Day 12: East Bay Kings Club

Tommy Salami rocking out at the drag king show

I met someone today. But I agreed not to write about it. That sounds more cryptic than it is.

Tonight, Danny stepped away from his law school books for long enough for us finally to hit up an event we've been meaning to check out for almost a year now: the East Bay Kings Club drag king show that happens every Wednesday at the White Horse Inn.

This bar, which is within walking distance of our house, thus guaranteeing that we occasionally walk past it, looks like the kind of place I might think twice about walking into if it were in, say, Wyoming. The solid double doors and blue and white paint job on the outside scream "high school locker room." Pot-bellied men who chain smoke and start throwing back the domestic beer at 4 pm are the kind of people I'd expect to find inside.

Of course I'm wrong. The wall near the bar is plastered with a series of "Best of the East Bay" awards. The category? Best Gay Bar. Who knew?

Clearly many people. There's seems to be a lively and loyal audience for this weekly shindig, involving lip-sync, costumes, and some rocking moves. One of Danny's law school friends is a regular performer, under the moniker of Manny Nuff. Tonight, he did a stellar rendition of the song "I'm on a Boat."(The video of the original is embedded below. If I get the OK, I'll post the drag king version too)


Anyway, it was a fun event, and one that only the Encantada Project got us out of the house to finally go to.

As for the earlier crypticness: I met and talked for a little while with a person at the show. When I told this individual about my project, they were quite firm about not wanting to appear on my blog. I didn't press the issue -- we were in a noisy bar -- but it would have been interesting to hear more about their reasoning. Did it have to do with the venue, and issues of sexuality? Was it a more general desire for privacy? Either way, I'm respecting their wishes. Twelve days in and only one person declining the invitation -- not a bad track record in my opinion. Stay tuned for the possibility of entertaining video...