PARADISE CITY

(there I am alllllll the way to the left in a Nike hat. Paradise proof!)

I wrote up this past weekend's Paradise Garage reunion for Next Magazine, which you can read over here. What I didn't mention in that write up is:

1) Princess Xtravaganza was wearing the most major tights I've ever seen! They were very very multicolored and cartoon-y (almost Lisa Frank like) and said XTRAVAGANZA all the way down one leg and I need them now.

2) The sound system upstairs at Santos sounds DREADFUL! Not sure what was going on as it used to sound state of the art up there but in celebrating the Paradise Garage—which continues to be revered for its stellar sound system 24 years after the fact—I ended up leaving with a headache.

3) My friend Tim nearly had 100% success rate with Shazamming the majority of disco tracks we were unable to identify individually. Though I feared we'd be reprimanded for such sneakiness, Tim replied, "these people don't even know what I'm doing." And for the most part, he was right.

4) Every time legendary DJ David DePino (below, on the left) would begin to DJ, he would completely let the previous song fade out, pause for two seconds, and then start his set. So cunty yet so fierce.


From left: David DePino, Joey Llanos, Byron Stingily, Christina Visca and Jellybean Benitez. And just for good measure, who can forget this treasure of a photo. Jellybean and Madge!


I'm sure Jellybean is so over everyone being like, you dated Madonna! You wrote Holiday! but since he never got back to me about DJing Good Times, I'll revel in this photo a little more.