by Michael Fox
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California
13 December 1996

After the Kinsey Sicks -- which calls itself America's Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet -- wraps up its set at this year's Kung Pao Kosher Comedy bash, "Dreidl, Dreidl, Dreidl" will never be the same again.

That's a promise from Ben Schatz, one of the Bay Area troupe's four singing, punning, cross-dressing dervishes. But don't confuse the Kinsey Sicks with one of your garden-variety lowbrow, slapstick drag acts. The foursome collaborates on original songs and "evil, twisted parodies," and their lyrics are rife with jokes, double entendres and political commentary.

The troupe's two Jewish members, both of whom are lawyers, make sure Yiddish words and Jewish tunes filter through the repertoire.

"We love working with paradox -- setting up premises and then pulling them out from underneath -- which I think is a very Jewish type of humor," says Irwin Keller. Schatz concurs, noting that the group's performances can be understood "on many levels."

Jewish humor will be the main course at San Francisco's fourth annual Kung Pao Kosher Comedy extravaganza, which expands this year to six shows over three nights, Monday through Wednesday, Dec. 23 to 25, at the Hunan Restaurant on Sansome Street.

Sherry Glaser, Josh Kornbluth and emcee Lisa Geduldig join the Kinsey Sicks, with some of the proceeds from the run benefiting the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children's Services' AIDS Project and the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

Tracked down before a gig in Lincoln, Neb., where a local newspaper described the Kinsey Sicks as "blatantly liberal," Schatz and Keller can't stop joshing.

"I became involved with the Kinsey Sicks," Schatz explains, "because my parents always wanted me to be a singing drag queen, and they were deeply humiliated when I became a lawyer."

He works as executive director of the S.F.-based Gay & Lesbian Medical Association -- the "gay AMA," he calls it. He also sits on the President's Council on HIV/AIDS, and wrote many of the AIDS policies for Clinton's 1992 campaign.

Schatz's grandparents were union organizers, and the Philadelphia native says unhesitatingly, "I see the kind of work I do in social activism as integrally part of the proud tradition of Jewish social justice work."

Keller taught Hebrew school part time for 10 years in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He is the executive director of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco.

"In the day work we do," he notes, "there's a great deal of reward, but it doesn't have the element of joy."

The other two troupemates boast similar heavyweight jobs.

The group delivers a social and political message, and the drag element is as essential to the Kinsey Sicks' shtick as verbal hijinks.

"Drag has been made safe over the past few years in ways I don't particularly like," Keller says, citing mainstream movies like "The Birdcage."

Nevertheless, "there's no safe seat in our shows," he says. The group strives to challenge gender expectations and stereotypes; yet, somehow, nobody leaves their shows feeling insulted.

"Audiences never cease to amaze me," Keller says. "Every time we think we're going to shock people, they love it."