Put The Bass In Your Walk - What Inspired This Story...: repopinja

sweetnovicane in repopinja

Put The Bass In Your Walk - What Inspired This Story...

Apr 05, 2010 14:08

I really don't remember how this story started out, but there were a few different versions bumping around in my head before I finally wrote it down. There was one where William was nastier to Gabe after their breakup, another where Greta performed in lesbian bars before making her official debut, and one where Victoria was actually in a similar situation and a slightly older and wiser Greta told her story about how she became a queen. It kept getting retooled as I placed it on the backburner for other stories, but I'm definitely happy with how it turned out and would very much like to return to these versions of the characters in the future. I'm already making plans for a side story about Gabe and William since I didn't have time to really focus on them and a sequel that takes place two years later.

I can't remember how the story came about, but I can definitely remember what inspired it. At it's core, it's a quasi-To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar AU. Maya T. Sycamore would not exist if not for Miss Vida Boheme and Nueva Herrsey (and no, I don't remember how I came up with that name) is a weird mix of Noxeema Jackson and Chi Chi Rodriguez. While the story isn't focused in a small town or a road trip, it is a journey to Greta realizing what truly makes a drag queen and finding something she loves doing in the world. Of course, I had to give the movie a tiny shout out...

Then there was Amanda teaching her how to properly smack someone if they were making her feel uncomfortable. “Just because they tip you doesn’t mean they have the right to harass you. You know the old saying ‘let good thoughts be your sword and shield’? This also applies to anyone who tries to make you feel inferior.”

With To Wong Foo being the core, everything else was inspired by my own experiences with drag performers. My university's GSA holds a drag show every semester and I've participated in three of them so far as well as a pageant for YouthPride in Atlanta. Nicole Paige Brooks asked one of my Q&A questions... true story.

Even in a student run setting, drag is it's own little world. It's stressful, catty, intimidating, fun, wonderful and exhilarating all at once.

Like Greta, I originally wanted to be a faux queen, but due to a lack of drag kings for one of the shows, Dick Ashton was born. Though he did struggle a little bit. Nothing says falling flat on your face like doing a song from Phantom of the Paradise and people just staring at you, not getting it at all.

Still, I remember what one of our hosts at the time Topanga Rei told me. In fact, it sort of made it in the story...

"...Tell me, Greta, what do you think Drag is about?”

She cocked her head a little before Butch straightened it back out. “Besides dressing as the opposite gender?”

“Besides that.”

Greta shrugged. “I’m not really sure.”

“It’s about being who you want to be,” he said as he started powdering blush on her cheeks. “You saw a drag queen that you wanted to be like, right?”

Greta nodded and Butch kept powdering. “Well, that’s what it’s like. When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to sing like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. When I started as a Queen, I got to do that. Well, not sing, but I finally felt like the country diva I wanted to be.”

While Topanga has since moved on, her words have stuck with me. When I'm up there, I'm the rock star I've always wanted to be. Somedays, Dick is Gabe Saporta and some days he's Prince, but he's still that part of me that wants to be the rock star who finds everyone in the audience sexy. I still feel sort of shaky somedays that I feel like Dick grows impatient with me, but we make it work.

Two queens I know are even in the story! Sort of! Well, their names are anyway.

Alec himself, in the meanwhile, had lived up to his drag name and had done an absolutely bombastic routine to ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ while pretending to torture a queen named Miami.

“Alright alright, enough story time,” Alec said on stage. “Our next performer is making her unofficial debut and is filling in for Miss Erectra Biggun...

Miami Royale and Erectra Biggun are the current hosts of our drag shows after the retirement of Miss Ruby Faye. In fact, Miami was once Leigton to Dick's Gabe in a rendition of 'Good Girls Go Bad'. That one was fun.

(left: Me and Miami, right: Erectra Biggun)

It was also Miami and Topanga that inspired the whole idea of Butch, Gabe, Amanda, and Greta being their own weird little drag family. From what I've been able to tell, a lot of amateur queens have 'drag mothers' who serve as mentors to them. Miami even has a drag sister named Jersey and they didn't even know until this past fall when they both performed in our show.

And then there's always the people who are brave enough to get on stage and just have fun with it. Like when my friend Mickey peformed the Yes Dance as SoFonda Cox or seeing local drag king Al Schlong perform 'Beelz' by Stephen Lynch.

(SoFonda and her bitches performing The Yes Dance)

So that's what inspired Put The Bass In Your Walk. The crazy, wonderful world of Drag in it's entirety. Whether it be To Wong Foo..., RuPaul, Chris March, or the ones I know in real life, it's a world I've come to love and I hope this story showed the love I have for it.

Oh, and if you needed the cast of characters and their stage names, here it is...

Greta Salpeter/Greta Goldenlocks/Honey Ann Molasses