Nobodies Saying Hello: A Conversation With Untitled (Transcribed)
In this transcribed podcast, we chat with Brooklyn drag legend Untitled about (dis)ability + drag, the highbrow/lowbrow divide, and her new project "Untitled (America)" debuting on Twitch 7/4!
(Audio of this Podcast is available on the Nobodies Watching Wrestling iTunes page.)
0:00:00 @theladybearica: Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Hello. And welcome to Nobody Saying Hello. This is Lady Bearica, accident report is here. This is the show where we just call up people that we love. And we say, "Hi. Hello. How you doing? Are you surviving?" First of all, I'd like to give a little shout out to our Patreon. It's patreon.com/thenobodies. This is how we support ourselves and stay creative and financially stable, as it were. Today, we have a legend in Brooklyn night life, quite possibly the nicest person in the scene, creator of the upcoming Untitled America, please welcome to the pod, Untitled Queen.
0:00:45 @untitledqueen: Hi, loves.
0:00:46 DJ Accident Report: Hello.
0:00:47 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Thank you for having me. It's nice to see your faces and get to talk.
0:00:52 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Untitled, I think we have worked together several times, but I don't think me and you have ever actually sat down and had a real conversation.
0:01:00 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh, really? I think... I believe that's true too. I feel like... Wait. Did you do some events like Bizarre or other places before? I feel like...
0:01:08 @THELADYBEARICA: You guys probably worked together...
[overlapping conversation]
0:01:11 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Exactly.
0:01:13 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I had a vision of you in the depot, for anyone that's listening at Bizarre Bar, an old bar in Bushwick. The DJ booth was literally up a ladder in his own little castle tower on its own.
0:01:24 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: With me?
0:01:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So, whenever you're performing, you'd look up or that you be needed things. I feel like I remember a bunch of events that you were...
0:01:32 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yeah. Probably like A-plus when I was up there.
0:01:35 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, that makes sense.
0:01:36 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: And it's 900 degrees in that little basket. Do you guys...
0:01:41 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I claim... I scaled that ladder a hundred times. 'Cause we used to do a lot of shows there when that bar first opened up. And, the DJ is stuck. So, I get them drinks, you gotta get them stuff. You gotta get them chords. You really gotta get them back and forth. So I'm in these heels and little dress, going up.
0:02:01 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yes.
0:02:01 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: You can see Ginger and whatever.
0:02:06 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: It was kind of nice. But it was also kind of a nightmare.
0:02:09 @THELADYBEARICA: Okay. It is, what? June 28th, we are celebrating Pride here in New York. Not anymore, it's... Oh shit. My alarm's going off. Okay, hold please. We'll get this together. Stop. We're recording this on June 28th. It is what would traditionally be the Pride parade. Today was the Queer Liberation March. Untitled, what is your favorite memory of Pride? What does Pride mean to you?
0:02:41 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh. Actually, this year is my favorite Pride. That memory is a week old, maybe? Well actually not a week old. I guess... I see it as Pride is every day. I think a lot of us say that or think of it like that. We just happen to celebrate it in June for New York. But, I feel like this one is the best one. I think most because, these last several months has been such an eye-opening and thrilling and hardcore and sad and uplifting. I feel like this is a time that's actually really gone back to the roots of uprising and organizing and grassroots and protesting, and really actually seeing how intersectionality actually works and how... For me, I said this Pride is giving me the definition of intersectionality, meaning all of us are understanding how we collectively can relate in our struggles to address and dismantle white supremacy for real, for real. And to really think about it.
0:04:00 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And something about this particular situation, coronavirus, and this really big surge... Not even a big surge, but really public showings of police brutality, and death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. But, I feel like this sort of situation, something kind of linked in where now, we had all this time to sort of really reflect and we were letting other to distract us. Something about it created this perfect storm where people started to really look inward about working on anti-racism and thinking about how as a queer, LGBTQ community can really come together and address Black Lives Matter. For me, this is most triumphant. And then this comes back to the source of everything. Drag and art in the LGBTQ movement is literally pioneered/kept on in all of our history and given to us by black trans women, black trans people.
0:05:06 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: You look amazing today at the Queer Liberation March, because I feel like in other years, I've never gone to the Pride Parade in my life because I hate parades. But, I've gone to the march since last year and this year at the march, it was really impressive and wonderful and exciting to see that all of the chanting was Black Lives Matter, all of the chanting was about black trans women. And I feel like in other years, there was maybe this attitude in queer protest movements of like, "Okay, well, we're here to talk about the gay stuff, and the race stuff can go over to the side." And it's just so obvious, that's not the case anymore. It's so obvious that whatever is happening in the LGBT community, it's meeting up with what's happening with discussions about race and in a really beautiful way.
0:05:58 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Right. And I think too... Just the imagery and the centering is not on whites as gays. That's not what's plastered everywhere on Pride, which is typically the images that we encounter. And now, we are uplifting not only our historic ancestors, the Stonewall riots and beforehand, but now we're lifting up our living leaders. People who are runnng GLITS and all these other amazing black trans organizations and our QPOC leaders. And really giving them the voice and the platform that they deserve.
0:06:37 @THELADYBEARICA: I love that idea of living leaders. I love that phrase. Oh my God. Who would you say are some of our living leaders here locally or abroad or in other states right now?
0:06:51 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my god. I said GLITS, I meant to saw Doroshow.
0:06:56 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, Shay-an? Is that how you say it? Shayan?
0:06:58 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I think that might be Ceyenne. But I might be wrong, so.
0:07:01 @THELADYBEARICA: Doroshow?
0:07:01 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, Doroshow, it's either Ceyenne or Shayan, Doroshow.
0:07:02 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, C-E-Y-E-N-N-E, I don't know how pronounce it?
0:07:10 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: This is fantastic. So, I mean, she is a leader that is running GLITS, which is purchasing a permanent housing, a building, permanent housing for Black Trans women who have just been released from Rikers, which is incredible. That's like... I think all these things too, these actions are beginning to be like, "How then can we become consistent actions, actions that have long, longevity... Long-term changes?" Which is something. It's incredible for everyone to really start thinking about and that is a really big marker because I went to Black Trans Liberation march, the one in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Liberation march...
0:07:56 @THELADYBEARICA: The one that was West Dakota was part of?
0:07:58 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah West Dakota and Fran and...
0:08:00 @THELADYBEARICA: And Ceyenne or Doroshow, we'll say Doroshow for now.
0:08:04 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Let's say Doroshow, I apologize for not knowing...
0:08:06 @THELADYBEARICA: Same.
0:08:11 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yes, so that was an incredible, 15,000 people and all these amazing speakers and really centering Black Trans lives. And I think that was just one big marker that's... She mentioned, we need to own real estate. We need to own things. We need to have that equity so that we're not... This movement in this community is not under the whim and control of everyone else. That is really important. I think a really important thing to think about for just Queer lives, and especially in New York. And...
0:08:47 @THELADYBEARICA: I think about that a lot in our performance spaces, because a lot of our performance spaces are not owned by Queer people.
0:08:56 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Totally.
0:08:56 @THELADYBEARICA: It's not guaranteed for us to have a space always.
0:09:00 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Totally, I think we've been talking about it recently too. I was just talking about it with Miss Malice who I love. Who is another amazing figure in our community.
0:09:12 @THELADYBEARICA: For our audience, if you don't know Miss Malice, they are part of the Switch n' Play collective.
0:09:18 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So Drag, Burlesque and centering on all spectrums trans POC artists. I love them.
