“Tonight is a very special night. A night of all nights, if you will, where one queen’s dream will come true! And, who that lucky queen will be… is up to you.” She extends her arm and gestures to the audience with an open palm. Ooos and ahhs rumble over the crowd with just learning this information. “A twist! Yes, we all love a good twist. Tonight, we are looking for a fourth Fish y Chick. You know our Fish y Chicks, right?” The audience applauds. “Let’s bring them out.
“First, she’s got the body with no book smarts, but it’s ok, it’s Karmen Sense!” Karmen steps onto the stage in her shiny silk robe and catwalks forward. At the front of the stage, she takes off her robe and reveals her sexy lingerie piece underneath. The audience screams.
“Next up, she doesn’t read books, but, trust me, she will read a bitch, it’s Arita Bitch!” Arita comes to the stage in a rhinestone leotard that hugs her thick figure. She walks to the front of the stage and grabs the mic right out of Robin’s hand.
“I’m Arita Bitch and I will read a bitch!” She shouts into the microphone.
Robin snatches the mic back and gives Arita the death glare. She quickly puts on a fake smile and looks back to the audience. “And last, but definitely not least… she will take you where you wanna go, she’s got a high mileage, but who’s counting? It’s the luxurious… Alexus Convertible!”
Alexus comes to the stage in a floor-length gown made of peacock feathers and a huge, matching feathered headpiece. “Oh God, here she comes,” Robin says sarcastically, but steps to the side of the stage to let her have her moment. She takes her time walking to the front of the stage, posing at different points like she’s in a pageant. The audience goes wild.
“And those are your Fish y Chicks, ladies and gentlemen. Give them a round of applause. Thank you, ladies.” The girls leave the stage the same way they came up. “Alright, who’s ready to start this competition?” The audience is revved up and ready to go. “We have four contestants tonight, so make sure to show all of them some love, but remember… at the end of the night, there can only be one. So, choose wisely. Are you ready to start the show?” The audience hollers. “I said, ARE YOU READY TO START THE SHOW?!” Robin shouts and the audience shouts back even louder. “This is your first queen of the night. Don’t call her glossy, it’s contestant number one… MATT MAKEUP!”
Matt takes the stage behind the closed curtain. “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce begins to play over the speakers and the audience starts to get excited for what’s about to come. This is the moment that more than half the audience came for. After all the promoting on Instagram, all Matt has to do is deliver a solid performance and the fourth spot is hers.
The intro music vamps as Matt waits behind the curtain. She sways back and forth, trying to shake off the nerves and get into the groove. On the first lyric of the first verse, Matt bursts through the curtain and starts attacking the song. The audience goes nuts.
Alexus, Arita and Karmen run to the front of the stage to watch Matt’s performance. “She looks stunning! Good job girls.” Arita pays herself and her friends a compliment. “GET IT, MATT!” She yells over the already yelling crowd.
The first verse and chorus go by as Matt works the stage like an amateur runway model. The second verse and chorus pass and the audience is starting to lose confidence. Although lip-syncing all of the words correctly, Matt keeps doing the same moves and just walks around the stage like a bad Naomi Campbell impersonator. The Fish y Chicks forgot that Matt can’t dance.
As the song comes to an end, Matt starts twerking to try and regain the audience. The only problem is that Matt has no ass, making her look like a chopstick breaking itself over and over again. The song ends and Matt smiles confidently, completely unaware that the audience was unimpressed.
“Well, she looked great,” Arita says to the other two Fish y Chicks.
“It’s ok. She’s still gonna win,” Alexus says to reassure herself mostly. “This competition is slim pickings anyway. Have you seen those other girls? Lopaka? Please! They don’t stand a chance.”
Robin takes the stage again. “Wow! Our very own Wannabe-yoncé. Let’s hear it for your contestant number one, Matt Makeup!’ The audience claps, but the cheers are less enthusiastic than before. Robin looks at a random person in the audience, “Did you like that? Yeah, you did. Alright, who’s ready for more?” Robin holds the mic toward the audience to get them to scream louder. “Let’s go ahead and bring out our next contestant. She’s got the country sugar and the latina spice, it’s contestant number two… ARRRIBA MCENTIRE!”
