I'll Make a Man Out of You

The Ghost Light Afterparty was a drag.

All that really means is that instead of one guy in high heels, there were many guys in dresses/wigs/cute shoes.

The women favored facial hair- fake beards, beards made of cotton balls and lots and lots of fake mustaches.

Our usual hosts, Matt and Maggie, were replaced by people of the opposite gender playing them.

You had to see Nick playing Maggie in a long, striped dress and blond wig, but squatting like a football player on the side of the stage.

So feminine.

It seems that Matt was off at a "brine-through," which is apparently a read-through with much beer and wine added in, so he arrived late.

And more than a little loopy. And scantily clad.

And speaking of, there were a couple of drag queens, one in honor of tonight's festivities (who sang that he aspired to a neighborhood as nice as Scott's Addition to much laughter  and the other committed to the lifestyle (red and white polka dot halter dress and fake eyelashes so heavy his eyes were half closed).

Several newbies showed up and sang tonight, like the soon-to-depart to NYC Brett who sang "And They're Off" while acting out the part.

Bartender Evan, wearing a skintight red dress, blond wig and full makeup, who when he got behind the piano to play "Let it Be," asked of the crowd, "How do you play piano in a dress?"

An audience member answered: "Same way you poop in a dress."

The cross-dressing crowd was all over the musical map, with songs from "Mulan," "Aida" and, get this, Billy Idol's "White Wedding."

Saying, "There's no excuse for a man in a dress to sing Johnny Cash," Evan proceeded to do just that.

Special guest Kerry got called up for 20 questions, about which hostess Audra said, "This is a game but it's just nosiness really."

Best answer: "I thought if I wore knee socks with shorts to work, it would show less skin and seem more conservative. I was told that it was definitely not conservative."

Meanwhile guys around her shook their head no.

Pop music abounded - "Jolene," "I Am the Walrus" and the always-popular evening closer, "Hit Me Baby One More Time."

But there were classics, too - "What I Did for Love," "Old Man River" and "At Last," all three of which garnered much hooting and hollering from the enthusiastic room.

Alex got up and said, "Five years ago in Nags Head, I sang this song to a roomful of drunk people and tonight I can do it again," before screwing his voice up high and starting Queen's "Somebody to Love" which soon had most everyone singing along.

It would be hard to overlook one of the evening's highlights, during the pizza intermission/dance party; just as the music was about to be turned off, there was a rallying cry for the next song.

When Scissor Sisters "Let's Have a Kiki" began, suddenly there was a crew onstage lip-synching and dancing to every note, every gesture.

It wouldn't be an afterparty without bongos, shaker balls and interpretive dance and all three reared their syncopated heads before the evening ended.

Early on, usual co-host Maggie had gotten onstage and said, "Real Matt isn't here yet so I don't want to blow my wad early."

I don't know why she worried. From where I sat, wads were blown all night long.

Honey, that's the beauty of the GLAP being a drag.