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Ok so finally a reality show where I get to be an expert – or at least I would like to say I am , I hope my 20 years of art experience counts for something. I am hoping that people will be interested enough in this show that it keeps going for a while. It’s just this kind of thing that might get more people interested in art. It has always been my position that many Americans don’t have an interest in art because it is something they don’t understand, or see a use for,  or something anyone gave them the ground work to really get started enjoying.

On a personal note… I had been hearing about this show in the making for sometime and was pulling the few strings I have to see if I could get in on the auditions, and I ended up finding out about the auditions the day AFTER they happened, so maybe it wasn’t meant to be this time around. I am sure if I ever did make it on it would be something like a gay Flava of Love / Charm School meets Work of Art. I’m not sure that’s what they are looking for exactly , but it would make for some good TV. I am not afraid to use cuss words, get in fights and put a bitch in their place if you know what I mean.

I come from a school of thought (North Beach , San Francisco to be specific) wherein many of the people I learned art from  are willing to sacrifice anything for their passions, so when I saw the calm group of well groomed folks with their manicured art and ideas all dressed up for show, I can’t say I was surprised, but slightly disappointed. “This is the first season let’s see what happens…” is what I told my-self and now I am ready to move on.

There are certainly some very skilled artists and I like some of the “work” I saw. By the way, the “work” is not going to be Art , with a capitol A , because I am sure many of the “challenges” are going to be glorified art school-type assignments, but this is what one must do to have a show like this one.

So the formula is in place , the big girl that’s going to get on everyone’s nerves, the pretty girl that isn’t just a pretty girl, the guy who is just fresh out of the barn, the older – wiser gal etc… so we have all the ingredients for some drama.

The part of the show I looked forward to the most is the critique of the art work. Where I went to school people it was kind of a game to see who we could make cry or stomp out of the room and when they did you would tell them that you are trying to help them “break through.” I was the victim of this game a few times and it was no fun, especially because I felt like the people who were doing the most antagonizing were the ones who didn’t want you to notice they weren’t very good at making art. I learned one very very important thing from these mean exercises, at the end of the day I don’t really care what you think and if I can come away from a critique with something valuable to me at all , then I won. But I truly do not care if anyone thinks I am “good” or not, and that’s a real gift. I will listen to someone who is saying something that I understand otherwise you are making noise.

So at the end of the show during the critique I don’t buy anyone saying ” oh blah blah …… because I haven’t been trained… ” so what. Who has ? Like I say I have been an artist for over 20 years and there are many areas of art I know very little about, we are all specialists in our own art world.

Secondly you can’t disagree with someone’s opinion… it’s their opinion.

I am hoping that art work that has a commercial , illustrative / realistic quality to it isn’t going to get priority over other more raw expressions because that would be a shame. Any one can learn to make images, but only some people have power over their images or artworks and that power moves the viewer.

I wanted to put this post up to get this blog rolling and I will, as I am sure we all will , get more detailed as the posts continue.

Last week Tyra Sanchez offered up a few surprises, some intentional and others maybe not so much.

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I have to say , I am surprised that I am surprised. Certainly in my last post about Drag Race, I had alluded to my feeling that Trya is perhaps more lucky than anything else, but after the last episode, I have to say, I think she fooled me.

It was really just a matter of time of before Tatiana ended up going home. She is so beautiful, very clever and has many things going for her, but up against these queens she wasn’t going to last. Every time the other girls would get her into a corner, she would begin explaining herself, and why she was doing or being who or how she was. A position of defense can’t be kept forever. In order to prevail, one must attack from time to time,or all the time,whatever the case may be.

This last episode changed everything for me. While I don’t care for Tyra’s personality, there is no question that she has earned some real respect. She banged out three looks, and even pulled a switcheroo in the middle of it, to throw the other girls off, with the fun fur dress. On the “Drag Pop Quiz” she pulled of some real “realness”(even without make up). She pulled off a pretty great dance routine for the “Diva Awards” and impressed the judges with her acceptance speech. I keep asking my-self, “has she been keeping everything in idle until now? Is she really this competitive? Is she really this smart?? ” Regardless, it’s working.

Like I said,this last episode changed everything for me. I was rooting for Raven up until now but,while she has a lot to offer and she is smart and very competitive,she’s seems really mean spirited,and that’s just not attractive. Anyone can be a bitch. It’s an easy fall back. What’s not so easy is placing a few thoughtful explosives where they will do the most damage. More difficult still,is placing them in such a way that no one knows you did,or cares. I love that Raven is from Riverside. That’s where my family lives and it’s one of the most homophobic places I have ever spent time in. To be doing drag there really says something to me…. She is no creampuff.

