Pop-Up Winona is a community-activated lot on El Cajon Boulevard. In October, Tootie of Lips will present Ghost Stories every Wednesday at the outdoor venue.
As a Lips drag icon, Tootie is extremely active in the El Cajon Boulevard business community. She also loves what Pop-Up Winona offers.
"We have a lot of these underutilized parking lots and buildings, old car lots, and so we take them and revamp them into community spaces, and we put on all kinds of events there," Tootie explained. "But Wednesday nights we reserve for ghost stories."
This month, Tootie wants to invite people to gather around a campfire — or this week, maybe a bowl of ice to beat the heat — to share stories of ghosts, hauntings and things that go bump in the night.
"Everybody is invited. This is an open event. It's free," Tootie said. "And we also give out free coffee and cookies. But we do invite some people who have had really fantastic ghost stories. I love seeing how people react to it. I love the people that are brave enough to come out and check it out. That makes it special for me, I think, sharing that little fall moment that we all have where the veil is thin and ghosts can come back to visit."
Andrew Pringle has been consulting on Ghost Stories and designing sound for it. He has shared some of his own supernatural experiences at past gatherings.
"It's really fun because a lot of us have these experiences by ourselves, so it's really neat to get to externalize them with people that are receptive," Pringle said. "And then you start seeing these overlapping scenarios where, 'wow, that's very similar to what I experienced in this place,' and it kind of makes it all seem that it's more likely that it's real when they're all very similar."
Tootie remembers meeting Rosa Sanchez at a previous Ghost Stories gathering and having to coax her to participate.
"At the beginning I was skeptical because I'm like, 'ain't nobody gonna believe me.' But on my mother's side, her dad had some kind of powers and we were told that we have some kind of powers, but I'm afraid of that. I don't want to get involved in that," Sanchez said.
But she eventually shared a story about La Llorona, the weeping woman of Mexican folklore, and how as a child she "heard chains going around the house, and this is a true fact, and I'm like, 'oh my God, La Llorona's here!' And then I started praying to God, 'please make it go away.' But then I heard the chain again going around the house the second time, and then I heard screaming."
Tootie and the other people that night embraced her story.
"Tootie is a very compassionate human being," Sanchez said. "I like the vibe within the place. And I just want to let people know that there's places where you can go share, talk, or go listen because there's things out there that you might not believe, or if you believe, you're afraid. It's okay to go and experience."
Tootie loves great storytellers like Sanchez, "because they take us down a road, and the beautiful part of a ghost story is the 'aha' moment."
Pringle appreciates the sense of connection the event creates. "It's a really neat way to get to know your neighbors and kind of get this closeness."
Crystal Bullet is another Lips drag queen, and she grew up in a Catholic household with a psychic medium as a mother. So she likes the idea of Ghost Stories.
"I think the biggest appeal would be just to share each other's stories," Crystal Bullet said. "I have plenty of stories to share, and I'm sure there's people around the world that also have some stories to share. And nothing is more interesting than just hearing a different experience. Sometimes, we as humans, we are a little naive to think that there's not something other than us. So I think by sharing stories and getting a bunch of people together to be able to do so, it would be a great idea. There's nothing more special than being able to have a connection with somebody, whether it be stories like we were talking about, supernatural stories."
You can bring your own ghost story or just listen to others every Wednesday in October at Pop-Up Winona at 4951 El Cajon Blvd. Tootie will also host a Pop-Up Winona Día de Muertos event.
"We do a procession, live music and tamales for everyone, and it's just great," Tootie said.
While Ghost Stories is not a Lips event, Lips does have plenty planned for the spooky season, including Scream Queens on Oct. 21. The week leading up to Halloween will feature something different each night, culminating with Vamps and Vampires on Halloween and Saints and Sinners brunch on Sunday, Nov. 1.