0:09:31 @THELADYBEARICA: I didn't realize, I just read that they've been around since 2006.
0:09:34 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah they have been around for...
0:09:36 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Switch n' Play? Yeah, Switch n' Play has been here forever.
0:09:40 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Been around for a very long time. Switch n' Play and, excuse me, K. James is the longest running member of that collective. Yeah, they've been around for a really long time. So I was talking about it with her, we were... And I was talking about it with Mary too. Mary Cherry. She's another leader I'll mention too. We were just talking about how could that translate into something. What if as a community, we thought about buying a bar or buying space for a bar, buying space for a club, something like that.
0:10:11 @THELADYBEARICA: I've thought about that. Especially after Bazaar shut down. I was like, how do I buy this space? Like, how does this happen?
0:10:17 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: That's space is a little... [laughter] I never even wanted that space.
0:10:22 @THELADYBEARICA: We'd definitely have to sage the fuck out of it.
0:10:24 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: It's definitely cursed.
0:10:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, I think there might be other ones that don't have lofty, Harry Potter style, whatever. But that's just a thought. And also the GLITS thing is like... You would think buying New York real estate sounds absolutely impossible, but you really saw that community effort made that possible. Wow, they raised a million and then in counting money that they're putting into it. That's where it's really incredible. This like community grassroots organizing and fundraising, which I love. Because Corporations count on us not being able to produce that much. And it being so expensive.
0:11:05 @THELADYBEARICA: I think that's what I'm looking forward to seeing. Hopefully, the idea of... What I'm hoping that carries forward from this moment is that we can afford to support each other. We can act as community. Businesses can write into their business plans, we're donating this amount to this organization every month, out of our profits. I hope that's something that carries over because we've seen such like a community effort in several different arenas in the last few months, I think, I hope that's something we can count on.
0:11:41 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I think it is. Honestly, I work a lot with non-corporate fundraising efforts and our community is built on giving and being there as a self- supporting network. I feel like that has always been a part of Queer lives because no one else is really gonna support us. I think that part is always gonna continue. The other thing that will continue is literally demanding equitable pay. Actual... Stopping this walking while trans ban, criminalizing sex work and all this other shit that stops us from having wealth on our own and not being paid correctly. That's the thing. Other people need to pay up, not necessarily just us supporting each other, which is amazing, which we always do.
0:12:35 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, I think I was speaking more to... We got a police siren. Fuck off. I think I was speaking more to the corporate aspect. The Corporations are being pressured to spend their money in better ways right now, and I want that pressure to continue. Obviously, we as a Queer community are used to lifting each other up and supporting each other in that way. I hope it carries on beyond that.
0:13:05 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Sure. Corporations, it's a hard core thing. Some of these marches and stuff is great. I think it's just another big question from beyond this pride or lesson we are learning is how to divest ourselves from centering Corporations. Then also how to figure, how to use their money in the ways that we can. But it's almost a smoke screen 'cause it's just a penny. I have a lot of thoughts about corps...
[laughter]
0:13:35 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, and like how tied I am too and dependent on them. So that's a serious question and something to really work on. So lots of meaty good things to work on, which is like a... While it's scary and really hard and stuff, but I really believe this is a revolution and it's fucking awesome and it makes me smile. And so the queer liberation was one, and then Bushwig just had its event, which also fund raised for GLITS.
0:14:09 @THELADYBEARICA: $5,000 they raised, right?
0:14:11 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: No more. $8,000.
0:14:12 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: That's amazing.
0:14:15 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So they raised $8,000 and I think they're trying to climb to $10,000, because the rest of this weekend is going to it as well.
0:14:20 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Right.
0:14:22 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So they had a gathering at McCarren Park. It was incredible. They had this amazing group called The Indigenous Kinship Collective, open the ceremony and talk about what land that we're on. And then they honored us with opening the ceremony with the drum original song for us, and that was just totally...
0:14:49 @THELADYBEARICA: Wow.
0:14:49 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: They were amazing. So they opened it and then they had these amazing speakers and performances. And so another person I'll say Jet Gray, our local performer, black trans artist, sex worker got up and she on the open mic was like, "I have a bunch of followers on Twitter, and a lot of people of the black trans community who are asking sometimes they want some money, they want $10 or $5 here. I can't give it to them and that's really hard." And she was like, "If you give me money, I'll re-distribute this well." She was like, "If you know somebody who's a black trans person, you wanna help. Help me now." So she gave out her, she said it out loud, her Venmo, which is, I think it's ember XXX.
0:15:37 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: We'll get that information and put it in the comments.
0:15:41 @THELADYBEARICA: I'll list in the comments, I'll list GLITS in the comments and look up The Indigenous... What's it called again?
0:15:45 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: The Indigenous Kinship Collective. I believe.
0:15:49 @THELADYBEARICA: I'll go through and list these things in the comments for everyone.
0:15:52 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: But I just wanna say, so when she left, she said that comment right, and then a half hour later she came back was like, "Hey, we raised $3,000," then she came back...
0:16:06 @THELADYBEARICA: Holy shit.
0:16:07 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: She came back an hour later, and she was like, "I'm about to cry. We've raised $7,000."
0:16:11 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh my god.
0:16:13 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Just through her Venmo?
0:16:15 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: That group in that circle literally shoved through all this point, and so she's just been documenting who she's handing it out to. It's amazing.
0:16:26 @THELADYBEARICA: That's amazing.
0:16:27 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Crying and then being amazing. So yeah this part's my favorite.
0:16:32 @THELADYBEARICA: I love that. Let's talk about drag.
0:16:35 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah.
[laughter]
0:16:35 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Maybe you can talk about drag.
0:16:38 @THELADYBEARICA: I know you know this, and I know you probably feel this, but drag is innately, all that we've been talking about it is... I remember... Okay, so I came in the scene and I did this thing where I started my drag Facebook and I just would add random people, and I think added you before I actually had met you. And then I saw you one night at TNT, in drag.
0:17:03 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I'm living for this throw-back, I can't wait to hear this.
0:17:07 @THELADYBEARICA: Well, and this is why I was immediately obsessed with you. One, the name Untitled Queen I was like, "Woah that's brilliant." Second, I ran up to you and I was like, "Hey, you're Untitled Queen, right?" And I just said something about, I love that name. And you were so sweet, and that's not something we always get in this community, especially with some random kid running up to you and being like, "Hey." How did you get that name? How did you decide on Untitled Queen?
0:17:40 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So first of all, thank you, that was very kind of you. That was a very nice intro. Part of my background, I thought before I started drag, I realized before I started calling it drag before I entered this community, I realized I've always been doing drag, I just never knew, that's what it was called, or I just never had a word for it. And so I went to... I've always been an artist my whole life before. I won't say visual artist because it's also a world. So just fine artist my whole life, and before I started drag, I was in New York for grad school at Parsons for my MFA. And so when I started to do drag, when I was thinking about a name, I thought about, what could I do that would sort of reflect that background about bringing contemporary art stuff into this field, but then also be kind of blank enough that I could fill it with whatever I wanted, and so that's what happened.
0:18:47 @THELADYBEARICA: I think that's exactly what struck me about it, I was like, "You aren't pigeonholing yourself into any one style with a name like that."
0:18:54 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yeah. I think it's cool.
0:18:56 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I think I also wanted it to be a bit more object-like, not gender-specific, person-specific, so that's what also excited me, it was a lot of abstraction and projection. A place to really project into. So that's what I always liked about it.
