{"id":91865,"date":"2023-10-08T20:31:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T03:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=91865"},"modified":"2023-10-08T20:31:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T03:31:00","slug":"varla-and-kathy-hit-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2023\/10\/08\/varla-and-kathy-hit-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Varla and Kathy Hit Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m a winner, baby!&nbsp; I\u2019m leaving Vegas a couple hundred bucks ahead.&nbsp;&nbsp; I\u2019m also a few pounds heavier courtesy of <em>Cinnabon <\/em>but, nonetheless, a good time was had by all.&nbsp; There\u2019s something thrilling about seeing a friend\u2019s name on a marquee.&nbsp; It\u2019s even more exciting when it\u2019s a 30-foot-tall <strong>Varla Jean Merman <\/strong>looming over the <em>Strip <\/em>\u2013 alongside <strong>Barry Manilow <\/strong>at the <strong><em>Westgate<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Her fantastic show, <strong><em>Stand By Your Drag<\/em><\/strong>, is in the midst of a national tour, and is hysterical and, sadly, timely.&nbsp; During these days when drag queens are being targeted, Varla brilliantly weaves humor with a message of solidarity and defiance.&nbsp; It\u2019s an uproarious romp that\u2019s guaranteed to please.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-568\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/colorbar1.gif\" alt=\"colorbar1\" width=\"500\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Then it was off to <strong>Kathy Griffin <\/strong>at <strong><em>The Mirage<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; The day before the event, the red-headed spitfire announced a $250 meet-and-greet \u2013 with 100% of the proceeds going to the <em>American Cancer Society <\/em>in conjunction with <em>Making Strides Against Breast Cancer<\/em>.&nbsp; It sold out in a matter of minutes!&nbsp; As to the show itself, Kathy delivered close to two hours of anecdotes from the past few years \u2013 and what a few years it\u2019s been.&nbsp; OK, the material was somewhat less celebrity-laden than usual, but that\u2019s to be expected.&nbsp; Since she is a gifted storyteller, even heavy topics were heavy on laughs \u2013 and that includes the lurid details of her suicide attempt by way of a giant vase and a swimming pool!&nbsp; The last half hour was vintage Griffin, including a lengthy recounting of her Mexican vacation with <strong>Sia<\/strong>.&nbsp; To add credence to the tale, Sia got up from the audience and sang a bit of \u201cChandelier\u201d (which you can see on our website).&nbsp; Also seated behind me were <strong>Rosie O\u2019Donnell<\/strong>, <strong>Chris Colfer<\/strong>, <strong>Laraine Newman<\/strong>, and <strong>Julia Sweeney<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If you wanna see Kathy, consider booking passage on the upcoming <em>Atlantis <\/em>cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico on October 23<sup>rd<\/sup>.&nbsp; Just go to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.AtlantisEvents.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><u>AtlantisEvents.com<\/u><\/strong><\/a> and tell \u2018em <strong>Billy <\/strong>sent you.&nbsp; Just a little tip \u2013 from me to you.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m a winner, baby!&nbsp; I\u2019m leaving Vegas a couple hundred bucks ahead.&nbsp;&nbsp; I\u2019m also a few pounds heavier courtesy of Cinnabon but, nonetheless, a good time was had by all.&nbsp; There\u2019s something thrilling about seeing a friend\u2019s name on a marquee.&nbsp; It\u2019s even more exciting when it\u2019s a 30-foot-tall Varla Jean Merman looming over the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91874,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91865\/revisions\/91874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}