DEBORA SHAULIS | On the Scene Unusual events hit the Valley

It won't be a typical weekend around the Mahoning Valley -- unless you usually spend free time in the company of female spaghetti wrestlers, drag queens and emerging blues-rock bands.
Unlike other Italian festivals that will occur later this summer, the new Bada Bing Italian Food & amp; Music Festival that starts tonight behind Eastwood Mall in Niles isn't about cultural heritage. Oh, sure, there will be authentic Italian music and food, but there also will be tongue-in-cheek events such as "Godfather" impersonations and "Sopranos" look-alike contests. The latter could turn the faces of some proud Italians as red as marinara sauce.
"Keep in mind, we're not attracting just Italians," says Tony Rubino of Rubino Productions, which is promoting the event. "We're looking to attract everybody. We want a mix of people. The thing is Italian in general ... [but] this is entertainment."
Diverse music
So there's room at the Bada Bing festival for Dick Contino (a "virtuoso of the accordion," according to publicity materials), and Sonny Geraci and the Outsiders, the horn-infused rock band from Cleveland that people know because of its 1960s hit, "Time Won't Let Me." Geraci joined another band, Climax, that produced a popular ballad in the early 1970s, "Precious and Few."
How does A Flock of Seagulls fit at the Bada Bing festival? This band is British, not Italian. Its electro-pop songs "I Ran" and "Wishing (If I Had A Photograph)" as well as singer Mike Score's wild, big hairdo, made them darlings of MTV in the early 1980s. Precisely, Rubino said. Folks who watched MTV as teenagers then are in their late 30s and early 40s now. That's the age group he wants to attract. Besides, Italian rock bands aren't easy to find, Rubino added.
Rubino hopes his Bada Bing festival will be one for the history books. He has put local resident Alan Tura in charge of assembling the world's largest bowl of spaghetti. If Tura can pull it off -- he'll use a giant cauldron for cooking, an old crucible from a steel mill for storage and a cement truck to mix the noodles with sauce -- a swimming pool will be filled Sunday with 4,000 lbs. of pasta, breaking the Guinness Book of Records title of 3,200 lbs.
That's where the female wrestlers will enter the picture. Their names: Penny Pasta and Angel Hair, among others. The referee will be a small person with the pseudonym Little Johnny Calzone. Mama mia!
Taking a different approach
Many community groups offer spaghetti dinners to raise money for their causes. Oakland Center for the Arts, a community theater in Youngstown, has taken a different approach. It's called "Fundraising Is A Drag." Take that literally and figuratively.
For the second year, HeroStarr Productions will present members of The Royal Procession -- aka local female impersonators Ahrin Starr, Maxine Factor, Princess Delicious of Whales, Allura Starrdust and hostess Starrlet O'Hara -- at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Oakland, 220 W. Boardman St. The show will be followed by a reception. Tickets are $10, and all proceeds will go to the Oakland. The theater is taking reservations at (330) 746-0404. Tickets also may be purchased at the door.
"I like this approach," director and performer Robert Dennick Joki said. "We entertain people ... We have raised thousands of dollars" for the Oakland and for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organizations at Youngstown State, Kent State and John Carroll universities. "Our most successful shows are in Youngstown."
The fund-raiser will feature performances as well as some games. In one, audience members will be challenged to decide who are the real women onstage and who are drag queens. The other game has a self-explanatory title: "Who Wants To Be A Drag Queen?" Volunteers are more often women than men, Joki said. It's a challenge to make a woman look like a man who's dressed as a woman (think Julie Andrews in the movie "Victor/Victoria.")
Joki calls female impersonation an art form. "Doing drag is just like painting a picture except your canvas is your body," Joki said. Drag queens apply makeup, design costumes and devise stage shows. "It's performing, it's acting," Joki said.
As for the diversity debates that drag queens inspire, "If there's ever been a time to promote acceptance in Youngstown, it's now," Joki said. The nationwide debate on the legality of gay marriages will likely continue through the presidential election this fall.
One last it's-not-business-as-usual note: Youngstown currently is the No. 1 target market in the United States for Tony C. and the Truth, a Lava Records band that has performed here and will do so again Saturday night at The Cellar in Struthers.
Rock 104 FM radio is playing Tony C and the Truth's single "Little Bit More," and many people here are responding by buying the CD "Demonphonic Blues." While scratchy-voiced Tony C and his band have a working-class attitude, their mix of funk, blues and turntable-scratching DJ is a few degrees left of the classic rock that music lovers here have been known to support. Nonetheless, count on seeing and hearing more of Tony C in the months ahead.
XDebora Shaulis is entertainment editor. Write her at shaulis@vindy.com.