The Vampire's Lair

The Krystal Ball

Is clubgoing getting boring? Meeting and saying hi to the same set of people over and over again week after week? This has happened to me in little cities like Boston and Philly and even in the big urban jungle known as New York. No matter where I go, I start seeing the same people filtering into the supposedly "cool and hip" places. There are "guaranteed fun" places to go to, such as Man-Ray in Boston, DV8 in San Fran, The Tunnel in New York, and Woody's in Philly, but the truth is a clubgirl needs variety, so here it finally is. Philly's got some variety in the name of The 24th Ward. It's one of Philly's best kept secrets and one of the larger and well-kept clubs in this little city.

On Saturday, April 20, an especially fun event was held at The 24th Ward called The Krystal Ball, one of those Philly parties where all proceeds go to a charity called Diversity of Pride. The 24th Ward is one of those clubs that would do very well if situated in New York. In fact, I had previously mentioned in an earlier club adventure that The 24th Ward looks a helluva lot like Octagon, a prominent New York club where the infamous party called "Future" is held. Starting in May, every Saturday but the first of each month, the 24th Ward will hold a house party called - what else? - "Club House" for members only. Be sure to get a membership there pronto!

It seems we had walked into The Krystal Ball at the right time at midnight as a show was in progress. The place was packed. Phoenixx, a popular club personality, was in boy drag mode and set the tone for the drag queens and banjee girls around him. The blinding spotlights cast shadows of all of the drag catwalk dancers around the room. A tall Diana Ross impersonator stood on one platform and an odd S&M drag fantasy pranced on top of the other, his blonde ponytail extruding from the back of his leather helmet mask. Four or five little clubkids did catwalk dances back and forth around Phoenixx. The scene looked almost like someone's twisted notion of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves! All around the dance floor, dozens of people - straight, gay, and everything in between - cheered the fabulous dancers on.

As soon as the drag show ended, everyone filtered onto the dance floor, but the show did not end. A male and female bodybuilder, both equally well-built, stepped onto the platform on the opposite end of the room and performed fantastic faux pas sex acts to the watering mouths of their onlookers. A female go-go dancer jumped onto the platform and the male bodybuilder lifted both women up and sat them on top of each shoulder while twirling around. The girls begged to get off the bodybuilder and began dancing with each other. The male bodybuilder stepped off the platform and started walking around behind every woman at the bar doing a little grind.

"You can put a dollar anywhere you want, ladies," he said to Mary and I.

Mary and I looked at each other like "No way!" which caused him to move on to the next pair of equally cautious victims.

I caught some famous local celebs in the crowd, including Henri David. He saw me and gave me a big hug, introducing me to his female companion. I also said hello to a few drag queens from the nearby Stars Too club. A Carol Channing female impersonator with a bleached blonde wig and a red sequined dress walked around the club saying hello to everybody. A number of nude males in scant leather g-strings also showcased their bodies to the delight of the club people. The event was definitely a lot of fun and went on until 3:30am. Local fave Frankie Morelli was the night's DJ.

My Girl Garb

I was on a designer logo trip that night. I wore a black Girl's Rule! tee that was emblazoned with the phrase "Goodgirl" (patterned after the Goodyear tires logo) that sat atop my 36D chest; black Guess stretch jeans; silver, gold, and black Anne Klein II bracelet watch; Anne Klein II tortoise shell sunglasses; black Liz Claiborne purse; shoes by Moda Espana; and the requisite Gaultier perfume to top it all off. Don't worry, I'm not a snob... really! Hee hee.

My Guess jeans were a size 30 waist. I had a helluva time trying to squeeze either of my Carox Company lower torso enhancers or my Classic Curves padded undergarment into them, so I used my homemade hip pads instead. The jeans were a bit snug even without any extra padding and they did give my butt a nice lift with a lot of butt cheek separation. Y'know how Claudia Schiffer in her old Guess ads had that nice little crevice between her cheeks? That's what I looked like (wink). With the Classic Curves on, my butt looked like one big butt cheek with no butt cheek separation. With the Carox pads on, I couldn't even pull the jeans halfway up. My own hip pads, held in place with Silken Mist off-black pantyhose, did the job nicely and gave me an awesome shape.

