Wow I have never really been on something like this, will someone help me out maybe..?

hi everyone! rural NC here. aspiring starry eyed young queen here. i'm so glad i found this site!! i've always been enthralled by the art of drag. i'm still trying to form a drag persona of my own. i would appreciate any advice from my older and more experienced sisters/mothers out there on getting started and making a name for myself. i'm not really sure how to.

hello legends- it's so nice to have a computer again and check out this amazing site- thank you for continuing to not only inspire but always brightening my day when you stop by the gallery! xxwalt

hi, I'm new to this--I love all of your pithy answers and questions ..love, Flanks

well,CHI CHi, I am new here--tell me how to operate..with do respect..

Hi flanks,
Welcome to The Motherboards.

Here are some tips.

1) Don't be intimidated. If you don't act stupid you are all but guaranteed a brand new bunch of friends. (And by stupid I mean doing things like posting a million times for the same sad event. Things like that.)

2) Click on "Find" and pull down the menu.
You will see "New Since Your Last Visit". This is a handy little tool to see what is new, well since your last visit. I guess that's why they call it that.

3) Beware of Messsy Bonnie Raitt.

So again, have fun and don't be afraid to join in.

quote:

i would appreciate any advice from my older and more experienced sisters/mothers

Let's see. I'm trying to remember the advice that when I was fresh and new.

• Tanya Ransom always used to say, "Never wash your drag."
  
• Tabboo used to tell me, "Don't quit your day job." So I quit my day job!
  
• Ethyl Eichelberger used to always say, "Honey have a skill to fall back on." She had a Beauty School Diploma from the Wilfred Academy (she used to do the wigs for all the big independent theater giants and was always able to support herself and produce her own shows - I went back to school and got an English degree in Melville Studies, oops. Not a good $$$ money decision, but I love Moby Dick.)
  
• One queen always used to tell me that your show had to be 95% flash and 5% content. She is on welfare now after losing her part-time job at an art supply store, so I don't know about her advice. She is a manic-depressive, bi-polar, hirstute kook.
  
• International Chrisis used to warn about kie-kie, and how that was venturing into dangerous territoriy.
  
• Lahoma Van Zandt always warned about drag queens that worked their own hair instead of wearing a wig - they are dangerous. I thought that she was wrong, but then I did start noticing that the ones working their own hair were actually dangerous.

If I can think of any more I'll post them.
Oh here are a few of mine:

• It is called Show Business not Show no profit!
  
• Cash is king.
  
• The big chunks (of money) don't come often. In other words when you make the $500 fee for doing a big club opening, don't blow it in 2 days.
  
• And then there is the old, old one that everyone knows but not everyone follows: Be nice to people on the way up. You may see them again, on the way down.

If you are really itching to do your haj at a gay mecca then get there and do it. Listen doll, if you wait for all the elements to be right - you'll never do it. I came up here from Athens, Georgia (Go Dogs!) with $20 in my pocket. (granted I convinced a rich boy to come with me and get an apartment and support me . . . which he did before he ran back to Georgia after 3-months) but it was enough for me to get my claws into the city and start carving out a place for myself. but I worked as a dishwaser (remember when Mexicans in NYC were exotic?), as a stock "boy," a maid (granted, for famous people), whatever it took to be able to be here.

I always beleived that I would either end up living in the gutter or in a penthouse . . . well I have been hovering on or about the third floor (wallk-up , of course) for all these years . . . though there was a brief stint that I lived on Hattie's couch.

Thanks for that Hattie, I'll always be grateful.

xxoo Hapi Phace
(Look for me and my drag queen friends in the February 2007 issue of Mao Magazine. Do I smell a Hapi is Coming Out of Retirement, Yet Again, Show?)

quote:

Do I smell a Hapi is Coming Out of Retirement, Yet Again, Show?)

Why not Hapi? Tabboo! (Or is it Cher?) has been doing it for yesrs.

-- Madam used to say, "Wear red, orange, yellow, green, pink, white, purple, blue or brown... but never black before you are 40!"
I always wore black.

-- Olympia used to say, "Never, never, never talke off your shoes or wig onstage!" The shoes came off the first day and the wig shortly thereafter, probably pulled off by Hapi.

-- Olympia also used to say, "Always wear earrings. It completes the look!" I never bothered.

-- All the senior queens would say, Always tuck!" I never did, but wearing costumes from periods prior to 1910 probably made it OK.

Which reminds me, Hapi, didn't you or I or Tanya actually write a song called "Beauty School Diploma" that got performed just once during one of those Pyramid late night cavalcades? It was a paen to Ethyl's advice and I wish I could remember the words.

I do remember "Ladies Who Shave" though:

"All day I work down at the plant
But every night I like to dress up like my aunt!
We're the ladies who shave..."

I didn't write beauty School Diploma - so that had to be you or Tanya "Diver Goes Down" Ransom or Tanya Ransom Sysems, Inc. (She was genuis with her "Corporate Drag" System - remember whe nshe got us gigs giving Learning Annex Lectures and Drag demos in the basement of the Pyramid?)

I (or you and I . . . no memory jokes, Daddy) did write Ladies who Shave (egads). I must have all the words on a 3.5" disk somewhere. Spewaking of "Ladies Who Shave"

I remember how Tabboo! used to warn NEVER to do "beard drag" and would constantly remind me that drag queens with beards (facial beards, not fag-hags) and stubble were VERY DANGEROUS and MENTALLY DERRANGED and should be avoided and shunned at all costs - and that included the Cockettes, The Angels of Light, The Sisters of Mercy, and the Radical Faeries . . . Goes to show you though, considering Tabby's hairy-ape/woolf drag looks that he has been featuring lately, that it is very difficult to follow one's own advice. That look shim did at the Rapture party was borderline Che Guevera-like.

I nominate the last 5 posts in this topic to Best of the Motherboards hilarious