Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: The Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: I did a show once, I think it was in
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and this guy came up to me
Speaker 2: after the show crying and he's like, my lover died
Speaker 2: of AIDS. I'm going to lose my home because I
Speaker 2: don't have I can't afford to stay there, and my
Speaker 2: life has been in and I was thinking about ending
Speaker 2: it in Da Da Da. You literally made me forget
Speaker 2: about that for a half hour, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I didn't cure anything, I didn't solve any problems, but
Speaker 2: I gave this person a relief for a half hour,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's all it was. But I was like,
Speaker 2: that's my job.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll meet Cherry Vine, a legendary drag
Speaker 1: queen who came up in the same drag generation as RuPaul.
Speaker 1: We'll learn about how drag has often been a source
Speaker 1: of escapism for the queer community, and how Sherry Vine
Speaker 1: was at the center of that during some of the
Speaker 1: darkest moments in gay history. From my Heart podcast, I'm
Speaker 1: Jordan and Solve this and this is what we loved.
Speaker 1: So I actually only recently got into drag. I kind
Speaker 1: of became obsessed with this last season of Drag Race.
Speaker 1: I hadn't ever really cared about drag before then, but
Speaker 1: once I started watching, it was like I was looking
Speaker 1: forward to it every single week. And obviously I'm not
Speaker 1: alone because there are Drag Race watch parties across the
Speaker 1: country and the Drag Race YouTube account has over a
Speaker 1: billion views. As to why drag is so appealing to
Speaker 1: so many of us queer people, there are probably a
Speaker 1: million reasons, I know. For me tuning in every week
Speaker 1: to see these queens act ridiculous and where outrageous costumes
Speaker 1: and make really stupid jokes, It's kind of an escape
Speaker 1: and it probably has been for generations. One of the
Speaker 1: first people to call themselves quote a queen of drag
Speaker 1: is the former slave William Dory Swan. He would hold
Speaker 1: these fabulous underground balls called Grand Rags in Washington, DC
Speaker 1: and his guests would dress up. Given how completely unacceptable
Speaker 1: it was to be queer in society back then, these
Speaker 1: events probably would have been everything to guests, an affirming
Speaker 1: space to be themselves and an entertaining escape from the
Speaker 1: painful reality of being queer. This long tradition of drag
Speaker 1: queens entertaining our sorrows away has continued throughout time. My
Speaker 1: next guest, Sherry Vine, is a drag legend now with
Speaker 1: her own variety show on OutTV and millions of views
Speaker 1: on YouTube. But in the nineties, when she was just
Speaker 1: starting out in New York City, she was entertaining gay
Speaker 1: people through an existential crisis. Aids for Sherry, she realized
Speaker 1: she could make people laugh from an early age. I'm
Speaker 1: here with the legendary Sherry Vine. You're here in full drag.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna describe how you look right now. So I'm
Speaker 1: there's squeeze your eyes almost tight, okay, gorgeous like almost
Speaker 1: like Jessica rabbit hair, and a sparkly gorgeous dress that's orange,
Speaker 1: fantastic cleavage.
Speaker 2: All smoking mirrors. It look like a twenty two year
Speaker 2: old goddess. Just looked like my normal little hooker Barbie itself.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. So we like to
Speaker 1: start the show off kind of asking everyone the same question,
Speaker 1: when did you know you were gay?
Speaker 2: So I didn't officially come out until I was nineteen.
Speaker 2: Then looking back, I mean, I can remember being really young,
Speaker 2: like maybe five or six or seven, and I clearly
Speaker 2: remember seeing this guy on a motorcycle in my neighborhood,
Speaker 2: like he was dating the girl that lived a couple
Speaker 2: houses down. He was tattooed and rode a motorcycle. And
Speaker 2: I remember sitting in the front yard like playing with
Speaker 2: cars or whatever I was doing, and seeing this guy
Speaker 2: on a motorcycle and being like, oh my god, he's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because I feel like we all have
Speaker 1: some similar story, some variation of our motorcycle and basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: what was it like sort of coming of age as
Speaker 1: a gay person in the seventies. I know that you
Speaker 1: came out later.