But we are talking about a “Drag Superstar” here. What does that mean? I think we can all say that Ru is a “Drag Superstar” but I wonder,who are these judges? Why haven’t we seen any other drag personalities on the show or on the judges panel? Would they take the focus off of Ru or is LOGO afraid the the ratings will drop if we show too much of how the gay world really is? Are these contestants really the best that America has to offer? I can tell you for a fact, the answer is NO. They are, however,going to go along with the program no matter what. These questions make Drag Race a little suspect to me. There are some really fierce drag queens out there and the ones they have shown us on Drag Race are pretty tame by comparison. Here are some links to some real Drag Fierceness  … check them out..

• Porsche
• Jackie Beat
• Joey Arias

There are many,many others, these are just the first three that come to mind for me. Definitely if you have more please put their links in the comments. The point here is what does Tatum O’niell and Debbie Reynolds have to do with any of this?? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the largest audience watching this show is straight women and LOGO doesn’t want to” fuck it up”.

Battle lines have been drawn. I think I am rooting for Jujubee to win. I like what she has to offer and of the three remaining, is the one girl that I feel really has got what I look for in a drag queen. The ability to entertain and pull it off even when she has messed up a dance routine, been through it, or had to Lip Sync for her life over and over. She can tell you about your-self and you still like her. Good luck to you Jujubee.

Ok , so I am a little late in getting this blog post up but better late than never. Ru gave us all the week of last week … why ?? Who knows.. just because  we all needed a break from all the excitement. I have to say , it’s not everyday that I make a photomontage of a tranny , but I wanted to this week. I was going to use three pictures to show different facets of Pandora Boxx but I thought, why not just make a collage. I love Photoshop.

This last week off gave me a chance to reflect a little bit and to bounce a couple ideas off of my Drag Race-watching friends. So it was a good thing.

Pandora Boxx is one of the more versatile contestants on Drag Race this season. Surely , the greatest transformation happened, when he turned into a she. You wouldn’t guess this guy would tun into Pandora Boxx. Like Sweetie and Lady Bunny … to the untrained eye you would not know who they were if you passed them on the street. Pandora has this same magic. I think the fact that she made all the outfits she wore during the show , is a big plus as well and I don’t think received enough attention.

I am not Nurse Jackie , I am Nurse Eugene

My name is (nurse?) Eugene… and I am an addict.

I love Nurse Jackie , so much better than Doctor Drew. I just can’t even watch Doctor Drew. I’m sorry , but I have a really hard time feeling sorry for people who were lucky enough to reach stardom and then just couldn’t take it …boo hoo… Pass it on to me .. I almost lost everything because of drugs and alcohol and the only people who really cared at all were other recovering addicts and alcoholics. I had to get sober on the streets of Los Angeles not in a fancy recovery house in Pasadena. Recovery can be tough , and if it’s too easy , it doesn’t work. I know Nurse Jackie is fantasy and Doctor Drew is (supposedly) reality (?) and that Nurse Jackie is still actively using , but so are all the people at Doctor Drew’s place. What’s missing from Doctor Drew’s recovery program, and why it doesn’t work, is any talk of spiritual growth, which is in my experience , the only thing that works. BTW … I love this picture !!

Jessica Wild RuPaul's Drag Race Season Two

Cock-a-Doodle-Do…. Sashay Away – Love You Jessica Wild

Okey she is not the prettiest girl at the party… but i fell hard for her , both as a girl and a boy.

I think of all the people on Drag Race so far in both seasons , Jessica Wild was by far , for me , the most likable contestant. Struggling with the language only seemed to make her just that much more likable.

It is a drag .. (okey pun intended ) that we don’t get to see her do the same thing , but on a spanish show , because I am sure we would all have seen a truer version of what she can bring, even so , she brings it hard.

Such a interesting person, I mean not at all the typical person you find doing drag. Let’s face it , a lot of drag queens out there are not so cute as boys and drag gives them another chance to be be glamourous and get a lot of attention. I have seen this to be true of older gay guys as well. (I am so not judging , I might even do it my-self one day but I am waiting to see how I hold up as a boy until at least 50). A little known fact out there is that drag queens get a lot more sex than you might think, and there is a whole group of guys out there who are definitely not gay in the way that most gays are , that really go for guys in drag. A lot of these guys are kinda macho too. There was a great club in LA called Club Illusions that brought together men in drag and their admirers. It was rumored that anyone could get laid in there by just making even the slightest attempt at being a lady. It was a gold mine for a lot of people.

Jessica, even with the language barrier , knew when to hold her cards to her chest, which was most of the time, and knew when to speak her mind. I don’t recall but maybe once any of the other contestants coming for her, and in many ways , in the typical sense of the competitions, she would have been in the bottom. The thing that saves her each and every time is her ability to take the situation and bend it to make it her own. The only time this didn’t work was when she had to ” lip sync for her life”. A part of this has to do with the fact that the song was an American song that she really had no context for, so it wasn’t hard for Tatiana to win. At this point of The Race , the good people start going home, and it is just as much about luck as all the other things. I’m really hoping to see Jessica do a rock or heavy metal, Marilyn Mansonesque kind of thing . That would be something to see. We will miss you Jessica , but I am sure we will see you again.

