Sofonda.

I promised you I'd tell you about Sofonda.

Sofonda Peters is a well-known drag queen moniker. It's been used, goodness knows how many times. Well not that many times, maybe. I stole it and used it as my stage name in the burlesque show at the Lowe Mill at the Flying Monkey Theater. We had one for several years. You had to write your own songs or you couldn't be in it.

I didn't want to write a song. I fell in love with the show and went to the rehearsal and wanted to be in it but they said I couldn't do covers. So I went home and the next day I got up and wrote a song.

And then I kept on writing songs. This began in 2007 and it is now 2019. So I guess I've been writing songs for twelve years.

That, apparently, is not enough.

Sofonda saw some crazy things while she was in the Posey Peep Show, as it was called. She called herself Aunt Sofonda after awhile, so that everyone in the audience could be her nieces and/or nephews. You know, close, but not TOO close. If Sofonda liked children, she'd have some of her own, you know.

Or maybe you don't know. Well that's why I'm telling you.

Sofonda worked with the Squidling Brothers Circus Sideshow. Including Matterz Squidling and his brother, Jelly Boy, the Clown with the Frown Turned Upside Down, Turned Upside Down. And Betty Bloomerz, the Most Beautiful Clown In The World. And she certainly was, at the time Sofonda knew her. They were sticking needles into themselves onstage and jumping into broken glass and swallowing guns and swords and balloons and such. And getting into Chinese contortion boxes. It was most exceedingly nervewracking and entertaining. And in a carney kind of way, it was really beautiful.

Sofonda worked with girls writing songs and with band members (usually boys) (one of them wore dark glasses so it would look as if he weren't watching the girls) (but he probably was) and her husband. Her husband did the lights and sometimes voice-overs for the show.

People lined up all the way down the halls of the Lowe Mill to get into this thing. The theater held only about 400 or so people so it was first come first serve. People would come early and wait. Sofonda would pee in a cup backstage during intermission so she wouldn't have to come out to the public bathrooms and be seen in her costume, as there was no bathroom backstage.

At one time, Sofonda played eleven or twelve songs at a time during the shows and was constantly at her piano. Sofonda and her piano. Kind of like Mary Englebreit's Yolanda And Her Piano. Or was that some other artist? It was on a postcard, a little girl at her piano. Or like Miss Goggans and the Gorilla, by Jim Copp and Ed Brown. Only Sofonda was pretty and all her stuff matched: if she wore a blue dress, she would wear a blue wig, blue handbag, blue shoes, blue hat, blue jewelry, blue makeup, blue gloves, blue fan. Everything the same color except for the rainbow costume which was for the Pride show. And then everything was rainbow-colored, except for the shoes and the hat, which were bright yellow. Sofonda took to playing the piano with her gloves on. The arrangements had to be simple so that she could do this. After awhile she cut the ends out of the fingers of the gloves and played like that, so that she could actually feel the piano keys. It was more comfortable this way.

Rehearsals were always wacky. Sometimes people would bring fried pickles. There was a lot of energy going around and around. Sometimes they made videos of the songs, which you can find at the auntsofonda channel on YouTube. The boys at the antique shop brought gourmet food and champagne once for one of the video shoots, the dark blue one. Bless those precious boys.

Again, that's the auntsofonda channel on YouTube, where you can see and hear some of Sofonda's work. Enjoy, darlings.