Last night was a reminder that I'm not so young anymore. Not too long ago, I was able to go out after work, have a few drinks, dance a couple hours, sleep a couple hours, get up, rinse and repeat. Weekends were a marathon of drinking, dancing, and partying until the sun came up, usually followed by an afterparty at somebody's house until Sunday afternoon when thoughts of the dreaded work week started creeping in. Last night, my forty-two year old self tried valiantly to resurrect that spirit with mixed results when my boyfriend and I decided to go to Suzanne Bartsch's party at Marquee. Billed as the grand opening and timed to coincide with gay pride weekend, the big draw, and what got me off the couch and onto the dancefloor when I should have been home sleeping was a 'SPECIAL LIVE APPEARANCE BY CHER!' In town to promote her new single Woman's World, she's performing at the Pier Dance on Sunday, but the last couple times I've gone have been horrible with sweaty, cracked out queens with body odor dancing on top of each other or spilling drinks everywhere when they're not flailing their arms wildly in every direction or going into a K-hole in the middle of the dancefloor, so I'm not going. Plus it's supposed to rain.
When we got to Marquee around midnight, the line wrapped around the corner and down the block. Good thing I bought tickets ahead of time, and we breezed right in like VIP bitches. 'Miss Thing, there IS no guest list tonight' my ass! The club was packed, and there was no way half the people in line were going to get inside. Surveying the club, we navigated our way through the crowd to a spot toward the end of the catwalk and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Uninspiring drag queens, worn out club kids and tired go-go boys dancing to shitty music entertained the crowd, most of whom were there to see Cher since there was absolutely no room to dance. And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. When I called ahead to check the camera policy, I was told that Cher was going on 'around 1:00', which slowly turned to 1:15, then 1:30, then 1:45.
Finally, around 2AM a gasp from the crowd, as up the stairs behind us to a roped off private booth stepped the dark lady herself, CHER! OMG! Escorted by Andy Cohen, who is basically me with wonky eyes, a cooler job and a better rolodex, she stood at the railing like Evita as the drag queens lipsynched to her greatest hits in a montage of her greatest fashions. At least that's what I THINK was happening behind me, because I couldn't take my eyes off Cher. The guy standing next to me kept telling me it wasn't her, but I know Cher when I see her and that was Cher! 'She does that all the time with an impersonator, but she'll pop up on that stage. I know her tricks.' he kept saying, as I snapped away. Bitch please! And then divine intervention stepped in, as someone with the microphone invited Cher down to the stage to introduce her new single. I GAGGED! Making her way down the stairs and through the crowd, which probably parted like the red sea although it was so crowded I couldn't tell, she stepped up to the stage, gave a heartwarming speech about how the gay community has stood by her through thick and thin, and played Woman's World as the crowd went wild and the fucking dancers kept getting in the way of any good photos I might have gotten.
And then, without singing a single note, in a whirl of sequins, fishnet and leather, she was gone, escorted off the stage and out to her SUV in the blink of an eye. And all I got was this fabulous photo.
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