Speaker 2: But my school life was horrible. It was horrible. It
Speaker 2: was like the classic, you know, bully kind of abuse
Speaker 2: all and it was really horrifying, to be honest, and
Speaker 2: I I fought against it so hard. I'm not gay,
Speaker 2: I'm not gay. I'm okay that I think it just
Speaker 2: gave those people more. It was just fueling the fire.
Speaker 2: And I think if I had been in a different
Speaker 2: state of mind where it's like, yeah, I'm gay, I
Speaker 2: think it would have burst their bubble and that would
Speaker 2: have probably made life a little easier for me. But
Speaker 2: that's not a way, right, So anyway, it was horrible.
Speaker 2: I'd have to invent different ways to get home, like
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 1: Like I'd walk a different way, and they were bullying
Speaker 1: you for being gay.
Speaker 2: Totally yeah, oh yeah. I would come to school in
Speaker 2: like skin tight jordash jeans tucked into cowboy boots and
Speaker 2: a perm. I had a perm and they're calling me
Speaker 2: bag and I'm like I am not and it's like, girl,
Speaker 2: you got a perm. So it wasn't even like I
Speaker 2: was trying to mask it, which I couldn't. There was
Speaker 2: no I mean I was a big sissy, so there
Speaker 2: was no masking it anyway. And then at some point
Speaker 2: I kind of discovered I think I was a senior
Speaker 2: actually in high school where I was doing something in
Speaker 2: theater and on stage and making people laugh and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'm making them laugh as opposed to
Speaker 2: you know, they're kind of classically Are they not laughing
Speaker 2: at me? They're laughing because I'm controlling why they're laughing.
Speaker 2: And that's when I was like, oh, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: going to be a powerful tool. And also in that
Speaker 2: time didn't have gay and straight alliances like high schools
Speaker 2: have now, and didn't have Ellen, Will and Grace, all
Speaker 2: of these things that might have made it easier. Gay
Speaker 2: representation was not positive. Like I remember seeing the movie
Speaker 2: Cruising when I was like fifteen, and I remember leaving
Speaker 2: that movie like that's not I definitely am not that
Speaker 2: It's about a serial killer within the kind of s
Speaker 2: and m leather gay community of New York City, and
Speaker 2: it was really graphic and dark and scary. Are you
Speaker 2: had drag queens that were always kind of like the sad,
Speaker 2: pathetic gay man who did drag for attention or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just like there wasn't a lot of positive reinforcing
Speaker 2: gay a representation. Yeah, my parents loved Carol Burnett's show,
Speaker 2: they loved the Share Show. So we it would like,
Speaker 2: you know, a family thing to sit and watch these shows.
Speaker 2: And my mom will tell a story of like I
Speaker 2: was like three or four years old and Carol Burnett
Speaker 2: would be on it. I would point to the TV
Speaker 2: and be like, that's what I want to do, Like
Speaker 2: what do you want to do when you grow up? That?
Speaker 2: And there was no plan be ever. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was very clear I was going to be a performer
Speaker 2: day one, and luckily they were super super supportive about that.
Speaker 1: So tell me about how you got into drag.