0:19:17 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I love your style of drag so much because I feel like, I love a low brow queen doing a Lady Gaga number two, but I love the high art, high concept stuff, and I've read some of your stuff saying that you're inspired by Kazuo Ohno and Butoh theatre and to me, that stuff is so beautiful. How did you learn about that? Where did you...
0:19:40 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: How do I learn about Butoh?
0:19:41 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, or what are some of your other influences other than...
0:19:44 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh, I was blank on the special and I get it, but I know I have... I wrote a list once, I was like, "Oh yeah, so you remember where you actually did." [laughter] Honestly I could say as a human and as an artist I was just inspired by everything. I love dollar stores. Some interesting pieces. While some of this contemporary art stuff seems highbrow. I love everyday culture. Dollar store is something that is hugely inspirational to also just anything on the street, I really am inspired by lately a lot by poetry, so I've really gotten into that. Especially poetry read by its authors.
0:20:23 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I really love... Lately, really digging into that. I love crafts. I love DIY craft... I love my work, that really excites me is DIY things and crafting things. So a lot of my drag is really about being very aware that it's a construction, and how it is very fluid in that way.
0:20:42 @THELADYBEARICA: Right. Like the yarn. There's like a textual...
0:20:45 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh that's just... Also, I just love yarn. I love felt. I feel like I really gravitate to materials that I come in contact with when I was very young. And I think that has a lot to do with, pre-constructed ideas. You know, it was a self that was very unaware of things that you become aware of. Like, how people view you, homophobia, all these other things that you're just joyful, and you're just going about your day being super gay. Like, that was... That's why I think... And learning art, learning materials, the joy. I think that's something that I try to tap into in my work, and so things... So many things excite me. And I also really, really gravitate to things that connect to emotions, emotional experiences. Experiences is what I... And story-telling is, I think, what's really at the core of my drag.
0:21:39 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So I think any art forms that really do that from me, so all these colorful items, and also really bright resonant colors, and also materiality, and you know, that every day materiality, and also Butoh is something I discovered. Oh my gosh, I discovered that in undergrad, because there was a video that's called Baraka, which is this kind of this amazing documentary that just shows all these different scenes from all over the world, like wonders of the world. And they don't...
0:22:14 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I can't remember if it actually even describes them, you're just like going into different gangs and they're... It's incredible. I should actually watch it again myself. [laughter] Actually, I haven't seen it since then. But I remember seeing this scene... I think what's amazing is, I don't think they qualify. I think they just tell you where it is and what it is. But I think, it was a Butoh dancer and this close-up of the person doing this, I think, what is called a silent scream. So it's inaudible, but huge, emotional mouth, extremely grotesque and beautiful. And I was like, 'Oh! What is this!". You know, and some things you just really like speaks to you. You know, you don't have any language for it. So I've always loved that and a lot of Japanese culture, I'm obsessed with. Of course, anime. Yeah.
0:23:01 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, 'cause I was thinking about the last time I saw you perform live, you did that. It was at Snack Theater, the science fiction one. When you did the Hal number, which was like... It was both Butoh theater and science fiction at the same time. And it was like... I was losing my mind and the whole audience was completely... You could hear a pin drop. They were so focused on the slightest movement that you made. It was amazing. I was so... I was obsessed with that performance.
0:23:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: That one... So when they were like, "Oh, we wanna do something for Mars.", and I was like, "What could I do for space?". And I was just watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, Evangelion, the big Mecca anime, all about existentialism, [chuckle] and spacey things, and I was like, "Maybe I could do like a look based on that.", and then I was like, "What's a good monologue?", and then, you know, I love 2001 Space Odyssey, and that moment, the monologue of the ship dying, is so intense, and another super emotional thing that's told through speech, you know. I really love doing that. It was extremely hard. I was like, "Everyone is gonna see me fuck this up.".
0:24:13 @THELADYBEARICA: You didn't. [chuckle]
0:24:13 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: 'Cause really, lots of monologues are really, really hard, but thank you.
0:24:18 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, I love just the minimalism... I love when people... I think Emee does this really well. I love when people take drag and then do something completely not drag with it. So you just stood still during that performance. And I thought it was so amazing just seeing someone just completely embodied in a moment, and experiencing pain in a really interesting way. I thought it was amazing.
0:24:42 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Thank you. I feel like now... I mean I go back and forth. That's what I'm saying. I don't try and say my work is any kind of way, 'cause it changes all the time. I feel like that's the new thing. It's like, I just call... I call drag, or I think of drag as a constant construction-deconstruction. You're this... Time you're... And when I took one Butoh workshop, workshop where I was learning some of it, they described the dance form in a similar way. It doesn't have movements that you're like, "We are going to learn this... Step one.", it's not like a ballet. It's a form that literally, as it begins... My teacher, Hime Naganika, would say, "As a structure crystallizes, it instantly dissolves.", and I was like, think about drag. You create it, and it instantly dissolves. And that's the great thing about drag, is it's so... It's a living studio practice. And you can change it and morph it, as many times as you want, and I think that's the most exciting thing about it. So, I feel like I'm a maximalist a lot of times, and then, lately I've been really paired down I think about the visual look, but then all the intensity is in the story and how to communicate it. Yeah.
0:26:01 @THELADYBEARICA: I know we kinda talked about, you feel like you've always been doing drag. But in this Brooklyn arena, how long have you been in this scene? And what can you tell us about what the scene was like when you...
[laughter]
0:26:16 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I think these are good questions. I think this a good question. Before I forget, before all my last brain cells are gone.
[laughter]
0:26:23 @THELADYBEARICA: We're creating an audio history here.
0:26:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I mean, a lot of people have asked about this period and, you know, I love it. So, I actually am a Pride-drag baby. So, there used to be this adage that you're one of three birth times. You're Halloween, New Year's or Pride. So I was Pride. So eight years ago, is when I started, so 2012.
0:26:51 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And... Oh my gosh, I mean I could talk about Brooklyn forever. I'll try and give maybe a quick... For myself, I really didn't know anyone in this scene. I also didn't really know anything about drag. I also really wasn't into it, personally. Having seen it, I thought it was cool and it was good. But I was never like, "Oh my gosh, I really wanna keep going or seeing it." I didn't really go to drag shows, I just wasn't... I was like, "I'm not really into this thing." And so, I have friends in grad school with me. Jess Ramsey, who was my frequent... One of my good friends, frequent collaborator, incredible DJ. So she... My friend, she's an amazing sound artist. So she was in night life, she worked in night life before. She was in... When we were in school, she worked in night life. She used to DJ at XS Club.
0:27:37 @THELADYBEARICA: What was her DJ name, Jess MS?
0:27:40 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yes.
0:27:40 @THELADYBEARICA: Yes. I know her.
0:27:43 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: She used to DJ for Peppermint's karaoke...
0:27:47 @THELADYBEARICA: Yes.
0:27:47 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: At XS. So I remember years ago, before I ever did drag, she was like, "Oh, why don't you come visit me?" I'm like... It was me and her. And I was like, "Oh, hi." And Peppermint was very nice. But... So she was the one that was like, "You should do this." And I'm like... If anyone sees any of my grad work you would laugh at me, thinking like, "This wasn't drag." Because actually, I had a professor in school that was like, "All these drawings you do, they just looked like drag queens." And I was like, "What?" And I had a...
0:28:13 @THELADYBEARICA: Real rude.
