All photos courtesy of Aunt Charlie's Lounge.

Blonder than you'll ever be.

Blue light is your friend.

A friend has pointed out that in spite of my statement in the Divas article about Aunt Charlie's Lounge being the last of the drag-bar breed, there are two others, specifically Trannyshack and Marlena's. I don't quite agree regarding Trannyshack; it's a once-a-week club night at a bar, not the identity of the bar. It's a big deal, no question there, but in my taxonomy it doesn't bestow drag-bar status upon The Stud. Marlena's is a good call, and I confess that it fully slipped my mind. The walls of Marlena's are even covered with portraits of past Empresses of the Imperial Court of San Francisco, and that's as strong a drag bar credential as it gets. Bears further investigation, I suppose.

But, damn, to me, Aunt Charlie's Lounge is the real shit. On the show night I attended at Aunt Charlie's Lounge, the song being sync'd to when I arrived was "I've Never Been to Me." That's just so old-school, and the jokes were of the "believe it or not, that was a man in a dress!" variety which still manage to amuse because, as in any performance, it's about the singer and not the song. The most recent song from that evening was "Flashdance...What A Feeling," by a younger performer complete with period-appropriate spandex. Otherwise, it had that feeling of stepping back into a time which I'd never experienced and thus wouldn't really know if it bit me on the ass, but nostalgia's about the idealized rather than actual past, so it felt so right.

The extreme disreputability of the neighborhood adds to the charm. Putting napkins over our beverages, Rimma and I stepped outside to smoke and observe the carnage. Aunt Charlie's Lounge is located on the classically busy Tenderloin block of Turk between Taylor and Jones, the sort of neighorhood Egon Spengler described in Ghostbusters as "like a demilitarized zone."

Boys hoping to connect tubesteaks. (I have no idea what that means.)

A fellow was piddling into the gutter just down the block. Gotta go somewhere, right? A spun young man was sitting against a fire hydrant clutching his skateboard , mumbling incoherently and grinning wide. A drug deal passed in front of us, the buyer a heavily tattooed and pierced young man who registered as F2M on my radar but probably wasn't. A hostel and SRO were across the street, both with satellite teevee dishes in some windows. (The lower the average income, the more residents will have satellite dishes. If you don't believe me, go to the projects. DishTV must get its marketing staff from the credit card companies.)

My car was parked in front of the SRO, rather sketchy young bucks all around it. One in particular couldn't seem to take his eyes off it, but I suspect that instead of casing my ride, he was admiring the decay: not only the fascinating array of dents and dings, but the rusted holes in the roof and huge peels in the paint job, both endemic to that particular batch of lapis blue '97 Dodge Neons. In terms of the energy extended to break in compared to its value, it's the iceberg lettuce of cars, just the kind you want to drive into neghborhoods like that. All of this in the shadow of the ritzy shopping emporiums down on Market, a classic example of San Francisco's socioeconomic microclimates. Thank goodness there's no such thing as class in America.

Plaid skirts: always in vogue.

The contrast never ceases to fascinate me: the gayness of drag shows right through a door surrounded by the very definition of urban grit. Maybe it's because I'm of the first generation that doesn't necessarily associate open homosexuality with destitution. My first real exposure to hardcore gayness was The Castro, and they seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves. Was Aunt Charlie's Lounge there because once upon a time it needed to be located in an area so gnarly that those who would otherwise disapprove and get all "community standards" wouldn't give a shit if they even noticed?

The NIMBY battle never ends, of course. Divas encountered resistance when it moved to its current location in the late nineties, and more recently the executive director of the Mission Economic Development Association was among those who protested Kink.com moving into the armory at 15th and Mission, saying it's not "a good fit for our family-based neighborhood." I mean, seriously. "15th and Mission." "Family-based neighborhood." Go ahead, try using those words together in a sentence without laughing. You can't do it.

As we went back inside, I wondered if the performers or even the more recreational drag queens and cross-dressers get shit from the locals if they approach on foot en femme. Does it conflict with the... hardness of the street life around it? Is the ever-demonized boy in a dress more likely to be a target of mugging because of their gender criminality than a tourist with a sweater tied around their neck, or are they they considered part of the environment and thus afforded that slight degree of protection? In strictly economic terms, I'd guess that they're not as likely to be targeted as the tourists who've taken a wrong turn off Union Square, since the aforementioned queerbot is likely to be a broke-ass motherfucker.

Before we left for the evening, the music had moved onto a run of covers of "What a Difference a Day Makes," including (as to be expected) the Esther Philips disco version. The music had actually been quite an eclectic mix, leaning towards dancier stuff, but spanning decades nicely. As does Aunt Charlie's itself.

Aunt Charlie's Lounge - by Sherilyn Connelly

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