What did you do on your 40th birthday Grandpa? - Tranvestite Cabaret, Rochester

So how did YOU spend your fortieth birthday, my great grandchildren will one day ask. Actually, last night it turned midnight and I was lost and in a random seven eleven in Rochester, upstate New York. But it turned out rather more unforgettable as time passed. As my phone battery died I finally randomly found my friends place of work and headed out to….Rochesters premier Drag Queen Show!

Gay/Lesbian Bars are pretty interesting for straight people from time to time, from a people watching point of view.

I am disappointed to see that there were quite a few hot girls, grinding other more butch girlfriends (what a tragic waste) but what really hit me was the number of ‘straight looking’ guys really letting go – they plainly had ‘day jobs’ i.e wives and families but were leading double lives in the toilets of these kind of places. So think about that the next time you visit your accountant and he looks at you funny. Of course this kind of closet gay is much more acceptable in my view than the affected mincing types who, I will openly confess creep me out and don’t do gay guys any favours at all from a PR point of view– does being gay mean you MUST develop a lisp?

Anyway, there was a man who was over 7ft tall, dressed in a splendid long black dress, and a blonde wig, MC’ing the proceedings. The music was pretty good and the memory of big fat men with even bigger (fake) breasts dancing like Beyonce, surrounded by brokeback mountain types jigging to Tina Turner like their life depended on it, is one I will savour for a long time to come.

So as I took in the scene, my (straight female) companion got me up to dance. It was quite ok to try out these US dancing styles (did you know they dance differently from us?)  but then she told me that one of her gay friends fancied me which, as you can imagine took the spring out of my step pretty quickly.

So there I was, suddenly I found myself shuffling alone in the middle of a dancefloor of a gay disco, knowing that somewhere, a little lisping black guy was eying me up from the edge of the floor. Not really a good place to be as a straight man on his fortieth birthday on a Friday night. Actually this was not fun so I quickly eyed up my dancing partner embraced the safety of her loving arms and suggested some food.

After hours in Rochester, the only place to go seems to be ‘Jays Diner’ – it’s a 24 hour eating place and we realized that we hadn’t eaten (my friend Julies’ excuse for being drunk) so I tried out whats called a ‘Rochester garbage dish.’ Which means a bit of everything all mixed up and fried.

Well now its back to Buffalo to do a more low key birthday bash with a special friend ( assuming she has got back into her house since she locked herself out in her pyjamas this morning). And while I can safely saw there won’t be any gay bar dancefloors or 8foot tall tranvestites this time, who knows where the night will take us…

Adios!