0:28:14 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: No. I was totally confused, like last person to know. And I had another... I had the same professor... I have to give him credit, Anthony Aziz. And I remember we were going to his studio as a group, and he was like... We stopped in front of the Halloween store. And he was... And there was this mannequin with this nurse maid outfit on. And he was like, "This should be you." And I was like, "Well, what do you mean?" And he was like, "You should be like... You go out and you're like a personality, and like you're in clothes and stuff." And I was like, "That's not me at all." [laughter] This is the documentary of me, and then the flash cuts to me doing it every night. And they're like, "At least I make my life up." But I literally was so not in tune with it at all, and I didn't understand it. And so Jess is the one that recommended it to me. And then I met... I had another friend, Diane Dwyer, who was a teacher at Parsons. And she was teaching a student who was Macy Rodman. And she said...
[vocalization]
0:29:12 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: She said, "Hey, why don't we have a dinner? I have a student of mine... " Who was also at Parsons, they were going for their BFA. And she said, "Why don't we have a dinner? They're starting to do some drag. You're interested in it, let's talk." So Macy... I met Macy then, and then Macy was like, "Hey, I'm starting this new party called Bath Salts. You want to do the first one?"
0:29:31 @THELADYBEARICA: That's legend.
0:29:32 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And so I said... And so I just started to become the yes person. I was like, "Yeah, okay." So I did the first Bath Salts, and then... I'm sorry this story's getting so long. So then that was it. And then during Pride Month, I was out at Hot Rabbit when it was at Nowhere Bar, and someone came up to me and said, "Hey, I have a contest in Brooklyn called DRAGnet. Do you wanna do it?" It was Mary, out of drag. So I was... And I was in drag. And I was like, "Okay." No idea what any of this was. And so then I did DRAGnet, which is a competition... Drag competition at Metropolitan.
0:30:12 @THELADYBEARICA: What year did you do that? Do you remember?
0:30:13 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It was eight years ago, so it was the 2012. It was the year that...
0:30:17 @THELADYBEARICA: I think I was there.
0:30:17 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah.
0:30:17 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: You were the first winner, weren't you?
0:30:19 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, I was first winner.
0:30:20 @THELADYBEARICA: I think I was there.
0:30:21 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I think you judged the cycle that I was in.
0:30:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. I just did a bunch. Mary always had me... So what really got my career going was not only did Macy invite me, but then when I did the contest. So I won... I tied. The month that I was in was with MoMo Shade...
0:30:40 @THELADYBEARICA: Yes.
0:30:41 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Who I adore. And then I was in the finale, and in the finale I won. And the finality had Aja, and had other people too. And then winning, I got to... Part of the prize is that I hosted, with Mary, for three months... The next three months. And mind you, I'd never been on a mic, never thought I could. That's the thing about drag too, it taught me so many things I never thought I could do. And so... And then we became... And Mary and I weren't friends beforehand, we became really close after that. And so Brooklyn scene... Oh my gosh. I always hesitate to wax nostalgic because everyone is like, "Oh, it was better back then." I always wanna qualify that I loved it because it's where I came from, and it was so exciting. But it doesn't need to diminish anything that's going on now, and for any artist that's working now. I will say it was a scene that we didn't know was happening. We didn't know it was becoming a thing. It was literally like electricity in the air. Everybody in the scene was...
0:31:44 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Of course, we were mid-gentrifying Bushwick and we were all there. And Bushwick was the first time... Drag is the first time I ever... Community was a word I understood. Community became a word that meant something to me. And that meant I was out every night seeing each... Seeing everybody making stuff. And everybody was so diverse and really came to their art form for... So, here's the thing which I think I really try and encourage for people who are starting drag, is that... And it's really hard. Because everyone now sees it as a road... Vehicle to do a lot of things, which it can be very quickly. To get a lot of exposure, to get a lot of influence. And honestly, it's like... I got into drag because I thought it would be fun, not... It was never... For me, in the beginning, it was never about making money. Which is a total joke, I work for free forever. It was never about clout. It was never about, "I wanna be on Ru Paul's Drag Race." We liked Drag Race, we really did. But we never...
0:32:44 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It wasn't... It didn't rule our lives. We got messy. We went out. We got dressed at each other's houses. We talked, we danced, we got in drag for fun all the time. We also went out all the time. It literally was also this really big community effort where it was like, "If you don't go out to support somebody, they're not gonna come to see you." So we would go to multiple shows a night. We'd just be circling around all these shows. And so everyone was so excited. And whenever I would go out in Bushwick, just during the day, I would see everybody. I would see, Horchata, Mary, Will Sheridan. So all these different fields, music, fashion, drag. And all these things combining. I think... I think it will probably be categorized... Or historicized as a Brooklyn renaissance. And for us, that's what it was. It didn't mean that there wasn't amazing talent aka Thorgy.
0:33:40 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Aka Backspace, which is an amazing collective, also. Mocha Lite, let me see here, Mocha Lite, oh my gosh, is my favorite drag queen of all time. There was definitely these amazing talents in drag there. I think, something about Merrie and Horrorchata coming into town. And these people are some of my best friends, my best friends, really had a vision, they had a lot of event planning as part of their work, and so they really saw the potential in creating parties and spaces that became platforms for people and really drew all of us together and were also brought in international and other communities in aka Bushwig. So I feel like these kind of visions and this timing and these people really came together all the time, and just lightning, what I call lightning in a jar. So, I, yeah...
0:34:41 @THELADYBEARICA: Which one of the children are you excited about nowadays?
0:34:43 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: That was exactly my next question.
0:34:45 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, that's my favourite question.
0:34:47 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Who are you excited about about it. Yeah, who are you excited about?
0:34:49 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh, This is a bad question because I'm gonna leave out everybody.
0:34:53 @THELADYBEARICA: That's okay, they're not gonna listen to us, so don't worry about that.
[laughter]
0:34:56 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh, never.
0:34:58 @THELADYBEARICA: They might listen to us 'cause you're on here.
0:35:00 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh, I have to... Oh my God.
0:35:05 @THELADYBEARICA: Do you have children? Do you have drag children?
0:35:07 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I have two.
0:35:07 @THELADYBEARICA: Who are your drag children?
0:35:08 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Who are your babies?
0:35:09 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Ellipsis Queen is one of my drag daughters.
0:35:12 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh...
0:35:12 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Oh, great, yeah, I knew that.
0:35:14 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And then my other one is Voxigma Lo, who I love. I would use her as an example. She's somebody that is really starting to create a space. Her spaces that she creates are largely black and brown folks that come, that are interested in zine, poetry, spoken word and performance culture. And they are really big community members, and into photography, so she really sort of straddles a world of... She calls herself a literary drag queen, so these home-made DIY zines and poetry and monologues from there and now translating it to live performance that she then continues into her zine world. She has a show called One Vvoman Show, the woman is spelled with two vs for her name. She's somebody, oh my gosh. I'm just gonna say another community leader and also another space maker, Junior Mintt who I fucking love. So that goes for the previous question, I mean, amazing voice for everybody, but specifically black trans POC. And she's just such a radiant light force, and I just love all the work that she does.
0:36:43 @THELADYBEARICA: I always expect her to be intimidating, but she's the nicest person in the entire world.
0:36:47 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my. Well, I mean, if you literally think of a light, like a planetary light, that is what I think of her.
0:36:56 @THELADYBEARICA: Yes.
0:36:56 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It warms...
0:36:57 @THELADYBEARICA: It's so true.
0:36:58 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Who you are. When you walk... When you're in the radiance. And...
0:37:01 @THELADYBEARICA: Her performances are just filled with so much joy.
