Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Untitled Queen

Untitled Queen answers the door in her glasses. She is pre-makeup, pre-costume. One of the reigning queens of Brooklyn’s drag scene, I had the pleasure of meeting her when I worked on a piece about the borough’s drag culture last year.
Before that piece, I saw Untitled perform only on video--a few years ago, I wrote about an art show in which a performance of hers appeared. To Judy Garland’s rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” wearing a wildly teased blonde wig and a ball skirt of sewn-together rags, she eviscerated my soul. I felt even then there was a deeper understanding of humanity that went into her work. And then when I saw her perform live at annual Brooklyn drag festival Bushwig, in makeup inspired by Japanese Noh masks to the Dirty Projectors song “Keep Your Name,” I knew how right I was. Onstage, she told a powerful story about what our hopes for love can be and how they can destroy us as we destroy each other. And recently, from the tiny screen on my phone, seeing her performance of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” made me audibly gasp. I was then as I am now not just watching a drag queen at work, but an artist.
It’s fitting, since Untitled has an MFA in Fine Art from Parsons. She started the program focusing more on visual art, later moving into performance art and attempting drag at the behest of a friend. Six years later, she is performing around the world, from Brooklyn’s Bushwig to Miami’s Wigwood to Vienna’s famed Life Ball. She has been featured in The New York Times, Refinery29, Out, VICE (by yours truly) and countless others. Untitled continues her visual art practice as well, exhibiting at galleries in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Tonight she’s hosting the event “Cakes” at Metropolitan Bar in Williamsburg for the drag queen Didi Disco’s birthday. She smudges her face with pink to make an even canvas for the thick white makeup she will put on top of it. Beating her face with a powder puff, powder flies gently away from her face, illuminated to ghostly proportions by the lighted mirror in front of her. She draws on graphic, nearly pop-art eyebrows and eyeliner, adding circles and later lipgloss to complete the equation. After closing up her corset and jumping into a pink and blue dress, she tucks her bald head into a flowery skull cap and presses on clear nails that make her already lithe hands look even longer.
Arriving at Metropolitan, Untitled knows everyone. She kisses hello, says hi baby, sips a cocktail, floating on her platform combat boots. Soon, it’s her turn to take the stage with her co-hosts. She’s a luminous, commanding presence. Queen after queen performs, then it’s her turn. While she performs Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” her fingers curl in Joni’s pain and sweetness, her lip sync flawless. The audience sits in quiet awe then explodes in applause.
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Dollypalooza

I wouldn't have said that I had little to no feelings about Dolly Parton, but I wouldn't have said she was at the top of my mind like the man standing next to me at Dollypalooza. This gentleman's head was adorned with a trucker hat airbrushed with the curvaceous country singer's figure and a swirl of her signature. He wore a western-style button down embroidered with flowers, and a big silver belt buckle held up his slim-cut jeans stuffed into a pair of black cowboy boots. Was I still in Manhattan?

I was, in fact, and I was in the basement of Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street for Dollypalooza, an annual fan tribute to the blonde bombshell singer/songwriter herself. Intrigued by the lineup that evening of burlesque performers and drag queens--featuring performance legends World Famous *BOB*, Darlinda Just Darlinda, and Sweetie--and the possibility of even more wigs, glitter, rhinestones, and camp than usual at one of these kinds of shows, I decided to go. SJT was my willing companion that evening, and we arrived at the venue tipsy on Georgian wine from Old Tblisi Garden next door. Neither SJT or myself have a particularly Dolly-infused background, but we do love glitter and kitsch, and I think that was the biggest draw for both of us. What would a celebration of the woman who once said with a smile "It takes a lot of money to look this cheap" actually look like?

Coming down the stairs of the venue, we were immediately greeted by an explosion of spangles and sequins on performers milling about in front of the silent auction. To say we figured we were in the right place was perhaps an understatement. But shortly we were hootin' and hollerin' along with a crowd of New Yorkers decked out in their favorite Dolly or Dolly-inspired gear. Wigs and cowboy boots peppered the crowd, as did concert t-shirts from her tour that recently passed through Forest Hills. We sang along and danced to the sounds of Doll Parts, a Dolly Parton tribute band fronted by burlesque performer Corvette Le Face, shimmying to classics like "9 to 5" and "Light of a Clear Blue Morning."

I expected to love the performers I knew, but for whatever reason I didn't expect to come away with a burning desire to listen to Ms. Parton...which I did, incidentally, end up doing for a decent chunk of the day today. As with many of the sparkly icons we celebrate today--be they Stevie Nicks, Cher, Patti LaBelle, or whoever else--Dolly inspires an entire subculture of people, people who would love her enough not just to go see her concert but to go to a fan tribute show where their queen herself would not even be present. It seems like a no-brainer, of course, but as a person whose country music background is light at best, it was both eye-opening and reaffirming. Well, of course, Dolly Parton would inspire a tribute band, would be beloved by burlesque performers and drag queens, would be celebrated in an epic fan evening like Dollypalooza. The woman has 46 Grammy nominations and eight wins, 110 singles that have charted, and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Not to mention she has her own theme park, for crying out loud. What's not bright, sparkly, and boob tassle-worthy about that?

