Friday, February 11, 2011

Random Thoughts on a Freezing Friday

SamtheShamandthePharoahs('WoolBully')withfootballplayersdressedaschorusgirls Thank Goddess It’s Friday

Here is an idea for a new American restaurant chain. Call it “Thank Goddess It’s Friday” and staff if with male waitresses like they do in Japan.

Fly Me, I'm Stana

Which brings up the story, blogged about here a couple of times (1) (2), about the new Thai airline, PC Air, hiring transwomen as flight attendants.

PC Air made a big deal about being the first airline to hire transwomen as flight attendants “in an effort to promote equal opportunities for what's called the 'third sex in Southeast Asia.”

Maybe they are the first airline to openly hire transwomen as flight attendants, but I think it is likely that other airlines have hired transwomen (in stealth or not) as flight attendants in the past (and did not publicize it). I have no proof for that assertion, but transwomen are everywhere and I'm sure they are in the stewardess ranks, too.

This story tears me.

On the one hand, PC Air did a good thing, but on the other hand, they soiled their good deed by forcing the trans flight attendants to wear special badges so that civilians can differentiated the trans from the non-trans attendants. WTH? If they were really interested in promoting equal opportunities, PC Air should have had the trans flight attendants wear generic badges and let them blend in with the non-trans attendants.

Androgynous Andrej Pejic... Not!

IMHO, Andrej has moved up the gender spectrum from androgynous to transgender. Welcome to the "girls'" club, Miss Pejic!

Football Player Chorus Girl Mystery

While shopping at Ocean State Job Lot yesterday, I noticed shelves of designer postcards on sale, ten for a dollar.

Being a postcard collector, I was in heaven. Being a femulator, I was elated to find the postcard (pictured above) among the hundreds that were for sale.

The description on the back of the card reads, “Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (‘Wooly Bully’) with football players dressed as chorus girls.”

The source of the image was a mystery.

I saw Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs perform live in concert back in the mid-1960s and I can assure you there were no football players dressed as chorus girls fronting the band.

I thought that the source of the image might be a Hollywood film, so I searched IMDB and discovered that Sam and the Pharaohs appeared in a 1965 opus titled When the Boys Meet the Girls with Connie Francis, Harve Presnell, Louis Armstrong, Liberace, and Herman's Hermits (Wow!).

I did not find the football player chorus girls image on the Internet, but I did find other images of Sam and the band from the film wearing the same outfits performing on the same stage, so I'd say “mystery solved.”

5 comments:

  1. Hamburger Mary's has drag queen waiters, but I'm not sure if that is what you are interested in seeing happen.

    Like most X-ers, I remember "Wooly Bully" from this clip on "Moonlighting" which capped off the tragically strike-shortened 4th season.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gr5xEvAeUo

    There didn't seem to be any limit to what Curtis Armstrong would do on that show, including a remarkable bit of femulation.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L1wrIfxzic

    (Keep in mind that this is "Booger" from the "Revenge of the Nerds" films.)

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  2. Nearly a decade ago, Andrea Colliaux successfully transitioned on the job at Air France from male to female, steward to stewardess.

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  3. Regarding the Thai airline Flight Attendants being "first"... actually there was (at least) one that transitioned on the job http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/AndreaColliaux.html

    Now they are probably the first openly T-girls purposely hired...

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  4. Roscoe --- I never saw the Moonlight "Wooly Bully" clip, so thank you for sharing. The Curtis Armstrong drag Moonlighting clip is a TV classic (pun intended).

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  5. Claire and Anonymous --- Thank you for the information about Andrea Colliaux.

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