0:37:04 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It keeps oozing. And something about it, I think is really... And now she's giving out so much important information and...
0:37:13 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, I was just gonna say, if any of our listeners are interested in... Well, you should be. I'm not even gonna ask you if you're interested, you should be interested in becoming and learning about anti-racism and you should support Junior Mintt's patreon as well.
0:37:30 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, honestly, my big shout out to everybody, especially for queer community. One thing... We can do a lot of things, but if you really wanna contribute to Black Trans Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter, my thing, I've started to say is, I said lack of a better word, but I've been thinking about and talking about a queer buddy system and basically literally picking a black trans community member that you know and literally be actively checking in on them, sending them... If you have the resources, sending them money, being like, 'What do you need?' 'What do you need from me?' Because they are our most vulnerable community and they need all the safety, all of the nourishment, all the resources that we can give them and we keep us safe.
0:38:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: That's the expression that we use everywhere. And I think now we really need to make a really concerted effort. And so if you don't know a black trans person, look up Junior Mintt, follow her Instagram, follow her Venmo, send her money, she needs it, and she's putting it to good use for herself and to survive for this. It's not about giving it to them to survive and not just giving it to their memorial funds, you need to give it to them when they are alive and they need to thrive. It's not just about meeting their bare minimums of what they need to survive, they need coin, they need food. All this stuff. So Junior Mintt, yeah, I just adore.
0:39:06 @THELADYBEARICA: I love.
0:39:08 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: There are lots of... I know I'm missing so many people that I...
0:39:14 @THELADYBEARICA: Don't worry about it. We'll put an asterisk in the...
0:39:18 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: If you think of people you'd like us to list in the comments after the fact I will put Untitled Faith People in the comments.
0:39:25 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Also, I'll say this, I'm also really thinking about the artists that are in the America Show, so I feel like those will be all my examples that would fit for this question.
0:39:37 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Tell us about the show.
0:39:40 @THELADYBEARICA: Let's just get into it, let's get into it. So the reason Untitled is on the show is she reached out to me to ask if I knew anybody in Kansas, any artists of color in Kansas, and I was so stoked to hear about this project, it's called Untitled America, it's coming out on July 4th. Tell us about where this came from, what your inspiration was and how it's going, what it's gonna look like, all of the above. I'm so excited.
0:40:08 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Again, thank you so much for having me. Also, thank you for helping me... Do I, should I wait for accident report to come back or no?
0:40:15 @THELADYBEARICA: [laughter] Nobody can see. It's fine.
0:40:17 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Okay.
0:40:18 @THELADYBEARICA: No, that's fine.
0:40:18 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Okay.
0:40:23 @THELADYBEARICA: You ended up picking one of my sisters, Amanda Masters.
0:40:25 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, Amanda Masters who is incredible. So this idea came to me in the shower as most things do and...
0:40:35 @THELADYBEARICA: Hello. [laughter]
0:40:37 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Shower for me is a really big thinking space and I think, so it came to me about two months ago and I think it came up because I was thinking about the digital landscape and so much of now because of Corona, a lot of artists, drag artists really turned to the digital landscape to create work and share work and I started to think about it, and I was doing some shows, and I produced one show, and the thing about it, about all these virtual shows is that it started to eliminate the barriers of location. And now it's another thing, so this is like drag's all about melting barriers. This is a big philosophy, so this falls into that and I was like "Oh, I get it."
0:41:25 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Now, we've always had this capability, but now we can have artists from anywhere that have this capability at least, or access to some technology to then invite into our shows and to see their work. Typically, we're like, we don't really know, or we're not seeing other artwork outside of our own communities, or our own physical spaces when so much art is going on all the time, or if you go to a festival and you see a lot of guest artists or something, but... So then I thought, "Wow. How could I take advantage of this moment where everyone is really embracing this format and then take advantage of anybody anywhere could be a part of this show?"
0:42:04 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And so then I thought, what about an America show? And I thought, well, you know what, wow, I live here. I live in New York City and I don't know almost anything about non-major cities, non-coastal cities drag. And I thought, let's make this about... I mean I'm always about centering as a person of color, making that platform or as a life in POC, using my privileged to make a space for queer POC. And so what if it was like black and brown America had their voice and it was on July 4th and I think a lot about July 4th to not... I really actually don't think about it that much in that, in like "Oh, everyday I'm gonna celebrate it."
0:42:55 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I think more actively thinking about when I've done shows about relating charities to certain times of the year or what we're doing. If we're doing Pride events we're usually supporting pride charities and Fourth of July really spoke to me because... And now, more than ever, we are really aware of America being a project, continuing the project of white supremacy from Europe and how... What is it that we are actually celebrating on this holiday, with this made-up holiday. So this is... The show is 50 states with one drag artist per state and one territory, excuse me.
0:43:37 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And all queer people of color, and it's basically taking a deep look into what does it mean to be an American person of color today, and what does it mean to be American, what can it mean, and how can it be shaped and what does it mean to all these people? And what does it mean to be a part of a country that's founded on mass genocide and the exploitation of indigenous cultures, and then again, the further exploitation and enslavement of black people to create the wealth and economy and oh create everything, excuse me, of this country afterwards.
0:44:18 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And so this to me felt like this is part of answering that question and really giving a voice to these artists, and so it was really important for me, even though this topic is about America and about... You know. It didn't have to necessarily be specific about an America show. Every artist, I contacted they could do whatever they wanted within five minutes. And that felt that they best represented themselves and it could be about their American story or American relationship or just about what their art form was and... So yeah, that's how the basis of the show came along.
0:45:02 @THELADYBEARICA: So where are we gonna be able to watch it and when?
0:45:05 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It's going to be on twitch.tv/untitledshow, is the Twitch handle and it's on July 4th and it's starting at 5:00 PM Eastern and basically it's a six, seven hour show but.
0:45:21 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh my God.
0:45:22 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So it's not asking everyone to watch every bit of it, but... [laughter]
0:45:25 @THELADYBEARICA: I'm gonna.
[overlapping conversation]
0:45:26 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yeah, seriously. Guess that's what I'm doing Thursday. Wait a sec, was it Saturday?
0:45:32 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Saturday. It's a Saturday. So basically, it's meant to mimic the timing of a barbecue or of a July 4th celebration, typical...
0:45:42 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Oh my God. How are you this brilliant?
[overlapping conversation]
0:45:46 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I'm not, I've had a lot of help, but also I sit down and this one took a lot of sitting down. And this is one of the most ambitious projects I've ever tackled, so it took a lot of talking to myself to think... I talk to myself all the time. So this one took a lot of talking to myself and text edits and being like, "How does the timing of this work?" And so for something that long, I was like, well, what time could it start that someone's not watching into the morning, and then I was like, wow, we actually start a barbecue usually late, late evening, early evening, and then wait and eat until fireworks come, and I was like, this is the exact time, and we're going along the same time people are celebrating this holiday. And basically each... It's basically five one-hour chunks of shows and then they're separated by DJ sets by DJ Icarus and then... So it'll have about 12-13 performance for each section.
0:46:36 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And I'm really, really excited. I am in love with all of these artists, and I really hope that people will really tune in because for me, I've not met... I only knew four or five of them... Out of the 50, there's 52 because you know... Did you know DC is not considered a state?
0:46:54 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah. Yeah.
0:46:55 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: They're working on it.
0:46:57 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So it's DC and then Puerto Rico is the territory. And I did not include the other territories. So again, this is not an exhaustive, comprehensive list. And also that also goes for the performers. This is not like only one person represents the state...
