THANK YOU, Isadora!
Last night my friend Bill and I went to a vogue Ball at the Roseland Ballroom. It was the House of Latex Ball which is a free show sponsored by GMHC. I haven’t had so much fun in months. We were hemming and hawing about going with a group of Bill’s friends - with me the naysayer picturing a line of shady Pier St. queens thronged to get into a free ball. But we decided to throw caution to the wind and thank god we did, cause this shit was pure realness.
When we arrived we got in quick and easily - all we had to do was fill out an anonymous survey about HIV - the best question was “What are the top three problems facing the Ball community in your opinion?” Choices included 1) HIV 2) Hate Crimes 3) Lack of Jobs 4) Homelessness 5) Violence 6) Drugs and my favorite choice of all - 7) Shade. Yes that’s right - Shade was a mothertrucking answer!
Inside we had arrived close to the start of the show - the 12 bored judges onstage and the announcer, all obviously straight outta Paris Is Burning (PS. I know this may seem a really square and obvious reference to some, but it was still really awesome to finally be at an event like this, after watching Jennie Livingston’s legendary documentary as a kid and hoping one day I’d be able to go to a ball.)
The whole event was sort of a cross between a fashion show, a cock fight, and a Friar’s Club Roast. The announcer onstage would line up the walkers (contestants for a lack of a better word), announce the category they were competing in, and either ask for a score from the judges (”Score this bitch!”) or cut them (chop them) by shouting “Thank You, Isadora!” It was an elusive statement - I’d heard him saying “You don’t want to be an Isadora!” when we got there, but I figured this was another code reference I wasn’t going to pick up. I thought maybe it was a reference to legendary dancer Isadora Duncan, queen of the scarves, who as we see below could work a look and a pose -
Here she is vogueing -
Here she is competing in the “Hands” category:
And here she is competing in “Pretty Boy School Boy Realness”:
My best guess was that you didn’t want to be an Isadora because Isadora Duncan as we all know died from her own fashion choice - choked by her own famous scarves during a terrible car accident. Metaphorically, this all made sense. If you couldn’t work a look, and a pose, you’d end up dead as a Duncan. It was absolutely hysterical every time he would chop someone with this phrase. A heavyset queen was chopped with “Thank you BIG Isadora,” to our delight. So now the phrase of the year for me is obviously “Thank you, Isadora!” Anytime you want to read someone to your friends, or you pass one of those particularly odd New York crazies, it’s a perfect phrase - as opposed to in jokes as I normally am - this one is pretty great.
But apparently, and thanks to my friend Ken for filling me in - Isadora was actually the name of the first girl who walked and was chopped. The announcer asked her name, and since she was the first, anyone who got chopped from then on was christened with her name. Can you imagine??? The poor bitch got made fun of for the next 6 Hours!!!! So embarrassing!
The outfits ranged from bland (me and Bill) to outrageous (the queen who was naked except for a small strip of cloth and a strange Tonka Truck building crane on her head). The crowd gave off a really good energy, I never felt unwelcome or got any dirty looks, unlike all the other regular gayborhood haunts in my nabe - Phoenix, Eastern Bloc, etc. The announcer teased us at one point during the runway competition (during which the most amazing pre-teen girl walked her way to the title, hopefully someone will put the footage online) by announcing that Tyra Banks was in the house. Well, you don’t want to get my hopes up like that. When he said he was kidding, I was pisssssed. Instead they had Keenyah, from Season/”Cycle” four, you know the girl who went to Nelson Mandela’s cell in South Africa and got all emotional, but couldn’t overcome her weight issues. I’m just saying she could barely walk. They refrained from saying “Thank You, Isadora,” but you could tell they woulda.
The whole thing - according to signs posted around the entrance, was being taped by NBC for a show about gay life or something, but Bill and I were convinced that the entire event was going to end up being a set up for “To Catch a Predator: Vogue Edition.” I pictured them luring unsuspecting pedophiles to the theater via the Internet and then setting it up so that when they walked into the other room where the pre-teen was supposed to be waiting - they’d have to walk the runway of shame.
I’ll post some footage of it when it eventually makes it’s way online be for now - here’s a clip from last year. The category is “Hands.” The player is Javier Ninja.