Pink Pony Club
People ask me all the time, "You sure you're not gay?" and, yes, I'm sure. I'm open to the stories from that experience, though, mainly because a man can love another man on many levels, and I've loved many men and women who lived a sexual perspective very different from my own. To me, culture and desire are different things. I feel like you can be part of the gay culture without any gay desires. If anything, I think you should at least feel welcome to visit there.
That sounds like bullshit double-talk, but what it means that--if you get past irrational hate, the world becomes a much bigger place. Somehow, I managed to get past irrational hate. I think it's because my stuttering and other issues made me introspective to the point that I didn't accept anything at face value.
Chappel Roan (real name Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) has emerged on the pop music stage as a sort of cross-cultural icon. She fills a spot that Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Bette Midler filled before her. Her second most popular song, "The Pink Pony Club," has become something of not only a gay anthem, but also a song of empowerment for people who feel like they don't fit in. It also carries a "girls just wanna have fun" message that Cyndi Lauper represented in the eighties.
If you listen to some of the lyrics, it sounds like the story of a girl from Tennessee who went to Hollywood to become a stripper in a biker bar. There are two clues in the lyrics that it's about something else. The first is "West Hollywood," and the second is "girls and boys can all be queens."
The Pink Pony Club doesn't exist. The song reflects Amtstutz's experience at The Abby, a gay bar in West Hollywood.
In the 1990s, when I was trying to figure out a way to leave Jackson and move to Hollywood to work as either a writer or a special effects makeup technician, I used the budding internet to develop friendships there before making the leap.
Some of these friends, being artists, particularly being artists interested in different forms of face and body painting, happened to be gay. They took me to The Abby when it was new. I'm pretty unapproachable in straight bars, but in gay bars it's worse. I was able to get a pretty good view of what that sort of nightlife was like in the post-AIDS gay community, and like always, I was able to conjure and imagine backstories for the people I saw. I was a stranger in a strange land, but I learned quite a lot, and I felt a lot more comfortable than I have in a lot of straight clubs.
I get pretty defensive of Drag Queens sometimes, even though I don't particularly like drag shows, because they were kind to me, they taught me quite a bit about face painting, and I was able to return that knowledge.
One thing only a few people know about me is that I helped create two different drag queens. I helped them design their look and taught them to apply it. I put my brushes aside for a long time. I think most of it's in storage, but God only knows what condition it's in. I ordered a simple palette of Mehron aqua colors, though, just to see how much I've forgotten. Most of my head is skin now; I can be my own canvas.
Chappel Roan calls herself a drag queen. Comparing how she goes on stage to what she looks like with a naked face, she probably is. I've met several cis-women who describe themselves as drag queens, another was Elvira.
They used to call people who wrote about exotic places on earth "travel writers." Sometimes, when I write about the more exotic parts of the American Culture, I like to think of myself as a travel writer. Maybe one day I'll write a book and call it "Boyd's Adventures in Gay Bars."
I know you wanted me to stay
But I can't ignore the crazy visions of me in LA
And I heard that there's a special place
Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day
I'm having wicked dreams of leaving Tennessee
Hear Santa Monica, I swear it's calling me
Won't make my mama proud, it's gonna cause a scene
She sees her baby girl, I know she's gonna scream
God, what have you done?
You're a pink pony girl
And you dance at the club
Oh mama, I'm just having fun
On the stage in my heels
It's where I belong down at the
Pink Pony Club
I'm gonna keep on dancing at the
Pink Pony Club
I'm gonna keep on dancing down in
West Hollywood
I'm gonna keep on dancing at the
Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club