Take a look below to see some of my shots from the evening.

We All Scream for Drag Queens

New York is wonderful because on a random Tuesday in August you can get free ice cream from a drag queen.

B sent me a text yesterday morning, a screenshot of a news story saying that queens from RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars would be giving out ice cream on the corner of University Place and 14th Street by Union Square to promote the show's second season premier on Thursday night (okay, so it wasn't exactly "random"). I didn't really want the ice cream, but I'm always game for a fantastic queen.

I'm happy to say this was what I found there, snapping away with my camera at Alyssa Edwards, Katya, and Ginger Minj while they were standing inside an ice cream truck printed with the RuPaul's Drag Race logo, handing out ice cream from New York cult favorite Big Gay Ice Cream. Alaska 5000 and Roxxxy Andrews were also in sight, doing interviews with local New York news stations. I couldn't tell who was there to just get free ice cream, to see the queens, or both, but the corner was exploding with people, even a few in drag themselves, and the line snaked all the way down 14th Street. People held up their phones to take pictures with queens as they doled out the frozen treats, some lining up to take photos with Katya while she stepped aside to have a cigarette. I watched Roxxxy Andrews shamelessly flirt with one of the staffers, saying something like, "Give me your number, I want to run my fingers through your curls later," gesturing to the top of his head with a flick of her long peach fingernails. Alaska purred into a microphone offered to her by one of the news crews while Ginger Minj bubbled and batted her eyelashes inside of the truck.

It was hot as I ran around the tiny area bursting with bodies to get pictures, but it was a perfect way to spend an hour on a Tuesday. Take a look at some of the images below!

Take Me To the Candy Shop

Peppermint is tall and muscular, with light cocoa skin and cheekbones like nobody’s business. Her eyelashes bat open and closed like hurricane shutters and her golden orange hair is thick and voluminous. In a long, emerald green dress, she takes the small stage at Therapy, a gay bar in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. Neatly coiffed men and the occasional woman sit behind bar tables and stools and in booths, their eyes glued to her as she greets the crowd. The deejay’s disembodied voice rings from the back, introducing her to rabid applause and cheers of “WERRRKKK!” “SERVE IT UP!!!” and even a “YES BITCH!”

Peppermint is a drag queen. Moments before, I met her and shook her hand, and with a breathless ‘Come on!’ she whisked me down a staircase speckled with red glitter. Having the pleasure of interviewing Peppermint for an article I’m writing for a magazine, I came to her show this evening and had little idea what to expect. Downstairs, in front of a mirror with seven other queens applying realistic wigs and exotic eyeliner, Peppermint takes a couple of fiery paddlebrush strokes to her hair. My camera flashes as I take pictures for my article. Seconds later she’s running up the stairs again.  

A tall drink of water who slightly resembles Jennifer Hudson, Peppermint hosts a show weekly at Therapy called Cattle Call, a talent show for both drag and non-drag performers. Almost all of them will lip synch, but Peppermint will also sing live, in a voice beautifully rich and creamy like chocolate fondue. She warms up the audience with deliciously witty, sassy and sexy banter, and she is absolutely magnetic. Stage presence like that is what makes or breaks a performer. That and “it.” That thing that everyone looks for in a brilliant performance, that thing where someone sparkles so much that you actually feel yourself begin to sparkle—that’s what Peppermint has.

Raised on drag, I have seen a few lip synchs in my day, but Peppermints are the tightest I have seen since Manila Luzon’s “Macarthur Park,” so perfectly performed and choreographed that I forget more than once she is not actually singing. She is a consummate professional, assembling her acts thoughtfully and creatively. My jaw drops and stays there until the end of her performance. Truth be told, I have trouble closing it back up after that, too. There are other queens on the bill, but they are amateurs and in comparison to Peppermint, they’re almost nothing at all. “She’s a star,” a man says to me in the audience. He is absolutely right.

Peppermint is well established in the drag scene, touring the world, premiering songs on Logo, recording an album, and much more. Currently she hosts shows all over New York, including the one at Therapy (Wednesdays at 11pm), and others at XES (Sunday at 10pm) and Barracuda (Mondays at midnight).

Going to see her show last night was one of those incredible things that I still can’t believe I saw. I sat in the cab on the way home talking to my roommate in halted speech because I could just not get the words out to describe this glorious creature. What also amazed me is that seeing Peppermint perform is entirely free. New York is bubbling over with fantastic performers like Peppermint and they’re not all on Broadway either. In fact, Peppermint’s was probably one of the best performances I’ve seen since I moved to New York, along with Douglas Hodge in La Cage aux Folles. I would go see her again in a heartbeat, so if you’re free any of the times listed above, you already know what we’re doing.