Blog

It’s a freezing Saturday night on the Lower East Side, and it’s the last Saturday of the year. I arrive just in time to catch the grace of Jason Mejias, rope-wrapped and dangerdangling.

Bastard Keith is the host for the early set, does a roll call for birthdays, and leads the two halves of the Slipper Room into a harmony for “Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! And now you get a hand job!” The crowd happily obliges.

“Congratulations for being shat out all those many years ago into an incomprehensible world.” says the Bastard. “But I didn’t get a hand job!” complains an audience member. “… Yet!” is the immediate comeback.

And then things go slightly off the rails. BK says something about Jewish people, and someone in the crowd boos at the wrong time, causing Bastard Keith to put together his search party of one for the possibly antisemetic boo-er, who turns out to be a shit-faced bro, of which there are sadly too many on some nights. It could have turned ugly, but Bastard Keith deftly teetotters on the brink between comedy and ostracizing, commenting on the beauty of the phone flash lights behind him as he turns around and makes his way back to the stage.

“Our next performer is going to wash the taste of creeping fascism right out of your mouth!” It’s a guest star, Roxy Stardust, from Scotland, and while unsurprisingly the bagpipes are present in the music, the butt tassels are a nice surprise. Or, as BK puts it: “she puts the tart in tartan!”

Bastard Keith declares that a key was left in the tip bucket, but nobody claims it, leaving him excited to try the key on every lock in New York he can find. He left the rest of the tip bucket alone though: “I don’t need it I have money buried all over the world on strategic locations.”

Sean Blue is next, juggling up to steven balls in the air, undressing himself while keeping his juggle going, taking a tour of the audience sitting on people’s laps and ending with a riveting finale where he pulls his pants down to finish naked.

Bastard Keith, not wanting to be outdone, gives the audience a choice between left and right, busts out a nut, and ends up agreeing with everyone that the left testicle is indeed the better choice.

Lilin Lace comes out dressed like Michael to the tune of Dirty Diana, and bends her way through every chorus and guitar solo, peeling off her glove with her foot.

Peekaboo Pointe treats us to a one month old act, with a minimalist approach to movement, starting with a pink boxer jacket and some poses, and ending on a chair playing guitar solos on her upright legs to The Final Countdown – as a vague prelude to her other tired stripper act.

The first set ends with Roxy and Lilin on the go-go… and then we’re in for an unexpected and unannounced surprise in the second set.

Out comes, in her golden dress, Boo Bess, who hosts shows for Wasabassco, putting a clear stake in the ground by singing “I want to know what love is”.

After the song, she proceeds to make herself comfortable, taking a seat on the edge of the stage, telling us this is her first time ever hosting at The Slipper Room, and acknowledging this momentous occasion by promising us she’ll be grinding her cherry on us all night, at the start of this very last day of the year 2017.

She introduces The Maine Attraction, pantomiming her way through Rick James with phone calls and chatterhands.

As Boo Bess outros her, Maine slips through the curtain and hugs her from behind, trying to pick up the glove she threw just before. I use all of my will power to restrain myself from shouting out, “no glove, no love”.

Next is Nina La Voix, with a blue wig and in a leather pussycat outfit.

After a few asides and a costume change inbetween acts, Boo goes: “I went on a tangent. I was supposed to introduce the next performer.”
Which is Miss Ekaterina, making butterflies out of bodies and sheets.

After that, Penny Wren treats us to a new act with blue boa’s and pained – or ecstatic – facial expressions.

Boo does a quick impromptu demographics poll of the audience.

“Any other people from the eighties? Congratulations, it’s almost too late to have kids!
Anyone born in the nineties? I’ve probably rubbed one of your assholes clean!
Anyone from the seventies? Just keep blaming us for everything.”

After that, she instructs us to show approval of acts by making the sound of a pussy with our mouth, which the audience isn’t quite ready for yet.

Having a woman host in the Slipper Room is definitely a breath of fresh air in an otherwise testosterone-dominated microphone bubble.

Jelly Boy the Clown shocks the crowd as per usual, putting lit-up daggers in his nose, and drinking a whole glass of wine through a straw running into and out of his nose.

Madame Rosebud performs to a coldwave Cassette number, challenging the audience less than usual.

