Salt Lake Tribune – Jennifer Sanchez
Fundraiser: With queens, a chicken “prize” and comedy, this isn’t “your mother’s bingo”
“Bingo virgins” never know what to expect.
Here, “queer” and “lesbian” are not bad words. Guests are cheerfully greeted by drag queens with pouffy wigs and sparkling earrings bigger than Christmas-tree ornaments. And the game’s loser – or winner, depending on home-d?cor tastes – goes home with the rotating trophy: the “Magna D.I. Chicken,” an aged ceramic chicken picked up at a thrift store.
Welcome to Gay Bingo.
“This is not your mother’s bingo,” says “Fonda,” a 36-year-old drag queen who grew up playing bingo at church. “We’re not so serious.”
The Utah Cyber Sluts, a drag queen troupe, performs an impromptu comedy show while hosting a monthly bingo night at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Community Center of Utah in Salt Lake City. Folks pay five bucks for a green bingo card, with the money benefitting the GLBT center. Since the event began in March 2005, it has generated at least $200 per night; the most was $1,200, organizers say.