Speaker 2: Well, I consider what I do acting. There was no
Speaker 2: doubt that I was going to be an actor. And
Speaker 2: the drag part came about when I was in grad
Speaker 2: school getting my master's degree in Fine Arts at USC
Speaker 2: and I had a teacher, Anna Deavere Smith, who's a
Speaker 2: really amazing, amazing actress. She was the guest teacher, and
Speaker 2: we had this project where we had to spend time
Speaker 2: with like three different people, real people, and then write
Speaker 2: a monologue about the conversations. And I picked this businessman,
Speaker 2: like very straight, kind of Wall Street type businessman. I
Speaker 2: picked this kind of nerdy art director who was actually
Speaker 2: an art director on The Peewee Herman Show. And I
Speaker 2: picked this drag queen and West Hollywood who was a
Speaker 2: little bit more what we would call old school like
Speaker 2: beaded gowns, glamour like glamour glamour. So in my mind,
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing drag as much as I was portraying
Speaker 2: this character who happened to be a drag queen. And
Speaker 2: after the presentation, Anna told me a sound and she's like,
Speaker 2: there's something about when you were in drag that resonated,
Speaker 2: and she was brutally honest. She pulled me. She was like,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have a really, really hard time in Hollywood
Speaker 2: because you don't fit any time. You're not the leading man,
Speaker 2: you're not Tom Cruise, you're not really nerdy, you're not
Speaker 2: really offbeat like drug e looking, gangster whatever, like you
Speaker 2: don't fit any of the characters. And she said, you're
Speaker 2: you need to create your own path, carve your own path,
Speaker 2: find someone to write for you, find a director, create
Speaker 2: a company, and create work for you, because otherwise you're
Speaker 2: gonna have a hard time. And I really listened to that,
Speaker 2: and I really took those words to heart, and that's
Speaker 2: exactly what I did. So how did you come up
Speaker 2: with Sherry Vaughn Well? I started doing performing with my
Speaker 2: friend Robbie Daniels in La the two of us not
Speaker 2: in drag, but we would write parodies of songs and
Speaker 2: one day we wanted to this parody at the Price
Speaker 2: Is Right, and he wanted me to be the showcase model,
Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, I could do that, and
Speaker 2: oh it's drag great and went to my friend Carrie
Speaker 2: French's house. She was a burlesque performer. She had like
Speaker 2: tons of gorgeous costumes and she dressed me, and my
Speaker 2: friend did my hair and someone else did my makeup
Speaker 2: and came on stage and I had this voice like, hey,
Speaker 2: it's me. I'm Shery, and that's literally how I was born.
Speaker 2: Then I was like, okay, I don't know if I
Speaker 2: want to be a drag queen full time.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: No, I was like I wanted to be a movie star,
Speaker 2: so this was still like character work for you for sure.
Speaker 2: And then I was in a play called Spira Keet
Speaker 2: that my friend Josh, who wound up being the director
Speaker 2: of theater tour, but this was in la he had
Speaker 2: his own theater company there. I was in that play
Speaker 2: as a man and this woman Robin sang the song
Speaker 2: black Coffee, this torch song, and I would sit in
Speaker 2: the wings every night just watching her, obsessed with that song.
Speaker 2: I was like, I want to sing that song, but
Speaker 2: no one wants to see some skinny boy sing that song.
Speaker 2: So I said, wonder if share what it would happen
Speaker 2: if Sherry sang that song.
Speaker 1: Because you had already created Sherry from like the price
Speaker 1: is right correct.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't like a decision to kind of pursue
Speaker 2: it as a career. The first time I performed Black Coffee,
Speaker 2: I had this big blonde bubble wig, and I don't
Speaker 2: think that I looked glamorous. I was the character is
Speaker 2: supposed to be kind of like a slightly broken down,
Speaker 2: tattered show.
Speaker 1: Girl, and how did the audience react?
Speaker 2: What I walked away with from the audience was I
Speaker 2: haven't seen anything quite like that. And that's the first
Speaker 2: time that I really did something by myself as Sherry,
Speaker 2: and it just like took off. My befriend, Doug, who
Speaker 2: was living in New York. I told him about doing
Speaker 2: drag and He's like, I'm going to write a play
Speaker 2: and you're gonna come to New York and play the mother.
Speaker 2: I remember having this conversation with Doug where he was like,
Speaker 2: why are you fighting not wanting to be a drag queen? Like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm an actor, I'm not a drag queen. I'm an actor.
