LA Weekly

Hag No Slag

Lina Lecaro

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Tiffany and Margaret Cho, looking “Beautiful”

Lina Lecaro

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Photographer Kip Fulbeck and Jeffrey Sebelia (with son) at Ghetto Gloss

Lina Lecaro

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Perez Hilton blows ...

Queer Dear, Fairy Princess, Fruit Fly, Flame Dame, Homo Honey ... Nightranger’s long struggled for the best way to refer to straight gals who, like ourselves, love gabbing, grubbing ’n’ grooving with the gay boys. But for better or worse, nothing ever fits quite as right as the ol’ standby, “fag hag.” We’ve always felt mixed about the double derogatories in the term, but thanks to Margaret Cho, we’re starting to see it differently. Cho has a way of twisting and tugging at questionable connotations and sexual stereotypes until they’re nothing but complete silly fun, and her saucy new standup show called Beautiful at the Orpheum Theatre on Friday had the mostly gay gaggles in the crowd giggling from start to finish, with spot-on observations about reality television, train-wreck starlets, genitalia, and the pros and cons of faghagdom (one con: that bewitching hour in the gay club when us real girls become invisible, what she calls “dick o’clock”). Though we’ve definitely experienced it, the cock, uh, clock, thankfully never struck at the boy’s boys bashes we attended last week. See “Perez in the Springtime” and “Boylicious” below.

Click here to see more pictures from this week's Nightranger.

Liam Sullivan, also known as “Shoes” singer Kelly, opened for Cho and offered another YouTube-hit-worthy follow-up called “Tops” (as in, “Can I borrow that top, betch?”), though our favorite tune of the eve had to be Cho’s show-opening version of Mickey Avalon’s boastful bone(r)head-beat-buster “My Dick,” flipped for the female anatomy. Comparing ’em side by side, we gotta declare victory for the va-jay-jay song. At the meet-’n’-greet after the show, we wanted to tell Cho to record it (in the tradition of hip-hop answer tracks), but conversing with the funny lady was tough with so many vying for her attention, including, of all people, “I Think We’re Alone Now” singer Tiffany. We actually got to chat with the vibrant redheaded former teen sensation, who told us she decided to pop in after filming a commercial down the street (with Meatloaf!).

 
Drawn Together

Speaking of colorful characters, the night before, we joined Cho and other ink enthusiasts, including former Project Runway winner Jeffrey Sebelia, at Ghetto Gloss for the book-signing party for photog Kip Fulbeck’s Permanence, a new collection of tattoo portraits. The pics were striking, but it’s the format that makes this one interesting. Next to each photo, the subjects hand-wrote something about their tats big and small, which ranged from whimsical to insightful (KISS’s Paul Stanley tells the story of his one and only rose tattoo, for example). Other subjects include porno pair Tera Patrick and Evan Seinfeld, Anthrax’s Scott Ian, and LA Ink’s Kat Von D (who we saw at Cho’s show with her new man, Nikki Sixx, the next night). Talk about looks that kill.

 
Perez in the Springtime

An even motleyer crew was seen at gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s birthday party Saturday night: Believe it or not, we hung with Tiffany again (who was pals-ing around with a TMZ reporter — not Harvey Levin, though he was there too), as well as Club Swallow’s Mario Diaz (Odyssey Magazine’s “Sneetch” of the week — a title yours truly was honored with the previous week; told ya we’re a hag!), Dirty Sexy Money’s foxy tranny Candis Cayne, Marc Jacobs (yes, the MJ, looking haute), The Hills’ Heidi and Spencer (ugh) and, shockingly, Khloe Kardashian (P.H. has snidely referred to her as a “he” on his site several times). Hilton (a.k.a. Mario Lavandeira) called his fete a “Quinceañera, Part 2,” and for the 30th-b-day bash, held at the Beverly Wilshire (not the Hilton?) and put together with help from Entertainment Fusion Group, Perez asked patrons to “dress Cuban,” which meant a flower in the hair for most gals (including Tiff and “Ur So Gay” singer Katy Perry) and guayabera shirts for the guys (or, in the case of one fearless fella, a fake beard and military Fidel Castro garb).

Even though he had a buzz-worthy lineup, Perez’s recent South by Southwest soiree got mixed reviews from the indier-than-thou music-journo set, and the haters are really heaving from the recent talk of P-Nasty getting an A&R deal with Warner Music Group. But like it or not, the guy has influence (he even got a double-platinum plaque for Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black — which he championed on his blog before it was released in the U.S. — as a pre–b-day gift from the label). This bash was more about shameless fun than music scouting, though, with live performances from sideshow freaks The Brothers Grim and androgynous lounge duo Kiki & Herb (who spewed passionate covers of the Butt Trumpet–Betty Blowtorch classic “You’re Ugly” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” complete with an impromptu roll-around-the-floor dance from funny boy Andy Milonakis). The special surprise set from The Pussycat Dolls had attendees spazzing, but since we just saw the sex kittens shake their tails at Smashbox (see last week’s Fashion Week column), it wasn’t such a big meow for us. Still, watching the P-man smile uncomfortably as lead singer Nicole Scherzinger addressed his not-so-nice posts about her was fascinating. How does this guy manage to bag ’n’ blog about and still be buds with the celebutard set? Dunno, but he’s got balls, that’s for sure.

 
Boylicious

In other queen-scene news: Nightranger’s gotta take a sec to rave about Victor Rodriguez (Beige) and Chris Bowen’s new Friday-night man-mash called Shits & Giggles. We popped in recently, and the electro-dance party was off the homo-hook: sick mixes, cool undergroundish downtown locale (find out where by adding Rodriguez as a friend on MySpace), and a fashionable, fun (hag-friendly) crowd. We danced till closing at this one, and despite our lack of a penis, we never turned into a pumpkin.

 Click here to see more pictures from this week's Nightranger.