Drag king stories #9
Posted: January 22, 2025 Filed under: Drag King, Drag King Stories | Tags: androgyny, comedy, drag, drag king, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbtq, non-binary, performance, performing, queer, trans, transgender Leave a commentI’m back to performing, after a 5 year hiatus. “Adam Andro-matic” was last seen at a small bar downtown doing drag-aoke as a wind-up-doll to the song “Blue Monday” by New Order. And then the pandemic hit, and I haven’t been back to that bar since. A new opportunity came up recently! An acquaintance put on a show at a small theater in November that we attended, and they asked me if I wanted to perform in the next one.
I decided that since it was a theater that hosts mostly comedy shows and improv, I would try to lean into that. To tell a humorous story from a past drag experience. It ended up going really well! After telling the story, I did a dramatic reenactment of the event, and then in the 2nd show later that night, I twisted the reenactment into an alternate reality, and did a bizarro-world version.
Here’s the story:
Spring of 2006 – I was a drag baby, a baby king, with 5 whole shows under my belt. The belt was silvery-shimmery, sequined and studded, thick and gaudy and I was so ready to tuck away a bunch more shows. I had weaseled my way into a huge show at the U of R, through a tenuous connection, a last-minute addition. I really had no business being there; it was a bunch of drag queens (who I didn’t know) and Stratus – local drag king legend! He and I were going to be sharing a dressing room!
I decided to do a song I had already done – I could afford to by now, and I’d feel less nervous if it was a little bit familiar. And by that, I mean to me, not to anyone else; I was going with an obscure song by 90’s Britpop bedroom navel-gazing darlings The London Suede. It was having a moment in my mind. Get this: they had a lyric that went, “We kissed in his room / to a popular tune” and it was amazing because the singer was a man! This wasn’t some overt queer anthem, but it was in there, subtle.
I had bubblegum pink corduroy bell bottoms (exhibit A: these are the exact same ones – can’t believe they still fit) and a sheer zebra striped women’s blouse. Sideburns that thrilled me to no end and eyeliner that really made my eyeballs pop out. I was going for that vacant deep-stare-at-nothing look.
Stratus and I didn’t talk much, if at all. We had pre-show jitters. I didn’t know how this venue worked – how to get out to the stage, how I had gotten back stage, what it would feel like to be out there. Didn’t matter; I was about to go on and here we go!
And… The wrong song was totally playing. Booming, actually, ricocheting all over this huge cavernous party room. It was just so painful in my skull. …A stupid silly song by Oingo Boingo, and I was mortified by the incongruence. I was gonna have to run with it; no one to tell, sound person tucked away back in a secret locale. I kinda knew this song right? Had done it, but was going to have to improvise. I bounced out onto this huge stage, trying to use the entirety of the space, which was much different than the little hole-in-the-wall gay dive bar I was starting to get used to.
I was cringing on the inside – this song did not match this outfit, and everyone could obviously tell! That’s what I told myself anyway; the students were staring blankly. And then, I noticed the catwalk. It felt like an abyss, but I did go out there. At the very end, one dollar bill stuck up straight in the air like a buoy, right when I was starting to feel like maybe I was drowning.
I reached for it and, and realized it was my flamboyant rockabilly friend Sarah, and hanging off her was my fellow drag buddy, Johnny. I didn’t even know they were coming! They had surged through the crowd to deliver this crisp dollar bill, and I was forever grateful. But that was it and I had to keep going and this song was just so long and totally wrong for this crowd! I did a little song and dance, a little of this, little of that. Turned around and before I knew it…
Backstage again with Stratus, my adrenaline has surged and oxytocin was hitting my bloodstream hard and we were now a bonded pair. I blurted out, “Oh man, that was so fun! What are you doing now, do you want to come out to Vertex [local goth night club] with me?!” He was polite, soft-spoken, saying, “That sounds fun and I totally would. But I’m going out with my girlfriend and a bunch of people to this lesbian club.” I didn’t say anything, but of course she was. Stratus was a woman, performing as a man, who was now transforming back into her life, going out with her people. I was neither man nor woman, performing as I’m-not-sure, who was now heading out to my misfit happy place, by myself yet again.
Drag king stories #4
Posted: January 12, 2016 Filed under: Drag King, Drag King Stories | Tags: androgyny, David Bowie, drag, drag king, drag kings, gender, gender identity, genderqueer, performing, queer 11 CommentsDavid Bowie was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to become a drag king. He was the epitome of androgyny amongst the famous, and I wanted to emulate him. Whenever I did drag, I tried to capture the look of the singer, something that not all drag kings take the time to do. And since I was leaning toward music of the late seventies and eighties, flamboyancy was big – eyeliner and eye-shadow, lip-liner and lipstick. Clothing found in the women’s section of thrift stores, tight pants, boots with heels…
I just went back to an old email chain between my drag buddy and me, prior to my first performance, when we were bouncing ideas off of each other. I’m sure that I talked about all the gender variant singers I wanted to channel, especially David Bowie. For some reason though, my side of the email correspondence is all blank. 😦 (Otherwise I would have cut and pasted what I wrote, ten years ago.) I hope my drag partner might still have these emails. That’s disheartening that I might have lost that… (This same friend’s first 7″ record was Blue Jean.)
