For my first byline for GLAAD, I profiled a very special drag show that happens every month in Austin:
We’ll always be bosom buddies, friends, sisters and pals. We’ll always be bosom buddies; if life should reject you, there’s me to protect you. If I say that your tongue is vicious, if I call you uncouth, it’s simply that who else but a bosom buddy will sit down and tell you the truth …
At first, you might think that just another drag show is taking place on a Sunday afternoon, in the small leather bar tucked away unobtrusively in the corner of a strip mall at the northern edge of Austin, Texas. It takes a lot to stand out in a city that’s in love with drag, where you can catch a different drag show, packed with talented young queens and kings, every day of the week.
But there’s something different about the Absolutely Fabulous Sunday Brunch at the Austin Eagle, beyond just the retro choice to open the show with drag queens Minnie Bar and Martini DeVille dancing and lip-syncing to “Bosom Buddies,” from the 1956 Broadway hit Mame. The difference is that every queen that Sunday is a drag performer over 50.
“Having a place that I can go that I feel welcome, that I can go be around other folks my age, who are within my cultural realm is healing and very, very important,” said Minnie Bar, who is 67 years old and known in his daily life as Rob Faubion.
“That’s one of the main reasons we wanted to do this show: Come have fun. Come see some older guys doing female impersonation doing songs you remember,” Minnie Bar said. “You know, it’s something that you will actually know and can sing along with.”