Speaker 2: I'm not a drag queen. Why are you fighting that
Speaker 2: you doing something that there is an audience for and
Speaker 2: people want to see? And I was like, maybe you're right.
Speaker 2: And as soon as I let go of clinging onto
Speaker 2: what I thought was my dream, as soon as I
Speaker 2: let go of that and kind of embraced it, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is one hundred percent the path
Speaker 2: that I am supposed to be on. Wow. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: there was just no out that is amazing. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: hear we are thirty four years later, which is crazy,
Speaker 2: but I mean I just clearly remember it. And then
Speaker 2: that was it. I mean, it just kind of exploded.
Speaker 1: What was that like moving to New York doing drag
Speaker 1: in the early nineties.
Speaker 2: I think now a lot of people who start drag
Speaker 2: are like, oh, I want to be a TV star,
Speaker 2: I want to be rich and famous or whatever. Great,
Speaker 2: but that wasn't an option back then. No one was
Speaker 2: like I'm going to do drags, I can be rich
Speaker 2: and famous. This was not a possibility.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Drag was still was not considered a legitimate art form.
Speaker 2: It was very fringe and you had to have a
Speaker 2: calling for it. Now it's very different. So anyway, it
Speaker 2: just felt like this calling. But like I said, it
Speaker 2: was a very different time. I remember I lived on
Speaker 2: Third Street and Avenue C.
Speaker 1: That's pretty far out.
Speaker 2: Oh and honey, let me tell you in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: that was no man's land. Wow, Okay it was. You
Speaker 2: couldn't get a tax viar car in New York City.
Speaker 2: In New York City, it was real. And I would
Speaker 2: work at mostly like at the Pyramid in place in
Speaker 2: the eastward, and I had to walk, and I didn't
Speaker 2: have any money, so I had to.
Speaker 1: Walk in your day drag wow.
Speaker 2: And I just remember being like, Okay, this is my time,
Speaker 2: this is my time to go, Universe, please help me
Speaker 2: get to Pyramid tonight without being killed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me about that. What was it dangerous at
Speaker 1: that point to be walking around the drug.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean I'd been chased down the street
Speaker 2: with baseball guys with baseball bats. I've had bottles thrown
Speaker 2: at me. I mean, yes, it was dangerous.
Speaker 1: It was all around that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did kind of become friendly with the guys
Speaker 2: that were dealing drugs on street corner. I wasn't buying drugs,
Speaker 2: but I was like flirting and like whatever, and they're like,
Speaker 2: don't worry, I got you, I got your mama, and
Speaker 2: they kind of had my bag. And then like a
Speaker 2: year later, RuPaul's came out with Supermodel, and that literally changed.
Speaker 2: Like I can remember the moment where things changed, because
Speaker 2: one night I'm walking from my house to the Pyramid
Speaker 2: and people are like you freak, you're a man, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden they're like work Supermodel.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Like then literally changed the way people started looking at
Speaker 2: drag queens and made it a little easier to like
Speaker 2: walk around.
Speaker 1: RuPaul had released the song Supermodel in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: and its impact was huge. It became a dance floor anthem,
Speaker 1: but also brought drag into America's mainstream consciousness. Meanwhile, Sherri
Speaker 1: was having the time of her life in downtown New
Speaker 1: York City being a full time drag queen. Tell me
Speaker 1: about what nightlife was at that point being a drag
Speaker 1: queen in New York.
Speaker 2: He had to work every single night of the week,
Speaker 2: two or three shows whatever to pay rent and live because,
Speaker 2: like I said, it was not considered a legitimate art form,
Speaker 2: but it was really fun. It was really really fun
Speaker 2: New York City in the nineties, there were a million
Speaker 2: things to do every single night of the week. Wow,
Speaker 2: Monday through Sunday, there.
Speaker 1: Was you're talking about going out, going out.