0:47:09 @THELADYBEARICA: It's not definitive.
0:47:11 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Right. It's meant to be a sampling from every part of the country that we could imagine at least for what I could handle. Yeah.
0:47:19 @THELADYBEARICA: Do you see this, now that you're in the thick of it, as a yearly project?
0:47:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I would love it. I really thought of it and I was like... Because the thing about it is that I wanted diversity and the thing... And here's another thing I'd really like to, everybody that's been going around for LGBTQIA plus community is that... And it's a challenge for myself and everybody is that your community needs to be wider, you need to really challenge yourself to what does community mean?
0:47:48 @THELADYBEARICA: That's W-I-D-E-R, not whiter...
0:47:51 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah. [laughter]
0:47:52 @THELADYBEARICA: Wider, everyone.
0:47:53 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Wider, yeah. [laughter] Oh my God. Can you imagine if that's what I was thinking?
0:47:57 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I was thinking that. I was like, "Wait, is she joking?" [laughter]
0:48:00 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Wider, wider. The widening of...
0:48:02 @THELADYBEARICA: The widening of your space.
0:48:04 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: The widening of your space is an art, and ideas of what community means, because there are so many people not there, that are not represented and...
0:48:13 @THELADYBEARICA: Absolutely.
0:48:13 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I always... I just copy everything Lady Quesedilla says. She's been saying this for years. Another one of my incredible friends and incredible social justice leaders.
0:48:23 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah.
0:48:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And has been for years. Everything about her art and her work and her life's work with the children, literally the children. So she's been saying for years in her opening speeches like, what are you doing for your community? What is... Your community are the people that don't look like you. Your community are the homeless, they are the incarcerated, they are the disabled, and this is very, very true. And I think this show was a way for me to open... Challenge that and open it up for me. And I know there's many that I have not included, that I want to find. And I think with, and again, I only had about two months lead up for this one, so I feel like with a year, I would definitely have some more and these voices are out there. That's the whole thing. They're not getting a piece of the pie, and that's the whole... They're not getting as much exposure, and they're not being talked about.
0:49:14 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So this is about amplifying their voices and their stories are told by them, not mediated. So I feel like this is an experience, a POC experience in America, is to have your story told by other people. And it's to have your story often rewritten by other people. This is how we begin to re-write that shit and to tell our stories and drag is a perfect, I think, space, art form that... I have all these little sayings now that I'm writing down. I believe art is a community art... Or drag is a community art project. It's what I call it.
[overlapping conversation]
0:49:52 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And it's true. And it's something that's done together. It's built by this thing. And so now we need to really... And I think when we get back to our spaces, our physical spaces, this is what we need to think about. And a lot of my current work is also really try to address our deaf and hard of hearing communities, and...
0:50:11 @THELADYBEARICA: Speaking of, we will be... What do you call it?
0:50:15 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Transcribing...
0:50:15 @THELADYBEARICA: Transcribing this episode by request, Untitled Queen.
0:50:18 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yay. I mean I really try to make it a point like... We're... You know, it's the same thing. It's like we're past due to have these things like taken care of.
0:50:25 @THELADYBEARICA: Of course we are.
0:50:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: We have all the technological ability to have this... To have all of these spaces accessible and... It goes for all these. I have just become recently very passionate about this community because... Sorry, I'm slipping in another story in here. I went to Rochester for Wednesday Westwood's show, another amazing drag queen who brought me up for her show, freaky... 'What the Frock Fridays,' and I had... So their show... Their community has a huge deaf community because...
0:51:01 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh really?
0:51:02 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: They have a big interpreter school there. And so their drag bar... Their bar, queer bar has a huge amount of queer deaf people and also probably not queer deaf, just deaf people. And all of their drag shows are live interpreted.
0:51:17 @THELADYBEARICA: No way!
0:51:19 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So when I saw that, and my mind was blown.
0:51:21 @THELADYBEARICA: That's so cool.
[overlapping conversation]
0:51:22 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: That's amazing.
0:51:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It's incredible. So it's incredible to see and also like... KiKi Bananahammock is one of the resident. She's amazing. Yeah. She's another... She's one of the resident who is for that party with Wednesday, so she's also a professional interpreter. And I believe she also has a company, so she licenses out, or hires, excuse me, interpreters to do that show, but she's also a professional interpreter. So that night I saw them interpreting and they... And then they also had...
0:51:54 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I met my first deaf drag queen. She wasn't working that night, but she was there. And what was amazing is like when I met her right... Like... I came up and turned and I was like hello, and then it was literally like seven of all of her friends around and they're all interpreting for her like saying what I'm saying, and then telling me what she's saying, and like, we're having a conversation. And it was beautiful, and also just like earth-shattering because I was like, wow, like... This is missing. This is something we're keeping out.
0:52:22 @THELADYBEARICA: Totally. Totally.
0:52:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And this is a whole community. And like... Now I meet them... It's just like anyone else. It's like, deaf community loves drag, and if you are a deaf person or a hard of hearing person in New York City or anywhere really, but there's no reason to go to a performance without an interpreter. So why would you go to a bar? Why would you go to Metro? Why would you go to... Why would you go to all those places knowing that's not available to you? And you know that barrier is there. So you know... If you don't know that's... That's not present for you, they're not engaged, and this is something that we're really trying to work hard to address, fix, do better.
0:53:07 @THELADYBEARICA: That's a new goal for Mix Nobody, season five.
0:53:13 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It is a bit difficult finding interpreters for late night events, so this is a challenge I've come across.
[laughter]
0:53:20 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So they're very available for anything up to 9 o'clock but... But there's lots of different ways to do this and also in the virtual landscape, this is where we can make it very.
0:53:31 @THELADYBEARICA: Totally.
0:53:32 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So, the Untitled America show is entirely open-captioned.
0:53:38 @THELADYBEARICA: Yes.
0:53:38 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Meaning... So open-captioned, for people who don't know this, I had not known this term before, but... So close-captioned, you might have seen for television or for YouTube, is an option where you can turn it on. Where you'll see the words that are being said typed out on the screen. But some places don't have an option to turn that on, aka IGTV, aka a lot of streams that are happening on... A lot of prerecorded streams that are happening in the virtual landscape, Zoom, Twitch. They don't have an option to turn on close-captioning. So open-captions basically means that it's burned into the video. That means the caption always appears no matter what. And I'm really encouraging and imploring every artist that is putting out digital content to open-caption their content because no matter where you're sending it it will be available and everyone can enjoy it. And including... Well, everybody. Actually, I love it. I need captions, it gives me a greater understanding of what's going on.
0:54:37 @THELADYBEARICA: Totally.
0:54:38 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And like lyrics and also you mishear things all the time for hearing people. But then, I also just really implore this because... So my friend and performer Gregor Lopes, who I love. Who goes by @coolbabyblue on Instagram. He is my friend and he's taught me so much and he is not only a performer but he is a ASL teacher. So he's my ASL teacher. I'm a super beginner, but he's taught me.
0:55:09 @THELADYBEARICA: Love.
0:55:10 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So I learned a lot through him about deaf culture and also about... I've become just much more aware of how much inaccessibility is just everywhere. And Instagram being a really big space where stories... If you're shooting yourself talking during stories, they can't. There's no way they're going to understand anything that's going on in your stories. And if you're doing IG live and you're doing conversations, there's no live-captioning for IG live. So all they're seeing is faces moving for hours. So that's totally inaccessible. And then IGTV... If you do open-captions it's successful, but most people don't put them on. So this is a time to really address this issue and share resources and I have a tutorial on YouTube that shows how to put captions if you have...