The music starts and the curtain opens revealing Arrriba at the center. The theme song from Reba McEntire’s TV show Reba begins and Arrriba walks to the lip of the stage with a microphone in hand. The first verse is about to begin and Arrriba pulls the mic up to her mouth. She starts singing the country song, but in Spanish.
“Is she really singing?” Karmen asks her friends.
“Ew. She sounds like a man,” Arita says with disgust.
“She is a man,” Alexus reminds her friend. “You’re a man,” she insults just because she can.
“I know, I just meant—” Arita starts to defend herself.
“Let’s go check on your brother,” Alexus interrupts. The three girls walk toward the dressing room.
The audience likes the gimmick that Arrriba McEntire brings, but with the majority of the crowd not understanding Spanish, mixed with the lack of country music fans, Arrriba’s performance fails to reach its full potential. Looking like a red-headed Selena with no Dinos, Arrriba still attacks the song with true Latina style and pride.
She finishes her last lyric and the music fades out. “Gracias!” She says into the mic. The audience gives her a mild, but polite round of applause as Robin takes the stage again.
“Well, I’ve seen a lot of things, but I’ve never seen that before. Have you?” Robin looks at another random person in the audience. “Arrriba McEntire everybody! Let’s hear it for her! Alright, let’s keep this ball rolling, shall we?
“This next queen is a dear friend of mine. We’ve been friends a looooooong time, so show her some love. She may have nieces and nephews, but don’t call her uncle… this is contestant number three… AUNTY PERSPIRANT!” The audience laughs at her name as Aunty takes the stage.
At the front of the stage, a mic stand is placed directly center. Aunty walks straight up to the mic and cues the DJ to start the music. Birds starts to chirp as Aunty’s track begins; it’s Minnie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You.” Having just watched Arrriba perform, the audience thinks Aunty will sing live as well. However, once Minnie’s voice plays over the speakers, the audience realizes that she’s lip-syncing.
Aunty does a decent job with such a slow-paced song. She knows for her age, she won’t be doing a dance number to Beyonce without breaking a hip. So, Aunty decided a cute homage to her favorite childhood song was the best way to show her talents. She hits the high note of the song and acts it out dramatically and the audience claps in support.
The song finishes and Aunty takes a grand bow. She walks off stage passing Robin on the way up and kisses her friend on the cheek.
“Well, what a lovely performance. Did you like that? Let’s hear it for contestant number three, Aunty Perspirant, you guys. Love you, girl,” Robin says as the audience gives a respectful amount of applause.
Back in the dressing room, the Fish y Chicks congratulate Matt. “Good job, girl!” Karmen says.
“You goin’ win!” Arita assures her brother.
“It was good, right? It felt good,” Matt says confidently. Alexus is silent, while the other two girls continue to compliment her.
Just then, the dressing room door swings open and Lopaka comes running in. “Shit, shit, shit,” he mutters to himself as he rummages through his things to find his asian-style folding fan. He knows it’s almost his turn to perform.
“Whoa, easy killah,” Arita says sarcastically.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Al
exus asks with disgust in her voice. The other girls stare in silence.
“Yeah, why? You don’t think I look pretty?” Lopaka says sarcastically, all the while knowing that they don’t. He’s wearing a long silver-haired wig, that’s done up in a very Merrie Monarch kind of way, with a bunch of flowers pinned into the left side. He’s also drawn wrinkle lines on his face to make himself look elderly and his long muumuu grazes the floor as he searches for his large fan. “AH! FOUND IT!” He grabs his fan and jets out the door.
“Good luck,” Alexus says sarcastically, but is too late. Lopaka is already out the door. “He’s gonna need it.”
Back on stage, Robin starts to introduce the next performer. “Alright, alright. We’ve got one more performer. Are you guys ready for it?” She checks the audience’s energy level. She looks down at her clipboard to check the name of who’s next and laughs into the mic, “Oh my God! Well, I don’t know what to say about this next queen, but this is our last and final competitor tonight. This is your contestant number four… JENNA TALIA!”
