It's Peter Berlin Day, What Did You Get Me?
We here at SFist tip our Tom of Finland (faux) leather cap to the Peter Berlin Look-A-Like contestants at last Friday's Opening Night Gala for That Man: Peter Berlin, because it was freakin' COLD. As we stepped out of the Castro Muni Metro stop, clad in coat and gloves and other things we thought we'd left behind in the Midwest, we spied folks in teeny shorts and mini dresses, all gussied up for the San Francisco premiere of the locally produced documentary based on the icon of all things sexy and 70s.
Inside the Castro, it wasn't much warmer, but event MC Heklina did the best she could to heat things up as, among other things, the Mayor's office officially proclaimed it "Peter Berlin Day" in San Francisco.
She roused the crowd enough to fetch a respectable price for a work of Berlin's auctioned to benefit the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Transgender Historical Society.
After Veronica Klaus performed, with a strangely unheralded and fleeting appearance of Berlin at the conclusion of her song, it was time for what we must confess drew us to the event, the Peter Berlin Look-A-Like Contest.
We really wish we had better pictures of this for you, but (and we're sorry to keep harping on this) it was so cold in the Castro that we were literally shaking too much to get decent pictures! Look, even Heklina noted the frigid temp of the Castro, and she's a big tough broad under about a hundred pounds of wig. Castro managment, why must it always be so cold in your theatre?
Pictures notwithstanding, you'll have to trust us when we tell you that the contest was the highlight of our evening. Every contestant was seriously out to win big, and the audience tooootally dug it. We're happy to say that the best man won.
Maybe it's because we went home and watched The Wedding Crashers later that night, but our dreams were filled with Peter Berlin fighting crime with Ben Stiller or Jackie Chan. Seriously, was Hansel based on Peter Berlin?
That Man: Peter Berlin is playing at the Castro until March 2. Sure, there won't be a Peter Berlin Look-A-Like Contest, but the movie's well worth seeing. Just bring a sweater.