"For the record, I will be going to Trannyshack on the 20th," Justin Vivian Bond says, when asked about the recent rebranding of the San Francisco nightclub where the singer, writer and performance artist Bond performed in the '90s.

"I'm fine with the name change (to T-Shack)," Bond says. "Heklina is trying to be thoughtful. I understand why that word is hurtful to people in the community, but as someone who doesn't really want to be in the space of being male or female, I don't like the words we've come up with ourselves that describe who we are," Bond, a trans person who uses the gender nonconforming pronoun V, sighs and takes a Pinter-worthy pause before continuing.

"I don't think any word you could ever use to describe someone who is gender variant or gender nonconforming is pejorative. To be gender variant should be celebrated and any word used to describe that is fine by me."

Interviewing Bond, who first shot to cult acclaim as aging songstress Kiki DuRane of Kiki and Herb on the queer cabaret circuit in the mid-'90s, is like getting a private performance of a signature tuneful yet world-weary club gig, sans music.

"I think of my monologues as if they were jazz," says Bond, whose performances are equal parts storytelling and song. "There's a subject or a theme and then I riff on it. If something in the world surprises me, we're all going to hear about it."

It's that kind of off-the-cuff candor fans can look forward to when Bond performs "Love Is Crazy" at Feinstein's at the Hotel Nikko this weekend, with Emmy Award-winning composer Lance Horne at the piano. Bond first performed the show in Paris on Valentine's Day, "which is appropriate since San Francisco is always trying to brand itself the 'Paris of the West.' "

In addition to selections from past records "Pink Slip" "Silver Wells" and "Dendrophile," Bond will also be singing songs from an album in the early gestation phase, tentatively titled "The Drift."

"It was inspired by a passage in Tennessee Williams' 'The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone,' " Bond says of the new project. "There's a chapter in the novella where Karen is drifting in and out of the room with no reason to go in or out again. It's just so beautiful: It's about being a dissolute lady of the stage in her early 50s but still being overwhelmed by desire," Bond, 51, waits for maximum comic timing, and then offers a throaty, self-knowing laugh. "It's really what I'm all about these days."

References to a faded Williams' heroine notwithstanding, Bond is not one to look back wistfully at past triumphs or incarnations. Although a Kiki song may "occasionally slip into an encore," Bond has little interest in bringing back Kiki and Herb, whose shows went from the cabaret circuit all the way to Broadway in 2007. Likewise, as a regular visitor to San Francisco, Bond has learned to adjust with the changing cityscapes in both San Francisco and at home in New York.

"I hear everyone is moving to the East Bay," Bond says, given the report from artists friends in the Bay Area. "It's like West-WEST-Bushwick."

Keeping Bond in touch with the changing scene at home are the "baby queens" of Brooklyn and the students at Bard College, where Bond will be in residence this summer curating performances.

"I was just at this party called 'Bath Salts' last night in Bushwick," Bond says, "and some baby queen was celebrating their 19th birthday. Being out there, listening to gritty new bands like the Dum Dum Girls or this fabulous new queer punk band from Bard, Pwr Bttm - that's how I keep it fresh."

In spite of staying current, Bond still occasionally gets a reminder of the passage of time, frequently from surprising sources.

"I've been getting that 'bitch, you're old' thing a lot from some of these trans activists lately," Bond says, when the topic of evolving terminology in the LGBT community comes up again. "But to tell you the truth, I like it!"

Justin Vivian Bond: "Love Is Crazy." 7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. $35. Feinstein's at the Nikko, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St., S.F. www.ticketweb.com.

Tony Bravo is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to The San Francisco Chronicle's Datebook and Style sections. E-mail: datebookletters@sfchronicle.com