Speaker 2: We would do shows. We'd get paid for that. There
Speaker 2: was Mark Berkeley ran this empire of big, big gay parties,
Speaker 2: like huge, big mega parties, and they would pay us
Speaker 2: just to show up and walk a hang out. We
Speaker 2: would show up, He'd give us a handful of drink tickets,
Speaker 2: and we were getting paid to hang out for a
Speaker 2: couple of hours. Then we'd leave and go. It was
Speaker 2: somewhere else so you could make a living. Not no
Speaker 2: one was getting rich, but you could pay rent and
Speaker 2: get by. There was Squeezebox, which I think started in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. Michael Schmidt started it and it was
Speaker 2: like a gay rock party and it was insane. This
Speaker 2: just before everyone had a camera on their phone. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, I can remember Drew Barrymore dancing topless on
Speaker 2: the bar and getting on Debbie Harry was always there,
Speaker 2: and John Waters and getting on stage with Green Day
Speaker 2: and Nina Hagen and Jone Jett. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: just endless, and it was every Friday night and they
Speaker 2: need have all these like straight guys who were just like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is my chance to kind of experiment. And then
Speaker 2: there was Bardeaux and it was this live singing cabaret
Speaker 2: and it was really the only place in town where
Speaker 2: it was all drag, live singing, and it just really worked.
Speaker 2: And it was another thing that was just there was
Speaker 2: a line down the block every night to get in
Speaker 2: and it was fun. I mean it was the same
Speaker 2: time as AIDS, but I think the night life was
Speaker 2: so much fun. Also, in spite of.
Speaker 1: AIDS, Sherry was enjoying the nineties New York nightlife scene
Speaker 1: as a drag queen. New York was affordable and incredibly fun.
Speaker 1: But at the same time AIDS was happening. For the
Speaker 1: gay community, this was an extremely dark time and many
Speaker 1: turned to drag shows as a way to escape the
Speaker 1: pain of their lives, the loss, the grief, the unfairness
Speaker 1: it all. Sheery was one of the many performers giving
Speaker 1: them that escape through her shows. But one signature part
Speaker 1: of her drag was that she never got political. So
Speaker 1: it was a sounds like a really magical time to
Speaker 1: be working in part of it. Yeah, well, I you
Speaker 1: know that something about your drag sheery is that you
Speaker 1: never really get political. It seems that you sort of
Speaker 1: like to create this atmosphere where the audience can kind
Speaker 1: of escape almost for a little bit. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: I wasn't consciously trying to not be political. It just
Speaker 2: was like I was the comedy queen. My job is
Speaker 2: to make people laugh. I'm very political. I read the
Speaker 2: news every single morning. I read I think I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sharp on what's going on in the world. I have
Speaker 2: an opinion, I vote, but I don't integrate that into
Speaker 2: my act.
Speaker 1: Historically, drag has always been an escape for queer people,
Speaker 1: the performer and the audience to escape kind of the
Speaker 1: pain of gay life or queer life. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if back in the day you were kind of conscious
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean certainly. I did a show once,
Speaker 2: I think it was in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and this
Speaker 2: guy came up to me after the show crying and
Speaker 2: he's like, my lover died of AIDS. I'm going to
Speaker 2: lose my home because I don't have I can't afford
Speaker 2: to stay there, and my life has been in and
Speaker 2: I was thinking about ending it. In Da Da Da
Speaker 2: you literally made me forget about that for a half hour,
Speaker 2: and I was like, Okay, I didn't cure anything. I
Speaker 2: didn't solve any problems, but I gave this person relief
Speaker 2: for a half hour, and maybe that's all it was.
Speaker 2: But I was like, that's my job.
Speaker 1: What was it like being a drag queen in the
Speaker 1: nineties in New York City, which was sort of like
Speaker 1: one of the centers of the AIDS crisis.
Speaker 2: It was a scary time. It was a sad time,
Speaker 2: it was a dark time, it was an angry time,
Speaker 2: and somehow, like I said, I think people were like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go out and have fun. This part of
Speaker 2: my life is horrible, so horrible and dark. I mean
Speaker 2: I was going to a memorial service every other week.
