L. O. L. A.
Last week our Miss Isato wrote about the need for T girls to mature and stop hanging around in the same old venues, wearing the same hair, makeup and clothes and telling the same old stories. Do we really do that? Some of us do. Many of us hang in the same old places because we just don’t know anywhere else to go. Back in the early ’90s I was able to sample the TG scene in London and found several TG parties to go to. There was also a West End nightclub that put on a high class drag show and had a mixed crowd. (A Yorkshire man bought me a drink. He was curious about me and the group of ladies I was with. Nice chap, actually.) Since then I haven’t heard much about the London scene but that’s all changed. A lady named Frances has opened a new club for girls like us that has a Bohemian, artistic twist. Sounds like my kinda place, girlfriend. I’ll be saving up for the ticket to London but in the meantime we can read about her new venture in this dispatch from across the pond.
“I met her in a club down in old Soho, where they drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry cola.”
For many years, people in the Trans community have asked me to host an evening here in London with a Bohemian twist. However, I’d never found the right venue nor the right people to launch such a club, till now!
For as long as I can remember, T girls have been without a venue in which they could mix and mingle within the mainstream, a place other than the usual offerings i.e. clubs that are playroom orientated, or clubs that feel the need to play deafening dance music, not at all congenial to social intercourse.
Personally, I dropped out of the Trannie scene a long long time ago, having matured I found it no longer served my needs anymore and so moved on. Sure, I did have a lot of fun when I first came out, celebrating my new found sexuality on the dance floor like some Energizer bunny, but having moved on in so many ways, the idea of having to shout into someone’s ear to be heard, was no longer my idea of a good night out.
I’d ran a members club in Soho back the mid ’90s, thus giving me access to its under belly, its inside track, the not so obvious, its characters, movers and shakers.
And so, it was not without a little trepidation that I launched LOLA@The Green Fingernail; what if no one turned up, what, if after all those years of banging on at me to host such a club, the girls then dismissed it (they can be a fickle lot)?
Well, from its opening night LOLA has been a resounding success, but then how could it fail; a fantastic venue centrally located (does it get more central than Soho?), sublime cocktails, gorgeous lounge music and a professional, dedicated bar team.
Of course, if it was to work we’d need to have the right blend, just like the cocktails we serve, the ingredients comprised of one part T girls and one part Soho society i.e. musicians, actors, writers, artists, chefs and mixologists, to steer and shape the desired ambiance.
Surely, the T community didn’t need another cookie cutter Trannie club, we’ve enough of those places already and there are those of us who don’t care to be hidden away in such ghettoes, they’re so 20th Century darling!
T girls have been itching to strike out and say, “You know what, we can hold our own, so why can’t we choose to go where we want, our money is as good as anyone else’s.”
Girls — we’ve served our time!
And yet it never fails to surprise me, all it takes for some girls is to don a frock before instantly becoming apologetic, prepared to accept lower standards both of service and of themselves and yet these same people wouldnÃt accept this if they were still wearing trousers.
LOLA’S success isn’t rocket science, it’s a time old recipe, “word of mouth” recommendation has always been the way to attract the right crowd, if you’re a nice person, probability is you’ll tell nice people too!
Decadence and Old Berlin never died, it’s alive and kicking down at LOLA@The Green Fingernail.
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola.
PS: A big thank goes to Lauren Scarlet of www.xvisu.com for creating the splendid LOLA website.
Category: Transgender Community News, 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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