Lovin' Lynda

The hotel lounge was small, less than two hundred patrons, and the tables were close to the stage. Rusty sat with a maniacal grin the entire time Lynda Carter sang her dozen plus torch songs. We had seats closer to the stage than one can get at Med's Booger drag parties. Rusty has elevated the former Ms. USA, star of cabaret and small screen seventies television, to near iconic status. At different points of the show there were certainly touching tears in his eyes as the emotion of the moment overwhelmed him. The patron's were mostly gay men (duh), a few tourists, and the occasional lesbian (searching for that Wonder Woman feminist inspiration).Rusty brought Lynda Carter's one and only record album with him in the hopes she would sign it, but after the show we never had the opportunity. (Rusty originally purchased the album in 1978). Although I thought he was the uber-fan, another woman was there following Lynda Carter from city to city to catch every show. She not only had the album, she had the album with the embedded picture. We also spoke with a pleasant couple, recent transplants from Arkansas, with a Rusty like devotion to Lynda Carter. Certainly a lovely evening softening the blow of not attending JazzFest this year.

After the show, we met a principal friend and his wife out at AsiaSF, a high end dinner spot with a standard quality drag show. The Drag Queens were OK, but Greg's wife was truly a joy: smart, funny and beautiful. Knowing his affinity for the Divas, Rusty took an instant shine to June and the two managed to entertain each other for much of the evening. As amazing as she is, we clutched our pearls realizing that the record album we had been dragging around all evening was actually one year older than June (ugg...gotta love the young). Good times, friends, truly strange, but good!