Friar Buff, Dean of Discipline, will host Detention Hall on Friday night.
marched with Butch the prize-winning big pink "Trojan Poodle" at the two Pride parades as a way of introducing a
short series of events called the "
Classless Reunion" that will reach climax on August 11 aboard the 26th annual
Queen City Cruise which has been given the reunion tour name "Pier Pressure."
The most elaborate of the pre-Cruise Classless Reunion parties will be held tomorrow, Friday the 13th at
Seattle Eagle [
see bar map] starting at 9:13 pm. It's a
Night in Detention, to be hosted by Cruise co-host Tony Buff, serving on Friday as Friar Buff, Dean of Discipline.
Friar Buff will be joined at the party by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Abbey of St. Joan, and by the wood-shop instructor who has volunteered to stay after school to help students in detention learn a useful skill. On Friday night, he'll offer special instruction in the art of wood-stroking -- always a popular subject.
All of that high-schoolish double-entendre hearkens back to a party that Tacky Tourists last hosted ten years ago, in 1997. It was called
The Prom...You Never Went To! and attracted thousands each spring to multiple rooms in a venue that looks remarkably like a boomer high school, The Mountaineers Building on lower Queen Anne. For one night each year from 1983 until 1997, the building became Lavender Valley High School and launched thousands of stories.
Your current WebWrangler used to contribute slightly to those stories by channeling a character called Dewey Boulavard who was "editor-in-chief" of a fake newspaper called The Poodleer ("chief" -- although sometimes spelled "cheif" by Dewey -- was always required). It started out as a one-and-a-half page feature story in a short-lived gay paper called Lights. By the end of the party's run, the fake high-school paper had become a four- or eight-page insert in Seattle Gay News. For The Poodleer, I made up the stories, built quotations out of vaguely character-appropriate hole cloth, and even made up names occasionally when someone was required for a quotation.
What always struck me as remarkable about the party, is that even some of those made-up characters from The Poodleer would appear a few weeks later at The Prom. But that was the magic of the party: Its theme encouraged most of the thousands who bought tickets to create their own fantastic high-school stories. Each year, partiers would create the costumes and stories for dozens of school groups that nobody planning the party had ever expected. One year, a group came "back from Dead Man's Curve" with tire marks to prove it. There were oh-so-many pregnant "girls" along with the non-necessarily exclusive "Hebrew Club," and many naughty waitresses, chearleaders, jocks and nerds. Each had a story to tell that was often just as fascinating as the costumes.
And, now, let us double-bury a lead here: This year's 26th Cruise which honors that party last held a decade ago is to be the
last Cruise sponsored by Tacky Tourist Clubs. Randy Henson, the event's creator and creative director from the start in 1981, has been hinting at doing this for years, but promises that this will be the last Cruise for which he will serve as producer. The Cruise
is expected to continue next year with a different group taking on primary production responsibilities. Randy has said that he will remain involved as a consultant to the new sponsor, but the party is likely to change -- perhaps significantly -- with a new sponsor.
A change in producers isn't unprecedented for Tacky Tourist Clubs. After several years in the 80s of producing Seattle's biggest Halloween party, Tacky Tourists transferred production responsibility for
Things that Go Bump In the Night to Gay City and Seattle Men's Chorus. Since then, the party's new producers have turned
The Bump into an even bigger fall party. The Cruise is also likely to continue and might similarly grow more elaborate under a new producer.
We bury this part of the story, because Randy hasn't yet been willing to announce the change publicly, and so we're talking here "out of school" as it were. Some of us who have worked with him over the years, are guessing that he'll reconsider, but that seems unlikely. It seems only fair, while there are still
some tickets available for the Cruise, to give those who have occasionally enjoyed the party during its twenty-six year run a chance to celebrate the last Tacky Tourist production of the event.
Ten years ago, the last Prom was promoted as such. It gave folks one last chance to experience Lavender Valley's big dance. We figure it's only fair to give those who have enjoyed the Cruise over the years a similar chance to enjoy its unique spirit one last time under the guidance of its original producer.
Labels: fundraisers, gay bar, gay organization, gay party
