it was another lifetime ago, living the rich adjacent life as the houseboi of a hollywood writer, up in the bay for her colleague’s birthday, she’d found us a drag show on polk street, our next stop after martuni’s…

i stood at the foot of the stage eagerly snapping photos with my trusty digital elph, completely enthralled and electrified by what i was seeing. my hollywood writer girlfriend, her colleague and his husband had hung back in the crowd just behind me. i turned around to find the three of them looking aghast, horrified, they with more familiarity with the drag brunch queens at hamburger mary’s in weho, i suspect.

i’ve never been there.

it was a sarah maclachlan song, i no longer recall which one. she played a waitress as she lip synced the lyrics, fed up and done, her anger and frustration brimming through her trembling body, her tray of dixie cups brimming with an unidentified liquid that spills of her tray, onto the stage.

she finished her song first with ketchup and mustard, and then with smucker’s grape jelly, which made me think of my ex from ohio and how she went to high school with one of the smuckers, i was distracted, so i didn’t snap that photo.

sometimes the things that happen just off of the stage can be more interesting than the stage, itself.

best to probably leave it at that.