Costuming.

Today Cassandra and I finally got to put some costumes together for booger! And some new ones for the OWU Mr & Misses Relay for life show! Together we made about 3 or 4 outfits total, she of course has had more practice with the swing machine because she is home all the time. We took some of the outfits that we already had and used them as a pattern for the few that we made. Cassandra made me a new dress, and a dance outfit. She also made herself a new dance outfit too! I am sitting here with rinestones in my lap and I am about to use E6000 to glue them only my new dance outfit.

It isn't that often that we get to have new outfits, the industry calls for it if you are performing a lot. You don't want to be seen in the same thing all the time. So it becomes necessary to get new outfits and have many to choose from. Thats why we are making new ones for Booger! Which is the show that is on March 25th, I hope to see you all there!

Thanks for reading!

Art of Entertaining

Usually the depiction of a drag queen in films and in a drag show is comedy, or camp-drag. Movies like Priscilla Queen of the Desert or Too Wong Foo with Patrick Swayze these movies are comical, have some serious moments in them, and are for entertainment, They aren't a documentary on drag queens so they don't depict

The links will describe the movies in more depth than I am going to.

Both movies have a deeper question to ask than why are they in drag.

In Priscilla Queen of the Desert one character lives her life as a women, one character is a heterosexual who dresses for entertainment, and another is a homosexual male who does drag for entertainment purposes.

In Too Wong Foo each character is living their life as a women. It doesn't seem like in the beginning of the movie they would each live their life as a movie. But they start to travel after a pageant/competition and stay in drag. Which leads the public to believe that most drag queens start to live there life as a woman. That is not always the case.

So why do guys dress up as women?

Is it Sexual Perversion?

I would like to answer these questions from a personal stand point. I would like to first say that I was born a male, and I do not have any plans to change that. So, why do I dress up as a woman? I think the transformation is astounding. I enjoy the way I look as a woman I feel feminine, and I get an ego boost when people talk to me, and approach me when I am in drag. Telling me that I look great, or that I did a great performance.

My parent's (who are my aunt and uncle) don't understand why I do drag. My mother and father (aunt and uncle) are convinced that I am dressing up like a woman because it is a sexual perversion. My dad (uncle) has it in his mind that I was made to dress up like a woman when I was molested by my biological mothers second husband.

( I know that is a lot of information to take in )

But I have grown from that, It's not being said to get pity, but to draw the picture as close to reality as I can. Drag is for me has absolutely nothing to do with my sexuality. I don't get aroused when I am in drag, because It doesn't feel right. I am a man, so there is no desire for me to perform sexual activities dressed as a woman. Drag for is is strictly to entertain and make a name for myself.

Another something that comes up at times is when men get surgeries to look more feminine and enhance their bodies to reflect femininity.

Implants in their face, a nose job, having their jaw bone shaven down, hip implants, butt implants, breast implants, a brow lift. There are many more that are possible and become necessary depending on how un-feminine one may look when they begin. This is not typical of a male who does drag for entertainment. Trans gendered male to female people who entertain generally are the ones who go through this process.

With that topic brought up, there is often the question on performers who are trans gendered. The question that is brought up is, What is the limit to their operation before they stop performing? Drag Pageants have rules about cosmetic surgeries and the locations in which are acceptable. For example, from the neck up. As much facial surgery as you want and you get the task to master your body with padding and using duck tape to create cleavage. (by taping your chest from one side to the other and pushing what muscle and tissue you have together to make cleavage)

Drag can be complicated and hard to translate, however I hope I am doing a good job ad giving you a better understanding as to what entertaining as a drag queen takes.

Practice make (almost) perfect.

We all have an image of ourself that we want to improve one way or another. May it be our weight, the shape of our nose, the wrinkle that is under our eye. We want to improve our self image to feel better about yourselves, so that in return there will be someone who finds you attractive to the image you want for yourself.

When entertaining I see myself wanting to improve my image. I am constantly obsessing over the way my make up looks. Not everything comes out the same way every time. And this may be me obsessing even more but when I was about 13 years old I very insecure, I wasn't cute. My top k nine teeth were being forced out by my adult k nine teeth. It was VERY unattractive. I didn't want to smile at all, and on top of that I noticed that my ears are not symmetrical.

My left ear is is smaller than the right, and the right one sits lower on my face. It also sits more forward on my face than the left. It isn't a HUGE deal because I can still hear when people talk. Which is the most important thing.

But when creating an image for myself and maintaining the same facial make up for drag, it always creates an issue, because the contouring on my face from my ears to the round of my cheek bone is never consistent or even.

I have a roommate who INSISTS that I help him become a drag queen. He wants to be one so bad and practices his make up when he has nothing better to do. He isn't doing this more than once every three weeks or so. But in the beginning when he was trying to develop a look.

He didn't necessarily look as beautiful as Erika Andrews. I don't look as beautiful as Erika Andrews. Because It takes years to develop yourself as an entertainer. I always tell Shawn that it takes a lot of practice to understand what to do with the make up you have in front of you. You can't buy a bunch of make up and automatically (for the first time) look like a real woman, or even pass as convincing. The first time I went out to a bar in drag. I wasn't even 21, I looked like a man with a wig and eye shadow on.

I still manage to do my best. But it's a self esteem issue that I have, a very shallow one that I am worried how good or bad my face looks. But I have to make sure that I look good. That I look like myself in drag and consistently deliver personality, entertaining stage presence, good hair, and flattering outfits.

One of the processes of drag is very expensive and it takes a lot of resources to make sure you are maintaining a good wardrobe. If you have the resources and knowledge it takes to produce an outfit yourself. You are going to save more money.

The alternative option is to pay someone else to make an outfit for you. If you get the best of the best it could cost you over $300 for one outfit. Or a gown, that could cost you over $10,000 if it's stoned with AB crystals, has expensive GOOD fabric.

Drag is not cheep, but you certainly can take steps to making it without spending an arm and a leg.

Missed.

The most important thing In female impersonation is the respect that it is desired when perfecting the Art. Nothing says I am a drag queen better than a crowd parting like the red sea when you are walking through a club. However there is always a sense of animosity when people don't move. That may or may not be appropriate but never the less it is always amusing. But that mentality doesn't come right away, it takes quite some time to develop a name for yourself.

Respect does come up in the Columbus Drag community a lot more than you would think necessary. But it does become necessary when there are a lot of younger and even older entertainers who seem to forget respect and honesty will get you a lot farther then not. If you aren't nice then people won't want to work with you, and you have to remember even if you're just a pageant girl, Female Impersonation is a job.

The first time I was in "Drag" was November 20th 2008, at an amateur drag show at Columbus College of Art & Design for the Gay Straight Student Alliance (GSSA) group. It was a fund-raiser to benefit the Columbus Aids Task force (CATF).

I knew a long time ago that I would probably be a drag queen, because I used to act with my cousin–child play– of course, but I would always be 'Sally' the secretary, and answer the rotary phone

"this is sally how may I direct your call."

Female impersonation is definitely the one thing that I feel most comfortable doing. The art of female impersonation will not die any time soon, in the columbus community or throughout the world.

Over the next five weeks, I will be documenting the process of Female Impersonation, by Documenting the progress of an upcoming event I am hosting for Relay For Life that includes an Amateur drag show of college students. Another will be BOOGER that will be at

Wall Street Night Club

MARCH 25TH 2011

Doors open at 8pm

Show starts at 9pm

I will be working hard to keep you all informed in all the little things I do between now and then, and even have in great detail why we plan the things we do for the show, and the process of even costuming, and hair for a productional show.