Time for the break, with The Maine Attraction and Rosebud on the gogo, prompting some marital adoration from Bastard Keith.

Boo comes out in the third dress of the night, with her back to the crowd, doing her own intro in a low voice, then turning around and drawing approval from the crowd, prompting her to respond: “That was a really easy way to validate my ego.”

She proceeds to share a story that I won’t go into details on, but you can make up your own version by using the words “tampon” and “press-on nails.”. She punctuates the story by giving the balcony a really good view of her, uhm, balcony.

Like I said, a breath of fresh air. And that is what Penny brought as well, waddling across the stage as a penguin. Even in an outfit like that she still manages to exude some semblance of grace.

Ekaterina comes out to Dr. House’s visit to the St. James Infirmary, twisting her body through several contortions that would put anyone else under the good doctor’s care, sucking on her own toes, and eating a whole rose, then spitting it out on the audience.

“There’s people kissing in the back. Ugh, that’s the worst. I can SEE you. It’s not THAT dark!”

The Maine Attraction comes back to set fire to her hands, her boobs, and finally the room.

Rosebud brings a new act, and after it finishes ends up naked and hugs Boo too, while Boo gives us all a pronoun lesson, which maybe only Bastard Keith has ever done on this stage.

Jellyboy finishes the night, spitting fire across the stage that makes us feel the heat even several rows away.

Uncle Earl comes out for the traditional Saturday ending, leading us in a sing-along while performers – including an off-duty Jenny C’est Quoi – cavort behind him in all stages of undress.

The Slipper Room managing to snag Boo Bess as a host is a great move. The roster is extremely male-dominated, with to the best of my knowledge only Fancy Feast and Julie Atlas Muz hosting once in a while at irregular intervals.

New York is brimming with great women producers and hosts: Calamity Chang, Sapphire Jones, Fancy Feast, Broadway Brassy, Perle Noire, Shelly Watson, Ula Uberbusen, Sydni Deveraux, Nasty Canasta, and Anja Keister, just to name a few. It almost seems like willful on the part of the Slipper Room that their roster is so white-male-dominated.

Here’s hoping they realize they could use a little bit more of the non-white-male perspective at the mic to switch it up and keep things interesting for the audience as well as stay relevant in an increasingly female and non-binary world. If they’re smart, they lock in Boo Bess now for a weekly slot.

Image Credits: Medianoche.

Dearly beloved,

we are gathered here tonight to say goodbye to one of New York City’s finest performers – Hazel Honeysuckle is leaving for Las Vegas.

No more than a hundred mourners were allowed to buy a ticket to the Wasabassco send-off show she curated, handpicking friends and loved ones, as well as their favorite acts of hers. House rules don’t allow for photographs, sadly, so you will have to let your imagination run wild as you go through this review.

The first of Hazel’s picks we see tonight is the hostess, which is our favorite pick too: Boo Bess comes out in a lovely green sparkly sequined dress – the first of a few tonight, and if I recall correctly, one she bought while vintage shopping with Hazel.

The show kicks off with Hazel herself, sending us off with “No More Love” in a green and purple peacock-feathered dress.

Amanda Whip is stage kitten tonight, and even for this job Hazel has picked the best of the best, rolling over the floor and flexing all limbs to pick up performer’s clothes – again… and again… and again. It’s amusing to see Boo lose her train of thought or simply cede the spotlight and admire the view in those little moments.

Next, Boo undresses from green to blue, a dress that Hazel gave her. She introduces Puss-N-Boots, the first of two to implore us to come together as we say goodbye.

Topher Bousquet shows off his hooping, flexing, and singing skills, bringing us “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls, but adapting it to the moment: “Don’t you wish Scott was hot like me? Don’t Cha… Don’t Cha Hazel, Don’t Cha” It’s cute, sexy, and charming, and Scott seems to appreciate the sentiment too. Topher’s performance iss doubly impressive because the microphone isn’t wireless, so he ends up navigating the microphone cord (with some help from Amanda) while keeping the hoop spinning.

