Mother City Glams Up

Amidst the bejeweled derrieres and flam glam vibe radiating from this year’s Circus-themed Mother City Queer Project venue - Ratanga Junction - I found myself coming to terms with several undeniable truths. After about two thirds of a bottle of Peche Royale, endless shots of Tang Apple Sours, two cans of Windhoek, two Smirnoff Spins (I didn’t even know they still made those delicious bottles of fun) and a shot of Tequila (More like a shot of Evil Fairy potion), I came to the following realizations:

Wow, I really need to get out more – it was the best party ever! ‘Dem queer folk sure do know how to party!

If you drink Tequila you will puke no matter how tolerant you think you are. But only when clowns force you to drink it

Not only nancy boys attend this annual meatmarket-slash-dance-off-slash-express-fest, but a whole variety of young, old, gay, straight, confused, black, white, disabled, able, sober, tripping, cool and not-so-cool individuals. There were even two dogs participating in the festivities

Cape Town’s fashion talent is abundant in the Northern Suburbs. It was like walking through one of Barney the Purple dinosaur’s acid trips, except minus his big shiny black eyes and sinister never-failing smile (Come on, we all know he’s an undercover drug trafficker. There’s just so much space in that overgrown purple suit of his)

As long as you had a hefty amount of glitter plastered all over your body, you qualified as a shimmering, fabulous supermodel for the night

You can never show too much skin

Yes, the majority of people there are looking for a good time – we found this out when a pleasant girl came over to talk to us. Feeling immensely popular and cool we continued to giggle and smoke various boxes of cigarettes with her, as girls do when having fun. After a short while she got up. Realizing that we were discussing the superior aerodynamic qualities of the male bottom, she exclaimed with an air of disgust, that she was moving on, because we were clearly straight. Which was true, but there was no need to discriminate. We all felt a bit used, but all faded when another oiled up, hot-panted superman walked past, his equally superb boyfriend in toe.

As the night pranced along, everything became a euphoric blur of glitter, pleather and Madonna tunes. We shimmied and shook to the beats, fraternized with clowns and gypsies, ate popcorn out of human popcorn boxes and dodged bearded ladies on the dance floor, lost each other about ten times, then found each other in what seemed to be the place to be - the uni-not-sure-what-sex bathrooms – and then lost each other again. Finally, when we did stand still, it was 3am. The circus acts were packing up and the minions had all retired to the now mildly vibrating dance floors. Sadly, it was time to go home.

For all who are comfortable with wearing salmon-coloured shirts, or donning the odd racer-back top, MCQP-land is the place to be. A fascinating mix of ordinary Capetonians and acrylic glitz makes for a night that will stand out tops on your things-to-do-before-you-die list.