Gay Bingo: A Survivor's Guide

May 24, 2007

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If you’re ever in L.A. and want to do something fun, casual and charitable on a Wednesday night, head on over to Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood for Legendary Bingo. Now, I’ve always called it Gay Bingo but apparently the official name is Legendary Bingo. Maybe it’s an easier sell if they ever want to go to TV. According to the night’s founder, Jeffrey Bowman, the events have raised over $1.5 million for local charities over the last decade. That’s a lot of dawbing.

I was among the guest callers this week and it was a total flashback to the early 90’s when I worked on cruise ships as a dancer/assistant cruise director. Back then I called Bingo like twice a day, literally. I did it so much that I can’t fool around with someone now without looking for numbers on their balls. See, even just talking about Bingo makes me tell hacky jokes.

Legendary Bingo is more fun than cruise ship Bingo because you get to be dirty and make oral sex jokes like “Under the O, 68 …you do me and I’ll owe you one.” Another fresh twist is the Legendary Bingo pelting ritual. It’s straight out of that story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. The losers wad up their losing cards and throw them at the winner while the winner runs around the restaurant and everybody chants, “Pelt him, Pelt him, all the way down and all the way up.” It reminds me of the scene in Carrie where the girls throw tampons at poor Carrie White. We never did the pelting thing on the cruise ship. I might have stayed with the job longer if we did.

Among the other callers this last week were my friends, Tony Tripoli ("My Life on the D List: Season One") and Jack Plotnick (Lovespring International), along with a drag queen named Holly who was filling in for the regular Bingo queen Belle Aire, and Jerri Manthey, the cunning little vixen from "Survivor: Season 2" in the Australian outback.

Jerri was very friendly but more than that she’s a super Gay Bingo pro. She’s done it a million times and knows all her gay callbacks like the back of Mark Burnett’s hand.

Between games I wanted to commiserate with Jerri about how lame this season of "Survivor: Fiji" was, particularly the finale, but Jerri says she doesn’t watch the show anymore. Unlike me, she’s been able to move on. So I guess I’ll be venting to you kids. Settle in.

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