'Marga Gomez New Year's Eve Spectacular' to end

Marga Gomez has become what you might call the lesbian Dick Clark of San Francisco. After seven years of ringing in the new year with a comedy spectacular produced by Theatre Rhinoceros, Gomez is hanging up her noisemaker.

This year's "Marga Gomez New Year's Eve Spectacular" at the Victoria Theatre will be the last. Flanked by host John Fisher (Rhino's artistic director), DJ O'DJ and guest comedians Natasha Muse and Casey Ley, Gomez will yuk it up one more time and send people into the new year with grins on their plastered faces, er, grins plastered on their faces.

Over tea and oatmeal-cherry scones, Gomez discussed her farewell performance for the Rhino New Year's Eve bash.

Q: So why end your "Spectacular" run after seven years?

A: Seven is lucky. Eight is crazy. New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday, so I always wanted my New Year's show to be really cool and really exciting. I never wanted it to feel routine or mundane. I'm at my spectacular peak right now, so I'll quit while I'm still sexy. It's not that I won't perform on New Year's Eve anymore. I'm just leaving this particular event at the Victoria.

Q: What was your best New Year's Eve?

A: In 2000, when we did the first "Spectacular" at the Victoria. We performed on the set for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," which was a really hot production. I was performing in front of the drum set, and it looked like I had just come on after the band.

There I was in an old burlesque house, and the people were psyched. It was such wonderful energy. Another good one was in the late '80s when I opened for k.d. lang at the Fillmore just before she was super famous.

Q: And your worst?

A: It was in Sacramento in the mid-'80s. I had been booked by a gay businessmen's group. I still wasn't used to getting paid for gigs, and for this one I got to travel! I took the Greyhound bus and stayed in a Motel 6.

I was just excited to get a New Year's Eve gig at a gay party. I knew how to make a gay audience happy and felt very confident. Well, this particular group wasn't good at promoting, so they pulled in a lot of really random people.

When I started my set, people were already slumped over their chairs and depressed that this was how they had chosen to spend New Year's Eve. At one point, some ass started popping balloons at my punch lines.