Article About Candis Cayne in The NY Times [Archive] - HungAngels

AllanahStarrNYC

11-07-2004, 08:18 AM

Keep Your Eye on the Road (If You Can)
By ERIK PIEPENBURG

Published: November 6, 2004

f you find yourself stuck in traffic just south of 21st Street and the Avenue of the Americas on a Saturday around midnight, sit tight. The wait won't be long.

The holdup is not due to traffic or construction or an accident, but rather to this astonishing sight: A dancing, leaping, lip-synching transsexual in a peekaboo dress and cha-cha heels is performing precision spot-turns in the middle of the street.

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Once she marches down the block with an oversize American flag and finishes with a few knee-to-nose high kicks, the M.T.A. buses can get back on schedule.

She is Candis Cayne. And she literally stops traffic.

"I love to act the fool," she said.

Miss Cayne, who declined to give her age but appears to be in her thirties, has been a part of New York's nightclub scene for almost a decade. In her one-hour show at the Tomato, a restaurant in Chelsea, Miss Cayne tells stories, lip-syncs and dances to pop music. She also ventures onto the street and atop cars - antics that patrons inside can see through the restaurant's wall-to-ceiling windows facing the avenue.

Lounging on sport utility vehicles and dodging drunken tourists may look risky, but Miss Cayne says she knows her physical limits.

"You can't do a split leap in four-inch heels," she explained after one show. "You learn throughout the years to utilize the best movements for the best wow factor."

Miss Cayne, who is originally from Maui, Hawaii, said she moved to New York in the early 1990's "to be a star." Having been trained as a dancer during a year in Los Angeles, she quickly made a name as a choreographer and performer who appeared in drag (she was still living as a man) at clubs.

She did not know what a transsexual was until she moved to New York. About three years after she moved to New York, Miss Cayne realized that neither "gay" nor "drag queen" sufficiently described how she felt about herself.

"Ever since I was a child I felt mentally more female," Miss Cayne said one afternoon last month at a cafe in the East Village, where she lives. "I was always called a girl. I got home one night a few years ago and was unhappy, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I sat in front of a mirror and looked at myself and I realized that I wanted to grow as a woman and not as a man. The next day I started hormone therapy - estrogen shots and pills - and started to transition.

"As soon as I started my transition, I felt like I was a teenager again," she said. "I had my first love and had my heart broken and I dated. That's when my life officially started."

Besides hormone treatments, her transition also required several rounds of plastic surgery. Beyond mentioning work on her nose, she declined to specify which procedures she had undergone.

"I am complete," she said. "You can take that any way you want."

Her dimensions could make a supermodel seethe: 5 feet, 10 inches, 37-27-37, blue eyes, legs to here and blond or brunet hair (depending on the week).

On Monday nights Miss Cayne has a show beginning at midnight at Barracuda, a gay bar in Chelsea. There she holds in her power a crowd, mostly of gay men, many of whom return for what Miss Cayne describes as an act darker in tone than her show at the Tomato.

"She's possibly one of the most naturally funny entertainers in New York City," said John Dispirito, a patron in the front row one recent Monday evening. "She's never off guard."

Mr. Dispirito is not an entirely unbiased observer, since he has appeared on stage as Danny Zuko to Miss Cayne's Sandy Olsson in a lip-synched version of the duet "You're the One That I Want" from "Grease."

For gay crowds, Miss Cayne infuses her banter with jokes of a more sexual nature and performs more Broadway songs. During one performance, Miss Cayne, dressed in a tight black dress and strappy sandals, had no trouble getting seven volunteers to act as the Trapp children to her Julie Andrews for a performance of "Do-Re-Mi" from "The Sound of Music." The patrons, well versed in the song, gave a nearly flawless performance.

Miss Cayne is also scathing when someone tries to upstage her. When one young Trapp got on the floor and tried to lift up Miss Cayne's dress during the line "Fa, a long, long way to run," Miss Cayne flashed him a snarl and pointed a finger that all but screamed, "Get off my stage." He did. A replacement was quickly found.

At another performance at the Tomato, Miss Cayne's improvisational skills also drew approval. This time she also tried the "Do-Re-Mi" number, but as it became clear the bumbling Tomato Trapps were less familiar with the song than their Barracuda counterparts, a Bette Davis look of dismissive disgust spread across Miss Cayne's face, much to the crowd's delight.

"Candis belongs in a Vogue centerfold," said James Davies, who participated as a Trapp family member, during a break in the show. "She is the fiercest."

Later, as Miss Cayne glided through the crowd lip-synching, she stopped in front of a giggling, red-faced woman, caressed her cheeks and plunged the woman's head into her ample bosom, never skipping a lyric. A few minutes later, Miss Cayne noticed a police car parked outside the restaurant. Adjusting her belted miniskirt and Pagoda-sleeved pirate blouse, she hustled out the door and to the car and asked the startled officers - with microphone in hand - if everything was O.K. "Yeah," said one officer, laughing. "You want to get in?" She politely declined, explaining that she had a show to do.

In the end, when the traffic on the Avenue of the Americas is proceeding again and the crowds have gone home, what is it that Miss Cayne hopes the audience will take away from the show?

"It's important that people see me as a normal, funny, intelligent person," she said. "Don't judge me. Enjoy me."

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