Sometimes snobbery costs me dearly. Generally, I'm a snob about things that either I don't understand (jazz, for instance, which I simply cannot get my head around so unless it's vocal stylists I tend to avoid it completely) or things that I truly think are a waste of time (drag, for instance, which as a genre I find neither humorous nor endearing, and seem to never get the pathos that drag queens attempt to convey). But now I must confess that closing my mind to drag in general has made me seriously late to a party that I would have been very happy to be at for years now--the party that is the cult of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Not long ago, when the film of Hedwig was playing in theaters, my friend Christopher told me I must go see it. I dismissed his enthusiastic recommendation with a roll of my eyes, noting that I wouldn't find any entertainment in a two-hour film version of a drag show I had done a good job of avoiding in clubs and theaters. He scolded me, told me I was wrong, and dropped it.

Fast forward a few years, deep into the era of Netflix, and I decide I might as well rent Hedwig, since Chris--who I trust on matters cinematic and, frankly, matters gay--had been so enthusiastic. After all, as a rental, I could simply turn it off if it turned out to be as dreadful as I anticipated.

Well, you no doubt know where this is leading. I watched it a couple of months ago (and again this week) and I loved it unreservedly, and I've been obsessed with the music ever since seeing it. Not only did it not upset my anti-drag-queen apple cart, but the movie brought me back to a sub-genre of music that has always meant a lot to me personally, but which doesn't really have much of a public presence: gay rock & roll. But before I get into that, let me tell you about the movie (though I'm so late to the party that you probably already own it).

John Cameron Mitchell, creator of the Hedwig character, writer and star of the show and director of the film, has created a movie musical that evokes as much the feeling of Singin' In The Rain as the feelings of Wigstock and CBGB. Hedwig is the victim of a botched sex-change operation who, in order to escape East Germany before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, had his, um, manhood removed in order to marry an American soldier and emigrate to our great land. Once here, the end of the Cold War makes his unfortunate operation obsolete--and the American soldier flies the coop with a new young man (intact). The ever-fetching Michael Pitt, with his usual blank over-sexed look on his face, plays Hedwig's subsequent love interest Tommy. The struggle between Hedwig and Tommy is the plot of the movie. Many of the song scenes play like fantastic music videos--Wizard of Oz meets MTV circa 1985 (think Prince's Raspberry Beret!). The songs are amazingly well-written--soaring melodies, flaming guitars, melancholic pianos, plenty of big build-ups, and the odd synthesis of punk rock and broadway singing. And the lyrics are serious and real rock & roll at the same time.

One of the bonus features on the Hedwig DVD is a documentary about the history of the project, which started out as a theater piece, which itself was workshopped and developed as a drag show. I was amazed to learn that Stephen Trask (who wrote the songs) and his band--Cheater--were the house band at a fantastic gay rock & roll club I used to go to on Friday nights in west Soho, a night called Squeezebox. It was a lively, bizarre night of DJs playing rock (from AC/DC through mid-90s grunge) alternating with live rock & roll performances of rock singers and drag queens. As John Cameron Mitchell tells it in the documentary, drag queens were delighted to learn that perfect Liza or Barbra voices were not needed for live drag shows if the genre was punk rock. The crowd was always rowdy, drunk, and loud. I had a great time at Squeezebox nights (later, when it became more of a known entity it was consistently packed beyond fire code with a somewhat less rock & roll clientele, including celebs. It is the only club where I had the experience of rubbing chest-to-chest with Leonardo DiCaprio as we struggled to pass through the crowd....).

I don't believe Hedwig was among the drag acts I saw at Squeezebox--though honestly, due to the snobbery described above, I was usually at the bar refilling my bourbon during the drag acts, while waiting for the DJs to come back and play more Billy Squier for me to dance to, so perhaps I was at the Hedwig party earlier than July 2004--but if I was, I certainly didn't recognize it. Anyway, seeing video footage of the old Squeezbox was a real mind trip and reminded me of my younger days in the late night glow of New York City.

Obviously, I recommend the film Hedwig and The Angry Inch, and I hereby acknowledge the limits of being a snob.