After a Fashion

The beauties from Prototype Vintage backstage at the Fashion Freak Out at the United States Art Authority (www.unitedstatesartauthority.com) (Photo by Seabrook/juicythis.com)

THIS TOWN ... Is our town; it is so glamorous. Bet you'd live here if you could and be one of us. OK, well I forgot to write about the Go-Go's concert at Antone's a couple of weeks ago. So sue me. Fastball opened with suitable upbeat pop, but when the Go-Go's hit the stage, it might as well have been 1981 all over again. I remember living with my sister, Margaret, and Dayna Howes in this trashy, drug-infested place over on Medical Arts Street. The Texas Blondes were in full bloom, and I was working as a cow-punk bartender at the Red River Crossing (imagine me working in a country western bar!). One day Margaret brought home this album with a pastel photo of five lovelies draped in towels and wearing face cream ... and never again was my life the same. The Go-Go's spread like wildfire among our friends, and no one's lips were sealed. They burned up the charts with hit after hit and encapsulated a certain aspect of the Eighties. And frankly, when you go see an Eighties band today, do you really want to hear new stuff from them? Hell no. You want to see them crank out the music that made you fall in love with them. And did the Go-Go's disappoint? Nooooo. The band (Jane Wiedlin was ill that night and was replaced by Eve Monsees) rocked our socks off from beginning to end. The audience knew every word to every song, including Belinda Carlisle's solo "Mad About You" (I had to hold the piece of skin in front of my throat and jiggle it so I could sound like I had Carlisle's vibrato). Antone's was just the perfect place to see them, and the fans did not fit neatly into categories – from the A-list social dragons to fans who weren't even born when Beauty and the Beat came out. The performance took us back to our more innocent youth, when we definitely had the beat.

THE BIG GIRLS Wanting to look less like an angst-ridden teen who dresses at Hot Topic yet finding Lane Bryant's Carole Little separates a little too conservative? Well, get ready to heat up, girls, because Torrid is coming to Lakeline Mall. Opening Thursday, Feb. 28, 6-9pm, Glamour magazine's beauty experts will be on hand to help you create the looks that work for you. Enjoy hors d'oeuvres, strawberry margaritas, a DJ, and raffles throughout the event, but mainly enjoy a great new selection of plus-sized clothes.

GALLOWS HUMOR Like a stroll through a cemetery on a crisp spring evening, the Mercury Hall Players' adaptation of Harold and Maude is full of sweet and funny surprises, with some truly outstanding performers and the effectively quirky direction of Steve Bilich. Info can be found at www.riogumbo.com/haroldmaude.html.

Sue Bilich and Justin Krueger in Harold and Maude (Photo by Susan P. Taylor)

POD PEOPLE I got an iPod for Christmas, and I've been obsessed with importing all my CDs onto it. During the heyday of Napster, I religiously saved all the music I loved. I've reconstructed the entire soundtrack to my life, with each of the thousands of songs bringing back specific memories of particular places and times of my life. Primarily dance music from the Seventies and Eighties, with a lot of Sixties and Seventies country and pop – and some show tunes, of course. Don't make me be obvious. Thousands of songs, needless to say. The hundreds of CDs have never been filed, and some of them were never labeled. So being able to dump them into my iPod and see what randomly turns up has been thrilling. I gasped when I played the CD that had the song "Deliverance" by Space – rare, prehistoric disco that turned the club into a temple of worship. For me, it was never about collecting the popular songs of the day; it was about capturing the moments of my life.

SXSW In reaching out to a larger community, South by Southwest's Matt Dentler tells us that there is a great line of films with GLBT interest (those weren't Dentler's words, but isn't it interesting how so many people presume that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals all have the same interests?). The films include The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, Bi the Way, The Lost Coast, and Sex Positive. Showtimes and locations can be found at www.sxsw.com/film.