Tag: San Francisco

Meet the Drag Queen Who Slays in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live!

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Buffy is flanked by vampiric danger in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live! What ever will she do? | Photo by Sloane Kanter

I’ll never forget the day my friend sent me an event link for Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live!, the hilarious drag parody of the television show of the same name. Halloween was approaching and I had just committed to a romantic relationship with my boyfriend. I saw this situation as the ultimate test: Would he prove his love by dressing as the teenage werewolf to my teenage witch, attending the 90s television event in full costume? Or would our relationship turn to dust, just as so many vampires have by the Slayer’s hand? Well, prove his love, he did. We even won the costume contest for dressing as Oz and Willow. 

While we knew the night would cement our love forever, we had no idea that we’d both also fall in love with show’s star, Michael Phillis. That night, we discovered that in every generation, there is a chosen drag queen. She alone will wield the strength and skill to take on the role of Buffy Summers and give Sarah Michelle Gellar a run for her money. Michael is that Slayer.

Recently, I was lucky enough to talk to Michael about the sweat, fake blood, and tears that went into making all four Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live! shows, which started their run back in 2016. For the first three years they condensed seasons one, two, and three into two-hour performances, and last year they took on the famous Buffy musical episode, Once More with Feeling. I also talked to Michael about what it’s like to be a struggling performer in an expensive city, how Buffy was actually a gay role model, and how you can survive the pandemic by running a mostly-naked carwash.

Michael Phillis, star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live!, poses with the show's billboard in 2019 | Photo by Michael Phillis
Michael Phillis, star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Live!, poses with the show’s billboard in 2019 | Photo by Michael Phillis

Thanks to coronavirus, Buffy Live!, which is usually held at a club called Oasis in San Francisco, will not be happening this year. In the End Times, you may be wondering, just as the Scoobies were in Once More with Feeling: Where do we go from here? Well, I say to go to OasisTV right now and watch every performance of Buffy Live! (start with season one) and read my interview with Michael here on the blog. The show is fucking hilarious and it’s inspiring to observe a cast so dedicated to both Buffy and the craft of comedy. It also gives Buffy fans something else to do other than count Nicholas Brendon’s laundry list of crimes and watch Sarah Michelle Gellar do repeated bits on Instagram about how she hates home-schooling her kids.

And now, without further ado, I present to you the talented comedic mastermind: Michael Phillis.

So, how did you end up getting cast in the role of Buffy? 

It was just like it was on the show. You know how Sarah Michelle Gellar was originally reading for the part of Cordelia Chase? Well, I was originally reading for the part of Cordelia and I got cast as Buffy. I didn’t know how to do Buffy, really. Cordelia was more obvious to me because of her bitchiness, her tone. Much closer to a gay man, frankly. I was a little hesitant to play Buffy because I had to figure out how to be dramatic and yet have fun around these serious lines.

What a gift it was when it’s all said and done. Buffy is totally my diva. I just never even dreamed, as a kid, that I would have the opportunity to play her. It was like a dream come true that I never dreamt!

So Long, San Francisco: The Hot Alien Migrates North

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Photo by Jessica Buckner-Knai

Today, I’m heading out. Leaving the San Francisco Bay Area. Hasta la vista, baby.

I don’t know exactly where I’ll end up, but I’m getting the hell out of California. Or rather, getting out of this fiery California hell. 

Surprised? Don’t be. It’s been a long time coming. The alarm clock has been going off for years telling me to wake up and get moving, but I’ve been hitting the sleep button. Chasing dreams.

The reality is that unlike Tony Bennett, my heart left San Francisco a long time ago.

But I’m ready to find it again.

Something tells me it’s hanging out somewhere colder, where the artists still thrive along with big, hairy cryptids.

You can find more details on the why of my move in The Bold Italic’s latest piece showcasing the departures of many disenchanted Bay Areans (scroll down to find my story at the bottom). The exact where of my move, however, remains to be discovered.

Stay tuned.