I wanted to stand out a bit more that night so I wore my D- cup Jodee mastectomy bra, which gave me an awesomely plump chest. I was debating whether to wear my Girl's Rule! tee or my Calvin Klein tee. Both were black and purchased just days ago. The Calvin Klein tee was a true baby tee and displayed a lot of tummy, a part of me I'm proud to show off since I keep my tummy lean and mean, but I opted for the more conservative and body-hugging style of the Goodgirl tee. Sometimes letting people use their imagination induces more excitement than simply showing it all outright!

Trix Are For Kids... Clubkids!

I usually wear professional nail salon tips nowadays, but earlier that day, I bought a pack of glue-on nails made by the LaJoie Company, makers of Press & Go Square Sport, the press-on nails that magazine ads claim look "so natural, they feel like you're own." Always a skeptic, I glued them on, painted them, and was amazed at how nice they looked. You need to do a little bit of preparation for these tips to work (in particular, your cuticles must look perfect), but the results look nearly as good as the real thing (i.e. nail sculpturing). Their realism has everything to do with the way they're shaped, which is a lot more curved and tapered than your average salon nail tips.

I'd like to recommend Avon's Chocolate Creme as a very sexy lip color. I can only describe it as a chocolate-covered raspberry color. Avon sells it under their Maximum Color Creamy Matte collection. "Creamy matte?" Mary asked. "Matte isn't supposed to look creamy!" C'est la vie. It's good stuff anyway. Another mega-cool color I instantly fell in love with is Avon's Sienna under their new Beyond Color collection, but now I'm giving away too many secrets!

Here's a mascara tip for all you clubkids out there with wimpy-looking eyelashes. Coat your lashes with two coats of a clear mascara, such as Cover Girl Natural Lash, before applying your regular mascara. The clear mascara provides a thicker foundation for each lash and helps separate the lashes. After each coat, run a lash comb through your lashes to separate them even more. A lash-lengthening mascara, such as L'Oreal's Lash Out will then take your lashes to dramatic new lengths!

Spring Looks and Thoughts

By the way, kiddies, don't stray too far from the shades of the season, which are browns. Browns look especially good on autumn and winter faces. Save the fuschia and pink colors for late spring to summer. Save the deep reds for the fall. Now is the time for brown. If you have naturally dark hair, chances are a brown will look good on you. There are browns of all types, from reddish brown to purplish brown to blackish brown. The trick is to make sure all of the shades on your face look good together and have enough variety so that it doesn't look boring. Send me e-mail and a front face photo of yourself if you need help in choosing colors. My help is free with no strings attached.

As the spring moves on to summer, you should wear less and less foundation, especially during the day. No matter what foundation you wear, it will still clog your pores. No amount of powder will fix an overly greasy spot, so don't even try it. Your other makeup products should also be used sparingly because it is a rare sight to see a heavily made up woman in the daytime (and even the nighttime) during these seasons.

If you are serious about crossdressing in the spring and summertime, you will need to make sure your minimal makeup hides all of your masculine facial features. I strongly recommend removing facial hair via tweezing or waxing, but this is a painful experience for most men. Even if you tweeze just half of your facial hair by selecting alternating hairs, you will lose some of that dreadful looking beard shadow and - presto! - you won't need as much makeup as you normally use.

I tweeze all of my moustache hair the night before I go out because I want to use as little foundation as possible. I have oily skin, so using a lot of foundation is really bad for my pores. If you honestly don't know whether or not you have oily skin, the next time you wander out crossdressed, study your face after about two hours of light to moderate activity. If you're shiny, then you have an oily skin problem. If not, then I despise you, beauty queen!

Powder can take away some of the shine, but it's not the solution to an oily skin problem. Powder can give your skin a chalky appearance, especially if it's piled on. Most crossdressers and some women don't know how to properly use powder. If you have an oily skin problem, you may need to wipe away the foundation "dirtied" by your sweat and reapply it, the powder, and the rest of your cosmetic repertoire (blush, eye and contour shadows, etc). It is not uncommon for many working women to "remake" their faces at least twice a day.

It makes no sense to simply pat the sweaty areas with powder and believe that you are done. For one thing, I have seen many crossdressers and genetic women with shiny, oily-looking cheeks while the rest of their faces looks matte. Believe me, it's a funny sight to see. Those with oily skin should use an oil-free moisturizer daily and use Sea Breeze to cleanse their faces several times per week. It is also a good idea to get into a strenuous daily exercise routine that will cause you to sweat and clean out those pores.

