90 Minutes at Boylesque
By John Russell
Go-Go Harder is passing out cupcakes when we walk in to Uncle Charlie’s Lower East Side. He gets on the mic and announces that the Boylesque revue is starting in five minutes, which gives us just enough time to grab a drink from the adorable tattooed—and somewhat sexually ambiguous—bartender.
“Breeders!” he sighs, flashing the cute little gap between his front teeth, as some girls at the front of the bar squeal about the beauty pageant—Miss America? Miss Universe?—playing on the flat screen TV. Actually, a couple of these ladies are really pretty. “Yeah, I know,” he says, and mutters something about liking girls and not being ready to come out of the closet. We grab out drinks and let that one go.
Meanwhile, the queens arrive. Logan Hardcore, Maddox and Dallas Dubois are kiki-ing with Harder and DJ Susan Levine. They’ve already been to, like, five other gay bars or something, but made it all the way down here to the Lower East Side—below Delancey, queens!—for Boylesque.
There’s quite a crowd gathered in this narrow little bar, and the area around the stage is filling up quickly. Logan and Maddox plant themselves on the floor at the foot of the stage so their wigs don’t block anyone’s view. So considerate! All you bitchy queens out there could learn a thing or two from these ladies!
Go-Go Harder kicks off the show wearing a three-tiered cardboard birthday cake, stripping to the tune of Marilyn Monroe’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.” (Read into that what you will.) Next up is all around faggoty art star Nicholas Gorham, takin’ it off to yet another Marilyn Monroe song. We’re sensing a pattern here, but whether Machine and Matthew Crosland and whoever the special surprise performer was are all gonna perform to Marilyn songs as well we may never know. As much as we love seeing sexy boys in glitter get naked, the night is calling and there are other hot spots to check out.
Boylesque at Uncle Charlie’s LES, 87 Ludlow St., Saturdays, 11pm, $5.
