The Vampire's Lair

The 1996 Henri David Halloween Ball


Liberty & Kalina
For those of you who are looking for the ultimate Halloween party in Philadelphia, but don't know where to turn, Henri David is the king (and queen) of Halloween. Every year, Henri throws together a wild and outrageous party whose sole intent is to outdo his previous year's effort. The costumes, stageshows, and special effects at each Ball rival some of the best shows in Atlantic City. And, every year, the people turnout is always in the one- to two thousand range, so Henri has hit upon a winning formula.

You want extravagance? Just take a look at the huge inflating toad in the following photo, taken during the opening portion of the ceremony, held at the Grand Ballroom of the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel in Center City, Philadelphia. The audience loved it. Never mind the scantily clad dancing men and the flamboyant gay men in garrishly sequined clothing prancing about. If this is the road to fun and enlightenment, then count me in!

toad



This year I decided to take my female impersonation up a notch and get hair extensions sewn into my own hair. As you can see in the following photos, hair extensions look ultra-realistic, since they're made of real human hair and can be styled using the same methods as real human hair. I wore my hair extensions for five days, including the day before the Halloween Ball, and had different hair styles each day, courtesy of Mary, my hair stylist and fiancee.

Hair Extensions

Wearing a wig for 24 hours a day can be a sweaty and grueling experience, but wearing hair extensions is an entirely different matter. You won't sweat as much, but you will have to maintain your hair to a very high degree, depending upon its length. I found myself having to spend about an hour each day washing and combing my hair, not to mention the hours I had to wait for the hair to completely dry. The first couple of days took some getting used to as I was more accustomed to spending about twenty minutes to shower and dry myself off (to some people, that's a long time, but I'm a neat freak) rather than several hours.

Kalina and Jessica I also got long sculptured nails done for the Ball, painted in pastel lilac with white tips and a shimmery sheer lilac finish. I call it "Kalina's version of the French manicure." I wore a dazzling floor-length sequined evening gown with fuschia, black, and silver sequins in a floral design. My earrings were beautiful four-inch long pageant earrings designed by Jewels by Jill that complemented my rhinestone-studded bracelets and ring. I stood atop four-inch high black satin pumps and my makeup was done in fuschia and burgundy shades.

One guy was dressed as a huge local television camera. Another was dressed in part of an actual toll booth. Yet another masqueraded as a ten foot-high cave gorilla humanoid. On the other end of the spectrum were guys who loved dressing as women... all sorts of women, from beauties to bitches to both. We even saw pre-op transsexuals with very large breast implants, not a very unusual sight to see these days.

There were nine trophies to be awarded. The award for Most Hilarious was won by a guy dressed as an evil witch and three guys dressed as dalmations. At first, when I saw him prancing around with his troupe, I swore that he was a woman. He repeatedly kicked, whipped, and screamed at his dalmations. "You mangy mutts!" he hollered from time to time as the three dalmations scampered about on their leashes.

Witch & Dogs

The field for the female impersonator contest was a little smaller this year and I noticed many of the same familiar faces, some wearing the same exact gowns, hair styles, and makeup that they wore last year (how tacky!). C'mon, girls, if you want to win this thing, you can't look like the same damn person year in and year out!

When the female impersonator portion was over, one of the Asian female impersonators invited me to join in a group photograph. In the photograph below, it was the third impersonator from the left (the one with the long hair) who had won the Most Believable contest, even though you see the blonde Asian holding the trophy. Incidentally, point for point, Kham Fong, the blonde Asian, was one of my most challenging competitors in the past four years. She has come a long way and is quite awesome, I must admit.

The Asian female impersonators were always stiff competition and were all interspersed among the rest of the contestants. All of them were highly realistic this year. The perverted weird one who stroked my trophy last year had an androgynous look this year. He didn't enter the contest, but did join the photo above (he's the one in yellow, second from the left). The one to the right of me is Jessica Brandon, current chapter leader of Renaissance and one whose skills improve each time Mary and I see her (we have no doubt that she will win the contest someday).

Group shot Prior to the contest, Kham Fong was sizing up her competition, telling many of them that she was not going to enter the contest this year, but there she was on stage with the rest of them when it came time to walk the walk and she dazzled the audience and made everyone cheer, moreso than any other impersonator, including myself. One of her sneaky tactics in sizing us all up was she had worn a mediocre dress and an awful-looking wig early in the night and, when she finally hit the stage, she changed to an absolutely breathtaking gown and had a hair style that would make any woman jealous! It was clear to me that, in order to win this contest, you had to look at least as good as Kham Fong. She, like me, would not be picked a second year in a row (the "give somebody else a chance!" principle applies here).

The award for Most Beautiful was won by Victoria Michaels, a professional female impersonator in the area and another of my most challenging competitors from last year. She won Miss Gay Pennsylvania America for two years straight, but this is a noncompetitive contest (anything with five or six contestants isn't very competitive). I'm sorry to say I didn't get a photograph of this impersonator. She was much improved this year (she had a boom-shicka-boom butt movement this time) and was quite hungry to win this time, so she beat me. Face-wise, she wasn't very beautiful, but she had a great body and a great dress that night.

Toy Story When Michaels left the stage, she grabbed her trophy and quickly exited the stage. Everyone turned to see a Dionne Warwick impersonator chase Michaels out the door, Michaels clutching her trophy for dear life, screaming "Eeeeeek!!!", and looking back at Dionne who was clenching her fists and screaming, "Bitch! You bitch!" What a sight!

The winner of Most Spectacular was a couple who imitated two Toy Story characters, Buzz Lightyear and Bo Peep. They fabricated their own costumes with perfectly molded plastic parts. Another contestant whom we felt should have received some honorable mention was a thin man impersonating a sequined red-silver-and-blue Statue of Liberty, complete with motorized spinning bra cups. She was fabulous and very pretty, too.

If you want to experience one of the best Halloween parties on the East Coast, come check out Henri David's Halloween Ball next year. As Henri likes to say, "Don't come as you are, but as you want to be"!

Be sure to check out Kalina's fabulous web page.
Of course, you can always e-mail the girlie girl at isato@gender.com.


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