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Latin Hustle offers a comic look at being young, brown, gay

John Angell Grant
Tuesday April 04, 2000

Daily Planet Correspondent 

 

SAN FRANCISCO – Latin Hustle, a trio of Chicano lesbian and gay male comedy performers, is currently running at Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco its latest show “Hoodwink” – an on-again, off-again mixed bag of 20 or so skits about what it’s like to be young, brown and gay. 

“Hoodwink” is fun-loving, low-brow entertainment in the old vaudeville skit model. In this new millennium version, it contains jokes about homeboys, Impalas, oral sex, prison, crotch grabbing, body odors, Castro Street bars, Fresno, Rudy Galindo, teen-age lesbians, and hepatitis A through F. There are also a few serious moments. 

Playing a variety of bizarre characters, performers Jaime Cortez, Adriana Gordon and Al Lujan are funny people, but the quality of their material, which they also wrote, varies from segment to segment. About half the skits work. In the other half, a sketch may contain a funny joke or two, but not enough to carry the whole skit. 

In the opener, two Latino boys fool around in the dark until they’re caught by mama. This moves into a poetry slam at the Brown Beret Cabaret, which features Gordon’s celebration of her menstrual cycle in a rap titled “Luna Sea.” Her male friend dismisses the work as “cliterature.” 

In one segment, the performers operate three-quarters-sized puppets of an old gay man and a young butch lesbian discussing their love obsessions, and comparing stalking techniques. This segment might have worked better if the puppets were operated more skillfully. 

Elsewhere a man drives his yellow El Camino into a mailbox, then stresses over his effeminate son who likes to cook and his butch daughter who likes to wax the car. 

One highlight of the evening features three faces lined up at three “glory holes” in a sex club, comparing notes on the topic at hand, then bursting into song. 

In another highlight, two pregnant lesbian teen-agers with huge bellies consider rumors that eating cheese is a capitalist plot to keep poor people down. This is a very sweet and touching skit. One girl rolls her hair with Tecate cans. 

Lujan does a sad but increasing surreal stand-up segment about childhood poverty – being locked at home as a 5-year-old by his mother, searching for food under the sofa cushions, and worse. 

Some of the jokes and the takes are familiar. A wedding singer with a dildo in his pants, for example, did not seem like a fresh idea. 

Nor did a labored “Antiques Roadshow” parody that featured such finds as a limited edition sex toy. 

A segment about Kitty and Kiki’s drag fashion show labored along like a comedy segment on public access television. Vamping and drag alone aren’t enough to carry a story. 

Some wise dramaturgical help with the script would improve this show. In the current production, Latin Hustle is halfway there. 

Latin Hustle’s “Hoodwink” runs Wednesday through Sunday, through Apr. 15, at Theater Rhinoceros, 2926 16th St. (at South Van Ness), San Francisco. For reservations, call (415) 861-5097. 

There’s also a Latin Hustle party April 13 at Pan Dulce (Asia SF), 201 Ninth St. (at Howard), San Francisco. Say “Hoodwink” and you’ll get in the club free.