Seen on the Street

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but my fast paced life as a celebutant is just so darn distracting.  Anyway, last week I spotted this shaggy looking drag queen in the Castro, hanging out on a milk crate with a giant keyboard on her lap, serenading passersby with this warble as aimless as it was tuneless, commenting on Life.

Oh, people walking down the sidewalk
Coming home
from the train

 I saw her again this afternoon and was struck by three distinct things at the same time, cause my super duper brain is just that awesome.

1) Her repertoire is very reminiscent of that rendered by Eddy Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous.  Perhaps you remember it?  Eddy had only one song, which consisted of only one line which she had written decades before in an attempt to jump on the singer/songwriter bandwagon and had clung to ever since.   It goes like this

I'm walking down the road,
People sayin' hello....

Believe me, the similarity is striking, although my friend in the Castro was selling hers with considerably more verve.

2) Secret Agent Fred lives in a sketchy-ish part of town across the street from a place that identifies itself as "The Medical Arts Building."  Details about which medical arts, exactly, are going on in there have been elusive, but since we always saw a bunch of drag queens on the sidewalk out front, we decided gender reassignment was probably on the menu.

Because these girls were uniformly unconvincing, we decided it was some kind of training center and dubbed it Tranny College.  Our theory was that they had a box of wigs and a box of handbags in the back; on the first day of classes, students are herded back there and instructed to take one from each box.  The next day they get their diplomas.  Congratulations!

My point is that the street musician looked very much like a graduate of Tranny College, but poor thing must have been at the back of the wig line.  It looked a lot like she had a dark possum on her head.

3) I was reminded each time of one of my favorite music videos ever.

Al Green, Love and Happiness on Soul Train: is there a more inspiring sentence in English?  But what makes this particluar video so noteworthy?  It is a wonderful version of one of the greatest songs ever.  EVER.  Also, there is the big lump o' love and happiness on exhibit in Mr. Green's polyester pants.  But particular to this post let us turn our attention to the church lady on keyboards.  I love the fact that she has brought her purse out on stage with her and put it where she can keep an eye on it at all times.

Also, one has to admire the consistency of her sour expression, which says to me that her thoughts never stray far from her conviction "These chillrun have done turn their backs on da Lawd." even as Al is rocking it.

Have mercy.