Las Modernas
When the highlight of one’s week is Génération NI-NI (la Sexta’s newest reality TV show) and roscón leftovers, you know something’s up. But what else could I do? I’d been banned from Chueca, thrown a la puta calle by vengeful drags just because I had fustigated their dreadful acts in one of my columns.
I needed a plan.
I figured that a disguise was my only chance of re-entering Neverland unnoticed. It was (drum rolls) makeover time; but with Trinny and Susannah unavailable, Jorge would have to do.
As far as I was aware, the modernas (the top of the gay hierarchy when it came to fashion and sex appeal) were the Spanish answer to our Indie boys with an eighties twist. Twenty something queens whose whole sense of fashion came solely from H&M’s latest collection and had an odd obsession with bright colours. How wrong was I? How very two-months-ago of me! I had been out of the scene too long, in a blink of an eye: bright fuchsias, sunny yellows and vivid blues had become obsolete. Shangay (THE gay magazine) said so and Jorge couldn’t agree more. So 2009!
A woodcutter shirt, dark skinny jeans—you know the ones, the kind that has to be sewn on to you—with the bottom part tucked in Nikes and indispensable circa 1985 plastic glasses were completed by a buzz cut. Jorge shook his head. Something was missing: a tattoo, a piercing, something edgy. We had to settle for a fake nose ring.
Wednesday night is Zombie Club (C/Bola 13), otherwise known as the Mecca. Queuing to get in, I recited the Lord’s Prayer hoping that my disguise would pay off. The doormen looked especially big and unwelcoming next to the mean guest-list girl dying to throw out anyone who didn’t fit the part. Surprisingly, we got in—hallelujah! (Little-unknown fact about the modernas: they’re loaded—€12 entry fee, €2 per item at the cloakroom, €6 a beer and €9 for a copa.) I was surprised by the size of the two-storey venue and its modern appeal. I could have easily been in one of those private clubs back in London, and I started to wonder what was so wrong with botéllons. What was I doing there, apart from spending money I didn’t have?
The club anthem’s “Talk Like That” by The Presets helped me to get my groove on and I boogied to a mix of rock/indie/pop/electro among straight metrosexuals and the gays “there for the music”.
Somehow encouraged by booze and a spliff that seemed to be endlessly passed around the club, I pulled (Oh YAY!) and left almost instantly.
On entering his bedroom I realised that he was a “she”. The one and only Josefina La de Los Globos (rough translation: Josephine the ballsy one): the queen of drags everywhere— well, Madrid drags anyway. Here was my chance, I could already hear the golden gates of Chueca creaking back open, so I had no other choice but to—excuse me for the pun—grab it by the balls. And by “it” I mean the opportunity to salvage my social life.
Needless to say I was granted my pardon.