I definitely did David Bowie songs more than any other musician, over the years. Here is a list as best as I can remember, in chronological order:
– Heroes
– Ziggy Stardust (a Bauhaus cover)
– Space Oddity
– Rebel Rebel
– Breaking Glass
– Space Oddity again
– A Ziggy Stardust medley
– The Man Who Sold the World
– Let’s Dance
The first time I was asked to do drag out of context (not at a drag show), was for a David Bowie tribute night, for his birthday. I can’t remember how I got connected to that – I think through a friend. I was super psyched to have been asked. This was a show of local bands doing covers, and I was performing to a crowd that was made up of people who perhaps had never been to a drag show. It was at a bar I always had wanted to perform at – a bar that definitely does not put on drag shows. I did David Bowie as a glam rocker, and David Bowie as a mime. (He was a member of the Lindsay Kemp Mime Company in 1967.)
A different organizer put on the tribute show the next year, and it was at an even more mainstream bar, with even more out-there musicians doing covers. I did David Bowie as a glam rocker, and David Bowie in a dress. The idea to do that came from the cover of his The Man Who Sold the World record. I was mixing things up, wearing Aladdin Sane inspired make-up (see photo – I applied this make-up in the mirror before realizing it was the reverse!). Interestingly, I felt very self-conscious wearing that dress – I didn’t feel like people were going to accept that, even though it was just a costume, and David Bowie definitely would have / could have flaunted it… That performance felt stilted because of my discomfort in the dress, I think – not because of my thoughts that it didn’t do David Bowie justice.
Yesterday, after hearing the news of his death, a friend posted on my facebook wall that she thought of me when she heard the news. I made this Aladdin Sane picture my profile pic, and many other friends commented that they thought of me. I had no idea we were so connected in the minds of the people I know! That feels good! My mom even sent me an email that just said, “My condolences for your loss. David Bowie, I mean.”
I have a radio show now, and I think I’ll play all Bowie songs on the next show – play some covers, play some of my fave songs of his over the many decades he was actively making music – right up till his death. (I have yet to hear his new album…)
David Bowie, I will miss you being in this world and out of this world…
Drag King Stories (pt 2)
Posted: May 28, 2014 Filed under: Drag King Stories | Tags: androgyny, bob dylan, butch, drag, drag king, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbtq, lgbtqia, non-binary, performance, queer, trans, transgender 2 CommentsA few weeks ago, a friend asked me if I could portray Bob Dylan, as he were in Subterranean Homesick Blues. (My initial plan for “Drag King Stories” was to be chronological; obviously I’m not following that because I’m now jumping to the most recent story I have on the topic!) The friend had been invited by the local Improvement Society to give a power-point presentation at a literary/cultural hub, just up the street from me. He was going to be one of 11 people, doing flash-presentations to highlight what’s new!
His project: He is the mastermind behind a new radio station that will be hitting the airwaves by October. It’ll be run by and for the community; all funds will be raised by community efforts (as opposed to commercial, although there might be underwriters and/or sponsorship members).
So when he approached me, he said that each group presents 20 slides and a representative talks along with the images, which are on an auto-timer of 20 seconds each, for a total 6minute, 40 second presentation (per group). And the audience sits and watches each presentation, one after the other. He told me he’d already gotten permission to stray from the rules and just not use power-point or slides at all. To instead go totally lo-fi, using poster-board with words sharpied in black. Just my style!
In the past, any opportunity to be in drag and perform outside of a typical drag show format has been a total blast, and so I jumped on the chance. My friend and I hung out in his attic the Sunday before the event, listening to music, practicing, and drawing out the words with sharpie markers. He had written out a script, telling the story of the radio station thus far. I assumed a wide stance and stony expression, just like Mr. Bob Dylan. We decided in advance that I was going to have an attitude. I was just going to drop each poster onto the floor and then at the end of our 6:40, I would throw the last poster up into the air and walk off, leaving others to pick them all up.
We arrived early, and I was excited to find out we were on first. Love getting a performance out of the way and then kicking back! The audience was a bunch of young entrepreneurs / hipsters / yuppies / intellectuals. Haha. We got up there, did our thing, I walked off, and then we watched everyone else. There was an intermission with cucumber sandwiches, meats and cheeses, and tiny fingerling potatoes(?), and beer. This was, ultimately, a networking event, but I dislike that stuff, so I let my friend do the talking, and my partner and I grabbed food and beer and went to explore the building a little bit.
After the event, my partner and I went out to a bar to see a different friend’s new band. I felt really solid in my button-up shirt, vest, and sideburns. I should remember to go out “in drag,” just for fun, more often!
Also, if you wanna check out what I wrote in Part 1, it is here!
janitorqueer 