Speaker 2: So there was all that, and then there was just
Speaker 2: something about I'm going out tonight. I'm going to see
Speaker 2: this drag show and laugh and I'm gonna get laid
Speaker 2: whatever it was, do you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 2: I'm not going to let it kill me until it
Speaker 2: kills me or whatever. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We actually had someone from Act Up come on the
Speaker 1: show and she had described one of the most magical
Speaker 1: parts of Act Up. They would go out to these
Speaker 1: drag shows and it would sort of be an escape
Speaker 1: for them to immerse themselves in fun and play while
Speaker 1: they were outside of that, you know, fighting so hard
Speaker 1: to survive. I wonder what was it like to kind
Speaker 1: of live in between those two worlds, Like, for example,
Speaker 1: you are an entertainer helping this community kind of have
Speaker 1: a few moments of living outside of their misery, but
Speaker 1: then you're also part of the community and you're being
Speaker 1: affected by the AIDS crisis too.
Speaker 2: Well, it was intense. I mean I marched with Act
Speaker 2: Up in drag. I went to the March on DC
Speaker 2: in drag. Yeah. I mean, look, I can't think of
Speaker 2: any one day in certainly the first half of the
Speaker 2: nineties where I didn't know someone who was dying. Wow. Period,
Speaker 2: for sure, someone was always dying. So it was. And
Speaker 2: my best best friend, who had started the theater company with,
Speaker 2: who was my roommate, died of aides in ninety five.
Speaker 2: I mean it was horrible. I remember being in complete denial,
Speaker 2: like the fact that he could actually really die, And
Speaker 2: I remember going to see him in the hospital and
Speaker 2: he was on a stretcher in the hallway because I
Speaker 2: didn't even have a room, like as sick as he was,
Speaker 2: we just were kind of like, he's gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: And then he came home and he kind of was
Speaker 2: a bit better. And then, like I said, I think
Speaker 2: we were all just in denial, like he really wasn't better, obviously,
Speaker 2: but we were just coming he's home, he's gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: And we left at Christmas. I went to my parents'
Speaker 2: and he went to his parents and he never came back.
Speaker 2: When he died, it was like, wait, how how did
Speaker 2: that happen? Like it was almost like caught me by
Speaker 2: surprise that the reality was that this someone like although
Speaker 2: we had lost so many friends, it hadn't hit that
Speaker 2: close to home. And I remember calling my mom to
Speaker 2: tell her and she just started crying and she was like,
Speaker 2: how is that possible? No one, no twenty three year
Speaker 2: old should go through losing half of their friends and
Speaker 2: the government not caring.
Speaker 1: And then you performed at his memorial, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we one hundred percent. We're going to
Speaker 2: be in drag and we're going to have laughs, and
Speaker 2: we're going to celebrate his life and not you know,
Speaker 2: at pictures of him in a suit. What I remember
Speaker 2: the most is like even his mom and dad has
Speaker 2: brought and his sister were all there and no one
Speaker 2: was crying because we were just like celebrating this beautiful person.
Speaker 1: Wow. And was it like that for you, like you
Speaker 1: would perform in drag at many different les. Wow.
Speaker 2: It's weird now being this age because went through the
Speaker 2: AIDS crisis and then it was like, oh, there's this
Speaker 2: miracle drug and people are now living longer. Great. Then
Speaker 2: there's this section of time where I lost lots of
Speaker 2: friends to drugs. Now I'm losing friends like you know, cancer,
Speaker 2: heart attack, you know, more natural causes or whatever, because
Speaker 2: we're all going into our sixties.
