Drag queens up, down, slanted, and totally sideways

I once went to a Bingo game in Cranston, Rhode Island. I was 13, and I was not only the youngest person in the room, I was the youngest person in the room by something like sixty years. The exception was my father, who had driven his own great aunt to the event and was cowering with me in a corner, while an angry, blue-haired woman with tits down to her corns screeched numbers over the PA. “Father,” I whispered, “these women are scary.” “Yes, son,” he said. “They smell like medicine, and they look like deformed drag queens.” “Father,” I asked, “what’s a drag queen?” (for those were innocent times, and 13-year-olds did not necessarily know what drag queens were, or fisting, or felching, or Santorum). “Don’t ask, son,” he replied. “One day you’ll know.”

Well, now I know, and I realize that those women looked nothing like drag queens. They looked like hausfraus gone to seed. Anyway, real drag queens don’t smell like medicine — they smell, if anything, like knock-off perfume and gin. Father was and is a country boy, and he must be excused for his provincial ways. Next time he visits Florida, though, I will take him to Lips, for its “Bitchy Bingo,” so he can see what the real deal looks. Lips, located in the building that used to house Studio 54 (421 East Oakland Blvd., Oakland Park) is South Florida’s newest, flashiest, and hell, maybe only drag dining palace. Its Tuesday night bingo games, hosted by local drag goddess Misty Eyez, comes complete with dragtainment and seriously gourmet grub so delish, even weight-watching divas would eat it if they weren’t helplessly fucked up on coke. Pan-seared sea scallops over butternut squash risotto! Filet mignon with port demiglaze! Damn!. Seatings are from 7 – 7:30 p.m., and you’ll want a res. Visit www.lipsusa.com.
Wednesdays, 2008