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It all began at the weekly Monday morning management meeting. Randee, a former owner of Paradise Lakes, started off the meeting with the news that she and Fred had been out to a brand new nightclub on Treasure Island called Blueberry Hill. She described the nightclub’s 50’s theme and then told us that after every set of dance music, members of the wait staff would jump up on the piano-shaped stage and perform a lip sync routine. Fred liked the idea so much that he invited the DJ to come out to Club Fred on the following Thursday night and audition for the show on ladies’ night. We had been looking for some sort of unique entertainment for ladies’ night and everyone in the manager’s meeting agreed that this just might be it.
That afternoon, I called Jimmy the DJ (that’s as good a name as any, since I don’t remember the dude’s name). He said that he couldn’t do the show by himself and asked if I could put together a couple of folks to join in. I told Jimmy that I knew just the right dudes for the job (Anthony and me, of course) and we scheduled our first rehearsal for noon on the day of the show. Jimmy showed up with a whole trunk full of costumes and a bunch of instrument props for us to play with. We ran through each of the acts a couple of times and after an hour or so, we were ready for our big debut.
To our astonishment, the show was a pretty big hit, but I really think that had more to do with the fact that the crowd enjoyed watching Anthony and I make asses of ourselves and less to do with the quality of our lip syncing skills. After the show, Anthony and I helped Jimmy pack up his stuff and then the two of us sat down to have a cocktail and discuss what the hell had just happened. We agreed that this gig was a whole bunch of fun and I think it was Anthony that said, “You know, we don’t really need Jimmy”.
The next morning, I was in Fred’s office convincing him that we could do the show on our own and as soon as I had secured his approval, I was on the phone to Jimmy to break the bad news. The last thing I remember Jimmy saying to me was something to the effect of “just remember you’re hiring Boyz to do a man’s job” and that’s how The Boyz were born. That week, we really had to scramble to put together enough props and costumes to pull off the first show, but somehow we did it. We recruited DJ LeeBee, who in addition to handling the DJ duties, pulled off a most astonishing Chuck Berry performance including the infamous Duck Walk.
After that first show, we received an amazing outpouring of support from the community. Folks donated old instruments, made custom costumes and the maintenance department built props for us and even a brand new stage for us to perform on. Soon we had stolen every act we could from Blueberry Hill and we had to start coming up with acts of our own. Keep in mind that this was way before shows like Lip Sync Battle were on the air, so we found ourselves attending late night drag shows in Ybor City just to dig up new material. The weekly Boyz show went on for about five years with several different characters joining the cast. We even had a part time drag queen in the show for a while. At one point, I had to leave the show to go back home and spend some time with my ailing father, but Anthony brought in Mark and the show never missed a beat.
Over the years, we went on to do many reunion shows (even one at Caliente) and that gave us the opportunity to bring in many of our friends such as DJ Jesse, DJ X-Ray, Marky Mark, Rick Noriega, JermDog, Steve-O and Juan is the Loneliest Number. Make sure to check out my next couple of articles as they are being written by two of my favorite dudes in the world, Mark and Anthony. This is a rare opportunity to get a glimpse into their own personal perspective on The Boyz Show.
Don’t Miss It Dude!
That afternoon, I called Jimmy the DJ (that’s as good a name as any, since I don’t remember the dude’s name). He said that he couldn’t do the show by himself and asked if I could put together a couple of folks to join in. I told Jimmy that I knew just the right dudes for the job (Anthony and me, of course) and we scheduled our first rehearsal for noon on the day of the show. Jimmy showed up with a whole trunk full of costumes and a bunch of instrument props for us to play with. We ran through each of the acts a couple of times and after an hour or so, we were ready for our big debut.
To our astonishment, the show was a pretty big hit, but I really think that had more to do with the fact that the crowd enjoyed watching Anthony and I make asses of ourselves and less to do with the quality of our lip syncing skills. After the show, Anthony and I helped Jimmy pack up his stuff and then the two of us sat down to have a cocktail and discuss what the hell had just happened. We agreed that this gig was a whole bunch of fun and I think it was Anthony that said, “You know, we don’t really need Jimmy”.
The next morning, I was in Fred’s office convincing him that we could do the show on our own and as soon as I had secured his approval, I was on the phone to Jimmy to break the bad news. The last thing I remember Jimmy saying to me was something to the effect of “just remember you’re hiring Boyz to do a man’s job” and that’s how The Boyz were born. That week, we really had to scramble to put together enough props and costumes to pull off the first show, but somehow we did it. We recruited DJ LeeBee, who in addition to handling the DJ duties, pulled off a most astonishing Chuck Berry performance including the infamous Duck Walk.
After that first show, we received an amazing outpouring of support from the community. Folks donated old instruments, made custom costumes and the maintenance department built props for us and even a brand new stage for us to perform on. Soon we had stolen every act we could from Blueberry Hill and we had to start coming up with acts of our own. Keep in mind that this was way before shows like Lip Sync Battle were on the air, so we found ourselves attending late night drag shows in Ybor City just to dig up new material. The weekly Boyz show went on for about five years with several different characters joining the cast. We even had a part time drag queen in the show for a while. At one point, I had to leave the show to go back home and spend some time with my ailing father, but Anthony brought in Mark and the show never missed a beat.
Over the years, we went on to do many reunion shows (even one at Caliente) and that gave us the opportunity to bring in many of our friends such as DJ Jesse, DJ X-Ray, Marky Mark, Rick Noriega, JermDog, Steve-O and Juan is the Loneliest Number. Make sure to check out my next couple of articles as they are being written by two of my favorite dudes in the world, Mark and Anthony. This is a rare opportunity to get a glimpse into their own personal perspective on The Boyz Show.
Don’t Miss It Dude!
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