Buns2025: Day 2 – Melbourne

Soundtrack: “Under the Clocks”, Weddings Parties Anything

Finally made it to day 2. Currently sitting in the airport departure terminal, watching a dog get unloaded from a flight and I’m only a little damp around the eyes.

Day 2 kicked off with heading to my usual cafe, Euro Lane I think it’s called, tucked away in a little alley between Flinders and Collins, that for a number of years now have done some amazing middle-eastern/spanish breakfast options, piles of turkish bread, spicy beans, eggs, and the like. It’s been the staple for a few years now. I last enjoyed their wonderful plates of goodness when I was here in June.

They’ve change their menu. Gone is the middle eastern, the new flavour is Mexican inspired. Looks okay, but not what I was in the mood for, so I went with eggs benedict. They were good, and I had my first cup of Melbourne coffee.

Full of food I headed to ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (after the obligatory stop for a selfie under the clocks at Flinders St Station) as they’ve got an interesting exhibition on computer gaming, full of both retro and modern, with lots of cool interractive experiences. Unfortunately for me, it was also school excursion central, so there were hundreds of munchkins in school-branded high vis vests getting ready to have the time of their lives. Not wanting to be the weird old guy hogging the games (or the weird old guy hanging out around schoolkids) I decided to let them at it and headed for the gift shop. So my recommendation would be to time your visit for after 3pm when I’m guessing things are a little quieter.

After my gift shop splurge, I headed for the other attraction left on my abridged itinerary, the National Gallery of Victoria. It’s got some great exhibitions coming in late-November/early-December that I was too early for, but I was mostly there for the Rodin. Not that I’m the hugest fan, but I figured it made an interesting starting point for my Paris stuff as their copy of The Thinker is one of Rodin’s earliest. It’s certainly not the largest, at about 60cm tall, but it’s kinda neat if you like that thing. I also spent a bunch of time checking out the wonderful Waterhouse Ulysses and the Sirens, which could I guess also tie in the Dublin part (skipped reading the book, just gimme the painting: I’ll take the Pre-Raphaelites over Joyce any day). The NGV also had some neat stuff by Burne-Jones on display, as well as a painting from a friend (internet too slow for me to check the artist, some white guy — Walter Deverell) of the Pre-Raphaelites with Elizabeth Siddall as the model. Also among the 19th century works was Embracing Hands of Sarah Bernhardt and Louise Abbema, a wonderful sculpture previously owned by Sarah Bernhardt, as well as an incredibal portrait of Bernhardt painted by Abbema. There were also a bunch of pre- and post-impressionists, but I’m sure to get plenty of that in Paris too.

All cultured, I found lunch at a dumpling house on Elizabeth St, after wandering through the graveyard that is the current state of Chinatown: there’s barely a Chinese restaurant between the big red arches of Little Bourke, it’s all Korean bbq or boarded windows. Went for the chicken and prawn dumplings with chilli and peanut sauce, and it was pretty much that, quite decent. I’m pretty good with chopsticks but the sauce made the dumplings rather slippery, but I didn’t drop any.

After a bit of a rest at the hotel I headed down to Trak in Toorak for the main event, the Summer Goddessas show featuring the amazing Filipina drag queens Marina Summers and Minty Fresh, ably supported by a cast of local-based Filipina queens Jardin Rose, Dilonce, Christiana, Cassandra (who was also the awesome MC – “Drink more and this will make more sense”), Karaine Deriya, plus the diversity hire Max the Drag Queen. I dragged M and P along, including to the meet and greet, where Marina and Minty were fabulous and chatty.

The entertainment began even before the show started as I’d got there a little early I took a bench on the street, opposite locked door with a Trak sign, and found myself as an unofficial door bitch directing folks inside the mall to the venue — the crowd were easy to spot, small groups of fabulously dressed Filipinas. Then M arrived and helped out. A little after the meet and greet was scheduled to start, Minty arrived, so we watched her entourage attempt the locked door, but it wouldn’t open even for them so they had to take the general entrance. Eventually P arrived, so we headed inside for more fun.

The show was amazing, these queens really know how to put on an effort, there were cartwheels, death drops, splits and kicks, as well as some ballads just to mix it up. Sadly, just like the Perth show I went to a few months ago with Brigading, Precious Paula, and Eva, there weren’t a lot of the caucasian folk that tend to show up for the queens from DR US/UK/Aus. I had a quick chat with Max after the show and we lamented the lack of white folks coming out to shows like this. And at the end of the day they are missing out, because Filipina queens are some of the fiercest around.

Last night in Melbourne, and having arranged a breakfast catch-up, of course I didn’t do the sensible thing and head back to the hotel, grabbing a rideshare instead and zooming the other side of the Yarra to catch the Baby Drag show at Mollies. I missed part of it, but was there in time to see Nichole Lonoscopy and Tara Bytes, who for their first time performing at Mollies, were pretty amazing — mark those names for future greatness. Tara especially, as she apparently has the fearlessness that comes from poor eyesight, daring to deathdrop off the 60ish centimetre stage. She also did an amazing controlled splits.

Downstairs at Sircuit was a Gaga-themed show with Mischa En Scene and Melissa Intent, so I stayed for the first set of that. Fierce, emotional performances, the crowd were lapping it up. In the crowd was DR royalty, Isis Avis Loren, almost incognito out of drag. The crowd were more diverse, more white people, though I did recognise some from the earlier show.

Tired, having had nothing since lunch except some water and 3 beers, it was time to pull the semi-responsible adult card, get a rideshare, a HSP, and maybe 4 hours sleep. Job done, I turned up, cheered, bought the expensive drinks, and supported a wonderful, important and empowering artform. The HSP was also very decent, heavy on the garlic sauce so I’m gonna be great when I start sweating.

Tomorrow is breakfast, then fly to Sydney for some sights, shopping, and to catch the other performance of Summer Goddessas, with a slightly different supporting cast. I’m curious to see if the lure of a venue on Oxford St brings any more diversity to the party. Seriously folks, if you love drag, you need to check out the amazing talent SE Asia has, because if you’re only watching US/UK/Aus queens, you’re missing out.