[overlapping conversation]
0:55:55 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh my God, yes, we'll air that.
[overlapping conversation]
0:55:57 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I'll put that below too.
0:55:58 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:56:00 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Really, this is time for resource. And we feel like, this is also I feel like this moment is... I feel like everyone's realizing how valuable resource-sharing is and how transparent we can be about skill-sharing. Right?
0:56:14 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah.
0:56:14 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So. Here we go.
0:56:17 @THELADYBEARICA: Okay, I have one stupid question before we do rapid-fire.
0:56:20 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Okay.
0:56:21 @THELADYBEARICA: Just because, as I'm sure you're aware, a lot of our fans are not necessarily drag fans they're more pro-wrestling fans.
0:56:28 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh hey.
0:56:29 @THELADYBEARICA: What do you know about pro-wrestling?
0:56:31 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Okay, so my grandfather loved wrestling and my brother did too. So, Andre the Giant was like a big... They loved watching that era of wrestling.
0:56:47 @THELADYBEARICA: That's so cool.
0:56:48 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And I remember somebody also had a SEGA game of wrestling and I think I remember Crusher, is that right? So there's that era I have some inclination of and like that and they were really interested and loved that. And then I think probably later life... Chyna is probably the big queer icon that...
0:57:10 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh my God.
0:57:12 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Icon that people love and is so visible within wrestling and...
0:57:17 @THELADYBEARICA: You're gonna make accident report cry, that's his favourite wrestler.
0:57:20 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I wrote a really big thing for Nylon mag about her.
0:57:22 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh, it makes so much sense.
0:57:26 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yes.
0:57:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And I say that because I didn't think about it, right, that way and then I've seen other people post her that way and you're like, "Yes."
0:57:35 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, of course.
0:57:36 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Someone connects the dots for you. You're like... This is someone that you feel that power, right? That's the Cher of wrestling. That's what they become. They become this emblematic of that.
0:57:50 @THELADYBEARICA: Have you ever read her book?
0:57:52 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: No, no, my exposure of her is... I remember seeing her when she was on wrestling. I feel that had it's other upsurge again of like The Rock and the periods of her were really popular. And then I remember the VH-1 to beat... What was it?
0:58:13 @THELADYBEARICA: It's a real life.
0:58:14 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: It's a real life.
0:58:15 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah, Yeah.
0:58:16 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah, so I was like...
0:58:16 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yeah, yeah.
0:58:18 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So then I really remember her again from that and then I...
0:58:21 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: So the book gets into some really interesting queer stuff because, obviously, she was a big strong woman. So she... All of her career was just called a transvestite and a transgender person and... So she talked about how much that hurt her and what it was like to be misgendered like that. And it's essentially a queer struggle for her.
0:58:40 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Totally. It makes so much sense. Yeah. I think wrestling too is a very interesting thing. Especially as it's also like... Mexican wrestling and all the other things where we talk about... There's this point where, between machismo and so over the top... It's drag, right? Wrestling is drag, right? It's like so much...
0:59:05 @THELADYBEARICA: Look up Cassandra you would love...
[laughter]
0:59:09 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So it's amazing how it celebrates and totes the line... It goes against all these lines all at once. It's really intense. Especially in... For sports... Sports arena... That really works on binaries, but there's something special, I think, that wrestling goes at it from all these sides. I can imagine especially for someone like Chyna, which is amazing. Yeah.
0:59:34 @THELADYBEARICA: All right. I think it's that time.
0:59:36 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yes.
0:59:36 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh my gosh, I hope I can.
0:59:38 @THELADYBEARICA: We've chatted to you for so long I might have to break this down into two parts because this has been such a good conversation. But now let's do the rapid-fire.
0:59:48 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Okay.
0:59:49 @THELADYBEARICA: So these are hopefully one word or very short answers... Quick.
0:59:54 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Okay.
0:59:55 @THELADYBEARICA: Quick as you can.
0:59:55 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I'm going to try. I hope...
0:59:56 @THELADYBEARICA: Okay.
[laughter]
0:59:58 @THELADYBEARICA: Asha, when we recorded this took five-minute pauses in between each question.
1:00:02 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Alright, so maybe I'll do a little less than her.
[laughter]
1:00:06 @THELADYBEARICA: Okay, rapid-fire... Favourite food?
1:00:09 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh. Oh my God.
[laughter]
1:00:12 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Um... Ooh... Let's say a Top Ramen...
1:00:18 @THELADYBEARICA: Chicken or egg?
1:00:19 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Ramen. Yeah.
1:00:21 @THELADYBEARICA: Chicken or egg?
1:00:24 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Egg.
1:00:24 @THELADYBEARICA: Scrabbled or fried?
1:00:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Fried.
1:00:27 @THELADYBEARICA: Favorite color?
1:00:29 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Blue.
1:00:29 @THELADYBEARICA: Favorite lady?
1:00:31 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh, I can't say... Oh oh I'll say my mother, my mom...
1:00:36 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Oh.
1:00:37 @THELADYBEARICA: Favorite... Favorite baby?
1:00:38 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh [laughter].. That's a funny one. Favourite baby... I don't know... I.
[overlapping conversation]
1:00:51 @THELADYBEARICA: That's a... That's a good one. I'll say baby love that's what will be my favorite current baby.
1:00:55 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Baby Love.
1:00:57 @THELADYBEARICA: Favorite track Queen of all time? Or Drag artist rather.
1:01:03 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh that's a great... I mean, Mocha Lite is my favorite drag. I mean. I have a lot, but Mocha Lite, my favorite one.
1:01:09 @THELADYBEARICA: Mocha Lite. Something you miss?
1:01:13 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh I miss being at the bars with everybody. I miss everybody.
1:01:16 @THELADYBEARICA: Dream job?
1:01:20 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Someone said this, I don't dream about labor...
1:01:22 @THELADYBEARICA: Yes...
[laughter]
1:01:23 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I am dying.
1:01:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Someone said this... Zach, Zach. Zach said this, Oreo knows on Instagram, Zach said this. I think he found that or said it, or he always says like this, I don't dream of labor, so I don't have an answer for that.
1:01:41 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh my god. Someone you miss?
1:01:45 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh. I miss my... I miss my family, I miss my mom.
1:01:48 @THELADYBEARICA: Favorite artist?
1:01:48 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: [1:01:48] ____.
1:01:52 @THELADYBEARICA: Something you took for granted or you take for granted?
1:01:55 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh, gosh... Oh, that's hard. Other people, you know I feel like now we're really being aware of how much, you know... Can spread the joy, and it's not just about us, that so many other people can also be having a good time that this... You know... Like that. Yeah.
1:02:25 @THELADYBEARICA: If you could choose only one artistic medium, what would it be?
1:02:28 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh oh... Drawing.
1:02:34 @THELADYBEARICA: Okay. That's it. That's rapid fire.
1:02:39 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Okay, okay, I think I...
1:02:42 @THELADYBEARICA: You did... More people struggle with it than that.
1:02:45 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: I just have a couple more questions that will probably, if you have... Do you have time?
1:02:49 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Sure, go ahead.
1:02:50 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Okay, just have a couple more questions. We'll probably split this up into a different episode.
1:02:54 @THELADYBEARICA: We're in the grown up segment now.
1:02:57 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: So with nightgown, wanted to ask a little bit about this project. Sasha said that she wanted to create six different worlds on one stage.