Big Fur: A Taxidermy Documentary That’s Stuffed with Surprises

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Ken Walker, the star of Big Fur, creates a life-sized Bigfoot. Image courtesy of Big Fur director Dan Wayne.

When Ken Walker was little, he found a dead bird, broke it apart and put it back together. He carried a jar of bugs around because he wanted to open them up to see how their anatomy worked. Later, he became one of the best taxidermists on the planet, dead set on designing the perfect bigfoot. And then some Kansas City director came along and made a movie about that shit.

Big Fur is a documentary that takes you inside the world of taxidermy, giving you a sneak peak into the belly of the beast… often literally. You get to see Walker carve Bigfoot’s tummy out of Styrofoam, select the right fur from other animals to mimic Bigfoot’s pelt, choose the perfect glass eyes for a mythical hominid, and debate whether or not to add nipples. He’s doing all of this to enter his creation into the World Taxidermy Championship and win. He also thinks his fake sasquatch will someday lead him to a real bigfoot.

“There might be somebody someday that walks up and sees that model [of Bigfoot] and decides to give me what’s in his freezer,” Walker says. “That is my ultimate goal.”

“I’m positive that proof of Sasquatch already exists. I know there’s somebody out there that has something. I know for a fact. And I’m just waiting until I can get it,” Walker says in the film. “There might be somebody someday that walks up and sees that model [of Bigfoot] and decides to give me what’s in his freezer. That is my ultimate goal.”

The most important detail of this undertaking is that Walker hasn’t decided to create just any bigfoot, but the most famous bigfoot to ever walk the Earth: Patty.

Patty is the sasquatch from what’s called the “Patterson-Gimlin film,” a short movie recorded in 1969 by two dudes trekking in the wilds of Humboldt County. Some people think that it was staged as all get-out, and that the bigfoot in the film is just a guy in a monkey suit. Others, like Walker, believe it’s some of the best recorded evidence to date. But he didn’t always think this way.

At the film’s San Francisco Indie Fest premiere, Walker admits to a tumultuous relationship with Sasquatch. “I wasn’t a believer until I saw one myself,” Walker says, his thick helmet of graying hair hanging over his brow. “Actually, I wasn’t a believer even after I had an encounter. It wasn’t until people started coming into my shop and telling me stories, people I trusted, that I understood it was real.” 

Me posing with taxidermist Ken Walker's Bigfoot creation at the SF IndieFest premiere of Big Fur.
Me posing with Ken Walker’s version of Patty at the SF IndieFest premiere of Big Fur.

Mark Twain’s Bloody Kitten Man of Kearny Street

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Mark Twain with some bloody kittens // Mark Twain painting sourced from Terry Ballard, Flickr

In 1866, Mark Twain wrote a newspaper story called “The Kearny Street Ghost” that has haunted the minds of San Franciscans ever since. He was a San Francisco correspondent for a Virginia City, Nevada paper called Territorial Enterprise, and allegedly reported this story after conversations with a real live SF resident.

Here’s how Twain’s tale twists:  

It’s the 1800s, and a dude named Albert Krum can’t keep a maid to save his life. 

Every time a maid goes to her bedchamber to sleep after a day of work, within moments of turning out the light, she’s attacked by “dead and damned scalliwags” AKA evil spirits. One spirit in particular seems to show up more often than the rest: a tall, shadowy male figure intent on attacking women.

He takes maids “by the hair” and “grabs [them] by the waterfall” (which I can only assume was the original “grab ’em by the pussy”) before “bouncing” them on the floor two or three times to get his thrills. The man hurls things at maids too, like washbowls and boots and hoop skirts. He’s really loud, stomping around like the Nutty Professor (yet Krum nor the rest of his family ever hears the evil spirit’s footfalls or come to the maids’ aid during these alleged attacks). As soon as the maids manage to get their lanterns lit again, the stomping stops and the haunting ceases. 

No one knows what or who is messing with the maids, just that it keeps happening—and that Krum’s chamber pot keeps filling up with no one there to empty it. This is not the lavish life he pictured when he moved into his fancy Kearny Street home. What’s a farty rich guy to do?