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A Very Different Inauguration Day Party Happened in South Philly on Monday

It's fair to say that the new president was not the object of celebration.


Shannon Turner of Glitter & Garbage performs at "Inaugurate THIS: A Queer Resistance Cabaret" on the day of the Donald Trump inauguration

Shannon Turner of Glitter & Garbage performs at “Inaugurate THIS: A Queer Resistance Cabaret” on the day of the Donald Trump inauguration. (Photo courtesy Shannon Turner)

It was at 8 p.m. on Monday — the precise advertised start time of “Inaugurate THIS: A Queer Resistance Cabaret” — that R.E.M.’s 1987 mega-hit “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” began playing on a speaker inside BeerLOVE, a bottle shop/bar in Queen Village. A person seated at the bar just near the stage wearing a rainbow-streaked sweatshirt that read “What Are You When the World Ends?” took a sip of some dark elixir from a goblet. As the song ended, Philadelphia performer and vocal coach Shannon Turner of Kensington took the microphone and welcomed the ticketed crowd to the event, which she had organized, in part to raise money for the Attic Youth Center and other LGBTQ-focused non-profit organizations.

“Today is a day that should be given to queer art,” said Turner, wearing a black blouse bedazzled with the word “QUEER”. “We are here to share our collective anxiety with one another.”

She then led the attendees in an exercise. First, we all took a deep, deep breath. “And now,” instructed Turner, “let’s all of us scream into the void. Scream!” The crowd did just that. Screamed and screamed bloody murder. I wondered what the neighbors must have been thinking.

Seated at a keyboard behind Turner was Lili St. Queer, her musical partner in the Best of Philly-winning cabaret duo Glitter & Garbage. The mustachioed St. Queer sported sparkly shoes and a glittering vest. The pair embarked on a short set, beginning with “Nowadays” from Chicago, adapting the lyrics a bit to suit the times. When Turner got to the line, You can like the life you’re living / You can live the life you like / You can even marry Harry, she tossed in a parenthetical “for now” after the marriage reference, resulting in somewhat-uncomfortable laughter from the crowd. They moved through a Talking Heads song, an original tune, and Kate Bush’s “Running Up the Hill.”

Turner then introduced the last song of their first set thusly: “In the face of this Fourth Reich, we need to find a meditative state and get to that unified field of love and happiness that the late David Lynch spoke about. And one lady who has brought that element to all of her performances is Miss Judy Garland.”

Turner and St. Queer proceeded to perform what was perhaps the gloomiest version of “Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again” that the world has ever heard.

Next up was a series of performers each singing one song.

Puerto Rican soprano Violet Caballero did the first combination of an aria and a burlesque dance — nipple tassels and all — that I’ve ever seen when she delighted the audience with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Come Scoglio.” Caballero said of Mozart: “That queen was one of the original resistors, taking money from wealthy patrons and using it to make art that criticized them. That’s what we need to do for the next four years.” Before departing the stage, she told those gathered that she’s working on a project centered on Puerto Rican resistance songs.

Then came goth-y Esse Kaye, who describes herself in her Instagram bio as a “Fat Babe” and “Sapphic Socialist.” It’s fair to say the crowd was enthusiastic to hear her perform, on such a day as Inauguration Day, “Dickhead” by Kate Nash. She introduced the song by dedicating it to “our new president” (not a single person uttered said president’s name all night) and then rolled right into the lyrics: Why’re you being a dickhead for? Stop being a dickhead. Why’re you being a dickhead for? You’re just fucking up situations. After the song, Kaye encouraged those in attendance to support her upcoming project Qorn Media, described as “anarchist sex education” and a media company that will produce queer pornography for queer people.

Drag performer Quinn Possible then led the crowd in a fun singalong of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

Eric Jaffe at a queer Inauguration Day event in Philadelphia

Eric Jaffe at the queer Inauguration Day event in Philadelphia

Fellow drag performer Eric Jaffe followed, suggesting everyone buy her new coloring book so they can “disassociate from current events by coloring.” “Please, put me in a coma for the next four years,” Jaffe quipped. “Just be sure to wake me up this November for Wicked part two, and then put me down again.” She sang a novel cover of Ace of Base’s “The Sign,” a performance that involved lots of audience interaction and a lesson about paying attention to red flags. Jaffe is joining forces with Glitter & Garbage next month for Gay Mis (it’s exactly what it sounds like it is) at FringeArts.

Turner and St. Queer returned to the stage to finish the night off, performing Republica’s “Ready to Go,” “Dreams” by the Cranberries, an original, and a mesmerizing, apocalyptic and intentionally out of tune take on “Over the Rainbow.” If, say, Patti LaBelle or Judy Garland had heard it, they might have been a little bit confused. It was beautiful, if in a hopeless way.

I caught up with Turner the morning after the cabaret, and she told me she plans to do more and more events like this.

“We know that the birthplace of cabaret was in Berlin during a very specific time where a major shift was happening in society,” she said. “And art was used an expression of freedoms that began to dwindle. Being queer was illegal and dangerous and could get you killed. Looking at what is happening all these years later, this music and these performances are absolutely essential now.”