Laughter takes over the entire audience at Lopaka’s choice of a drag name. He takes the stage behind the main curtain and waits for his music to start. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to calm his nerves. “I got this, I got this, I got this…” He repeats quietly to himself. The music starts and he opens his eyes. Let’s win this fuckin’ thing!
The Fish y Chicks run out of the dressing room to watch Lopaka’s performance.
“Oh God, this is gonna be an epic fail,” Alexus tells her friends as she pulls out her phone to record his performance, hoping that he’ll fall at some point.
“Hanaiali`i Nui La Ea” by Amy Hanaiali`i plays over the entire club. The curtains part and reveal Lopaka, but he has his back facing the audience. Using a large black cloak to hide his muumuu and the asian-style fan he found earlier to cover his face, he turns around and starts walking toward the audience. On the first lyric, he closes the fan to reveal his elderly-looking face and starts lip-syncing in complete Hawaiian.
Robin looks up and instantly notices his face even through the makeup, Is that Lopaka?!
The audience’s reaction is mixed. Half of the audience is cracking up at Lopaka, while the other half is confused as to why he looks old. There’s a lot of talk happening throughout the audience as Lopaka performs, but he continues to give his all.
For the first verse of the song, Lopaka works the stage cracking his large fan dramatically, in time with the music. He puts the fan in his fake boobs and runs to the side of the stage to grab his prop ukulele. He mimics playing the ukulele for the repeat of the first verse and runs all over the stage, pretending he’s a rock star. The audience is slowly taking a liking to him. For the third verse, he puts the ukulele on the floor and starts dancing around it like a Mexican hat dance, then ends up doing the Macarena. The audience cracks up.
For the first bridge of the song, Lopaka rips open his large black cloak and reveals his loud, flower-print muumuu. He grabs a big black cauldron from the side of the stage that he set up earlier. He brings it to the center and goes to his knees. He starts pretending like he’s a witch creating a potion and begins throwing things into the cauldron. He starts with the ukulele and reacts dramatically. He takes off his cloak and throws it in. He then rips one of his fake flowers from out of his hair, smells it, makes a sour face pretending it stinks, licks it and then throws it in as well. With each item that goes into the cauldron, the audience reacts with him by yelling a loud “OH!” He takes out two little dolls that look like Hansel and Gretel that were hiding in his bra. The audience cheers him on to kill the kids and he throws them into the cauldron as the last ingredients.
The next verse starts and he grabs the cauldron and starts pretending to throw his newly concocted potion onto different parts of the audience. He, then, holds the cauldron over his head and pours all of the items out over his head and body and pretends he’s in a wet T-shirt contest.
The second bridge of the song starts and he parts the audience in half, creating a walkway for himself. Completely “soaked” in his imaginary potion, he makes his way down into the audience and starts working the crowd.
At the top of the last verse, he jumps into a split in the middle of the crowd. The audience goes nuts! He bounces a couple times and then pretends he broke his hip. Playing up the old lady role, he jokingly acts like he can’t get up and asks a random audience member to help him up. He makes his way back onto the stage, hunching and playfully writhing in pain the whole way.
Back onstage and with the song about to end, Lopaka turns back to face the audience, acting as if all his old-lady pain vanished in an instant. On the last two beats of the song, he rips open the top of his muumuu and his fake boobs fall to the floor mocking old ladies’ saggy boobs. He throws his hands up in the air as the song finishes and the audience goes insane! They are cracking up, cheering and screaming for Lopaka. Someone starts a chant, yelling “JEN-NA! JEN-NA! JEN-NA!…” and the rest of the audience joins in.
Lopaka takes it all in. He’s proud of what he just did. He bows as his old lady boobs still drag on the floor. He picks them up, throws his boobs over his shoulders and waves to the audience. He starts heading offstage, but is stopped by Robin.
“WOOOOW!!!” Robin yells into the microphone. “How was that shit?!” The audience is still going mad. She brings Lopaka back to the front of the stage and continues, “Wow! That’s all I can say is wow! Now, that’s what we call a competition, ladies and gentlemen.” The audience continues to cheer. “Let’s hear it one more time for your contestant number four, Jenna Talia!” Robin puts down the mic and covers it with her hand. She smiles and speaks to Lopaka privately, “Good job, babe. Very good job.” She puts the mic back to her mouth, “Ok, ok, ok, let’s bring all the contestants back to the stage.”
