Welcome to I AM YOUR QUEEN, a Pride Month series on the Exhibitionist that endears itself to the power-fems who secretly orchestrate global affairs from a bunker deep beneath Aunt Charlie's.
When
Holotta Tymes first went to Finocchio's to work, even though she had already made her living in drag, she knew she had made it.
"Finocchio's, world-famous for the finest of female impersonators for 63 years, closed in 1999. It was a show that many strived to be cast in," Tymes told
SF Weekly. "I remember how excited I was. The showroom was dated but under the darkness of the candlelit tables, it was magical. The first time I worked there, it still had a live band, and the show was both live and lip-synch. So many famous female impersonators/drag artists had worked there and now so was I!"
The dressing rooms were technically in another building, "through an alley way, up a flight of stairs, in what was a Old Victorian apartment."
"Many of the rooms were turned into the dressing rooms, some divided, including what had been the kitchen at one time," Tymes said. "I remember being nervous and getting unpacked and set up for my debut, doing my makeup, getting dressed, and coiffed. Just before curtain, as I stood in an evening gown dressed to the nines, covered in rhinestones and jewels, I realized I had to pee."
She'd already had a tour of the entire dressing area, but still no idea where the bathroom was.
"I ran back through the alley, up the stairs and ran around looking for the facilities," she said. "There was one door I had not been through, but I had no idea where it went. I opened it to find an old porch, with a bunch of discarded items on the end, and used doors screwed together to make walls around a slab of cement with a old toilet in the center, and a single light bulb hanging with a pull string. I ran in, slammed the door, and I stood on the filthy, urine-stained floor almost in the dark, realizing I had made it! I was using the official 'outhouse for the performing arts.' I stood peeing where the likes of
Charles Pierce had!"
