USC Presents: Drag Show BINGO!

    I don’t get out of my room much. I am a broke college student who doesn’t have a car, so my options for having fun in LA are extremely limited. My roommate’s hometown friends were visiting the city and invited us to dinner in West Hollywood. Emily (my roommate) told me it’d be an American restaurant where they host drag bingo. I was enticed by this because I love bingo and it’s a lot of fun to watch drag, but the best part was that we’d have a ride! I was sold.

    After WRIT class on Wednesday, Emily and I made our way to West Hollywood. I’ll spare you with the boring details and fast-forward to bingo. We were sitting at the front table (closest to the queens) and each got 60 bingo cards. There’s ten rounds of bingo, so we played six cards at once, which was really exhausting because they spoke quickly and strobe lights were our only source of lighting. Camille (Emily’s friend) won the first round of bingo along with another man. Since ties aren’t allowed in drag bingo, both winners had to pick a bingo ball and whoever had the highest number won. The loser got to place their hand into The Bag of Crap while everyone chanted “Bag of Crap! Bag of Crap!”. Camille got the biggest number and her reward was to run around the crowded restaurant while everyone threw their losing bingo cards at her. Her actual prize was free tickets to the Santa Barbara Zoo, makeup, and free classes at this dance place in LA. Camille lives in New York.

    We played five more rounds of bingo, until it came to the Pole Dancing round (you need a vertical line on the card to win). After they called out some number in the G’s I immediately yelled “BINGO!”. I was very scared to say this because if you don’t have an authentic bingo, you get punished. Fortunately, mine was the real deal and I ran around the restaurant while people pelted me with cards. When I got to the front of the room to receive my prize, the drag queens asked me how old I was—18. They whispered “She can’t get this one. Should we swap these prizes? No, that’s too complicated.” They announced to the crowd what I had won (I won’t explain my prizes because they're X-rated) and clarified that I am 18 and can legally have them. When I got to my seat the restaurant shouted “Show us! I want to see what she won!”. Their wish was my command, and I proudly held up my MASSIVE prize. Everyone cheered and laughed and later told me that I was the funniest part of the evening. 

So, if you are bored on a Wednesday night at 7:00pm, I would highly recommend going to Hamburger Mary’s for Drag Show Bingo. It was the most fun I’d had in LA and an experience I’ll never forget. Thirty bingo cards cost $20, and all proceeds go to a charity that supports the LGBTQIA+ community. The charity I supported was the USC Gould School of Law’s scholarship for the LGBTQIA+. So I should thank USC for my fabulous prizes.