Springtime means tee shirt weather. Tee shirts with shorts. Tee shirts with jeans. Tee shirts with skirts. One type of clothing item I find especially cute is the scooter. It's a combo skirt with shorts underneath, perfect for hiding the lines of your hip padding and showing off your legs. Wear a strap sandal shoe with this look and remember to go light on the makeup. Jewelry should be little to nonexistent.

On Passing

If your goal is to pass, then you should not wear some big foo foo-looking drag show wig, especially during the warmer months. That is a dead giveaway of a crossdresser. Find a shorter wig that's lays close to your face. Stay away from bleached blonde wigs. Those of you lucky enough not to work in conservative work environments can get away with experimenting with hair extensions. My advice on this: Go to a salon. Period. Hair extensions are a couple hundred bucks, but it's worth it.

Hair should be done by licensed people who work at salons, not by these two-bit so-called "image consultants" with no real credentials. Would you trust a doctor with no medical degree? Would you trust an electrician with no license? Hell, no! Experience can sometimes take the place of a license, but why take a chance with your hard-earned money? So, remember, any person who dares apply makeup or style hair on another human being is required by law to have a cosmetology license. I have yet to see an unlicensed image consultant who has impressed me with his or her "real-world" experience. I ought to compile a hit list of who to avoid.

The older you are and the longer you stay "in the closet," the harder it will be for you to pass when you eventually take that first crucial step into public. I'll tell you what went through my mind the first time I was serious about venturing out in public. I was 23 at the time and I said to myself, "If I don't do this now, I'll make up some lame excuse for doing it tomorrow. And then I may make up another lame excuse for doing it the following weekend. And so on and so forth. I may just never do it!"

I reasoned that if I kept making up lame excuses to put off venturing out, I'd eventually run out of excuses and I'd have to go out after all of that anyway. I further reasoned that I would've wasted a lot of time and energy making up those excuses, which would say little of my productivity and character. Since I consider productivity and character to be two of my important traits, I threw out the excuses, got dressed up, made myself look like a knockout, and ventured out. My success at passing has a lot to do with applying myself and the knowledge I gained from a set of related and seemingly unrelated subjects - the graphic arts, dance music production, creative writing, toy model building, philosophy, social psychology, circuit board design, and even computer programming - to the art and science of feminine image.

Everyone is good at a certain set of skills. At the risk of sounding like an Eastern spiritualist, you have to know how to transfer the energy from the skills you're good at to the skills you have yet to be good at. Those people who are "a natural" at the things they do have, in essence, mastered this energy transferral. This is one of the reasons why I always encourage people to further their education, whether through coursework or from books. Most people stop book- learning at 18, some at 20. This is a shame because we are supposed to be a technologically-and culturally-advanced society. If everyone got off their butts and read a few more books, people would be just a tad bit smarter and the world would be a better place (thank you, Miss America wannabe).

It will take time before you get good at the passing game. Treat it like a game and treat it like a game that you could win. Believe me, with enough practice, you, too, can win that game!

Raffles Bar

Famed local drag celebs Morgan Wells and Victoria Michaels hosted a drag show on Sunday, April 21, 1996 at 8:00pm in the upstairs dance floor area of Raffles' Bar (243 South Camac Street) to celebrate their grand re-opening. Both Morgan and Vicky have extraordinary female impersonation talent. To round out the evening were Amanda Love, Rachel, and Joey Josephs. The small but cozy crowd hooped and hollered at each of the five well-choreographed performances.

The performance that really stood out in my mind was the one by Rachel. Walking onstage with two huge balloon hooters underneath a kind of Spanish pirate lady top and short red skirt, Rachel proceeded to create a parodic atmosphere of cooking a rubber chicken in a flaming pot. The wailing muchacha soundtrack added to the hilarious tone of the performance as Rachel lifted her boobs upward to every high pitched "Whoop!" sound sung by the diva.

At the climax of the song, a gunshot is heard and one of Rachel's boobs pops, again to the frenzied delight of the audience. A second gunshot is heard shortly afterwards and the other boob pops. Rachel then proceeds to do something to the rubber chicken that is best left undescribed. Whatever you may be thinking, it's worse than that, but still hilarious in a raunchy way.

Future productions from Morgan and Victoria will include the Miss Gay Pennsylvania America "pageant" in May and June. Don't miss these shows! For the drag lover, the 12th Air Command (254 South 12th Street) will be hosting Tinsel Garland's USO Drag Show on alternate Thursdays.

Read Kalina's review of the 1996 Miss Pennsylvania Female Impersonator pageant, complete with pictures. Kalina

The Sexy Vampire