Next up was supposed to be Medianoche, but she couldn’t make it, and they found a last-minute replacement: Gary Nachos. Gary is no slouch, performing a perfectly coordinated routine to “Hey Ya”: the tassels twirl to the beat during the “shake it” break, and “get on the floor” throws Gary on the ground. I hadn’t seen Gary ever before, but surely she knows what to do.

“And even when Gary shows up in sweatpants, he’s not lazy – he emptied that bag on the table and picked out the eight perfect Doritos for this act!” says Boo.

Time for a first break, and even the ambience music is on point – I pick up on “Please Don’t Go” and “Don’t You Forget about Me”.

The second act of this trilogy opens with Chris Harder, dressed like a mix between Prince and George Michael. Even when “Freedom” drops out for a few seconds, Chris is a pro who doesn’t miss a beat, and the audience keeps singing as he sashays his way over to the DJ booth and gets the music to come back. It doesn’t hurt either that he ends his act with a perfect twirl of the asstassels.

Penny Wren performs her first ever act, which happened to be with Hazel in the cast. Boo tells us that Penny still remembers the compliment Hazel gave her that night: “you run in circles real good!”. We got a demonstration of exactly just how good, as well as a unique Penny move at the end – holding her leg straight up, then falling into a split from there. I am definitely not trying this at home.

Sydni Deveraux is the second performer of the night asking us to Come Together, dressed in a blue and gold marching band outfit made by Nasty Canasta.

Rosie Cheeks makes her Wasabassco debut tonight, on Hazel’s request, and brings one of her signature acts, in glittery green – Money Make Her Smile, including a glitter glove shower.

Time for a second break – and again, the music sets the mood, with “Go Your Own Way” and “I Will Always Love You”. Tonight is coming for your tear ducts.

For the third act, Boo comes out in a golden dress, and introduces the rarest act of the evening: Scott Hazelton performing possibly my favorite Hazel act, Cookie Monster, as a tribute to his wife. I manage to just touch one of the flung Oreo’s with my fingertips, but it slips past before I get a chance to catch it. Scott pulls the act off convincingly and gets the loudest applause of the night.

Speaking of pulling off and applause, somewhere during the night Boo Bess asks the biggest Hazel fans to volunteer for a competition. I hesitate for a moment, then decide against volunteering, as the room is probably full of Hazel fans more ardent than me. One woman and two men step up though, all of them named Alex. The competition involves doing your best Hazel imitation on stage to one of her many songs. I’m glad I didn’t volunteer, because all three of them did a much better Hazel than I could have pulled off!

Next up is Tiger Bay, a performer who can take her acts towards the ridiculous, the sublime, or the scary. Today she’s doing something unspeakably cute in pastel colors with an eel kissing her neck and other body parts. “Does he have a name?” asks Boo after the act. “Yes – his name is Electric William. Get it?” Tiger Bay says from behind the curtain.

Time for something more patriotic, with Ula Uberbusen‘s red, white and blue salute to our current reigning commander-in-chief. Her sentiment is echoed enthusiastically by the crowd. This is also Ula’s first show with Wasabassco.

Time for the final act, a duo act: Nasty Canasta and Hazel Honeysuckle perform as the unicorn and the princess. It’s a delight to see Hazel comb Nasty’s pony tail, as well as see Nasty deftly use her hooves to take Hazel through various stages of undress.

All the performers that are still around come on stage for the curtain call, and get to dancing to “I’ve had the time of my life.” In the ensuing melee, Hazel manages to lose both of her pasties before they all vacate the stage and the party starts.

Star Wars VIII beckons us in fifteen minutes, so we wrap the night up, discussing what our favorite act was. One thing is certain – we got to see some rarities tonight.

Godspeed, Hazel and Scott. May you return often while you’re gone and come back eventually!

I hadn’t heard about Naughty Noir before, so I was glad to see a new show. This show has more of a rock’n’roll/biker bar vibe, with a lot of gogo dancing inbetween a few performances. Puss-N-Boots is the host, and the show is after midnight.

It seemed to be a place where other performers come as well. I saw Logan Laveau in the audience, and Ms Puss n Boots announced that Velvetina Taylor was in there too, celebrating her birthday!