1:03:06 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh, for the Quibi show. You mean?
1:03:08 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah for the Quibi show. Yeah.
1:03:12 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah.
1:03:13 @THELADYBEARICA: We got to experience a little piece of Untitled World, but what can you tell us more about the world of Untitled?
[laughter]
1:03:20 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I mean, again, like I said, so much of my work is really fluid and I feel like.
1:03:31 @THELADYBEARICA: Or what would that world look like? What would the colors be? What would be the...
1:03:35 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I feel like you're seeing it. So this is what I mean by that, is that I've come to think of my work lately, I think of my work as one big work, all the stuff is one big work. I don't think of I did this series or I did this one show, and that's my work. It's all one big piece and it's continuing. And it's one big continuum.
1:03:54 @THELADYBEARICA: And it's Untitled?
1:03:55 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And it's Untitled. It's me.
1:03:55 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: And it's Untitled.
1:03:58 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I feel like any show or anything that you see is like a piece, I feel like it's like you're looking over a part of a river, and then you look down and then you see it like... I always call it, you look down, you see this little fish gathering all this crap and putting it together, that's what I see my practice as, it's just one long continuous stream, that doesn't really have a beginning or end, and that all the pieces are kind of floating... I'm just like grabbing one chunk down and focus on it now. And then...
1:04:27 @THELADYBEARICA: In the Quibi show, in your episode. Your mom and your sister were there. I'm always interested when families come to see their children do their staff. I got so emotional let me tell you, like your sister says to Sasha, thank you for seeing what we've seen. I'm gonna cry again.
1:04:57 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I know I'm gonna cry too.
1:05:00 @THELADYBEARICA: What would you say to Little queer artists, children or little queer children out there that maybe don't have that support?
1:05:08 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh, I would say chosen family really, and it was really, really hard and I understand how hard it is. Feeling alone and feeling really isolated. I think, one thing I think would have really helped me in high school would have been to know that... I believed that the world that I was in in high school was the world. I thought I was gonna be ruled by white hetero life, I thought that was this value system that I was in, I was like... I felt like I was being stepped on by this white fetish, white, white heteronormativity. I thought the world was like that, and then when I went to school, and then when I was like, Wow, I can make the world what I want it to be. And my family was a huge... Supported me in every way I wanted and had always wanted, so I... [1:06:10] ____ going to art school, coming to New York was another one of those things where I really earned... Lived my independence, and I was like, Wow, I made the world.
1:06:20 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So I feel like when you understand that world is not the world that is not existent, that's not what you're going to exist in forever, this is only a period of life and you'll get out of it, you'll create it yourself and you'll find others, and the world is yours. There's a lot of obviously barriers, socio-economic, racial, all these things, but I do believe having hope for that, and I think... 'Cause the stress of that, you really think, "Wow, this sucks. Like how am I really gonna make something of myself?" And you feel... You internalize all these values about yourself and all this other shit, and I think... I just like... And Drag... [chuckle] Try Drag. That say's something because...
[laughter]
1:07:08 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Honestly, it's an art form that opened my... It opened my life. It saved my life. It gave me life, an extra one. One I never thought I would enter. Because I didn't know anybody and I didn't think much of it when I started. And then, I came upon this whole new family and they gave me everything. And I think, queer people again, this is a big lesson, that we take care of each other. We keep us safe, we keep us loved, and we really are out there.
1:07:35 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And again, this is another thing for about the America show, there's so many of these artists that they're the only POC at all, working in their places. And they go out their door and they stand or... Not stand. They appear and they perform, they put themselves out there. And that is so beautiful and they are... My current super... Supers. I call them all Supers. They're just incredible to me and I have so much respect and humbled by the things that they do. And that's another thing, maybe taken for granted 'cause we live here in the city and we are so used to having so much at our fingertips and having, even before Corona, having a community that can meet every night, multiple places, then multiple scenes and creating niches for yourself, and we think that might be typical.
1:08:32 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: In this America show, I found... Learned those some places drag happens once and only once in a while. Maybe once in every two weeks. And in that, there's not very many opportunities. And in that, there's only a few white-white queens that own everything or few gatekeepers. Or it's scary just to live there period as a POC, let alone go out in drag and live your fucking life and...
1:08:53 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Yeah. So one of the Untitled America artists, Leah Halston, who's representing Kentucky was telling me during this process when collecting some information, collecting videos and stuff for promo. I was checking in and asking how she was doing, and she was like, "I'm surviving, period." And I was like, "Uff," and then she said, "My community is really hurting, I wanna make something about this for my piece." And she actually asked me if I was okay. And I was like, "Of course, it's exactly what this is about." but she was like, "I'm a Black trans woman living in a red state. I'm afraid to go out of my home. I'm afraid to be out in the world," and I was just shudder... Just straight to the heart, and I felt so bad and helpless and... But I was like, "If there's anything I can do for you and sending you strength... " And she's still here. The piece she gave is so beautiful. A lot of these numbers will literally break your heart apart. A lot of them are responding to this moment. And so a lot of protest songs, a lot of Black excellence, Black joy, Black pain, and hers is no exception. And she... Her number was in this really beautiful black town and she does a song, This is Me, and it's just like her... A lots of streaming of images from 1960's civil rights up to now and it's super inspirational. So she's a super... Yeah. I say supers because I think she-roes and heroes don't really cover the bill. So, they're Supers.
1:10:38 @THELADYBEARICA: Sure. I love that.
1:10:39 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: So yes.
1:10:40 @THELADYBEARICA: I've always thought of drag artists as Superheroes.
1:10:43 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Oh totally, right? We're like the Marvel... Well, Marvel, DC...
1:10:46 @THELADYBEARICA: Yeah. Totally.
1:10:47 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Like a Marvel person. But also you can say Marvel, DC like anything... We are those... We're in like... Those worlds are totally built on an understanding. They're queer narratives and...
1:11:01 @THELADYBEARICA: And I think we all, through drag, are not... Not all of us maybe, but I think in my experience as well, we've learned our superpowers through this art form.
1:11:09 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Totally and you grow with certain teams and certain universes, and you get to know it, and it's a battle, right? And you go out to battle, and you bring your magic, right?
1:11:20 @THELADYBEARICA: Love.
1:11:21 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: And you have different skills. I love it. [chuckle]
1:11:23 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh my gosh. That's the perfect place to end.
1:11:25 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Yes, yes.
1:11:26 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Untitled. Thank you. So, so, so, so much.
1:11:27 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Thank you so much for your time and your energy, your love, and your power and everything.
1:11:32 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Thank you.
1:11:33 @THELADYBEARICA: So you can follow Untitled Queen @untitledqueen on Instagram, and then you can follow her on Twitch.com...
1:11:42 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: I think it's Twitch.tv/UntitledShow for the Untitled America show, July 5th, 05:00 PM Eastern. Come in, tune in with us. We are also raising funds for the Navajo Water Project, so please, please come.
1:11:55 @THELADYBEARICA: Oh yes, I'm gonna list all of the organizations that we've talked about in the comments below or in the description below or wherever it exists on the podcast.
[laughter]
1:12:05 @THELADYBEARICA: Thank you so much for being here. This has been Nobodies Saying Hello with Untitled.
1:12:10 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Love, Love, Love y'all.
1:12:12 DJ ACCIDENT REPORT: Bye.
1:12:12 @UNTITLEDQUEEN: Thank you.
1:12:13 @THELADYBEARICA: Bye.
•
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