Matt, Arrriba and Aunty walk up the stairs and join Robin and Lopaka onstage. Robin steps to the side of the stage as the four contestants line up in the order that they performed. “Give it up for you four contestants, ladies and gentlemen.” The audience cheers obediently.
“Now, as I said earlier, the winner of tonight’s competition will become our fourth member and the newest addition to our dynamic girl group, the Fish y Chicks. She will also perform a number with the current members immediately after being declared the winner. Yes, that’s right. Tonight! In just a few minutes, you will see a brand new performance from our brand new Fish y Chicks.
“And, who declares the winner?” Robin pauses and holds her hand out to the audience, “You. By a round of applause, I will go through each contestant and you’ll cheer for who you want to win. The person with the loudest applause will be your new Fish y Chick. Got it?” The audience cheers to show they understand.
“Now don’t make this hard for me, ok?” Robin playfully lectures. “Don’t be cheering loud for everyone and making my job difficult. I know how all you mahus (mahu is a hawaiian word that means gay boys and/or transgender people) get when you drink. Alright, are we ready?”
Robin takes a slight pause before proceeding and then steps next to Matt, “Let’s hear it for contestant number one, Matt Makeup!” The audience cheers generously. Despite her underwhelming performance, she’s obviously still got a lot of fans. “Ok, thank you.”
Robin steps next to Arrriba, “Let’s hear it for contestant number two, Arrriba McEntire!” The audience is less generous with their cheers. A supportive “Woo!” is yelled to fill the lack of applause. “Ok, thank you.”
Robin steps next to Aunty, “Let’s hear it for contestant number three, Aunty Perspirant!” The audience is even less generous. The pathetic applause fades quickly. “Ok, thank you.”
Robin steps next to Lopaka and a few scattered ‘woos’ and ‘yeahs’ are already being yelled from the audience. “Let’s hear it for contestant number four, Jenna Talia!” The audience erupts! The cheers are deafening. The crowds of guests yell and scream and eventually start chanting again, “JEN-NA! JEN-NA! J
EN-NA!…”
Without second guessing it and without waiting for the audience’s applause to die down, Robin announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, the winner and your newest Fish y Chick is…” she pauses for half a second, “contestant number four, JENNA TALIA!” The audience continues to go mad and chant “JEN-NA!”
Lopaka is stunned. Robin grabs his hand and escorts him to the front of the stage where he waves and bows to thank the audience. He can’t believe he just did it!
From the side of the stage, the Fish y Chicks look at each other shocked. “Shit!” Arita says for the three of them. They still had hope that Matt would take it.
“Thank you, girls. You all did an amazing job tonight. Let’s hear it for the other contestants!” The audience cheers for the losing queens as they leave the stage. “And now, as promised, the new and improved, FISH Y CHICKS! Hit it DJ!” Robin leaves the stage as Alexus, Arita and Karmen unwillingly join Lopaka on stage.
The Moulin Rouge version of “Lady Marmalade” starts to play and the audience starts to dance. Alexus, Arita and Karmen walk right pass Lopaka and pose front and center. Lopaka yells over the music to the other girls, “What’s my part, who am I?” The girls ignore him and continue with their choreography. Feeling like he’ll just figure it out and start lip-syncing when the other girls are not, Lopaka doesn’t worry.
The first verse begins and Alexus takes the lead. She lip-syncs every word that Mya sings and the audience eats it up. The second verse starts and Arita comes in as Pink. She mouths the correct lyrics, but her pidgin accent makes it look like she’s not saying the right words.
Ok, well, I’m either Lil’ Kim or Christina Aguilera, Lopaka thinks to himself. Thankfully I knows this song like the back of my hand. He stands to the side and grooves in his own little corner, waiting for his turn.
Lil’ Kim’s section begins and Karmen charges forward. The audience laughs at this white chick pretending to rap. Oh sweet! They left me Christina, the best part! Lopaka thinks. Karmen finishes up her portion and Christina Aguilera starts to riff before her section actually starts.
On the Rocks Page 10