Ms Boots introduced the first performer by calling her her favorite ass in burlesque. “I mean, I’m biased, I like everything about everyone. But I’m partial to her. I’m her friend so she sends me nudes, saying ‘this is what I look like in the morning'”. Dandy Dillinger came out wearing a mask and big hair, and flowers in her hair. A lot of work went into that costume, it looked like! After five songs of gogo, Penny Wren was next. I really liked her black and white triangles dress. Puss-N-Boots was last, and I can’t remember whether it was during her act or during gogo that she took a pony ride on one of the photographers (and it seems there were many).

Surprise host tonight – it’s Stache Novak, the Friday early edition! Stache kicks it off at 21.40 with a few zingers, such as “was a taint, now it’s a twasn’t”, or calling himself a “gentleman of negotiable affections.”

Gal Friday is the first performer of the night, railroading us through a classic purple routine of hers. I don’t know if it’s because of the act evolving over time or if I only just noticed the parallel, but this time I see the act as a five year prequel to Peekaboo Pointe‘s Lazy Stripper act – sort of the “I no longer give a fuck” version.

“Gal Friday – the love of my life, my future wife”, rhymes Stache after staring at her uncomfortably from the side of the stage during her act, earning him a few middle fingers.

Next up is Chipps Cooney, stunning the audience by giving away the secrets of the trade, and making it look so easy that he’s the Velvet Underground of magicians – everyone who sees him perform is sure to become a magician as a result. Stache agrees: “The illusion is perfect!”

Stache is throwing around the jokes and the one-liners – “He was so lazy, he married a pregnant woman!”

Seedy Edie provides relief from the comic relief, showing us that even the devil has a softer side, dancing to a song she shares with Emily Shephard.

I am a sucker for aerial, and there are few as good as Lucy Licious, displaying equal parts strength, control and grace. The song she picked is a beautiful plaintive piano tune that somehow reminded me of Eternal Sunshine.

Stache manages to pull us out of the contemplative mood Lucy put us in to by ragging on Los Angeles: “In LA, if you want to hide your money, put it in a book.”

He did so to introduce the next performer, who calls LA home: Coco Ono. She comes out in a nun’s habit, as a Foreigner to New York, and answers the age-old question we all want to know – what love is – with a toss-up between “love is a man handing you bananas from the side of the stage” and “love is giving away bananas so you can let them let you bite the banana that feeds”. Coco’s act ends with a Canadian double-fisting and lit-up pasties, so this act covered a lot of ground in only a few minutes.

Time to get awkward – Stache does an audience competition, where the winner gets a classic Bill poem recited, and the loser gets a lap dance – and this time the loser witnessed Stache completely naked save for a bandana and a strategic ball-cup, one of which was removed right before the curtain fell.

What a way to introduce the break, where Seedy Edie goes around with the tip bucket, and Coco Ono and Lucy Licious take turns on the gogo box.

The second half starts off a little confusing, with Chipps Cooney doing an actual burlesque act, with a single chest tassel. Gal Friday pulls us out of our confusion with another classic Gal routine, walking on by and flicking her vajayjay magic into the audience.

Wilfredo treats us to his version of “Those were the days”, shaking his perfect Spanish rump and swaying to the music.

Lucy goes for rope for her second act, at times hanging from a single foot or hand, making the audience watch with baited breath.

Seedy Edie picks the best songs for her acts – this time Ella Fitzgerald morphs into Karen O and Trent Reznor’s reworking of Immigrant song, as Edie is dressed in black with bird feathers.

Coco Ono counters with one of the least obvious songs for a Burlesque act – Paranoid Android by Radiohead, a late nineties Bohemian Rhapsody. Ballsy! She comes out in a freshly delivered Japanese schoolgirl outfit, and walks us through the song’s four acts with increasing intensity, taking off a garter belt that’s actually a ball gag and wearing it, then revealing the rope tied around her waist, handing part of it to the audience (who proceed to pull a little harder than expected in their excitement), and finally ending with a good old-fashioned transparent paddling. Gal Friday and Seedy Edie were peeking from the side of the stage.

And with that, the early set is over! Gal comes out on the gogo, gives a civilian Cheeky Lane a good old-fashioned spanking, and also pulls Coco Ono in for a full mounty.

