (it was one of the most fun nights of my life!). So imagine my excitement when I moved into a neighborhood that had its own Hamburger Mary's!

Well, I've lived here for almost an entire year now and have never been to one of their drag shows, so FINALLY I rounded up some girl friends and went this past Friday night. It was fabulous.

The first great thing is that there is no cover! So the show is basically free (with the exception of the dollar bills that you give out to the ladies as they preform!). The drinks were reasonable too, I had 7 cocktails on my tab (they were not all for me, I bought a couple of rounds!) and by bill was $35.... not too shabby. But of course, the most important thing is the Drag Queens.

Our MC for the night was Nicole Sommers (bottom left in the picture) and she was fabulous. She's over 6 feet tall, has very large hands and a pretty deep voice, and if you look closely, you can see where she shaved her chest for the show.... she was very entertaining. Brittany Michaels (top right) also helped MC and took some time out to chat with our table early in the night.

Nina Flowers (top middle) was Aimee's favorite, her makeup was awesome and she was definitely the most fierce out of the group. Nina will actually be a cast member on a new reality show in 2009 called "RuPaul's Drag Race" on the Logo network (premiers Feb. 2). So thanks to my little brush with reality fame, I will definitely be watching that show!

My favorite performer was Scottie Carlyle (bottom right in the picture). Now this woman is an inspiration. She's definitely no spring chicken any more, but she's still going out there and doing what she loves and having a good time. I mean, how many people that age have much of a night life at all, let a lone being on stage in drag. I'm sure people have said some not-so-nice things about her age and maybe told her its time to hang up the heels, but she's still out there doin' her thing... now that is awesome... yet another inspiration in my life!! It just goes to show you, its never too late in life to do what you love.

Most of the show was lip syncing and dancing and just a good time in general. At one point Aimee leaned over and made a comment about how many people would (or actually wouldn't) come to see actual women dress up and lip sync, which is kind of a funny if you think about it... but its much more entertaining to see men dressed over the top as women shaking their stuff than to see me up there doing it.

If I had to give one critique, I do wish that there would have been a bit more banter from the MC's. It was a little subdued for me, but although it wasn't the best drag show I've ever been to, the ladies definitely were enjoying themselves and so was the crowd, and that is all that really matters. I would definitely go see them again, no doubt about it.

I still have on my list to go and see Demented Diva's, the comedy / drag show every Tuesday night at Lannie's Clocktower AND Charlie's Cabaret on Colfax which has a drag show every Sunday night... I just can't believe I haven't tapped into the Denver drag scene before now... I love it!!