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Hillcrest cigarette girl is a man, baby!

By Greg Fogg

May 29, 2006

Hillcrest--One of the few places you can still see old-fashioned cigarette and candy girls – the type that wander through nightclubs calling out “Cigars! Cigarettes!” – is in the Hillcrest area at Hamburger Mary’s restaurant or Bourbon Street bar. The next time you’re there and you spot one, take a closer look. That’s no girl.

It’s likely to be 38-year-old Mike Siler who dresses the part and dispenses candy, gum, cigarettes and a whole lot of attitude. Many may know him by sight, but few outside the community know who the man behind the makeup, behind the candy tray really is.

Boy Mike, right, was voted Homecoming Queen in high school

Siler, who is known in the gay community as “Boy Mike” says he doesn’t like to answer questions about being a candy girl saying, “That’s what I do on the side when I’m not doing anything else.” It’s the “anything else” that he does which is the more colorful side of a career in entertainment including stage, screen and radio. Spend some time talking to him and you too may find it difficult to keep your pronouns straight when referring or writing about him.

 His voice is noticeably effeminate, and one has to check oneself from writing she instead of he. “Kids in high school made fun of me because I had a high voice,” he says. “I ignored it for the most part.”

Two people he couldn’t ignore in high school were his idols, Boy George and Madonna. Old habits die hard. While this writer interviewed Siler he was preparing to go to the Madonna concert for the new Confessions tour. He says that when he went to his first Madonna concert the tickets cost $15. Tickets for this concert are in excess of $250. “I’ve given that bitch so much money over the years!” he fumes.

Siler, a native of the Escondido area, says he began idolizing Madonna and Boy George in high school. He moved to Seattle at age 11. Siler says he looked at George and thought, “He’s not trying to be a man or a woman. I get it.”

That’s what encouraged him to start experimenting with his own androgynous side, earning him the name nickname “Boy Mike” in high school. He says he would wear his mother’s blue trench coat out to clubs to pull off the Boy George-look. He describes his look as a “fat-Madonna-with-a-bow-in-my-hair-Boy-George-look.”

Siler says the first time he did female impersonating professionally was at an African American club where they were holding Star Search competitions for lip-synching and stand-up comedy. He nearly got the chance to appear on the TV talent show but lost the last of six rounds. But from there he says he developed his female impersonator act at Seattle gay bars.

When he says he’s a female impersonator he isn’t kidding. In the middle of an interview, he breaks out Joan Rivers, Cher and Roseanne impersonations, all within seconds. He can impersonate 20 female celebrities in all. Siler says he used to perform for a club where the director insisted he perform as Roseanne, although he wanted to do Boy George.

Looking back, Siler says portraying the fat, sassy, housework-hating comedian was in his favor because it led to his appearance on Roseanne’s short-lived talk-show, a performance at the 40^th birthday party of Roseanne’s ex-husband, Tom Arnold, and a meeting with the cast members of Roseanne for their DVD release.

Siler has met and worked with a large number of entertainers. One of them was Boy George, but the most thrilling meeting was with Julie Andrews at an event at Disneyland. “It made me feel like I was three-years-old,” he says. “I’ve been lucky to get to meet my childhood idols.”

His addiction to Disneyland is what forced him to move back to southern California, where the radio station Star 103.7-FM discovered him at Hamburger Mary’s. The station was broadcasting at the burger joint and liked Boy Mike’s snappy personality so much that he appeared as an on air personality from 1997 to 2000, giving Hollywood reports and Oscar predictions and haranguing the Betty Ford clinic.

Siler recounts one of his practical jokes, calling the rehab clinic on the former first lady’s birthday to see if they were holding a keg party for the recovering alcoholic. He also takes credit for being the first to play Cher’s song “Believe” on Star 103.7.

If ever there were ever an example of remaining true to oneself it would be Boy Mike’s story. He says, “I think back to my high school days when kids would make fun of me for being who I was.” He explains he was the only person to audition for his high school talent show who wasn’t allowed to participate. He even won the title of Homecoming Queen in high school, but the administration refused him his crown. The once-and-future queen says when he went back to his reunion they finally crowned him Homecoming Queen.

He contemplates where he would be if he had given up in high school his dream of working in the entertainment business. “I could have quit,” he says. “But working at Disneyland, Las Vegas on the radio…it’s all a dream come true.”

These days when he’s not playing candy girl he’s delivering his sharp-tongued brand of comedy in written form for local gay publications including Buzz and Pulp magazine. He’ll also be heading back to Seattle on June 9 to appear in a documentary for his idol, Boy George.

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