Since the midnight show is hosted by my favorite host, Bastard Keith, I stick around for a bit longer. He starts off by singing “BK wants to make love to you.”, humping the side of the stage while proclaiming: “The proscenium is my friend. I’m not just going to say ‘hey, it’s fuck o’clock.’ I want to take my time!”

Looks like it’s Radiohead night at the Slipper Room tonight, as Joshua Dean does his rope loop aerial number to Creep, pulling some incredible moves and performing more spins than I thought were humanly possible.

Rosie Cheeks comes out in black, trying to figure out who’s done it to the tune of Perry Mason, and just like BK gets intimate with the proscenium.

“How many of your masturbate?” asks the bastard, and after a quick show of hands, “So many truth sayers… and two liars!”

Things get a little bit more blurry after that, but I see The Maine Attraction, GoGo Gadget performing an act with three songs and a beak, and Darlinda Just Darlinda who performed her patriotic duty by removing a stray 45 from her grabbed pussy and ripping it up. She keeps it political by going into the break with a tip bucket and a shirt that reads “Thank God for abortion!”

After tipping, I scoot off with friends to the Meatball shop across the street for a favorite late night snack. Good night, Slipper Room!

It’s a busy thursday night at Nurse Bettie – the bar is packed and it’s tough making your way to the front.

Tonight I have a special role – I’m a… show runner… best boy grip? In short, I get to provide food for use in an act! I take my job seriously and go to the McDonalds on Delancey, only to find out that they’ve decided to renovate and the closest alternative is on Sixth Avenue. Uh, no. I try out a local old school burger place called Mikey’s instead, and add a second set of fries by request for the backstage to share.

The go-go starts at 10 past 10, and Coco Ono, visiting NYC from Los Angeles this weekend, climbs on the window ledge for six songs and a few fistfuls of dollars. It’s worth it pushing through the crowd from my pretty decent third row position by the stage and go all the way to the back and back again. Luckily my spot is still there when I get back – or maybe that’s just the result of the steady air conditioning leak dripping on me? I almost wonder if the show’s producer, Calamity Chang, is gently ribbing Coco by putting on “Going Back to Cali” as the last go-go song, but if it is it’s meant in good fun.

Calamity kicks off the show at 10.30pm, mentioning that this show has been going for eight years. “When I talk to my Chinese mother, and I tell her that, the first thing she asks me is: how much money are you making? And when I tell her, she answers, you could have gotten two PhD’s in that time!”

Calamity introduces the first act, and I like that we head straight away into slaying the patriarchy. Petite Renard comes out as a suffragette, showing off the big guns, and donning sunglasses for the second half where she switches gears and demonstrates they’ll be just fine without us men.

Lady Mabuhay is new to me, but the way she deftly invites the audience to ride her pony with her suggests that that was mostly my mistake.

Nina La Voix turns Ariana Grande into a decidedly more grown-up experience, ending with a glove-fueled hint of asphyxiation.

Time for the break, and Petite Renard takes the gogo position in the window while Nina LaVoix goes around with the tip bucket.

Calamity opens the second half of the show with an old-fashioned dance-off, which not surprisingly is handily won by the woman in the pair.

And then it’s the act I ran show for – Coco Ono takes a big bite out of the Lower East Side – or at least that part of the LES that gets served at Mikey’s. I had never heard Tina Turner’s version of Whole Lotta Love, but I think it is now actually my favorite. She starts off with a box in hand, peeks into it, and then opens it to empty it of its contents. And Coco certainly wins over the crowd tonight, feeding fries to the first two rows, and striking poses with burger and shake.

Aphrodite Rose came out in a full-body kaleidoscopic tiger suit (words I’d never imagine being in such close proximity to each other, like, ever). Her shoe came off (or started off off) quickly and made its way to her face, as a telephone – yet another sign that the nineties called and wanted their act back. It was a confusing experience, like all the best Burlesque acts. Calamity agreed, I think, quipping “Now I know if I ever commit murder, I want do it with you!”

Nina took over the mic to introduce the host of the show who’s also doing the final act: Calamity Chang, coming out in a many-tasseled outfit, getting some help from Nina in the front, and showing off some intricate lacing work in the back!

And with that final act, the night at Nurse Bettie is over, and I get a chance to debrief the show with Wang Newton.