Speaker 1: Sherri had become the embodiment of living in two worlds
Speaker 1: at the same time. She was a drag performer, helping
Speaker 1: her community to escape from the world of AIDS with
Speaker 1: her comedy, but she was also inside of that community,
Speaker 1: losing her own loved ones as well. It sounds like
Speaker 1: being a drag performer is a lot. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure. Was there ever a moment where you thought,
Speaker 1: maybe this is too much.
Speaker 2: There was one brief moment in my forties where I
Speaker 2: was like, I'm gonna go back to school. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get my PhD, like at Columbia in theater, and I
Speaker 2: want to teach acting on a college level, like not kids,
Speaker 2: I want to teach people who are like, this is
Speaker 2: what I want to do with my life. And then
Speaker 2: I sat down and I really meditated on that, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm not gonna be happy. I might
Speaker 2: be able to make myself happy, I will not be
Speaker 2: happy and I will not be fulfilled.
Speaker 1: What about Drag makes you happy?
Speaker 2: It's just so fulfilling. And I mean it's like acting.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I feel like I'm fulfilled as an
Speaker 2: actor and it's a character as long as people come
Speaker 2: to the show, and if they laugh and they like it,
Speaker 2: and or someone likes my videos or someone watches my
Speaker 2: variety show, then I feel like I'm fulfilled because I'm
Speaker 2: doing what I love to do, being true to myself
Speaker 2: of what I really passionately love and the benefit of
Speaker 2: someone agrees.
Speaker 1: You love entertaining people. Yes, given everything that we've talked about,
Speaker 1: and the episode is kind of about, well, this element
Speaker 1: of escapism that Drag is for so much of the
Speaker 1: queer community that watches Drag. The AIDS crisis you mentioned
Speaker 1: drug addiction now kind of entering into this next stage
Speaker 1: with your friends. You know what losses and you know
Speaker 1: what people might be bringing into the venue when you
Speaker 1: perform for them. How does it feel for you when
Speaker 1: you see people smile when you're performing.
Speaker 2: With everything going on in the world right now, the
Speaker 2: fact that anyone can smile is a testament. And if
Speaker 2: you're the person who's kind of responsible for making them smile,
Speaker 2: then isn't that political? M I mean, I see it
Speaker 2: as a form of activism.
Speaker 1: It's radical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why not? But I went to I don't I
Speaker 2: really go out anymore because I'm sixty. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: and I go to bed. I want to be in
Speaker 2: bed at ten. I rarely go out. And last night
Speaker 2: we did the Golden Girls and I was with Kelly Manton.
Speaker 2: She's like, let's just go and get a drink somewhere.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what, I'm dead tired, but let's
Speaker 2: just let's go to Hardware and see Shaquita, who I've
Speaker 2: known for thirty years and I love. She's like, let's
Speaker 2: go and walking there, I'm like, what am I doing?
Speaker 2: Go home, go to bed. I'm like, no, no, And
Speaker 2: we get there and it's packed, like you can't move,
Speaker 2: and I'm like looking around, like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 2: twice as old as everybody here. And I was like,
Speaker 2: so what. And she came out and people were losing
Speaker 2: their minds, screaming and yelling, and I was like, I
Speaker 2: love drag, not just performing in drag. I love watching
Speaker 2: Dragon and I always have and it's so exciting. And
Speaker 2: then I'm looking around this room and like, there's this
Speaker 2: debate going on. Trump could win, there's the wars, and
Speaker 2: there's so much that's horrible, and the fact that this
Speaker 2: room is packed with people who are like screaming and
Speaker 2: cheering and laughing being entertained by this performer whose job
Speaker 2: it is to entertain. I was just like, this is
Speaker 2: why I love drag.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolvis. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us but We Loved at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com or send us a message on Instagram
Speaker 1: or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a production
Speaker 1: of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart podcas. But We
Speaker 1: Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Speaker 1: Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Me Maya Howard. Fact checking by Marisa Brown. Original
Speaker 1: music by Steve Boone. Special thanks to Jay Bronson and
Speaker 1: Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode, leave us a
Speaker 1: rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.