A Surreal Day In The Life

I didn't realize when our First Fridays dinner group rescheduled for a second Saturday that we were mucking something up on a cosmic scale....because when June 11 arrived, it kicked the K-Man and I off into one strange Bizarro Day. This ain't no apron-wearing post on baking banana bread...this surreal day started off bawdy and ended up downright blue. We are still recovering....read on if you dare.

If you read my last post, I alluded to a photo shoot I did with Kathleen and Molly (aka two of the Wild Women Of The G.O.B). After a rollicking breakfast at Ray's diner, what I thought would be a relatively quick meeting of the addled minds became a three-plus-hour shoot at Broadway and Penn. Suddenly, I'm on top of a chair shooting a ton of pics at these two bawdy broads in Broadway and Penn's vintage clothing, playing an over-the-top take on Lucy and Ethel. Serious kudos go to Lisa and Broadway and Penn...girlfriend literally took an off-the-cuff request for a photo shoot and ran with it in spades. Lisa knows her photo shoots! The shoot is for an upcoming project...stay tuned!

While this was going on, Keith was working away in his office. We both shuffled our way home for some brief downtime before heading out to meet the dinner group at our latest locale: The Marrakech Cafe. We joined everyone in the smallish dining room in this Westport restaurant and proceeded to order some fine Moroccan cuisine. The decor featured some interesting details but here, as it should be, the food is the thing. They don't have a liquor license but they allow you to bring your own, so we came bearing bottles of vino. Ornate glasses of Moroccan mint tea were offered along with soft drinks and other beverages as well.

Keith and I split a Marrakech Sampler: portions of Zaalauk (pan-fried eggplant with Roma tomato sauce), Taktouka (sliced green peppers and tomatoes in a lemon-garlic reduction), carrots cooked in house-made Sharmaula (lemon-garlic) sauce and marinated chicken skewers. The Taktouka was fabulous...perfectly spiced peppers that I could have made a meal of. My entree was one of the house specialties: vegetarian couscous with turnips, butternut squash and zucchini. Various entrees around the table included house-made sausage stuffed with lamb and beef, salmon salad, kebabs and oven-roasted Cornish hens. Dessert included tiramisu and a sweet, delicious baklava. We all had a fine time and enjoyed the food thoroughly.

Now, at this point the day has been colorful and a bit eccentric for sure, but the truly surreal portion of the day was beginning to kick in. Our friend Kiko, always up for a good time, had been encouraging everyone to go to Missie B's club after dinner. Our girl Kiko loves her some drag queens. I'd been to this gay/drag club once since we moved to KC and that was with my BN crew. It was a damn good time and while I certainly knew all about clubbing in my younger days, these days are more about crashing by 10 pm at the latest. I have always wanted to get Keith to a good drag show but thus far in our nearly 12 years, our only excursion together was a Drag Brunch at Dupont Circle with Annette in DC. That should say plenty about the hours we tend to keep and is definitely a story for another day.

To my eternal surprise, Keith said "we can go for a drink". I replied, "we get in those doors and I guarantee we won't just stay for one drink". We agreed to go with some of our group and Carolyn rode with us to ensure we didn't chicken out and go home. Missie B's, as it tends to be, was dark and somewhat empty at this point....it's too early for their festivities to begin. No prob...we ordered drinks and found a seat near the stage. Soon, all of the tables were filling up...we were surrounded by two large bachelorette parties. One of them were all dressed up in gowns and well into a big night. Patiently waiting for the drag divas to do their thing, the unexpected occurred: a wildly dressed band took the stage and introduced themselves as a "tranny punk" band called Mercury Mad and The Plastic Bitches. Ripping into their ultrasonic assault; we quickly realized that we were definitely not in Kansas anymore. I thought, "Keith finally makes the big leap and our faces are being melted by this nerve-jangling punk group." The band was fine but this was no sit n' sip lounge music, to be sure. The best part of this was watching the bachelorettes and their similarly stunned looks during the first few minutes of the band's set....the party girls looked like they were watching open heart surgery.

Our ears loudly ringing, we finally moved on to the main show. The host in stereotypical lesbian wear was called Dykey Dorothy(whom I'm pretty sure was the divine former chief chanteuse of Bar Natasha Missy Koonce) and she was a hoot; baiting the crowd with her hilariously oddball routine. She introduced a parade of drag divas including Miss KC Gay Pride 2011. These sultry performers hit the stage in dazzling fashion and entertained us in myriad ways. Included were everything from pseudo-dramatic readings as Maya Angelou to a "drag king" (woman performing as a man pictured at right) channeling Bruno Mars to an astoundingly acrobatic performance from a fierce drag queen named Molten. Wowsa regarding that flying split! Keith actually got into it and was even dragged up on to the stage. He even received the drag queen's blessing....a kiss on his shiny bald head. Those deep crimson lip prints were like a seal of approval.

At the end of the evening, Carolyn, apparently still in mayoral mode, led us in a dramatic exit through the fire door; the alarm braying in our wake. Keith and I looked at each other in the car as we pulled out and just cracked up. The relatively tame Saturday we had planned took a sharp left turn into Bizarro World and stayed there.....and we had a blast. Oddly, Keith was right....it was only one drink, it just lasted for a few hours. Ears still buzzing, we laughed all the way home.