OMG!! Freddie’s was such a Drag!

I got a bit roped into going to the Miss Freddie’s Beach Bar Pageant last night. I am not a huge fan of drag because the further north you go, the less it becomes about entertaining and more about just costumes and lip-sync. In DC add in a lot of pre-ops with new boobs the size of softballs, and long-running hostesses using the same jokes night after night. It’s fun, but hardly entertaining.

Last night was a lot of fun though there were times when I was wondering when it might all finally be over. I was impressed that every performer and presenter was ready to go on-time which is something almost unheard of at the place I’ve usually been in DC, Chaos. Drawbacks were that as the crowd was clearly drinking and had been for a while, there wasn’t enough done to make sure that we knew exactly which performer was which. The sound system kept failing, the presenters kept forgetting which number was assigned to which queen, which made voting a little confusing. The most annoying thing for me was that the main presenter Destiny B. Childs was feeling her diva a little too much and forgetting that they decided to hold the pageant at Freddie’s, a BAR. People are going to be loud, people are going to be there and have no idea there’s a pageant and some people just aren’t going to care. Destiny insisted on making a big deal out of asking people to be quiet and more than a few times she lost her shit about it. If you want people to be quiet and attentive and respectful then you should probably make the pageant a private event and/or charge a cover. That will keep the run of the mill schlubs out of the way and you won’t need screaming, scolding drag queens. 😛

They had a range of categories: Self-Expression, Swimsuit, Onstage Question and Talent. I felt that the voting clearly skewed towards one queen Ophelia Bottoms, however another queen Happy Von Huffington clearly had a much better looking swimsuit and her talent performance was very animated and entertaining. Still, Ophelia took all categories, which were audience chosen, and the crown awarded by a panel of judges. I would love to recognize and link to the other participants, but the ballot buckets were facing away from us so I barely remember bits of the other queens’ names. Everyone did a wonderful job, but the cream clearly rose.

I was mainly there with Justin to show support for the reigning queen, Christina Carruthers as she is one of his new employees. If she were able to compete again, she totally should have. Very friendly, not at all a diva except in the good ways (take note queens). I wish I’d been able to take better pictures, but it turned out I was jockeying for position with the MW photographer who is a really friendly guy and ended up getting a lot of pics of our table. For the first parts of the pageant we were in a corner table a little far off so I was keeping the faith in my camera, but I managed to get some good memories.

One thing I realize I don’t miss. Smoking in bars. The clothes I wore last night are currently languishing in a little pile next to my usual laundry hamper. No way am I letting that smell leech into the rest of the clothes. These two guys next to us were chain smoking! It was just disturbing to watch and this morning I’ve got red eyes and a really irritated throat — clearly I need some brunch mimosas! 😉