Calpernia Addams at Hamburger Mary’s
Calpernia
It was a cool night in West Hollywood. My spike heels clicked seductively on the pavement as my escort and I made our way to the hot spot in that town for drag show action — Hamburger Mary’s. Calpernia Addams was starring in and hosting a show. We were arriving early to have a couple of cocktails and some food before the festivities got under way.
The place is located on Santa Monica Blvd. The front of the restaurant is open to the street and despite the chill diners were seated behind the railing with the breeze ruffling their hair. Walking in farther revealed the host station. Since we were there for the show we demanded front row seats. (Actually the host offered them when we said we were there to see Miss Addams.)
After a couple of Cosmopolitans and a delicious salad the small stage was the focus of attention as Calpernia started the show. She did an opening number, singing live to a recorded track, and then got to know the audience better. There were several bachelorette parties in the house — actually for a gay bar in West Hollywood there were a large number of young women in the audience. Is it the new place to pick up chicks?
Lady Red Couture
In addition to Calpernia the show featured performances by Lady Red Couture, drag king Landon Cider?, and Smooches Galore. Both Calpernia and Lady Red Couture sang live. Couture would be singing in a high, feminine voice and then drop to a deep bass for a line or two. That got big applause every time. Drag King Landon Ciders was perfectly manly and performed flawless lip sync to pre-recorded tracks. His standout number was a performance piece that began with a monologue (lip synced) on the versatility of a certain word beginning with f and rhyming with “duck.” That segued into the Ceilo Green song with the f-word in the title and Ciders tore down the house. Smooches Galore projected fierce glamor and lip synced to perfection.
Calpernia is an excellent MC and knew how to work the crowd, interacting with audience members who had birthdays by getting them up on stage for a butt shaking competition.
Miss Gardner and Miss Addams
We were a bit disappointed that Calpernia didn’t exhibit her instrumental talents by accompanying herself with one of the instruments she is skilled on but the venue was basic and didn’t lend itself to more than performing to tracks.
After the show I had a chance to ask her about the controversy over her stance regarding the use of words that some in the TG community find offensive.
“What I said was that words like “tranny” and “she-male,” I don’t identify with and I don’t use them myself but at the same time I do recognize there are communities other than mine that have historically used them among themselves to self identify, and that I am not comfortable censoring that.” She continued, “I don’t refer to myself as those words but I won’t take them away from people that have used those words since the ’60s or ’70s. I don’t feel like transsexual women own the experience of gender crossing or gender play so why should we be the ones to get to lay down the law as to how all the language is used.”
If you get a chance to attend a Calpernia Addams show at Hamburger Mary’s or elsewhere don’t pass it up. She is a talented performer and MC — and one classy lady.
Category: Product Review, Transgender Fun & Entertainment
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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