Sahara Davenport From RuPaul's Drag Race Season Two

Sorry to see you go Sahara Davenport

Every week someone goes home, and the truth of the matter is that, from what I can tell , on all these reality shows where people “go home” pretty much everyone goes home, and I think the competitions have as much to do with luck as much as anything else.

Sahara Davenport seems to me to be a together kind of person without a whole lot of drama in her life , and I think that was the problem. Let’s face it , out there in the bar /nightclub / drag world the excitement factor goes to people who are messy,bitchy and mean ( I have some experience in this world..)

The interesting thing about Sahara is the fact that she does a adjunct mixture of ballet and drag, which I think has a lot of potential especially as a fine art ( like performance art   … which is all the rage right now in the New York Art World … take a look at the MOMA exhibit on right now Performance 7 by Joan Jonas ) I think Sahara has some potential to do something along this line , but has a ways to come first.

Let’s face it , the drag word , (and I am going to say something mean now) and the gay nightclub world especially, is not ready  for something like ballet drag. Gay culture , at the moment, is falling below straight culture in term of forward thinking. I think the gays were out in front until the past 5-10 years, now I wonder what happened. In terms of aesthetics and other high cultural endeavors the gays just don’t seem to be interested any more. This younger gay generation troubles me. They are about as conservative as a red state. They like to do , see and hear the same silly , unchallenging things over and over and then joke about it as if it were a something to be proud of. The other thing that troubles me is that these younger gays seem to want to imitate straight culture , relationships and ideas . I think there is a kind of safety in that, but I’m telling you it’s a danger zone. The world is in so much trouble that one cannot afford to not stand up for who and what they are are push the envelopes of originality.

So……. having said all that , Sahara comes from the generation that I do, and we place a premium on originality and truth , which is not as high on the priority of this audience. My one criticism and should I ever meet Sahara again ( we did meet once in NYC) I will back it up, and that is that the ballet in this case , is a what they would call in art school. a “device”. That is to say that it is something you have in your pocket that you can use over and over and it becomes just that… a device, like a cell phone. You would have to disguise it sometimes, make it fail other times , disguise it, mix it blend it and make it different in many ways . Take it to the point where not even you recognize it and then bring it back again.

RuPaul's Drag Race

We got frustrated with Talkshoe last week and that was when I decided to just do a regular Blog on Drag Race for now.

Morgan From RuPaul's Drag Race Season Two

So who’s in and who’s out ?? Last week Morgan went home and I have to say that he/she was one of my favorites . He is like the kind of guy I used to know in the 80′s when I was living in West Hollywood when it was still a rugged area. Lots of hustlers and guys who lived for the street. I was one of them, but a guy like Morgan was like this but someone who will always land on their feet. Cunty when necessary and cool when needed. Maybe not the prettiest girl at the ball , but the one with the most nerve. I really liked how he applied the “take down the biggest one first and the rest of them will be scared of you ” philosophy the first week. He has a sort of look about him that reminds me of a Tim Burton character , but if transformation is the name of the game when we are talking about drag ( and I think thats a big part of the word “Tranny”) then he really gets high marks from me. It all seems to boil down to the “Lipsync For Your Life” competition at the end of the day , and on this last one he just didn’t have the spark. It certainly wasn’t because Sahara’s got anything special over him. I wonder how many times she will be able to pull out this ballet device, which just isn’t that interesting. I wonder how long Sahara will be able to stay under the radar. I am surprised Sahara has made it this far .  I don’t see her hosting anything or working a room , it’s just she is a drag queen. A very nice drag queen and a very together drag queen , but just not very entertaining.

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It is very funny that the makers of the Amazing Race went out of their way to blur out the cute gay brothers’ crotches during the challenges THEY arranged for them to do in their undies, and nowhere did it go more noticed than at my house. I mean , we love The Amazing Race , but let’s face it , the teams that have made it to the final three have not always been as pleasing to look at as these boys, so you can imagine our disappointment when they took from us this opportunity to get up close and personal. We would have used the DVR to play this over and over. More than our obvious disappointment was the strange way it left me feeling. I don’t understand why in a world where society wants to think it’s open minded and liberal, we haven’t accepted the facts about male anatomy. We have reproductive organs !! Television producers are much more liberal when it comes to female anatomy. I don’t advocate porn on family TV but there i something really twisted about this persistent 1950’s attitude towards this. I wonder if it ran deeper than even just a male anatomy thing and had something to do with the fact they are both gay … I can’t say , but it sort of seems that way. One thing is for sure , it turned out to be a very “maculating” compliment to them.